It was a rush hour on the streets of Capricon city that early morning. The roads were free from traffic. Pedestrians on point and drivers in cool cars finding make their to work places. Among these Pedestrians here were the two shabby hobos who had just become friends over night, Suxes and Kevin Moore.
Suxes lead the way upto infront of a majestic cafeteria where they both stood, in a distance eyes at the glass entrance.
"Me appearing here is a big mistake," Suxes said to Kevin while he gazing anxiously from a disatance at the cafeteria.
...
Too green about the situation, Kevin Moore, in his neanderthal manners took eyes off the cafeteria, looked at him, and then took eyes back to business, choosing to keep it simple by following the lead, as he tried to adapt his friend's body language.
With his super unshaved thick beard, him too made an anxious gesture. He squeezed his fingers together continously as if they itched, moved his legs back and forth on the ground he was standing, restlessly, same way Suxes was doing.
Eyes on the ground, like he was in a heap of thought, back up to the cafeteria entrence in guesture of impatience, several times exactly how Suxes was doing it, Kevin perfected the uniformity.
"What the hell! Are you crazy?" Suxes looked at Kevin Moore imitating his body language.
Amid Kevin Moore's playful manner, a lady smartly dressed in a cafeteria labeled outfit walked out of the cafeteria on very quick feet heading their way.
Like a cobra bitten on its tail, her face frowned angrily as she approached.
"Hope I survive today," Suxes' tension raised as soon as the lady appeared and his haert raced uncontrollably.
It was an anxious moment as Suxes stood steel, waiting for the confrontation.He took a deep breath to relax but all in vain. Kevin as a student who was so drawned into learning human behavior, he couldn't wait to be left behind. He continued to copy each and every thing Suxes did with his gesture from taking a deep breath to humbling himself on unsteady barefoot.
"Brittany, I...."
Dubious, before Suxes figured out a humble sentence, just a few steps away, "didn't I tell you to stop showing your face to me?!" In a wrathful voice the lady known to be Brittany questioned out of heavy spite.
"Brittany, we....," Suxes tried to speak but he wasn't let to.
Before his sentence got to the middle, "look, if you don't leave instantly, you won't like my next move _ leave!" She barked.
"Hi, Brittany...," politely Suxes redesigned his address by greetings, "please meet my friend Kevin Moore!"
Trying to pick up his confidence and at least be heard.
And you think I care! Loud and angry, Brittany gave him an attitude. "You wanna go back to jail? Okay, stay and wait for the police."
As Brittany turned her back angrily quick on Suxes, on her third step back to the cafeteria, perhaps to find means to call the police on him, suddenly he grabbed her hand, hard at first and suddenly released it gently not to hurt her.
"Alright, I'm leaving," Suxes said extremely humble, "I was only trying to help my friend here to find his father."
"None of my business. Your friend not mine!" She gave a tough response.
Suxes: "Your kindness is the memory stuck on my mind that made me think wrongly _ that maybe when I bring my needy friend to you, you can help him get answers to unanswered questions lingering in his head.
This is why I lead him here..."
As humble as kitty eyes, Suxes got the lines.
Brittany: "No! I don't want anything to do with you! Him being your friend is enough reason for me to hate him as well. Stop looking out for me! Else, you'll make me regret my actions against you!"
Brittany pulled her hand out of Suxes' fingers. "And you," she confronted Kevin _ a stranger she didn't know, "my life has been messed up enough by your so called friend here. If I were you, I would choose wisely....."
Brittany looked at Kevin from head to toe with judgemental eyes and concluded, ".... but as the saying goes; bird of the same feathers, flock together."
It was a tough spit indeed.
However, the more she looked Kevin straight in the eyes, his iris turned blue and suddenly,
"What exactly do you want me to do for you?"
Brittany found her heart softening to render a help hand out of the blue.
"What do you want?" In a commanding voice tone, she asked again while looking closely in Kevin's eyes.
Sealed silent, Kevin's Moore's mouth.
Suxes hurried up to Brittany and humbly, "his father's name is Sean Moore as written on this piece of paper, probably a diver twenty to twenty five years ago. Just search about him on your internet computer.... that's all."
Brittany: "Only this and never ever show your faces near me again!"
Suxes: "Only this once I promise. We vanish without trace."
Suxes smiled gladly for the assistance granted. Angrily, Brittany grabbed the piece of paper out of Suxes' hand and hurried back inside the cafeteria. Suxes took another deep breath followed by a sigh, for the challenge he had just surpassed.
With a compassionate smile, Kevin Moore looked at him like, "Darn, whatever you did to the lady to hate you this much must have been so dangerous."
All Suxes could give back to Kevin Moore's stare at the moment was a sorry glance. He was too speechless.
...
After a little while, Brittany walked back.
"It is said that twenty-five years ago, after a long trip from the black sea, Sean Moore discovered he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It is further more said that he went for a surgery which didn't go well and after a few months bedridden he died. Since he had no family member known, he had a friend named Gang Du who never left his side, that took responsibility of his burial."
Brittany informed them.
"But Gang Du still lives, it is said and you can find him on this address", Calmly, Brittany spoke and handed over the piece of paper on which she wrote Gang Du's address, not to Suxes but to Kevin Moore and she left, back to her duties.
.....
"Aren't you sad about the bad news of your father's death?" Suxes asked Kevin who seemed unbothered while they were still standing, looking at the cafeteria.
"I never knew my father from when I was born until today. We have no strong bond in between whatsoever. However, I am just happy that I have something to tell my mother when I go back home, maybe it will calm her conscious down to know that father never abandoned us intentionally."
"Wow....!" Touched by Kevin's spirit, Suxes blurted.
"I had a good job and a female friend who loved me unconditionally," miserably Suxes began to narrate as they turned away out of the cafeteria premises, "but I stupidly ruined everything."
With emotional memories he turned a gaze at the cafeteria while they walked. Suxes seemed to have a regretful story between him and Brittany.
Ultraexpensive ship:
"Now I know why they're so relaxed, trouble has not reached them yet", silently, at the back of his mind, Felix spoke.
"Uh, I suggest you don't step your feet out of the kitchen chembers until someone comes smiling with a breakfast order", Felix cautioned the chefs in a serious but relaxed tone of voice.
"I Is there something we need to know? Just asking, Mr Felix", One of the chefs stuttered as they all stared at him with a lot of curiosity.
Flash images of yesterday evening's sudden incident; his brother's body next to his feet and the heavy bouncer thrown down on the floor like a ball, appeared on Felix's mind.
Startledly he said to them, "if you really want to complete today, see tomorrow, and maybe more other days of your life... that's my opinion."
As it is said, 'curiosity killed a cat', Felix's words kept the chefs uncomfortable. They pretend to conduct their work, but suddenly the head chef came out of the kitchen counter. Immediately, the other four chefs came out and joined him too. In a straight line, they began to walk towards the door.
"Wait wait wait!" Nervously anxious, Felix stood up so fast, "you cannot go out there... it's not at all safe!"
"Mr Felix, the more you talk like that the more curious you make us. We all know there's nothing as safe as this ship. We're only going to check and come back", replied the head chef, worriedlessly.
As a team, the chefs always watched eachother's back. Curiously, they had already made up their minds to get out, beyond the kitchen chembers where they always stayed. Felix was unable to convince them.
Inquisitively all the five chefs continued to walk towards the kitchen exit door to make a survey.
Without a clear explanation to give to them, Felix thought it through. Thereafter, he took a deep breath and hurried to join their line as the last man walking from behind.
"Just be careful," Felix spoke behind them, tiptoeing like a spy outside the kitchen chembers.
To their surprise when they looked over their shoulders suspiciously after hearing the voice, they saw their young boss Felix in a line with them, which left some of them shaking their heads with smiles, wondering.
"Where's everyone?" One chef asked when they barely met anyone on their way through the ship corridors and the rooms.
"Look guys!" From a distance one of the chefs happened to spot an abandoned gun down on the ground.
Anxiously, when they saw the gun, all of them turned their eyes on Felix and began to consider his warning words. Carefully, the head chef tiptoed to were the gun was; near the edge of the wall, down on the floor.
As he bent down to pick it, in a distance through the door glass opening, he saw secretary Jamila, Babara's bodyguard and two coastguardmen walking very seriously in a hurry to a specific direction. However, the head chef had no idea who the two people were except the coastguards in uniform.
"I think there's a big problem!" He communicated to his team with his attention taken, through a door glass opening.
Curiously, when he moved his eyes further beyond, within the direction where the coastguards were heading, he saw a mysterious female standing near the ship edge, facing the rising sun, having a country flag tied around her body.
"Look at her hair!"
Waitng a few metres away from him, his team noticed the weird expresssion on his face in the door glass opening where he had his eyes fixed, widely open.
"Is everything okay?" In question his fellow chefs wondered and slowly walked closer from behind him to see what had eaten up all his attention.
Speechlessly timid, Felix never moved a step.
"Madam Babara!" Nervously excited, secretary Jamila called her a few metres away on deck, as soon as she approached.
Long shiny black hair waved like a horse tail while she turned her face to them. In too much excitement, secretary Jamila ran so fast into her chest and shared a very passionate hug. The chefs were watching through the door glass opening.
"Wow...! I've never seen such a beauty", all the chefs couldn't believe their eyes.
"Who is she?"
On hearing the chefs murmuring compliments, Felix hurried up to where they were standing to take a look at what they were watching.
"Babara!" Felix blurted, so suprised to see her alive.
"I've been so much worried about you," with great affection in the her eyes, secretary Jamila told Babara Yen.
"Why? I was the one worried. Where had both of you gone to?" Babara spoke with pretence.
"Really!"
Secretary Jamila wondered. According to the way the gunmen forced them off the ship, the bodyguard too couldn't believe his boss' words.
"Young lady, these two colleagues of yours reported a case of kidnap to us, that's why we are here", the coastguardman intervened.
"I think they're just too worried about me", Babara replied with a relaxed smile.
"Can you please explain to us what happened?" Requested the coastguard.
"It was.... just a simple misunderstanding that raised worries. Allow me to apologise for the inconvenience with this small token," with a bundle of dollars, Babara Yen rewarded the coastguards and appreciated them for their good deed.
The coastguards expressed great happiness as they recieved the cash. However, while they turned to leave, one of them stepped back a bit.
"Uh, excuse me Madam, we know this ship belongs to Mr. Franklin and it always gunmen almost at every corner, How comes there's no security here this early morning?"