Something Captured

Ed stood in front of the door for the good part of a minute before he ultimately decided to knock once, then twice, then... before he knew it, he was almost pounding on the door.

            "What?" Aaliyah said ash she opened the door. By the looks of it, she had already been in bed. "Oh, Ed?"

            "Hey," he said, battling to keep from smiling. "Can I come in?"

            "Yeah, ofcourse! What's the matter?"

            Ed walked inside and over to the living room couch where he had told her everything about his past no more than a month before, but instead of sitting down, all he did was pace while trying to get the words he wanted to say to form on his tongue.

            "What's wrong, honey?" she asked, watching him intently.

            "Okay, look... A couple of days ago we learned of this mysterious killer... A, uhh... vigilante, if you will, who kills Others by the use of bow and arrow," he said in one quick breath, then paused to catch a few and also to look at Aaliyah as she took it in.

            "Oh, I know. You guys spoke about it yesterday night at dinner," she replied.

            "Okay, so uhh... You have nothing to tell me do you? Because if you do, I can understand completely. I really do."

            "Oh, you don't think that it's me, do you?"

            "Where were you this afternoon at around 4?" Ed asked as he finally sat down, put his head onto his arms and blew a lot of air out.

            Aaliyah wanted to confront him about the sudden interrogation, but saw that he really did not want to ask her. She knew that something had been wrong, and that he needed to hear an answer, not because he just wanted to check up on her, but because he needed to be sure of the answer.

            "I just," Ed began, "at first I've made nothing of it. But it happened more and more. Last week Ian got me a brand new bow, as I have shown you. What I didn't show you was that I had it upgraded a few more times in secret... I had been experimenting with this technology that I discovered while in Japan. I went to the Red Arrow who taught me how to craft and fuse it with composite arrows, or just about anything else I wanted."

            "You're the Black Arrow?" she asked and sat down on the opposite couch.

            "No!" Ed said and looked up, as if in pain. "At least, I don't think so... I tried to fuse the crystal to my bow the week before last but failed. Devon managed to recover part of my bow and a few arrows, and asked me about it. After that I went to the Red Arrow, or the Oracle as he is known as now. All he said was that I should tread carefully.

            "So I put the few arrows I still had left into a chest under my bed and forgot about it. And now, well, I've been losing time. Blacking out, as it may, and I have been forgetting about my own whereabouts. My own! I really don't know anymore..."

            "Have you tried contacting the Oracle again?" Aaliyah asked quietly, too afraid to talk louder in case she might startle Edward.

            "I was too afraid of what I would find," Ed answered flatly and stood up. "I think I know what to do."

            "I'll just quit. Break the arrows, and take my bow apart..."

            "Archery is your life, Ed," Aaliyah said and then gasped suddenly.

            Ed turned around to see what had happened. Over her, stood a female wearing an unknown body suit which looked like it consisted out of silver threads. He attempted to react, but both his hands was suddenly caught and bound in one swift move by another agent.

            "She's right, you know," the male said, "it is your life," and then knocked him out with the butt of a pistol.

 

Connor got into the back of the van and sat down next to Ed and Aaliyah who lay on the floor of the van unconscious. Abigail got in behind the wheel, started the van and drove off.

            "You know, not once after a successful assignment have you ever congratulated me?" Connor asked as he wiped Aaliyah's hair out of her face and shook his head.

            "Not once have I felt the urge," Abigail answered cooly as she turned a corner and got onto the highway.

Ian had managed to get out from underneath Danny sometime after she had fallen asleep, and headed up to the bar, where he retrieved a bottled water from the small fridge at the back, then walked to the deck and leaned over the railing. He took a sip and sat down on one of the deck chairs, then jumped up just as Ed's cellphone rang beside him.

            Ian gave it some thought, then decided to answer in case it was important. "Hello?"

            "Dragon," replied the Oracle from the other side of the line. "Where it the Duck?"

            "At his girlfriend's. Why are you calling him?"

            "My arrows lit up. The Source is calling."

            "The Source?" Ian asked as he made his way inside and over to Ed's room where he walked over to the huge chest, opened it and saw that the broken crystallite arrow was glowing faintly. "You mean, where this comes from?"

            The Oracle was silent for a while. "Edward is in danger, Dragon. His fate is sealed in darkness, and his destiny locked into place on a cold path."

            "And you want me to change it?"

            The old agent was silent again. After a while Ian almost thought that he had ended the call, but just as he wanted to look, he spoke again. "Go to the Source, free Edward's mind. Only then will he be able to act upon the identity his spirit had chosen for him."

            The call ended, and Ian was left in darkness as Ed's computer went on sleep. The only light in the room was that of Ed's phone, and the faint, slow pulsating glow of the arrow in the chest. "So he is the Black Arrow, only he doesn't know it," Ian told himself and reaffirmed what he had figured earlier. "Now, I should figure out just what the hell this Source really is."

           

            "Such a pity."

            "What?" Abigail asked and shot a glance in the rearview mirror. The highway was practically clean, aside from one or two vehicles.

            "That talent as good as he would ultimately go to waste. By what I've seen, we could have had a lot of use for him. Hell, for all of them!"

            "We are using them," Abigail answered flatly, "let's just hope the counsel know what they are doing."

            Connor contemplated her reply, but decided not to make a witty comment after all. He took another look at Ed, noticed that he had only half of a ring finger. "Hey, I remember this guy," he then said.

            "About time, idiot."

            Connor paid Abigail no mind. All he now thought of was where he had remembered Ed from. After no particular time or place came to mind, he asked: "so do we have a destination yet?"

            "Japan," Abigail answered with a smile as she turned off the highway and drove toward the nearest airport.

 

Ed had no idea how long he had been out, and figured that it did not matter as he felt his hands bound behind his back, and his feet bellow him. He had been placed on a small chair in what looked like the cargo bay of a military plane.

            As he inspected his surroundings, he noticed Aaliyah a few feet away, also bound and tied to a chair. She was still out cold, much to his relief, as he wanted her to witness as little as possible of what could possibly follow.

            "Rise and shine!" Connor said as he came into the cargo hold and walked up to Ed. "So sorry about your girlfriend over there. We just couldn't leave her, you know?"

            "Fuck you," Ed replied flatly as he struggled to get the ropes from his wrists.

            "Don't even think about trying to get loose. You see this suit? Two words, Edmund or whatever your name is: 'spider silk'," he then walked around to where Aaliyah had been placed, "same for her."

            Ed watched him giggle as he walked out of the cargo hold, and closed the door. He then started to struggle again to no avail. He cursed under his breath as he ultimately had to give up due to losing strength and tried to hold his breath as long as he could when he noticed the smell of sleeping gas in the air. He felt how the plane rose in altitude as he eventually dozed off.