XVII

November 9, 2016

1458 Hours

"That will be $7.45," the Uber driver demanded from the brothers in a thick German accent. Dan coughed up the money, and quickly exited the cab.

"Thanks Alfonso," James said before getting out of the car. Alfonso grunted, and drove away, leaving the brothers standing there looking at their motel door. It was open part way, with the manager of the motel going in and out with boxes of miscellaneous items.

"What," Dan said, but never finished. He briskly walked to the door, and went inside with no hesitation. James was close behind him, and he saw that the room was turned almost upside down. The beds were slashed, the TV was on the ground with the screen cracked like a spider's web, the desk where the laptop was sitting on was turned over with all the drawers in it pulled out, papers littered the floor everywhere, Dan's and James' clothes and luggage were also occupying the papers here to there. James looked at where the desk was, and saw his laptop snapped in half. He quickly dove to retrieve it, and noticed the flash drive was missing.

"The flash drive is gone," James said, defeat in his voice. Dan pursed his lips, not sure if he could feel any more anger in him at this point.

The door squeaked open, causing the two brothers to turn around. It was the manager, and he looked pissed.

"What are you doing here?" He asked in a threatening tone. The brothers looked at each other, not sure what to say.

"We came to get our stuff," James said, hoping that would work. The manager ultimately didn't care why they were there.

"OUT!" The manager yelled. James quickly left the room, but Dan stood there. He wasn't going to take it from this scrawny man who thinks he's all that.

"Did you hear that?" The manager questioned Dan. He didn't respond to him, but instead walked up to the manager slowly. The manager tightened up, and took a hesitant step back.

"I said, did you hear that?" He asked again, with a little less confidence. Dan got right up to the manager and stared him straight into his eyes.

"I heard." Dan said. Reeling back, he punched the manager as hard as he could in the face. The scrawny man crumpled on the ground instantly. James was outside looking in, and couldn't believe his eyes.

"You probably shouldn't have done that," James commented. Dan shrugged as he looked down on the manager.

"He was gonna sue us anyway," he said.

"Okay, I guess. But what now?" James asked. Dan looked behind at the destroyed room, then back down at the manager. He noticed a pair of car keys on him. Dan's heart felt cold at this point. All the anger in him didn't go away, but instead transferred into motivation. He wanted justice.

"I say we find Sanine. This Kathy Smith." Dan said. James moved uncomfortably in the spot he was in, not sure if this was such a good idea.

"Are you sure, Dan?" James asked. Dan looked at him with dead eyes.

"The police isn't going to help us. No one will believe us. It's about time we go to her, and show her what justice looks like," Dan explained. James had a concerned look on his face.

"What... kind of justice are you thinking of Dan?" James hesitantly asked. Dan didn't answer as he bent down to pick up the manager's car keys. "Dan." James demanded. Dan looked up at James concerned look, then around to look for a car that was being unlocked. He found the car that was making the noise, and we walked briskly to it.

"Dan!" James exclaimed as Dan walked by him. "Dan, you're shutting down on me! Please let me help!" James pleaded. Dan stopped in his tracks, and turned to look around at James.

"You want to help me?" Dan asked, "Then come with me, and help me." Dan returned to walking to the car, and James stood there, pretty positive about what Dan was going to do. He debated whether or not he was going to go, but then he thought of a plan. James ran up to the car, and got into the passenger seat before Dan could put the car in drive.

"Do you still put small tracking devices on everything you own that's electronic?" Dan asked.

"Yeah, wh-" James quickly got out his phone, and tracked the USB that was stolen. An address popped up, and he debated whether or not telling Dan he found it or not. How ironic that he's had this dilemma twice about the same technology. After staring at the map, pondering to tell Dan or not, he thought the only way Dan could be happy is just to deal with the struggle.

"Yeah, I got it. 11 Sierra Dr."

Hank arrived at Sanine's house with Hank. They dropped off the guard at his house a few blocks away, which made the wife question why her husband was woozy had a swollen head. They couldn't tell her much, so they said he fell, then drove away.

"Okay Rogers, my boyfriend will remember you, so he can't see you. No one can. You're going to go down to the basement with Hank while I distract Burt, got it?" Sanine explained. Rogers nodded his head, catching everything she said. Sanine went out of the car, and made her way into the inside of the house.

"Is that you, Kathy?" Burt hollered from the living room.

"Yeah jackass, it is." Kathy said, taking off her huge jacket, along with the sword she picked up. Burt came walking in from the other room, looking curiously at the sword.

"Why do you have a cool looking sword?" Burt asked. Kathy rolled her eyes playfully.

"Oh, you know. A friend of mine gave it to me as a parting gift for Braydon. You know how much he loved swords." Burt nodded thoughtfully as he hugged Kathy.

"I almost have dinner ready, the roast is almost done," Burt explained.

"That's great honey! Why don't you go check on it just in case," Kathy asked. Burt shrugged his shoulders, then walked off to the kitchen. As soon as he closed the doors, Kathy opened the front door and hurried Hank and Rogers in.

"The door to the basement is right there," Kathy said as she pointed to her almost immediate left. They door was right by the stairs, and was shaped differently than any other door in the house. They quickly went through the door, then closed it as soon as Burt came out of the kitchen.

"So?" Kathy asked, asking about whether or not the roast was done or not.

"Like I said before, it's close," Burt said, making his way to the living room to finish watching Paranormal Ghost Hunters.

In the basement, Hank lightly pushed Rogers down the stairs to hurry him up.

"I'm going!" Rogers exclaimed, trying to shrug off Hank's hand off his back.

"Not fast enough," Hank commented as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

The basement was roomy with a desk that housed a monitor with the bulkiest computer he's ever seen. Surrounding the monitor were cubby holes with various pieces of tech occupying each space. It ranged from buckets of motherboards and chips to full routers that were blinking red and green lights ever so often. On the other side of the basement was a nice sized bed that seemed like it was used recently.

"Where the hell are we?" Rogers asked, making his way to the desk to look closer. Hank passed him, and sat down in a comfy-looking rolling chair.

"This is where Sanine and I do our work that involves any technology. For instance..." Hank pulled out a drawer, and grabbed a flash drive in it. It wasn't anything unusual, at least not to Rogers.

"What is that, your porn or something?" Rogers asked. Hank rolled his eyes, and inserted the flash drive into the computer.

"It's something we found at the brother's apartment. Hannah and I turned it upside down, and this was the only thing that remotely looked suspicious. I don't know what's on it yet, Sanine wanted me to wait for her to see." Hank clicked on the little file, opening it up. There was a folder labeled "don't look at this dan", and a weird microphone icon.

"Thought we weren't supposed to look at this unt-" Rogers was cut off from the door slamming up the stairs. A pair of high heels clanked down the stairs, revealing Sanine.

"Alright, open it up Hank," she said as she got near the computer. She put the sword she was holding down on a random shelf on the way to the computers. Rogers moved out of the way for Sanine.

"This little microphone icon is a little suspicious," Hank commented.

"Okay Mr. Obvious, just open it. You didn't have to say that out loud." Sanine said. Hank bit his tongue, and clicked on the icon. A program popped up with a mp3 file on standby. A single play button was above the file. Hank click the button, and the room was filled with Hank's and Rogers' conversation from the prison.

“What, Hank?” Rogers whispered.

Hank whispered back, “Sanine said you took a PS3 and hid it. Do you not remember?”

Sanine stopped the recording there to look at the two men sitting right next to her. Hank and Rogers sat there, stunned that some little bug could pick that up.

"You guys are IDIOTS!" Sanine yelled. Hank nodded his head thoughtfully.

"Thanks, we'll take that into careful consideratio-"

"Quit it with your jokes, Rogers. I'm done with your s**t. Both of you." Sanine got up from the chair in the middle of them, and stormed towards the stairs. Rogers and Hank looked at each other, both with a look like a child just got in trouble by their parent.

"Look, Sanine," Hank said, chasing after her towards the stairs. By the time he got to the bottom of the stairs, she was at the door at the top. "We can do better, I promise." Sanine had her hand on the door knob, and another hand on a control box next to her

"I'm sorry, I just can't believe you anymore. That was a major slip up, what you did two. I just can't allow that to happen again, I hope you understand." Sanine flipped a switch on the control box, then she quickly went through the door, locking it from the outside. Hank stood there in dismay, wondering what she could mean from that. He stared at the control box, he never noticed that before.

Rogers started coughing from the desk.

"Oh God, what is that awful smell?" Rogers asked, coughing over and over again. Hank started to smell it himself, causing him to cough as well.

Rogers wasn't trained for war, nor was he never in it. Hank did. He recognized that they were being killed.

Hank ran up the stairs quickly, covering his mouth and nose with the upper part of his shirt.

"What the hell is this stuff!" Rogers exclaimed in between coughs. Hank didn't want to open his mouth, even to warn Rogers to keep his mouth shut. Stumbling towards the box, Hank saw she closed it before she left. There was a little panel that could be slid open. Hank opened it with one hand, and banging the door with his other. Maybe Burt or even the little girl could hear him from the outside.

Sliding the panel open revealed a number pad with nine digits.

COME ON! Hank yelled in his head. He quickly deduced that it would be useless to try to figure out the code, so he just resorted to banging on the door with both of his fists.

Hank looked behind him to see Rogers clambering to the bottom of the stairs, his feet were tripping themselves as he hunched over to the bottom step. He looked up, his mouth open without a sound. His throat constricted on himself as he was choking from the gas. He raised a hand to Hank, who turned around to keep pounding on the door.

The gas finally hit Hank properly, and the intensity of his banging lessened. His throat closed on him, and one of his hand went around his throat. With one final ounce of strength, Hank hit the door as hard as he could.

The impact of his fist made his whole, weak body rebound and he ended up falling down the stairs. He landed on top of Rogers' body, darkness filling his eyes as he stared at the ceiling. HIs lungs felt like they were going to explode, and he was slowly losing conscious.

The last thing Hank thought about before he passed out was…

He couldn't think.

Kathy closed the door behind her, and immediately called Burt and  Alexius's name.

"We're going out! Insomnia Cookies, and Panda Express on me!" Alexius came running down the stairs in excitement, and Burt came from the living room, a little hesitation in his manner.

"Seriously Kathy, I just made roast. We're going out?" He asked.

"Yes! The roast can be reheated tomorrow for dinner, we gotta go now! There's this sale at the mall as well, and I don't want to miss it," Kathy exclaimed. Alexius was already ready by the time she finished the sentence. Burt shrugged, knowing arguing at this point was useless, and put on his shoes as they left the house.

Alexius was the last one out of the house, closing the door in excitement. She locked the door, but then remembered what her mom told her to do, so she unlocked it. She doesn't understand her mom sometimes, but she loved her so much, it didn't matter.

A few minutes later, there was a banging on the door leading to the basement. The banging kept going for a minute, then it stopped. What followed was the sound of something tumbling down the stairs. The house was silent after that.