Cody'd contacted me while I was still on the Orbital to tell me he'd gotten everything ready to try and extract Ardra from Lily. Given my technical abilities and personal stake in Lily being whole, I was a natural choice to do the dive and extract. Only, by the time I could get everything together and down to the surface, Lily's left.
Lily taking off was nothing new. There were days it seemed the only way to get here to stay put was to power staple her boots to the floor and adhesive weld the buckles so she couldn't take them off. She had more energy than half the yunguns on Hale's Moon put together. Ijo ni kappatsu na. My hyperactive Imoto.
I managed to track her to Genni's, where she'd picked up AuroraBlue. Against her better judgement she'd given "Anna" over to her Mother. Who promptly dropped off the grid with her. Again, not a surprise, and nothing I could hold against Genni. AuroraBlue was Lily's cub. At least on any level that counted. We weren't keeping Tiny Dragon prisoner. Just keeping her safe.
Unfortunately, I'd heard a rumor that Mindo was back on-world, and I did not want him and AuroraBlue in the same space at the same time. Worse, I couldn't contact x0x0 anywhere. That made this something of a trifecta of bad combinations. Lily, AuroraBlue and x0x0 off the grid, and Mindo on the grid. Not good.
I couldn't deal with all of it immediately though, much as it pained me to have other responsibilities at that moment. The townsfolk were spooked by the rumored serial killer loose on Hale's Moon and I had to take care of that duty before I could personally start tracking down x0, her psychotic brother, and my little girls.
I was starting to cast the net further afield when Navtrak caught x0x0's skiff landing out by the Church. I really wasn't prepared for what I saw when i got there though, and only a long practiced Zen calm kept me from outright rejecting it.
AuroraBlue, with a bomb vest locked around her small frame. And Mindo. With his hair died red. Dressed like x0x0. In fact, if I recognized the skirt, he was literally wearing his sister's clothes. Which made sense in an odd sort of way when he started talking and acting like her.
Doesn't get much weirder.
I got them both back to the office and got Mindo talking. Which was a bit disconcerting. He was talking and acting like x0 so well it was eerie. Stranger still was how he was insisting we "stop her brother" and talking about 'his' affection for Lily and Aurora. How AuroraBlue was the key, and several other things that would have seemed completely mad out of context.
It was completely mad, of course. I wasn't a psychologist, but I recognized a phychotic break when I saw one. Mindo had come completely unhinged, and all I could do was go with it and try to get him to reveal the locations of Lily and x0x0 before his condition deteriorated or he turned violent.
But first, I had to deal with the bomb vest someone, Mindo probably, had strapped to AuroraBlue. Oddly, AuroraBlue had the key too it. She just lacked the finger dexterity to remove it herself. Something I took care of quickly once I'd had a moment to confirm it wasn't wired to detonate when it was removed.
The conversation was disjointed, as it so often was when dealing with the clinically insane. The best I could get was actually from AuroraBlue. Piecing together "sandbox" and "Misser Reo" to be Leo Twine's old shop in the Wastelands on Blackburne. As far as I knew, he'd abandoned it when most of the colony evacuated.
Of course, Cody's arrival complicated the situation. Fortunately he picked up my "suggestion" to play along, rather than confront Mindo, as Mindo, in his fragile mental state. There was no telling what would happen if he came out of the break in my office. Though I suspected it would involve a large handgun and Genni putting in an expense report for "One round, .45 caliber: expended."
Between AuroraBlue and coaxing Mindo, though mostly from Tiny Dragon, we pieced together where we'd have to look to find x0x0 and Lily. Them as strangely as it began, the conversations ended. Mindo, with Cody in tow, carrying AuroraBlue, set out across town for whatever errand he thought he needed to do. With Cody holding AuroraBlue, I figured she was safe. Especially with Genni watching the security feeds.
What I hadn't expected, was Mindo ending himself.
One shot to the head, from his own gun, and it was over. First inkling anything was wrong was Cody's frantic call. AuroraBlue'd witnessed it too from what he said. An image I wished I could gently pull from my little girl's mind. But fact was, Mindo was dead.
Other fact was that not more than a couple minutes after I asked Fire and Rescue to go collect the body to take to the Infirmary for safe keeping, that Navtrak lit up with the tell tale signature of a Reaver boat on hot final.
Just what we needed.
Cody brought AuroraBlue back up to the office where I could lock the doors while the Militia mustered to do what they'd learned to do so well. Only the Reavers didn't play their usual game. A lot of running and screaming, but not so much the usual loosely coordinated mobs like they usually used. This one was different. Getting the Militia going every which way and evacuating before the sappers could get to their boat. Diversionary tactics. Not their usual fair.
When Fire and Rescue finally got to stand down, we found out why they'd been scattering and moved off so fast. Mindo's body was gone. Not a surprise to a lot of folk who'd heard what'd happened, but not for the reason I suspect most of them thought.
The raid and Mindo's body being snatched couldn't be coincidence. The Reavers came in and recovered him. Creepy thing was how soon after he shot himself that it happened. Almost like it was planned. A Reaver boat couldn't have gotten in that fast unless it had come in quiet in the first place. And how'd they know it'd happened?
Questions for later.
Disturbing ones. But they'd wait.
We'd have to recover Lily and x0x0 from Blackburne, and that meant Cody on the ground and my tapping into some of the remaining birds in the air. Just hoped they were both still OK. If not, I wouldn't even have Mindo's corpse to kick around.
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