Hope and Divine: Chapter V

Hope and Divine: Chapter 5

(This fiction focuses on a lesbian couple, complaints will be disregarded)


The situation took on the semblance of a nightmare. The kidnapper was getting away. Divina looked terrified, her eyes wide and full of tears, holding her hand out desperately towards her. Mikomi tried to move, but her body felt heavy, painful, there was a throbbing pain in her leg and there was a terrible taste in her mouth.

"Let go of her!" Mikomi shouted. There was a smattering of noise like several people speaking at once, but Mikomi ignored them, she had to reach Divina, she had to get her back, she was so far, the kidnapper was running further and further. In the pitch black of the endless void around her, Mikomi heard nothing but clanking footsteps getting further and further, and then, the distant, blood chilling sound of an agonised scream.
"No!"

Mikomi's eyes snapped open, and at the same time she sat up abruptly.

"Now, just sit ba-" Mikomi felt a hand touch her shoulder. She twitched away from it, and lashed out wildly, vivid images of the kidnapper trying to stop her following him zooming through her head. Someone let out a pained exclamation, but it was not the voice she had been expecting, it was a woman's voice. It took her a few more moments to realise that, instead of a dark street at night, she was in a surprisingly white room, lit by rays of sunlight.

"Mikomi" came a stern voice "You need to calm down" Mikomi turned her head sharply, and despite being dazed by the brightness of the room, recognised with ease the tall, white clad form of her father. She felt her face battle with itself for expression, thoroughly confused. Why was she here? Where was she? Where was…

"Divina!?" Mikomi cried, and tried to sit up again, but this time her father placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Mikomi, you need to calm down" he repeated. "You've been through a lot"

Mikomi stared at him, then looked around the room, trying to get her bearings. The first thing she noticed was a young woman on the floor, nursing a bloody nose. She felt a rush of guilt, and muttered an apology. The woman grimaced, perhaps meant to be a smile, and standing up, pressed a cloth to her nose. Mikomi turned shame-facedly to her father.

"What happened? I was chasing…" her voice tailed away, and with a thrill of horror, she realised what had happened.

"You tried to foil Princess Divina's kidnapping, Mikomi" Lord Animus said, gently, and perhaps, with a sense of pride. "The kidnapper however, overpowered you and got away. Fortunately however, you delayed him long enough for us to seal the entire Citadel. We are certain that he has not escaped the city walls, and we are conducting a thorough search of the entire city"

"But…" Mikomi said, feeling cold. "I… I tried to stop him. What if he kills her!? What if she's already dead!?" she cried, turning pale. Well, paler than her species usually is.

"I don't think that is their plan" said a different voice. Mikomi turned to the speaker, but had to wait until he continued to believe it was he who spoke. She had never heard him speak so seriously before.
"If that was the objective, they would simply have done it in the Tower itself, made it look like one of the guards had done it, and escaped in the confusion" said the overly cheerful soldier. Mikomi was so surprised by his unusually grim demeanor, she didn't say anything.
"He was disguised as one according to the reports"

"And ransom seems out of the question, as no terms or demands have been delivered" Lord Animus said, gravely.
This gave Mikomi no modicum of calm, if anything, it only heightened her anxiety. If the objective wasn't to kill or ransom her, then… Sick images ran through Mikomi's mind, and she tried to get out of bed, feeling ill, but fell back with a shout as she felt a stabbing pain in her chest.

"One of your ribs is still cracked, it'll be another hour at least before it fully heals" the nurse said, her nose no longer bleeding.
"I only gave you the heximor a few hours ago"

"An hour!?" Mikomi said, horrified. "How long have I been here?"

"About eight hours" the nurse said, now scribbling on a manuscript in a professional manner. "I've fixed your tooth, and the wound on your cheek is still a little tender, but your knee and rib will still be a while"

Mikomi's insides seemed to vanish, apart from the throbbing of her healing rib.

"I can't stay here another hour!" she exclaimed violently. "I've got to-"

"There's nothing you can do" her father said, firmly. Mikomi turned to him, her expression fierce, but under his unusually stern and penetrating gaze, it faltered into an aggrieved frown, as she sat back on her plump pillows. She felt her eyes sting slightly, and wiped them impatiently under the pretext of shifting a none-existent strand of hair from in front of her face.
"As I said, a full search of the Citadel is being conducted. All houses, noble and common are being checked, every abandoned building, every business is being searched. Every section of the wall is being guarded day and night, and leaving or entering the Citadel has been halted until further notice. There is almost no possible way for the kidnapper to leave the city"

Mikomi looked at him, her eyes brighter than usual. She wanted to feel reassured, that the Princess would be found, that Divina would not end up dead because she, Mikomi, had not saved her. Her father's face did not look reassuring, but serious, with a burning in his eyes. Despite her terrible feeling of guilt, she did feel a little less apprehensive at this. Nevertheless, as the hour wore on, she ignored the pain in her injuries, eager to get out and look for Divina herself. She barely responded to her visitors goodbyes, the nurse's polite queries of whether she felt any pain, and only gave her a fleeting thank you as she left. She felt a mild stab of regret about this as she walked out of the hospital, but it was eclipsed by her mingled feelings of guilt, apprehension, and dread for Divina.
Outside, the weather seemed indifferent to the crisis at hand. As numerous patrols of soldiers marched over the streets, the sun shone with a lazy, greyish light in the early morning. She noted that one patrol had stopped, and was conducting a Screening of a nearby building using an Optomescope. The building flickered with a green light before the patrol moved on. Mikomi flinched a little as she saw the first patrol, remembering the kidnapper's disguise. Stepping purposefully into the street, she strode as quickly as she could to the Citadel Tower, intending to prepare herself for a search. From her room she took her bow and quiver of arrows. She also took her athame, she was not as good at magic as her father was, but she knew a few things that might help her, and her previous fight with the kidnapper showed her she needed an edge.
Half running, half sprinting from her room, she nearly ran head first into the grey, floating cube with the white rune. She leant backwards, unable to stop, and managed to accidentally limbo under it before skidding to a halt.

"Greetings" it said. Mikomi did a double take, and blinked.

"Wh… did you just-?" she began, looking entirely amazed

"Speak?" the cube asked in a voice that sounded politely  inquiring. It was the sort of voice that belongs to quirky people who never know when to be quiet. Mikomi had never heard the cube speak before. She didn't know it could.
"Oh yes, I speak" it said, happily.

"Well…" Mikomi gave her head a shake, and thinking better of asking the question she had, dashed off down the hall. To her surprise, the cube hovered after her, shining a dim white light in front of her from the rune on its face. She raised her eyebrow at it.
"What?"

"I've been asked to help you" it said, doing a loop-de-loop as they sped around a corner into the main hall leading to the entrance, nearly bowling over an elderly noble who had been muttering something angrily to himself.

"I don't need help" Mikomi said impatiently.

"Oh? you know where her Highness is, then?" the cube asked, sounding delightedly surprised. Mikomi tripped, and stumbled forward into the main lobby, then righted herself, a blank look on her face. It had not occurred to her, that she had not the faintest idea where to look. Her insides seemed to plummet into her stomach. She was quiet for so long, that the cube, hovering around her, tilted itself, as though looking expectantly at her.

"No…" she muttered. She folded her arms, and scowled in frustration. More to stop the cube staring at her than anything, she asked
"Father sent you to help me?"

"Oh yes" the cube said, bobbing in the air. "He knew that you would go looking for her Highness" it continued in a voice that plainly said nothing could be more obvious. "and he was right of course, for here you are"

"Can you find her?" Mikomi asked it urgently, but knew the answer before it spoke. She had asked the question out of desperation, but surely if the cube could find her, it'd have done so for her father.

"No, but I can be of help in finding her. You're not very good at magic" it said, baldly. Despite her slight panic, she felt a little indignant at this.
"But I am very good at it" it said casually.

"But you can't find her?" Mikomi said, feeling truculent. "Well if you're going to come, then come"

Outside, Mikomi thought hard as the sun became more yellow as the morning wore on. It occurred to her that the kidnapper would need to keep Divina somewhere until he could escape the city, and that place would need to be somewhere the patrols were not likely to look. With Optomescopes in use, it would be madness to keep her inside a house, and even basements would be thoroughly searched by the guard. Where ever she was it had to be somewhere that the patrols were not likely to search. That narrowed the choices down significantly. The Tower is patrolled each and every day by her father's elite Honour Guard. There was no part of the Tower that was not explored or known about by her father, so that was out. The government buildings were out too, as they were filled with workers day and night, he couldn't keep a living person in there without being discovered. The library was out too, the only additional rooms was a small office for the help desk, and a broom cupboard full of cleaning supplies, none-used books were stored in a chamber of the Tower. That left only the places the soldiers would be searching, including the noble's houses. Mikomi wouldn't put it passed them to kidnap Divina, she wouldn't put much passed them, but the overly cheerful Terran noble had said that this kind of thing had been happening in the Terran Capital, and none of the nobles had ever been to the capital.
With no other plan in mind, Mikomi thought of possibly retracing her steps to where she had seen Divina, and hoping some inspiration would come to her.

"If you can't find her, what can you do?" she asked the cube as she strode passed the park where she had been practicing her archery. She stared at the tree where she had seen Divina standing, and though it looked oddly desolate and dark without her under it, despite the warm yellow glow of the sun shining through its branches.

"I can aid you in fighting the kidnapper should you find him" the cube said. Mikomi's insides seemed to grow a little lighter. Unless she was wildly wrong, Mikomi thought that this might mean her father had some confidence that she might find him. Or, her organs deflating again, that he simply wished to give her hope, or that he thought she might go blindly off to attack him if he Divina was found by the patrols.
"I can recall anything that's happened as far back as I was created, and I can…" the cube rattled off a number of its skills incessantly, and it was only when Mikomi came to the place where she had been knocked out by the kidnapper that she became irritable enough to tell it to shut up.

"Oh" the cube said, it's voice lowering a little. "Am I being insensitive?" it asked. Mikomi didn't know what it meant by this, as she stared at the area where she had fought the kidnapper. A number of forensics sorcerers were muttering incantations by the awning Mikomi had been thrown into, and a guard Captain was barking orders at several soldiers keeping people back from the area. Mikomi stared at a particular area of the cobbled stones where a small puddle of dried blood was. She knew that it was hers, and thought the blackened patch of stones must have been where she lay unconscious, her bleeding face oozing over the road. She felt a bubbling heat rise inside her, and walked away, thinking harder than ever as to where Divina could be.
For lack of anything else to do, she wondered around the shop front where they had had their wager, and even asked the sweet shop owner if he had seen her. A plump woman who Mikomi took for the owners wife clucked sympathetically as the man shook his head.

"She was a nice girl" the man said in a quavering voice "had good sense. if you find her, give her these from me, won't you?" he said, holding out a small bag. Mikomi looked at it, then took it from him.
"I recall she liked those" the man smiled, as Mikomi opened it and saw several pieces of rock candy.

"Thanks, I will" Mikomi said, trying and failing to smile. Outside of the shop, she slipped the sweets absently into a pocket, feeling worse now. Who could she ask, where could she go, where hadn't she looked that wasn't now being searched by the patrols? She had already tried looking in a building being searched, but had been rebuffed by a tall, low voiced guard. She spotted the group of surly gang members Divina and she had seen, laughing their way across the street, and was about to ask them if they'd seen Divina, when her commonsense caught her.

"Hey um… you" she said to the cube, snapping her fingers. The cube, who had been humming cheerfully next to her, stopped mid-tune, and turned his white glowing rune on her.

"Erudition" it said.

"What?" Mikomi asked, puzzled.

"My given title, my name if you will. I am Erudition" it said, sounding formal as though he had memorised this explanation. Mikomi gave the cube an impatient roll of the eyes.

"Right, okay, Erudition. Can you recall the info of yesterday?"

"Information relevant to the kidnapping of 6th in line to the Terran Imper-" the cube began.

"Yes, yes, that. What exactly happened?" Mikomi said quickly, cutting him off.

"Well" the cube said in a considering tone "the incident began with an intruder, a Terran who-" he was cut off again.

"A Terran?" Mikomi frowned. "In the Citadel?"

"Yes. The Terran's face was not seen, but it was unmistakably a Terran according to the patrol. The Terran attempted to climb the tier wall into the noble district, and was seen. This triggered the alarm that led to the full on search. Patrols at the gate who had opened it to allow a pursuit party to follow the Terran reported that one of their number ran passed with the ambassador, and that you followed in close pursuit. They reported that they gave chase, but quickly became lost in the dark, and found you unconscious on the ground in the market area of the common district. Reinforcements were dispatched to seal off the Citadel, and…" the cube droned on, but Mikomi was no longer listening. A Terran had attempted to jump the wall, and had provided a distraction, a reason for the disguised kidnapper to approach Mikomi and Divina without suspicion, and had provided an escape into the common district by way of the open gate.

"Eru… um, whatever you're called" Mikomi said, interrupting the cube's monologue. "Have all Terrans in the Citadel been searched and interrogated?"

"Yes" the cube said, cheerfully. "All traders, merchants, and temporary residents have been interrogated and searched. There are no permanent residents in the citadel at this time"

"And what about Divina's escort?" Mikomi asked, her eyes narrowing slightly. "have they been checked?"

"The Imperial escort has been dispatched with the Citadel patrols to help with the investigation. General Penn Maricc insisted that-"

"General who?" Mikomi asked, raising an eyebrow.

"General Penn Maricc" Erudition repeated. The white rune on the cube's face flashed as though sunlight had just shone across it, and a vivid mental image of the overly cheerful Terran noble flashed across Mikomi's mind.

"General… general!?" Mikomi exclaimed, taken aback. "He's a… but he always seemed so…" Mikomi's voiced trailed off, her expression incredulous. In her mind, no one could be less suited to leading an army. The most she would expect him to lead was a drunken karaoke night, and that was only if everyone else was three times as drunk as he was. She gave her head an impatient shake.
"So none of his men have been searched?"

"No. The General vouched for all of them. They were handpicked by him to protect her Highness on the way here" the cube explained. Mikomi frowned, and scratched idly at her cheek. She winced a little as she felt a tiny throb of unexpected pain on the mostly healed wound there. Just at that moment, the librarian walked by, his neat hair, crisp clothes, and impassive expression caught Mikomi's eye.

"Hello" she said, absently. He gave her a polite nod, and walked on. "Hey, I don't suppose you've seen the ambassador, have you?" she asked without any real conviction that he would say yes. He looked back and shook his head, giving her a small grimace. Mikomi fleetingly noticed that he had something under his arm, a shiny metal something that she thought she had seen many times before. She frowned, then shrugged, thinking the librarian a bit rude for not speaking to her. She put him out of her mind and walked along the street, thinking hard about what to do.
"We need to interrogate the Terran soldiers" she said, tugging at the collar of her poncho a little in an absent sort of way. "One of them might have been involved, it would make sense if this has being going on even in the Empire"

"That is surprisingly logical" Erudition said, sounding impressed.

"Can you find out where the nearest… what do you mean 'surprisingly'?"

-

It took the majority of the day to find and question the soldiers, all of whom turned out to have been either at the ball along with the General, or had been in one of their rooms, having had a very rowdy party with a pair of brewers from the east side. All of their alibis were supported by at least one outside source, the group that had partied vouched for by the two brewers and the irritable, red faced caretaker of the rooms set aside for the escort's use during their stay. Mikomi was just coming to the end of her hope, when Erudition told her that the last of them was in the library opposite the tower and the gate of the tier wall. Her spirits kindled again. Why was he sneaking off to the library when he was supposed to be looking for Divina? Did this not seem most suspicious? Feeling rather lighter than before, she ran to the library in her eagerness to pursue this last lead, Erudition zooming along in her wake.
At the library however, Mikomi's excitement turned to bewilderment. The soldier she was looking for seemed to be having a very loud argument with the librarian at the front desk, the very same librarian she had met just hours ago. Entering the library, the two men stopped bickering, and gave her furious looks. The soldier composed himself first, smoothing his mustached face into a look of disapproval which he shot at the librarian. The librarian for his part, was giving the soldier in return a look of cold fury. Mikomi noticed dimly that all of the lamps except for the one in the entrance hall was out, leaving the larger room full of books in near total darkness.

"What's going on?" Mikomi asked, warily. Erudition hovered in ahead of her, and began shining its white light over any and all books, papers, and anything else that had writing on it, humming cheerfully to itself.

"This little sod is refusing to let me search the library. He says its 'closed'" the soldier scoffed.

"The library was to be closed half an hour ago" the librarian said, waspishly. "on the orders of Lord Animus, the building is to be closed until Princess Divina is found"

"Then why were you here?" Mikomi asked him, curiously.

"I came to pick up some papers I had left here yesterday" the librarian replied, not taking his calculating stare from the angry Terran soldier.
"I only meant to be here a few minutes when this…" he made an impatient gesture towards the soldier "buffoon, accosted me"

"But didn't I see you coming here a few hours ago? Late this morning?" Mikomi asked him, frowning slightly. The librarian finally turned from the soldier, and gave Mikomi an impassive look.

"I was not coming here when I saw you this morning, I was in fact heading for the chemists" he said, briskly, before turning back to the soldier. "now sir, for the last time, the library is closed"

"And I am telling you for the last time" the soldier snapped "I have been given the authority to search anywhere I see fit!"

The two continued to squabble, apparently forgetting that Mikomi was there. For her part, Mikomi mulled over what the librarian had said, and memories of that morning came back to her: him striding by, her saying hello, him nodding… then there was a blankness, as though she couldn't remember something. She recalled walking away, but she was sure something had happened after saying hello, and before walking away.

"I asked him…" Mikomi said under her breath. Yes, she had definitely asked him about Divina, and he had shook his head… but no, there was something else, something that just refused to surface, something she struggled to remember, and why it was important she did not know, but it nagged at her, like a word on the tip of her tongue. She looked at the librarian, and at his desk. Walking discreetly around the still bickering pair, she stared at his desk. It was plain enough; bits of paper, official looking forms for the removal of books, a stamp and several ink pads, a register, various pens, a Newton's cradle, and a rectangular, metal something that… her gaze lingered on several of the papers on his desk. By now, Mikomi was behind the librarian, and he seemed not to have noticed her, too intent upon his argument.

"I shall report you for insubordination, and intent to obstruct justice!" the soldier growled.

"The library has already been searched, and I see no reason why you should do a better job than a fully trained Citadel guard squad, do you?"

Mikomi pushed a paper or two aside, reading their headings, the librarian still ranting at the soldier. They were nothing interesting, just a filed out book form, and a prescription. Seems as though he was telling the truth about the trip to the chemist. But then Mikomi's eye found the dates on the prescription, and she frowned. It wasn't for pick up for another few days, nor had it been bought today, and she recognised the medicine as a very complex formula designed to get rid of particular pains in joints sustained from injuries. Mikomi frowned, and then she looked over the rest of the desk again. What would a librarian need joint medication for? What could a librarian do that would require him to get such potent medicine as that? Surely he did no heavy lifting, or get into many fights. Her eyes flickered again over the metal rectangle. She felt her concentration slip, and she looked away. She caught herself and gave her head a little shake, then looked back firmly at the object. For some reason, her thoughts clouded, and she began to think about different things, random things, things she was not interested in, things she suddenly remembered she had to do. What was wrong with her? She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again, and stared at the object. It was the same object she had seen the librarian carrying that morning, the same object he had had on his desk for all the time he had worked at the library, and she knew what it was. It was his laptop computer.

"Wh…" she did not say anything else. A whirl of thoughts swept through her mind, and at the same time her insides became cold, and understanding seemed to blaze in her mind, temporarily numbing it.

"Wha-What are you-!?" Mikomi heard the soldier's voice give a strangled cry of pain and shock, and she looked suddenly up to see him stumbling backwards, a pen knife protruding from his neck. Blood spurted everywhere as he fell back, his hands scrabbling uselessly at the little of the hilt still exposed.

"Oh my!" Erudition exclaimed. Mikomi's body tensed. She turned to the librarian in time to see the same look of cold fury he gave people when they mishandled one of his books, as he swung a heavy chair up from the floor. For the second time in two days, everything went abruptly black.


- To be Continued