The Runouw.com Connection-Extended Chapter 7!

[MessengerOfDreams]

Chapter 4-The Battle of Belmont

Mic’s Journal
May 27, 2009
Once I was asked by a classmate “Why on earth would you want to become a police officer, when everyone knows from TV and stuff how hard it is?”
Well, let me just start off by saying, I’m sure no college student, that’s for sure. I’m only 14; I’m just now in High School (at Cleveland, of course, where I am treated like a celebrity.) Merely a freshman. But I just really want to help people and bring comfort to those sad. Plus I want to kick some bad guy butt. That’s why being a police officer is perfect for me, as I get to fulfill both wishes.
You see, I live in one of the biggest slums in Portland, Brentwood-Darlington. There is very little “Darling” about this neighborhood. It’s not as bad as, say, Harlem, but as far as the city goes, it’s pretty bad. There are boarded-up shops left and right, pothole-laden roads, but the worst is the gang warfare. Took my older brother’s life when he was just 22.
You see, the underlying reason I wanted to be a police officer is to stop gang action like this.
I woke up at the crack of dawn, as usual. What, that weird to you? I don’t sleep well. I got on my computer and started writing. I love to write. My life is enough of an adventure for me, thank you very much, so I usually write stuff like Comedies. I was writing something about how people integrate hilariously in a workplace. Then my mom introduced me to The Office. Ah, well, it’s a funny show, and I always liked Steve Carrell, so not much loss. I just gotta think of another idea. I’d write something like what life is like as a cop with a humorous edge, but the movie Cop Out is coming out soon, and I don’t wanna seem like a copycat. Although, odds are I will go for it. Put a unique twist on it.
Then breakfast. Mom had just woken up so she made me some French toast. “After all,” she added happily “It IS Memorial Day, and I want to make it as special as possible.”
I grinned with a “Thanks, Mom.” Breakfast was fast, and I was ready to spend a day relaxing, barbecuing, and board games. Unless, of course…
My phone rang, and the ringtone that belted out Life in Technicolor ii (his favorite song) I knew Sam was calling. Yeah, unless that.
I ran into my room where my phone was charging and picked it up. “Yello?” was my amusing welcome.
“Hey, Mic, it’s me, Sam.” No freaking duh, Sherlock.
“Yes, I know, due to a technological wonder called Caller ID. Amazing, eh?” I retorted.
I heard him laugh and add “Yep, who knew. With all jokes aside, how fast can you get to the police station?”
I tried to hide my displeasure. “Well, I better leave early, so I can get back before the Memorial Day Barbecue. That’s at three.”
I heard him sigh unhappily. Poor guy, he’s probably lonely. “Lucky. My Memorial Day will probably consist of a turkey pot pie TV dinner. That having been said, see you soon.”
“Be there as soon as I can!” I replied, trying to lift my spirits a bit.
To make the long story short, Mom wasn’t too happy about me leaving, but, hey, duty calls. I’m gonna be doing this for real someday. “Just be back at three.” Was her answer. “And be careful.”
I nodded “As always.”
Now I sit on the bus, with fear in my heart. What if something happens? What if I don’t come back? How would it destroy my family to have two dead children? Just a case of the pre-game jitters, I presume, but it still disturbs me.
Besides, if I die today, I’ll never get to have a slice of Uncle Ray’s pecan pie like I do on every Memorial Day.
Yours Truly,
Mic Davis.
(Ema Narrates)
Mic was petrified, stopping in his tracks. No one had ever shot at him before. However, when and if you are shot at, it should be the number one rule to MOVE!
“Oh my god!” shouted Sam, who, with no thinking whatsoever, puts his hand in the way and grabs the bullet. Okay, not so much “grab” as “it went through his knuckles.”
“Oh my god!” he shouted again, noticing he had a bleeding hole in his hand, and not only do you not take world-changing pictures with a cracked lens, you also don’t take it with half a hand.
I noticed. “Oh my god!” I cried out.
Sam replied with another “Oh! My! God!”
“I gotta take you to a medic!” I yelled. “I mean, I gotta call 911! Well, somebody must have cause the dang building’s on fire, but you know what I mean!”
“No!” Sam firmly replied. “What about Mic? The guy can’t handle a hostage situation himself! He’s fourteen!”
“If that hand keeps bleeding, you’re gonna lose it!” I yelled, frustrated at Sam’s sudden stubbornness. “Do you want to lose that hand?”
“Do you want Mic to lose his life?!” was the reply.
“Buffy will be out in a minute!”
“How do you know she’s even alive?” Desperation was showing up in Sam’s voice. His eyes widened, he added with tears in his eyes “Please, you gotta protect Mic. You guys are all I have.”
Reluctantly and heartbroken, I sat him down and ended the argument with an “I’m going to get you to a medic as soon as I’m done.”
“That’s the spirit, Ema.” Sam smiled, resting his hand in his lap and leaning against a car, citizens too frightened to get out, but too traffic-clogged to leave.
Meanwhile, Mic, Avo and Ms. Li were still perfectly still. I joined up with Mic. “Having fun with the melodrama?”
“Hey, the guy saved your life!” I snapped, amazed at what a jerk that guy could be.
“I know, it’s just hard to be grateful when you two are playing soap opera behind my holding up a very dangerous criminal!” Mic replied.
“Playing soap opera, you little creep?” I reached out to slap Mic across the face, quite hard, too. “I’ll have YOU know that the guy is risking his hand and his potential future to save your sorry butt!”
“Ahem,” Sam put in, with that familiar awkwardness in his voice, “I’m right here.”
Mic grew angry, re-snatching my taser and said “I’ve had enough of this bull!” and lunged toward Avo. But before Avo could fire, Mic had already stuck the taser right on his arm, causing the criminal to drop Ms. Li, convulse in pain, swear once or twice at Mic, and stand steady again. Mic took advantage of this moment to whip out handcuffs and put them on Avo.
“I’ll read you your Miranda rights as soon as we know how Buffy’s doing,” Mic said, “As I forget how they go.”
Even I couldn’t help but smile, impressed. “You may be a little creep, Mic,” I told him, punching him on the arm and adding, “But you sure did well.”
Mic nodded with a Cheshire grin and a thumbs-up. Avo responded by spitting at the both of us (as in, mostly me.) I wiped it off my face and slapped him with his own spit on my hand.
Now back to Buffy. She was in the flame-ridden library. All the people were out… except her.
You see, when you’re trapped between two bookshelves blocking your way out, escape isn’t exactly easy.
She tried kicking one again, but instead of falling away from her, books by the hundreds fell on top of her, resulting in some nasty bruises. Worse yet, some fell on the nearly-bursting water fountain. Buffy swore loudly, thinking it ironic that firefighters used this exact same method to STOP fires. Climbing out of her book shell, Buffy climbed over the toppled shelf, towards a window.
Then the last book needed hit the water fountain.
Then Belmont Library exploded.
(Narration of Apprentice Firefighter Mark Ten)
At that moment, an ambulance, fire truck and police car showed up at the scene, the ambulance and police having to park 2 blocks to the north in a Walgreens parking lot. The fire truck wouldn’t settle for that. The thing ran across the parking lot, over a planter, and across Taylor Street to the library.
“We’ll pay for that!” I, Firefighter’s assistant Mark Ten called out to an indignant clerk.
The crew readied their hoses and aimed them at the burning library. Then a voice from far below them yelled “Don’t! No!”
It was Buffy Clark, minus a leg.
I looked down when he heard a woman shout, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw what appeared to be Buffy holding her leg. “Holy guacamole, chief!” I called to the fire captain. “She’s real hurt!” The chief radioed the ambulance to send out a stretcher to the fire truck.
Buffy put a hand up and said “Wait, it’s a fake! A prosthetic! I’m all right!”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “They sure are making prosthetics more and more realistic, huh, chief?”
"Uhm... that's no prosthetic "the chief replied.
I grew nauseous and vomited into a bucket.
“You see, shock can do things to a person. This lady has no idea she was holding her own leg.” The chief explained to me.
I grew nauseous again but managed to hold it in.
“Listen!” Buffy called out. “I was just in there! The water fountain exploded and it blew this place up! All that water you have will destroy everything in a quarter-mile radius!” At the very least, the shock did not affect her thought process.
I employed some mental math. After all, I am a Mathlete at Benson. “That includes us, all the traffic, all the houses, stores, and it could catch the gas station and reach up to Laurelhurst Park.”
“In English?” the chief asked testily.
“If we spray that with water, we can say Bye-bye to the Laurelhurst neighborhood.” Which means I could have helped saved a whole neighborhood. Now I was excited.
“Well, miss,” the chief called down, annoyed. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Call a gravel company!” Buffy called. “There’s one about 3 or 4 miles away! Have them dump gravel and dirt all over the fire! It’ll kill it!”
The chief yelled back “What proof do you have for this theory!”
“Mythbusters! And I bet about a million and a half people can vouch for me!” Buffy called. “Plus, I have a badge!” she held it in the air. I know I could vouch for the Mythbusters part. It was my favorite show.
“Holy crap, she’s a police officer!” I called. “Hurry with that stretcher!”
The chief was busy calling the gravel company.
(Back To Ema)
I went back to Sam, whose hand was gushing out blood. “Ew.” I muttered, trying SO HARD not to vomit. “You are in bad shape!”
“I think the bullet punctured a few blood veins, and they’re all just pouring out my hand with no way to get to the other side.” Sam guessed. “But, hey, I’m obviously no brainiac. I mean, I put my hand in the way of a bullet!” He laughed at himself.
“Mic doesn’t act it too much,” I explained thoughtfully, “But he really is probably thankful for what you did.”
“Man, you kidding?” Mic added, chaining Avo to a car door, the car owner watching hopelessly as Avo dented the living crap out of his car. “I wish I had the guts to do that!”
Rolling in with a stretcher, a hospital medic climbed over car hoods and roofs surrounding the young adults and, after bandaging the hand, lifted Sam up. “Can you walk?” he asked.
“It’s my hand, not my leg.” Sam replied, wearily starting the trek. Concerned, I followed the two over car hoods, accidentally taking out a headlight. It was a sad day for cars in the area.
Sam took a little bit of time to quip “Hey, Ema, you should have cut your hair a long time ago. You look a lot better that way.”
I giggled. I gotta admit that was sweet. Uhm… you can forget that, right? “Does it make up for my missing eyebrows?”
Sam raised his. “Hey, I didn’t notice that. As MessengerOfYahweh would say, LOL.”
“And as Ridder would say ‘At least it makes my eyes look bigger.” I replied.
“No, that is a definite Ema thing to say. Too positive. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Ridder is your polar opposite.” Sam grinned. I nearly became as red as my hair, with a slight smile in an odd time. Sam noticed but said nothing. Thank goodness, as I was not in the mood for embarrassing young people stuff.
There were three people waiting for Sam and I at the stretcher- Buffy, sitting on the side of the fire engine, with half a leg (OH MY GAWWWWWD!) Mark Ten and a mystery person. He had brown hair, was about a couple inches taller than Sam and was wearing a shirt that read “Support the Cause! A Place for All Teens in the City!”
“Oh, my god! Buffy, your leg!" Sam gasped.
"What!" She replied. "It's my prosthetic!"
"Buffy, are you out of your mind? You never owned a prosthetic in your life!" I yelled, shocked. She was really scaring the heck out of me.
Buffy, realizing it was her real leg, dropped screamed loud enough to scare the re-settled birds at Laurelhurst Park.
Sam shook his head. "Oh my god." he muttered sadly. I just started crying.
Mark Ten introduced himself, then adding “What is this all about?”
“A teen’s website leader got killed and we were checking out the website.” Sam explained. “After that is pretty confidential.”
“You don’t mean Runouw, do you?” Mark asked.
“Why, yes, actually.” Sam replied.
“I was on there!” Mark said, astonished. “Nin10mode!”
Puzzled, Sam said “Sorry, we weren’t that far in.”
The mysterious, tall teenager stepped forward. “H’llo, young of’cers.” He said in an impeccable Aussie accent. “Allow me to be introducin’ myself. The name’s Nicolas Locke. Niklaw if you will. And I was there on the night of Runouw’s murder. I should know. The killer wanted me dead, too.”
Wiping my eyes, I realized that I hadn’t been this surprised since, well, 5 minutes ago. “You don’t say!”


Chapter 5-Son of a Hamster
(Ema Narrates)
Penumbra Kelly Juvenile Hall. Again.
Buffy was at the Oregon Health and Science University Hospital, or OHSU, still in shock. Not about the explosion, but about LOSING HER LEG! Heck, I would be too! Sam had a short surgery done on his hand and had to take a couple of days sick, but that was the worst of it. The hole in his hand had been filled in with some fancy-shmancy scientific material, which felt a little awkward but fine nonetheless. Mic got to go home to his Memorial Day picnic and tell everyone about how Sam had saved his life and how he had stopped an actual killer. Nicolas Locke was politely asked to stay in the Kelly until the following day in a nicer cell so the team could talk to him. Although nervous to stay in a juvenile hall with at least one potential killer, he agreed. Avo or “Avolerators” as he was called on http://www.runouw.com was the prime suspect of the murder of Rob Stevens, or Runouw.
Now what on earth did I do during this time?
Well, first off, I was able to catch up on some classes. Now what on earth was I at college for? Actually, for *gasp!* architecture. Seriously. What else do you think drew me to the city? Beautiful buildings like the curiously shaped Brick-Red Koin Tower, The Curves of the Portland Condominiums, and of course, the reflective qualities of Cyan PDX. I designed a building, I wish I could show it to you here, it has so many vibrant colors, so many attractive qualities, and, well, it’s just my work of art, and I’m proud of it.
Second, I counted up all my savings. About $560. I took about $100 of that and went to a nice clothing boutique in the Pearl. There, I bought myself a professional-looking outfit that still had a touch of pink in it. What would I do without pink?
Third, I realized that there was no way in heck I was going to spend Memorial Day alone.
I got a bouquet of flowers and made my way to OHSU on the Tram. Taking a look out on the city through the fog, I shook off the last little bits of homesickness I had from Wyoming, which until now had managed to cling onto me for the last year or so.
I arrived on the tram deck and started to walk towards Buffy’s room. Three hallways later, I arrived at her door and knocked. No answer. Talk about getting worried.
Fortunately a doctor answered the door for her. Oh, yeah. Leg. Forgot. Which reminded me, whatever I do, do NOT mention her leg.
I nodded a thank you at the doctor and walked to Buffy’s bed. “Hey, Buffy, how’s your leeeeeee…” I stopped myself in the middle of the word and internally punched myself.
She nodded with a smile. “Don’t worry.” She responded. “I’m okay with it.”
“Wowwee, Buffy, you leapt over three stages of grief from Shock to Acceptance.” I replied, shocked.
She shook her head vigorously. “Not true. I spent all day wrestling with anger,” she pointed to a fallen frame “Hence that. Then I spent an hour bargaining, which didn’t work out so well because I seem to get no response, and then depression, hence the bags under my eyes. But it’s all over now, the worst day of my life.”
I put the flowers on her table and told her “I hope I made it a little better.”
She looked at the daisies I had bought for her. “Aw, sweetie, those are beautiful, but…” she was interrupted by a couple of sneezes, she added, “I’m allergic to daisies.”
I groaned, for some reason more disappointed than she seemed to be, and had the doctor remove those to the outside of the room. “Sorry, Buffy.”
She smiled. “No worries, you had no idea. So, about the case, real quick.”
I sat down and nodded. Time for business.
“Well, due to my current condition, it should be obvious that I will not be continuing this case with you guys.”
I nodded, unsurprised to say the least. “I figured as much.” I replied.
“It should take me a month or two of rehab to get back to my old self, or as close as I can get.” She told me. “It shouldn’t take you that much longer to solve this case, after the bombing and the hostage situation, it seems pretty obvious who it is.”
“You mean Avo Richardson, right?” I asked.
“Well, I certainly don’t mean George Clooney, Ema!” she laughed. “Ah, as you can imagine, it feels good to laugh again.”
I nodded with a good giggle of my own. “Well, I gotta go do something with these flowers; I hope you get better soon!”
She smiled and told me “Goodbye, Ema, and good luck!”
I nodded and wished her farewell. Good luck, eh? Man, were we gonna need that!
Sam came in groggily 2 days after the incident, still recovering from a painful surgery. I met him at the door with some bad news.
“We’re gonna have to do this without Buffy,” I told him nervously after the usual greeting.
Sam sat down and, fearing the worst, asked “Why is that?” I could tell he wasn’t exactly looking forward to the answer.
“Dude, it’s okay! Seriously, she’s alive.” I made sure to point out. “She’s alive… just not well. She’s gonna walk again… just on a prosthetic leg, which should take her about a month or two of rehab to get used to. And don’t worry.” I smiled weakly and grabbed his hand before he started to cry or anything. “Buffy’s tough. She’ll pull through.”
“Yeah, so who’s supposed to lead the team?” Sam asked. Good, he wasn’t gonna cry. Not that he’s a wimp or anything, but… I will stop talking now.
“Who really needs to?” I replied. “You’ve got the intellect, I’ve got the good deduction skills, and Mic’s got the great people skills! We’re basically three parts of Sherlock Holmes!”
Sam grinned helplessly. My team cheerleaderness-definite remedy to the after-surgery illness. “Well, Ema, I have a theory.”
“Theorize away, my good pal.” I replied.
“I think we should go to the crime scene.” He replied. “It’ll suck, yes. Be the first dang dead body I ever saw. But we can get some info. Find out more about Stevens. Then we just kick it off Law and Order style. Find out what weapon our criminal used; get some DNA, yadda, yadda, yadda and bada-bing, bada-boom, we got our bad guy!”
Outside I was shrugging and smiling, inside I was finding new ways to use profanities in frustration. “I’ll do it,” I said solemnly, “But I’ll hate every minute of it.”
“I figured you would, but if we’re going to be police officers someday, we gotta learn to do this.” Sam added.
“Well, I don’t want to take the bus, and you would probably hurt yourself doing that,” I said, “So want to call a police escort?”
“That would be good,” Sam added with a playfully dramatic weariness. “I don’t know how I would be able to take the bus.”
I burst out in laughter, loving the feeling of being able to laugh again.
Sam and I walked over to Mic, who was waiting for him by the door to the jail cells. Mic couldn’t resist but quip “Hey, look what the cat dragged in! Sam, how goes the hand?”
“Styrofoam is indeed an awkward thing to have in a hand.” He quipped back, smiling. “So, can you spare me Nicolas?”
“Nicolas, yes. Buffy, no.” he replied, his grin fading away. “Which kinda rocks and sucks at the same time- let me finish!” he put in, sensing Sam’s discomfort about that idea. Before Sam or I opened our mouths, Mic added, “You see, it rocks because we can show her what we can do! All we’ve learned and everything.”
“Like how to electrocute people, as you seem to be a master at that.”
Mic raised his remaining eyebrow. Sam was the only one with both intact. I never had any to begin with. “That electrocution saved your life, which never would have happened if you hadn’t saved mine. I mean, you learned how not to stop a bullet. And Ema learned how to… well… not screw anything up. I think… anyway, Nicolas. Why do you need him?” Oh, well, at least I got SOMETHING.
“We’re gonna take him to the crime scene,” Sam replied.
“Now that’s thinking on your feet!” Mic replied.
(Mic Narrates Now)
1200 NW Station Way. A brick-red studio apartment was what Rob Stevens’ humble abode was once. And, boy, did Rick Stevens have a heck of a shock waiting for him!
The place was a total forsaken wreck. After his death, spiders and cockroaches were crawling all over the walls and floor. The door was replaced by a plastic screen, flimsily floating in the May breeze. Tables were overturned, his belongings were all over the floor, and only two things were missing- Rob Stevens’ body and Runouw’s computer.
“Where is the body?” asked Sam.
“What a relief- I mean what a pity.” Ema corrected herself before Sam did.
“What do you think happened to it, Ema?” I asked.
Man, Ema loved the feeling of being the smart one. That grin she gets is a dead giveaway. She replied “Well, the killer came back. He dumped the body somewhere. The river is just a few blocks away. I’ll call search and recovery to get the body out.”
Sam grinned, as he usually did when Ema came up with a theory, especially good ones.
“Okay, Nicolas.” I said, taking charge. “What happened to you?”
“Well, it all started when I knocked on tha front door,” Nicolas began “And the bloody thing opened right up! Then, right on the floor was Runouw’s bloody body! Literally! The guy was oozing out blood from the back of his head!”
“Ooh, Gawd!” Ema tried not to retch.
“Ema, you’re still on the phone,” I said with a smirk. She gasped and said “Sorry about that, ma’am.”
“What were you doing at Stevens’ house in the first place?” I continued like I was straight out of a cop show. I think I’m real cool like Horatio from Miami. Ema happens to think that’s the lamest character of all time. I then refer her to the Jay Leno segment “Who cares what they think?” Enough of my tangent, back on topic.
“Stevens? Oh, you mean Runouw. Sorry, took me a minute.” Nicolas shook his head. “Anyways, we were a’meetin’ to think of this idea of opening up a non-alcoholic tavern up somewhere in town. We were gonna call it ‘Runouw’s Tavern.’ That way he could shut down the website and we could all just meet up in person. That way we could improve our social skills while we were at it, and meet new teenagers while we were at it without being ‘uddled in our basement apartments for our entire lives.”
“Hence the spiffy T-shirt.” I replied. I wanted to ask if he had another, but what came out was “Hey, Sam, you getting this?”
“Wha? Oh, yeah I am.” Sam replied, squishing spiders by the pound. “This is absolutely sickening!”
“I found the dang place a wreck, just like this, with the spiders and everything!” Nicolas replied.
“How long had it been since you two spoke last?”
“About 3 hours or so, he had called to tell me to meet him over here. His girlfriend was really interested in the idea and-“
“He had a girlfriend?” Sam interrupted, surprised. “Buffy said he had parents and a brother, nothing about a girlfriend.”
“Yeah, only she wasn’t there when I was.” Nicolas replied. “I reckon she ran down the street, screaming bloody murder with excellent reason.” Nicolas replied. “And I am 100% sure the guy who tried to kill me off was a male… he had too much of a muscular build to be female.”
“You haven’t Met Buffy!” I quipped with a grin, looking around me to make sure she wasn’t telekinetically listening in. And Joy to the World, I found that Ema had a recorder on and, frustrated, swore loudly, then realizing that just made it worse now that I dropped a D-bomb into the recorder.
“I am very intrigued.” Sam put in, scratching his chin. Not in thinking, but to get a spider off of it. “Oh, shoot! Look at that sucker! He’s as big as my eyeball!” Without thinking, he smacked himself in the face to get the spider off. Not a bright move, when you think about it. It did make Ema giggle a little, though, so at least it accomplished something.
“Anyways,” Nicolas walked into the apartment, acting out every move he spoke, “I stepped in, frightened, trying to get Runouw to respond. When that failed, I looked everywhere for his cell phone. I was in the middle of calling 911 when ‘bam!’ someone breaks down the front door and I see he has a baseball hat in his hand. Quickly, before he sees me, I squirt catsup all down my head and then he hits me. Mistaking the catsup for blood, he leaves. I wake up about a half-day later in the ‘ospital. No major damage, except for the first day I kept getting all my words long like this,” he got a goofy look on his face and said “no raisins ma’am, I am totally tabled. No need to raisin about me.” Nicolas laughed with everyone else following. “Man, it feels good to laugh again. Now, can someone get a napkin for me? I need to wipe all this catsup off my hair.”
Sam came out with plastic gloves on and three things in his hand- a brown hair, Runouw’s cell phone and the bat the clumsy criminal had left behind. And a napkin for Nicolas.
“Now, what color hair did Runouw have?” Sam asked.
“Blue as the Ocean in Sydney.” Nicolas replied.
“Guys,” Sam took in a deep breath and stated “Avo Richardson did not kill Rob Stevens.”
“The heck?” Ema replied in shock.
“No, he was working for someone. Someone who works at Intel.”
“Hey, you kids!” came a short, heavyset man in his thirties. “What the heck are you doing?”
“We’re police officers,” Sam replied, as everyone except Nicolas got their badges out. “We’re investigating the death of Rob Stevens. And you are?”
“I’m Brock Lee, his landlord.” Replied Brock Lee, his landlord. “And you twerps have no right to be here on my property!”
“Uh, that’s kinda a police officer right, Mr. Lee.” Ema replied.
“Tell me, do all police officers have no eyebrows?” Lee taunted.
Ema rolled her eyes. She stopped being affected by that ever since she realized it made her eyes look bigger.
Lee started shouting “You all are probably criminal punks who stole some officers’ badges just to get into this place and steal all my stuff!”
“Your stuff?” I shouted. “This all belongs to Stevens’ next of kin, Rick Stevens! This isn’t yours!”
“Are you kidding?” Lee shouted, shoving Mic aside. “He hasn’t paid rent this month! Therefore all this stuff is mine!” He started to walk in and ransack the place.
“He hasn’t paid rent because he’s dead and his brother’s in Japan making that money to pay for rent!” Sam started to raise his hackles.
“Do you think I give a flying crap?” was Lee’s response. Man, that guy has a major set of… guts!
“If you don’t set this stuff down, I will personally have you arrested for tampering with evidence and theft!” Ema stated, with her badge out.
Lee had decided he had had enough. He picked up Runouw’s vintage Fender Stratocaster guitar, lifted it up and slammed it over Ema’s head (a hard feat considering he was a half-foot shorter than her) and ran off. Ema sunk to the ground.
“Oh, that is it!” Sam handed the evidence to me and ran after the man. “You’re in the crap now you fat son of a hamster!”
For a fat son of a hamster, Lee sure could run fast. Sam ran under the Broadway Bridge, which shook unsteadily below them. Lee decided to pull out his shotgun. As fast as he started running, Sam stopped and watched as the man ran across the street. “Crap!” he shouted.
Then an electric streetcar hit him. Lee actually bounced up and ran towards Sam, away from the streetcar. Sam took advantage of this to clothesline him and knock him to the ground. This time, he didn’t bounce up.
“Lee, you know what you’re under arrest for.” Sam said. “In case you need a reminder, it’s for the assault of Ema Felkis, theft and tampering with evidence. Get ready for a long 10 years.”
After lugging an unconscious Lee back to the apartment, Sam glanced at Ema, who was still on the ground. “Oh my Gawd! Ema, you okay? Let me rephrase that- are you alive? Wake up!” I have to admit, I was actually quite worried. DO NOT TELL ANYONE, OKAY? I’m still trying to look cool, like Horatio.
Ema shook her head vigorously to wake herself up completely. “Oh, hey Sam. No need to raisin about me. I’m totally tabled.”
Shocked, Sam muttered an unintelligible yelp that sounded more like a seal playing with a beach ball. I about jumped ten feet in the air.
“No, seriously, I’m okay.” Ema groaned, smiling a little. “And I see you caught the guy. You okay?”
“If you are. Any musical notes playing in your head?” he quipped. Ema shook her head, not in the mood for a laugh.
Sam tried again. “And man, you should have seen the guy! He got hit by a streetcar and bounces up!” he laughed. Even Ema managed a slight chuckle.
“Well, Nicolas,” Sam turned his attention to the guest among them. “You seem to check out. Nevertheless, we’ll still check you on a lie detector before you go. Just to make sure you check out.”
“All well and dandy with me.” Nicolas replied. “It was worth it to watch the show.”
The Aussie and I agree on that one.
(Narration of Sam Eastman)
Nicolas climbed into the back of the Crown Victoria. I decided that due to Ema’s present state, and the fact that today I wanted to make it home without getting lost, I would take the wheel, despite the fact that my hand was still recovering. Ema sat in the passenger seat, my faithful sidekick. Mic groaned, rolling his eyes all the way to the backseat next to Nicolas.
“So, Nicolas.” I asked. “What’s up with this whole Tavern thing? I’m really interested in your idea.”
Nicolas didn’t reply. Great, I just reminded him of all his troubles. I thought to myself. “Nico, you there?”
Nico piped up. “Yep, mate. Ach, don’t mention the tavern right now. I mean, I like hammering nails and speaking in tongues because it doesn’t remind me of the things I held sacred that I dropped.”
I tried not to grin, but I love that song.
Ema turned back and asked him “Can you please tell us as much as you can? We need this for the case, you know how it is.”
Nico turned away from her gaze, which struck her as odd. Not looking at her, he replied “Well, I’ll try. That sound good, mate?”
Ema nodded, holding her aching head and replied “That’s all we can ask, mate.”
I gripped the wheel as Nico started. “Well, you prob’ly know this already, seeing as you are the police and all, and I deduced that when Samuel here came in as Runouw, but Stevens and I were working on replacing the site with a club for Teenagers all over the city. Sorta like the Boys and Girls Club, only different. We had been planning it for a very short time; my departure from the site was when we were going to start. I had drawn out ideas and everything.” Frustrated, he hit the back of the seat. “But that’s all gone now. It died with Stevens, didn’t it?”
Ema laughed, and boy was I getting confused. Before Nico could blurt out a WTE (considering he hardly ever uses an H) she added “That’s crazy. Stevens had nothing to do with that plan, did he? You were the one to draw it out, you were the one with big ideas, he just had the name, am I right?”
“Holla!” Mic shouted out from the backseat.
I stopped the car, turned back at Mic and asked “Okay, what the heck was that?”
He laughed. “Random Moment for the Win.”
Nico burst out in laughter as I started up again. “One of the site’s favorite catchphrases. And, redhead, I do believe you helped me see the light.”
“Testify, brother!” Mic called out, sounding very much like a gospel singer.
“I totally see it now. I just gotta get a few friends together, find a site and voila, Niklaw’s Tavern!”
“Can I get a witness?” Mic shouted as I pulled into a streetlight.
Ema started to giggle and shouted out “HalleluYah!”
I pulled into the streetlight and looked at Ema. How brilliant, I thought. Couldn’t have asked for a better partner. I just sat there, extremely happy.
“Sam?” she asked me, smiling.
“Yes, Ema?” I replied, nearly dazed.
“You know the streetlight is green now, right?”
I jerked my head around to see that it was, indeed, green, and people were honking at me. “Of course I knew.” I said quickly. “Just attending to more important things.”
“Like looking at me?”
“Ah, you know, girl, the simpler things in life.” I replied, rather slickly if I do say so myself, as I drove the Crown Victoria over the Steel Bridge.
We arrived back at the station in no time at all.
I approached Nicolas and told him “Well, can we keep you one more night?”
Nicolas was hesitant. “Uhm, why would you do that?”
“Gotta test you on the lie detector, but other than that, you pass, you go free.” I replied.
“Uhm, I don’t really have a choice, do I?” was his reply. “’Cause I called my mom and told her I was in jail because someone got murdered, and she freaked so much that I thought she was gonna disown me.”
I told him bluntly “I don’t suspect you at all, actually. I just think that if I don’t put you on Lie Detector, Buffy is going to kill me, resurrect me, kill me again, clone me, and then kill all my clones too.”
Nicolas burst out in laughter (thank Yah he was not drinking anything) and said “Well, I can respect multiple killings of the same person. Can I have that comfy cell again?”
“No problem.” I told him. “Give you some sketch paper; see if you can come up with some ideas for your tavern, eh?”
He nodded. “That redheaded girl, she really knows how to inspire. I’m totally inspired right now to get to work.”
“Yep, Ema has that effect on people.” I nodded.
“What effect?” she asked me as she walked over to us.
“Oh, only that of inspiration and bringing people out of tragedy.” I replied with a wink.
She smiled. “Glad you’re getting back on track, Nicky.”
“Whenever I get my ideas together,” he told us, “You’ll be the first to know.”
We nodded and led him to the cell. Now where Mic went, we could only guess. Home, it was; our guess that is. And I could do with a little home time right about now.
“Well, Ema, it’s been fun as ever, but I gotta head out. Rest that wounded head of yours.” I told her.
She laughed at my phrasing and told me “Wait, Sam, can I ask you a favor?”
“Are you kidding?” I replied with a laugh of my own. “You’re Ema Felkis! Of course you can ask me a favor!”
“Follow me,” she told me, leading me down the hallway into the locker room. She got her keys out and unlocked her locker, a place where we kept our stuff during work. I was surprised to see a large vase of flowers in there.
She got them out, placed them in my hands and told me “Can you find a place to plant these? I got nowhere to put them and Buffy’s allergic, so do you want them?”
I laughed. “Ema, I think it’s supposed to be the man giving the woman flowers. Common courtesy.”
She giggled. “Well, I break tradition.”
I smiled, took a daisy out and handed it to her. “Here, now we’re even. Sound good?”
She put the daisy in her hair and smiled. “Definitely. I shall see you tomorrow?”
“Of course!” I replied, leaving a lot happier than I had arrived.


Hasts to post chapter 6 (my continuation of Ridder's) over here!

For the beginning, just go 1 page back!)


Chapter 6… continued from Ridder’s. (In Sam’s Point Of View)
I felt a solid thud from my chair in the recording room. It felt like, hmm, say, 275 pounds hitting the floor. I removed my headphones from the spectacle Mic put in front of my eyes and left the recording room, leaving my notes on the table.
An oddly… amusing, yet… awkward sight laid on the ground, with people just walking on by without even the courtesy to see if they were all right. Yeah, as Ema probably pointed out, Mic had slipped over Ema’s jacket, taking them both out cold, colder than that Arctic room they were previously in. They would probably assault me for this, but I knew what I had to do. Hey, at least I had the decency to move Ema’s jacket out from underneath them before I splashed the bucket of water all over them.
That got them up in a flash.
Ema whirled around like a pirouetting ballerina, fury in her eyes. “What the heck was that, Sam?” she yelled at me. “You… you got water all over my new outfit! And I actually spent more than 50 dollars on that!”
I rolled my eyes and quipped “Would you rather I undress you first?”
That earned me a sharp slap on the face. I decided to wisely turn my attention to Mic. “Hey, Eastwood, good job on that interrogation.”
He grinned. “Really?”
“No,” I replied, splashing the remaining water on his face, washing his grin away. “You ought to write the book on how NOT to use tasers for dummies. That was cruel. I am pretty sure you remember lesson on how to interrogate, and scaring the pee out of someone with a taser is NOT one of them.”
Mic shook his head, partly to show his peed-off-ness (And yes, I coined that) at me, partly to remove the water from his face. “You really suck, man.” He grumbled with him and Ema walking away.
It took me a second to decide what to call after them, but I decided on “Well, go on and interrogate Dan, and miss out on this neat intel I got.”
Ema pulled off another pirouette (and anyone else think she would make a great dancer?) and asked me “What intel?”
“On Fourinone, on the suspects, on Rob’s Girlfriend.” I Replied. “You want to check it out?”
Ema smiled a little bit. Not so cheery since she got hit with the Gibson, so it was nice to provoke a little bit of happy out of her again. “I would love to see what you have.”
Reluctantly, Mic followed. No slight smile on that guy’s face. I may have frozen it off.
Ema stole the swiveling office chair I was using before I got a chance to get in there. But, hey, after sitting in lawn chairs in a freezer, I would too. I got out my notes, sat Indian Style on the ground, and started.
“Fourinone- 18, Asian, Female. Hence the name Fourinone, a respelling of ‘foreign one.’ She lives in the same set of condominiums as Rob Stevens, and you want to guess what her name is? Anyone?”
Ema took a shot at it. “Suki Lee?”
Okay, that totally random guess really, really, REALLY freaked me out. My eyes bugged a little and I spat out in shock “How in the living heck did you guess that?”
“I dunno, I have a friend named that, only she’s 14, a sister of another friend, and… well, I could go on and on.” She replied.
Even weirder than the guess was the coincidence if you ask me. “We-well, another time. Anyway, can you add two plus two? She lives in the same apartments as Rob Stevens and a BROCK LEE!”
Mic yelled “SHE’S BROCK LEE’S DAUGHTER!!!!!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Good job, Mic. Would you like me to get out the case files and you scream all those out as well?”
Mic laughed, not being able to resist that quip.
“Anyway, I’ll get back to that. I did find out something interesting about Suki, Dan, Elwood- they all were apprentices in the TESTING department at Intel. We’ve just hacked off three leads there- the Blablob guy, Nicolas and Brock Lee. We can still charge Brock Lee with beating the living crap out of Ema and all those other things, but Nicolas we can let go after a lie detector test, and Blablob we don’t even have to bring in.”
“Why exactly does it matter that they work at Intel?” Mic asked
“Easy,” Ema started. “When Avo kept breaking Sam’s stuff and mine, he offered to get us new ones at Intel. He wanted us there, but I don’t think he shot Stevens. He’s too nerdy, not very muscular, like Nicolas described. Although if for some wackball reason Nicolas is lying we would pursue him. No, Avo was working with someone from Intel. So our options all boil down to Suki Lee, Dan Zeb-Terra and Elwood Armin.”
“You heard it first from our resident deductress, Mic.” I grinned.
Ema smiled and added “I like that. I’m keeping it. We are just coining phrases left and right toady.”
“So, Mic, I am quickly going to take Nicolas to the lie detector and make sure his story checks out.” I asked. “He’s the link connecting Ema’s idea.”
“Wait a minute…” he paused on his way out and asked. “You said you were gonna tell us who Runouw’s girlfriend. Who is she?”
Here’s what my highlight of the day was. “Here’s a hint- She’s 18, Female, Asian…” I started.
“Absolutely, positively, no freaking way!” Ema and Mic shouted at the same time.
I grinned and replied, “Yep, Rob Stevens was dating his landlord’s daughter.”
Mic, dumbfounded, said “This just keeps getting better and better.”

I got up and left the room, ready to check in on Nicolas. Surprisingly, no one followed me. Not even a “What are you doing, Sammy?” Wow. There’s a first time for everything.
I unlocked the door to Nicolas’ cage (funny wordplay), if by cage you mean “A room nicer than most dormitories-trust me.” He looked up from the sketch pad I had given him and asked “Is it time?”
I nodded. “Just remember to keep a clear head and don’t be nervous.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay, I think I got it.”
I led him down a hallway to a room by the locker room and hooked him up to the lie-detector-thingamajig. I got out a sheet of paper and started reading.
“Do you know Robert Stevens?”
“Yes. Not personally but over the internet, of course.”
“A simple yes or no, Nico. Now, continuing, were you ever in Rob Stevens’ Apartment?”
He laughed. “Yes.”
“Well, no duh, we were just there yesterday. Let me rephrase that. Were you ever in there before yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see the dead body of Rob Stevens?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see who killed him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill Rob Stevens?”
“No.”
“Were you attacked by the killer?”
“Yes”
“Was the killer a male?”
“Uncertain, but he had the build of a male.”
“Have you ever kissed someone else’s girlfriend?”
“Yes… I mean, Goddang you!” He broke out in laughter, and I was rolling on the floor, cracking up. “That will be all!” I said, victorious with my prank.
I grabbed the results. All positive, including the last one. “Well, Nico, you rascal, you’re telling the truth. Pack your stuff, you’re heading home.”
Nico pumped his fist in the air. “Yes! And between you and me, I said no on the last one.”

Narrative of Ema Felkis
INTERROGATION ROOM
SUSPECT: DAN ZEB-TERRA.
As soon as Sam and I walked into the room, Dan Zeb-Terra breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank heavens,” he said. “You left out ‘Don’t Tase Me Bro’ this time.”
Sam chuckled, his usual chuckle, low-pitched and quite devious if you ask me. I raised my eyebrows and said “He’s up in the booth recording everything we are saying, so if I were you, I wouldn’t insult him.” Mentally, I was wiggling back into my cold self, as I try to do for interrogations.
Sam cut to the chase. “Okay, here’s the deal. Out of all the people here, we suspect you the most.”
Dan’s mouth dropped to the table. “What the heck- why the heck- when the heck could I have done that?”
“We’ll get to that,” I put in sternly. Acting cold makes me uncomfortable, especially because I forgot my jacket, not to mention was soaked, but, hey, what am I gonna do? I’m a police officer. “First, we got some questions. Have you ever met Avo Richardson?”
Dan’s expression turned into one of anger and loathing. “That son of a- I can’t stand that guy!” he spat out. Literally. I would be washing my hands later. “He’s the illegitimate guy that burned down the library off Cesar Chavez, isn’t he?”
The guy was trying so hard not to swear in the interrogation room. Did Mic scare him or something?
“Yes, and we hate him as much as you do.” Sam put in.
“I doubt it!” he yelled, really getting out of control. “That… that… evil, maniacal person was always messing with my stuff, always making trouble, always bullying me! And then we got to Intel. Every time I had an idea, he stole it! Every time I had something built, he stole it! And he ends up getting promoted to one of the directors or whatever! He’s basically Rob and Rick Stevens’ right hand man. And all on my work! My parents would have been so proud of me, too!” his voice drifted off. “I live in a ghetto, and I’ve got the whole sob story of ‘none of us had been to college’ and that would have been great to have a reason to be able to go!” he slammed his chair against the wall.
I raised my eyebrows. “Go ahead. We got those at the dollar tree.”
After he was finished decimating the chair, he sat on the table and said “I admit, the last time I saw Rob Stevens, it was on bitter terms. I had told him that Avo had been stealing my ideas, even showing my original blueprints, but his idiotic brother convinces him that he KNOWS Avo is an honest guy, and tells me he doesn’t believe me, and even fires me as a result. Yeah, I was ticked, but if I were to kill anyone, it would be Avo, not Rob. Maybe even Rick.”
Sam raised his eyebrows at me. “And we barely had to do a thing,” he said.
I turned my attention to Dan Zeb-Terra and said “Well, I personally am a bit suspicious, but I’ll send you to a lie detector, and maybe if you pass, you can take the results to Rick Stevens and he can give you your job back.”
“That would be good,” Dan smiled ever-so-weakly, as we let him out of the building and pointed him to the lie detector.
“Well,” I turned to Sam, “Looks like we’ve got everyone knocked out. We interrogated Dan and Elwood, we don’t need to interrogate Nicolas and Brock Lee, and I can’t help but think I’m forgetting someone…”
“Avo Richardson?” Sam replied. “We gotta find out who he’s working for, remember?”
“Oh, yeah!” I grinned. “This ought to be interesting. Ready to get our helmets on, considering our heads has made favorable targets lately?”
Sam laughed and blurted out “We ought to hang out sometime.”
Now, if I had eyebrows, I would raise them.
He saw my expression and put n “The three of us. The four once Buffy’s up to it. We could barbecue, have a picnic, anything. I don’t like just knowing you guys as co-workers. You’re the family I have here, and I think we ought to… well… you get the point.”
I smiled, embarrassed for him (or was it me?) and said “Yeah. Yeah, I would like that.”
Sam smiled and without another word, walked to Avo’s cell, led him to the interrogation room, and sat down.
He made it a point to wave at him with his injured hand. “Okay, here’s the deal. I got a friend in OHSU with her leg torn off, and I have Styrofoam packed into my hand and Mic has a taser addiction because of you, not to mention we’ve lost one of our libraries, 100,000 books at least, 30 computers, and at least 3 known lives” (Funny, he hadn’t mentioned this) “So right now you are looking at the death penalty. You tell me who is evil enough to have you do all of this, you may live past this year in a prison cell. SO START TALKING.” He punctuated the last three words by banging on the table with every syllable, of course with his injured hand.
Avo told him to go to the less favorable place known to the afterlife.
“You first.” Was the reply, straight from The Closer.
I stepped in, feeling the tension like static electricity. “Listen, Avo. Right now your family owes Portland $10,000,000 for the building costs of the library you destroyed. You tell us who did this and I’ll have the city of Portland pick up the tab.”
Sam whispered into my ear “You can do that?”
“I dunno!” I replied.
“Look, do you want to know who I’m working for?” Avo yelled. “Well, so would I! I never met the person who planned all this; all I know is that he worked at Intel- or her! All he or she did was calling me with one of those Darth Vader Voice Changers on.”
“Yeah, can you believe they sell those at Wal-Mart?” I replied.
“Look, the only reason I did this is because THEY HAVE MY SISTER!” he pulled the fist-on-the-table trick Sam had done. “Whoever they are, they have my sister! If they even find out that I’m here, she’s dead!”
I don’t know who the heck writes this stuff, but sometimes I think he overdoes it on the twists.
Like the next thing that happened. A Japanese teenager was banging on the door. Hard. I figured it was a co-worker, so I told her “Come in!”
I had no clue that bombs could be made that big! Seriously, I saw when she threw it; it was the size of my head!
Wisely, Mic had already taken off. Sam pulled my arm and yelled “RUN!!!”
We were halfway to the exit when the bomb went off and Penumbra Kelly Juvenile Hall was destroyed, trapping us inside.
The bomber ran off above us, who knows how she survived! And this deductress had only one Idea who this person could be.
Suki Lee.
Fourinone.

Chapter 7

(Narration of Mic Davis)
I was almost out of Penumbra Kelly when it fell down. How could one bomb take down a whole building? It was just impossible. But at the moment I had more important things to worry about. Like getting out from underneath all this wreckage.
I realized that the bomb shelter in the interrogation room was probably a good idea, except our bomber could have used it to get out. She probably did, why didn’t Sam and Ema think of that? Wait… seriously, maybe I should think of getting out from this pile of Pen Kelly.
Furiously, I started pushing things out of the way, broken glass, broken wood, broken bricks, let’s just say a lot of broken stuff. With lots of different names. Luckily, I wasn’t that far off from the outside world, it only took a little bit of pushing and stuff to get out.
But Sam and Ema were still in.
The nearest hospital was a short drive away, about five blocks north. But my legs were hurt, a little; mind you, but enough to keep me from running. I swerved around and saw that Nico and the suspects were huddled by the Cherry Blossom tree, petrified like, well, wood.
Nico was the first to speak. “What the bloody heck happened?”
“What does it look like?” I yelled at him. “The mother freaking building blew up! And we still have people in there! It’s a ‘bloody’ miracle you guys made it out!”
Elwood looked at me. “Who was that who had the bomb?”
“Shoot if I know!” I told him. “But Sam and Ema are still in there!”
Dan looked at me and said. “They’re about the same age. They can entertain themselves.”
I gave him a disgusted look and punched him in the face. “You son of a- they could be dead! There’s a hospital up the road at Glisan. I can’t drive, Elwood can’t drive, so one of you get your cars and let’s get a helicopter, quick!
Nico raised his hand. “I’ve a Scion out back. We can use that.”
I ran over to the car, easy to spot as it seemed to have been tricked out a bit. I got in the passenger seat and waited for Nicolas and the others to follow at a painfully slow rate. “What the heck are you waiting for?”
“After me, there shall be no more!” Nico followed.
I gave him an incredulous look.
“So, uhm, for one last time… make… some… ah, screw it.” He said as we started the engine and pulled out onto 47th avenue over to Providence hospital. With an insane Australian behind the wheel, we got there in under a minute, although nearly crashed a couple of times.
“We’ve made it” Nico announced.
“Surprisingly, alive.” I replied.
Elwood looked at me and asked sincerely “Do you have any more extra pants with you?”

(In Sam’s point of view)
Okay, so obviously we didn’t die. Otherwise we wouldn’t be speaking to you at the moment. But my legs HURT! Like they had been torn into by some shrapnel! Closer inspection proved that, yes, they had been torn into by some shrapnel; I just couldn’t think of a simile… or is it metaphor? Man, I’m sounding like Buffy.
Ema could actually stay conscious this time, but if she slips over a jacket, then there is no way, which is really ironic when you think about it. She groaned, leaned over and muttered “Did we die?”
“Yeah, ‘cause we all know that heaven is supposed to look like a big explosion happened, geez, Ema, what do you think?” I was hurting and in no mood for jokes.
So, obviously, we survived. We were in the lobby, with all the exits blocked by 15-feet tall piles of wreckage, with absolutely no roof above us. The wall of wreckage, yep, that was the entire Pen. Kelly building blown into quite organized piles. The lobby really wasn’t, it everything was scattered around, with no original signs of its original shape except the bench. The sky shone blue above us with an oddly shaped cloud, which looked just like a dinosaur skull. It all seemed so post-apocalyptic world.
Ema looked at my leg and grimaced. “My GAWD, That is bad! You nearly ended up like Buffy!”
Cue the shiver down my spine. “Like, what’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not off or anything, it’s just really, really bloody.” Ema grimaced again, removing a piece of shrapnel. I cried aloud in pain and bit my tongue to ward off a looming obscenity.
“Sorry, sorry.” She replied. “Yeah, we gotta get you patched up. What the heck with, I dunno. This place is blown to bits!”
“How are people gonna get in?” I asked.
“Helicopter, silly.” She replied, awfully bright for someone who was trapped in an explosion aftermath, pulling more shrapnel out of my leg.
I winced and said “I hope Mic got out okay.”
“I saw him,” Ema answered that burning question. “He saw a Japanese girl with a bomb and I think he yelled “Hiroshima’s Revenge” and ran out as fast as he could.”
“And the suspects,” I asked, overly inquisitive, while Ema pulled out two pieces of shrapnel at once. I yelled. LOUD.
For the first time I remember, and the last, Ema spat out something I shan’t repeat. “The suspects!” she added. “Dang it, I don’t know. The Lie Detector Room was a ways away from the interrogation room, but as we can see, all that’s left is the lobby. Maybe they got out, but I can tell you this, Avo is definitely some of the wreckage. He might even be stuck in your leg.”
“Another comforting thought,” I sighed.
“I just don’t get it. We may have never discovered Suki was the killer if she hadn’t blown up the building.” Ema paced back and forth, which was fine with me, as long as there was no shrapnel picking. “It had to be Suki, I mean, Mic made that Japanese reference, and no other Japanese females are connected to our case as far as I know, but we never would have known Avo was behind it if he hadn’t blown up the library, it makes me wonder…”
“Is Suki somehow being blackmailed to blow up places for the real killer?” I completed.
“Yes! Exactly!” she jumped in the air, fist raised. “The killer must be some kind of suicide bomber, only without the suicide.”
“So, if you’re right, we’re dealing with an actual terrorist.” I said, with chills running marathons up and down my spine.
“Think, Sam,” She knelt back down, picking the last piece of shrapnel out of my leg. This one, however, was actually in my bone, and she jerked it out as fast as she could. I shouted loudly in horrific pain, looking at the foot-long piece of wood that had punctured my leg in equal horror and disgust.
“Ooh, that had to hurt,” she said sympathetically.
“Ya think?” I grimaced, fighting off tears.
“But think of all the biggest places that more than one of us have been, Sam.” She started again, wrapping her jacket tightly around my leg. “We were all at Belmont Library, we were all at Penumbra Kelly, and I can’t think of anywhere else.” She pounded the floor hard in frustration.
“The Oregon Health and Science University Hospital!” I shouted. “I was at OHSU getting surgery done, Buffy’s at OHSU rehabilitating, and I’m going to have to go back to have my leg fixed! And when we do, the mystery person will have a new bomber at his disposal!” Man, I wish I had a computer.
“Well, I don’t think there’s any way to figure out who this guy is at the moment.” Ema replied, taking a seat on the bench next to me. “So, want to just talk?”
“Sure, I guess.” I moved my leg out of the way. “What about?”
“Are you conversationally impaired, Sam?” Ema joked. “Anything! Our hopes for the future, our friends, our family, well, anything!”
“I’ll take family for $200, Ema.” I replied. “You first.” You see, it had been awhile since I really had a friend like I had Ema and Mic, and it was odd starting over again.
“No, you go first.” She smiled. I couldn’t argue with that.
“Well, what can I say?” I started awkwardly. “I got a mom, a dad and a fourteen year-old sister named Dania.”
“What does your dad do for a living?” Ema asked. “Or your mom?”
“My dad is a world-traveling artist.” I continued, less awkward. “I don’t know where he, mom and Dania are, we lost touch awhile ago.”
“Why did that happen?” Ema, my newfound counselor asked.
I sighed. “They said they were getting a new cell phone number, and would call me when they got it.” I sighed again, bitterly adding “They never did. That was six months ago.”
“You’re scared.” She noted.
“Not so much as confused.” I was really pouring my heart out now. “Why would they just stop communicating with their son? I mean, I’ve tried everything, http://www.411.com, The Artist Community all around the world, nothing. It really, really scares me.” For the second time today, I fought to hold back tears.
Ema squeezed my hand supportively and said “I’ll go next. I have a mom and two sisters.”
“Just a mom, eh?” I noted. “What happened to dad?”
Ema sighed and said “I hoped you wouldn’t ask that.”
“Okay, then, I won’t.”
“No, you’re supposed to!”
“But you just said you didn’t want me to!”
“But we’re supposed to be letting go of this stuff!”
“But- you just- I don’t get it!”
Ema laughed and said “You are gonna be a real wreck in the dating world.”
I had to laugh at that. Sighing and taking in this conversation, I asked a different question. “Why did you ever leave Wyoming? I know if I lived in Utopia, Wyoming or wherever you came from, I wouldn’t leave.”
“Hey,” she replied. “I’m just a small town girl, living in a lonely world.”
I started singing, rather off-key “Who took the midnight train going aaaa-nyyyy-wherrrrre.”
“That’s some good Journey right there.” Ema laughed.
Suddenly my face lit up. “I got it!” I said.
“Got what?” Ema asked.
“Not what, who. Who killed Rob Stevens and hired Avo and Suki.” I grinned.
She didn’t, rather disappointed that the conversation was over. “Well, that was random. Who was it?”
“YOU TWO!” a bellowing teenaged voice through a megaphone shouted from the sky. “THIS IS THE PORTLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT! BEFORE WE LIFT YOU UP, DO YOU NEED MEDICAL HELP?”
“Yes!” Ema shouted. “His leg is bleeding!”
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE! WE WILL SEND A STRETCHER AND TRANSPORT YOU TO PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL.” The voice called, referring to a large hospital 5 blocks to our north. I looked up and saw Mic, Nicolas, Dan, Elwood and Mark Ten. I grinned helplessly.
Well, what is there to say? They lifted me up, I arrived at the hospital, and then I woke up from the anesthesia. Nicolas, Mic and Ema were waiting for me when I got up. And I knew who killed Runouw.

[Buff_]

Interesting, interesting...

[spookyghost]

Yes... Very interesting...

[zebtrestalala]

Wait, so technically I could write my own Chapter 6, is that what Ridder is saying?

This could be interesting.

EDIT: CRAP. Ninja'd

EDIT: But I did it anyway.

My name is Dan Zeb-terra. Yeah, I know, strange last name, right? Last thing I remember my dad trying to explain was that by a strange twist of fate, he ended up with his 1/8 Pacific Islander heritage affecting our last name or something. I blame fate. It’s always out to get me, it seems.

So anyway, a little case in point today. I was brought in for some questioning in the matter of the late Rob Stevens, a very high up guy in the company that I had been interning at, Intel.

And this is where I just don’t get it. Apparently what they had against me was that I had been having a flame war with another member of the online community that Stevens maintained, LrMaster, and therefore I was suspect? Okay, okay, I was a little angry for how I had been treated in the company, but that (mostly) wasn’t Rob Stevens’ fault.

I had been almost brought to tears in that interrogation, having to describe what had happened just because some son of a b- er, gun. Sorry, forgot I was trying to keep this PG in case anyone on that forum reads this. Avo Richardson, also known on Stevens’ forum as Avolerators. I still think that my screename, zebtrestalala, topped his in randomness and nonsense, but he made up for it in every other way.

You see, Avo Richardson had been stealing my ideas and hard work from the second I walked into Intel. It just didn’t seem fair. I considered myself a very intelligent guy, and even though my family wasn’t the richest, I knew I had what it took to be on top. I was looking for that spot in the job, that nice promotion, but at every step of the way, Avo stood. And what do you know, based on my innovative looks on the matters, or my unique twists on a design, Avo managed to rise up to right hand man to Rob and his brother, Rick Stevens.

So a few weeks ago, I finally had had enough. There was no way that I was going to let Richardson take another one of my ideas without even crediting it. I marched up to Rob Stevens and told him everything I could think of. I almost found myself screaming at some points. But no, Mr. Rick Stevens just said that Avo was a very nice, trustworthy man, and he would never even think of stealing an idea. So, he accused me of trying to falsely accuse Avo, and he excused me from my intern position.

And then, a few weeks later, LrMaster starts talking about jobs and “Avolerators” in the same chat log, and I may have gone a little off the hook. But I swear, I would have never killed Rob Stevens, Runouw, whatever you want to call him by. That man was important to that company, and even to that little forum he ran. I’m sure it would break the hearts of 3,000 teenagers to have that man killed. I know that it deeply affected me, but I’m not going to let this ruin my life. I’m going to get my job back and be the best intern that ever walked into that company. Avo Richardson can get his own ideas, for once. And if that guy killed Rob Stevens…oh man, he’s got another thing coming.

But first, I have to find out who the heck threw a bomb at us today.

[MICrophone]

Wow! Finally caught up on this! This is great! The story is awesome! Your writing isn't bad, although sometimes I'm not sure who's talking and your flow needs work. Perhaps add some more description of setting instead of near constant dialogue like what you currently have would break things up and make the reading easier. But wow, great story! I definitely need to contribute to this like Ridder did…

And zeb, I think that Ridder's/MOY's is the official one; anybody could've written Chapter 6 before MOY chose the one he liked but he already chose Ridder's. Sorry.

[MessengerOfDreams]

Thanks!

Chapters 7/8 are out!

Plus check for the alternate ending contest!

[MICrophone]

All right…anticipation is building. Still great! But I warn you…do not screw up the ending, cause that will ruin the whole story.

[Buff_]

I have to be honest, I'm not gripped to this story. I get bored of it quickly, but it is a good story nonetheless. Can I suggest that you space out your writing more?

[MessengerOfDreams]

Chapter 8
(Narration of Mic Davis)

Ema squealed when she saw Sam open his eyes. I grinned and told him “Good morning, Sammy. Or should I say good evening. You look awfully well for someone who just had their leg cut off.”
Sam shouted “Oh my god!” and threw off the covers to see that, yes, he still had his leg. I just couldn’t help put pull a fast one on him to really wake him up. Ema and Nicolas laughed, and, although reluctant, Sam put in a chuckle or two as well.
“Apparently I didn’t splash you hard enough.” He quipped. The guy really can quip, I’ll give him that.
“’Ello, mate!” Nicolas greeted in that unmistakable Aussie Accent. “When you’re all rested, I gots something to tell you. Something that’s related to the Runouw case.”
Sam really is dedicated to solving this case. He got up and walked into a chair, bad leg and all, and said “Let’s talk.”
Ema sighed. I’m starting to get the vibe that she thinks he’s thinking too seriously about what Niklaw’s thinking. But that’s just what I’m thinking.
Nicolas, impressed, sat on the other side of the table and pulled out a file. Ema left the room for reasons I shall never know, hands up in the air. And ridiculously, Sam didn’t even get up and follow her. He shook his head and said “Let’s get this over with. I always get that tense feeling when someone is really, really mad at me.”
Nicolas raised his eyebrows but let the subject go. He pulled out a paper with a http://www.runouw.com Private Message. “Y’see,” he started, “I’d forgotten to shut down my Runouw.com account because I was busy coping with the death of one of my friends. Then I decide to check out the website to get some grief consolation. Runouw was like big brother, y’know?”
Being a big brother, Sam did know. He nodded ad added “Go on.”
“Well, after a little while, I decided to check my PMs. I found out I got one from Fourinone. A shock, it was, to see what it had said. Well, you read.” Nicolas handed him the first paper. It read

Niklaw, it’s me, Fourinone. You’re the only one I can trust.
You may know how Avolerators blew up the Belmont Library in SE Portland. He was forced to do it because someone had his sister. I got a phone call from a restricted number telling me they had my big brother. They even let him speak! I was forced to plant a bomb in a police station. Avolerators is dead because of me. There may be more! I need you to tell me if anyone else was killed. I just can’t live not knowing. Bring this note to police and delete this message. And find out who did this, because I know if you do not by tomorrow, they will kill me.
For what could be the last time,
Suki Lee

“Then I got a voicemail it being as I never answer to restricted numbers. Telemarketers usually trying to get me to buy some insurance for a mythical car. I’ll play this for you as well.”
He turned on his voicemail and it played out loud.

Nicolas Locke, you have been recruited as part of my special bomb squad, it said in a gravelly voice. A special bomb squad that does not look for bombs, but sets them off. We know about your contact with our Suki Lee, and if you do not blow up the Oregon Health and Science University, you and Ms. Lee will be terminated, as well as Ms. Lee’s older brother. Destroy this message or your phone will self-destruct in a day-
“Oh, crap, it’s been a day!” Nicolas shouted as his phone caught fire. He watched helplessly as his phone fell into almost a hundred different pieces, although no other harm was done since Sam had a fire extinguisher in his room.
“I dunno what upsets me more- the fact that we lost the message, or the fact that that was a really, really expensive Smartphone.” Nicolas quipped, downhearted.
Sam held up his recorder. Nicolas grinned. “That sucker’s going down.” Sam grinned himself, big too. Then he abruptly departed, barely noticing his hurt leg. He called back “How many people are in Runouw’s account?”
“Two!” Nicolas called back as Sam abruptly left.
“The ‘eck was that?” Nicolas Locke asked.
I grinned. “He must have just been so excited he forgot he was injured.”

(Narration of Ema)

I was in the dining hall, really worried. I mean, I get the guy to pour out his heart, and he just goes right back to his uber-seriousness like that! I really wish he would lighten up and fulfill his commitment to be friends instead of obsessing over this case… ah, listen to me go on with my girl-speak. Yeah, I know lives are at stake. But look at me! I’m still normal… harried, yes, but normal!
Sam drags himself out into the cafeteria, finding me like he had some kind of Ema sensor on that badge he kept with him ALL THE TIME. I expected him to excitedly blurt out some details of the case but instead he said “You know, you had me really worried when you left like that. You okay?”
I decided to deter the situation before we got into some sort of argument. I HATE arguing. “Oh, don’t worry. I was just… hungry!”
Sam was smarter than that. “That doesn’t explain why your hands were in the air like that.” He said, imitating my gesture quite well.
Dang. He had me. And if I were to say anything about Yoga, I would be insulting his intelligence. What else could I do but spill the beans. Not about him, about me.
“Ijustdon’tthinkiwouldbeagoodpoliceofficer.”I blurted out very, very unintelligibly.
“Whoa, okay. Slow down. Say that one word at a time.” Sam tried to look serious, but I could see a smile on his face forming.
“I. Just. Don’t. Think. I. Would. Be. A. Good. Police. Officer. Do. You. Understand. Me?”
Sam’s smile seemed to fall off like it was weakly taped on in the first place.
“What on earth could you have taken to make you think that?” Sam replied, stunned. “Did they give you pain pills or something? They gotta be going to your head! I mean, that’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
“I…” I blurted out, not sure what to follow that statement he had just issued. “I just, you know, don’t think I’m emotionally mature enough for the job. I mean, some nights it just has me so beat down, I just cry into my pillow. It’s really miserable. I feel like, you know, I’m not serious enough, like you.”
That last sentence seemed to amuse him. “I’m serious? That’s a laugh. I’m just like you; some days just have me emotionally torn. But, trust me, the reward is the job. You will never have as much of an impact on people’s lives as you will as who you are.”
He took in a breath and said “And we wouldn’t be a team without you, Ema. You’re like the cheese holding together the bread of our team… I mean, you’re like the marshmallow who keeps our smores… Ugh, forget it; I’m too hungry to think up metaphors or similes. What I am trying to say is, I know I wouldn’t be emotionally stable with my job without you. And Mic, too, but a lot of you. Well, it’s 50-50, well, 33-33-33 if you count Buffy, but… I should shut up now.”
I couldn’t help but grin. Sam sure knows how to word things to make everything seem that much better. I hugged him and whispered “This doesn’t repeat, but you’re like the brother I never had, only you don’t tease me and stuff.”
“You just made my day.” Sam grinned.
“Now,” I said, back on track, “What did Nicolas say?”
“Suki was put up to it for the same reason Avo was, and she’s got a day to live.” Sam replied, back in the zone, which I didn’t mind nearly as much now. “Whoever is behind this- and I’ve got a fair guess too- tried to hire Nicolas over the phone. Notice a trend?”
I jumped into the zone, too. “Moderators!” I hissed, excited. “Everyone who was a moderator on that site was forced to blow some place up, and one actually got fired from the website to throw us off! But there’s one extra moderator…”
“Superyoshi!” Sam replied. “He’s next! We gotta warn the guy.” Sam snatched my cell phone (without asking- the nerve!) and started doing his hacking-techno stuff like he always does. He found Superyoshi’s info, his name was Pete Jacob-Elis, and he owned the Sunny Yoga studios that was all-to-coincidentally located in the Providence Hospital complex WE WERE IN!
“Quick!” Sam shouted, running like he didn’t have an injured leg. I followed as fast as I could.
Eventually, we arrived at Sunny Yoga, and found that no one was there. There were signs of a struggle. “They already got Jacob-Elis!” Sam spat.
“What should we do?” I asked like a faithful sidekick.
“Get the others, we’re going to OHSU.”
“Today?” I asked, surprised. “He surely wouldn’t attack it today. Besides, you need to rest. In case you haven’t forgotten, your leg is beat up.”
Sam ran to the computer and started hacking. About 3 minutes later, he said, excited “They’re gonna do it, tomorrow at three!”
“I will never understand how you do that,” I admitted.
He stood up and faced me. “This is almost over,” he grinned, with an odd mixture of anxiety, happiness and exhaustion. “So much has happened because of this, and it’s almost over. God, Ema, I’m exhausted.”
I grinned. “Just wait until we get the real job, rookie.”

(Narration of Nicolas Locke)

I got into my car, and just started driving. I had no clue what to do. Suki Lee was in trouble, and I had no idea what to do. Sure, I only knew her over the internet, and to be honest, I didn’t even know she was a “She” but I felt for her. Avo was already dead, and I wasn’t gonna let this happen to Suki.

But where could she be?

I thought of all the places that the crew had been, a library, their police station, and who knows where they would be going next? I heard Mic say something about a bomb shelter when Sam and Ema were gone, but how could I possibly get in there?

Ah, screw it, mate. I have to do it.

I parked at the building formerly known as Pen Kelly, but can now be called “OH HOLY CRAP WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO THAT BUILDING?” I took a deep breath and started climbing the debris. About three feet up, I fell, nearly on a sharp piece of wood. That would have sucked, but fortunately, I did not, and was able to start climbing again. This time I made it to the top of the pile.

But all that was there was the main lobby. The Interrogation room was… Goddang it… under the rubble. I groaned. This Suki had better be telling the truth. And she had better be a pleasant person, as well.

I just started throwing things out of the way, wood, bricks and glass and all that. About 15 minutes later, I was about to give up, when I saw a metal hatch in the ground. Not knowing what the heck I was getting myself into, I opened it and climbed in.

I gulped. I went to open it back up and go back home, but when I tried, I found that debris already covered it again and was now falling on me. I hurriedly closed it and looked around me. Talk about a shocking sight.

This was no bomb shelter. This is a tunnel.

Lanterns surrounded each side of this metal pathway. What was this? I honestly had no clue, and didn’t really care. Since I was in this entire pile of BS trying to find Suki Lee, I had better find her. Hopefully she was pretty, kind and grateful.

I looked down the way, and started off faster than a lightning bolt. I didn’t stop until I got to a fork in the tunnel. Was there even a map or anything?

I looked down and saw a keychain on the ground at the right side. I lifted it up and looked at a picture on it. I looked and had no doubt in my mind that was Suki. She had always bragged over the internet about her being Asian, and this woman on the keychain, sitting next to a man a couple years older than her (who I presumed to be her brother because I am cautiously optimistic) was no exception. And she was pretty, as well, with shoulder-length orange hair and a dazzling smile and… that would be a tangent, mates. Don’t make me square it. I put it in my pocket and started off again in the right (get it) direction.

I ran even faster, knowing that I was running out of time. I ran faster, faster, even faster, until I was sure my heart was going to pop. Then, I ran into a wall. Going at my speed, it took me out cold.

I woke up in a dim-lighted room tied to a chair. I could only presume two things- one, I was being held captive by the bas-cals (a term I created to avoid ticking off Sam) behind this entire BS, and two, I had gotten my Aussie self in some deep doggie doo-doo.

I started wiggling around in my chair, shouting a few obscenities. I couldn’t quite get loose, and they hadn’t bothered taping my mouth shut, because we were a ways below ground.

Suddenly, a female voice spoke up. I swerved around, chair and all; to see that there was someone else in the room with me. And to no one’s surprise, it was Suki Lee.

“Don’t bother.” She told me. “I’ve been trying it for hours.”

I looked at her. “Suki Lee, I presume.”

She replied. “That would be correct. And you?”

I squirmed around, a bit uncomfortable. “I was going to be the man who saved you.”

She scoffed. “Well, that worked out well, didn’t it? So you’re the police that Niklaw sent for?”

I squirmed again. “Uh…”

She gasped. “You idiot! You are Niklaw, aren’t you?”

I turned away from her emerald eyes, laced with viper venom. Partially because they were so Goddang beautiful, partly because I was afraid I would be turned to stone.

She hit her head back on the chair. “Why the he-“

“Let me tell you why the he-. Your little explosion, however forced it may be, has put a police officer in the hospital. They’re trying to stop this entire BS, so there was no one left, so-”

“They sent you?”

“No, I sent me.”

Suki fell quiet and looked away from me.

I didn’t look away from her. “Suki, you’ve been trying to escape for hours, right?”

She nodded, scooting her chair over so she could see me better. “I’ve done everything. I’ve tried clawing at it, reaching for the knot, squirming out of it, nothing works.”

“Because there is only one teenager here. With two, it could happen, not to mention a bunch of awkward moments that no one else will ever hear of, or humiliation will be imminent.”

She sighed, and chuckled a little bit. “Okay, okay. I’ll try reaching for your knot on the back of the chair.” She moved her chair around a little bit, and then started clumsily untying me from my chair. “Voila!” she said happily as I got up from the chair, ropes falling to the ground.

“Halleluyah, my chains are gone, I’ve been set free!” I cheered.

“That’s great. Now do me.” She told me.

I gave her an incredulous look as she realized her incorrect phrasing and giggled a bit. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, untie me.”

I chuckled a bit and started untying her knot from the chair. See, I know how to phrase. Alas, when she was untied she fell out of the chair and onto me.

“Uhm that would be one of those awkward moments, Suki.” I told her as she got up off of me.

She sighed and started to go to the door when she heard footsteps approaching. “Footsteps!” she gasped. “What do we do?”

Cue the light bulb above my head. “Okay, Suki, how many cop shows have you seen?”

***********************************************************************************

The guards barged down the door, to find that I had been untied, and that Suki Lee was gone.

“Where is she?” They asked me.

“Wow, wow, gentleman, so impolite,” I started nervously. “Not even going to stop by for a cup of tea?”

“You had better tell us where she is, or you’re gonna die here and now!”

“Gone.” I told them. “She’s running into the sunset, free as a bird.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, let me handle this.” A teenaged yet sinister voice said out loud. The guards parted way for a hooded figure. He was probably Central American; he had hair about the same length of Suki’s, and was up to no good, I had a feeling, as much as the Black Eyed Peas did of tonight being a good night.

“Hello, Niklaw.” He told me. I gasped as he continued. “Yes, I know your username. You used to be the strictest mod on Runouw.com, well, except Superyoshi of course. But it doesn’t matter now because you are going to die.”

“At the bas-jerky hands of…” I asked him.

“Jacob Blaine.” He told me. “But you may call me Blablob.”

I gasped again. “Why you sick twisted son of a-“

“Ah ah ah.” He told me. “You shouldn’t talk to your better that way.”

“What do I have to lose?” I spat at him. “You did this just to become a moderator?”
“No, because I wanted to bring the site down. But don’t worry, I’m not behind this. And the sad part is that you’ll never find out who is.” He started walking away. “All right boys, fire.”

“Now!” I yelled as I threw Suki, who was clutching to my back, on top of the guards. They both fell to the ground. I took her hand and we started running.

Finally, we reached an exit, popping out inside Robertson Tunnel, the world’s deepest Tunnel, where the MAX train ran. We ran across the tracks and stood on the platform. I had gone a total of 6 miles, all underground.

“I have so many questions.” I told her, hand holding hers still. “But you’re alive. I was so scared-“

She put a finger on my lips. “Does it really matter to us anymore? We’re free. We’re a train ride away from home. We call the police and we can free my brother. It’s all gonna get better in time.”

“I was gonna say, I was so scared I was going to lose you before I met you.” I told her, inching closer. And we all know where that leads.

Cue romantic kissing scene hundreds of feet below ground, mission accomplished.


Chapter 15-Saving America, Part One
(Buffy Clark Narrates, for once)
The next day, at two-thirty, I sat up in my hospital bed at OHSU when I saw Sam rush in. Life hadn’t been exactly easy on me lately, no duh. I had recently been blown up, and started physical therapy yesterday. And, in my humble opinion, I would rather be blown up every day instead. The weird thing was that when Sam came in, he was in a wheelchair. I swear to god, I nearly had an aneurysm.
“Buffy!” He shouted, and to my relief, he got up out of the wheelchair and hobbled over to me. “We almost solved the case!”
“Did you, now!” I grinned with a sigh, beat from the last week. “Who did it?”
“That doesn’t matter,” he replied, his face dropping like an anvil from the Wells Fargo Tower. “I got some bad news. Penumbra Kelly was blown up.”
I shouted a loud obscenity, not really giving a crap who heard. “No!!” she was shocked.
He nodded grimly. “I got a few injuries in my leg, but the bad thing is that Avo Richards was killed in the explosion.”
“Pardon me for not caring,” I quipped, not exactly ready to cry.
“You don’t understand.” Sam replied. “When breaking our things and trying to lure us to Intel wasn’t fast or destructive enough, Avo Richards was forced into it. His sister was being held hostage by our mastermind. He was supposed to get away, killing us, too. But he failed on both accounts, so the mastermind sent another person with this woman’s sister being held hostage to blow up Pen. Kelly, blowing up a potential witness and us, too. Luckily, she only got the witness. She was on Runouw’s website as a moderator, but this morning, her sister reported her missing to the downtown building across from city Hall. I have a feeling the next bomber is going to be Pete Jacob-Elis, who was a moderator on that site, too. In fact, our original suspect, Nicolas Locke, was a big help. He came to show us the crime scene and we caught a thief, plus he told us that someone tried to force him to be a bomber, but he has no nearby family for them to capture, so he told them to go to the other place. And are you ready for the mastermind?”
“You bet I am. I lost a leg to know that.” I reminded him, almost incredulous that I’d have to.
“It’s Rick Stevens.” He replied.
My jaw dropped about three inches. “He wasn’t even a suspect!”
“He owned the site with Rob,” he continued. “He knew how to learn about the Moderators, who run the site with the Stevens’. He would use that knowledge against them, and have them destroy public buildings. Remember the Jantzen Beach fire?”
“The big fire that nearly destroyed the Interstate Bridge? Yeah, I remember.” How could I forget, we were there.
“That was an old mod, Crazy Jack.”
“Stevens was behind that. With that shut down, businesses across the river, like Kyocera Phones would fail. His brother secretly found out, but was scared to say anything. But when Rick found out that he found out, he pretended to leave on vacation, but came back and killed his own brother. I called Air Japan; they never got any money from Rick Stevens.”
“It’s all coming together…” I was too astounded to say anything more.
“And then the rest happened, which is the real Runouw.com connection. But what Rick was doing was… well, I should explain that Rick Stevens was due for a promotion to chairman of Intel, as he was good friends with the current one. So he decided to blow away the competition, pun definitely intended. And guess where he was going next?”
I shook my head as if to say “Don’t Know.”
“OHSU.”
I felt my jaw drop again. “You’re freaking kidding me!”
“It gets better. OHSU is the biggest money-maker in the entire state, along with Nike and Intel. Nike would be next, then the Wells Fargo Bank Building, then Bancorp, and every other big competitor in the city. He would be the biggest thing in a metro area of two million people. He would own the city.”
“It’d be like 9-11 all over again!” I gasped, stunned.
“You gotta get out of here. We’ll hold the killer off.” Sam told her.
“You are kidding, right? I’m staying with you!”
“You’re hurt!”
“That doesn’t matter! We’re a team. And Do I have to remind you about my leg?”
Sam stopped. “Point taken.” He said. “C’mon, we gotta get everyone out.”
I climbed into a wheelchair and Sam ran as fast as he could, to meet up with Mic and Ema on the Aerial Tram Deck. We passed a sign reading “Rick Stevens from Intel will let you test Intel’s newest!” I scowled, disgusted that people were finding him a nice guy.
Suddenly a doctor ran into my wheelchair outside on a patio 100 feet above ground, overlooking Portland’s skyline, knocking out my cell phone from the holder on the wheelchair and over the ledge. The doctor started to stammer an apology, but Sam’s eyes widened.
“You,” he stammered, backing away. I took his cue and wheeled backward a little. He signaled Ema by whistling “Don’t Stop Believing,” which I could only deduce to be their signal.
Suddenly, the doctor took off his gown to reveal that he had a switch taped onto his chest. Oh Sh-crap. “Nobody moves!” he yelled. “There’s a bomb in the basement! I flip this switch and it’s over for all of us!”
“Pete Jacob-Elis,” Ema started, “You are under arrest for attempted murder and destruction of property.
What the heck was she thinking? I thought. She’s really gonna kill us all!
“I swear, don’tcha put those handcuffs on me, or we’re all dead!” Pete shouted. People crowded onto the aerial tram, trying to get away. No one charged them.
Ema grinned. Grinning?! I thought, dumbfounded. WHO GRINS WHEN SOMEONE THREATENS TO BLOW UP A BUILDING?!
“Go ahead, Pete.” Ema smirked. “Press it.”
Oh my god, I thought in despair. It can’t be Ema!
(Narration of Sam Eastman)
What Pete did next would both shock and relieve all of us. Pete took the switch, and stepped on it. Nothing happened.
“That’s right Pete.” Ema said. “It’s fake. Don’t worry, we’ll get you on the tram and it’ll all be over soon.” Pete dropped to his knees and broke down in tears, traumatized, but managed to stagger into the tram.
Mic, awestruck, said “Thatwassoamazing!”
I grinned and high-fived her. “Way to go, Ema.”
Buffy was unbelievably happy, blurting out “I am SO proud of all of you. Now, if we hurry, we can get Rick before whoever is behind this detonates.”
“I’m going to assume Rick has the switch.” Ema suggested. “And also assume he has some kind of bomb-making lab, say, below Intel? Or in Intel?”
“The only place he could put it.” I added. “Way to go, deductress.”
She turned a little red. “You know, I really like that.”
Mic sprinted into the room Rick was holding his public testing. Nicolas, Dan and Elwood were there, Dan testing, Elwood helping and Nic playing the undercover agent for Sam. But he had an unexpected person with him.
It was Suki Lee, arm around Nic’s shoulder.
Giving Nic a thumbs up, I abruptly whistled “Don’t Stop Believing.” Buffy’s right, that is our signal.
Nic walked over, badge-equipped and handcuffs in, well, hand, and went to arrest him, when to everyone’s surprise, Rick lifted his shirt up a little bit to reveal a belt with the real detonation button on it. Then another one. Then another one. Then another one. Then another one. Then another one.
One read OHSU, a second, Nike, a third, Portland State University, a fourth, Wells Fargo Building, the fifth, Portland International Airport.
The sixth, Intel.
Ema gasped. Portland State University was her college, remember?
“What,” Rick quipped smugly, “Did you think I was putting on weight? Oh, yeah, baby. I got the whole city in my hand. I just press one of these; I take out 5% of the economy and at least a hundred lives.”
Ema hissed in Sam’s ear “If he blows up PSU, it- it- it’ll really screw up my life.” Her voice faltered a little bit, and she was afraid she was gonna start crying in the single most inopportune time.
Rick heard her. “Well, baby, I guess I know which one I’m pushing first.”
He reached for it, when, suddenly, he was tased by an overeager Mic. He fell on his back, not falling on any switches.
“Why you…” Rick ended that sentence with a barrage of unrepeatable insults as Mic ran back to the rest. “We gotta go for the belt, or the city will be toast.”
I wanted answers, though. “Why the heck would you blow up Intel? You’re about to own it!”
“NO I’M NOT!” Rick yelled. “I’m going to die in a year! *Expletive*-ing throat cancer!”
“Calm down, Rick.” Mic tried. “I only tased you because you were gonna blow us up. Just put the switch down and people here can fix you. You can live, Rick! You just gotta try!”
I’ve seen Mic act like many people, Bruce Willis, Kanye West, even Michael Jackson. But never have I seen him be a motivational speaker. I mean-
: Mic Interruption: Yo Sam I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish but I’m the best narrator of all time!
See?
Anyway, where was I?
“You! Shut up!” Rick bellowed. “You don’t get it, do you? I want people to feel my pain, so I joined a suicide group. The whole nation. We’re going to destroy the nation with us. We’re sick of the scam America is selling us, the whole freedom bull. So I’m taking her down with me.”
I was shocked. Rick Stevens and hundreds across the nation were planning to commit mass murder on the ultimate victim. America.
Suddenly, Rick bolted. Sam was right after him, the others following. Sam stopped them and said “NO! You gotta go to the police.
Warn the others!” He handed Nicolas a cell phone. “I recorded him. I just gotta stop him and Blaine, and we’re all safe.”
“Blaine?” I asked.
“Long story,” Nico replied.
Ema chased after me and grabbed my arm. “No. I am not leaving without you.”
Mic joined up. “Me, too.”
Buffy wheeled over. “Same here.”
I looked at all my blessings, smiled and darted after Rick.
“Sam, no!” Ema called.
Nicolas held up the phone. “I do hate to leave in the middle of a good plot-twist, but I gotta get this to the police station before he blows up the city.” He and Suki started to make their exit.
That’s when Rick recognized Suki. Uttering an obscenity, he yelled “You escaped!”
“I would not have if it were not for Nicolas!” she yelled back. “He is 10 times the person you will ever be!”
Nic face-palmed and uneasily said “Thanks, but I really wish you hadn’t said that out loud!”
Suki uttered some unrepeatable Japanese. Rick grabbed Nicolas by the arm and dragged him, kicking and screaming, into the tram. I ran after him.
Unexpectedly, Suki followed him.
“Stay!” he yelled. “You’re not even in the squad!”
“He saved my life.” She replied calmly, so calm it was an effort to hear her. “I believe in repaying that debt, even with my life.”
I couldn’t argue with that impressive statement. “Come on!” I called behind me, while Suki caught up to him.
**************************************************************************
(Narration of Mic Davis)
Ema looked at us, panicked. “Oh, my god!” I yelled. “What was that guy thinking? Is… is he high on crack or something? He could die out there! I mean, oh my god!”
I grabbed her shoulders. “Ema. Seriously, girl. Relax. A’ight? We got bigger and better things to work on.”
“Like what?” she asked me.
“Blaine, that’s what, whoever that guy is. Nico mentioned something about stopping him.” I replied.
Ema gave it a minute of thought. She does that randomly from time to time. Then, she spoke. “Well, first off, that explains what Nico was doing, as well as the sudden bond between Ms. Lee and himself.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I noticed, but that has WHAT to do with Blaine?”
“Obviously Suki has something against Blaine, powerful enough to create some sort of romantic tension with Nico. Maybe Nico found Suki or something, in some sort of prison, even, or about to be executed, it doesn’t matter what, just that whatever sentence she was getting was carried out by this Blaine character, and Nico perhaps saved her.” Finishing, she took a deep breath.
“So what do we do, with this information?”
“Suki escaped from the interrogation room, right?” She continued. “There was a bomb shelter there. I have a feeling that bomb shelter is not all that it seems.”
“So we go all the way to the bomb shelter and start from there?” Buffy asked, and I have to admit that sounded like a bad idea.
“No, I have a feeling that there were corridors in where the bomb shelter is. Otherwise there would have been no other way for Rick to go around secretly, or this Blaine character. Or a place to secretly store the bombs. I have a feeling that there is an entry point in OHSU somewhere, as well as all those other places. But the question is, where would the most damage be?”
I took a guess. “Where Rick was doing his testing?”
Ema lit up. “Exactimundo. Let’s go, guys.”
Buffy told us before we started trotting off “Okay, I don’t think I can go with you guys.”
“Valid Excuse, please?” Ema asked.
“I have a feeling my wheelchair won’t like whatever corridors you’re in.” she replied. “I’ll keep an eye on Sam and the tram. Hurry!”
I nodded and told Ema “Let’s go.”
***********************************************************
Well, that’s one way to get into a secret corridor.
Ema and I looked at the large laundry chute in the room where the testing had ceased, and panic had ensued. I rolled my eyes. “Run around in circles more, idiots, and don’t leave, because that would mean you wouldn’t get blown up.” I said quietly to Ema. She nodded. “Panicked dimwits.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, ever gone snow tubing?”
She nodded.
“Ever gone snow tubing without the tube?”
She looked at me in disbelief. “Say what?”
I jumped in the chute, laughing my head off. This was no ordinary chute, this one was very large (I mean, it fit me, right?) and didn’t just drop, it had a bit of a curve to it, it was like being a kid sliding down one of them McDonalds’ Play land Slides. I shouted out in excitement as I landed on a big poofy pile of clothes. Ema fell next to me, glee written all over her face like a tattoo. “That was so cool!” she giggled.
I grinned, and gave her a knuckle-touch. “And look where we are. See all those corridors?”
She frowned. “I do. You think we’re in, like, the epicenter of their hideout?”
“More like the transit center of their hideout.”
Ema rubbed her back. “A bit of a rough landing, eh?”
I frowned myself. “Yeah, almost like this isn’t… oh *expletive*.”
“What?” she asked me, as worried as a lobster in McGrath’s fish house.
“Start throwing clothes out of the way, now!” I shouted.
We uncovered layer after layer of clothing of every sort, and I had a feeling these hands would be getting washed later. After a flowery blouse, I saw an object of complete predictably and unmatched horror.
You thought Suki’s bomb was big; this bomb was the size of me! Okay, a lot of things are, but still!
Ema shouted an obscenity out loud. I swerved around and stopped on a kid around my age with a wicked grin. He had a matchbox in his hand, and I don’t mean Rob Thomas’ band… that would be a bad pun, my friends. I should be shot for that.
He grinned devilishly. “So you’re the meddling kids. Pity. You should have brought a dog, you would look like part of the Scooby Doo crew. But this is real as it gets. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Jacob Blaine, but you can call me Blablob.”
Ema and I muttered a unified obscenity.



*************************************************************************
(Narration of Sam Eastman)
Rick threw Nicolas into the tram, jumping in after him. The door was halfway shut.
“I got an idea!” Suki yelled.
“Well, what is it?” I asked.
Suki replied by lifting me up to her chest and throwing me 10 feet over to the tram doorway, blocking it. Suki leapt over me and dragged me out of the way.
“Okay. WHAT WAS THAT?!” I yelled, astonished.
Suki just shrugged and said “Try lifting a bomb the size enough to blow up your building. You’re like a leaf compared to that.”
Rick saw us, yelled out in anger and started the tram. We were now dangling down hundreds of feet in the air above dangerous city streets. I tried to pry him away, but it was no use. Even Suki couldn’t get him to release his grip.
Unexpectedly, Rick stopped the tram right above Naito Parkway, where I had taken one of my best pictures of Portland’s skyline, in my opinion. Nearly every building, from the Brick Red Pencil-Shaped Koin Tower to the sterile Gray Giant Wells Fargo Building, to the glowing Pink Bancorp Building shone in the bright blue May sky.
Rick kicked the doors open, took Nicolas’ cell phone and started to throw it out the window when I leapt onto his back.
Rick dropped the phone with the recordings onto the tram floor, causing Nicolas to grab it swiftly and place it in his pocket. Rick vigorously tried to shake me off the tram, while Suki tried to pull me off with little success. Not knowing what else to do, Nicolas stood up and kicked Rick in a place he’d rather forget, nor a place that would be repeated if he ever got the chance to tell his kids this story. Rick dropped me on top of Suki and doubled over in pain.
“Sorry, Suki!” I quipped as we got up. “Now you two navigate the tram up the hill while I take out the trash.”
“Good wit, mate!” Nic told him, never this excited before. He helped Suki up as he looked at the frighteningly staggering controls. Suki noticed a radio on Rick’s belt.
“We gotta get that radio and call for help!” Suki hissed as I landed a punch in Rick’s forehead. Taking advantage of the distraction, Suki yanked it off his pants and gave it to Nicolas. “Here! Be well!” she said, grabbing him in a last hug, it seemed, before he lunged after Rick, yelling “Cowabunga!” knocking him off the tram.
But he wasn’t dead yet.
He was holding onto the side. Pulling a stick of dynamite out of his pocket, he climbed into the Tram, leaving Suki hanging onto the side. “Help!” she cried. “Nic, help!”
Nic rushed over to try to pull Suki off the side. “You got to let go!” he yelled.
“No!” Suki shouted back.
“I can’t grab on to you if you don’t let go!” was Nicolas’ reply. “Just… just trust me, all right? I would never let you die.”
With no hesitation, she took a deep breath and let go. Almost instantaneously, Nic grabbed her hands and within a second, jerked her up. “I’d say this is a lot better than those trust booths at the carnival, eh, Suki?”
Rick pulled out his bomb belt. “I’ve had enough of this!” He said, preparing to press a button after lighting the dynamite. He succeeded, too. I gasped out loud, but to my shock, nothing happened.
I reached into my backpack, pulled out something, grabbed Suki and Nicolas and jumped onto Rick, shoving him out of the tram. I grabbed the bomb belt as we fell down to the ground.
************************************************************************************
(Narration of Mic Davis)
I immediately put two and two together. Blablob guy here really does have no life, and he musta been peed off at the mods over the website. Something like that, but I didn’t care. I just ran over and socked him in his face, taking the matches away as he fell to the ground.
“What good will the matches do?” Ema asked.
“I dunno!” I replied, when suddenly, Blaine’s radio went off with a piercing sound.
Blaine cursed and said “The signal!” as he got back up and started running down a corridor.
I laughed out loud and said “Yes! That was what good the matches did. Now come on, let’s go. Let Blaine’s boss deal with him.”
Ema looked concerned. “You’ll regret this, Mic, you know that.”
“I really just want to know if Sam’s alive.” I admitted one.
Ema nodded and we took a corridor that seemed to have a little more light in it, signalizing a quicker exit, and voila, in a couple of minutes we were in an inactive elevator car, and pushed the button for the tram deck. When we got there, we joined Buffy to see a shocking sight- Sam, Nico and Suki falling out of the tram, as well as Rick.
At the sight of everyone falling out of the Tram, Ema’s eyes started to water as she buried her face in her hands. “No!” she yelled.
5 horrific seconds passed until Sam pulled up a pink blanket with ponies all over it. Shocked and slightly amused, I tapped Ema on the shoulder and said “Look!”
Ema dared herself a peek to see that Nicolas and Suki had a death grip on Sam’s shoulders as he used the blanket as a parachute to float down to the ground by South Waterfront, bomb belt in hand.
From what I heard later, Rick fell crashing to the pavement on Naito Parkway. He got up, grabbed his head, and tried to stagger off a road when a public bus came his way.
The last word he said I bet would be unrepeatable in public.
The Tram blew up shortly afterward, making a hole between the two electric wires. The tram itself fell on an abandoned house on SW Corbett Street.

(Narration of Sam Eastman)
10 minutes later, I saw Ema park the car down in South Waterfront, the other end of the Tram line and the other OHSU campus.
I had finished handing over the belt to Mark Ten and the bomb squad, as they dismantled it piece by piece.
“It’s amazing, horrifying but amazing.” Ten had said. “At any given moment, he could have destroyed the city. These aren’t really bombs, they’re signals. There would be a member of the suicide crew ready to light the fuse, and it would be all over.” So pretty much, he clarified what Mic already knew.
Nicolas handed the phone to local police, the chief of which was Buffy’s strict boss, Brick Jackson (yes, that’s his name.) Brick listened to the recording. “While I must admit it is a shame that we cannot question the mastermind,” he started, “I am sure our expert hacker could always-“
“America’s Murder.webs.com.” I said swiftly, having done research overnight.
“Or that.” Brick said. “I am very proud of your entire group. I was actually thinking of shutting the internship unit down, seeing as our economy is. But now I see that would have been a ridiculous choice.”
“Glad to hear it, Mr. Jackson.” I replied.
Brick got out some real badges. Real, bona-fide badges. “I think it’s safe to say, you and Ema are both skilled enough to get the real job.”
“What about Mic?” I was swift to ask before I celebrated.
“Unfortunately, at the moment he is too young to have the real job.” Brick replied. “But he can continue his internship, and only death could stop me from giving him a real job as an eighteenth birthday present.”
“Ooh, I love presents!” Mic shouted. “You better be telling me that you gave my buddies a job, man!”
Brick happily nodded as Ema left the handicapped spot. With Buffy, it was true.
Ema looked at me, still wrapped in the pink blanket that saved my life. Nothing too big, but Special Agent Sam Eastman always comes prepared. Yelling “Whoo-hoo!” she ran over to grab me in her most meaningful hug yet. “You’re alive!” she yelled. “You’re really alive!”
“I think so.” I countered playfully. “I have to admit, these last few days seem so surreal.”
“Now, dude, spill the beans about the blanket.”
I smiled and said “It was Dania’s lucky charm for her entire life. When they left Portland, she gave it to me. You never know when you’ll need a pink My Little Pony blanket.”
Brick handed them both a badge. Ema grinned. “Looks like we’re going Goren and Eames, my good pal.”
“I always did like Law and Order.” I grinned, the blanket still wrapped around the both of us.

“And just like that, a secret plot to literally destroy America was uncovered-“
“Police found members of this suicide crew planning to blow up the Empire State, the Gateway Arch, Mount Rushmore, even whole towns-“
“I do not hesitate to say that these three teenagers may have saved the entire world.” Dan Saltzman, who ran the police department, said over one of the news stations I was casually flipping through.
You see, a lot had happened during the past month. With the former community of Runouw.com in shambles, Suki, Pete and Nicolas agreed to shut it down. But don’t worry. Nicolas opened his place for all the teens of the area. It was built on the former site of Penumbra Kelly and was called Niklaw’s Tavern, a non-alcoholic tavern with games, friends and a good time. Mic declined the internship, deciding to wait until he was 18, and became Nicolas’ main server. Occasionally Ema played Journey on Rob Stevens’ guitar.
And the others? Ms. Li of Belmont library was a strong advocate for its reconstruction, making major ground on the subject. Dan Zeb-Terra was named President of the Testing Department in The Stevens’ Brothers place, and Elwood became his right-hand man, as they put all the differences of the past behind them. A funeral was held for Rob Stevens and Avo Richardson, and, yes, even Rick Stevens, despite the fact that none of their bodies were ever found. Mic, Buffy, Ema and I made it a point to attend all three. Buffy also got fitted for her prosthetic leg and is getting adjusted to it at the moment.
One of the coolest parts of Niklaw’s Tavern was that the police station was hidden underground. This meant that Ema and I could just duck down there anytime necessary. It had gotten a little harder when Buffy decided to quit, becoming a teacher at a local high school instead, but we managed a bunch of smaller cases, but nothing yet in comparison to the time we saved the world.
Anyway, I handed Ema the remote. “Five bucks says that you can’t find any news channel not bragging on us.”
Ema grinned and said “I’ll bet Fox News is in the middle of a fight with Obama right now.”
Mic walked up. “More root beer?”
“A sugar coma is not exactly what I need tonight, Mic.” I grinned. “Besides, I’d rather watch Nicolas teach Suki how to dance.”
“That’s sweet.” Ema smiled warmly.
I decided not to say how I was counting all the times Suki dropped Nicolas.
“All right,” Mic replied as he vanished slowly around a corner of the tavern.
Suddenly, the doors burst open. A young female voice called out “Is Sam Eastman here? Someone? Anyone, please! I gotta find Sam Eastman.”
“I’m Sam Eastman.” I called back.
The teenage girl limped forward. She looked as if she had just gone through the furnaces of the other place. But instantly I recognized her.
“Dania?” I gasped. Ema grabbed my arm.
“Sam…” she muttered weakly.
“Nic, call an ambulance! NOW!” I yelled as Nic dropped Suki this time. Suki leapt to her feet and followed.
“Sam… I’m sorry… sorry… It’s mom and dad.” She gasped. “They’ve… they’ve been k…k…killed.”

[MICrophone]

OK. So, this chapter in particular. I liked how Rick was the mastermind (as you alluded to in Chapter 8) and the general plot. The setup at the end was nice. But, a few things.

1. Action was a little hard to follow.

2.

“That’s right Phil.” Ema said. “It’s fake. Don’t worry, we’ll get you on the tram and it’ll all be over soon.” Phil dropped to his knees and broke down in tears, traumatized, but managed to stagger into the tram.

You meant Pete.

3. You didn't explain what Ema and I did while you, Nic and Suki battled Rick on the tram.

4.

Not knowing what else to do, Nicolas stood up and kicked Rick in the unmentionables.

Unmentionables? That was really cheesy…I know you have parent restrictions though. That wasn't such a big deal…just funny.

OK, now for the whole story. Inventive, great dialogue, and good story are the major pros. Your writing skills could use improvement (use of description, word choice, grammar, etc.), but on the whole was not bad. Sometimes it lacked a flow; as I suggested earlier breaking up near constant dialogue with description of setting or other things would help. You did this well in the last chapter. The last chapter itself, while good in terms of plot, was not told well in terms of action. So overall, a very good story that could use some improvement! 8.5/10, keep up the good work!