Chapter 4

The Leopard was still undergoing improvements. The remaining three months passed, and Jack chaired his first AGM.

“It has been a busy year,” he began. “As a company, Mech Enterprise has done well, competing in the markets, gaining and selling shares, and manufacturing the best technology available. Our ratings are rising, despite the untimely death of my uncle Mr John Wake. I have great hopes for the company, especially since the Leopard Project is just about complete. The cyborg is just as alive as the real thing, and I am sure that my uncle Mr Wake would have been proud of this achievement if he was still here. But with a new leader, there begins a new era, a new age. A new company. We are defined by our actions, and I want us to be known as a company that conquers.”

These words stuck with the board members as if they were glue. Jack Dean was re-elected as CEO, and all the ‘trouble makers’ were cast out. Now Jack had full control of the company. Next, he hoped, he would run for office. He set aside the Leopard Project temporarily, and set Professor Stuart a new project. He kept it secret from everyone else. The Professor obeyed faithfully, and drafted the new project.

Time passed, and a young adolescent girl had moved to Porter City from Katangerup. She got a job in journalism, and wrote articles for the newspaper Normanian Weekly. It was big because it was national. The phone rang in her office. She had walked through the door and only just got it.

“Hello, Normanian Weekly, Emma Pearce speaking,” she said.

“Hey Em it’s Ian.”

“Ian, hi! What’s up?”

“Nuthin’ really. Just rang to say hi. Actually, I was wondering if you heard Mech Enterprise’s public statement.”

“No I didn’t. What about it?”

“Well, Mech Enterprise is releasing some new technology, but they haven’t let on what it is.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“But guess what. The CEO Jack Dean is holding a massive technology launch called MegaLaunch, and many people will be attending.”

Emma smiled. “Sounds like something that would make a great story.”

“Yeah…,” Ian didn’t sound so sure. “You could do a story on it, but you have to be invited. Apparently they won’t tolerate party crashers.”

“No way of getting in without an invite?”

“Absolutely no way,” Ian confirmed. “You probably could sneak in, but you’d be quickly kicked out.”

“How does one get invited?” asked Emma.

“Meeting the CEO, finding favour in his eyes,” said Ian, thinking aloud. “Maybe you have to be proposed?”

“Such a big launch and not everyone is welcome,” spat Emma. “Very exclusive, and he’s a snobby bastard. Maybe I don’t want to do a story on him.”

“You could find a way to do it in secret,” suggested Ian.

“When the story comes out, they’ll know I snuck in,” said Emma. “You’re right, Ian. There’s absolutely no way in.”

“There’ll be other times,” said Ian reassuringly. “When you get higher stats you might be invited next time.”

That night, Emma was watching the news. A kidnapping had been reported, and there were three victims, all of them from Katangerup. This brought Emma’s attention, especially when their names were given.

“Twins Danielle and Chantelle Wise,” said the male reporter, “and Wendy Anderson all went missing yesterday, at 1:30pm off the Katangerup area. The kidnappers were not identified, but police are suspicious. If anyone has any idea of the whereabouts of these three girls, you are urged to call…”

Emma had known them at school, and suddenly they disappeared like a mirage. Someone would find them and rescue them. Emma was sure. But somehow she doubted it. In a desolate and slightly populated area like Katangerup, nobody just disappeared. That’s why they suspected a kidnapping. No corpses were found, and no-one knew if there was a struggle. The three girls had to have been kidnapped.

The henchman Cory sat on a wooden chair on a verandah drinking brandy, and watching the sun set in the Katangerup horizon. He knew exactly what happened to the girls. So did the girls themselves.

Cory’s boys were digging on their site, looking for an unspecified mineral which Jack required for one of his experiments. One of the girls, Danielle, wandered a little too far off during a game of hide-and-seek chasey, and heard the sound of men swearing and grunting past the bushes. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she went a bit closer. She saw men in the distance, digging for something. Her twin sister Chantelle crept up behind her and jabbed her in the ribs. Danielle swung around, ready for a punch-up with her twin, when they both slid down the edge of where they were hidden, and landed in the bushes below. Not long after, Wendy came across that same gravelly ledge. Seeing where someone had slipped down, she looked over the edge and saw the twins below. She laughed alittle, thinking how it was so like the twins to always fall in together, if you don’t mind the expression. Unfortunately, she was not the only one who found them there. Cory’s men found them. Wendy was about to shout, “Danni! Channi! Look out!” but then she was grabbed from behind, with a man’s hand over her mouth, and the twins were treated the same way. Within seconds, Wendy was down below with the twins, handcuffed and thrust down at Cory’s feet.

“You brought kids to me?” he demanded of the men who captured them. “I knew we’d be found out some day. But by kids?”

“Kids are more likely to blab out what we’re doing,” said one of the men. As he spoke, he yanked Wendy up off the ground, threw her down, and said, “This one screams too much. Lucky for me, when I grabbed her she didn’t have time to scream, but she did coming down.”

“Which isn’t helping things, is it?” grunted Cory. “We can’t kill them. Mr Dean forbids it.”

“So can we go?” asked Danielle.

“Will you keep this a secret?” asked Cory.

“Yes,” she said.

“No,” said Cory. “We can’t take chances. Not with kids. Now… You three are locals, right? We’re looking for a mineral. It’s called Platinus. The vein was found here. We’ve been digging for months and have found nothing. If you show us where the Platinus is, we might consider letting you go.”

“Platinus?” questioned Wendy. “Never even heard of it.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I was born here.”

“So how could you not know about Platinus? How can you not know where it is?”

“We just can’t help you,” said Wendy. “You’ll just have to keep looking. What are you trying to hide? We’ve got nothing to do with anything.”

“Yeah,” said Chantelle. “Why don’t you just let us go?”

“Because,” said Cory. “I am under orders to hand intruders and the like to my boss. If I do not do as I am told, I am in very big trouble. It’s nothing personal, girls. You just have to be taken on a trip up north.”

The girls started to protest when the boys hoisted them up. They tried to squirm their way out. Wendy even kicked one of the goons between the legs. Wendy was thrown to the ground, held down, and then she felt a sting in the side of her neck. She was being injected with a tranquiliser. She lost all feeling in her body, and slipped into a deep sleep. The Wises were given the same treatment, then placed in the back of the van. The men resumed digging.

Cory resumed his drinking as the sun went down after a hard day’s work.

Wendy woke up with numbness in her hands. She had slept on her back and on her hands. She could feel her body again, and the aches along with it. She also felt a bit drowsy and sick but otherwise okay. She rolled over onto her stomach, realizing that her hands were still hand-cuffed behind her back. No wonder she slept on them.

“Danni… Channi…,” she tried speaking to them. Her voice was a little raspy from the grogginess she was feeling. “Wises…” They slowly came around.

“Anyone know what the time is?” Danielle asked randomly.

“Beats me,” replied Wendy slowly. “I have a watch but I can’t use it right now… which is lame…”

“Lemme see,” said Chantelle, who managed to get on her knees and wobbled over to Wendy. “Can’t see properly… Uh, it’s… 5:30!”

“We’ve been sleeping a while,” Wendy commented. “I feel sick…”

“Same,” groaned Danielle. Wendy considered going back to sleep when the door to the back of the van opened. The girls were taken out of the van, almost falling over from the drug they were injected with.

“Falling head over heels?” Chantelle smirked.

“I’ll give you head over heels,” Danielle glared. Two guards came, as did a handsome man in his early twenties.

“Hello, ladies,” he said. “I am Jack Dean, CEO of Mech Enterprise. I understand you’ve met Cory after ending up in the wrong place. You obviously didn’t listen to your mothers otherwise you wouldn’t even be here. You wandered too far. But don’t worry, you’ll be well looked after during your stay. If you cooperate, maybe you’ll live a bit longer.” He motioned to two guards, and a third came along. One captive per guard, and they all went in opposite directions. They had separated the girls into different cell blocks so that they couldn’t talk to each other or formulate an escape plan. That was what the guards told the girls. For the next few days, their fate had not yet been decided.