LaCroix - Page 2
Evidently, I've become a part of a band of people somehow all connected to Zymogenetics. Why else would I end up there on an early Saturday morning? As I was walking up to the building, I noticed a residentially-challenged man standing in the middle of the sidewalk. When he turned to look at me, I flashed a nervous smile and asked if he needed help with anything considering he was just staring at a closed office building. He said he was here a couple days prior, found a cell phone at that very location, and some "men with accents and fancy suits" had paid him $1000 for it. He was hoping to find another. He seemed content to just sit and wait until another phone materialized so I bid him a good day and continued on into the building.
Just because it seemed a little strange, especially considering the events that had happened here, I told Ms. Maria Reyes about the incident. She barely lifted a brow, but did chastise me about how they can't go after every little report about a seemingly ordinary homeless man looking for another handout. Whoa, lady. Chill. $1000 seems a little out of the ordinary, even for an iPhone, and certainly a strange coincidence given that the "transaction" happened just outside the front door.
Anyway, Ms. Cranky Pants called us together because Lee reported something about a mouse. One with seemingly super strength so he was dubbed Mighty Mouse, I think. He had someone with him, a man by the name of Vic Stravinsky, who claimed to be Lee's trainer. Training for what, who knows. James Milligan had been hard at work since early that morning and found some leads. He'd apparently found an apartment that Dr. Akerfeldt used as a secondary residence. He called us over.
Well, the good news is that Dr. Akerfeldt was found. The bad news was that he was found hung from a chandelier. Eerily, Det. Milligan played a recording left by Dr. Ackerfeldt as his corpse hung in the air. He explained his work, but, to be honest, I was a little shell shocked to remember much of it. In fact, the remainder of the day kinda went by in a haze. Det. Milligan stayed behind to make his report to the police and the rest of us decided to stop by a nearby Starbucks. There, the man I saw earlier this morning was buying a coffee with a hundred dollar bill. I made a snide comment to Ms. Reyes about how he must surly be just "an ordinary homeless man". I braced myself for another tongue-lashing, but she took me aside and was actually really kind and polite about how things had gone today and it kinda sounded like an apology...? I'm not really sure.
After lunch at a Brazilian steakhouse, Ipanema, where an altercation (instigated by Vic, I think) with some Russian folks was narrowly avoided, Ms. Reyes got on the trail of tracking down Ackerfeldt's laptop by using some GPS-tracking program. The signal stopped in the middle of Fremont and we went in to investigate. It was located behind a row of buildings so Lee and I scaled the wall, easy work for us, really, and snuck across the roofs of the building. When we got to the ledge, there was a black SUV and one guy standing outside it. Just as we got there, he knocked on the window, showed his screen to whoever was inside and the ignition started.
We didn't want them getting away so Lee leapt into the fray. One of them uttered "Bogey" before engaging in the fight. I thought it prudent to prevent the car from driving away too fast so I threw some debris found nearby to shatter the windshield which caused further pandemonium. When one of them was going to shoot Lee, I bounced a rock off the wall to hit him in the shoulder. He winced, looked up to where I was, and called, "Bogey 2" which sounds militaristic? He shot at me instead, which, luckily, was only a grazing shot. The car revved its engine and bowled right over Lee! I admit I panicked, which made me scale down the wall to check on him. He was, oddly, just fine. A bit wide-eyed, shocked, and covered in dirt and grease, but otherwise fine. The assailants pulled cloth masks over their faces; each had an inverted triangle and a Roman numeral in the eye area. The fight continued for a little while longer, until they jumped into the car and sped away. We tried chasing after them, even with Ms. Reyes' driver, but they ran a red light which caused us to lose them. Dammit.
