After escaping his flat Kyle needed to get to his old base for The Cassettes, the base was located on the outskirts of the capital and was easy to get to from where he currently was. Before heading to the old base Kyle stopped and approached a phone booth that hadn’t been used in a while. He looked around to make sure no one was suspicious of him before making a phone call.
“…. Hello?”
“Scott? Is that you?”
“Kyle? Is it really you? We all thought you abandoned us and died.”
“Come on you know me, I won’t die that easily. Anyway, I need your help, I can’t tell you the information now but meet at the base in 2 hours.”
Beep Beep Beep
He hung up on me. To anyone else that would be considered rude, but we had planned a situation similar to this a long time ago, him hanging up means he is on his way.
I better get moving as well.
# # #
“You sure took your time?”
April was the first to arrive at the old base. The base had been destroyed, it was filled with ash and the floor was covered in broken glass.
“Sorry I took so long, had to go get help.”
“Help? From who?”
As April finished talking a man appeared from around the corner, he had long dirty hair and a rough face that hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.
“Hey guys, long time no see.”
Back when The Cassettes were at their strongest, the main team consisted of three people, Kyle, April and the man who was watching from above, Scott. A genius hacker who provided in-ear support for The Cassettes as well as helping them by creating high-tech equipment.
“Ah, So you decided on your own to get Scott involved?”
“Well, I needed someone who would help no matter what.”
Scott was loyal to Kyle. Kyle offered Scott a place within The Cassettes to pull him out of a dark place and Scott has served them since.
“Anyway let’s inform him of what we know so far, I’m sure he might have some input of his own.”
…
“Huh, I had always thought that something was wrong inside the capital, even when we were still around I felt uneasy.”
“Do you have any information that may benefit us?” Kyle Asked.
“Actually, I think I do. Recently there have been reports of a hacker inside The Capital who has managed to hack his way into the whole infrastructure of The Capital. Water, Gas, Electricity, he has access to all of it and can shut any of it down when he wants. Online he goes by the name ‘Owl’. ”
“Owl? And you think this guy might work for ‘The Claws’?”
“I don’t think, I know. I’ve encountered him online before, the way he acts seems almost childish, and carefree as if he was being used from behind the scenes.”
“Hmm. I guess it does make sense for The Capital to have some sort of hacker.”
If ‘Owl’ was a general of ‘The Claws’ that would mean we know about two of them. If we could capture ‘Owl’ and question him we would have the advantage.
“Do we know where we could find him?”
“I might be able to try and find something, but it might take awhile. Plus all the equipment around us is destroyed, I’d have to go back home.”
“No time, the Reilly Foundation will provide you with everything you need. In the meantime, I need to go acquire something. Kyle, the dagger you used originally, do you know where it is?”
“Nope!”
“That’s good, I’m going to go collect it, I can’t have you finding out the location so I wish for you to stay with Scott.”
Does that mean she stole my own dagger and hid it from me?
# # #
Progress was going slowly, we had been sitting around for almost two hours before getting something worth looking at, we hadn’t heard from April either.
Scott and I were heading out to an abandoned carpark that we received a signal from. Hopefully, it was the first step to taking down ‘The Claws’.
“We are nearly there it’s just up ahead.”
The car was filled with silence for most of the journey, we hadn’t seen each other in months and for me to suddenly ask for help, anyone would be awkward.
“So… how have things been since we last saw each other.”
“Huh, It’s ok Kyle. I’m not mad at you for leaving us, I understand that you wanted to move on. I even didn’t bother tracking you cause I respect your privacy.”
“Thanks… I guess…”
…
The carpark had been abandoned along with the buildings around it. The area became a place for homeless people to scavenge, the carpark its self was home to many.
“Will it be safe going in? What if they gang up on us?”
“It’ll be ok if they try and make a move just shoot them.”
Kyle handed Scott a gun and continued to move on without a care.
At the entrance to the carpark was nothing but damaged tents, eyes could be seen peeking out from inside like animals watching their prey. Kyle revealed another gun and held it in his right hand, in clear view of the tents.
There was only one car within first glance of entering. It was too new and clean to have been here for long. Kyle slowly approaches the car whilst Scott watches his back.
CLA CLANK
The car was locked.
BANG
BANG
Kyle shot the window of the car and opened it from the inside. After searching around in the car he found a VHS tape hidden under one of the seats, a note on the tape read “Play Me.”
Kyle took the tape and went back to Scott, there was nothing else of interest in the car, whoever it belonged to took everything else.
# # #
After returning back to base we discovered that April still hadn’t returned. We hadn’t heard from her since she left hours ago but we couldn’t worry about that, our biggest issue right now was finding out what is on the VHS tape. Scott managed to find an old VHS player collecting dust in his house and recently returned with it.
Scott played the tape, it took a while to start up but after that, a creepy energetic voice could be heard.
“I shall assume that if this tape is playing then you are alive, not that I haven’t been watching you recently! I’ve been aware that you have been attempting to monitor me for weeks, and I’m flattered! As you can probably tell by now I wasn’t at the location you wanted me to be at. Which is a real shame, a very real shame indeed! I’m sure you wouldn’t mind torturing me a bit for information? Just like the good old days! That was exactly the type of thing April would do, cut people up until they spill or die!
Now, I shall give you two options, pick carefully cause it will be upsetting if you pick the wrong one.
OPTION 1, GIVE UP. it really is that simple to just stop what you are doing and move far away don’t you think? I mean what’s the worst that could happen?
OPTION 2, KEEP FIGHTING.
It should be obvious what we want you to do after hearing those right? If you do sadly pick the wrong option then we shall spare no expense trying to kill you, you wouldn’t want little old clown over here hunting you down would you now?
We hope you make the right choice soon, and if you fail to run away? Well, I guess you’ll die, won’t you?
I look forward to seeing your corpses.”
The video ended just like that, the screen went blank whilst our reflections were stared back at us in fear and anger.
“What do we do now?” Scott said worriedly.
“Uh… um…I’m not too sure.”
To Be Continued Next Week.
SlippyfopTV's Random Ramblings 