The Siren's Code

Disaster first response team

The scene looked straight out of a theatre play, little groups dotted across the hall. Bear and Gabby were listening to Carlos. Margo and Katya, from reception, seeing to Yossi's cuts and bruises – luckily, nothing too bad, they would be gone by tomorrow if Jay's hunch that Yossi had the MM8 Aug was correct. He'd been watching Yossi's morning beach runs with interest. He could be one of those fitness fanatics who got Mate on the black market, but he doubted it.

Jay nodded in respect to his bro, surveying the situation in front of him and checking with Remi that they'd been searched for any other tech or weapons. A waiter hovered nervously, half drunk bottles of water dotted around. Guests wandering through in a surreal mix of New Year's well wishers and ragtag first response team.

He suggested they go somewhere quieter, perhaps the conference room, where they could boot up the tracker and start to use it as their comm-hub. He took stock of his slightly bedraggled new unit, beggars can't be choosers but god he could do with a drink, the synthetic adrenaline Remi had stuck in him was putting him on edge, the old school methods were not pleasant.

Margo looked up now confident her handiwork on Yossi would hold. "We need to call the police," she whispered loudly as she saw Remi coming over.

Remi explained calmly but firmly that the police were very much involved and turning to Katya he thanked her, requesting business as usual as it would only get more complicated if guests started to find out.

"Yossi, are you ok to walk?"

"Yes, sir I am fine, just surface cuts... and worried women," he winked at Margo who bristled. Things about this situation weren't adding up, including who she thought Yossi was but she followed him and Remi out of the Grand Hall. Curving round the art walk as if the Pied Piper's children had grown old and infirm, she had a moment to take in some artworks making a mental note to come back and have a proper look if she ever woke up from this nightmare. Shuffling into a conference room she watched as Bear entered a fifteen digit code Jay recited to him into a Pet Tracker app, a map and then a dot appearing on the projection screen in front of them. Thankfully Margo had missed the conversation that preceded, along the lines of what the fuck!

Pet trackers are set up to track pets, in case anyone was in any doubt! They can do this from anywhere in the world with just an internet connection – no need for any software – but the app has a handy function to set perimeter alerts and, as we love our pets and are prepared to spend more on their health and safety than our own, it was surprisingly advanced. The handy piece of kit tells you if your pet is scared, happy, hungry, hurt... or dead, which is more than standard issue military trackers offer. It was suggesting she was asleep, or sedated more like.

Bear grabbed Jay's phad, "you called her Basta?"

"Well I couldn't exactly call her Cassie! And I did test it on Basta first... to be honest it was all I had."

"Please don't tell me that chip has already been in Basta?"

Jay opened his mouth...

"What is that?" Margo said, breaking up the verbal fisticuffs.

"How we are going to get Cassie back." Jay stated.

This took a bit of time to sink in as Margo's brain started to join the dots from this pulsing red light in front of her.

"How did you know to track her," she started slowly, "in fact who tracks their girlfriend, who tracks anyone?" She was gaining momentum.

"Actually," Sam said, trying to diffuse the situation. "I know lots of people who track their boyfriends or girlfriends or children... "

"Or pets," Bear added under his breath.

"Yeah but that's with a phad and somehow I doubt this is."

"You chipped her?" Sam asked in surprise.