Top Dogs

Espionage Tactics/ Going insane

Blue

Breakfast on Sunday was a trial. I was still angry at Ricky, and I needed to follow Pig up on her Gum issue. Sighing, I moved the food around in the bowl. I think it was meant to be porridge. Eck. Pig was still asleep. Whatever Gum had supposedly done to her memory left her with agonising headaches. Great. I am eating breakfast, alone and looking like an Emo. I was not bothered.

Until I saw Gum.

He was walking, or strutting; to a free spot along the table in between, what I can only presume, were his friends (or victims). That made me angry. Firstly, without realising what I was doing, I stood up. Now I realised that I was standing up, I walked over to him, before he could sit down with his friends, I intercepted him. Oh yeah. "Hey." To make my voice sound meaner, I thought of how pissed Ricky made me yesterday. A.k.a very pissed. "Hi, Blue." I resisted from backing away from him, he remembered my name. "Have you found your friend?" I couldn’t help but be a little suspicious. How he phrased it; it was odd. Almost as if he thought I hadn’t. "Yes," I told him. If he was surprised his face didn’t show it. "Yeah, I found her." He gave a sinister smile. "Good, good. Well, I’m going now" He walked off. Damn. So much for confrontation, I suck at espionage. Dejectedly, I trudged back to my table. Pig was still sleeping and I am a shit detective. See? You don’t need lessons to teach you things.

***

Ricky

"Yeah, I can see that," I told Stephan, "unconscious people don’t usually move" Fixing me with a scowl, Stephan moved closer to Montana. I casually strolled the distance between the stairs and the couches. On closer inspection, Montana did not look healthy. Her usual vibrant brown eyes were blood shot and surrounded by the homophone most girls dread; bags. The dark circles made her look completely unlike herself. Her purple hair was knotted and messy, her skin pale. "Woah, you look like shit." Steading herself on Stephan and Paige’s shoulders, she glared at me. "Just what I wanted hear" The insult wasn’t hurtful or witty, just something to fill the silence. Paige, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care for the fragile atmosphere that filled the room. "Listen, dick head, can’t you be nice or kind or…normal?"

"Who wants to be normal? I’m fine with being just a little insane." She threw me a look. Montana laughed and then gagged. "Shit, ow. I’m sorry." Her voice sounded painful. With a pointed looked at me, Paige said; "Don’t be sorry, you can’t help it." Sinking into the couch I said; "Wow, so kind of you." Stephan put two fingers up to his temple. "Enough mucking around. Believe it or not, slackers, but we have work to do." Ah, crap. I hate work. Paige seemed to be on the same thought process. "Oh come on Stephan. Montana just got up, just let her rest." Stephan folded his arms across his chest. "I know that. Montana can rest." Montana collapsed onto the couch. "Can I rest too Stephan?" I was amazed on how innocent Paige could make her voice sound. "No," Stephan said, blunt as ever, "And neither can you, Ricky." I groaned. Why is he so mean? "Can’t we have a rest, I am exhausted, and I will surely die of lack of sleep." Looking impatient, Stephan countered; "You wouldn’t be so tired if you weren’t up so early." Or if I didn’t go to bed so late. But I am 16 for God’s sake, don’t expect me to change. "Whatever, I’m tired now." In response Stephan threw the heaviest item he could reach.

Which was an encyclopaedia.

"Ah, shit. Bloody hell, Stephan. That may have damaged my handsome face."

"Then do me favour." Me and Paige sniggered, we we’re rewarded with an eye roll from Stephan. "No, not that type of favour. Just try and figure out what that weird mutant was." And with that he strode out of the room. "So he really expects us to work?" Paige asked me slumping onto the couch. "Yes," I answered her, "But considering he just walked out and left us here; there is minimal work that will be done." Paige grinned. "Sweet."

***

Blue

Pig finally joined the land of the living. She looked like crap though. Dark circles stood out on her translucent skin. "Uh, shit. I feel like shit." Nearly collapsing onto the bench she took my bowl of ‘porridge’ and started eating. As casually as I could I told her; "Um, I just confronted, well not really confronted more like annoyed, Gum." Pig looked at me, eyes wide. "What? What did he say?" I saw her glance over to where he was sitting, laughing arrogantly. "He asked me if I found you, in a very suspicious manner." She raised her eyebrow, "how suspicious?" I gave nervous, high pitched laugh. "Not very." Her shoulders slumped, "great, so I’m going crazy." I put a consoling hand on her shoulder. "No, I pretty sure he’s the culprit." Pig lent down even more, so her face was nearly in the porridge. "You don’t have to make me feel better, Blue. I’m bound to go insane living in this place." I took back my food. "I’m not trying to make you feel better," I told her as I took a mouth full, "I believe it was Gum too." She smiled, "Great, so we got us a jerk to catch."

***

Ricky

As our ‘work’ me and Paige decided it would be best to interview the victim.

Of course that just meant we were mucking around.

Montana was sprawled on the two seater and, other than looking tired, she looked pretty normal. Paige, sitting on the blue armchair next to her, was joking and laughing as if nothing had ever happened. I had no clue where Stephan went. "What did you guys do while I was…?" Montana mimicked sleeping. "Well," Paige said, very matter of factly, "Stephan was on the computer, researching, because that’s what Stephan does when he can’t handle things, and Ricky spent most of his time up in his room, because he’s weird."

"Says the girl who was throwing knives." Paige poked her tongue out at me. Montana’s pretty features looked ever so slightly bemused. "On the subject," I continued, "Where did you get all those knives from?" Paige blinked at me. "The kitchen, idiot."

"I presumed that, funnily enough. But we don’t have that many knives in the kitchen, do we?" Paige shrugged. From her spot on the couch, Montana said; "Oh, so that’s what caused all the holes in the walls. I thought someone was using them as target practice for their dart guns or something." I snorted, "No, that would be ridiculous. Paige was just using them for target practice for her knife throwing skills." Paige, ignoring the pointed look I gave her, just shrugged her shoulders and said; "I’m pretty damn good at aiming, aren’t I Ricky" She looked at me imploringly, her blue eyes smug. "No. You missed my head when you were trying to kill me." Montana laughed then stopped half way, her eyes moving to stare behind us. Curious, I turned around and spotted what had captured her attention. A dark shadow was leaning on the door frame that leads to the mini-library. Definitely a man, they had their arms crossed on their chests. "I thought I told you to work." The shadow moved forward revealing…

Stephan.

Oh, shit.

I looked over at Paige who was looking guilty. "We were! We’re interviewing the victim." I CALMLY explained. Stephan rolled his eyes. From the amount of eye rolling that man has done today I won’t be surprised if his face gets stuck that way. "Sure sounded like it." I saw Paige clench her jaw, stopping herself from saying something. "This is serious guys. I have no bloody idea what that mutant was, or what effect it had on Montana. So when I ask you to research," He paused, his voice was deadly calm. "IT MEANS THAT I NEED YOU TO RESEARCH" Stephan stormed out the room, leaving behind silence and guilt. It wasn’t so much the fact that he had yelled at us (being the eldest at 19 he was constantly shouting in our faces) but the fact that we cared more about ourselves than our friend. In a quiet voice Paige apologised to Montana, who responded with the classic best friend response of; ‘Come on. You don’t have anything to apologise for.’ Deciding it was time to actually help Stephan, we all went to researching. Montana was furiously typing on her computer, undoubtedly trying to hack some super-secret government cites, Paige hitting the books and me? I, deciding to do a little research of a different type, picked up the phone and walked into a more private area. Thankful for the fact that Montana was techno savvy and made sure that the phone’s couldn’t be tracked, I told the name to the computer generated voice (of Montana) that asked, the chip in the phone automatically found the number of the luck person that I was ringing. On the third ring, a ruff voice answered; "Hello?" Feeling the nervousness in my gut and ignoring the past we had behind us I answered; "Hello Dad. Long-time no see?"