Un-social

Jake's POV

"How can he have only two friends apart from us?" Cassie said incredulously, "Even I have more friends than him!"

I shrugged, I had considered her question before but I could never come to any reasonable conclusion. How can a man be so un-social that he has only two friends from his entire department? Mike had been the friendly type, for sure….but still he should have some acquaintances, some people who would harbour him in his times of need. Did he have no other confidante than me? I felt a little proud at that, mentally nudging myself to remind Mike of this fact once we found him. 

"Are you sure? Did you check with all his friends? Are you sure they aren't hiding him?" Linda questioned. 

"They have no reason to hide him. He isn't a federal criminal." I said sarcastically, to which Linda scowled and turned her head. 

"But, where can he be then? He isn't at the library or with any of his so-called friends….is there any other place that he can go?" Cassie said, furiously pacing across the room with palpable anxiety. 

"No that I can think of." I said resigning. 

Sofosys pursed his lips and seemed to be lost in thought. Cassie turned to him for advice. 

"I am sure that he is in some sort of danger! We have to locate him." She panicked.

"We can do something!" Linda said, suddenly standing up as if struck by some brilliant idea, "my father has this software that can track phone locations. I am sure Mike has his phone with him and we can track his mobile number! We will instantly know his location. Why didn't I think of this before?"

"Brilliant!" Sofosys remarked, "tell Mr Roberts that we want to use his software then."

" There's a catch." Linda said, tugging a piece of loose strand of hair behind her ears, "It's...umm...not supposed to be for public use. It's kind of a secret technology." 

"Great! What good was it telling us then?" I murmured. 

Linda shot me a furious look, then determinedly picked up her phone and dialled. 

Her father picked up on the second ring, and I could hear Linda cajoling him to provide her with the technology. My God! The girl was so persuasive, she pretended to be on the verge of tears as she convinced her father of the emergency situation. 

Sofosys watched her with a hanging mouth, she spun incredible tales that had nothing to do with the real situation to convince her father. I wondered if her father was so thick headed as to not see through her blatant lies! 

Eventually, it seemed that Mr Roberts agreed and provided Linda with the password to open his software. Linda immediately started operating the software on her mobile phone dextrously. 

We leaned over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of her swift working. 

"Give me his number." She ordered. 

Cassie fumbled through her phone and entered the digits corresponding to Mike's Mobile number, and we waited as the screen buffered. 

I could feel my heart thumping furiously against my chest wall as the screen flashed with the results of the search. 

Mike's phone wasn't showing any stationary location, it seemed to be….on a run!

Incredulously, we stared at the screen, trying to figure out what was going on.

The tiny dot corresponding to Mike's location was constantly fluctuating and moving around. He must be on the run. But from whom?

"Look…. it's showing the area to the South of the University. We need to plot how he's moving in order to determine his location." Cassie plotted the trajectory with her hand to prove her assumption. 

She was right, Mike seemed to be moving in a particular direction at a break neck speed. Was he on a vehicle?

Suddenly I saw something that didn't make any sense. 

"Look….he is moving through the Southern block near the Jouchester Stadium. Isn't that area densely populated? I mean, the way he is moving…..it looks like, like he's moving through the buildings! He can't be passing through residential complexes like this!"

Linda considered my statement and looked carefully at the map. She tapped on some buttons to get better signals and a more accurate visualisation of the map. 

"Jake is right! Holy God, he's moving through the buildings. How can he move through solid structures? Last time I checked, he was a human, not a holographic film!" Linda renarked uneasily. 

We shot skeptic looks at each other, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for Mike's sudden holographic abilities. 

It was Sofosys who broke our silence, "He's not moving through buildings, he's flying through them…..or above them."

"What? How is that possible? He's also not a bird!" Linda snorted. 

"He might not be a bird, but he might be carried by one. There are documented Magical creatures that can fly through solid structures and anything riding those can also do the same. Michael is captured, he's made to fly atop a magical creature and thus he's able to move so quickly without being intercepted by humans."