Shadow didn't answer me right away. First he started checking me out for wounds requiring immediate treatment.
"Chill out. You prevented the worst of it, dude." I say.
Still not talking he takes my hands under a microscope. His lips form a harsh white line, it looks like he's holding something in.
"Shit, your hands are all bruised up. Sorry I'm….It didn't supposed to happen."
He sounds genuinely devastated. Jezz, I won't die of a couple bruises. I'm not that fragile.
"Shadow, I'm okay, really. I had worse"
Rather than worrying about my non-seriousness injuries, he should have worried about the smashed pod. Something so hightech must cost a small fortune.
"Better check If the pod wasn't wrecked. If it's destroyed I won't be able to pay you back. And what even went wrong?"
"Peapsueck you won't be paying me back for anything. Your eye had nearly gouged out because the machine malfunctioned. In terms of why it happened…"
Shadow locked his sight with Night Stalker and they had brief eye communication. It didn't look like a peaceful conversation but more of an argument.
"Okay, I'll explain." Night eventually says.
"Explain what?"
For a moment her strong persona wavered and she glanced again to Shadow for guidance. This whole time I've seen her like some authoritative figure, likely because of hero costume and badass demeanor but now she looks distinctly like someone my age.
"Just tell him the truth about the pod. It's okay." Shadow reassured her.
Perhaps it was all she needed to hear. She reverted to her cool persona in speed not visible by the naked eye.
"Listen It may sound weird but you don't have to worry about damage. We didn't buy that pod. It's more like we found it…"
My jaw hit the ground on this unique admission. What does she mean they found it? Did they just pick it up from the side of the road and decide to stick me inside to see what happens?
"It's not like that. We didn't use you as a guinea pig or anything like that!" she quickly clarified.
I must say what I think out loud. Ups…
"So what do you mean you found it? And why are you telling me this now?"
"What I'm about to say may sound fake but it's complet truth.", sounds like something a lying person would say "We found this pod a couple months ago during one of the heists done by The Goblins. They intercepted a truck with this thing and tried to steal it."
She loaded pictures of news coverage from this day to authenticate what she's saying. It seems to check out. I can even see her in the picture of the Shadow talking with police taken by the paparazzi.
"It happens we have been on patrol and in the right time and place to interrupt them. It was quick action and a lot of unexpected things took place. We stopped them but not soon enough. Truck driver was dead from a crash. They coordinated it to stop the truck. Use tragedy to distract everyone for a quick escape."
'Are they even human? How can they reduce human life to cheap distraction?'
"Police arrested gang members with our assistance. Authorities wanted to return everything that wasn't destroyed in the wreck to its proper owner. But no one contacted the police station to regain ownership. Couple months passed and they wanted to trash it. For them it was only a space holder. For us it was invaluable clues of why Goblins even did it. Inside seems to be only old furniture and various knick-knacks, nothing of importance."
"So what pod has anything to do with this heist if it wasn't in the truck?"
She took a deep breath.
"I was just getting to it. We decided to check furniture because there are some cases of smuggling drugs disguised in pretty creative ways. And this would be a good explanation why they would want to intercept transport of goods. They are known to be really territorial with their business."
"Goblins sell drugs on the streets?" I ask.
"They do and they don't. They produce goods but sell to independent dealers. Then dealers sell it for more and keep the profit. It's mutually beneficial. Goblins are not arrested on the streets for dealing and small dealers have their profit."
All this time when Night is talking Shadow is rubbing some ointment in my bruises. It's distracting so I swat him away.
He gave me a stinking eye so I stuck out my tongue in retaliation.
"Anyways, I better come back to the topic. Complicated inner workings of the criminal underbelly of Timin City seem to bore you two."
She looks at us with this face that says: 'I'm not angry but disappointed yet what else I was expecting?' with how do you say all that in one look?
It was effective in making me feel guilty so I straightened my back and concentrated on her.
"So where I was…?"
"You didn't find drugs in the furniture."
See I'm listening.
"Yeah, that's right. We didn't find drugs and this stumped us. For all we know Goblins don't make such huge moves without clear motive. Last thing left was taking apart the truck in search of drugs. In the end we didn't find them but we found something else… In the special elevated chassis of the car was a secret compartment with this pod."
She points to the now smashed pod.
"This piece of equipment is the single most advanced medical machine seen on earth. Even if I try to build this thing from what I observed I wouldn't be successful. This was made by the biggest genius born in our time or by more advanced species of aliens."
Her eyes shone with passion. She must like things like that.
"I was able to learn how to input commands and this thing is pretty intuitive so results are always good. So good in fact, we've been using it on ourselves when we're injured. We never had an incident like that so it's really weird. I don't know if this was triggered by something unusual in your blood sample or was it simply some error…" on the end she lost some steam.
Probably analyzing which option is more likely.
"Wait! Maybe the drugs they injected me did something? Now that I think of it, did you see was I drugged? Are all my organs in their place?"
This question makes her stop pacing back and forth in thoughts. She kid you not point her finger in "Aha" pose and run to controle station.
"When the pod was examining you, while nothing unusual on scan was found, then when the blood sample started its testing the whole program crashed. My commands were ignored and only jumbled code came out. At least at first I was thinking that. Now I see it repeats SN0002CODE1. Maybe if I check the code for the function I will find what it means…"
She locked herself in a research buble and forgot all about us. Shadow behaved like it's a normal daily occurrence so I ignored it to.
"Pipsqueak when she gets like that it takes some time to get her back to reality. It's better to leave her alone and do her thing. In the meantime , are you hungry?"
I look at him like he has two heads.
"Are you gonna cook for me?"
He smiles on my befuddled face.
"Maybe another time, when we have some real ingredients stashed in the house. I can make mean lasagna. But for now I was thinking more of pizza or chinese?"
"Wait, you gonna order in?"
"Yeah" His tone of voice clearly means 'Duh, what else?'.
"But you did with me a whole special meeting spot and disguises and now you're gonna just give some pizza man your secret hideout address!?"
"So you want pizza?"
"Shadow! Don't play with me?"
I cross my arms to show my dissatisfaction. This must show Shadow I won't let it go because he sighs and explain.
"You know kid, you get hung up on the smallest things.", he shrugs his shoulders. "ordering delivery is safe. I will pick it up in disguise and ordering food will help build the illusion of normal family living here. Happy?"
He gives me a challenging look. Like he dared me to ask more. Fortunately I know when to back out.
"Very." I smile at him drily.
"Great. So pizza or chinese?" He took out two fliers with restaurant menus to show me.
"Pizza looks better."
"Awesome! I was craving pizza for a while."
He sounds like he won the lottery or something. It kinda funny seeing such big man being ecstatic about pizza.
Mesmerized by his behavior I was startled when he stuffed a flier in my hand.
"Choose which one you want! I'm getting pepperoni and for Night Stalker I'm taking BBQ. You get the whole pizza for yourself because we don't share."
I don't even look and say my usual order
"I will take Hawaii pizza."
"You headen." he gasps disgustedly.
"Yeah, I know. How can I even!? But I like what I like and you don't have to eat it so lay off."
He raised his hands in surrender.
"You right pipsqueak. I won judge."
He took out an ancient flip phone which is most probably a burner phone and made our order in a pizzeria.
"All that is left to do is wait."
He announced after hanging up.
"Yeah." I answer shortly because I draw a complete blank in the new conversation topic department.
"How about we sit on the couch and talk one more time about details of your kidnapping?"
His tone of voice from relaxed and joking transferred into sharp and serious. Somehow I have a feeling he got me here mainly for this…