Lights and the faint sounds of music
filtered dimly through the large window into the darkened office. It flickered
slightly as the entertainment below continued. A red jetsam looked through the
one way glass, red eyes scanning everything with obvious familiarity, if not
outright boredom.
A raspy voice cut into the relative silence
of the office behind him. "You've outdone yourself this quarter, Spectre. I
expected to see a profit, and instead you post a record loss."
Spectre shrugged slightly. "Hey, what does it
matter to you? You get to use this place as cover for your own research lab
down below."
"I also happen to own this place, Spectre, and
those losses are mine. I don't like paying out money on a business that should
be making it, not losing it."
"So what's a few Neopoints here or there?"
"Hah! A few? You must have a different scale
of things than I do. I don't call seven digit figures 'few'."
Spectre's glance shifted nervously over his
shoulder. "Yeah, well, you knew I'd lost money here in the past. Wasn't the
fact that I owed so much to banks and stuff that you could buy out my loans
and get the business enough to convince you of that?"
"That's the past!" the other spat. "I see what
could be a profitable business, but your books don't show it. Now quit making
with the excuses. Give me one good reason why you aren't making money, or else
I get someone else to run this place and dump you out an airlock."
"All right!" Spectre snarled. "You want reasons?
Try this!" He reached back to his desk and held up a copy of The Neopian Times.
"Ever since this article came out, my Cheat! tables are flooded!"
"Eh? Hmm... Best Selling Guide to Cheat!..."
Red eyes quickly scanned the article in question. "Egotistical little thing,
isn't he. Or is it a she?"
"It's a she. And she's not just egotistical,
she's persuasive, too. My Cheat! tables have always been a loss, but I use them
to get marks in for the heavy duty stuff further back. But since that's come
out, I've had record numbers playing Cheat! and nothing else. Not only that,
they're winning even more than usual."
"So? You just got the Neopian Central concession
for the Round Table Poker games. Those are profitable, aren't they?"
"For now," Spectre admitted. "But this Heilley
has a friend who is starting to worry me there, too. She wins too often, and
if she convinces Heilley to write another article like that on Neopoker instead,
I'm sunk."
The black robed figure came towards the window
to glare down at Spectre. "So remove them."
"You mean just...." Spectre looked up and his
words died momentarily. "You do, don't you."
"Of course," growled Sloth. "What else?"
Spectre licked his lips. "That's against the
law, you know."
"Since when have either of us worried about
that?"
"I don't know, Sloth. A few weights on the roulette
wheels are fine, but this..."
"Would you like to join them?"
"Uh..." desperation spurred inspiration. "Hey....
maybe we won't need to go that far!"
"Oh really? And why would you say that?"
"It's simple! Look, all we've got to do is kidnap
them. Then we hold them for enough ransom to pay back our losses and at the
same time make sure they never want to come here again! We get our money back,
and we get rid of them too!"
Sloth chuckled evilly. "I like it." He peered
down at the gaming tables below them with a predatory gleam in his eye.
"Of course, I suppose it's possible their owners
can't or won't pay," Spectre admitted. He immediately wished himself somewhere
else as he realised the trouble he'd stepped into.
He needn't have worried however. "Are both of
these pets Kyrii?" Spectre nodded helplessly and Sloth's lips curled in an anticipatory
smile. "Good," he purred. "I know just how to handle them. And if that happens,
well then... there's always my experimental Kyrii transmogrification potion.
I know just how to use some beta testers, too." Spectre's gaze shifted uneasily
as Sloth's low chortle filled the office.
***
Heilley was running on a mix of adrenaline and neocola as she headed into
the final round of her Cheat! tournament. Spectre had joined them for this final
round, and after the first round of bids had given way to a flurry of cheat
calls, they'd all settled into the last stretch. As she often did, she'd gotten
down to four cards and they were all the same. It was sixes this time.
"Three Eights," Princess Fernypoo declared,
dropping them onto the empty table. Heilley thought about it. That was probably
a cheat, since Princess Fernypoo only had three cards left, but... she let it
slide.
"Two sevens," Agent 00 Hog declared.
Heilley kept her face expressionless as she
calculated her odds of finishing the game successfully at two out of three.
She let him slide, as did the other two there.
"One Eight," Spectre declared, putting a card
on the stack.
Heilley's jaw muscles tightened, and she stared
at Spectre, wondering whether to call his bluff or not. If he was cheating,
she'd be home free. If not, she'd get six cards and leave Princess Fernypoo
with three cards for the next move. If she let him slide and then cheated herself,
she'd give the others the chance to catch her and give Princess Fernypoo an
empty stack to play anything on into the bargain. She might as well give up
now if that happened. She tried to weigh the odds as Spectre's red eyes glared
at her, daring her to call him a cheat.
Their mental game of psyche-out was shattered
by Agent 00 Hog's cry of "Cheat!"
Heilley heard Spectre's big teeth grinding as
he turned the card over. "No cheat."
Heilley restrained her smile of triumph as Agent
00 Hog gathered up the stack, grumbling to himself. "Four sixes," she declared,
and gave into her desire to gloat by playing them face-up into the middle of
the table. The round of disappointed sighs and groans was music to her ears.
"Congratulations," Spectre admitted grudgingly.
As she raked in her chips, he took out a gold coloured one and flipped it onto
her pile. "There, cash that one in too. It's on me."
"Hey, cool deal. You're a good sport, you know
that, Spectre?"
He grinned, showing his teeth. "I can afford
to be," he muttered under his breath as she headed towards the cash-out kiosk.
"Hi, Heilley!" chirped the red Pteri behind
the kiosk window. "All ready to cash out for the night?"
"Sure am, Glynndell. Here ya go..." and Heilley
shoved her pile of chips across the counter.
"Whoo, boy, you really outdid yourself tonight,
didn't you!"
Heilley laughed. "I went two full tourneys this
time! I shouldn't have had that third can of Neocola."
"Well here you are, deary, over three thousand
Neopoints! Good job. Oh, and I'm afraid I can't cash this chip." She held up
the golden one that Spectre had tossed to Heilley.
"You can't? You mean it's no good?"
"Oh, no, it's very good! It's just that the
manager has to cash it out for you personally. He's back in his office, go take
it to him and you're all set."
"Okay!" Heilley took her chip back and headed
down the short hallway into the manager's office. She stepped inside and found
that the only lights in the room were shining through from the streetlight outside.
The door closed behind her and she tried to look around the room. "Hello? Anyone
here?"
A green hand clamped itself over her mouth and
an evil voice chuckled. "Oh, yes, my precious, I'm here. And you're about to
go on a little trip!" Heilley's feet kicked as Dr. Sloth picked her up, but
they connected with only air. He chuckled evilly at her struggles. "And don't
even think of trying to yell for hel.... YEEOOWWW!"
Heilley hit the floor running, and by the time
Dr. Sloth quit nursing the bitten finger on his right hand, she was hiding under
the desk.
"Vicious beast!" Sloth grumbled to himself.
He glared down at the floor in front of the desk. "Come out of there or you'll
regret it!"
"Come under here and make me!" was the shrill
retort.
Sloth growled wordlessly before locking the
door. He walked over to the desk and tried kicking under it, but all that achieved
was some scuffling sounds and a sharp rap on his foot that left him hopping
and mouthing curses for several seconds. Looking around the office, he spotted
a broom in the corner. Grabbing it, he strode around to the other side of the
desk and proceeded to viciously slam it back and forth. He connected with something
soft and was rewarded with a yelp of pain before Heilley scooted out the front
side of the desk and raced for the door.
The knob resisted her paws as Sloth crashed
towards her. She ducked and ran again, narrowly missing a grasping hand. The
chase was on as she dodged between Sloth and whatever other obstacles were in
the way. Although she was a lot faster and more agile, her smaller size meant
that Sloth could dominate the room. Her first refuge of the desk was denied
to her after he knocked it over onto its front so that she couldn't hide under
it again.
Sloth managed to catch her as much by accident
as by skill. Heilley tripped over a chair and scrambled up to run some more,
but before she could get away he'd grabbed her by the hair. She screamed as
he pulled her upright, and stood on her tiptoes, eyes shut in pain as he held
her just high enough to maintain the pressure on her scalp.
"So much for rationality," Sloth snarled. "Don't
know when you're well and truly caught. Wild animals, the lot of you. And quit
that caterwauling!" He winced as he dug into a pocket with his injured hand.
"Ah, here we go. Should have used this on you first thing rather than think
you'd behave."
Heilley's eyes widened as Sloth slapped the
funny smelling cloth over her nose, then she slumped in a heap to the floor
as he loosened his grip on her hair. Sloth stood over his victim, still panting
from his recent exertions.
"About time," he grumbled. He pulled a burlap
bag out of its storage place and sacked up the first Kyrii in his little operation.
He dumped her in a darkened corner and laid plans for the next one.
Some time passed by, and Sloth used it to pull
the desk upright again and straighten up the furniture as best he could. The
papers and other stuff that had fallen onto the floor he simply heaped on top
of the desk in a random pattern. The only thing that mattered to him was that
his next target not realise what was happening until too late.
Finally the knock came. Sloth flattened himself
against the wall and waited. Another knock, and then the knob of the door jiggled.
Sloth restrained a curse as he yanked out the key and used it to unlock and
open the door. He stepped back, hoping that his quarry would think that she'd
managed to do that herself.
He was in luck. Kootmufin stepped into the darkened
room. "Oh poo, looks like the manager went home. Now I'll have to wait until..."
Sloth pounced on her from behind and the rest
of her phrase was muffled by his chemical-soaked rag. His evil chuckle at his
easy victory turned into another exclamation of pain. He held up his left hand
to the light and cursed as he saw the blood flowing. Kootmufin had managed to
bite it even more severely than his other hand had been bitten before she passed
out. He kicked at her limp form to vent his frustration, but that only brought
him another stab of pain from his sore toe.
Cursing wearily, Sloth shut the door to the
office and turned on the lights. It didn't take him long to secure his second
prisoner either, but an observer would have noticed that he seemed to take little
pleasure in it. Apparently, he'd had a hard day.
To be continued... | 
