Chapter 7(c): Pinocchio Virus.
***
Susan was pushed into a car, one of the handcuffs was taken off and attached to the handheld above the car window. Car doors are closed. The officer with Zenadi Jio's identity went back to the other officers, talking about something.
"Mira, Susan, that's the story of our family. I'm sorry I got you into this.., this kind of problem," said Nuel, in Mira's room 24 years ago.
"Fuck you, Nuel," cried Mira, holding back her tears. "Why are you telling us this now?" she said, feeling unjust.
"Right," Susan replied. Like Mira, her eyes welled up with tears after hearing all of Nuel stories about Hidden Service. "If you had told us this earlier, we would have fought with you, alive and dead.
"What do you girls say?" asked Nuel in amazement. "You have a safe life, and that's more important."
"You really are a bad girl," exclaimed Mira, screamed, and then quickly grabbed Nuel's hair, and she waved. She had already been sobbing.
Nuel backfires, said, "Mira! Why are you pulling my hair?"
Susan's pulling out Nuel's hair too. War of the three comrades began.
"Are you done talking?" Susan said. "Safe life? You shouldn't have bothered to be friend with us in the first time.
"Right. That's what I was going to say," said Mira. "Do you doubt our loyalty? You think we'd run away from you after hearing that horror story in your family?"
The fight was even heard from outside, from the first floor of Mr. Darmo and Mrs. Ratna's house. The people who were there, on the first floor of the semi-emergency room are listening to the strange drama of the three friends.
"You take us for a weak, evil girl!" added Mira.
"That's not what I meant. Stop making me bald..," said Nuel, l speechless.
"What? Magical techniques? Like you can kick anyone to hundred yards away? You can teach it to us, so we can kick your brother's ass, and kick yours if you piss us off," Susan shouted.
"You are evil..! At this time of night I'm tired of dealing with so many patients on my own, and you still don't think of me as a friend! Why don't you take them to the hospital? Why don't you treat them yourself? Why do you come to this animal hospital? You are evil!" said Mira, bubbling over, and then releasing the plume of Nuel's hair, which had been braying from the pain. Mira sit back up straight in that bed. Still crying, still whining like a kindergartener girl who lost her shoe then got bitten by a honeybee or a big fire ant.
"She also just kidnapped me, Mira," Susan added, stopping her plume. Sit back straight.
Nuel looked in pain, like she had been hanging from the roof with her hair, almost not feeling her head again. She had been tearful, listening to the deep talking of her two close friends, hearing the 'Honest Anger' from both of them. She lifted her head, looking up at those who are still whining.
"Nuel is still a bad girl," Mira said, approaching.
Scared Nuel, trying to walk away, maybe the second round's about to start, but Mira is pulling her hand out. But Mira embraced her. Hold her tight. Susan joined in. They're all still crying.
"What an arrogant girl..!" Susan said. "But we are good friends, loyal friends, we will turn you into a nice, boyish girl.., after the two of us of course.."
"We will always be on your side," said Mira. "Watch out, Mac, if he come back, I'll anesthetize him with a high dose until he's dying and then he'll stagger and fall off in a cliff and have his body found twenty years later."
"No matter what happens, we'll always help you," added Susan.
They still shed tears, still hugging.
"Is that how they do it when they talk?" a man asked in the downstairs to the people around him, astonished.
The secret only they knew. A strong promise between the three of them to keep it, despite knowing the risks, that could even endanger their life.
Everyone was staring at the late lunch beast of the reddish fire, waiting for the firemen who had not yet arrived. 'Boom..!' The sound of a loud explosion, making all the windows breaking out of Yanasari's house, spread down. Looks like it was an explosion of a gas cylinder.
Police officers are still gathering. It's like they're planning a schematic, to their liking.
Susan was now in a speeding taxi, leaving her home and her nearly coloured boutique, charred in flames. Not long ago she was doing the 'White Rose' technique after breaking the handcuffs that had tied one hand to the car. The white rose petals emerged from the police car, through the open car window, gliding quickly unnoticed by anyone, hovering in the air, between cars passing by, until finally landing on a taxi with no passengers, where only the driver who was busy singing the old songs, smiling happily, memorizing the words.
"Merapi Street No 07, J-3 Block, Burambang District, Sir," she told the driver.
The driver was surprised, Shouting, "What is it?! A ghost in broad daylight? By the way, it's getting late," he said, put words in his mouth, and then he screamed back, "Ghost..!"
That taxi driver was still driving his car. Susan said kindly, "I'm not a ghost, Sir."
The driver looked closely at the person is sitting in the back seat of the rearview mirror, checking to see if it was a real person. 'But how did she get into this car all of a sudden..?'
Susan seemed to understand what the driver was thinking, saying, "Hey, hey, hey. You have stopped this car few minutes ago, did you forget..? And I'm so sorry to get ride this without your permission.." Susan's just making it up, trying to look natural.
The driver nodded, but still frowning a little, still seeming in doubt. He must have really stopped on the way. Susan let out a sigh of relief, that was a true lie, fortunately. Susan immediately repeated the address she had been going to.
"Yes, Miss..," replied the driver.
Somehow the imposters of those who had just caught her disappeared, leaving only a pair of handcuffs that might still have shaken back and forth, hanging by a car window.
Susan had actually become adept at using the magical techniques she had learned on the Hidden Service, but she seemed to be trying to keep up with Mac and his minions, since she might not have been taken down and silenced at the police station, but she might have been knocked down and then never woke up again. She won't be able to fight Mac's minions alone.
Susan immediately made the call. A moment later there was an answer.
"Yes, aunt?" somebody answered the phone.
"Where are you now, Gen?" Susan asked.
"Near the house. What's the matter?" asked Gen.
"Where are you exactly?"
"Er.. In front of Herlino's barber shop. Wow..! There were so many waiting in line," Gen replied, not surprised at how impressed Susan was, but amazed at the barber shop with so many visitors. "My hair should also get a little trimmed.."
"Stay still, I'll come to you," Susan said on the phone, then spoke to the taxi driver, "Stop at twenty meters ahead, Sir."
"Fine," replied the taxi driver.
"Aunt? Did you say something?" asked Gen, but the phone call seemed to have been disconnected.
Taxi pulled up on the side of the road, out there standing Gen, carrying a plastic bag. Susan opened the door and pulled the boy in, making the plastic he had been towing down on the side of the road. Susan hastily closed the door. "Go, Sir," She tell the driver.
The car is returning. Quickly Susan reached for Gen's smartphone, and she had one in her hand. She pressed the phones with both hands and white light came out, causing them to shatter.
The driver saw a white flash from the back seat and said, "Don't play with fire in my car, Miss. Don't even smoke inside."
Susan said that it was not a fire, and then threw the two disabled phones out the window.
The driver said back, "Don't litter, Miss. Guard our city. Our concern for the environment will benefit us much more from what we think."
Susan rationalized that it was recyclable garbage, and she promised never to do it again. The driver still lamented the senseless act and returned to his focus.
Then Susan whispered something to Gen who had been protesting at, the newly purchased phone had been destroyed, as well as the Martabak in the plastic bag. The young boy was still surprised by his aunt's already acting like a man who was in a heated place by creditors.
"Shut up and listen to me, it's a fight of life and death," Susan whispered in the ear of Gen.
Gen frowned, maybe he think, 'What's going to die..?'
"You just need to do my instructions," added Susan, still whispering.
The taxi driver saw two passengers in the back of the glass in front of him, they are whispering. He thought, 'What is it that makes them spend time alone? If there's something exciting why not share it?' He must have been curious about what Sudan and Gen were talking about.
"I can't," Gen responded, keep his ear away from Susan.
"I know you can. You have that thing," Susan said, urging Gen to do the deed.
'Thing? What was that? Illegal goods? Narcotics? What is it they're not telling me?' The driver looked at them again and again, and keeping his eyes on the road. Seemed to be in a dilemma all alone. "I'll take them to the address, or I'll throw them at the police station," the driver quietly murmured.
Susan's still urgent. Gen froze. 'The current situation may be very grave.' He concentrated, closed his eyes, then for a moment opened his eyes, turned to Susan with searching eyes. Susan covered Gen's face with her palm, pushed it and looked out at the window, saying, "Enjoy the nap, Kiddy."
Gen rest their head on the car window, looking resigned, still frowning. 'Take a nap? It's getting late.. '
The taxi was already speeding on a roundabout road between the other cars rapidly passing by. Unknown to the owner, the car changed color from originally white to yellow, and the license plate was changed as well. Gen has also been doing Susan's instructions to hack all the CCTV footage that caught the car from the route before Susan's house. Making it look like it was totally absent from the streets it had once been on.
The car is travelling far away, heading to a place neither known nor heard of it by Gen. The new Hidden Service.
***
"I really hate lies," Gen said, "And I'm so sick of being lied to. You guys know what that's like? I've been like a lamb taken by force, dragged to their parents' slaughter," said Gen for the inspector and Bella. "Is there's nothing in this world called by the Pinocchio Virus?" he asked.
"I really hope it exists and will infect the whole country, and with it we will be able to find out who has long noses," he added with a smile of satisfaction.
The Inspector and Bella looked at him in amazement, so they thought to themselves, 'Don't tell me!'
"Just think of Miss Bella or the Inspector who has a nose length of three feet [1 m]," said Gen, laughing out loud, his hands on his nose and pulling it forward, way forward. "Or a long-nose politician speaking about truth and honesty..! 'Let us make this land a land of prosperity and justice, of prosperity and of peace, with reaching out for a helping hand of law and conscience..,' a speech here and there.."
Gen still giggle, he reached down to his stomach, then he said, "Big, lying elephant.."