The receiver rang.
"Hello. This is the City Guards Department. How may I help you?" Officer Song straightened his cap and adjusted his badge in place as he walked round the table to jot done the caller's details. The caller was a sobbing woman.
"Your son...?" Song asked before pausing. "Name...? Jimmy Fendleton..? Oh, Jimmy Freckleton..." Song pronounced the name slowly as he wrote it down on the notepad.
"So, when last did you see him..? Calm down, woman... When last... Okay, yesterday night?... His... His..."
He sighed as he got cut short often by the grieving mother. "FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WHAT IS HIS AGE..?! WHAT DOES HE LOOK LIKE..?! WHAT CLOTHE WAS HE WEARING..?!" He yelled into the wired receiver, frustrated beyond control.
This time, the woman eventually calmed and she gave the necessary details with less sobbing. Officer looked down at his jottings. He hoped this little information will be of help. Too many City kids possess these features.
He assured the woman that if all went well, they will find her son, dead or alive. Though he didn't mention the last part to her. He dropped the receiver back in place with a louder bang than normal. He jumped slightly, himself surprised by the impact. Somebody needs his anger tamed.
Again, he looked down at the notepad and almost let out a laugh as something occurred to him. It wasn't a wicked humour born out of his enjoyment of the misfortune in this family, nor was it born out of amusement. It was a piteous one. Even someone as stone cold as him could feel pity sometimes.
The time the boy was discovered to be missing was yesterday night and the mother only reported the following day, in the afternoon. Song wondered what could have kept the mother from reporting since yesterday night or probably early this morning. Anyway, even if she had reported a little after 9pm yesterday, the boy couldn't have survived the night. The government have been strict with the curfew these days and the special troops dispatched to watch the night has no mercy for defaulters. Not even kids.
So, it was a safe bet that the boy has been shot dead unless he is somewhere safe, maybe one of his friend's home. Song only wished.
He got up anyway and stepped gently out of his office into a long corridor. His head turned left and right as he walked past rows of doors with their departments written boldly on them. Hr never cared to remember where one department was or who headed which department or what service they rendered. After about two minutes, he finally found the office he wss looking for. He stopped, knocked twice at the door and entered without waiting for a reply. The office he saw was close to being tagged as a refuse dump. This is perhaps the most untidy office he has ever seen. Papers littered the floor, so anybody who has something to do here has to step on the papers. Song wrinkled his nose at the foul odour of rotten paper and filth.
Song looked up ahead and sighted a fat man sitting comfortably on a rocking chair by a large table. His brown eyed peered out from under his glasses and his small bald head lolled from side to side as if he was listening to a soothing music audible only to him. He waved his fat hand at Song and immediately, flies buzzed out of hidden places on his desk. Some perched on the half eaten large-sized burger wrapped on the table. His desk was a untidy as the floor, if not more.
Without sparing a greeting, Song handed the page where he jotted the boy's details, over to the fat officer. The mans stubbly fingers snatched the note from him. He read through the jottings and exclaimed at some point...
"Since yesterday..? He's probably dead if he stayed out the night. Why are you still looking for him?" The man asked in a small voice unbefitting his large size. Song hated that voice.
"Just wanted to be sure," Song replied. "Check your latest data and see if anyone was shot by the force yesterday night. I'll be back by 5."
And without waiting for any reply, Song stormed out of the office then banged the door behind him. He was grateful for the clean air after the suffocating one from that office.
He retraced his steps back to his office but later changed his mind. He branched right to the main exit and stepped out of the station. He scanned the City streets, looking first at the tall building in front of the station, at the slow rickety vehicles plying the road, and at the silent walkers — the busy City adults carrying out one task or another, sending messages, transporting goods or going for a job or returning from one. It's the City... Every adult must work.
Few weeks ago, these silent walkers, as Song prefer to tag them, includes of able bodied men, strong and ready for work. But now, the City streets have been left bare of these men. Only old men remained, and former housewives who had no option but to fill the vacant spots that the men left behind when they were called to duty at the Towering Tower.
He folded his arms and rested his back against the iron rungs of the station. His mind drifted off into nothingness as he looked upon the busy get quiet street. His life has been a boring one, he knew. But he gave no two f**ks about it. At 33 years of age, he has no wife, no child, and he never even thought about getting one. He was raised by his harsh single dad and so, hardness was no new thing to him. He got no friends, so he visits the City bar alone at night.
He hates his life yet he has done nothing to change that. He loved the hate, and he hated love. "Love is for the weak. Hate is for the real. Everybody hates, and only the weak hides that fact," he'd always say.
But Song was grateful for one thing. That he joined the City Force before the young men of the City were carted away to service at the Towering Tower. He could have been one of them if he still labored at that iron factory. Sure, life at the iron factory was hard, but he knew life at that Tower will be harder. Whatever the City Council was planning with this must have something to do with a very big project— a revolutionary one even— kept hidden from the people. Hence the call.
And now, in a rollercoaster sort of way, his gratefulness is short lived. The City Force have also been summoned to the Towering Tower but for a different service.
The news dropped this morning from the Commander that there was an armed robbery operation at the Tower yesterday night, obviously perpetrated by the Backfencer gangs. And they had gunned down 15 men of the City Force who were guarding the "impregnable" Tower for that night. Nearby reinforcement had intervened that instant and they managed to take down just five of the gang before the others escaped deep into one of the Tower rooms— in which they are now stuck. The thieves are trapped inside one of the Tower's vault, so more men are needed from the City Force to help drive them out for execution and to retrieve the stolen item.
So in two hours maximum, every City Guard capable of shooting a gun is needed at the Tower to join the troops already there.
"Hard luck. Hard luck," Officer Song thought sadly to himself.
He looked eastwards towards the top of the Rocky Monster and cursed the world in general.
Resignedly, he mumbled, "time to face death," as he journeyed back into the station to wait patiently for the next tow hours. "F**k Foeblaster," he cursed again.
**********
[STORMBOY]
Stormboy looked back at his remaining men as he clutched his bleeding arm where a bullet has grazed while escaping. His men are scared, he could tell from their faces. There were only five of them remaining.
They are done for, trapped deep in the Rocky Monster, inside a vault of some sort. It was a wide room with marbled floors and walls and it opened leftwards to another vault with similar features. A blue light gleamed dimly overhead, casting a blue gloom over them.
Storm touched his small bag and felt the object inside. It was still intact. The reason for thus madness was still intact. The object is a tube. A glass tube that was capped top and bottom with steel covers, and inside the tube were several matters Storm had no description of.
They varied in colour and size and shape. Millions of them, each unique with its own properties. And they all swirled slowly round and round the tube. The motion never stopped.
Though each grain had its own special colour, the most recognizable colour was a blue-green shade, cyanic.
Storm looked into the bag again and wondered why the Underworld Lord would want something like this in his possession. He wondered why anyone would rob people of anything but money. But he, of course, kept his questions to himself. One of the survival technique this job requires was to never question an order from above, or rather from below as the case may be. An order is an order. Carry it out and receive your cash.
Storm had led his men sneakily into the lab where the targeted item was kept. His rear me were positioned outside to notify the rest if any guard was seen moving in their direction. The operation was going smoothly until one of the rear men shot a guard on impulse. The guard wasn't even aware of any robbery going on, he was just passing by. That single shot was enough to ruin the perfect and almost completed robbery. The nearby guards emerged immediately and some members of the City Force nearby as well.
The gang took off at once towards their pre-planned exit route but unfortunately, everywhere has been surrounded. So they had to double back deep into the Tower till dey got stuck in one of these empty vault rooms. The thick vault door was locked by Storm from the inside, and from the way it was designed, it cannot be opened from outside if it was ever locked from within. The City Force tried shooting the vault door down but it was no use. It was bulletproof.
Storm and his men are now here, stuck and starving for escape. He gritted his teeth hard as he thought of how he could have completed the most dangerous robbery in the world if that fool didn't shoot that guard. He wished the one who shot didn't die in the crossfire. He swore he would have given him a more painful death than that mercy of a City Guard's bullet.
But now that all these has happened, there is only one way out— their bargaining power. How Storm would use this power, he has no idea of.
Their bargaining power is a boy. A freckle faced boy of 15. He was captured when the gang was running back into the Tower, away from the City Force's attack. The boy was trying to sneak into one of the rooms of the Rocky Monster when Storm snatched him while on the run. Storm had no idea why he did that. It was just instinctive, and now he might be grateful for that split second decision.
The boy sat opposite Storm at the moment, blank-faced and unafraid. Storm was impressed.
"What's your name?" Storm asked.
"Jimmy Freckleton," he replied.
"You're now my hostage, Freckles. Thanks for coming," Storm laughed.