When Henry’s son gets kidnapped, he will do everything to get Randall back.
6,959 words Added Aug 2024 798 views 3.0 stars (3 votes)
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10:47
Henry was pacing up and down the living room, although currently it was hard to tell it was a place where people lived. Computers and makeshift desks had been set up by the police. Various people sat next to monitors, keeping an eye on the situation or staying in contact with HQ.
Henry wondered what they were even doing at this point. Alan Yates, the tech supervisor had not said much since he arrived. To be fair, it wasn’t really his job. He was supposed to provide tech support, not take care of Henry. In fact, he and his team, as well as Henry, were waiting for the hostage specialist to arrive, setting up the tech in the meantime.
Suddenly his phone rang. He almost dropped it as his shaking hands were fishing it out of his pocket. He let out a disappointed sigh when he saw the screen and remembered that it was his work phone and not his personal one. Nevertheless he accepted the call. “Yes? No, I will not attend any meetings today. Cancel and move all meetings that you can. The rest I trust you with. No, nothing. I’ll keep you updated as I know more. Thanks.”
He hung up. He had to trust his executive vice-president to run his company for the time being as Henry was not able to think about anything work related today.
When he put his phone back in his pocket, there was minor commotion coming from the hall. Henry heard footsteps moving quickly and with purpose, unlike those of the tech team, lugging boxes around and setting up the equipment.
A policeman appeared at the door, flanked by two other police officers. “Mister Howard?”
Henry stopped. “Yes.”
The man approached. “I am Steven Kemp, Hostage Negotiations Team.” He shook Henry’s hand. “It’s about your son, right?”
Henry nodded. “Yes. Randall Howard.”
Kemp looked over to the officers who arrived together with him, who had already sat down and were writing something down on their laptops, most likely a protocol of the situation. “Okay, let me ask some questions, first.”
“Sure.”
“His age is…” Kemp checked his notes. “22?”
“Yes.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a product management assistant at my company,” Henry explained. “I’m training him to take it over one day.”
“Any hobbies or other activities? Does he go to the gym, for example?”
“Some, but not much. I can send you his calendar.”
“That would be useful.” Kemp looked at his notes. “Did anything in his daily routine change recently? Any activities he stopped or picked up?”
“Not that I can tell.” Henry thought for a long moment. “The only thing I can think of is that he goes out more often lately, but that already started months ago.”
“Is that unusual for him?”
“He’s not the most outgoing person. Maybe his friends just pushed him a bit more.”
“Mmh.”
“Do you think it’s related?”
“It’s possible, but unlikely.” Kemp jotted down some notes. “In my experience there are two extremes. Either the kidnappers know the person for years, in which case any change in routine wouldn’t tell us anything. The other extreme is that they don’t know the person and are only looking for a victim, in which case they want to get it over quickly, in a matter of weeks, not months. If his change in routine is related, then probably only by accident, like being out more had a higher chance of him being noticed and identified.”
Henry didn’t say anything.
“Can I get a list of his friends?”
“Already got it,” Yates chimed in.
“I had already called his closest friends,” Henry said. “But nobody knows anything.”
“Mmh mmh,” Kemp mused. “They might not know anything directly, but maybe we can infer something from what they tell us. We will investigate.”
“Okay.”
“All right, Mister Howard,” Kemp continued. “Now to the actual incident. What exactly happened?”
“Randall had a workshop today, at 9. At 9:30 I got a call from the organizer saying he could not reach him and asked me where he was. I looked in his room, but he was not home, so I called him on his phone, but there was no reply.” Henry had to take a deep breath to calm himself. “Then I got the video message.”
“Does he go to that workshop often?”
“It started only three weeks ago.”
“Mmh.” Kemp paused for a moment. “That falls exactly into the average scouting and planning time.”
“You think the kidnappers are from the workshop?”
“It is certainly possible. We will investigate all angles. I’ll need a contact of the workshop organizer.”
“Got that too,” Yates chimed in again.
“Good.” Kemp turned to Yates. “Now, about that video. Got anything so far?”
“Nope,” Yates replied without turning around. “We just finished setting up.” He pointed to Henry’s personal phone that was plugged into his laptop. “But we can take a look at the video if you want.”
“Let’s do it.”
Several of the men in the room got up to gather around a monitor that was set up on a desk, including Kemp and one of his assistants. Henry meanwhile stayed back where he was. He had already seen the video and he wasn’t thrilled to watch it a second time.
On the monitor appeared a blindfolded, gagged young man, tied up and sitting on a chair inside of a large empty storage hall. A second man entered from off-screen, a black mask obscuring his entire face.
“Good morning, Mister Howard.” A robotic voice sounded from the speakers, without movement from the man’s face, indicating that it was a text-to-voice program. “Let’s cut right to the chase. This is a pretty standard hostage situation.” He pointed to the young man on the chair. “We’ve got your son and you’ve got a lot of money. Now, we haven’t done this before, but we think half a billion is certainly a fair price in exchange for your son, isn’t it? Simply send the money to the account we attached to the message and this story can have a happy ending. Otherwise.” He looked to Randall, whose breath was quickening. “You’ll find out, I guess.”
With that the video ended.
“Any leads in the video?” Kemp asked.
“None from just looking at it.” Yates replayed the video on mute, slowly whipping back and forth on his chair, staring at the moving images on the monitor. “We’ll run some in-depth analysis. Maybe we can find some detail in the background to identify the building, but…” He sighed. “Don’t get your hopes up. There’s not even any windows in the shot.”
“Anything we know of the account?”
Yates shrugged. “It’s outside our jurisdiction. Can’t track it. Can’t ask the bank for information.”
“Wait,” Henry chimed in. “How is that possible?”
“Well, there’s financial institutions that don’t follow the rules set up by most governments.”
“How is that legal?”
“Well, it isn’t,” Yates pointed out. “But neither is taking people hostage. Normally any transaction to such accounts is blocked by any normal bank, but it appears our criminals here know that we can override that block to pay the ransom.”
“Which we won’t,” Kemp interjected.
“Which we won’t,” Yates echoed. “But that’s what they hope we’ll do.”
“So now what?” Henry asked.
Kemp thought for a second. “We’ll have to wait. Ideally they’ll open a call with us, which we can use to track them down.”
“And if they don’t do that?”
Kemp looked at Henry for a second. “The important thing to remember is that we are in control. They want your money. They will not win if they don’t get it. If they realize that we don’t engage with them in the way they do things they will eventually resort to having to accept our terms of communication.”
“I need something more than that…”
Kemp began to think, but was interrupted by Yates. “You’re thinking too complicated.”
Kemp looked at him. “Explain.”
Yates shrugged again, as if the answer to their problem was obvious. “We’ll send them a transaction, a single cent or whatever and attach a message to it asking for a call.”
Henry nodded. “Makes sense to me.”
“Do it.” Kemp turned to Henry. “Mr Howard, it would be best if you talk to them. Do you think you can do that?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Good, let’s go through what we’re going to say.”
10:55
Everyone perked up when the notification tone rang.
“We got a call.” Yates brought the monitor to life.
Kemp turned to Henry. “Remember, try to play for time. We need about 90 seconds to locate them.”
Henry took a deep breath. “Yes.” He straightened himself and stood before the monitor, which had a webcam installed.
Yates answered the call and a similar scene as last time appeared, Randall being tied to a chair, with a masked man standing next to him. This time, however, a timer was displayed in the upper right, counting down from 60 seconds.
“You have one minute,” the robotic voice said.
Henry briefly glanced over to Kemp, but his face was unreadable. He turned back to the monitor. “Let me talk to my son.”
For a moment the man hesitated, but then he turned to Randall and pulled the gag out of his mouth, leaving the blindfold in place.
“Dad?”
“Randy, are you hurt?!”
“I’m fine.” Randall grimaced. “They wouldn’t dare hurt me.”
“Randy, don’t play the hero.”
“I’m not scared!”
“Just do whatever they say,” Henry insisted. “We’ll get you out of there.”
Randall thought for a moment. “Okay.”
The man pushed the gag back into Randall’s mouth. “Your time is almost over.”
Henry looked at the timer. 12 seconds left.
They needed to buy time. Henry went through the script in his head. An idea Kemp and he came up with was haggling for the price. “I don’t have half a billion.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s all in stocks and assets,” Henry continued. “I don’t have the money on hand. I need time to liquidate enough assets to have enough.”
6 seconds left.
“Then I suggest you do not waste your time,” the man replied. “We’ll call you in 20 minutes again if the money hasn’t arrived.”
Then the call ended.
The room was silent for a moment as Henry stared at the blank monitor.
“Got anything?” Kemp asked Yates.
“Nope, the time was too short.” Yates looked at his laptop as if waiting for something. Finally his face lit up. “But I think we can get them during the next call. I managed to decrypt part of their source. It will not take the full 90 seconds next time.”
“Good…” Kemp took a breath. “That means we wait.”
“Do you think they would let him go if we paid the money?” Henry asked without taking his eyes from the monitor.
“Hard to say.” Kemp thought for a moment. “But regardless, we cannot afford to do that. Imagine a world where criminals know they can get away with ransom.”
Henry looked to the ground. He knew Kemp was right, but… He just wanted his son back.
11:16
Almost to the second, the call came in, just as promised.
On the screen was the same scene as last time, with Randall sitting on the chair and the masked stranger standing next to him. A timer was visible again in the corner, counting down from 60 seconds.
“You missed the deadline,” the robotic voice sounded while the masked man went to a valve next to Randall’s chair and turned it.
A muted hissing sound like air rushing through a pipe became audible. Randall flexed in surprise as if he had been touched by something cold or uncomfortable.
Henry was confused about what this was about. He didn’t understand what was happening, but he heard Randall whimpering through his gag.
Then he saw it. Randall’s belly was slowly growing.
The man stepped aside to show an automated air pump next to his hostage, the hose connecting to somewhere under the chair. Since the tube didn’t enter the mouth, Henry had a good guess how the air entered the body. He shuddered.
“You know what this is,” the voice continued. “We will continue until we receive the money.”
Then the man grabbed an air balloon with a simple face drawn on it, from off screen. “You know what happens if you take too long?” He produced a knife and held it next to the balloon.
POP!
“Consequences.” The man turned around to Randall, who struggled against his restraints as his belly continued to grow. Then he turned to the camera again. “You’ll hear from us again in ten minutes.”
The video went dark, just as the timer reached 0 seconds.
It took Henry a few seconds to shake off his shock. “We got their position, right?”
“Hmm...” was Yates’s only response.
“What does ‘hmm’ mean?!”
“Mr Howard, please.” Kemp tried to calm him. Then he turned to Yates. “What’s the status?”
Yates meanwhile continued tapping on his keyboard. “We managed to track the signal, but it’s not the original source either,” he explained. “They have set up a proxy chain.”
“Shit!” Henry turned around, gathering his thoughts.
“Do we know how long that chain is?” Kemp wanted to know.
“No.” Yates continued typing. “But they are using similar encryption patterns for each proxy, going for quantity over quality. This means, once we’ve cracked the system, subsequent proxies can be decrypted much easier. I am trimming our algorithm to make it faster. Next time we should be able to track them to their source.”
Henry looked over to the two agents, clearly remembering that Yates had promised something similar last time.
Kemp caught Henry’s gaze and turned to Yates. “The odds?”
Yates shrugged. “95 percent? Depends on how long their chain is, but unless they have like 70 nodes, we should be able to decrypt all of them in 60 seconds.” A small pause. “More than 40 nodes is very unlikely.”
Kemp thought for a moment. “How long do you need to set it up?”
Yates hit enter. A progress bar was quickly filling up on the screen. “Done. Now we wait for their next call.”
“So, what,” Henry chimed in. “We just do nothing?”
“Mr Howard,” Kemp began. “I understand this is very difficult, but there is nothing we can do at the moment. We have to wait for their next message.”
Henry started gesticulating. “You should ready the teams so they can roll out as soon as we have the location!”
“We don’t know where they are,” Kemp explained. “Randall could be in another city. He could be right under our noses.” Kemp considered his next words. “Rest assured that as soon as we know where he is, we will dispatch a team as quickly as we can to get your son back home safely.”
Henry knew that Kemp was right, but he couldn’t sit still right now.
So he continued pacing.
11:26
Back and forth. Back and forth. At this point Henry could see the flattened path on the carpet he was walking on.
He froze when the notification tone rang. A call.
Henry rushed to the monitor.
The same scene as the last times was shown on screen, except that Randall’s belly had grown to extreme proportions, the almost perfect sphere taking up most of his torso. With his arms kept behind him, he looked like just a ball with legs and a head, almost like a toy. His T-shirt had been pushed up by the growing belly to cover only the top most part of his chest.
His whimpering had stopped by now, but he still looked distressed. Henry gulped.
“Another ten minutes have passed,” the robotic voice stated. “We suggest you hurry.”
“Let me talk to him,” Henry commanded.
The masked man hesitated for a few moments, then turned to Randall and removed the mouth gag.
Henry moved a couple inches closer to the screen as if his son could hear him better this way. “Randy, are you okay?”
“I’m not hurt.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of there.” Henry glanced over to Yates. “We almost have the money.”
“Dad? What’s happening to me?”
Henry didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to scare his son, but Randall must have obviously noticed something already. What could a father possibly say in a situation like this?
The man moved forward and put his hand next to Randall’s head.
‘No no no no no, please don’t.’ Henry thought to himself. ‘Please don’t let him see it.’
After a few moments, the man pulled off the blindfold.
Randall’s eyes immediately fell on his slowly growing belly, his eyes widening. “Dad!” He turned to the camera. “Help me!”
Then the video cut out.
Henry’s eyes fell onto Yates, who was simply staring at his monitor.
“Clever bastards,” Yates said to himself.
“What does that mean?!” Henry asked. “We found them, right?!”
“Technically, you could say that.”
“Yates.” Kemp ordered his colleague to stop beating around the bush.
“They set up a proxy ring chain,” Yates began to explain. “One proxy sends the command to the next, which sends it to the next in the chain and so on. Except, the last one in the chain sends it back to the source and the cycle continues.” He shrugged. “Since they override each other, we do not know which one was the first.”
“How many locations?” Kemp wanted to know.
A map appeared on the monitor, highlighting multiple spots. “21, but we know from the video that it has to be a building that is at least 10 meters wide or long and has a wall of 8 meters without windows.” Several locations became grayed out. “Means we can eliminate seven of those.”
“How far are they apart?”
Yates pressed a key highlighting district borders. “All in the same district.”
“That is good, right?” Henry asked.
Kemp shook his head. “Not really. We can only send so many teams out at once in an area.” He turned to Yates. “How many precincts do we have available?”
“One in the immediate area and five in neighboring districts.”
Kemp thought for a moment before he nodded to his assistants who started to coordinate with the local police stations. Finally he turned to Henry. “Don’t worry, we’ll get your son back.”
And for the first time today, Henry smiled.
11:27
“How was I?” Randall asked, as he brought his arms to the front and massaged his growing belly.
“Very good.” Bryce pulled off his mask. “You’re a natural.”
“I know how to push his buttons,” Randall smirked.
Bryce moved his hand over Randall’s body. “You’re inflating nicely. You’ll make such a beautiful blimp.”
“And you’ll take good care of me?” Randall purred.
“Of course.” Bryce leaned down to kiss Randall.
Before their lips could touch, Collin chimed in. “As expected,” the first words were louder than they had to be in order to get the couple’s attention. “They have cracked our ring chain encryption.”
Collin was a techie friend of Bryce and Randall didn’t quite get why he was here. Bryce said they needed someone to hack into police communications and set up encryption for their proxies, but surely it couldn’t be that hard. Randall would have preferred to do this with Bryce alone.
Bryce straightened up. “Just that?”
“Just that,” Collin confirmed. “They’re sending out squads.”
Randall rolled his eyes, annoyed that his moment with his boyfriend was interrupted. “How about you make sure they don’t find us then?” It was about time Collin earned his part of the pay.
Collin wordlessly looked over to Bryce, his face devoid of expression.
“You don’t have to worry.” Bryce put a hand on Randall’s cheek. “We’ve got everything under control.”
11:29
Derrick swung himself into the shotgun seat of the car. The other three members of his squad were already inside. They had been getting ready while Derrick got briefed. Normally the team would be briefed as one, but time was of the essence so he had to relay the information on the way there.
“Go,” he said to Vincent, the driver. “Marble Street, the old factory.”
“Got it.” His driver noticed that Derrick didn’t put up the siren. “We go in quietly?”
“Yep, some rich fucker’s kid got kidnapped. Don’t want to alert them.” Derrick turned around on his seat to his colleagues in the back. “So here’s the deal: We’ve already sniffed out a bunch of locations in this district, one of which is their hideout, though we don’t know which. All the precincts in the area and surrounding have joined the hunt. Since we’re in the area, Tango-Delta and us will take care of two each. The ones from the neighboring precincts will handle only one. It’s 14 locations, so we should be able to check out all of them in half an hour.”
“So we’ll make two stops?” One of his colleagues in the back asked.
“Unless they’re found before that, yes.”
“How will we handle it?” The other asked.
“Vincent and I will take the front. You two will circle around to the back entrance.”
“Got it.”
“Threat level?” Vincent wanted to know.
“As far as we can tell they don’t appear to be armed, but stay alert.”
11:37
“Phew,” Randall exhaled as he was patting his increasingly spherical body. “I’m starting to look good.”
By now, Randall’s body has become almost a sphere that had swallowed up everything but his head, his arms up to his elbows, and his legs above his knees. It was increasingly difficult to play the distressed hostage due to how good his body felt.
“You always looked good.” Bryce appeared next to him, straps of black latex or rubber in his hand. “But now you look even better.”
“What’s that?” Randall tried to take a closer look at the straps, but it was difficult as he could barely move his body.
“A harness.” Bryce showed Randall a collar. “We don’t want you to pop, do we?”
“Wait, you said I won’t pop.” Randall remembered that regular air pumps, like the one they used, are not strong enough to make an inflated person’s rubberized skin burst.
“I’m kidding.” Bryce smiled. “The harness will dig into your skin, make it look like you’re fuller, and closer to bursting, than you actually are.” His smile widened into a smirk. “And I bet it looks damn sexy on you.”
“Fuck yeah, put it on.”
Bryce began removing Randall’s clothes to put on the collar. “May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you want to get away from your father?”
Randall rolled his eyes. “You don’t really know what he’s like. Everything is about work all the time, every time. What I want never matters. He doesn’t care about me at all.”
“Mmh,” was Bryce’s only answer.
“Like, a few months ago, one of his managers quit and what did he do?” Randall paused for a dramatic second. “He hired some other guy instead of promoting me, his own son. Instead he sends me away to some nonsense workshop. He doesn’t even want me to be successful!”
“Wow,” Collin said as he was walking by. “Now that’s a real tear-jerker.”
“Literally nobody asked you about your opinion, asshole,” Randall shot back.
“Oh, I apologize.” Collin threw more venom. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you two love-birds.”
“Collin.” Bryce begged him to stop.
Randall rolled his eyes. “Fuck that guy,” he continued in a lower voice, once Collin was out of ear shot. “Why do you even hang out with him?”
“I told you, we need a techie,” Bryce sighed. “Just… don’t let him get to you okay? Just ignore him for just a few more minutes. Once this is all over you’ll never have to talk to him ever again.”
“Promise.”
Bryce’s smile returned, warm as ever with a hint of mischievousness. “I promise.” By now he was done putting the harness on Randall’s body. “Now get ready for the video.”
11:40
“Tango-Delta here. Carver Hill is a negative,” came the voice from the radio. “I repeat, Carver Hill is a negative.”
Derrick’s team was almost to the factory in Marble Street. The first location wasn’t the one, though that wasn’t a big surprise. It would have been quite the coincidence if the first of 14 locations would have been the one they were looking for.
Finally, the car stopped, a little distance away from the building so as to not alert anyone inside and to avoid stepping right into an ambush.
Derrick and his team moved out, quickly making their way to the places they had been assigned to with Vincent and Derrick approaching the front gate.
“All right, we’re in position,” Derrick spoke into the transceiver mounted to his vest.
Vincent and him waited for a few moments before the voice on the other end confirmed.
“We’re in position too.”
“We cannot spot anyone inside,” Derrick said. “How does it look on your end?”
“Empty.”
“Enter on 1: 3… 2… 1!”
Vincent pushed open the door to let Derrick slip inside, his gun ready, though pointing to the ground. Vincent followed right behind, covering him. The two moved forward, through the empty hall. The sides of the hall were open, while in the middle were rooms, likely former administration.
Eventually they saw their two colleagues round a corner.
“Clear!” they shouted over.
“Clear,” Derrick confirmed and grabbed his transceiver. “Tango-Bravo here. Marble Street is a negative too. Moving to Hawthorn Lane now.”
“Marble Street negative. Moving to Hawthorne Lane,” was the response from dispatch. “Confirmed.”
11:49
“Did you see that look on his face?” Randall exclaimed once Bryce removed the gag from his mouth. “He really thought I was gonna pop.”
Randall and his accomplices had just sent another video to his father, who was still claiming that he was trying to scrounge up the money. Naturally, they knew that this was a lie. His father and the police were trying to buy time to send out their squads.
“Mmh mmh,” Bryce hummed in agreement, though lacking excitement.
He was looking up and down Randall’s body, which had ballooned to extreme proportions. By now Randall was pretty much just a giant sphere, three meters in diameter. Only his head, hands and feet were sticking out of the giant inflated body. Most of his internal organs, save for his brain, had been absorbed by the rubbery skin that formed the wall of his balloon-like body.
Randall couldn’t really take a good look at himself, but Bryce had been so kind as to show him a photo on his phone right before the video. He couldn’t really grow much bigger. His skin was starting to creak, a sign that he was at the edge of what was possible.
“You’re sure your father will send the money over?” Bryce asked.
“Oh, yeah, don’t worry. My father thinks money can buy everything. He’ll cave.”
Bryce moved his hands over Randall’s creaking body.
“How do I look?” Randall asked.
Bryce looked him in the eyes. “Perfect.”
11:52
“All right, guys,” Derrick said to his team moments before the car stopped. “This is the one. Stay alert.”
Every single location except for Hawthorne Lane had been reported empty. Now they knew where the kidnappers were hiding and it was up to Derrick and his team to apprehend the criminals.
Derrick’s team got out and silently began surrounding the warehouse. As before, Vincent and Derrick took the front.
11:53
“Bryce?” Randall asked into the room as he couldn’t turn and look for Bryce himself.
“Yes?” Bryce entered his field of view.
“I was thinking,” Randall began. “Collin said that the police had found our proxies and were looking for our location.”
“That’s true.”
Randall thought for a moment. “But, doesn’t that mean that they will eventually find us?”
11:54
There were definitely noises coming from inside the warehouse.
Derrick spoke into his transceiver, talking to his colleagues at the other end of the building. “Do you pick up voices from inside?”
“Yes, but nothing definite.”
“Sounds like we hit the jackpot.”
11:55
“Don’t worry about that,” Bryce caressed Randall’s face. “They haven’t found us yet.”
“But what if they do?”
“They won’t,” Bryce reassured him. “Not if your father sends the money in time.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Bryce smiled. “Do you know what a shell game is?”
11:56
“Tango-Bravo here.” Derrick was talking to HQ. “We can hear noises coming from inside the building.
“Can you make out what they say?”
“Negative. Do we have permission to enter or should we wait for backup?”
“Hold on.” Several seconds passed. “You have permission to enter.”
“Confirmed.” Derrick switched to his team’s frequency. “Enter on 1: 3… 2…”
11:57
“You mean that gambling game with the cups?” Randall asked. “That they perform on the streets?”
“That one, yes.” Bryce smiled. “The marble is put under one cup, or shell, and then the cups are moved rapidly around. At the end the player has to pick one cup. If they picked the correct cup, they win and get money. But if they lose they do not get anything and have lost the money they paid to play.”
“What does it have to do with what we’re doing?” Randall asked.
“Where is the marble at the end of a round?”
“It depends on how the cups were moved.”
“No,” Bryce replied. “The cups don’t matter. Even if you pick randomly, the odds of winning would be one in three. But why would a thimblerigger allow that? Why would he give the player any chance to win?” A dramatic pause. “The cups are nothing but a distraction, a false choice. The player never had a chance to win if he was playing by the rigger’s rules because the marble had been moved into the rigger’s pocket long before the cups came to rest.”
11:58
“1!” Derrick finished his count.
As with last time, Vincent opened the door and Derrick slipped in.
Immediately Derrick saw a couple youths sitting on the ground, smoking weed judging by the smell. “Quiet and keep your hands where I can see them!” He commanded in as low volume as possible.
“Hey, man,” One of the guys began. “We didn’t know this place was—”
“I said quiet!” Derrick hissed. He didn’t want to alert the kidnappers. The warehouse was big enough that they could be far enough away to make it out before his team could get to them.
“Please, we want no trouble,” another one of the men said.
“Quiet!”
Derrick stood with the men, while Vincent went further into the building.
After a minute he returned, together with the rest of the team. “Clear.”
Derrick was confused. This was supposed to be the one. Were they fed false information? He grabbed the transceiver and hesitated for a moment before he spoke. “Tango-Bravo here. Hawthorn Lane is a negative.”
11:59
“And that,” Bryce finished his explanation. “Is how a shell game works.”
Randall thought for a moment. “All of the locations they checked were false.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
“But, won’t they find out the real source eventually?”
“Eventually?” Bryce turned to tend to some equipment. “Sure, but that will take hours. We’ll be long gone by then.”
12:00
“What the fuck!” Mr Howard yelled. “You said you had them!”
Kemp moved his eyes over the monitor with the locations. What had they missed? “Yates?” He decided to ignore Howard’s outburst right now.
Yates seemed similarly confused, before realization hit his face. “They played us.”
“What do you mean?”
“We ran right into their trap,” Yates continued, in parts speaking to himself, in parts answering Kemp’s question. “They set out decoys to keep us busy.”
“Can you track their real source?”
“We could, but we’re back to square one.” Yates thought for a moment. “We’ll need additional calls.”
“We promised them the money would be here soon.” Mr Howard was visibly angry. “I can’t delay them anymore. We need a solution now!”
Kemp was unsure how to continue.
“Should I try setting a trap for them?” Yates asked. “Maybe fake a transaction and make it look like technical difficulties to keep them hooked? Could buy us time.”
“Try it.” Kemp turned around to Mr Howard, but found he had stormed off in the meantime.
12:01
“You said he would send over the money.” Bryce seemed subtly impatient.
“He will,” Randall tried to assure him. “I know my father.”
Bryce didn’t say anything as he was looking over to Collin, waiting for the signal.
“Should we do another call?” Randall asked.
“You’re not growing anymore. If they realize you’re not at risk of popping, we lose our most important bargaining chip.”
Randall noticed the angry tone in Bryce’s voice. “Are you upset with me?”
Suddenly Bryce’s face softened and he turned to Randall. “No, of course not. But… What are we supposed to do without the money? I cannot keep you inflated in a regular apartment.”
“You could keep me deflated, like a mattress?” Randall offered. “That’s almost as good, right?”
“It’s not the same.” Bryce caressed Randall’s cheek. “We wanted to have the perfect future, remember? Do you really want to spend your days deflated?”
Randall thought for a moment. The thought of being deflated scared him, as if part of him now considered being an air-filled balloon was normal. “No.”
“Then let’s hope your father makes up his mind soon.”
12:09
“How’s the plan going?” Kemp asked.
“Slow,” was Yates’s only reply.
Kemp was nearly at his wit’s end. Hostage scenarios were never easy, but thinking you had it only to realize that you were played with the entire time and having all your progress undone was something he had never experienced before.
Suddenly his phone rang. It was his boss.
“Yes?” Kemp answered.
“I heard about the situation,” his boss began.
Kemp inhaled to brace himself.
“—From the chief of police,” his boss finished his sentence.
“What?”
“I just got a call. Told me to get this fixed, so I am now calling you.”
“We’re working on it,” Kemp began to explain. “We have a new angle of attack that we—”
“Can it,” his boss cut him off. “Send the money over.”
“Sir, we… We shouldn’t.”
“This is not up for negotiation,” his boss insisted.
“But if we do that, especially in this case—”
“This was an order, Kemp.”
Kemp took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”
Kemp ended the call and looked over to Mr Howard. Someone made a call to the chief of police, someone affluent enough to call in favors.
Mr Howard returned the look, waiting for Kemp to give the order.
“Yates,” Kemp began, not breaking eye contact with Mr Howard. “Send the money over, no tricks.”
“Wait, what?”
“Just do it.”
12:11
“Aaaaand, the money is here.” Collin got up from his makeshift workplace and made his way towards Bryce and Randall.
“Half a billion?” Bryce wanted to make sure.
“Every single penny.”
“And no tricks?”
“Not as far as I can tell.” Collin stood next to Bryce.
“All right, let’s get you down to a more manageable size.” Bryce moved behind Randall to reverse the air pump.
As he was beginning to deflate, Randall looked at Collin. “Why are you still standing there? Gather the equipment.”
As if to make a point out of defying Randall, Collin put an arm around Bryce’s shoulders once he returned into Randall’s view.
“Hey, hands off my boyfriend!” Randall barked.
Collin went even further and started to kiss Bryce, who returned the gesture.
“Wha-what’s going on?” Randall wanted to know.
“Still haven’t caught on, have you?” Collin asked.
“Bryce, answer me,” Randall demanded, a slight tremble joining his voice.
Collin smiled. “Just as gullible as his father.”
Bryce simply looked at Randall.
“Must run in the family,” Collin mused.
“Sorry, Randall,” Bryce finally said.
Randall’s eyes widened. “You used me!?”
“Like you used your father, yes,” Collin retorted.
“That’s not fair!” Randall yelled. “I agreed to become a blim—” His voice became muffled as his body became just a sheet of deflated skin on the ground, unable to exhale and speak. Only his head, hands and feet retained their shape.
“All right, time to pack up.” Collin turned around. “Don’t wanna be here when they decide to search every building in the city that fits the criteria.”
Bryce knelt down to look Randall in the eyes. “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you. You’ll make such a beautiful boybed.”
Randall silently tried to plead with Bryce.
“You know,” Bryce pushed the gag into Randall’s mouth. “When I said I love you?”
“Don’t waste time, honey,” Collin urged.
“Well, I’m already taken, you see, but if things had been different, I would have meant it.”
The last thing Randall saw before he was rolled up was Bryce’s warm smile with a hint of mischievousness.
6,959 words Added Aug 2024 798 views 3.0 stars (3 votes)
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