13

13

         “Can you track it?”

         “Yes,” Frederich answered as he kept typing something. “The call ended in approximately eight seconds, done at () telephone’s box. But well, you know they’ll go find another box tomorrow.”

         “You mean today.”

         “Oh?” Frederich looked up to Giuseppe, who was sitting with his back to him. “What’s the time?”

         “It’s already six o’clock in the morning,” Giuseppe answered, referring to the Rolex watch he was wearing. “I guess you didn’t sleep one bit last night.”

         “I did,” Frederich answered. “Maybe about one hour, or maybe even less. Tracking the numbers is no small task, you know.”

         Giuseppe looked at his friend, who looked frail and thin, and his face was very pale. He could already see some thin lines under his eyes, signs of aging, but now that pale man was working vigorously. One can’t fully recover from a heart transplant, after all.

         … I should be ashamed.

         “I think we’re not the only one who’s after the doll.”

         “Oh?” Giuseppe turned to his friend in interest. “Who else then?”

         “We don’t know right now,” Giuseppe answered. “But I have proof.”

         “Which is?”

         “Your system is hacked.”

         “Well,” Frederich smiled as he typed down something. “If you’re talking about Kyrie, I believe she’s not moving alone.”

         “With who then?”

         “Like I know,” Frederich answered as he stopped typing and turned to a screen. “But, ah, you know her.”

         Giuseppe sighed and drank something from a white mug. Frederich sighed and looked up to the dark ceiling as his mind drifted away – perhaps thanks to lack of sleep.

         “Oh, great. Maureen told us to hunt down a gang leader.”

         “A gang?”

         “That’s not fun!”

         “…Maybe, not really a gang. Like a criminal organization.”

         “Oh, that’s interesting, isn’t it?”

         “She takes interest in everything nobody else would,” he whispered softly. “Killing, organized crimes, terrorists…”

         “Maybe she’s working for one,” Giuseppe guessed. “Oh well, we don’t know. Is she here in London?”

         “I don’t know.” Frederich smiled sadly as she typed something and a new screen appeared. “But if she is, I’d like to meet her.”

         Giuseppe sighed as he put down the mug on the table and walked towards the door a few metres in front of him. Frederich typed something down, but he didn’t manage to finish whatever he was typing – suddenly a screen popped out of nowhere and it was red. Not a very good sign.

         Giuseppe quickly turned to his friend, who was now typing something very quickly. Of course he noticed the red screen, and he walked to it.

         “What? What’s wrong?”

         “You talk like I know,” Frederich answered as he kept typing in panic. “This is obviously a hacker.”

         But who? At a time like this…

         Valkyrie? No?

         “Let’s see…”

         Valkyrie took a piece of French toast and bit it as she kept looking at the green screens in front of her. The words in there were constantly changing, from numbers to letters, then back to numbers, or sometimes it was just one changing into five, b changing into g.

         “It’s taking kind of a while,” she said as she took a white cup. She smelled the drink that was in it, and smiled in satisfaction.

         “It’s Earl Grey. My favourite.”

         She sipped some of the hot tea as she kept watching the screen. It’s like eating breakfast while watching TV, but this TV was kind of broken – that was that. She sighed, then she typed down a few things and continued eating, and a few seconds later the words stopped.

         You’re a millenia too early to beat me, Fred…

         She smiled as she scrolled down the screen with her fingers. There were just words as she scrolled down – information about a, information about b – but she’s not interested in those.

         After all, she’s just looking for one thing…

         Now, now!

         She smiled brightly as she tapped a word, then a new green screen appeared. She turned to that one and leaned closer to read it.

         “Let’s see about this one…”

         Gotcha.

         “Valkyrie…”

         Frederich grabbed a microphone sitting not very far away from him and talked to it as he looked at the screen.

         “Remember me?”

         Valkyrie smiled naughtily as she took her cup of tea. Of course, there was no face shown on the screen, there was only a deep, robotic bass voice, coming from the screen, but that was more than enough to identify the one on the other side.

         “You’re expecting me to forget…?”

         “I want the truth,” Frederich said. “Tell me, who you’re working for? For what? And…”

         “You’re asking, well, a bit too much,” she said as she lifted the teabag and dunk it into the yellowish liquid again. Ripples appeared all over the surface, and more ripples were formed as she brought the cup to her mouth and sipped some tea. She then put down the cup and smiled.

         “Why don’t we meet tonight?” she asked as she touched the Bluetooth microphone that acted as the earphone as well. “I have quite something to tell you, and you can ask me just anything you want to ask.”

         “…” Is this a trap?

         Frederich bit his lower lip as he thought – anything that came from a potential enemy is of course suspicious.

         A potential enemy?

         …Get back to your healthy mind, Frederich. Didn’t you say you trust her?

         “You’re better off knowing.”

         But…

         “I don’t want a game this time.”

         “Why not?” Valkyrie smiled playfully as she took a small block of cheese. “Life is just a game, after all…”

         She smelled the cheese, then she bit it and quickly recognized its mild taste that was melting in her mouth. Not to salty, but quite salty, with smooth, firm texture… Must be cheddar.

         “If you’re coming, then, I’ll be waiting at the bridge. It’s fine if you don’t come, though…”

         I’ll just end everything tonight. I sure wonder…

         How will my game ends? With the normal end, or the true end?

~•~

         9.145 hours later

         Frederich was walking on the bridge, no, maybe not bridge, but a ‘cross’. The wind was strong that day, and too bad that it wasn’t just strong, but kind of cold as well. Frederich pulled up the collar of his black trenchcoat to cover his mouth and nose, trying to keep his breaths warm.

         The night is actually pretty warm for most people – it’s only twenty two degrees, very warm compared to the winters in London – but he was not in one of those ‘most people’. He was taking out a pair of white gloves from his breast pocket, and wore them quickly.

         “I’ll be waiting at the bridge.”

         Let’s see… where is she?

         Valkyrie took out a cigarette and a red match, then she put an end of the cigarette into her mouth and lit the match.

         The fire quickly went out as the wind blew at the speed of 5 m/s.

         She sighed – without dropping the cigarette of course – and placed her hand behind the match before lighting it. She then felt a warm breeze on her hands and she saw smokes coming out from the end of the cigarette. She put the match back into her pocket, then she pulled out the cigarette of her mouth and white smoke puffed out of her mouth.

         Where is he?

         The night was getting foggy. A thought flashed in her mind, that she should just go home before everything turned white, but she quickly brushed away the thought.

         I’ll wait. It shouldn’t take very long…

         The smoke from her cigarette made the air around her even whiter, but she could still see that the streets were empty.

         Nearly.

         “Looking for someone, mister?”
         A blonde man in black coat who happened to be walking on the oher side of the ‘cross’ turned to her, then he stpped walking. They were only separated by… maybe a few metres of tarmac road, and they were looking straight into each other.

         “You still smoke.”

         “On speacial occasions like this,” she answered with a grim smile. “Do you come to see me, or do you come to see someone else, or are you merely walking home?”
         “The first and third.”

         “I see.” She smiled discreetly as she pulled the long sleeve of her black short jacket. She then looked around – they were the only two on the street – and turned back to him, sure that everything was safe.

         “Who do you work for?” Frederich quickly asked. “Are you friend or foe?”

         “My, that’s kind of unfriendly, is it?” she asked back. “You don’t care how I’ve been doing all the time? Like… am I married yet or not, or am I engaged, or how my work’s been going on…”

         “You’re not getting married to anyone,” he said. “You won’t make a good wife.”

         “How rude.” However, despite the statement, she gave a cynical smile. “But well, on the other hand, that’s quite true.”

         “Now, you see, we have nothing to chitchat about,” he said coldly. “So answer me.”

         “Sorry, but shouldn’t you ask me one by one? Don’t ask two at once. I don’t know how to answer it.

         A lame excuse, but it’s quite true. Frederich sighed and looked away, how troublesome, he thought.

         “Are you friend or foe?”

         “Not both,” she answered playfully. “I’m telling you what I know about them, but I’m telling them what I know about you.”

         Double agent? “You always suit to play the antagonist roles.”

         “I told you I neither friend nor foe.”

         “So why am I here?” he asked with a sigh. “Come on, I don’t wanna get lost at this time of the day.”

         “Because of the fog? Don’t worry about it, now…” She smiled and looked away, and she could see that the ‘cross’ has become almost invisible, covered by the fog. She then turned to the man standing in front of her and swung her feet, hanging from the concrete railing.

         “What abou I tell you something interesting?”

         “…Interesting?” he thought for a while, about the meaning of that ‘intersting’ something. However, people’s interests can be different between one and another…

         “You know, the things you consider as interesting might not be interesting for me.”

         “You’ll find this one interesting, then,” she said as she spitted out her cigarette, that only had half of it left. “We’re not the only ones who’re after.. whatever it is you lost.”

         What? “Who else?”

         “That’s not something I can tell you right here right now, mister,” she said. “But well, there is a third company. Sorry, fourth.”

         “How do you know?”

         “Skill.”

         “Why can’t you tell me?” he asked. “Are you afraid of betraying them more?”

         My, my, he can’t even think about a single positive thing about me, can he?

         “No.”

         “Then why?”

         “Because I don’t know,” she said as she slid her hand into her jacket from the bottom. “Well, that’s as much as I can tell you.”

         Frederich kept following her hands, even if the area around him has started to become blurry of the fog. The things around them just turned whiter and whiter, and he could feel his eyes’ lenses working hard to keep looking at the woman sitting on the railing, but nature couldn’t be stopped…

         “Let’s end it here,” he could hear a voice said from behind the thick fog. “I mean, there’s nothing else I can give to you.”

         “What?” He quickly reached his hand out to his pocket and quickly felt something hard inside. He pulled it out, then he silently pulled out something in it and inserted it back into the cold item he was holding, then he pushed it back in. He looked around, trying to make sure nobody else is there but them, but sadly he couldn’t see anything – everything is now seemingly invisible, cloaked in fog.

         Valkyrie smiled discreetly as she pulled out her revolver from the holster along with a shiny, small bullet, and inserted it into one of the holes. The bullet shone brightly between all the other empty holes. She then spun the chamber until she couldn’t see the shiny hole, then she pointed the revolver at her chest.

         “Why are you telling me this information?”

         “Take it as…” He can’t see this, can he? “…my last act of courtesy. Because…”

         She could feel the cold metal on her chest, but instead of fear, like any other people could’ve faced in this situation, she smiled instead – she could feel a great load of excitement inside her.

         How does… death feel like?

         This me, who has killed many people and not feeling even guilty for that…

         That’s right – death will end everything.

         Everything…

         “The next time we’ll meet is after we die.”

         BANG