Randomers

by Alexis Dogman

  Instead of the quiet road they used earlier, the road has disappeared, now paved by a pasar malam which is a night market of make shift stalls. The bright glare of neon lights and blasting of loud disco music mixed with the shouting of hawkers and buzzing of electric generators are the things that make the identity of the night market. Loud as it is, the presence of a pasar malam can be felt from blocks away.

  This once a week event is welcomed by almost everybody in the neighborhood, looking forward to the variety of hawker food, cheap goods and fake branded items on sale. This lively and robust night life has become a culture of every Malaysian and tonight this market has brought convenience to Yuna to get them food, safely away from the eyes of the Hive.

  Yuna is wearing a cap over her hair and a surgical mask over her mouth and she strides quickly through the shoulder rubbing crowd. She pushes her way back towards the flats with her red and orange bags of hot food and grocery supplies swinging in her hands. Even though she is generally safe at the literally no-tech night market, it is still best for her to go back into hiding as soon as possible.

  Yuna gladly escapes the crowd and makes her way up the staircase of the flat. Having trained for stamina in her usual exercise routine, jogging up five flights of stairs isn't a problem, even with a little adding of weights, especially from the four bottles of bottled drinking water.

  She reaches the top floor hardly panting. Their unit is the first unit beside the staircase. Yuna takes the key from her pocket and unlocks the padlock on the checkered grill of the front door. The padlock clicks open and she swings the grill open. Sliding another key into the knob of the wooden front door, she unlocks it and immediately pushes the door open. Yuna turns swiftly to pull the grill back into place, clamp the padlock shut, close the wooden door and press the lock on the knob. Tomorrow they will need to install more locks to secure the door.

  "I'm so hungry I going faint oledi," Kaew says rushing over and snatching the bags from Yuna's hands like a robber. She takes the bags and puts everything onto the center of the cement living room floor and starts scavenging through the bags for food.

  The moment her eyes land on the two white polystyrene containers, she immediately pulls them out from the thin, semi-transparent orange bag. She opens the first one and sees steaming hot fried rice with a huge fried chicken drumstick on it. She opens the next one and sees that it is fried flat rice noodles topped with a fried egg and curry mutton. She swallows a mouthful of saliva in a large gulp, takes the drumstick into her left hand and takes a large bite into the chicken flesh, pulling out a huge chunk of meat. With her right hand, she takes the plastic disposable spoon, scoops a heap of shiny, red curry mutton and sticks it into her mouth, licking the spoon glossy clean as she pulls it out from her mouth.

  "Mmm.. Mmm... ve-li nice," she comments with a wide grin, sitting legs crossed on the floor and shaking her shoulders, grooving to an inaudible tune.

  "You're not gonna eat my share too are you?" Yuna laughs, joining her on the floor.

  "Share-share. Wan try all," Kaew mumbles as she sticks a spoonful of fried rice into her mouth and generously pushes the chicken drumstick at Yuna's mouth, "Yu bite."

  Yuna takes a glance at the partially eaten drumstick with the skin dangling off. "It's okay, you can have it," Yuna utters politely as she takes the packet of fried noodles up from the floor. Before Yuna can sink her chopsticks into the noodle, Kaew's spoon pierces into the noodle like a dagger, sweeps up a good heap of noodle and sends it straight into her own black hole of a mouth.

  "Gosh! I still got other food here. Calm down!" Yuna says, putting down her noodles and reaching for another two plastic bags.

  Kaew's eyes widen with joy as she sees the sticks of fish balls, crab filaments, crunchy fried sotong which are fried baby squid and a bag full of curry puffs.

  Kaew immediately puts down her chicken drumstick and takes a stick of fried sotong and starts chewing the tentacles off one by one, enjoying every bit of the snack. She raises her thumb at Yuna, mumbling with her mouth full, "I love fly sotong!"

  Yuna couldn't help but laugh at the way the hungry soul is chowing down food in front of her but her laugh immediately weathers off to a sad smile. "It used to be Mei's favorite too," Yuna utters as she picks up her noodles again.

  "Dun sad. Yu eat. Eat make me happy!" Kaew says as she pushes another spoonful of fried rice into her already full mouth. She then looks into the plastic bag again but to her disappointment, something is not inside.

  "Why no fly chi-ken back-sai? I love back-sai," Kaew frowns in dismay as her fingers flicks through the sticks of fried snacks in search of fried chicken derrieres, a local delicacy.

  "Next time I'll get it for you okay?" Yuna reassures her.

  "Is okay," Kaew utters with pout lips as she selects a stick of fish ball and starts popping one into her mouth.

  Yuna finally starts eating too, finishing her packet of noodles, curry mutton, fried egg, a stick of fried fish ball, crab filament and sotong. It has indeed been a tiring and adrenaline filled hungry day.

  With their bellies now warm and satisfied, the both of them finally start to feel the tension easing off their stiff muscles.

  SIX HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES AGO

  "Quick!" Yuna shouts waving her hand at the Middle East woman running out from the main entrance of KLCC, covered from head to toe in her black abaya and niqab.

  Sprinting towards Yuna, the woman pushes aside anybody blocking her way onto the ground and jumps onto the passenger seat behind Yuna. From a distance inside the mall, a Chinese man in sunglasses and a long, gray coat is chasing after them. They swiftly zoom off on the motorcycle into the traffic and escape the killer just in time.

  Yuna skillfully negotiates the small motorcycle in and out of traffic and directly into the tiny back alleys of the city where no surveillance cameras are put up.

  "How yu ride like dat?" Kaew shouts to Yuna through her niqab, carefully holding the cloth of her flowing abaya up into a scrunch on her lap so that it doesn't get caught into the motorcycle's back wheel.

  "My dad's a jungle motorcycle junkie. Taught me since I was a teen," Yuna shouts back as they speed through narrow gaps between parked vehicles and barriers in the back alley.

  Using only alley ways, they ride back to the back alley behind Wisma LLC, where Yuna has previously left their car. The two petty snatch thieves have gone and abandoning the motorcycle, the women hastily changes back into their black subcompact car and drives off.

  The moment they drive back into the traffic, Kaew has removed her abaya and niqab. Wearing a fresh orange shirt with a red cotton scarf banded around her forehead like a hippy, her long hair covering the two sides of her face and large sunglasses over her eyes, she has changed into a completely different look. Yuna, on the other hand has put on a blue jacket and Kaew's previous black headscarf. With her large sunglasses on, she has transformed into a fair skinned Malay woman behind the wheel. They blend back into the traffic and soon make it out to safety, away from Kuala Lumpur.

  "I got his face," Kaew says with her lips stiff and hands ice cold and rigid.

  "You sure there's only one? They won't send more?" Yuna asks, her body equally tensed with all the action.

  "Veli sure," Kaew answers, starting to shiver inside out. With the flight response overtaking her brain earlier, she hasn't been able to feel the fright in her until now.

  "But hiring a killer costs only a few thousand ringgit," Yuna says as that is the information she reads from the newspaper.

  "They dun wan outside people... plivate killa... oways. One kun-try one killa. Mo killa... mo people can noe about them," Kaew explains with her teeth almost clattering. Her fright hormones have overruled now.

  "I hope you are right," Yuna says as they drive back towards Cheras, a large city not far from Kuala Lumpur. Their next priority now is to search for a suitable hideout. The criteria: somewhere not gated or guarded by security guards, with no surveillance cameras, but also somewhere
not too poverty-stricken where drug addicts, the lowest grade of informants gather and leek information of their whereabouts to their killer. A decent, low income area will be perfect. As for the location, normally fugitives will prefer somewhere far in the outskirts but then again, they are not actually trying to run away. They are merely hiding until their next mission. So they have come to agree that the most dangerous place to be might be the safest one of all - to hide nearby where their enemies won't expect them to.

  After over four hours of deliberate search, they found their ideal hideout. A yellow banner with a telephone number printed on it hangs from the closed panel windows. Using Yuna's fake ID, they buy a new prepaid number and a cheap mobile phone with no data connection. After everything is settled and having received the keys to their new 'home', they burn the SIM card, grab some necessities such as towels, shampoo, shower gel and all from a nearby sundry shop before retreating back into hiding.

  CURRENT TIME

  The paper pattern is already pasted up onto the walls like peeling, dog-eared wallpapers.

  "This is him," Kaew plays the recorded video of Chin from the camera and Yuna watches intently, the skin above the bridge of her nose pinched into a tense frown.

  "Now that we know who our killer is, it will be easier for us to survive right?" Yuna asks, staring into the small screen of the digital camera.

  "I hope," Kaew answers as they stand in the living room over an old, wooden dining table turned discussion table with the files opened on top of it.

  "The next victim is Mohamed Yusof from Dubai. We will never be able to warn this guy," Yuna says and flips the page to the last name on the pattern.

  "And we already sent a letter to the last person on the pattern," Yuna utters as she taps her finger on the name of the thirty four years old security manager's name, Jarjeet Singh, "Hope he believes us."

  "So we finish fight pat-ten oledi?" Kaew interrupts, surprised and disappointed all at once.

  "No, we need to find out what H-7842 is," Yuna says, closing the file. There is nothing in those files that can help them anymore.

  "How we do dat? Two yea's I kenot noe what is H-7842," Kaew says.

  "But what will happen to your mother and sister if we continue this? Will they hurt them?" Yuna asks, suddenly remembering how the Hive uses the weight of one's family's safety to suffocate one's will and finally crushing them to bits.

  "My mada die oledi. My sista an' me no close. We no tok since mada die. When she small I pay her study. She big, find wok in bank, find U.S. boy-flen and fly away. She think I cheap. No one noe she got sista. NO HEART BITCH!" Kaew growled angrily.

  Yuna nods, not uttering a word and not surprised with Kaew's heartache towards her sister's betrayal towards her sacrifice to raise her. Yuna can only hope that Kaew will not regret this one day.

  "Yu no worry. They wun use my sista. We are no mo family. I only care 'bout my broda revenge," Kaew firmly states, her eyes filled with stubbornness and determination.

  "Time for stage two then," Yuna announces.

  Chapter 24

  Malaysia: Monday, 17th November 9:50 p.m.

  Chin slams his palm onto the stainless steel work table of his lair, still feeling angry that he has been outsmarted by the Thai woman. Like her brother, she is sly. Catching her will not be easy. But Chin is lucky that the blame will not fall onto his shoulders this time round. The Hive has somehow weighted the failure to notice Kaew's change in disguise as the incompetency of the ghost in charged. Chin knows that some unlucky bastard's throat must have been slit open by now. With the Hive, there is no lenience for mistakes. Like dancing with a cobra, any false move can also cause you your life.

  Heaving as he shakes his head, Chin turns his attention to the yellow cup noodle in front of him. A stained coffee dish covers the top as the noodle cooks in the cup. Removing the dish and peeling away the last bit of aluminum foil over the top of the plastic cup, Chin stares into the steaming curry flavored noodle and sees that the egg and the noodles are both ready. He takes a pair of disposable bamboo chopsticks and breaks the Siamese twin sticks apart. Chin rubs the two jagged edges of the sticks together to smoothen them out before finally stirring his dinner with the chopsticks. It is a small, energy deficient dinner for such a huge man, especially a gut spilling killer like him. But he has not much of an appetite after a failed mission. This will go down in his cards and ruin his reputation.

  Chin takes a large chunk of noodles out from it's reddish soup bath and steadying the curly strings of noodles on his chopsticks, he gives them two big and quick cooling blows before pushing them into his mouth. The cup runs out of noodles after just two mouthfuls of it. Chin lifts the yellow cup to his mouth and is about to drink up the hot soup when his com lets out a string of beeps. He immediately puts down the cup, almost spilling the soup and reaches out for the com on the table.

  It is a message from the Hive, from Ada. Of course, Chin doesn't know the identity of the ghost. To him, it is just another shadow.

  Randomer is secure. Prepare for hostage takeover at Solo Point, 10:15pm and transport to Safehouse 1.

  Chin takes a look at his watch and immediately gets up from the plastic chair, slips his gun back into the holster hanging next to the hip of his black jeans and throws his gray coat over his white tank top. He quickly puts on his army boots, tightens the shoe laces and just before he leaves through the door, he grabs the leech from the middle of the long worktable and wears it onto his left wrist.

  Chin hurries down the stairs and climbs up his super-bike. He puts on his helmet and races off at full speed. Chin reaches Solo Point ten minutes early. It is an abandoned construction of a neighborhood shopping complex, with its cement frame having turned black with watermarks and age. A black pickup truck of the newest model is already parked and ready at the site for him. Chin alights from his bike and goes to the truck. He removes a coin sized device from his pocket. Chin presses the red button in the middle of the device and the device decodes and disarms the car's security system, allowing Chin to perform key-less ignition without any problem. Chin goes to the back of the pickup and sees what he is looking for, a thick and long wooden plank. The Hive is always perfect in planning, taking care of every single detail.

  Chin pulls the plank down, turning it into a ramp and he nounts his motorcycle again. Chin starts the engine and rides the motorcycle up onto the back of the pickup truck as a yellow stray dog and her two black puppies watch inquisitively from inside the abandoned building.

  Approximately ten minutes later a pair of headlights turn into the construction site. It is the black sedan from the airport. The sedan comes to a gentle stop on the gravel and the front passenger seat door opens. Out steps Ali in a mix of anger and fright. He takes one look at Chin, lowers his gaze onto the gravel and walks to the trunk, which is already opened. Ali lifts the hood to the trunk and inside lies Nikki, unconscious.

  Chin opens the door to the back seat of the pickup truck. A black cloth has been prepared for him, folded neatly on the seat. Chin turns back towards the sedan's trunk and Ali steps back, sweating profusely. He watches frightfully as Chin bends and in one breath lifts Nikki up by her waist onto his right shoulder.

  Chin carries her to the pickup and lays her flat on her back onto the floor of the back seat. He then takes the black cloth and spreads it over her, covering her from head to toe.

  "What are... you going to do with her?" Ali asks, stammering slightly.

  "Worry about yourself," Chin warns as he slams the door shut and turns his head to shoot a threatening glance at Ali.

  "Don't come into our lives again!" Ali cries as he backs off into the sedan.

  "We won't. Unless you talk, I won't kill you," Chin utters coldly, sending shivers up Ali's spine. Ali quickly pulls his door close and the sedan immediately pulls off, reversing its way out from the construction site.

  Chin climbs up the pickup truck and pushes the button to start the engine. The rules have changed for the first ti
me in the Hive. Chin has never held someone hostage before and now here this woman is. She is one unlucky bitch, Chin thinks as he drives her off to Safehouse 1.

  Chapter 25

  Malaysia: Monday, 17th November 10:32 p.m.

  Ali sinks himself into the front passenger seat feeling exhausted and drained. He feels so guilty for sending Nikki to death but a stranger's life is nothing compared to his own child's.

  "Father, this is not right," the driver says in Malay, breathing heavily, with tears welling up in his eyes.