Crazy Man

KAH-BAAAM!!

The sound of an explosion is followed by an uncontrollable movement of my motorbike. Shit! My rear tire bursts.

I try to control my motorbike again while decreasing its speed gradually. My motorbike can only stop after more than 100 meters from where its tire blew. In confusion, I make my motorbike stand on its support, intending to check its rear tire. But, before I can, a motorbike approaches me fast, and suddenly the rider jumps to me while pointing a gun.

"Who are you ?!!" he barks with a muffled voice because it is blocked by his helmet, but his gun muzzle clearly sticks onto my left chest.

I answer his question by hitting his elbow with my palm then twisting his wrist so his gun is pointed below and bursts, almost hitting his leg. The man responds by hitting my jaw very hard with the base of his left palm.

I loosen my grip a bit because of that. He uses that chance to break away and uses a twisted kick to my head that is still shielded with a helmet. He is about to do it one more time, but I manage to catch his leg and twist it back so the owner is thudded. He crashes to the ground. But before that, his other leg is still able to kick my crotch, which, of course, gives me so much pain.

For a whole second, darkness surrounds me. Even so, I'm still able to grab my gun and point it at him. Unfortunately, he does the same to me.

A hysterical scream is heard. Almost together, we turn our heads to the source of the voice. A woman who was walking on the sidewalk saw our guns and ran in fear.

We turn our heads to each other, still with guns on each other's bodies.

"I'm sure that lady will call cops, so what do you want ?" I ask, managing to give him a cold tone even though I suffer so much pain in my lower body.

"Who are you ? How dare you canceled my operation !" he barks at me. I immediately understand who he is.

"Listen. I didn't mean to interrupt your job. But there were kids," I try to explain.

"None of your business !" he scolds.

"It is. But they are still kids," I say. The man groans to suppress his anger. Without putting his gun muzzle away from me, he stands.

"Next time, I will blow your head," he threatens me.

I shrug. "Go ahead if you can," I challenge him. He pulls his gun and locks it back. I do the same. Limping, he leaves me.

Once he leaves, I lay my body on the ground while cupping my crotch with both hands, clamping it hard, hoping it can reduce the pain.

"Son, are you okay ?" Suddenly, an old lady with an Eastern face is standing beside me with a little bow, popping her face in front of my helmet.

"I'm okay," I say to her with a little wince.

"Don't sleep on the road then," she says, then leaves me to get back to her granddaughter, who stands on the sidewalk.

"Grandma, who is he ?" The kid asks her.

"Nobody. Just a crazy man," the old lady says while pulling her granddaughter's hand to force her to leave.

-

"chỉ có người điên.." I mumble while typing what I said in a search box. The old lady said I was a crazy man, the meaning of 'người điên'. My brain understands the words, but I don't recognize what language it was.

I push the enter button. In some milliseconds, the search engine has given me thousands of links. My eyes wander over them. Many are irrelevant, but some catch my attention.

Right when I click a link, my cellphone that lies on the couch side table starts ringing. I glance at its monitor—unidentified number. So I connect a cable from a machine beside my cellphone to it and push a button on the machine before picking up the call. The machine is able to shuffle and randomize my smartphone IP address and location, so no one can trace where I am. You must have guessed. Yup, it's one of the gifts Thief gave me.

"Scorpion ?" A person from the other end is asking. The throaty voice of a very old man.

"Who's speaking ?" I ask back.

"You don't recognize my voice ?" The man asks again while giggling.

"Who's this ?" I ask again with full alert. The man just laughs heartily.

"Hello.. I ask you again.. who's this ?" I ask, this time with a threatening tone.

"Relax, it's me," the person answers. "Thief," this time with a totally different voice.

"What ?!?! How .. how.." Thief is laughing again heartily at my confusion.

"I just finished making this thing, a voice frequency changer," Thief says with her real voice. "I read a Japanese manga, Detective Conan. He also has this kind of thing. So I was curious to make it," she adds.

I'm just so astonished that I can't say a word. This girl really is a genius!

"Well.. Aren't you interested to use it ?" she asks me then.

"Hmm.. Can it produce any human voice I want ?" I ask her back.

"Sure, but you need to practice how to combine the frequency, else.." a weird voice that hurts my ear continues her words, "It becomes weird."

"Ouch," I exclaim while pulling away my phone from my ear. Thief giggles again. With this kind of attitude, it is hard to imagine her being a graceful daughter of a senator, just like being shown in the news this morning.

"Don't you intend to sell it ?" I give her a suggestion that I keep telling her every time she shows me her new invention.

She clicks her tongue. "What's for ?" she says in ignorance. "It might be abused later," she utters. I chuckle. It isn't like I'm going to use it for a noble job either.

"I'll send it to you later," she adds.

"Btw, Thief," I call her right when silence is about to come between us. "What do you know about country Vi ?" I ask her. Thief inhales to think.

"It's in the eastern part of the world. Why ?" she answers and questions me at the same time.

"Turns out I understand their language," I say.

"Really ?" she asks enthusiastically. "Perhaps you are from there, or maybe your parents are," she says to me.

"Maybe," I say in doubt.

"I will add it as a searching variable. Who knows.. it may help," she tells me, half promising. I say my thanks to her.

"I got to go, there is a party event that I have to attend," she reluctantly says to me as a goodbye, then ends the call.

I can understand her reluctance. Tiffany Whittaker is now a blooming 19-year-old girl. Her father's public relations team puts her as a promoting material, on purpose baiting her to the media.

The perfect daughter of the senator. No one knows that the devout and shy girl is actually taking part in some of the big homicides that became headlines on the news. They also don't know that the girl who is taking an art degree is making an algorithm to search for my identity.

I don't know how Tiffany can cover them all from her family. I'm just glad that she is on my side.