Something Searched Part 2

By
            Ian was standing atop a skyscraper, his eyes closed and his ears open. He listed to the sounds of a city that truly never slept.
            They had been in Hong Kong now for two days but were no closer to finding Ed or Aaliyah. The flight had been uneventful, mostly. As they approached Japan, a squad or Zeros came to escort them to the airport where they would be checked, detained and deported if need be. They didn’t have time for red tape, and neither of them had a visa, so Ian had to pull some crazy moves with the VTOL.
            After a few intense minutes, and after finding the clocking field on the VTOL controls, they evaded the Zeros and made their way inland undetected and unhindered.
            Ian and Dev still had keys for the safe house they had used years before on a mission in Hong Kong, so they made their HQ there. They had each ventured out a few times now, only for an hour at a time, to search the city for clues, but all of it led to dead ends.
  “Tactical command, online,” Melisa’s voice rang in Ian’s ear. He was wearing his full suit, including the full face helmet. Back in the day it was a plain helm, but now it was adorned with a small dragon that sat on top of his head and hand down the back. “Dragon, you there?”
  “Go ahead, TacCom,” said Ian and opened his eyes.
            Up until now his helm and Devon’s combat sunglasses were disconnected from the augmented reality server Ian had running back in South Africa. Thanks to some nifty connections they all had, they managed to ‘borrow’ a military communications satellite and used that to communicate with the server in SA.
            The augmented reality heads up display started booting up even before Ian had opened his eyes. He could see the different modules load and start running as his view got cluttered with little information boxes on the different things he focused.
  “Okay, I think we’ve got something,” said Devon through their open communications channel. “There’s some big meeting going down at midnight, the Others are trading info for something, no idea what, but perhaps we can find out,”
  “Midnight is a good thirty minutes away, should be enough time,”
  “Good, uploading the waypoint now,” said Melisa and a second later a small talon shaped waypoint appeared far off in the distance.
  “That’s in the City Atop the City,” said Ian.
  “Yeah,” said Devon.
  “How am I supposed to get there in thirty minutes?”
  “I thought you said this wasn’t a problem,” said Melisa.
  “Before I knew where you wanted me to go,”
  “You’re the Dragon, man, fly,” said Devon mockingly.
  “Very funny,”
  “Tell us when you get there, TacCom out,” said Devon.
            Ian took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders and neck a bit, then charged to the end of the roof of the skyscraper. He leapt from the top of it to the next and in this fashion he started to make his way into the inner city.
            The suit gave him increased athletic abilities. He could jump higher, run faster and move quieter if need be. The few jumps he could not make, he could glide to. He need only think of it and the suit would unfurl the nanomaterial dragon wings, catch wind and carry him to where he wanted to go.
            Within a few minutes he was close to the edge of the City Atop the City. It was a massive superstructure built upon hundreds of the highest skyscrapers in the area, and those that were not high enough were elevated so that they could help support the weight of the superstructure.
            In between the buildings support columns had been built, spanning from one building to the next and up towards the base of the superstructure. The base was three stories high, Ian guessed, and above that was the new city.
            Hong Kong had been overpopulated for years, so to accommodate more people the government had decided to build more buildings on top of the older buildings. It was a massive engineering challenge, but they were pulling it off. The City Atop the City stretched a good fifty square kilometres and was dotted with lesser skyscrapers than the old bones it was built upon, and most of it was still under construction.
            Ian stared up at the superstructure, he knew he wouldn’t be able to jump to that height, nor would he be able to glide up. As he was contemplating his accent, he noticed a helicopter heading in his direction and an idea came to mind.
            He timed it perfectly and as the helicopter flew overhead he jumped, grabbing the bars at the bottom and preparing to dismount. In truth, he had not known that the helicopter would be going any higher, but he was relieve when it did and swung from the bars as it passed the top of superstructure’s base.
            Minutes later he was deep in the heart of the City Atop the City, keeping watch on a construction yard from a half built skyscraper. He saw a few vans pull up and wondered how the hell they got cars up there, but he soon let go of that thought as more vans appeared. The meeting had begun.
            Ian watched and waited as he noticed Others agents carrying something towards the other vans, but he could not see what it was. He could spot the Others agents amongst the other men as they were the only ones carrying medieval weapons.
  “TacCom, you getting this,”
  “Five by five, Dragon,” said Devon. “But you’re going to have to get closer to that crate, we need to know what’s inside,”
  “I wasn’t planning on letting them leave with it,” said Ian.
            He leapt from his vantage point and glided closer, and when he could glide no more he ran. Ian leapt over the wall surrounding the construction area, drew his two swords and landed in the midst of the Others agents and the unknown men and women. They were all startled by his sudden appearance, but only for a second.
            A fierce fight ensued with the Others agents starting to shoot at the unknown agents, who returned fire, and everyone firing and hacking at Ian. He was well trained, though, and was able to counter every blow swung at him, cutting down half a dozen agents before having to sheath one sword and unholster a pistol.
            He fired and cut in varying patters, first disembowelling and Others agent with an axe, then shooting two unknown agents in their head, before thrusting his blade through the abdomen of yet another Others agent and blowing their brains out.
            Soon enough, the fighting died away and Ian was the only one left standing, but like everything around him, he was covered in blood. Thankfully not his own.
            Ian walked over to the crate and wedged it open with his sword. Inside he found a large chunk of purple crystal that shone faintly.
  “A large glowing rock?” said Melisa.
  “Any idea where this came from?” asked Ian.
  “No. Wait, wasn’t there a number on the side of the crate?”
  “You mean that?” asked Ian looking at a jumbled assortment of numbers and letters.
  “Yeah, I’ll see what that turns up. Dev’s en route to pick you up with the VTOL,”
  “Good, I’ll start collecting phones and other electronics,”

            An hour later Ian was standing in the shower, letting the water run down his face and body, cleansing him. He never really like killing, and avoided it if possible. But when he had to, he killed, and then mourned those he had sent to the beyond for a while. ‘Remember the Fallen,’ he read on his right arm, ‘Fight for the Living,’ on his left.
            His phone rang as he got out of the shower, and he answered it while tying a towel around his lower body.
  “Hey beautiful,”
  “Hey,” Danny answered form the other side of the call. “How are you doing?”
  “Good,”
  “You found Ed yet?”
  “No, but we found some more of this crystal so maybe it will lead us to him. How are you holding up?”
  “I miss you terribly,”
  “I know, I miss you too. JR’s not being too much trouble is he?”
  “No, he’s behaving, though he’s barely home. He did ask where you were,”
  “What did you tell him?”
  “The truth, minus Melisa still being alive. But, I’ve got to run. I’ll call you again later,” she said and ended the call.
            Ian leaned back against the wall staring at his reflection in the fogged up mirror. He knew she had done the right thing in telling JR where they were and why, but she might as well have told him about Melisa. In fact, with both Melisa and Devon being thousands of kilometres away, it would have been better for everyone.
  “Where the hell are you, Superducky? Just give me some damned sign,” he said to himself and got dressed.

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