I blinklessly stare at the view 600 meters toward me. Jennifer is again sitting on a chair side wisely against the window. She just finished cleaning her face, now patting her cheeks softly. It is her habit after using night cream. After that, she combs her hair slowly, as if she knows I'm watching her.
It's been a week since I finally able to move to this apartment. The moment I saw Jen. I without a doubt agreed to rent it. I didn't even care about my old apartment. I just left it, with its furnitures. This apartment won't match their style anyway. This apartment is small and clean, so I decided to have new modern minimalist furnitures.
According to Andy, what the previous owner said to be "Best View" was actually the couple who are on the next tower. They both are actually sex addict. They did it like at least twice a day. But. since Andy is not interesting in straight couple sex, he shifted the scope, thus he saw Jennifer. The previous owner is lucky he didn't even know about Jennifer's existence, or else.. he might end up at the hospital instead of his new place.
Jennifer is finally done her night ritual. She puts the curtain down before turning off the light. And so there ends my show. I slowly put down my scope, unconsciously murmur, "Good night."
I move to my white couch where in front of it is my laptop that currently active monitoring the program run on the cloud. I realized my laptop wouldn't capable to do the job soon after I received a "stack overflowed" error message.
As Thief's suggestion I signed in a cloud server and tried to run my program there. It works, though still need time. I have tried three combinations so far, none of the differentiate values of two images makes any sense pattern. I really hope this fourth combination will give positive result.
i lay my body on the couch. I don't know why, but ever since I could see Jen even only from a far, I feel calmer, my brain work slower. I even can feel sleepy, just like right now.
Before I'm drowning into my sleep, a short vibration disrupt me. I reach my phone to read the message. It's from dr. Lamos
[I finally can contact Surge Ramorez. He agrees to meet you two days from now at country V]
Whaat ?!?!
-------
Two days later
"Sir, we have arrived," a sweet female voice awakes me from my sleep.
"Oh, right. Thanks," I respond to her, unbuckle my seat belt then walk out of the plane.
"We will stand by here for 48 hours, Sir. Hopefully you can manage to get back here before that," a middle aged man, the pilot, says that with a sincere concern. I nod and say thanks to him.
Country V has been in a chaos since early of this year. None of commercial flight has schedule to go here. So I had to rent a private plane that willing to fly here.
Once I'm out of the plane, I walk out of the hangar. My plane actually was not landed on the airport since the airport is closed. Instead, it was landed on an abandoned hangar.
The person who rent me his motor cycle and I had agreed to meet right in front of the hangar. I really wish he keeps his words. Not only that I have transferred my money, but he promised to bring me local number phone.
Fortunately, he is there as his promise. al though he is not like I assumed he would be. He is not a man. He is not even a young man. He is only a child, maybe 10 years old. And the motor cycle he is now sitting on is also beyond my imagination.
I agreed to rent his motorcycle for 2 days, with him as a guide, plus a new phone, all of it for only 100 dollars. So, I expected he would brought me a standard motor cycle, not a 250cc racing motorbike.
"Hello, Sir!" he greets me with rough English, jumping off the bike.
"Mister Torron ?" I ask to confirm.
"No. Mister Torron.. mi padre (my father). Me.. Roberto," he says. I nod.
"Bennet," I say to him. His eyes widen in joy.
"Aah.. Mister Bennet. Welcome.. welcome."
Roberto hands me a key and a phone. I ignore the key, just grabbing the phone. "Full charge..," he says in proud.
"Gracias," I say them busy plugging a small translator device that Thief told me to bring. She said I will need it, and she was right. The device is connected to a pair of bluetooth earphone.
Once it is plugged and turned on, it will be able to translate Spanish to English vice versa in real time. It is not a new thing. I saw similar product is already on the market. But Thief's device doesn't need any internet or button to push, so it is more suitable for my condition now. As a bonus, the translator's voices will be similar to the user's voices.
"Wear this," I say to Roberto while giving him example on how to wear it.
"Can you understand me now ?" I ask. Roberto is so surprised to hear my voice in Spanish. He nods rapidly.
"You can speak in Spanish, I will understand," I continue.
"Okay," he replies happily. I take the key from his hand then rides on the motor cycle.
"Okay, now hop on the back, I will ride you home," I say to him once I settle my self behind the steering bar.
Roberto shakes his head. "I have your money, it is my job to guide you."
"No, It's too dangerous for a kid," I say, decided not to use his guide service.
"I'm not a child. I'm small but I'm thirteen years old already," he refuses.
I'm about to say that 13 is still kid when he adds, "I could ride this big motor here safely, couldn't I ?"
He has his point. Beside, my intention is to meet with dr. Ramorez peacefully, not planning on making any scene here. Not to mention, I really can use his knowledge about the location since I can not connected to the internet to ask Thief nor map to guide me
"Do you know this place ?" i ask him, giving him an address on a piece of paper.
"I know the area," he answers.
"Okay then, put your helmet on," I order him. He smiles widely just like a child. Well, he is a child.. I sigh then start to ride the bike toward the city. The address is on the other side of the city.
"So where is your father ?" I ask him.
"Sick. He has been sick for 3 months now. My mother is on her way to the neighbor country to buy food for us," Roberto explains. "But it's been a week and she hasn't come back. We were starving, so father told me to sell this bike. But then I got informed that you wanted to just rent it."
He hugs my waist tighter for a second. "Thanks to you, we didn't die from starving."
I smile and pat his hand. "You're welcome."
We finally arrive to the city. It is almost like a dead city. There are only few vehicles cross the streets. Most cars are abandoned on the street, some even literally on the middle of the street.
"Why.."
"They ran out of gasoline. Gasoline is rare now. Fortunately father always filled his bike full after he rode it," Roberto explains with a proud tone.
"Where are we going ?" I ask him when we are on a cross road.
"A head. We are crossing the city. The place is somewhere right outside the city," he answers. I obey him.
The road I across now is so wide yet empty. My bike is literally the only vehicle on it. But suddenly I hear a loud sound. It's like a roaring thunder. but the sky is so clear and bright.
Few seconds later. I found out what it is. Well. actually it.. no. they.. they are coming toward me. dozens, maybe hundreds of people coming from the corner of the street, running toward me.
"What..?"
"Riot!! They are about to plunder the warehouse we just passed by. It is logistic warehouse belongs to government. I heard from the news this morning, government just received logistic help from ... "
""Tell me where we should go now!" I cut him, while the angry mass is getting closer to us faster than I thought.
"Left now !" Roberto says.
I make a sharp turn to left, entering a tiny alley which I soon notice has a dead end.
"Right!"
"What ?! There is no.."
"Right !!"
I turn to the right and breaking in an empty warehouse. At least, that's what I thought.
"Just go straight. There is another gate. Just hurry.. they have.."
"Detener ! (Stop!)" Someone yells at us. I definitely am not stopping. A second later I hear a gun. shot. I make a sudden move to avoid the bullet. Another bullet is coming from behind. Soon there is an opened jeep chasing behind me.
I increase my speed. Now I am more than grateful to have a 250 cc racing bike. I easily left them behind, but not their bullets. The shooter is quite good.
"Please let me know that you're okay," I ask Roberto, in concern to hear him so silent.
"I'm fine," he says.
"You're not hit, right ?" I make sure.
"No. I'm fine," he says again. I ride. my motor cycle with only two goals, first to get out of this property as fast as I can, second is to make sure this little boy doesn't hurt. And maybe this is the first time I'm grateful for being faster than normal. I can see all the bullets that come after me. thus I can dodge them easily
"That's the gate !!" Roberto shouts, pointing his finger to the gate in front of me. I speed up my motor cycle. From my rear-view mirror I can see a bullet chasing after us right to Roberto's head.
"Down, now!" I order him. Thankfully, he is a smart boy. Once he lows his head, I sharply swift the bike to the right to avoid the bullet. It still hits my shoulder, but at least not hitting the kid. I bare the pain and keep on moving along with the bike to hit the gate and leave the property.
"You are hit !" Roberto exclaims in worry.
"That's okay, kid.. It's only a scratch," I assure him.
"Are you sure ?" He asks again.
"Yeah.. just lead me the way," I tell him.
"Go straight. With this speed we'll be there in 15 minutes," He says. While still riding, I unbuckle my belt and open it before giving it to Roberto.
"Can you tie it on my wound ?" I ask him.
"Sure.. sure," he says then does what I ask. It is definitely not a scratch. The bullet is inside me, but I'm sure it doesn't hit any vital organ as it is nesting in my right shoulder. I just want to make sure that I won't lost too much blood.
"We're here," Roberto says fifteen minutes later, with a tone slightly above a whisper.
"Are you sure ?" I ask him. We are literally in the middle of nowhere. The road we ride on is actually splitting a forest.
"Hmm.. yes," Roberto answers. There's a vivid reluctant in his voice. He then makes a long whistles.
A second later, there are dozens of people show theirselves up from their hiding, some are jumping down the trees. "I'm sorry," Roberto whispers before jumping off the bike and join this group of ... kids. Yeah, they are kids, but with guns on their hands.
I raise my hands and get off my bike when one of them signaling me to. I could reach my gun and just grab Roberto as a hostage, but then again.. they are jus kids. The tallest one comes close to me. He ties my hands with rope and puts a black sack over my head.
I start walking, leaded by the gun muzzle that pointed right on my back. I can hear a door being opened. "There are steps to downstair," Roberto says right beside me. I nod. With my foot, I feel the first step before I step down.
Another rustling is heard and then I can feel a cool breeze when I step in.
"Uncle, please don't hurt him !" Roberto suddenly exclaims. He runs away from my side. "You promise me not to hurt anyone," he says again.
"No te preocupes, chico (don't worry, my boy)," a man's gentle voice calms him down, "No lo lastimaré."
The sack over my head is being lifted by the man who just spoke. "Hello, Scott Bennet. I'm Surge Ramorez," he says, still with his gentleness.