Randomers

by Alexis Dogman

  "Going where?" Samantha mumbles to herself, feeling both surprised and relieved. It must be from Edward. He just most probably wants to meet her somewhere for a romantic weekend getaway.

  Samantha picks the air ticket up and realizes there is something else inside the box. Two pieces of silver coin in the shape of a bee hive, both placed neatly side by side below the ticket. Samantha reaches for one of it and tries to lift it. Something seems to be holding it to the gray sponge. Samantha pulls a little harder and it comes off. It is a brooch. She checks and sees that all two of them are brooches. But why would Edward send her such unfashionable accessories?

  She flips the air ticket open to check the destination - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a tropical country. Not bad for a hot and sizzling romantic getaway, Samantha thinks to herself. But does she really have to wear those ugly brooches, and all two of them?

  She looks at the date and time of departure - 12:00pm 16th November. Just then, her phone's screen lights up in colors as arcade music starts blasting off. She instantly reaches for it and becomes puzzled at what is happening to her phone. It is a puzzle game she has never seen, downloaded or played before in her life and now it has started running on her phone. The name Jigsaw Mania flashes in light blue over a background of a rainbow and cute, colorful, bubbly dinosaurs. Right below the name is a blue Play button.

  "Jigsaw Mania? What the fuck?" she utters to herself. She tries to shut the game but it doesn't close. Samantha tries to restart her phone but it just won't work. This is no time for her phone to go nuts. She is still waiting for news from the blackmailers.

  She taps her finger onto the play button with comic fonts and the game takes her to level one. It is the beginner's level - an easy twelve piece pink puzzle with black words over it. She moves them into place hoping that completing it will close the game. Halfway through, Samantha can already see that it is not a puzzle. It is a message, and a message directed to her. Her fingers swiftly move the pieces into place and the complete message reads:

  'Hi,

  We're sending you on a little holiday. Make friends with the couple sitting next to you. Your tasks:

  1) Download the song 'Running Man' onto the man's phone.

  2) Give them each a silver brooch and make sure they wear it upon arrival.

  Complete your tasks and it'll be goodbye.'

  Samantha wants to cry. What is she going to do? She can definitely try to follow through the blackmailer's instructions. Edward is away for the whole month. He won't even know that she has gone and come back.

  She is still staring at the screen when the screen blacks off and the game closes by itself. The program has run its course and is now auto-deleting itself from her phone. When the uninstallation is complete, something new has been downloaded onto her phone concurrently. A Download complete icon appears on the notification bar. Samantha's shaky finger taps on it and sees that it is a music file titled 'Running Man - acoustic version'. It is the latest song to have hit the charts.

  In another landed home in Vancouver, Richard Byrd of Melid Biotech has also just received a hand delivered package on his doorstep. He will soon open it to discover two plane tickets to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with fully paid hotel stays at the Stanz's Hotel for seven nights. The tickets are not for him, but his wife's secretary Nikki Portman and her husband Zach Burrow. And a note in the package says:

  'Send her on a company holiday and everything will be fine.'

  Chapter 11

  Malaysia: Saturday, 15th November 10:00 a.m.

  Yuna can't help but hyperventilate as she waits at the black metal back door of Shark Palace. The morning sun is almost blindingly hot and the entire area is close to being deserted. She takes a look at her watch - 10:03 a.m.

  With her hands crossed before her chest, she looks down at her gray sneakers as she paces back and forth, anxiously awaiting the Thai woman. Every little noise, even the flapping of pigeon wings seems to trigger a staccato on her heart beat.

  Her large, olive eyes widen with uncertainty and her throat dries up as she hears a click on the metal door. Afraid that it might be someone else, Yuna immediately hides behind the door. The heavy door squeaks open slowly and from the edge, the head of the tiny Thai woman peeks out like a turtle cautiously examining its surrounding.

  "Psst!" Yuna signals the Thai woman as she slips out from behind the metal door.

  "Oh-," the Thai woman responds with a startle.

  "We need to talk," Yuna immediately says but before they manage to continue their conversation, loud chattering starts to come from inside of the building. It's the other Thai women and they were coming towards them. The Thai woman looks behind her and immediately her eyes roll big with bewilderment.

  "Wait me McD. Now. Go, go!" She instructs, flagging her hand as she shoos Yuna away. Before Yuna can even say no, the Thai woman pulls the black metal door shut with a loud clank.

  With hurried and large strides, Yuna quickly makes her way back to her car which is parked just by the corner of the back alley. She gets back into her tiny little car, locks the doors and starts the engine.

  "God! She didn't even say which one," Yuna murmurs to herself as she searches for the location of the nearest McDonald's using the GPS on Mei's phone.

  "Let's go," the female voice of the GPS announces as it starts leading Yuna through a maze of weaving smaller internal roads within the area.

  "You have reached your destination," the GPS announces as she reaches the Mc Donald's, which is located at the ground floor of a three stories high building just by the busy junction of Bukit Bintang, the heart of Kuala Lumpur in less than fifteen minutes.

  There isn't any parking around the area and the only parking spaces are those basement parking lots in neighboring shopping malls. Yuna is about to drive off to park her car into one of the malls when she notices through her side mirror that a woman is running after her car, flagging her hands wildly for Yuna to stop. She turns to take a clearer look. It's the Thai woman! She immediately hits the brakes and the car jolts to a halt. The Thai woman rushes over to Yuna's car and tries to open the locked passenger seat door. When she can't, she starts hammering her fist at the glass window with one hand while the other points down at the lock of the door. Yuna is so shocked with the woman's aggressive actions that she forgets even how to respond.

  A black four wheel drive behind her car starts honking for her to move and Yuna, coming to her senses, quickly unlocks the door for the Thai woman to enter. The small woman jumps onto the car seat and pulls the door close with a slam. She is dressed in a pink mini-T with the words 'Girl luv' printed over her chest and a pair of black skinny jeans and high heels. She looks a lot more decent than the previous night.

  "Go, go," the Thai woman instructs urgently with her skinny finger.

  "Where to?" Yuna asks, stepping on the gas pedal.

  "How I no? You blok-king. Jus go," the Thai woman scorns, pointing with exaggerated hand movements to the car behind Yuna's and her face scrunched up like that of a painful baboon’s.

  Yuna rolls her eyes with her lips pursed together into a thin line and immediately drives off. She had thought that the Thai woman has somewhere important to bring her to. But she is wrong.

  The Thai woman tries to catch her breath as she buckles down and locks the door. She then reaches her bony fingers to adjust the air conditioning to blow towards her face. The woman doesn't seem to know any self refrain. She is acting like it is her own car and Yuna is starting to feel very uncomfortable. Is this woman even normal? Or has she just picked up some crazy hooker?

  "Stop touching that, okay?" Yuna snaps, unable to bear it anymore.

  "Yur kar hot. No cold. You shud fix!" The Thai woman shrugs in reply.

  "Why did you want to meet Mei?" Yuna asks, driving off the main road, trying to find somewhere secluded so that she can park the car and probe the Thai woman properly.

  "Few days and yu so old oledi," the Thai woman comments instead of answering, narrowing her ey
es as she examines Yuna’s face closely.

  "Yu not her!" the Thai woman suddenly squeals and immediately she unbuckles her seat belt and unlocks the car door. She is about to open the door and jump out when Yuna catches her wrist in time to pull the skinny woman back in as she maneuvers the small car to a stop at the emergency lane.

  "She's dead. She killed herself. I'm her sister!" Yuna shouts at the Thai woman.

  "Why did you want to see her? Tell me!" Yuna continues to shout at her, not letting her wrist go. The Thai woman tries to wriggle her wrist free from Yuna's tight grasp but Yuna is just too strong for her tiny frame.

  "Let go! Yu put me in den-ger!" the Thai woman squirms, trying to peel Yuna's fingers off her wrist. Yuna is grabbing her wrist so hard that her hand is starting to turn blue, numb and painful.

  "I don't care! Just tell me why you wanted to meet Mei!" Yuna angrily said through her gritted teeth. The Thai woman can see tears welling up in Yuna's eyes and she begins to soften, her heart feeling the pain Yuna feels. She had gone through the same pain of loosing a sibling two years ago.

  "I want warn her. Why she no see me..." the Thai shakes her head and sighs.

  "Warn her about what? Who are those people blackmailing her?" Yuna continues to demand for answers.

  "I no yu sad but I ke-not tell yu," the Thai woman answers her, lowering her head feeling sorry.

  "Why can't you tell me?" Yuna bursts into tears. There the answer is, sitting in front of her and yet she cannot get to it.

  "Yu will be in den-ger," the Thai woman explains.

  "She was all I got. Now I'm all alone. I won't let her die in vain. I want the truth even if it is going to get me killed!" Yuna insists, tears of rage flowing down her cheeks.

  "Yu jus like me. I tell yu but yur life will dif-felent fo-eva. Yu ok?" the Thai woman asks softly. She has completely softened with empathy. She feels for Yuna. She can see so much of herself in Yuna. That was exactly how she reacted when her brother died.

  Yuna nods, sniffing.

  "It is long stoli. My name is Kaew. I have broda..." Kaew starts saying with sadness in her voice, "He last time wok for bad people. Force good people... like yur sista do wok."

  "Who did they want her to kill?" Yuna immediately asks, releasing her grip on Kaew's wrist.

  "I don no," Kaew shakes her head.

  "You must know. Your brother works for them!" Yuna insists.

  "My broda die tu yea’s oledi. The bad people kill him. I only no the pat-ten. I try to stop pat-ten so bad people don win," Kaew continues to shake her head.

  "What pattern?" Yuna pushes.

  "Pat-ten like chess game. Yur sista is a chess. She do one step and next people do next step. All good people do bad wok - kill, steal, catch chil-dlen," Kaew tells her, swallowing nervously as she starts to wonder if Yuna should be told that much.

  "What? This is absurd! You should have called the police!" Yuna gasps.

  "No use. They big society an' hide down, unda. Maybe even got police wok for them. They no hir. We no proof," Kaew says.

  "You mean there is no justice at all??" Yuna protests.

  "World is neva fair. Face it. If they no we no, they even kill us!" Kaew explains further.

  "There must be a way to expose them!" Yuna grunts in disbelief.

  Kaew could only shake her head firmly, "No."

  "If you can't then let me do it. I'm not afraid of them!" Yuna lashes out at Kaew.

  "I scared?? I try help yur sista! Yu stupid! I no tok to yu," Kaew snaps back at Yuna, turning to open the car door to leave. She is furious that Yuna has implied that she is a coward. For all she could have done, Kaew has tried to warn every randomer that she could locate but what she can do is limited.

  "Kaew! I'm sorry! That's not what I meant," Yuna cries an apology as she grabs Kaew by the shoulder to stop her from leaving.

  Kaew sits still for a moment.

  "I just want to avenge my sister. I don't want to involve you or put you in danger. Let me do it. You can stay in the dark," Yuna explains what she really meant.

  "Yu re-li stupid. Yu no live mo than one day if yu fight them," Kaew comments, turning back to face Yuna, "But I like yur stupid, jus like me. Hope change world for dead broda."

  "If you can survive for two years then maybe you can teach me how to do what you do. I need to get to the bottom of it. I can't live another day just thinking how Mei died," Yuna says.

  "Hmpph," Kaew grunts a tiny laugh. She knows Yuna is just as stubborn and headstrong as she herself was two years ago. There is no tuning back, now that she knows this much.

  "Tell me the pattern and who is involved. Please," Yuna begs, seeing Kaew's face turning back to her normal color from angry-red.

  "Ke-not tell -" Kaew starts to say and before she can finish, Yuna immediately flares up again.

  "You -" Yuna is about to snap again when Kaew quickly cuts in to finish her sentence.

  "- must show yu! Too much to tell!" Kaew raises her voice over Yuna's, rolling her eyes wide.

  Yuna clamps her mouth shut feeling disgraced by her bad temper. It's lucky that Kaew does not take it personally.

  "I'm sorry..." Yuna apologizes, lowering her voice.

  "Fo-get it. Jus go. I show yu weh," Kaew says as she starts instructing Yuna the directions.

  They drive back into the smaller roads traveling deeper into an unattractive part of Kuala Lumpur, plagued with neglect and poverty that Yuna didn't even know existed. Kaew instructs Yuna to drive pass a plot of wooden and zinc squatter houses with a huge rubbish dump behind them. Kaew leads Yuna towards a block of run down, white, high rise flats roughly fifteen stories high. It's once white walls are now gray and aged with water stains. It is a high rise slum where the poor, the illicit, the foreign laborers, the addicts and the thieves live and gather.

  "O-k. Pak hir," Kaew instructs Yuna to park her car beside an abandoned truck with all its four tires and doors missing and its body all rusted and almost broken, outside the grounds of the flats.

  "Why don't we park inside?" Yuna asks, referring to the parking space on the other side of the wire fencing the flats.

  "Ke-not. People pak. Yu no stay hir. Yu pak, they hit yur car," Kaew explains hitting her right fist onto her left palm.

  "O...kay..." Yuna utters, feeling a tinge of fear creeping up her. This place looks scary enough and now Kaew confirms it with what she says.

  Yuna parks her car at the spot Kaew instructed her to and they exit the little white car. Yuna is glad she drives such an old car. At least she doesn't need to fear her car getting stolen when they come back later.

  "Where are we going? Who are we meeting?" Yuna asks, following Kaew's small and quick steps towards the flat.

  "Jus come," Kaew answers flatly, clearly unhappy with Yuna asking so much.

  Yuna quietly follows Kaew towards building B. This is the first time she enters a low cost flat, not to mention such a dilapidated one. She slings her black leather handbag across the front of her body and clutches it tightly before they enter the building through a side entrance. A group of five or six gangster looking youngsters in their late teens gathering on motorbikes near the entrance whistle as they enter.

  Both Kaew and Yuna ignore the youngsters and quickly make their way to the center of the building through a dark corridor. There is litter all over the floor and the place smells awful. Both sides of the dark corridor are lined with vacant and abandoned tiny shop units with their metal shutters stolen.

  They reach the center of the building where four elevators cater to the residents but two units have been labeled Rosak which means 'Out Of Order'. The badly scratched, light green elevator doors have been doodled with all sorts of foul language. When one of the elevators finally arrives, the doors slide apart with a horrible tearing sound and Yuna immediately has second thoughts about entering.

  "You sure this thing won't break down?" Yuna asks, before entering.

  "Fifteen floor. Yu want walk?" Kaew scorns at her with her head
slightly tilted to her right.

  Yuna shakes her head and takes a deep breath as she steps into the almost breaking metal box. She regrets taking a deep breath instantly as the air in the elevator is filled with a urine stench. The elevator cranks up the building and finally jolts to a halt at level fifteen.

  "Thank god!" Yuna utters as she skips out of the elevator with Kaew coming out after her.

  Kaew then leads the way down the badly lit and terribly ventilated corridor to their right. There is no penetration of natural light and the neon lights are not turned on, making the place feel like an abandoned building. Some doors on both sides of the corridor are purposely left ajar by residents for better ventilation of their cramped units. The residents can't care less if you can see directly into their homes and what they are doing.