Rise of the Phoenix - Apocalypse Rebirth

Chapter 38 - Kidnapped

September 15, 3031 - Country C, City CC

Five minutes passed and Aria finally regained her body's movements. The first thing she did was push her shoulders against Kal's to pivot her body away from his.

Kal didn't even have a chance to decide what to do with the female body beside him when she moved away herself. Trying to pull out a knife from his space button, Kal was surprised to realize he wasn't able to access the things in his space button. Like it was blocked.

Throwing that thought to the back of his mind, Kal coldly turned to face the group of kidnappers in the car.

Kal: "Why did you kidnap us? What did you do to me? Why can't I access my space button?"

Male 1: "Haha. Mr. Zhang should be fully aware of why you're here with us. We have some paperworks here for you to sign or else we won't let your companions leave alive. As for your space button, you won't be able to access it for 39 hours and if you don't sign, we can repeatedly shoot you with it until you do."

S3: Aria, the phone that we got from the dead guy with the weapon states that this is a new tech a group of fringe scientists created. There are a few working copies currently, one loaned out to these men. What do you want me to do next?

Aria: If you can gain access to the scientists' study, download a copy and wipe the memory. Could you create a power surge to burn down the place where hard copies or parts were compiled?

S3: I can delete the files but would not be able to do the rest of what you requested. You will need to go to the location if you want to get rid of all their research.

Aria: Fine. Where is their lab located?

S3: In City PR.

Aria: Okay. Book a flight to PR in the next city fir tomorrow. I'm going to assume City CC's airport will be on lockdown for today. I'll take care of the red location in CC today and we should be in the next city by tomorrow afternoon. Just copy their files and observe their movements for now.

Although this type of technology doesn't affect Aria much, she can only imagine how it can keep people captive by locking access to their space button during the ZA. S3 never heard about this technology under Edward's records, so maybe the limited supply was only used in either Cities PR or CC under strict supervision. Wait...

Aria: Were there any abilities recorded in the surrounding cities to PR that can prevent people from accessing their space buttons?

S3: Yes, in City PO all the Gu family members have this dual ability.

Aria rolled her eyes at S3's answer. Needless to say, Aria is not impressed with S3's analytical performance so far.

Anyway, it seems like this technology did end up in a group of people's hands. It's just too bad that they involved her today. Her attention went back to the kidnappers as the van stopped and they pulled the 3 victims out of the van and into the warehouse.

Male 2: "Boss, the other group said they will arrive in 20 mins."

Male 1: "Bring them inside. We'll have to spend some time persuade Mr. Kal Zhang to sign the papers through a more effective way. Start with her."

The boss's eyes flickered over to the female in front of him. His eyes deepened in interest at her lack of fear. Usually females would be crying and begging to be released by now. But this one is just so quiet.

Reaching out his hand to pull off her mask so he can see her whole face, his action was suddenly stopped by Kal's movements.

Kal launched himself at the one they called, 'boss' as he saw the man reach for the female. Kal felt a little regretful about the fact that she was taken just because she was standing close to him.

Kal knocked the man away from Aria and kicked out against the other two men nearby but was tackled from behind. Without his arms, it was hard to continue attacking them. They took him down to the ground and the boss man got up from the scuffle and walked over in anger, bringing his leg back to kick Kal in the face.

Suddenly the boss man flew away by a sneak attack. Before anyone has a chance to react, they too were being attacked. "Ahh! Ouch!" Screams of pain and sounds of meat being punched surrounded the warehouse. Kal couldn't see much since his view was partially blocked when he was pushed to the floor. He counted the sounds of bodies meeting pavement. 10 bodies.

Finally when there were no more sounds of pain left, he can hear all the bodies quickly being dragged to a farther location before light footsteps approached him from behind and he felt his wrist restraints being cut. He immediately pushed himself up and looked behind at the person who released him.

It was the young woman. Her appearance was still clean and tidy like all the screams of pain weren't dished out by her. His body went on high alert as he watched her actions.

—

After Aria took down all the men with her fist, she shot them with the disc to ensure they can't access their space button. Deciding to not leave any of them behind for the next group to find, she decided to strip them down and load them back into the van and drive to the nearest law enforcement location to have them dealt with.

Aria quickly searched the men's bodies, swiping all their phones and technology on their bodies. Seeing their interesting high tech attire, she started stripping them of their clothes. Feeling two pairs of eyes on her, she looked up and saw Kal and the younger man staring at her.

She pointed at the clothes in her hands and then pulled the clothes on a nearby body then pointed at the other bodies close to Kal. Then pointed at her wrist signifying the time.

Whether or not they get it doesn't matter to her. She then took out some handcuffs and cuffed each man she stripped. It took her 10 minutes to strip the rest of the men.

Grabbing two of them by the seat of their pants, she pulled the knocked out men out of the warehouse and tossed them into the van.