The Beeper got Triggered (Part I)

"And then Verde tells you to keep the stuff?" Boe pointed to Uahmyr's invitation I was holding in my hands. He was sitting on the floor, because he was playing with his cell phone until then and it was plugged into the corner socket, charging.

"I don't know for you... But to me it sounds hella dangerous, my fellas..." Gary said, as he was looking for an empty box on the shelf. "After all the work we went through to get it."

"You more than the others." Boe said to Gary in a joke tone.

"Yeah. That SAD bitch got me good. I admit it. Now you two can stop with that."

The three of us were at boss's hideout behind a newly opened restaurant called Sweet Oaks. The place is attached to the building, but there's no explicit entrance. It can only be accessed through the hidden entrance in the cleaning staff room.

I held in my hands the invitation from Arthur Cooper, that mediocre piece of paper that was so valuable to the Sproustown mob bosses; that piece of paper for which we had to expose ourselves to the SAD days ago.

We were commenting that the boss decided to leave the thing with me and not keep it himself, and like Gary said, I agreed it was dangerous.

"But why wouldn't he want to keep it with him?"

The boss is a smartass... I have at least two suspicions as to why he left it to me, but I didn't want to say it to Gary and Boe in that situation. So I act like I didn't know. I just shook my head half reluctantly.

"That Verde..." Boe went on "so much work and now he makes me one of those... And what were those two trying to steal the wrong Cooper invitation!? Now everybody thinks all of that is on us!"

"We three are wanted for hell... I think we should grab a yacht and take a vacation outside Sproustown."

"But the SAD didn't see our face that day, remember the masks?" I said.

Gary made an impatient gesture with his hand in my direction:

"The masks... They're the SAD, Spikey! Everybody there's got finesses and alien technology and stuff. What do you think are the chances there's no one there who can reverse this kind of thing on camera?"

"And even if they don't, they have the database of every paranormal being ever found. Whereas the secretary saw a Euphorian with her own eyes... It won't take them long to lay their eyes on you, my dear."

True... The girl at the reception had seen me...

And now that she'd seen me I'd have to take care of myself twice as much.

That boss... And after all, he still makes me keep the invitation.

Do you want to know why I think Verde left that invitation with me? Well... That's a long story, and it's just a theory. What motivated that theory was the case of the two bad guys who broke into the wrong Cooper's house trying to find the invitation. Even if it could have been two guys working for Wilkinson or the Dragon, I find it hard to believe that two days after it all happened they wouldnst' have heard about it, it was in all the papers: 'break-in at the special cases department...' And if Wilkison or the Dragon had seen the news, they wouldn't have sent them both looking for the invitation in the wrong place. They wouldn't have looked anywhere because they knew he was already with us.

This way one of the ideas I had was that the boss who was hiring the two of them separately, so that the police would be looking for us.

Keep in mind the three of us: me, Gary and Boe, one day argued about the possibility that the boss wanted to get rid of us, trade us for someone else? Someone who actually worked for him? What if all of a sudden that was really it?

And that leads to my first attempt to deduce why Verde left the invitation with me: since the police are looking for the invitation among other things, that will make the police chase me even more. I don't know how the SAD is doing with the clues about this invitation, but the more I carry the paper with me the more I'm at risk.

This brings up a second reason that I thought, which could clarify the fact that the boss left the paper to me: supposing that he is really wanting to set the police against the three of us, now that they are looking for him, (since it is better to lose the three of us than the people who actually work for him) if he really wanted the invitation, this invitation that is in my hand must be a fake. The day the boss told me to stay with it because it would have been safer was after we got the invitation that Saturday when we invaded the SAD. I imagine that in the meantime he must have made a fake invitation and given it to me under the pretext that it was the same invitation that we picked up that day, and now he has the real one in hands and we just have in ours a pretext to get arrested and take the blame for everything in case the police find us. That would help the boss a lot, because even if we wanted to, we couldn't give any valuable information about him to the police, so a deal with them would be out of the question. With the case closed with the three of us being captured, the boss, although the real culprit, would be off SAD's radar.

The other reason the boss left the invitation with me, giving even more support to my theory, is that he must think that this invitation has some kind of tracker, either by satellite or by someone else's finesse. The Arena people must have thought of some way to keep them from falling into someone else's hands. It can't be faked, that's true, but it can be stolen and the identity of the real owner faked, which is the boss's plan. What if the Arena's own staff thought of a measure against that kind of fraud? And if we are being followed not only by the police but now by the Arena staff for the stolen invitation, from the boss's point of view it would be good to leave the original with me and save our asses.

If my theory about the second motive is correct, the invitation I have in hand is false, and if my theory about the third motive is correct then it must be the true one.

All these are just small reflections I made to myself, I didn't say anything to Gary or Boe, and what we were doing that day was part of a plan I made to get rid of that fate, whatever the truth about the situation I am in.

The plan is simple: I go to Sweet Oaks' hideout, find an empty box, and leave the invitation there. That way I am no longer wanted by the police or the Arena, and if the boss asks why I did it I can simply answer I thought it was safer to hide it than to take it with me if I am captured by someone from the SAD or worse: Wilkinson or Dragon. This way everyone is happy and I'm rid of my misfortune. Whether the invitation was false or true, it would be safe hiding there, and I would be safe away from it.

The pretext under which I brought the two there that day was precisely that: to leave the invitation in a safe place. Originally I told Boe that Verde wanted me to take the invitation with me and I suggested to him that I wanted to hide it, then he was the one who told me about this place, and then we all agreed to come there that day.

"My friend..." Gary asked Boe "do you think the police are after us? I mean... Of course they are, but do you think we're the main case they're focusing on? Or has the dust settled a little now since that day?"

"Nah... I think the SAD must be focusing on the case of the werewolf that ate that other cop."

"A werewolf ate a cop?" Gary took a box from the bottom of the shelf, holding all the things that were on top with his other hand. Then he threw the box in my direction.

"Didn't you hear? A werewolf is on the loose. He's the new culprit for Jeffrey's crime. The DEA cop is found dead in the middle of the park, they see the wounds match the other guy there... ...and then there's cases everywhere of people telling they saw a werewolf."

"How strange, but could it...?"

We heard a beep from the device, which was on top of the chair. It was the device that warned us that there was someone going towards the hiding place. The waiters at Sweet Oaks were all verdes, that is, they worked for the boss, and only us and a few others were allowed to enter that secret place. As a precaution when we went in, we took the beeper along, so it could warn us in case something went wrong.

The beeper making the noise was something unbelievable. It was like hearing the fire alarm whistle. It was the noise we never wanted to hear. If we heard it was because something very wrong happened.

The atmosphere had changed.

"Who is it?" Gary asked.

" 'twas Owen who pressed it..." I said while looking at the device. He was one of the employees who was supposed to be in the lobby of the restaurant.

We spent a few moments in silence trying to hear what was happening. But none of the three of us could hear anything.

I looked at Gary in the darkness. We both made an affirmative gesture with our heads and he put the cartridge that was over the chair in the gun.

"I'm gonna stay down." I said.

Boe was already preparing his pistol, too, by placing it behind him. I wasn't with mine at the time, but I had a dagger which was behind me, I tried to hide it with my body, from the sight of who would come from the door, you never know when hiding an extra gun might come in handy. For instance, if it was a paranormal being like a zombie, who doesn't take much damage with bullets, the dagger could seriously hurt him if used with the indarra along.

"You better stay in the chair, the gun'll get in your way." My friend Gary recommended in a whispering voice.

Boe seemed stunned:

"How'd they get in here? Who is it? The Dragon? The police?"

"It can't be the police. - They wouldn't have taken Owen and the others off the scene. I think they've been knocked out."

Me and the two of the got disconcerted.

Whoever it was wasn't someone normal, we'd have to wait and see.

"Do you think they came because of the invitation...?" I asked

"Sh!" Gary did.

"Now Spikey, they're coming." Boe said quietly.

We had heard footsteps just outside the door of the room where we were meeting. And as soon as Gary made the sound to silence us, the sound stopped. The invader was on the other side of the door.

It all happened so suddenly. If we'd had more time, we could have set up an ambush. If we had been dealing with any human being the situation would have been advantageous: there was only one entrance and whoever entered through it would have found us three exactly in front of them. However, even though the three of us were armed and facing the door we did not know what would happen next.

The door opened slowly and a little girl walked through it, completely unarmed, and without any precautions. She even turned her head back a moment when she went to close the door, as if it were a place she was used to, as if nothing in there imposed any danger to herself.

I confess that took us by surprise. We could have taken the chance to move on, but being it a girl who seemed lost and unable to perceive the danger around her, the situation was a little confusing for us.

For almost a moment I let myself be fooled and wondered if she wasn't just a curious lady who had just shown up there and if Owen hadn't triggered the beeper just because she came in without permission. I guarantee Boe must have asked himself the same question.

But that hypothesis was out of the question. No one answered the beep. The employees were out of action.

While we were digesting the situation the girl stood staring at us for a second or two which seemed like full minutes with the tension.

Finally the girl broke the silence, commenting in an ironic tone:

"Oh, so this is where the corridor leads?"

Boe got back to his senses:

"You... Who are you?" Boe said while getting up. The girl answered:

"I was... Wandering around. My bad. I had to take your waiters down..."

Then it was really her the one who had done all that...

"Who do you work for?" Gary asked as he pointed the gun at her. Clearly he was shaking. We looked at each other and nodded affirmatively. One shot wouldn't be enough, we'd have to fight all three of them as best we could.

Thus, the girl made one last statement before both sides began to move frantically:

"I don't think we're gonna get any information out of each other until something happens, hmm?" I said. "How about, uh... We get started with this?"