Empty Toward The Moon

Chapter Three

Three hours later, my feet were sore and my mouth was dry from chatting so much. I was at the end of my patience dealing with snotty nosed private school girls, my lips were more chapped than standing outside under the lakeside sun for a few hours. The refresher incident with Marcien before the tour, I'd completely forgot to apply the cherry mint lip gloss, and now I couldn't find it anywhere on my person. It was like it was jump drived to the outer rim, lost to all and sundry.

"Hey Miss Briller, what's wrong? You look a little concerned about something." Our kind class teacher, Mrs Denault approached me as we exited the down-town museum. She looked as tired as I felt, right about now. It was a busy morning.

"Oh, Mrs Denault, thank you very much for your concern. I am OK, I just seemed to have misplaced something. Please do not worry about me." I gave her a practised smiled that said I was grateful for her attention. Pursed edged of my lips that widened to a carefree smile, showing off a swirl of dimples on each rosy cheek.

"Do you need help retrieving the object? Should I ask the museum staff to give us a helping hand?" She asked. I wasn't sure if it was because she genuinely cared for me, or if it was because she was paid to, or because of who my family was. I was in the process of shaking my head when Lainey stepped up along side me.

"I'll go with her, Mrs Denault." Lainey interjected herself into the conversation.

"Are you sure?" Mrs Denault had been our home room teacher for the last year and was a lovely elder teacher with a number of doctorate degrees. Her glasses were an older style comm unit that displayed a heads up display that my own BrainComp no longer used.

"Yes, hmm-mm. Thank you Mrs Denault for your care." I nodded and waved her goodbye. Lainey took my elbow and lead me back towards the entrance to the museum again. She looked at me in concern.

"Should we go to security and ask them to help?" She asked, and it bothered me that she didn't ask what it was that I'd dropped or misplaced.

"I think I left it in the bathroom, come. Let's see if the cleaning bots have cleared it away." I took the lead and moved through the building's first floor like I owned the place.

"What about The Ladies?" She asked. "The Ladies" is what we called the group of social elite girls from our private high school who are apart of my entourage. It implied anyone who I'd officially invited to be apart of my group.

"Please send a group communique letting them know we'll be at the restaurant in ten minutes. This will not take long," I assure her. We entered into the refresher bay that we'd used a few hours earlier and I went straight to the cleaning bot cupboard and opened it's goods retrieval panel, hiding what I was doing from the girl behind me.

"Was your signature cherry mint gloss there?" Lainey asked, and I froze and turned slowly around to face her. When she saw my face, she began to panic. Something about this situation felt wrong.

"How do you know what I'm looking for Lainey?" I used my business voice on her, stern and authoritative, trying to channel my inner CEO.

"P-pardon?" she stammered, but the guilt and splash of fear in her eyes gave her away. I tapped a sequence on a bracelet and sent a signal through my BrainComp before she'd even finished her stammering.

"What's going on?" I asked and crossed my arms across my chest, trying to stand a little taller, portraying my dominance in the conversation. A direct confrontation was how I'd been trained by my security personnel if confronted by people I knew. For strangers, I was directed to run away as fast as I could. But this was Lainey, and I'd known her for most of my life. The juxtaposition of feeling the danger but being expressed from a friend, it was screwing with my perception, so I didn't feel the person behind me until it was too late. Lainey's eyes widening tipped them off.

I quickly turned and swung an arm up to protect my face and head. It was the first place that attackers aimed for with the hope of disabling or destroying the victim's BrainComp.

A heavy slam pushed me into the wall behind me, the open cleaning bot panel cutting into my right hip. With a hiss I raised a leg and kicked at the dark clothed body coming at me. I managed to knock them away but I didn't expect any action from Lainey, the closest thing I'd ever had to a real friend in this life. She came out of nowhere and slammed an electrical device into my neck, sending fifty thousand volts into my brain stem. I couldn't even scream, just jerked as I fell to the ground. I managed to turn while falling and I could see the look of contempt on my friend's face that morphed into glee.

My sight blurred as I knocked my head on the plexi-crete floor, and pain thrummed through my body.

"Took you long enough," a gruff voice sounded through the refresher bay.

"What about security?" Lainey's voice enquired.

"All covered. An inside man is running interference. Let's get her moved."

"Wait for a moment. You need to fry the advanced security on her BrainComp implant before you can take her anywhere. I have her Cherry Mint scent. It has tracking devices in it. She'll need to go through the shower unit before you can take her out of the building, or they will track the nanites in her body perfume."

"Fracking elites, so troublesome." The stranger complained as I felt myself being picked up and dumped harshly on the floor again. The shower unit was turned on and I was drenched in water. I was groggy with pain in my head and hip, aware enough that when my clothing was removed, I began to struggle. My hands and feet were not moving as I wanted them to and I felt weak and helpless, fearful and confused. My head rang again as it was smashed against the floor, Lainey laughing in the background.

"Everything is chipped, you need to strip her naked." I heard Laney's voice call out again and I was horrified, mortified as the stranger did what was suggested. She was correct of course, but they didn't need to take my damn underwear and keep my body under freezing cold water. I began shivering uncontrollably, scared that I wouldn't get out of this kidnapping alive this time.

The ringing in my head gave way to the inner voice of my brother Tomas Briller, screaming at me over an emergency connection.

"Cia, Cia, you're gonna be OK. I'm coming, the whole team is coming. Hang in there. Don't do anything stupid." I smiled and looked up at Lainey and the unfamiliar lady next to her, holding my clothing and jewellery in their hands. I took an vidpic of the scene and sent it to Tom with a quick message before the stranger took Lainey's stunner, adjusted its settings and shot me with it again, making everything go black.

What I'd sent him was an apology.

"Sorry Big Brother. You might end up being the next CEO after all."