Mission 4: Betrayal

Timothius looked up from the note he had just read. His face wrinkled in confusion. What was going on? Well he was never the one to back down from danger; so he grabbed the handheld device.
Instantly, the device turned on and a long beam shot out and scanned his face. The beam disappeared and a green light appeared on the screen. “Identity confirmed, welcome Timothius Danaford,” the device said in a mechanic voice.
Suddenly, Cathy appeared on the screen; Tim quickly realized that she had recorded a message for him. “Hello Tim,” Cathy said. “Thank you for helping me, I really appreciate it.” She coughed and continued. “I’ve got a problem, and I don’t know how else to explain it to you so I’ll jump right in. The emperor isn’t who you think he is. He has been committing several illegal and deceptive actions behind our backs and all the other citizens of the Touch� Empire. Including executing supposed ‘criminals’ without giving them a fair trial, stealing money from the people and using it for his own personal benefits, and much more. I’ve only recently learned about this, and I don’t know if the emperor’s found out about how much I know yet. Help me Timothius, you are my only hope.” The video shut off and a mechanical voice said, “This device will self-destruct in… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” The device disintegrated into a wisp of smoke, leaving Tim sitting with a shocked expression on his face.
“I can’t believe this,” Tim said to himself. “I knew that the emperor was a little shady, but this? I guess I should have seen it coming.” He shook his head and sighed. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. If the emperor found out, then Cathy would be in danger! He had to protect her, but how?
Just then, his work phone rang. Timothius answered it, “Hello.”
“Hello, Timothius,” said a voice. It was the emperor!
“Emperor! How are you?” Tim exclaimed, trying not to sound nervous
“Fine, fine, I heard about Ryan and Laz. They ran through a house fire to save those documents, incredible. Those two are amazing,” he said somewhat blandly. Timothius frowned; was it his imagination or did the emperor actually seem disappointed?
“The reason I was calling,” he continued. “Was to see if you’re available. I have a job for you, and it only requires one man.”
“Sure,” Tim said warily. “I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you, and Tim.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be late.”
Timothius swallowed. “I won’t,” he hung up the phone. He tried to shake the thoughts he was thinking out of his head, but he couldn’t. “There’s no way he could know what I know,” he said aloud. Somehow, though, that wasn’t very convincing. He had a feeling that the emperor had already found him and Cathy out.
He reached over and picked up his other, personal phone, the one with a scrambler on it. Quickly, he dialed Ryan Cruise’s number. Somebody had to keep an eye on Cathy. Timothius trusted and, at the same time, didn’t trust Ryan to get the job done; but he had no one else to turn to.

Ryan and Laz were hanging out at Ryan’s house, playing video games when Tim called.
Ryan grabbed his cell phone and flipped it open. “Hey Tim, what’s happening?”
“A lot of stuff,” Timothius replied, breathing nervously. “Listen Cruise, I need your help. Is Laz with you?”
“Yeah, he’s right here.”
“Good, could you keep an eye on Cathy for me, please?”
Ryan gave the phone a strange look before remembering that Tim couldn’t see him through the phone. “Keep an eye on her, why?”
“Because, I think she might be in danger.”
“From what?” Ryan asked.
“You mean from who, and I don’t think I’ll tell you that just yet.”
Ryan frowned. “Okay fine, I’ll look out for her, you don’t have to get all secretive on me.”
“Thanks,” Timothius thanked him and hung up.
“How do you like that?” Ryan said.
“What?” Laz asked. He had been intently listening in on the conversation, trying to figure out what they were saying.
“Tim wants us to ‘keep an eye on Cathy’.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Ryan shrugged. “Oh well, I guess it couldn’t hurt. Wonder where she it now?”
Laz grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll track her. It’s my specialty.”

A few minutes later they had tracked Cathy to her location at the Imperial Mall by using her cell phone. They hopped in Ryan’s Porsche and whizzed away to the mall.
“That was too easy,” Laz commented when they had arrived. “If Cathy thinks she’s in danger, why is she at the mall?”
Ryan shrugged. “It’s a perfect place for a handoff.”
“And for a murder,” Laz pointed out.
They both nodded and agreed that they would have to keep an eye out for suspicious-looking people. They got of the car and warily made their way towards the mall entrance.
“Look at that guy,” Ryan pointed to a young teenager who was hurrying out of the mall and clutching his coat. “He looks suspicious.”
Laz shrugged. “What’s so suspicious about him?”
Suddenly a whole group of security guards ran out of the building after the teenager and tackled him. A bunch of expensive items came flying out of his jacket and fell to the floor. “Wait, NO!” the teen cried. “I bought this stuff, I swear!”
“That’s not what the security camera says,” one of the guards said, and they took him away in handcuffs.
“Okay,” Laz admitted. “So maybe you were right.”

Meanwhile, Timothius was on his way to the emperor’s palace. “I hope those two aren’t doing anything stupid.” He smacked his forehead. “What am I saying? Of course they’re doing something stupid. I just hope it works.”
He drove up to the palace, passed the normal security check and sat down in the emperor’s waiting room. After a few minutes, Timothius was called into the emperor’s office and told to sit and wait.
He looked all around, wondering where the emperor could be. There was a tall chair at the emperor’s desk that was facing the opposite direction of Timothius. Tim coughed and ventured to say, “Um, sir, are you there?” Suddenly, the chair whirled around to reveal… no one. “Uh, okay. I still can’t see you,” Timothius said, bewildered.
There was a loud sigh, and the chair started to rise. As the chair raised the emperor started to appear, he was pumping the chair up slowly so that he could see over the desk.
“There, can you see me now?”
“Much better, sir. New chair?”
The emperor gave an annoyed look. “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “The reason I called you here is because I have another mission for you, if you choose to accept it. As you know, many writers have been criticizing my way of ruling the empire. I want you to find all the writers that I have on this list and take them out.” He pushed a list over towards Timothius with a whole list of names. “This is my empire, and I won’t have anyone obstructing the peace with this libel. Make them realize that this isn’t a democracy, but a dictatorship and what I say goes.”
Timothius swallowed hard. In all his years serving the emperor, he’d never been asked to kill innocent people. While the emperor may claim that these writers weren’t innocent, Tim believed that they were and he couldn’t kill them with a clean conscience.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t do that.”
“Excuse me?” the emperor said, anger in his voice.
“I said that I can’t do that,” Timothius repeated bravely. “You said, ‘if you choose to accept,’ and I don’t accept.
The emperor gave an unhappy sigh. “That’s just for show. It sounds cool.” He glared at Timothius. “You do know what happened to the last person that refused to obey one of my assignments, don’t you?”
Timothius nodded solemnly. He had heard of the infamous secret agent, Travis, who had infuriated the emperor by refusing to obey orders. He was later thrown to a pit of sharks by the emperor himself.
“Then why are you refusing to obey?” the emperor asked.
“Because, I can’t go against my conscience. Risking my life for the empire is one thing, going against my moral beliefs is another.”
“I feared that it would come to this,” the emperor shook his head.
Suddenly, Tim felt himself being grabbed by strong hands. He looked up and saw two, strong guards above him.
“Take him to the dungeon,” the emperor commanded.
They drug him out of the emperor’s office and down into the dungeons
“Help! Somebody help me!” Timothius called. They knocked him on the head and he slumped to the floor. Then they dragged him, unconscious, towards the dungeon.

Cathy knew something had to be up when she saw Ryan at the mall, and she was doubly confirmed when she glimpsed Laz slipping into the crowd. Perhaps they were there to save her, or maybe they were working for the emperor.
She was waiting in the mall for some information about the emperor that a certain reporter was supposed to hand to her at this spot, but the report hadn’t shown yet and she was getting worried. Plus, there was a young brunette that Cathy was sure was watching her. Cathy glanced back up to where the brunette had been a second ago and noticed that she had disappeared. That could be a bad sign.
Cathy started to move, that reporter wasn’t going to show up she decided. She reached into her pocket and, to her surprise, found a two-way radio in her pocket. Curious, Cathy took the radio out of her pocket and spoke into it. “Who is this?” she asked.
“A friend,” came a familiar voice.
Cathy sighed. “It’s you, Ryan.”
“Yes, how did you know?”
Cathy rolled her eyes. “Wild guess?”
Ryan didn’t respond for a minute and then his voice came through the radio again. “Cathy, you’re in danger.”
“You can say that again.”
“Okay, Cathy, you’re in danger.”
“No that’s not what I… oh, never mind.”
“Anyways, you need to follow my directions exactly. There’s a sniper watching you at this very moment.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Instinct,” Ryan replied. “Instinct, my girl.” He paused. “Actually, I have no idea, I was just guessing.”
Normally, Cathy would have made some sort of remark, but she was worried right at the moment. “So, how do I get out of here?”
“Follow my instructions,” Ryan ordered. “Bend over like you’re tying your shoes.”
Cathy frowned. “I’m wearing flip flops.”
“Just do it, okay! They’ll lose you in the crowd.”
Cathy obeyed and bent over as if to tie her shoes.
“Now,” Ryan continued. “Crawl around like you lost something and make your way to the bathroom.”
Cathy followed his instructions and slipped inside the ladies’ bathroom. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now, wait for my signal and make a break for the door.”
Cathy started to panic. “But what if the people decide to come in here before you give the order?”
“Then you’ll probably die,” Ryan replied. “Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud?”
Cathy glowered and would have strangled him if he were within reach. “I hate you,” she growled.
“You’re not the first person to say that,” Ryan admitted.
“You are impossible!” Cathy hissed into the radio.

To be continued next week...