It was either late at night, or early in the morning, depending on how you
looked at it. The viewscreen was showing the thin crescent of the newly waxing
moon just rising in the east, and dawn wasn't far behind. Only a couple of the
Bruce workers who had helped us set up the equipment had remained with us. The
rest had left to go get some sleep. It was dead quiet, with that tired, edgy
feeling that you get when the air seems stale from too much breathing in it
after being up all night. I knew my faerie Cybunny looks had suffered from the
wear and tear on them, but I really didn't care. After all, they were the Lab
Ray's idea, and certainly not mine!
Blchocobo looked to be in worse shape than I was. I'd managed to catch a couple
of winks when I'd had the chance, but he'd not realised how to do that yet.
On a stakeout with multiple people, that sort of thing is a survival instinct.
I figured he'd learn eventually.
I blinked as I looked back into the "faerie bottle" glass which was showing
the object of our stakeout--the purple Lupe who had caused this whole thing
by starting one avalanche, and who was set to start another if we didn't find
and stop him. As expected, he had crossed into the Terror Mountains a couple
of hours earlier and was now making his way through some woods to a clearer
area, which he'd need for his dirty work.
Tekeli-Li was staring at the large viewscreen that we'd hooked up with his
usual steady glare. I passed him the current image of the Lupe through our mental
connection, and he threw it up onto the screen. Sabre-X and Myncha both perked
up slightly. It looked like we might have action as he came out into the open.
But we were doomed to disappointment again as the Lupe looked around, didn't
like what he saw, and headed for yet another ridge. Myncha let out a disappointed
sigh, while Sabre-X just relaxed slightly, eyes glazing a bit with fatigue.
"Hey, you guys fixed this viewscreen up so good with your magic, why can't
you move the Lupe around like you're doing our searching parties?" Myncha said.
I knew he was just trying to be chipper and break the silence, but it came out
slow and tired, even from him.
I decided to play along, though. "Because we don't have him wearing a circlet
like we do our people. Besides, would you really want Tekeli-Li and me to subject
our minds to direct contact with that?"
"Why not? Be an easy way to end this whole thing."
"End us, too," Tekeli-Li grunted.
I glanced over at him in surprise. Tekeli-Li tends to be a reptile of few words,
and I hadn't thought he'd bother answering. Either he was troubled more by the
idea of the criminal being in our mental net than I was, or he was trying to
wake himself up, too.
"I think it's amazing," blchocobo chimed in loyally. "I see now why you people
won the war with a setup like this. I mean, mentally telling your teams exactly
where to go, and a neat viewscreen that you just flick to any view you want,
from your searchers or the bottle, just by mental commands. Wow!"
"We didn't have this during the war," Sabre-X groused. "They couldn't afford
to do it."
Blchocobo looked a bit taken aback, but decided to stick with his point. "Why
not? You had all the money and resources of Tyrannia and even most of Neopia!"
"Because, blchocobo," I replied, the weariness seeping back into my tone,
"we're all lit up like novas right now, magically speaking. If any enemy magician
in the area wanted to do us harm now, all of us in this net would stand about
as much chance of survival as a Dark Faerie's conscience.'
"Oh." That totally crushed him. I felt a bit sorry about it. He was after
all my younger brother, but the faster he learned, the better off he'd be.
I remembered with amusement his reaction earlier in the evening when he'd asked
how we did it. "It's a simple matter of using these circlets we're wearing to
establish cognitive harmonic frequencies" I replied. Then, at his baffled look,
I'd just shrugged and added a bland "you asked." What he hadn't asked was how
come I got the chore of handling the faerie spyglass part of the net. He probably
thought it was because it was mine, which it was, but it was mainly because
Tekeli-Li didn't want anything more to do with Dark Faerie artifacts than he
had to. He'd always been rather disapproving of my dealings with them, even
when it enabled me to get useful tools like this one.
My short reverie was interrupted by the sound of Sabre-X's skin rasping on
his chair as he stretched. "Any hope of pinning him down yet?" he asked.
Tekeli-Li put the map of our searchers up on the screen and studied it thoughtfully.
I took it from him and tried to fit its geography with what I had in our 'crying
glass'. At first it looked like another failure, but suddenly a spark from one
of our searchers snapped into place as I looked at the miniature horizon in
the glass's view. A hazy red area appeared on the map as the probable location
was reported, and Myncha let out a tired cheer. I let Tekeli-Li hold the image
for everyone else while I mentally nudged our searchers towards the suspected
spot.
Sabre-X sighed in satisfaction as the hazy reddish blotch suddenly turned
into a brightly gleaming red dot. One of our searchers had spotted him! "Got
him," he grunted. "Now let's see him get out of this one."
"I hope not," I muttered.
Myncha giggled. "You don't sound too confident, MonoKeras."
"You're not the one holding one hundred and thirteen minds in your mental grasp,
trying to get them to find one little spot, either," I replied. It would have
had more bite if those minds hadn't been taking almost all of my attention right
then. Tekeli-Li put up the image our one searcher had on screen, then helped
me with the guiding until we suddenly had another three or four spot him. Multiple
images from two main directions appeared on our view area, and I sighed with
relief.
Pulling in our resources from the other areas, the next few minutes saw a steady
tightening of the net as we directed searchers in, then held them back far enough
so that they weren't likely to be spotted. I hoped the Lupe wouldn't find too
many footprints and be spooked, but Sabre-X's directions to have them all over
the area yesterday was bearing fruit. After finding tracks from nearly the moment
he'd entered the mountains, our suspect was still cautious, but not aware that
the danger to his freedom was imminent.
The sun was turning the pre-dawn gray to white when the Lupe stopped, dropped
his cases, and began to rapidly dig. We halted our trackers and watched. I marveled
at his capabilities as he dug a three foot deep trench almost as fast as a pet
would walk. It must have been another ten minutes or so, with the first sliver
of sun turning things orange, when he finished his tunneling and went back to
the head of his trench. Opening the first case, he took out the distinctive
leather containers I'd spotted earlier and began to pour the contents into the
trench.
After reaching the end of the row, he came back, opened the other case and
took out another set of bags and repeated the process. I held my breath as I
realised the explosive was all set. One wrong move now and he would succeed
in creating his avalanche, assuming he knew what he was doing- and several previous
avalanches said he did. He waited a bit before doing anything next. I figured
he was waiting for the liquid nitro to mix with the snow and dry to form his
explosive, but it could have been a case of simply catching his breath.
Whatever the reason, the wait was soon over and he began to dump snow back
into the trench. As he neared the beginning of it and his equipment, I sent
the mental alert to all of our people in the area. The tension built until he
finished his filling and bent over to retrieve the fire bomb from his case.
I couldn't help but shout a "go!" as I sent the attack command into the net.
The Lupe finished getting his bomb out, looked up, and saw a thundering herd
of Neopets rushing towards him. I had to give him credit for what he did next.
Assuming, or perhaps knowing by sound, the fact that he was completely surrounded,
he wasted no time looking around. He dropped the bomb, and went to all fours
as he began running towards the line of pets at top speed.
I winced as he angled through the weakest part of the line and knocked over
two of our people like bowling pins. He streaked off into the woods and Myncha
howled in frustration. "He's getting away!"
I looked into the faerie bottle, which was still faithfully showing the Lupe
and his surroundings. "Oh no he isn't," I replied. I winced inwardly as my casually
confident tone came out as a languorous dulcet. Curse this faerie colour anyway.
But I had no time for that.
Tekeli-Li instantly took over control of the outward half of our dragnet while
I grabbed the ones who were heading into the woods immediately behind the Lupe
Weaving in and out of trees yourself when you're running is a nice trick, but
your mind is built to do it almost automatically. Now try to weave a dozen pets
in and out of trees at top speed to a target whose location is known only to
you and not them. Saying it's not easy is the understatement of the year. My
attention fragmented into multiple sections as I followed the action and pressed
my pursuers closer to the figure in the bottle. It became easier when I spotted
the lead ones in the bottle itself.
Apparently deciding he'd outdistanced enough of the chase to turn the tables,
the Lupe jumped behind a tree and crouched down in ambush. It was a good idea,
but he didn't have a clue as to what he was facing. The three lead searchers,
Bruces all, instantly divided as I directed them around his position. He looked
up to see three Bruces converging on him from three directions.
Leaping out into a more open space, he let them come and then met them with
paws flying. One Lupe versus three Bruces is not an even fight, and they knew
it. I had to applaud their courage as they ducked and dodged sweeps that would
have knocked them cold, or worse. They didn't have a chance, and it showed.
Within a matter of seconds the first went down, and the others were about to
follow when the next batch of guided searchers hit the little clearing. One
lone Bruce was suddenly replaced with a dozen, and not all of the new opponents
were Bruces. Three of them were veterans from Tyrannia that we'd brought in
to help.
The Lupe never had even a slight hope of getting away. These were hardened
veterans who had spent days hacking and slashing with evil creatures that more
fortunate pets see only in their nightmares. I had to give him credit for a
good fight, but it only took about ten seconds before he was flattened, with
his legs and arms pinned by pets and a saber-toothed Lupe even larger than Sabre-X
sitting on his chest.
The link between us enabled me to understand what our pet said as he bent down
and breathed in the criminal's face. "Go on, Lupe, continue fighting. Give me
a reason to tear you into pieces here in these nice deserted woods." I snickered
as Tekeli-Li's ring of pets surrounded the combatants and the Lupe was not only
pinned, but in the middle of a crowd of pets a dozen deep.
There was no need for guidance now, so I carefully let my control slip and
pulled out of the net as gently as possible. After hours of being in it, though,
the reaction headache still hit me as I pulled my circlet off. I bit back a
groan and just sat there, rubbing my temples and the base of my ears.
I felt paws kneading my neck and the top of my head, gently pulling out the
knots of tension around my ears. "Here, let me help you with that," said blchocobo's
calm voice.
I relaxed and closed my eyes as I stretched into his massage, then opened
them to see Tekeli-Li putting things in a hold pattern. He, too, was pulling
out of the net, which would basically dissolve it, and was executing the set-spell
we had put in to automatically throw the faerie glass's image up onto the screen
so we'd know what was happening. Unlike me, he showed no reaction to letting
loose. I never was totally sure if he just couldn't feel pain, if he never showed
it, or if he was just so much better that he avoided it.
I almost jumped in surprise at the sound of applause. I looked around and
grinned as I realised that our Bruce helpers had gone to get the others in
the middle of the excitement, and that they were now applauding us for a job
well done. Tekeli-Li nodded to them graciously, if a bit coolly. I waved and
laughed a bit. Sabre-X just grinned, which wasn't totally comforting with those
big tusks that he calls teeth. Myncha chattered happily and joined in the applause.
I was glad he hadn't felt left out for us having taken over his role of controlling
the search teams.
In the midst of it all, I felt blchocobo's start as he quit working on me.
"What's wrong?" I asked amid the clapping.
It stopped and blchocobo's voice boomed loudly into the unexpected silence.
"Light curse it all, our owner is gonna be mad as hops when he finds we haven't
been in bed all night!"
There were snickers in the crowd, and blchocobo looked embarrassed. I just
grinned and laughed lightly. "Don't worry about that! It's Saturday morning,
we've got plenty of time to get home before he wakes up."
And, amid the laughter and cheers of the crowd, we left to do exactly that.
So, my reward for slipping home and managing to snatch an hour or two of sleep?
Getting hauled out of bed, taken down to the lab, and suffering another zap
from the Lab Ray. Some things just don't change.
To be continued... | 
