Love in the Midst of Chaos

Stick

The men take us to an old building. As they show us inside I hear some of the other men, talk to the man in charge and hear them call him Silva. Chloe tries to reason with them,  "Please, I can explain."

"An intelligence agent tries to bug my cell antenna, The explanation is obvious: Interpol."

"We have no interest in your business. We needed your antenna to get rid of the bats."

"She's telling you the truth." Mitch nods.

"Says the american from the DEA." Silva nods.

"I'm a veterinary pathologist." Silva doesn't answer Mitch, so he continues, "You don't believe me? Well, I got the presidential award from the acvp, A swell group of How about gallbladder adenocarcinoma in african lions? geniuses. You want to hear me talk about experimental mycoplasmosis in alligators? I'm not a DEA agent. Only thing I know about the drug war is that... Drugs won. So, good for you."

Silva tells his men something in Portguese, it's been a while since I've heard it, but I think it was, 'to the apartment.' or something like that. We are lead to a small room with nothing but a table and a few chairs. When we come to a  stop, Silva smirks at me, "aren't you going to try and convenience me you're innocent as well."

I shrug, "it'd be a waste of air, you wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Smart girl," Silva chuckles as he grins, "if you are who you say you are. Explain this to me. Until yesterday, the mice would run when people came in through the door."

"Well," Mitch clears his throat, "that, Mr. Silva, is a clear sign that things are working their way down the food chain."

"Is that the best that you can do, Mr. Veterinary pathologist?"

I sigh, rather loudly, "The bats have developed some kind of biological imperative to attack technology. That's why they were going after the transformers. But they still have to eat, and what they eat is street mice. So these little guys, they probably think they're better off with us."

Chloe walks over to a window and looks out, "Mitch, Phoebe. The endrin's not working. It's just getting worse." Choe walks over to Silva, speaking Portaguese, but she is talking to fast for me to understand her, soon she returns to english, "Please, we need to speak to the authorities."

"So you can help the rich people downtown?" Silva chuckles, "In complexo do alemao, I am the authority. I collect the garbage, provide the power, cell service. If there's a problem, I take care of it."

"Well, that's great." Mitch shakes his head, "But we're trying to help you with this problem. Getting rid of the bats is what we were attempting to do, before you kidnapped us."

I cross my arms, "We may be able to draw them away, but we have to have your antenna."

"I lose cell service." Silva shakes his head, "it costs me 200,000 reais a day. Are you going to make that up to me?"

"Well, do you want us to do something or not?" Mitch shrugs.

"The antenna is not an acceptable option." Silva shoots a spot in the room, between Mitch and I, before speaking to Chloe in portugese, then leaving us alone in the room.

"What did we day?" Mitch asks, once the door is closed and locked.

Chloe turns to us, "if we don't find an answer, he'll kill us." Since there isn't anything in the room we can really use to fight the bats, we find something and try to get the door open. Chloe being our look out as Mitch and I work. "It's Silva. He's coming." She calls out to us, before jumping at the sound of bats hitting the window. "If we don't find a way to get rid of the bats, he's gonna kill us."

"Well, whose fault is that?" Mitch looks over to me, "genius idea, trying to steal don corleone's antenna. We should have insulted his mother while we were at it." Mitch walks over to the window and looks out, while I lean against a wall, away from the door.

"Look, it was a bad idea, but I didn't hear you coming up with any." I shake my head.

Before Mitch can answer, the door opens, Silva and his men walking in, "Well, you have a solution for me?"

"Look, we can't do anything about the bats, we don't have any supplies. If we didi, we'd be able to build an electromagnetic pulse."

"What kind of supplies?"

"Uh..." I start, not really knowing.

But, of course, Mitch knows, "An old pc, some copper wire, a speaker, and a steel rod or pole, about six, seven feet, maybe, and a couple of batteries, big ones, like out of a car. And a soldering iron." I'm not sure if he's telling the truth, or just trying to get Silva to let us go because we don't have what we need to build it, but he seems pretty confident.

Silva nods, not really responding, just looking over to Mitch like he's crazy. Soon I step in front of him and shrug my shoulders, "do you want us to fix this or not?"

Silva nods, "Flavio will get you your supplies. Then he will watch you.'

"Good." Mitch smirks, "maybe he'll learn something."

Silva looks down to me, "you should keep him on a tighter leash, your veterinário."

The door closes and locks again. When it does, Mitch looks to me, "What the hell were you thinking?"

'We stay alive." I shrug.

Chloe nods, "at least long enough of Abraham to find us." Before Flavio gets back, the sun comes up. The bats are still flying around outside. As we work, we listen to the music that Flavio is playing on the radio. We work on taking apart the PC. As Chloe strips some of the wires, she shakes her head, "Silva isn't going to wait much longer."

"I'm doing the best I can." Mitch shakes his head. "But this music is driving me nuts." he turns to Flavio, "hey, buddy, any chance we can get a little less lambada, a lot more quiet?"

"He doesn't speak english."

Mitch turns back to us, "Two weeks ago, my idea of danger was rush hour on the 405."

I chuckle, "isn't that the normal person's dangerous."

"That's my point."

Chloe chuckles, "my sister does that... complains so no one ees how vulnerable she is."

"Maybe that's because I'm spending the last hours of my life building a $20 machine. That's not gonna do a damn thing."

"Hey, this $20 machine is the only reason we aren't dead already," I shake my head. "We stay alive until Abe can find us."

"That's a great idea, until Silva pushes the button on this contraption and expects bats to come." Mitch looks down to the machine and almost zones out.

I've seen that look many times, "what?"

"I've been looking at this backwards. Instead of a carrot, we need a stick."

"A stick?" Chloe shakes her head, confused.

"Instead of luring them away, we need to... we need to chase them out."

I nod, "back in vet school, I had a very hot professor who had a thing for bats..."

Mitch cuts me off, "who?!"

"Details aren't important, but I spent a very memorable night listening to theories, one of which was high pitched frequencies repel bats."

"If this thing has a joystick control board instead of an emp, we can build an oscillator." Chloe looks between us a bit confused, so Mitch continues, "it's a device that puts out a continual sound frequency."