Tha Day I Became a Stalker (part I)

"Ridiculous!'

Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.

I'd been warned, but how would I know it was gonna be that ridiculous? I didn't have my psychological ready.

I was at the Dragon's hideout for the first time. The king of the Deluxes in central Sproustown, the mighty boss.

And just as Craig had told me, he wore a mask and sat with his back to the door, where I had to stay. Like that... You know, standing... In front of the door... Like a plant... All so I couldn't see his face.

I had never come to talk to him in person before, I confess that when he called me I was curious. The first thing I did when I came in was using the hawkeye. I had wet my hand beforehand to throw one of the drops up so as to see his face using the technique.

And guess what? He was wearing a Mexican luchador mask!

Ridiculous.

Really. I had to fight to not lose my composure right in the beginning.

The atmosphere was not the most pleasant either. We were on the sixth floor of the safe house. That means it was b6. The sixth from the bottom up. Imagine the claustrophobia.

And on top of that, he kept everything dark like the president's intentions. Because of my finesse I had no problem seeing in the dark, but of course I would prefer everything to be illuminated if possible. What was that? A villain from a little game of the nineties waiting in his dark hideaway for the arrival of the protagonist while meditating on how evil he is?

He had called me there to talk about what I knew about Wilkinson. But that was just a pretext. If that was all he'd have Craig talk to me and then tell him instead.

"Hummmm... Looks like Wilkinson's as far behind as we are in the invitation story." The Dragon concluded after my report.

"Wouldn't it be better to start acting now? Verde is going to bury the invitation to seven keys if we wait too long."

"Surely now is a better time to start acting than before. Back then the police were at the height of their research, so it was dangerous to make any move. Now they're just counting on contacts to do the investigation. They're in the 'light' phase."

"Contacts?"

"Yes. Undercover agents in places of dubious repute. Pubs, nightclubs... Any place that has potential to do anything with trafficking."

"We don't have any of those in 'our' nightclubs, do we?"

"Whether we do or not it's my problem and not yours, Bubble."

(Ok... Ok... I stay quiet.)

"However, I agree that we'll start going after the invitation on our own now. It just so happens that we should start in the right place instead."

"He said that and waited. Waited for me to ask."

"And which is the right place?"

Only then he answered:

"Good question, Bubble! Are you paying attention to events lately? I'm gonna do a review: Last Monday there was a direct attack on the special cases division."

"Yes. It was Verde. They stole the invitation."

"A few days later two paranormal beings broke into the house of a poor old man named Arthur Cooper, looking for the same invitation."

"Ok...?"

"Who do you suppose sent those two, Bubble? Me or Wilkinson?"

"Well... It wasn't neither you nor Wilkinson, you two told me that... Hey, wait a sec..."

"Do you understand? You mean it was Verde himself? Why would he look for an invitation he already possessed and in the wrong place, of all?"

"You sir are saying... That it wasn't Verde? But then who was it?"

(Is it common to call him sir? I don't know... How am I supposed to know?)

"I'm not sure that's what I meant, Bubble... Let's try this again: Before we answer who sent those two to rob Cooper's house, let's try this: 'Why' did they send those two to rob Cooper's house?"

"Now, isn't that easy? They wanted the envelope with the invitation."

"Really? But if it was Verde that would've been useless, since he already had the invitation in hands one day before. And if it had been us or Wilkinson... We'd have known about the headquarters robbery on Monday, wouldn't we? Those pitiful mob bosses have the information pretty up to date."

I scratched my figurative head literally.

"In that case... I must change my motive. All I can think is that someone's trying to get the police to stay behind Verde? Something like that: if Verde starts attacking the SAD police investigation points many times he'll attract their attention. That's because they had the direct attack at the office, which must have been led by Verde for real, but then someone took advantage and drew attention to this robbery and also to the case of the poisoned girl."

"Greta had told me about the poisoned girl's case. Looks like they tried to kill a SAD cop by sending poison in the mail right after the Monday attack."

"Could I suggest a third possibility?"

"Hmm?"

(You are the boss here, mr. Dragon...)

"The SAD captain Sarah Harmon... Before travelling to Silverbay, she made a fake copy of the invitation she captured in the late week, and left this exquisite copy smiling in her own drawer just to check if anyone would show up to steal it or not."

It took me a while to digest.

If it was like the Dragon said, those three paranormal beings who stole the invitation from the police building on Monday were carrying the wrong invitation. And if they had been sent by Verde, he must have gotten angry and tried to look for the invitation at the wrong Arthur Cooper's house the next day.

"What? The captain herself? But wouldn't that put the lives of the staff at risk? If I may say so, sir... I don't think that's much of her temper..."

The Dragon stopped for a laugh. It was a serious, repetitive laugh. On the one hand it was the laughter you'd expect from someone like him, but on the other hand it didn't match either. It sounded almost like a forced laugh, a laugh uttered carefully so as not to sound too comical, in order not to spoil his preponderant appearance.

"Turns out you're still young as a mercenary, Bubble. I've been dealing with that SAD bitch here in Sproustown for a long time. I'll tell you, what I just said is exactly Sarah Harmon's temper. In other words, it's so her."

(A slight correction, Mr. Dragon: I am new as 'your' mercenary.)

"If it's as you say, sir... I must commend the SAD captain, a false invitation as a bait is quite a move..."

"Although I think I'm right, it's just an idea that came to me. I have no proof... Instead of speculating why don't we check it out for ourselves?"

(And by 'ourselves' you mean 'me', right?)

"Whatever the truth is, one thing we cannot ignore: neither I nor Wilkinson have yet effectively moved to get our hands on Cooper's invitation. I'll start acting now, so I think Wilkinson must be thinking something on that line. So far only Verde has moved, and with that he has drawn the attention of the police to himself."

"Summarizing, Verde is now at disadvantage."

"Don't summarize yet, Bubble. There's something else we can infer from all this."

"What?" I asked against my will, after he kept waiting annoyingly for me to ask the question, just like before.

"Did you notice how that girl who was poisoned... The secretary... After she recovered... After that, there were miraculously no more assassination attempts?"

"Yes...?"

"That suggests something happened in Verde's mind between the time the girl was poisoned and then... That is, something between the day of the attack on the SAD and now."

"Wait... Then it's already set in stone that it was Verde who sent the chocolate?"

"That's all we can conclude, Bubble. I didn't send it. And you said Wilkinson didn't either."

I don't know... There's something fundamentally wrong with taking all three possibilities as exclusionary, though I can't say what... At the time I only confirmed with my head.

"What we concluded is that for some reason Verde needed to kill the girl quickly but now not anymore, the most likely reason was that he thought she had essential information and then confirmed that he was wrong."

"Crucial information... It's the only reason I can think of that would justify an attempted murder of a police officer right after an attack on the main office... And the SAD's on top of that. You sir are probably right. Okay, um... And do you sir have any idea what that information would be?"

"I don't. But what matters here are not his motives, but what we can do with the information we have. Think, Bubble: how Verde, without showing up all that time, could confirm the girl under his surveillance didn't know what he assumed he knew?"

"Well, he must have informants, as well as Greta and, uh... You, sir..." (Speaking of which, I never quite understood where the Dragon gets all his information from. I know Greta's a hacker so all information that is saved in electronic media is vulnerable to being intercepted by her, but the Dragon as far as I know stands there in that chair rubbing his hands hoping his subordinates will do everything, pondering how evil a villain he is.)

"That's right, Bubble. Informants! And since the only people who were present near the poisoned girl during the period she was under observation were the SAD's own staff and her boyfriend... We can conclude this informant is one of these people."

"Hard to think there's any undercover Verde agent working at the SAD..."

"Is that so? And how did those three paranormal beings know exactly how to get up on the third floor and find the place where the invitation would be? Psychography?"

"Hmm..."

"The possibility is not null, Bubble. But in this case... Just in this case... I think you're correct..."

(Really, Dragon?)

"It seems that most likely..." He went on, "her boyfriend is the scout we're looking for."

That would give a hint of what he would want me to do next. And I didn't like that... Stalking someone else's boyfriend? Yuck!

"You said you wanted to be a detective when you were a child, right?"

The rest of the story you must have deduced by now. I was entrusted to stalk Richard Galloway, the boyfriend of SAD's secretary Emma Crane, for a while without letting him notice me.

That same afternoon I went to have a conversation with Craig about it: I told him everything. It was Saturday so he was washing the sidewalk. Therefore there was no danger of Marcelle eavesdropping.

"Well... Good for you. You'll be playing the private detective you love so much." He commented while squeezing the hose in more than random directions under the pretext of cleaning.

"That's not good at all! I hate chasing! Who does the Dragon think I am? A secret admirer? I'll look like a stalker. And worst of all, Emma's a paranormal SAD cop. Any human being is fooled by something like a child hiding behind a newspaper here... From a pole there... But how am I gonna hide my ductu for so long? And even if I can... Her police instincts will make her sense something..."

"Well... In this case, bad for you."

"But come to think of it, such challenge is gonna be fun."

"Well... In this case, good for you... What about me and Sub Zero? Why should we stand guard? Why Sub Zero? Why did the Dragon summon him back to Sproustown?"

"The Dragon said Wilkinson's gonna start acting towards the invitation. I heard something like that from Greta, so it seems the war is starting now."

"I see. Both Wilkinson and the Dragon were waiting for Verde to salt his own game as much as possible and then attack him, steal his invitation, and make it difficult for him to reciprocate the attack without calling the attention of the police." He stopped the hose a bit and watched the sidewalk. 'Is it magically clean now or do I have to go on with it?' "A double-edged knife, huh? Although it's harder for Verde to defend himself against an attack on his group now, it's easier for him to have hid the invitation very well in the meantime."

"I think our boss is counting on you finding someone important who works for him... Someone who knows where the invitation is. If that someone opens his mouth... And if you ask the question, he'll definitely open it... Then it won't really matter how well hidden the paper is, I guess..."

Craig stretched himself out.

"It's true that no one I captured withheld information from me after I showed my torture skills... But it could be that the invitation is in a spaceship, already walking towards the Arena. If that is so, it would be difficult to get the hands on it."

"Yeah... It would. The Dragon would be in a spot... Bad for him, huh?"

"Yeah..."

Craig went back to wetting the sidewalk, ceasing the topic unexpectedly.

"Hey, Craig... Do you happen to know where I can find this Richard Galloway guy? You know... To start on the job or something?"

"Are you going to star now?"

"It'd be good. The sooner we know about Verde's plans, the better."

"Why don't you start with the SAD's secretary? She should be working in the building by now."

"Oh! Haven't thought about that!"

Craig looked at me in disdain.

To avoid him starting to make unwanted comments about my persecution I left there.

I stopped by the house and got my binoculars. They're good because they're small, powerful and portable. Then I went to the SAD police building, which is downtown.

Not in the actual building: I actually went to a restaurant that's in a tall building right in front of it. And it's always empty (because let's face it, it's a crappy restaurant) so I could get a table by the window and watch the movement with the binoculars or switch to the hawkeye if people start getting too weirded out by my curiosity.

I ordered a glass of juice, put it on the table and drank a sip, then I got up and went to the window, using the device, aiming towards the front building.

The bad thing about looking like a child is that you can't go anywhere alone without people making comments like 'are you alone?', 'where are your parents?' and stuff like that. You need to see the fight that is to buy a glass of juice in a place like that.

But at least I don't look that much like a stalker visualizing the building with the binoculars, I'm just a kid playing with a toy.

The Dragon said 'third floor' so I was aiming at the third floor window. At that angle you could see the hall. The corridor was narrow and had nothing but things you could expect from a corridor, like spider webs and a fire extinguisher.

The part that mattered was the room behind the blurred glass door, but the door was closed. You couldn't see much movement, only part of it (only the right side was in the window's field of view) and on top of that, as I said before: the glass was blurred.

Judging by the position of the sun, it must've been about four twenty-five in the afternoon. If her schedule was normal she was supposed to leave at six o'clock. Since I had nothing to do in the meantime I decided to start walking around that huge building. It's got a few floors full of trinkets, sometimes you find something interesting there.

When I stepped into the trinkets I felt an intense ductu, and it soon disappeared as soon as I noticed it. There was someone who uses secrecy who noticed that I was there. I wasn't very alert so I didn't even realize I wasn't using the secrecy myself.

Was someone following me just like I was following the secretary? When you're going to follow someone you almost never imagine that someone could be doing the same to you.

When I realized I was standing in the crowd with the most obvious worried face. I shook my head and ignored the feeling. Whoever was it, would show up later if he was to try something. It was no use trying to find out who it was now; to tell you the truth it was impossible

But that made me angry. I hate losing ont kind of thing...

I lost the urge to wander the trinket floors and got out of there. I walked down toward the street.

I went for a walk on the SAD block. I did it while playing Cinder Clash on my cellphone. When I realized, the angle of the sunshade from the front of the building on the sidewalk indicated almost 5:30, so I went back to the entrance, stood there and waited for the SAD secretary to come out.

I saw her leaving when she was in the parking lot. As Greta had shown me in the photo, she had a chignon and was wearing formal, refined jacket. She was going home.

I had brought one of those child bubble blowers in my pocket, because I need to pretend I'm one, and they're great to use the hawkeye to see what happens on my back. I was leaning against the front wall of the SAD building and blowing the bubbles up, so I could see the yard through the reflection on the bubble, as if with a view from above. The secretary entered a dark green Hollow (almost black), the new model.

Great. How would I follow a car without being seen? Using the indarra on my knee? A child running over forty mph? I think it would be asking for attention. However I needed to follow her somehow...

As she came out I poked my pocket and touched another of my emergency preparations: it was a adhesive that the Dragon was monitoring via satellite from his hideout. These stickers could be glued on things of interest to get their location.

Generally speaking it's hard to stick a sticker on the can of a car from a distance when it's moving, but since I'm paranormal I have a way... When the green Hollow - looking close enough to say it was dark green - came out the gate, I started walking towards it, and as soon as I found the right angle I turned and moved my right arm in a forward and backward motion, discreetly.

In the moment between the lowest point and the raising of the arm I used the indarra at my fingertips and threw the sticker with a certain rotation, towards the car. Because of the strength there was no wind resistance and so he did not make a parabolic trajectory to the ground. He was just thrown straight and stuck to the underside of the car.

(I hope it doesn't fall.)

If it fell, I'd have to find her house based solely on the Hollow's plate, which I memorized.

I got out of there and took a bus to the Dragon's hideout.