Zach steps out of the police station feeling beaten by the tiresome session of repetitive questioning. The police station is nestled inside a ground floor shop-lot of a row of old double stories high shops and the surrounding streets are almost deserted at this hour. Zach steps out of the police station's double glass doors and looks around him in despair - not even a taxi in view.
Having no idea of which way to go, Zach tries his luck going down the street towards the city center. He is sick and done talking to the police, so he is not going to talk to them anymore even if it means just asking for directions. All the shops along the street are closed. Zach hurriedly treads down the street and he is in luck that after walking just two blocks away he reaches a row of nightclubs and pubs that are in preparation of closing after a night of bustling business. Rows of red and white budget taxis wait to pick up potential customers. Zach immediately rushes up and boards one.
"Hi Sir, where are we going?" the Singh driver with a large blue turban and long gray beard, wearing a white uniform asks.
"Stanz's Hotel," Zach utters, feeling a little relieved. In his mind, Malaysia is by far a highly dangerous place to be in.
"No problem sir," the taxi driver nods and swiftly drives away from the curb. They travel down the quiet streets and out into the main road and in less than fifteen minutes they have reached the hotel's lobby.
The moment the concierge pulls the taxi door open, he recognizes Zach and proceeds to stop him politely, "Sir, please hold on. Mr. Mazlan is waiting for you."
The concierge then leads Zach into the security office by traveling down a hallway at the far end of the hotel lobby, hidden from view of the hotel guests. They arrive at a series of oak colored doors. The first one is labeled with a silver plate that says 'Maintenance Office'. They walk on and on the second door the silver plate reads 'Security Manager'. The concierge stops before the door and gently knocks on it with his gloved knuckles.
"Come in," Mr. Mazlan's voice instructs from inside the room.
The concierge opens the door and lets Zach in. Mr. Mazlan is waiting behind his desk, looking tired but well-kempt. In his small office, next to his table on the marble tiles are his luggage - the yellow hard shell and their two back packs. On the right side of his office is an opened door that connects his office to the adjoining security office. Zach can see a wall of monitors and control panels that work to display the feed from all the security cameras in the building.
"Have a seat Mr. Burrow," he invites and Zach takes a seat on the blue swivel office chair opposite Mr. Mazlan.
"Why are my bags here?" Zach asks.
"Mr. Burrow, you violated our hotel's code of conduct and we are now exercising our right to refuse you as our guest. You will be blacklisted from all of our Stanz's hotels," Mr. Mazlan says and pauses for a second, "Here are your luggages. Please inspect them now as we will not entertain any discrepancies after this meeting."
Zach can only shoot a dreary look at the luggages and shakes his head. First, they get drugged. Then Nikki gets injured and goes missing and now, to be kicked out of the hotel. This is a nightmare. He doesn't even know where to go or what to do.
Mr. Mazlan opens his drawer and removes a thin stack of documents from it. He puts it onto his desk and Zach can see that it is his credit card, two copies of credit card receipts and two sets of printed letters from the hotel. Mr Mazlan turns the documents to face Zach and gently slides them over to Zach. Even though Zach is not a welcomed guest, it is their hotel policy to maintain their courtesy at all instances.
"Please sign on the receipt," Mr Mazlan instructs as he places a ball point pen with a heavy silver body onto the desk in front of Zach.
Zach picks the pen up and signs his signature onto the receipt.
"And here," Mr. Mazlan further instructs, flipping the letters open to their last pages and sliding them to Zach. It is a letter stating that Zach acknowledges the damages done, agrees to leave their premises immediately and agrees to pay for all the damages listed in the letter. Zach obediently signs it.
Mr. Mazlan then takes the documents and separates them to two sets. One set for the hotel and another for Zach. He folds the documents for Zach neatly into one of the hotel's white envelopes and slides the envelope along with the credit card back to Zach.
"I will see you out of the hotel personally," Mr. Mazlan says and gets up from his office chair. Zach has no choice but to get up. He carries his backpack onto his back, tugs at the yellow hard shell with his right hand and carries Nikki's backpack with his left hand.
Mr. Mazlan opens the door for him and they leave his office and make their way back into the lobby and back out the main entrance.
"Do you need me to call you a taxi?" Mr. Mazlan asks.
"No," Zach answers, his voice cracking with misery.
Across the street is a twenty four hours cafe. Zach has run out of money. He just signed his credit card for a massive twelve thousand and three hundred ringgit in payment for the damages Nikki caused. He can't afford to spend another dime if he is to stay and look for Nikki. Zach slowly makes his way across the deserted road towards the cafe. He is going to spend the night there and go to the Canadian embassy for help first thing in the morning.
Zach pushes the glass door open and a bell hung by the top of the door jingles. The smell of freshly brewed coffee fills the warm air and immediately Zach feels a slight comfort. He enters the cafe with his luggages and he can see that there are another four customers sitting in the cafe with their laptops, all of them travelers.
Zach finds a small round table by an isolated corner and puts his luggage down onto the floor before going to the counter to order for a coffee of the day. With a tall glass of hot coffee in his hand, he makes his way back to his table. It is going to be a long, restless night worrying about Nikki.
With no money and not even her phone with her, how is Nikki, a helpless, injured woman going to survive on her own in the streets of a foreign country. His only hope right now is for Nikki to come to her senses and contact him. Zach removes his and Nikki's phone from his pocket and puts them onto the table next to his coffee. For the next half an hour, Zach sits in a slouch in his armchair with his fingers laced together under his chin and his forlorn gaze locked onto their phones waiting for a call from an unknown number.
All of a sudden his phone lets out a beep. It is a text message and the name on the display is Nikki Love. Both startled and excited Zach immediately reaches for his phone but his hand halts halfway when it dawns upon him the strange fact that Nikki's phone is right next to his. A horrible feeling churns in his stomach as nervous, cold sweat form in the palms of his hands. Anyhow, he has got to know how a message is sent from Nikki's number when the phone is here with him. He continues to stretch his arm and grabs the phone from the table.
His cold, rigid fingers slide to check the message.
'Board the taxi behind you' the message reads.
Zach immediately cranes his neck to stare out the glass panel behind him. Out waiting by the sidewalk in the wee hours is a blue premium taxi parked just in front of the cafe. Zach looks around the cafe and no one seems to be aware of the waiting taxi. Zach turns back to look out the floor length glass window again and this time the taxi driver is holding up a white A4 paper against his side window with his name Zach Burrow written over it.
His phone lets out another beep. Zach looks down and sees another message from Nikki's number. He checks the message and it reads:
'Not going? It's your last chance. We'll give you five more seconds.'
Someone is watching him. He quickly scans his surrounding and everyone is still busy hovering over their devices, even the cashier. They seem oblivious to Zach's presence as a whole. Somehow he is being watched and Zach's gut feeling tells him this might be his last chance to locate Nikki. He slips the two phones back into his pocket, grabs his luggages and dashes out the cafe, leaving his untouched cup of coffee on the table.
Unsure if his decision i
s right, Zach climbs into the mysterious taxi, takes a deep breath and closes the door after himself. Why are all these strange things happening and who is orchestrating these events? He knows that by entering the taxi, he might be stepping into yet another trap but if that's the only way he can find Nikki, then let it be.
Once the door is closed, the taxi driver turns into the main road.
"Hello sir," the taxi driver, a bespectacled Indian man in his forties greets with a wide grin.
Zach can't bring himself to smile back at the driver. God knows if this man is one of the people behind all of these.
"Where are we going?" Zach asks, his voice full of hostility.
"The Axis sir. The most expensive hotel in the whole of KL. Six stars," the taxi driver tells, in a most upbeat manner. Zach is starting to wonder if he knows anything about what has happened at all.
A six star hotel? What is happening? Why is someone even doing this? It all doesn't make sense. Zach is starting to believe that this has been all carefully planned for. But what is the purpose behind this extensive set up? And what is going to happen to Nikki? What lays ahead of him?
"Do you know who called for this taxi?" Zach asks, trying to probe.
"Sorry sir, I have no idea. The call center sent me," the taxi driver apologizes.
"Would you be able to ask the call center for me?" Zach immediately asks.
"I can try," the taxi driver replies and taps the touch screen of a small tablet attached onto the dashboard. The application dials back to the call center.
"Suzy, I dah pickup client kat Cafe 2-4 tu. Client nak tahu siapa yang call teksi tadi. Tolong check boleh?" the taxi driver says into his blue tooth device, in a string of Malay mixed with English which literally translates to Suzy, I have picked up the client from Cafe 2-4. The client wants to know who called for the taxi. Can you please check?
Not understanding what is being said, Zach waits nervously for the taxi driver to return him an answer.
"A Madam Nikki sir," the taxi driver announces to Zach and resumes to talking into his bluetooth device, "Thank you Suzy."
Adam nods feeling frustrated. He knows that someone is using Nikki's identity to do all these. He takes Nikki's phone out from his pocket and turns it on. Scrolling to the settings, he checks the number of the SIM card in her phone. Disappointingly, the SIM card isn't switched. It is Nikki's SIM card. That makes things even worse and more complicated. Someone is remotely using Nikki's identity to taunt him and there is no way to know who the real culprit is. Zach is devastated. This is something that only happens in Hollywood films, it is not supposed to happen to normal people like him. Maybe he can go back to the police with the messages. That will prove something. Zach goes back to his message folder and to his surprise, the messages are gone, deleted. This is a deliberate effort to remove any evidence.
'What kind of a fucked up conspiracy is this?' Zach starts to wonder.
Suddenly an idea strikes Zach. Maybe Hillary, Nikki's boss knows something, since she sent them here. Zach takes Nikki's phone from his pocket and turns it on. He then starts to go through her contacts to find Hillary's name.
The owner to the pair of watchful eyes, spying at him through the little hive shaped brooch pinned to the cap on Zach's head scorns at the sight of what he his doing and her fingers immediately type a string of code into her supercomputer. Ada doesn't want him to contact Hillary. Not that Hillary can spoil anything but giving Zach the idea of help and support is not an option. Social isolation is the key to complete immersion into the role she has set out for him. To turn him into her puppet, he has to be frightened, desolated and striped of trust. That is why Ada chose him. Taking someone from across the ocean and throwing him into a foreign country of a different culture is the best way to instill fear and threat. When there is no where to turn for help, the victim, in this case Zach, will turn submissive.
Zach is looking for the contact when suddenly the screen blanks out into a pure white background. And before he can respond, a horrible looking clown's face pops up into the screen, frightening Zach for a second. The clown face closes off almost just as quickly and when it has disappeared, the phone has been reset to factory settings. All data but the Hive's virus have been deleted.
"Shit!" Zach curses as he grabs the phone hard with anger.
Determined, nothing is going to stop him. Zach takes his own phone and opens up his social account app. He will search for Hillary in all ways. But things are worse than he imagines it. The moment he tries to open the app it disappears. When he tries to re-download it, a system message appears.
System locked. Unable to proceed with request.
Zach tries to use his browser and the same happens. When he tries repeating it on Nikki's phone, the same happens.
Before Zach even realizes it, they have arrived before a thirty five storeys high delicate glass building designed with the illusion that the top half of the glass building is sliding off diagonally from the bottom half of the building, sort of like a diagonally cut popsicle. In the night, the building's rippled exterior of triangular cut glass pieces glisten like the surface of a perfectly cut diamond under the illumination of neighboring billboards and street lamps.
"We're here sir," the taxi driver announces.
Zach raises his head to look out the window as the concierge, dressed in a sleek gray mandarin collar suit and pants comes to open the taxi door for Zach. Looking at the grandiose of the hotel and the guests in the lobby, Zach can tell that this is a place only for the super rich and famous. The concierge removes Zach's luggages more than promptly and places them onto a luggage trolley. Zach slips the phones back into his pocket and exits the taxi with skepticism. Who are the people watching him? Why is he here? Who is waiting for him?
Despite his out of place dress code, the concierge ushers him into the hotel with utmost courtesy and a welcoming smile over his face.
Zach steps into the lobby and is immediately overwhelmed by the aura of industrial urbanity mixed with the comfort of the tropical rain forest. The whole of the hotel's gray interiors are decorated with white or red mosaic tiles, arranged as such to form wall murals against grayish black mosaic backgrounds. The floor is layered with special irregularly sized and shaped large granite tiles that exude a feeling of being on the industrial edge. Glass and metal furniture further emphasize the urban aesthetic of the hotel's interior. To soften the hardness of the design, a huge and old tree stems the center of the lobby where it must have been left in place when the building was built. Other tropical plants can be seen to intertwine with the structure, planted into the walls giving it a perfect blend of contrast that calms the eye.
Zach walks pass the tree towards the reception and is immediately greeted with a glass of tropical punch as a welcome drink. A sweet looking lady with her hair neatly tied back into a sleek bun smiles at him in her simple white body fitting shirt as she greets, "Welcome, Mr. Burrow."
Zach is getting accustomed to all these arrangements and he is not surprised that she knows his face and name already. To him, it is no longer important how they know him. It only matters now for him to find out who is behind this and to locate Nikki.
"Can I know who made the reservation on my behalf?" Zach asks politely.
"Sir, your stay here has been fully paid for by a Madam Nikki Portman," the lady replies courteously. Just as he expects, everything has been done under Nikki's name.
"Here's the key card and dining vouchers. The concierge will take you up to your suite on the twenty second floor. Enjoy your stay," the lady smiles and passes a leather cardholder to him.
Zach takes the cardholder and turns to follow the concierge with the trolley of his luggage. The concierge leads him into the roomy lift and gestures Zach to scan his key card onto the lift scanner. Zach takes a look at his badge on the chest of his coat. There is a symbol of a crossed mouth beside his name. He is a mute. Zach nods and does as instructed and the lift goes straight up to the twenty second floor and when the
doors slide open Zach can see that there are only two doors on that short corridor, a single door to the fire exit and a set of double doors to the suite.
Although the receptionist said suite, he hadn't expected a penthouse suite. The concierge ushers Zach to the wide double doors and politely gestures him to scan his key card at the door's sensor. Zach does so and the door clicks open. Zach lets himself in and slips the card into the slot on the wall and the room comes to life. The concierge takes Zach's luggage, puts them into the master bedroom and prepares to leave, without waiting for a tip. He closes the door after himself and Zach is left in the penthouse to find out what is planned ahead for him.
The penthouse is a luxury he has never been and will never be able to afford. The contemporary interior with a touch of industrial edge to it gives the suite a very distinguished touch and flavor, setting it apart from other hotels. Three hundred sixty degree views of the Kuala Lumpur city center through the wavy floor length glass walls of fused triangular glass pieces that encased the penthouse, a spacious master bedroom the size of his whole apartment back home separated by the living room from two smaller but still spacious rooms. All rooms come with their own attached bathrooms with private whirlpool bathtubs. On the balcony, is a private swimming pool and lounge chairs together with a barbecue pit. Facing the living room, just beside the entrance is an open kitchen with a dining area and on top of the rectangular marble surface is a welcome fruit and chocolate basket with a bottle of expensive champagne next to it. If only Nikki is with him, this will definitely be her dream honeymoon come true. But right now, even with all the luxury before him, there is no meaning to it. Also, no stranger will spend so much for just mere hospitality. Zach knows that something terrible is waiting to happen.
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