A Complicated Web

Chapter Thirty-Two: Cat's Out of the Bag

Loki stewed over what information he'd gleaned over the last twenty-four hours. These kidnappers were pretty crafty, but not as careful as they could have been. True, they'd left no physical evidence behind, but that didn't rule out other things. It was a shame these puny humans didn't realize that.

There was a decided connection between the kidnapping and the technology expo. He'd felt similar intent at all the locations associated with both. It was perhaps fortunate he'd arrived at the safe house they'd used after the others had left. He didn't want to run into Thor until he had to. But the intent there was the same. Now if only he could put a face to those feelings, he might actually get somewhere.

He'd disguised himself as a city worker, a lineman to be precise. From the high power poles, he'd seen a fair deal more than those who had to rely on the ground. Technically, he'd arrived just as the others were leaving. So that had been a near thing.

But by no means was the place deserted. He'd noted the presence of a middle-aged couple still in the mansion. They showed no signs of being involved though, so he quickly swept them to the back of his thoughts. There was, however, a faint trail of energy leading away from the place. It reminded him a bit of Asgard.

Only one type of being would leave behind that kind of signature. It had to come from Kally Carmichael. He practically flew along the trail, using his magic to make the going faster.

The trail headed north for a while, following the course of several country roads until it hit the 287. After a while, however, it changed as the scent veered off the freeway and to a small higher, the 23. From there, they went back to country roads. He caught enough of a signature to realize they'd changed course, now heading in a westerly direction. And, as the road became more congested, connecting with another interstate, he lost track of the scent all together.

Loki went over the area several times, trying to recapture the trail. But there were too many disturbances to catch it. At the very least, he knew the kidnappers were no longer in the state of New York. He just wasn't sure how far west they'd gone.

............................

An hour had passed since the silent man had returned Kally to her cell. She'd paced the small space more times than she cared to count. There obviously was a lot more going on than she'd realized. Most of it had to do with Hiro and his past, but a good deal went towards what these people were doing here and why. She'd caught snippets of conversation coming from different open spaces. Some of those spaces were either halls or rooms with open doors. The point remained, she had only a few pieces to potentially several puzzles and no idea how they all fit together.

Before she could get too far in her thinking though, another guard came to fetch her. She didn't resist as the man silently led her down the hall in the opposite direction as before. Chances were good Hiro wasn't down the other way anymore anyway, though part of her wondered.

This new guard led her to a workroom with a solitary computer station and lots of desk space. There were even notebooks and writing tools waiting for her to use.

The door locked behind her as Kally took in the room. She noted several cameras looking down from the ceiling. There were enough to cover all the angles. Chances were good there were even a few at the desk level, if she was any judge of how paranoid these people were.

The computer desk sat away from the wall, with the power outlet below the tower. There were no network cables or external signs of a modem or routers. The computer was completely cut off from any network she could see.

Kally's next task was to inspect the hardware. She pulled out the tower case, disconnecting the power, and opened it. The motherboard was top of the line, with a lot more RAM than was probably necessary. An empty slot spoke of where a LAN port had once sat before being removed. The hard drive was large in capacity and brand new.