Hunting Wolfe

Memories?

I shove my chair back so hard it nearly tips, and in one fluid motion, I'm on my feet, driven by an inner urgency, the desire to touch the stone's cool surface again consuming me. My feet scarcely touch the floor as I race to my room.

"Rain, wait!" Aceon's voice attempts to reach me, a fading call that spirals through the air. Yet, his words are lost to me; I cannot afford to hesitate for even a moment. The stone is vital; it's the sole connection to my missing brother.

Upon reaching my room, I race to the bed, my sheets fly through the air, the bed now a mess of tangled cotton, as I yank them free. They land in a heap, a minor casualty in my frantic search. Aceon and Caydon step in just in time to see the pillows, stripped bare, slumped against the wall like deflated dreams. I've given the comforter a good shake-down, too – it's crumpled at the foot of the bed.

"Rain?" Aceon questions.

"No." I say. "It has to be here. I refuse to believe it disappeared, that someone came and got it."

"Rayanna," Caydon says, "It's gone. Probably by the same person who took mine."

"No!" I stop what I'm doing and glare at both of them. "Why would the stone be gone? Who would take it? Why would they take it? Who gave it to me in the first place if it wasn't you, Caydon?"

"I don't know." Caydon says. "But whoever it was, they were very determined that you and I should meet."

Aceon puts a gentle hand on my left shoulder. "It's okay, Rain, we will still go find your brother. The stone didn't tell us where he was, so we will just do what we originally planned."

I sigh and flop onto the bed, all my anger suddenly gone. "I guess it doesn't matter that much. It was just nice to lay eyes on my brother, even if it was only just a hologram."

"What gets me, is how did someone break into both of our rooms, plant the stones, and then break back in to retrieve them; all without any of us noticing?" Caydon asks.

"I don't know," says Aceon, "but I don't like it."

"Neither do I," Caydon says, his gaze lost in the distance. "I have my methods to detect intruders, but my room was untouched. Whoever got in is more skilled than I am, and that's a serious issue." A hush falls over us, as we take in the chaos I've caused, until Caydon breaks it a few moments later. "Just wondering, what's your strategy for locating your brother?"

"We are going to start at the International Space Station, sitting just behind Neptune, on the edge of this solar system. It's where my brother started out when he joined the Intergalactic Military Police. I figure the beginning is always a good place to start."

"The beginning is the best place to start, you are going to want to start out talking with the individual who is in charge of records. That will go a long way to telling you where he's been, so even if they aren't keeping a record of where he is now, you will still have some bread crumbs to follow." Caydon pauses a moment and runs his left hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. "There's a very good chance that they won't have any record of where he is now. So, I suggest getting a list of where he's been and then you will need to visit each and every place. Talk to the people, see if anyone remembers him, see if anyone heard where he was going next. Bit by bit you will have a trail to him. You won't find him, right away, but you will find him, eventually." I stare at Caydon, with my mouth slightly opened. "What?" he asks.

"How do you know all of this? How to find people?" I ask.

"I'm an assassin, it's my job to find people."

"And kill them." Aceon says.

"Aceon!" I chide. "He's helping us."

"Hmph. I could have come up with all of that myself." He mumbles under his breath.