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Chapter 17: Niaga Em Ksa (Ask Me Again)

“Are you done yet?” Matrix asked, passing time gingerly with his fingers drumming the table.

“Patience young padawan,” Hershey replied, hitting buttons and clicking icons on the computer. The three of them sat, huddled around an aged computer, in the public library. It was one of the smaller ones, so Beta was the one making sure no one was watching them. Hershey had already passed not only the library’s firewall but also inserted himself into the police department’s database without a direct connection between the two. Neither Beta nor Matrix even knew such a thing was possible. It was god-like. “I will need a turkey sandwich though,” he added.

Matrix stammered. “For what?”

Hershey paused his typing and turned to him. “For consumption.” He went right back to it, leaving Matrix with a sour tongue and a duty to uphold. “You should go with him,” Hershey said to Beta. Beta watched Matrix near the door in an annoyed hobble and decided Hershey was right.

“We’ll be back soon,” the Perna assured and followed suit.

It was only when they left that Hershey was able to find the files he needed.

He clicked on one of the police reports and read past the basic information and down to the actual description. “Missing,” he muttered to himself, checking to see if anyone was around. Hershey clicked on another report. “Also missing,” he concluded, and clicked on another one, and another one, and then another one. “And they’re all missing.” Hershey sighed and rubbed his eyes, pushing his glasses up to his forehead. “Well that’s comforting.” He ended up taking the spectacles off completely. He didn’t really need the glasses anymore, not since he was dead. But, he found a non-prescription pair in one of the Plato stores and they gave it to him. There were some things you just needed to remind you of home, and that “thing” was Hershey’s glasses. When he looked back up at the computer and exited out of all the reports, he found one documentation that was a bit different from the others.

Kidnapping.

“Well hello there,” Hershey said as he clicked on it, looking deeper into the file. He did a quick turn-around to make sure he was alone again. Still, no one was paying attention. Hershey clicked on the picture of the missing kid: He was tall with premature bruising on his shoulders and neck, stubble around his mouth. He had a mole under his dull brown eyes. His skin was caramel. Hershey clicked on another photo from the file—there were only two—and what he saw was incriminating.

A short man was seen talking to the missing teen a day before he went missing, sitting next to him on a bench outside what looked like a government-funded building. Hershey found it creepy enough that they were even talking, but he found it even more creepy that someone had taken a picture of them. He also noticed there was something oddly familiar about the photo. It felt like Hershey had seen that man before. So, he looked closer, pressing his nose in to the computer screen and squinting at the man’s eyes.

Those eyes.

And suddenly, they jumped at him. All the lighting, camera angles; none of that mattered once Hershey could truly see the black surrounding the white in the man’s eyes.

A Sync.

The Nat muttered, “Oh man. Guys!” He turned around right when the person next to him shushed him, realizing that they weren’t even there. Hershey quickly exited out the picture of the man and the missing boy, leaving just a picture of the boy up and stood.

“Matrix?” he whispered, looking around the library. “Beta?”

He had forgotten he sent them on a sandwich run without any way to contact him. Realizing his mistake, Hershey exited the library and ran out into the parking lot. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Big mistake.

A horn blared at him and Hershey turned just in time to see the corner of a Lamborghini hit the lamppost. Hershey’s eyes widened and he put a hand up over his mouth as the driver’s door opened. “What the hell man!?” the young gentlemen spat, his face turning as pink as Hershey’s hair when he saw the damage done to his car. “Do you not know what a right-of-way means?!”

“I’m so so so so sorry,” Hershey said, his face going as pink as humanly possible. Hershey could feel his horns starting to peek out from stress. He held them in. “I mean…a-at least the lamppost is fine.”

The man scoffed and pulled out his phone. “I’m callin’ the police—”

“No!” Hershey rejected. “No please!”

“You’re not really in a position to be making demands pal.” He continued to dial.

Hershey looked around the parking lot. Only a few cars were around. He knew that if the police were called, then it would bring up a lot of unwanted attention. He also knew if he ran, some strange records would be brought to attention, one of those being what a deceased kid was doing breaking the law at a public library miles away from his hometown.

“I’ll do anything just please—!” Hershey took a deep breath, calming himself as the man stopped calling and looked up at him. “...don’t call the police.”

The man looked skeptical at first, but eventually rolled his eyes and put his phone back in his pants. “Come on,” he said, getting back into his now dented car.

“W-Where are we going?” Hershey asked, his heart rate rising as the man shut his car door.

He rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Just around the block to a repair shop so you can pay for the damages to my car. Now get in.”

“Oh, I mean I could just give you the money—”

“Well how will I know how much I need without an expert opinion now get in the car or I’m callin’ the police.”

Hershey was at a standstill, torn between the logical thing and protecting himself and the others. Involving the police would ruin everything they worked so hard to hide since being down there, and there’s no doubt that Plato or Earth wouldn’t like them for exposing their secrets.

Hershey was really regretting walking into that street.

But he went, slowly but surely, to the other side of the car and opened the door, getting in the passenger seat. His heart beat fast as it closed and locked behind him.

“Hello sir how may I help you?” the cashier said.

Beta, at the front of the line, took in a deep breath. “Do you know how long your line is? It’s bloody insane! I’ve been waiting for what felt like ten minutes. Who waits in a line for ten minutes for food? Surely not me. I walked here, miss, walked. And still I’d rather walk some more than stand so still for so long.” He let out an exasperated sigh, to which the man replied with, “Sir, it’s only a two-minute wait.”

“Anyway,” Beta completely ignored him. “Can I order a turkey sandwich?”

“Oh...no, you can’t,” he replied. “This is a pizzeria, we don’t sell sandwiches here…at the pizzeria...we sell pizza.”

“People are waiting in line for a pizzeria that doesn’t even have sandwiches? This is the 21st bloody century!”

“We can direct you to the Chick-Fil-A across the stree—Sir where are you going—?” As Beta stormed away, he met up with Matrix outside empty-handed.

“Where’s the sandwich?” Matrix asked.

“They don’t sell them apparently. Like what?”

They left the pizzeria.

In the car with the stranger, Hershey found himself thinking a lot more about how well he could drive if the need arose; He wasn’t confident.

“So,” the man began, the first word he had spoken in the whole two minutes. “What’s your name?”

Deciding it wouldn’t be too incriminating, Hershey gave it up. “Hershey,” he said.

“No no, I don’t mean your little childhood nicknames I mean your actual name.”

“That is my actual name.”

The man chuckled. “Man, your parents must have hated you when you came out.”

Hershey just shrugged. “Maybe they just really liked chocolate.”

The silence following stained like wine.

“Well I’m Arthur, even though I look nothing like an Arthur, much like you looking nothing like a chocolate bar, and I was born in Massachusetts. What about you, where were you born?”

Hershey looked out the window at the cars beside them. “Korea, South Korea. But my parents, my brothers, and I moved to Colorado awhile back for a new job. I didn’t exactly want to go but, what else are you gonna do? I’m 17 now, imagine how young I was then...” Hershey clammed up after that, realizing just how much he was spilling. He cleared his throat. “Whatever though,” he finished off, crossing his arms to feel stable again.

Then, probably the weirdest part of the car ride happened.

“Can you speak Korean?”

Hershey turned to Arthur. “What?”

“Korean, can you speak it at all?”

“Uh...I mean yeah, my parents—”

“Say something.” Arthur turned to look at his puzzled face. “Come on.” He hit Hershey’s knee, causing Hershey to move it farther away. “Say something in Korean.”

Hershey’s eyes shifted to and fro, and he cleared his throat. “Okay...” He thought of what to say. “dowajuseyo.”

“Ooh, what does that mean?”

“...Help me.”

“Does he even eat pizza?” Beta asked, sniffing the box of carbs and grease.

“I’m gonna go with a yes,” Matrix replied as they headed back to the library. “But only because he’s eaten it before on Plato.”

As Beta was about to run across the parking lot, Matrix stopped him. “Can you look both ways first?” he said, and Beta did. The two crossed and entered the library silently, walking over to the computer section.

Matrix and Beta scanned the area looking for Hershey, but he was nowhere in sight. Instead, they found his glasses lying vacant and lonely on the table. The two had to refrain from calling his name. Instead, they split up and went to other sections of the library—the bathroom, outside, the children’s section, the DVD section, the teen section—but found nothing.

When they met back up at the computers, Matrix’s breathing pattern was irregular. “I couldn’t find him.”

“Me neither,” Beta replied. “Are you okay?”

“Considering Hershey’s now officially missing and we have no way to contact him I’m gonna go with no, Beta, I’m not okay.”

Beta turned to the computers again and looked for the one that Hershey was on. He visualized it in his head and walked over to computer #4. He pressed the button which brought the monitor out of its sleep session. He was planning to try and backtrack his steps, but found out quickly that he didn’t need to. Hershey had left it all open.

Beta scanned the information, but couldn’t find anything helpful. “I don’t know what I’m looking for here,” he said, taking a step back from the computer so Matrix could look at it. He did, and with every new scan of his eyes came a new certainty of his realization.

“Someone took him,” Matrix said, his mouth hanging open. “They must’ve known who we were, and even if they didn’t they just picked Hershey because he looked like the weakest among us oh my god I can’t believe I let this happen—”

“You didn’t let this happen,” Beat assured. “In fact Hershey’s probably the one that let this happen. He probably wandered off, I mean I wouldn’t put that past—”

“Beta shut up!”

Not only Beta, but the whole library was taken back by the outburst. Matrix’s face was heated, and his eyes closed. One of the librarians walked up to them. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said to Matrix, putting a guiding hand on his back. Matrix went willingly, storming out of the building.

“You too sir,” she said to Beta, but Beta was staring at the computer, spotting the one and only word he needed in the files before a countdown timer popped up reading: Memory wipe due to inactivity in 5, 4...

“Fine,” Beta said, walking away. 3, 2...

The librarian turned to the computer screen, but it was blank.

Beta ran out to where Matrix was leaning against a dent lamppost and said, “I know how to find Hershey. Come on.”

“How much does it cost to fix a dent in my car?”

“Most people go by the 1-inch rule, which is roughly $25 per inch. But the price for repairing around a 1-inch dent is between $60-$110.”

“Are you done?”

Hershey jumped a little bit as Arthur walked up to him. He quickly exited out of his google search and cleared the history, handing him his phone back. “Yeah, sorry, I had to text a friend.”

“No problem,” he said back, sticking the phone in his back pocket. “Don’t have your own phone? I mean if you need to borrow mine anytime you can.”

Hershey, getting a weird feeling, lied and said, “Uh, no thanks I have one.”

“Oh...what type of phone is it?”

“A Samsung.”

“Mmmm…Can I see it?”

“Okay!” the repairwoman said, walking over to the two. “Looked at your dent,” This time she spoke to Arthur and then turned to Hershey. “It’ll be around fifteen hundred dollars to get it fixed—”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hershey said without thinking, remembering what he read. But he was done putting up with it. “Fifteen hundred dollars for an inch dent? I could fix it myself for less than that.”

“Didn’t know you were a repairman,” the woman replied, looking him up and down.

Hershey turned to her, eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to be to know what’s highway robbery.”

“…Are you saying you don’t have the money Hershey?” Arthur turned to him, hands on his hips.

Hershey’s heart rate rose and he shrugged. “I mean, for a ridiculous price like that—”

“Hershey...that wasn’t the question,” Arthur said matter-of-factly. “Do you...have...the money...”

The Nat gulped, and in the smallest voice possible, he said, “No, I don’t.”

Arthur sighed, pinching his nose and turning away from him. He gestured with his hand. “Walk around back with me Hershey.”

But Hershey didn’t budge. “No.”

Arthur froze, making Hershey tense as he slowly turned back around. “What did you just say?”

“No,” Hershey reiterated, standing his ground. The sense that he was a superior being had just kicked in. “Look I’ll pay you back but not today, and definitely not back there where you probably keep your sex dungeon. Just give me your cell phone number and I swear within a week’s time I will get you your—”

Before Hershey could finish his sentence, a crowbar connected with the back of his head and his whole body jerked forward before he collapsed on the dirty marble floor.

“Aww, but I wanted to see when he’d pay me,” Arthur said, looking up at the repairwoman that had knocked him out. “Take him to the back, kay?”

“A foster home?” Matrix turned to Beta. “You took us to a foster home?”

Beta just shrugged and walked closer to the typical house, yet untypically large. “This is where most, if not all, the abductions occurred.”

“Okay,” Matrix shrugged. “So what’s the plan exactly? Walk up and tell them we’re missing a friend, any chance you know where all your youths have gone?” Matrix blew out air.

“I was thinking more along the lines of...” Beta turned to him. “...admittance?”

Catching onto the drift, Matrix let his shoulders fall. “Beta, I look 21, and I’m technically older than that.” He gestured at Beta’s face. “You’re 19!”

“You’re telling me we can’t pass as underaged?” Beta argued back. “With that baby smooth face and childish eye color, they’ll have to believe us.” Matrix simply stared at him, unwilling. Beta slumped and sighed. “I can use my powers to make us seem younger, there. Happy?”

Matrix’s mouth hung open. “Oh now you can use it willy nilly!”

“This is ridiculous,” Matrix complained as they walked up to the front door.

“Relax mate,” Beta said, stepping in front of Matrix and ringing the doorbell. “Just follow my lead.” After a few seconds, the door opened and an old woman answered it. Mid-height, gray hair, saggy skin, tired eyes, jeans, and a blouse. She frowned at them, sadness leaking into her weakened eyes. After a moment’s pause, Matrix expected her to feel repulsed at the two over aged men trying to sneak into a foster home. But at the last second, there was a twinkle in her eye that seemed to change not only her facial expression, but also her mind.

“Oh...this is never a good sign,” she said.

Matrix slowly turned to look at Beta and Beta was already looking at him, smirking suggestively.

Welcomed in, the two sat on the couch. Matrix stood by the chair, refusing to take a seat. Beta rolled his eyes and confronted the woman. “Sorry, he’s a bit…reluctant.”

“Oh, it’s quite alright. I’ve dealt with my fair share of rebels. Trust me, you’ll be safe here.” She smiled at them.

Matrix scoffed and sat on the armrest of the chair. “Anyway, I’m Matrix. This is Beta.”

“Strange names,” she said, smiling. “Matches your strange eyes. Where are you from?”

“Uh…a few counties away. We...walked...here,” Matrix lied awfully. “From...the county from which we came.”

“What were you runnin’ from that brought you all the way down here?” the lady asked. Matrix looked at Beta and he started to lie, already much better than Matrix.

“I guess you could say not all parents were meant to love their kids...Matrix and I lived in the same neighborhood, we just happened to have the same problem.”

“And is there not a center in your county?”

“Not one that our parents didn’t keep us far away from.”

The woman nodded as a man walked down the stairs and into the living room. “Frankie! Are you—” The man saw the two and stopped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Boys, this is my intern Carl, he’s helping me run the foster home. I hope one day when I’m gone he can take it over,” she explained, smiling.

“Nice to meet you boys,” Carl greeted. “Will you be staying with us?”

Frankie pursed her lips. “I’m not quite sure yet, but I’m afraid we do need to contact your old families.”

Matrix looked down at Beta and he looked back at him. Beta sighed and nodded. “Okay.”

Carl walked them to their rooms. “You’ll love it here. It’s safe, roomy, and no one judges you.” He smiled, and when he looked away, Matrix turned to Beta and silently mocked him. “You two can sleep in this room. There are simple rules. You do your part, you interact, and you don’t disrespect others. Got it?” The man looked at them, his expression unreadable.

“Yes, but I also have a question,” Beta countered.

“Um…okay.”

“Is this room available because the kids that used to be here were abducted?”

Beta could tell that Carl’s heart skipped a beat with that one, the smile dropping from his face. “Um...yes. We won’t lie to you here. But those kids were only taken because they were coerced. Just, please be more careful, all right?”

Beta and Matrix nodded.

Carl chuckled a bit and turned to Beta before leaving. “And just so you know, I know the ask a question, answer a question technique anywhere. What foster home were you in before this one?”

Matrix glanced down at Beta, and Beta’s eyes shifted but he avoided eye contact. “Um, i-it was in another state.”

“Well, clearly they didn’t do a good job with pairing you up with a good home.” Carl smiled and hit his shoulder playfully. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you find a better home this time.” And as Carl walked away, Beta knew there were questions to be answered.

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