Be A Hero

Chapter 2

"Tadashi? Are you awake yet?"

Tadashi opened his eyes slowly, hesitantly. He was lying on the hard, dirty floor in a cramped jail cell. He gulped in a few deep breaths. The air tasted stale like a breeze hadn't swept through the small, enclosed space in quite a while.

"Where... where am I?" Tadashi muttered.

"You're awake! I was... scared for a second," Miki said. She was standing outside the rusty bars that kept Tadashi in his cell. "Callaghan told us to put you down here. I'm really sorry about all of this."

Tadashi groaned as he sat up. "Something's wrong. Professor Callaghan would never do this! He's a good man."

Miki leaned against the bars of the cell. "Sometimes... people do bad things because of not so bad reasons. Trust me, I know." She stared off into space for a few seconds, a look of pain on her face.

"What do you mean?" Tadashi asked.

"I don't know. Anyway, I hope you'll get out of here soon and get back to your brother," Miki said.

"Yeah, Hiro's gonna be overjoyed when I come back to him. If I come back to him. When am I gonna get out of here?" Tadashi said.

"It's not up to me, it's up to-"

"Callaghan. Yeah, I got that. Do you know when he's going to let me out of here?"

Miki silently shook her head. "You know, Raeden told me to stay down here with you. I think she's scared that Callaghan might hurt one of us. And..." Miki smiled shyly, "that might include you, you know."

"Your sister is worried about me? We just met today," Tadashi said, leaning against the filthy brick wall.

"I'm not sure. It just seems that way. You're a nice person, so I would understand why." Miki smiled shyly.

"You're nice too. That's why I can't understand why you can sit there, watching all of this. You can't just stand there and let innocent people get hurt because that's what will happen eventually. If you, and your sisters, continue working for criminals, then people are going to get hurt, no matter what."

"Nice speech."

Both Tadashi and Miki twisted around to see who had spoken. When they saw that it was just Raeden, they both relaxed slightly.

"Oh, hi Rae," Miki said.

"He's right, you know," Raeden said. She had been standing in the shadow of the door-frame.

"I know. But... but what about Callaghan?" Miki asked.

"Don't worry about it, sis. Anyway," Raeden said, shifting her attention to Tadashi, "I asked Callaghan about those... bot things. He wouldn't tell me what they were though. Do you know?"

Tadashi sighed, a sight grin coming to his face. "They're called micro-bots. My brother, Hiro, invented them. They do whatever the person controlling them wants." A dark cloud seemed to pass over his face. "I guess Callaghan stole them."

Miki and Raeden exchanged a glance.

"Your brother's really smart then, huh?" Miki asked.

"Yeah, he's a genius." Tadashi chuckled. "Still, I bet he thinks I'm dead. It makes sense after all. If someone runs into a burning building and they don't come out, you assume that they died. You don't think that they might have been captured by a few girls and a good-turned-evil professor, you know?"

"Yeah, probably not. I'm sorry about your brother though," Raeden said.

Tadashi chuckled. "You know, you actually remind me of him," he said, looking at Miki.