Children of Krina

Chapter Thirty Two

Luke's POV

 "Vic, I understand what you are trying to do. You don't need to protect me. I can do this." I assured him. "We aren't doing this to hurt Owen, we are trying to help him and undo whatever that witch and her spawn did to him. He will understand once he is back to his normal self."

"That is only part of it," Victor muttered under his breath.

 "We don't have time to work out their schedule." Alir started the meeting. "We need to retrieve the violin as quickly as possible. We can't let him have a chance to use it again." 

"If you give Corey and me a day to work on it, we could hack into the security cameras in and outside the condo." Victor offered. 

"We don't need to hack the outside cameras," Korum stared at his hand and red lights began to flash under his skin. An image of outside Sean's condo appeared before them. "Our satellites have been monitoring them since we learned Owen Blackbourne still had contact with Agatha Biggs."

It took a few hours, but we were able to work out a schedule for them. I would go in once Victor and Corey had accessed the inside cameras and exchange a copy of Sang's violin for the real one. The Toma team would follow Owen when he searched out former Academy teams. They would grab him and take him to Lenkarda where the Mind Expert from Arizona would work on him with Ellet. They would insert a mind shield so he could never be mind controlled again. Once they repaired what they could, we would return him to the place he went missing from. No one would know he was off grid for a time, not even himself. 

We had gone over several scenarios and we settled on this one. We couldn't afford to have Agatha warned or we would lose her. While she was a danger to Victor and Sang, she was even more of a danger to Owen. Too much mind control could scramble his brain and render him incurable. We didn't want that. There was also a concern of him learning his mother was alive, Victor was concerned that he would remember that he had killed his own father; shooting him in the back. Something he would consider cowardly. He may not accept that he had no choice that his mother would not be alive today if he hadn't done what he had. Sang suggested that he might remember on some subconscious level. She feels that it is why he required us to call him Mr. Blackbourne. That he was afraid that we would learn that he was a murderer and leave him so he kept us at a distance. Mia, Korum's human wife, thought it was very possible. It could also explain his hatred of the Krinar. It was possible that he watched Mcor without the alien knowing. That everything was probably mixed up in his mind from the trauma he had just undergone. Mia went on to say that he could subconsciously be afraid that he will be arrested for the murder of his father and that was why he didn't register that the Mcor was helping his mother. He had been a child and was forced to do a man's crime, killing someone. That it had been his father; a man he was supposed to love made it ten times worse. When I asked why he was able to relax enough to drop the formality while we were staying at the bunker. Mia thought it was because he no longer had to worry about being arrested. That the police couldn't find him there. There was a private discussion we were not privileged enough to hear, nothing surprising there. I knew we couldn't be told everything. 

Mission – The Violin

 I slipped into the condo with ease. Doc was at the hospital, Owen was following leads on former Academy teams, and Gabe was working at an Art Supply Store that was a couple miles away. I headed straight to the former bedroom that Sean used to display allhis origami creations. A craft room or his relaxation room; whatever you wanted to call it. The room was where he de-stressed and worked out his frustration. We had always respected it and usually stayed out of the room. Well, I may have gone in one day when I was bored and found a hidden cubbyhole in the back of the closet. That was where I intended to look first; Doc hid many private things there, including his Playboy magazine collection. The violin and case would fit in there with room to spare. I kneel in front of the case and go over it with a special light, looking for strands of hair that were being used as a silent warning that someone had tampered with the violin. I take a clear picture with my phone to record the placing of the hair and the case to guide me in replacing it exactly where it was before. Once I exchanged the cases, I replaced the hair and quietly exited the room. I was proud of myself; I had done my part in less than ten minutes. I rejoined Alir at the pod and we boarded, heading back to Lenkarda. My section of the mission was done; I could now relax and wait for Owen to be retrieved. 

Mission – The Reports

 Sang's POV 

We found the files in the underground compound Victor's friends had stayed in while we were on Krina. My father had a chamber on the lower level that was made to withstand an earthquake. He kept his journals there, along with other things he considered important to future generations. In one of the files was copies of letters mother had received from Agatha Biggs. Mrs. Biggs wanted mother to help her with a project that used music sublimely to control another's mind. Mother refused and the woman came to see her before one of her concerts in her dressing room. Since I was four at the time, my father was with us. 

The woman claimed that she was working on away to recondition criminals. Father hadn't believed her and had a friend investigate her. The files held the information the person found on one Agatha Biggs. Victor became furious when he read about her plans to take over control of a group called the Academy; her wish to use it as her private army. He summoned one of our guards to watch over me and went in search of Alir, who was exploring the bunker with Korum. Father's friend claimed that Agatha Biggs had been watching my mother and saw us use the violin. That she arranged for it to be stolen a month later by her lover's nine year old son. The boy was Owain Blackmore. He disappeared the same night that he had taken the violin. The man turned his investigation towards finding out what was the Academy and what Agatha's connection to it was.  Victor returned with Korum and Alir. I turned the files over to them and started looking through the other files my father had stored here. All of my mother's original musical compositions were here a long with the recordings of her playing them. There were copies of just about every picture we had taken; even ones I had thought were lost.

      cp