[gilga]

Lucky replied:
"Oh really" ... "Good people?!... you just tried to kill us!" ... "and for what crime? for asking questions?... You guys are homicidal monsters and you are protecting some secret"..." Bikki is important to you... you are willing to kill for him - for the secret that he represents... you are stalling... dreaming about a rescue?! ... perheaps you will find it easier to speak if we cut some of your fingers..."

"I live in the streets and I find your story insulting... cooperates do not just show up out of the blue... they don't need to pay you to access helpless children... they can grab street rats on their own... without paying you a fortune... they can seduce half the children of Kathmandu with a promess of a warm meal and clean cloths." 

[luckace]

Scipio's hatred for the man grew with every word that came pouring out of his mouth. Still, the kind, mercyful voice inside his mind remained strong, preventing him from attacking Ravinder right where he was. What if he's indeed a benevolent soul that simply lost his way? Nonsense, the other voice replied. Benevolent souls don't send assassins with muffled guns!
"Even if your intentions towards Bikki were good, the blood of our brother right here...", and he laid his hand on Sissy's muscular shoulder "...is definitely on YOUR hands, asshole, since I guess you were the one to send chiso dhau. And I know you instructed the gold-chained guy to attack us, we aint blind."
He approached the tied man with his khukuri drawn. "Listen, our goal right now is not revenge. At least not primarely. If you can tell us how we can reach these faruke-people, that changed Bikki the way he is now, we might consider to let you live.", and he let blade wander across the man's throat.
"Or at least untie you before the organ-smugglers arrive here at nightfall", he added with a wolfish grin.

[Volker]

Ravinder sweats and shakes. "Don't! Don't kill me, I'll tell you everything. You ... you are no killers. Don't stain your hands with my blood!

"Right, I'll talk! Faruke is a daughter enterprise of Mitsuhama. I don't exactly know what they are researching but it is kind of a new technology that might be worth a real fortune - talking in megacorp terms - once it is fully developed. They needed ... participants to do research on this technology. They offered our temple money if we can provide and organize some children under controlled circumstances. I don't know any details, really. They gave him and the others a trainer who trained them in shooting. And they installed a datajack and did some experiments. Oh, really, I don't know the details! I'm not a big fish, I really just do what I was told. Please don't hurt me. It's always the small ones who get the punishment, and the real evil people get away.
"I can give you the contact number of Babita Hatsumoto, the project manager here at the temple. She's half Japanese, so be careful.
"Please, can I go now?"


Ravinder's commlink gives a buzzing sound.

[luckace]

Scipio frowned. SOME children? He had to think about Som, Durga and all the others that went missing too. Did they suffer a similiar fate?
"All right, give us that number!", he ordered. "Or how about YOU make the call? Would be one step towards convincing us that you might deserve to live."

Then he reached out to grab Ravinder's comlink and check what the buzzing was.

If - as gilga stated - all comlinks are switched off, just ignore the last line.

[gilga]

"How many children? what are their names...  who has them now? how come Bikki came back to us?" Asked Lucky.

[Jack_Spade]

Riker just nodded at those words. Yes, that sounded like something those people would do. Adding to Lucky's question he said:

"And one other thing: Why did you jam a nail into Bikki's slot? Don't tell me it was the corp. That crude shit is totally you guys."

[Volker]

"What?"
His voice is high-pitched, shaking with fear. "What am I supposed to say to them? I'll give you what you want, please let me go. I have family...

"There are four other children in the programme. Kabir, Som, Nanak and ... dammit, what was her name. They only used to call her Starlight. Samita? Samira? Sharmila? I can't tell, really."

"And one other thing: Why did you jam a nail into Bikki's slot? Don't tell me it was the corp. That crude shit is totally you guys."

"No, that wasn't our work, either. It was Harka's work, a local surgeon. He did the work for Faruke. He's a local. I-I guess it did the job, didn't it?

"Please let me go now. I told you what I know..."


At the third buzz, Scipio managed to take a look at the commlink. Again, there was a message from your new friend Frozen Yoghurt:
"Drip, drip, bahini's blood tastes bitter sweet."

[luckace]

"Som?", Scipio gulped. Calm down, Scip, there's probably hundreds of Soms in the sprawl. "What does he look like?"

"Dunno, tell that Japanese you wanna meet her at a special place, where we can TALK", and Scipio stressed the last word with special caution. "something like that, I mean we obviously can't make the call ourselves."
Then he took a look at the message...
Scipio's eyes widened. With a sharp crack all his inner resistances bursted, every wall inside his mind broke down, making his thoughts widely open to a rushing flood of fury and panic. What did you do, please, what did you do?!, the frightened voice inside his mind screamed out in agony. But there was another voice inside him, burning with rage, craving for the man's blood. I'll find you, fucker, you'll pay for whatever you did to her!

Ignoring all caution, he pcalled the number that sent the message and waited for the elf to answer, thinking of a thousand ways to hurt him. She'd better be all right, or mister Indian over here will not see the next sunrise...

Turning to his friends he whispered: "He has our sister..."

[gilga]

Lucky asked: "What is this frozen Yogurt guy and why does he threat to kill our friends? Why did you attack us? You obviously did not tell us much more than we already knew... so either we are terrible investigators or I just don't get this whole thing... You could kill us yesterday also or any day of the week why now?  why in the middle of discussion what could you possibly achieve by that?"


To Scipio, look man if he wanted to kill our friends he did not have to let you know about his plans... and face it living on the streets we are not very difficult to kill...  Don't be stressed... he sends you these messages because there is something else he wants.

[Volker]

"Uh, well, Som ... he was a teen, older than Bikki. Black hair, some scars, skinny... Not so special, really.

"I still don't know what you guys want from me! Why don't just call that ... lady, and talk to her yourselves?

"They are doing some research. Something in their brains. They explained me but I didn't get it. They send some, I don't know, pictures or orders or whatever into their brains, and make them do things, and they want to try and find out how it works. What I do is, I observe those kids and tell Babita if something strange happens. Bikki's ... education was complete, and apparently they wanted to try out whether their tricks worked."

He looks around in panic, still hoping for someone to find him. But no-one comes.

"When this lunatic arrived at the temple, I panicked. Something apparently went wrong. He, well, urm, you know. Was here...
"If those Faruke people find out I messed up, I'm screwed. Please let me go, I promise, I go somewhere else and quit the work in the temple. I can't go back there, anyway. I'll do something ... decent. Please lemme go!"

He skipped to talk about Frozen Yoghurt, purposefully or because he missed the question. So does Frozen Yoghurt himself - the call doesn't get answered.

[gilga]

"So you tried to kill us because you try to cover your faliure to monitor Bikki?... Who does Frozen Yogurt works for?"

Lucky is loosing his paitience...  " Maybe we should just kill him..." he say to his friends... "He is the one that ordered them to kill us... he does not even take responsibility about that" he whispers.
 

[luckace]

Scipio really thought about Lucky's suggestion, but as he knew his friend, he was probably bluffing. All right, let's play good-cop-bad-cop then, he interpreted Lucky's change of mind.
"I say we give him one last chance.", and he turned to the sweating Ravinder again. "Remember what happened last time when we arranged a meeting? Three guys we didn't invite showed up, armed to the teeth, trying to kill us. We don't want the faruke-date to end in a similiar carnage, so you're gonna call this woman and you're gonna make her come to a specific location ALONE, got me?"
He looked at his friends to see if they agreed, ready to give the comlink bat to their hostage.

But the truth was, he knew they couldn't let him go. He already tried to kill us once, and that was before we had this crucial information about the temple. He'll want to get rid of us.
Then we gotta be faster!, the cruel voice inside his mind said...

[gilga]

Lucky put the taser in the prisoners mouth... "I don't even care if you talk... this is my girlfriend Tiffany... she only stun people but I am not sure what she will do if I use her like this ... right into your brain... it is not even in the user manual... I really want to find out...   You tried to kill me man... You came to the meeting with the intent of killing us all... to cover for your own misbehaving... You have an expensive comlink good equipment... I want you to arrange a doctor to remove the slot from Bikki! do this or we are going to find out if it is possible to kill someone with a taser..."

[luckace]

He opened his mouth to say something encouraging to Ravinder, but then he stopped. No. Why should I? He deserves a little panic... Scipio didn't like this new side of him that he only discovered since the incident at the scrapyard. He could not deny that he sort of enjoyed watching the spokesman suffer...
T
o avoid thinking too much into this dark direction, he pulled out his comlink and fimbled the battery out of his pocket. If the temple really was able to track comlinks, they could as well track Ravinder. And due to Bikki, they probably also knew about their gang's hive, sp what was there that he could give away?
Migt as well text Man Bahadur and ask if they're all right. He checked if any calls or messages had arrived while his comlink was turned off, hoping to find none.

[Volker]

His eyes widened in panic. "There is really no need for violence! Just... Just tell me where I should ask her to come. Please stop this! I can see now this was all a mistake. Forgive me!
"Here? To a restaurant? To the temple? Just tell me, fuck!"

His eyes darted from Lucky to Scipio, from Scipio to Lucky (trying to avoid the menacing presence of Riker). "I ... I can pay Harka to remove that thing. He put it there in the first place. Just let me go!"

Scipio's commlink awakens with a soft flash of light. There are no more new messages.