-Chapter 4 -

New York, 1995

Claudia and Charon were playing outside when they heard a bunch of other boys playing in the neighborhood. She smiled and walked over to join them, Charon followed close behind her. "Hey, I wanna play with you." Reluctantly, they let the two of them play.

One of the boys, a little older than her, kept making fun of her for being a girl so she kicked the ball hard at him. Unfortunately it missed and bounced off the wall behind him.

"Ha ha," said the dumb boy, "missed me, missed me. Now you gotta kiss me." She put her hand on her hips and stalked over to him. "Wha~" he said as she grabbed him by the shoulders and pressed her lips to his. He shoved her away. "What's wrong with you?!"

"You said it." she said cheekily. He got red and yell, "You're such a fre-

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Nevada, 2002

-ak!" yelled the man in the corner. He was tied to the computer chair, bruised and bleeding. She didn't mean for things to turn out like this but it didn't really matter.

After she and Charon got back to America they immediately began to search for anything that might lead them to Huey. It was from that research that they discovered that Huey had several research labs across the world. While they were making plans to sneak into one, Bobby butted in. Even though he probably wasn't going to be much help, she encouraged him to join them.

They prepared enough, so actually getting in was the easy part. What they didn't expect was the other man who was also trying to break in. He didn't want to work with them and she was certain that he was going to get them caught so she told the boys to tie him up.

Charon was standing over the computer with the phone to one ear. "Thank you Mr. Orihara." he said as he hung up and typed in a couple of things really quickly. Bobby crossed his arms and looked over his shoulder, "Is this going to take much longer?". However, he was completely ignored.

Claudia turned to the man in the corner. "Let me ask you something." He turned his head away, "What do you think you're going to gain by stealing this information? You were clumsy enough to get caught by a bunch of teenagers~" she teased. "Even if you do sell it to someone, you're probably going to be found out by them, and then... well, I wouldn't want to be you. But," she held one finger in the air and walked in front of him dramatically, "if you help us this time, we'll help you."

"You don't need to worry about what I'm going to do, just get out of here. You little brats have no idea what you're getting yourselves into." he said with enough drama in his voice to make Claudia smile.

He glared at her but didn't say anything. Bobby walked up to her and whispered harshly, "What are you doing?!" She smiled at him and let him guess what she had planned; it was more fun this way.

"Wait a sec," said the man, "I recognize you. You look like that actress, what's-her-name?" Claudia's eyebrows shot up. She did expect to be recognized but what the heck? Did this guy even watch movies? How did he not know her name?

"You're mistaken, I'm afraid." she said in a clipped tone, turning away from him. She didn't really want to look at him anymore. It wasn't like she needed recognition but she had worked really hard and it hurt a little to have people not see who she was.

She gave Bobby a look implying that he should watch the man in case he tried to get away, but obviously he didn't understand. He just gave her a weird look so she turned her attention to Charon. She didn't want to deal with this man right now. If Bobby didn't get it then they were just going to take that risk. She knew that, no matter what happened, she could count on Charon to clean things up.

Claudia started looking over Charon's shoulder as he finished up what he was doing. He nodded to the flashdrive that he was downloading everything onto and walked over to were the man was tied up. She ignored what he was doing. The text on the scream was moving to fast for her to actually read. It didn't matter, she was going to go through it later. There was something there that was going to be useful.

She did have some friends that she thought could help her analyze this. Normally she would leave something like this to the experts but it might be beneficial for her to be involved with this process. She didn't want or need to learn about everything about it but she did think that she needed to know enough to know what was going on. She needed to know that the people around her weren't taking advantage of her.

"Let's move," she said to the others. The boys came with her as she left the room. "You can't leave me like this!" the man shouted from the other room. She rolled her eyes and ignored him. Charon went ahead of them, up to the window that they broke into and helped each of them out the window.

After Claudia had gotten out the window and Charon reached for Bobby's hand, Bobby drew his hand back and looked back to the man. "Just come with us, we can figure things out later." The man gave him a mistrusting look but nodded. Bobby cut the ropes off in no time and he ran to the window where Charon was waiting for them. He jumped out without Charon's help and took off. Although Charon didn't seem very happy about his decision he still helped him out the window.

The four of them ran from the scene and out of the room, into the main hallway they had come from. The man that they met started running away from them. Little did any of them know, this man was going to be helpful in many future adventures.

"Bobby," she addressed him, directing her annoyance at him, "take the information back to Uncle Keith's house. Charon, you will be the distraction. Make sure they think that you have the USB."

Charon nodded at her and ran ahead of them. He made a show of putting something small in his pocket and looking around like he was trying to be careful. He was very aware of the guards that were there, but looked past them and pretended not to notice them. It would be best if they thought that he was incompetent. Before they had come he had studied where the cameras were and moved in a way that would cover his face, using his hand where he needed to.

Back at home, Claudia had found that Illness was waiting for her. She had originally wanted to bring her along on this little adventure but Illness had her own and was busy. If she had said anything about it, Claudia knew that Illness would have dropped everything to help her but she didn't want that.

Claudia drew her into a slight hug and Illness accepted, although she drew back slightly. Claudia knew that she didn't like being touched like that but she liked giving hugs. "Would you like some tea?" Illness asked as they drew away from each other.

Claudia nodded and smiled, "That would be lovely. Charon will be in soon." Illness nodded and left the room as Claudia strolled into the living room. Her laptop was there where she had left it.

With a few strokes of the keys she was looking up the progress that she had left before. The pages of messages and documents scrolled endlessly before her; it was beginning to look a little intimidating. "Too many irons in the fire..." she mumbled to herself, a phrase that her uncle Luck had used several times before.

As Illness brought her the tea and sat down on the seat across from her, she tilted her head and said, "Are you certain that there is nothing that I can do?"

At this Claudia looked up with a sly smile and closed her laptop slowly. She could tell by the look on Illness' face that she knew that her offer had already been accepted. Claudia crossed her legs as she leaned back. "Actually, I think that there is something that you can do for me?"