Qnarf’s Blog

[continued from episode 5]

Several months had passed since the incident at the infirmary.  Nightingale had slipped quietly out of the room with the test results and flower, hid them, met up with Lady Taro in the cafeteria, and continued about the day like nothing had happened.  He had waited for the investigations to start once Kadota’s body was found, but weirdly they never did.  Some lucky Taro become the new Kadota, and….. that’s it.  For a while Taro 1 the lab technician acted a little more unhinged than normal, but no one had asked questions or frankly even seemed to care.  The rumors Nightingale heard was that everybody figured someone had finally gotten fed up with Kadota’s bullshit and did something about it.

As for the test results, Nightingale had retrieved the file folder and flower later in the evening and taken them back to his room for study.  After a couple minutes of reading the test results, though, Nightingale had to give up.  In his haste to get the results, he had forgotten one key thing:  he had received training to be an operative, not a doctor or lab technician.  Certain key words and phrases had caught his eye, like “abnormal”, “divergent DNA structures”, and “flagged for further study”, but most of it was just gibberish to him.  The flower had yielded even fewer answers.  Pretty?  Yes.  Smelled nice?  Yep.  But even after pulling it carefully apart he found no trace that it was anything other than a common chrysanthemum.

After that he had kept his eyes open for more clues, but days turned into weeks, and weeks into months.  Nightingale sighed as he sat down by the computer in his room.  This day already felt like it was going to be just like the others.  He was going to get to watch his friends go out on more missions, while he went to the infirmary and did whatever Kadota thought up for today.

Friends.  Hah.  They had all been sympathetic at first, sending him emails telling him to “Hang in there!” and “You’ll be back to full status before you know it!”.  But after witnessing a couple of his….episodes….firsthand, the smiles started fading.  It wasn’t long before the emails stopped, and the taunting began.  The first taunts seemed playful, his “friends” pretending to drift off in the middle of conversation and then springing back out of it with a laugh.

He grimaced.  But then someone, someone who one day was going to pay dearly for their actions once he found out who it was, coined the nickname “Narcoleptic Ninja”.  The nickname spread like wildfire throughout The School.  Suddenly people who had never paid attention to him before snickered as he passed.  Even some of the younger students did it!  Respect had been firmly supplanted by derision and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.  The School’s rules prohibited any kind of dueling when you were on medical suspension, even the mock kind that you can engage in at the training center.  True, he was protected from them, but they were also protected from him.

Nightingale sighed again as he turned the computer on and started going through his email.  Junk.  Junk.  More junk.  He was amused about how much junk mail he got on a closed network.  Some of the other guys had found out about “spam” when they were out on missions, so they had decided to make their own.  ”Is your climbing rope not long enough?  We can make it longer!”  ”Stun the ladies with our new portable electric field generator!”  ”Takedowns and other conversation starters!”  ”Rank enhancers!”

But what was this?  There was a message in his inbox from Talon, Naginata’s personal secretary.  The subject was “Reinstatement”.  He clicked to open it:

Nightingale,

You are reinstated to active duty.  Report to 0800 briefing this morning for your next mission.

Talon

He read the message.  He read it again.  What, that’s it?  No reason given for why he was reinstated?  Nightingale stared at the screen.  It’s possible, he mused, that it could be a trick.  He shook his head.  It wasn’t very likely, though.  Emails are traceable, and Talon wouldn’t play a practical joke, at least not like this.  Well, he didn’t think he would….  Nightingale glanced at the clock.  Damn it!  It was 0730 already!  Practical joke or not, he would have to hurry to make it to the briefing room.  He changed into his ops suit, a form fitting set of pants, shirt, gloves, and mask so dark green as to almost be black.  Before leaving the room he checked to make sure the test results were still hidden, then he raced off to headquarters.

As he entered the building he heard some mutterings from the other operatives he passed, but security waved him through without incident.  The muttering got worse as he entered the briefing room and took his seat.  Nightingale chose to ignore it.  Maybe they weren’t talking about him.  And maybe Wraith would cartwheel into the room singing a jolly little song….

Ah, and there he is.  Wraith walked into the room, settling into the chair that faced the room.  Wraith had been ops commander for more  than 35 years.  He had achieved his rank at the age of 40, and even now at 75 he was considered to be one of the deadliest operatives still alive.  Nightingale had went on a mission with him a year ago.  There were 5 guys blocking the path onwards.  Nightingale had wanted to find a new route, but Wraith had shook his head.  Stepping away from him, Wraith had walked into the shadows… and disappeared.  Moments later he materialized behind one of the men and killed him with one quick movement.  As the others turned he disappeared again, just to appear behind another one.  Within seconds the way had been cleared.

Nightingale shuddered.  After that night he had vowed to never try and take Wraith’s position by force.  He had wondered sometimes if the older man was still alive because even death was afraid to come for him too soon…

Wraith said softly, “Alright, ladies and gentlemen, settle down.”  The room quieted instantly.  ”As you all know, we welcome Nightingale back to our ranks.  I congratulate you, Nightingale, on your….recovery.”

Nightingale shifted uneasily in his seat as everybody turned to look at him.  Someone raised their hand in the back of the room.  Wraith looked up, surprised.  ”Yes, what is it?”

Nightingale turned to look as one of his former “friends” stood up.  ”Sir, I just have to ask, sir…  Why is he here?”

Wraith looked annoyed.  ”Why shouldn’t he be here, Mako?”

Mako squirmed under the gaze.  ”Well, sir, he…well…you see….given his condition…..no one wants to really go on a mission with, uh…….”

“Are you trying to say you don’t want to go on a mission with the ‘Narcoleptic Ninja’, is that it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Nightingale inwardly reeled as if struck.  That damnable nickname had reached even the higher-ups!  And for Mako to say that…  No, he couldn’t show weakness.  He gripped the chair arms and resolutely stared straight ahead.

Wraith snorted softly.  ”Well, Mako, it’s your lucky day.  For the rest of you, too.  Nightingale has been chosen for a solo mission, so nobody will have to go on a mission with him today.  Now sit down and shut up.”

Mako quickly sat down.  Wraith then turned on the projectors and went through the assignments.  After each team received their assignment, the relevant team members left to go on the mission.  Pretty soon the only people left in the room were Nightingale and Wraith.  Wraith turned off the projectors and turned to Nightingale.

“‘Narcoleptic Ninja’, huh?  How do you like your new ‘title’?”

Nightingale gritted his teeth.  ”It’s not one I would have chosen, sir.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?  Well, I can’t say I blame you.  But I will tell you this.  I don’t give a shit.”  Wraith leaned back in his chair.  ”In fact, you shouldn’t either.  But enough of that.  I’m sure you want to know what you’ll be doing for your solo mission today.  Truth is, I’d love to know it too.  Oh, I received the orders.  But I’ll be damned if they make any sense.  We have received coordinates for a movie theater.  You are to infiltrate the theater, get into the projectionist’s box for theater 3, and watch the movie.  Once done, you are to make your way to the top of the theater for extraction.”

Nightingale blinked.  ”That’s the whole mission, sir?”

“Yep.”  Wraith reached into his pockets and pulled out a piece of paper.  ”Here are schematics to the theater.  There is a staff entrance around the back that you can use to get inside.  The theater only has a active roster of 6 employees, so you should find it extremely easy to get in and out.”

Wraith looked at Nightingale for a moment, then he got up and closed the door.  Wraith walked back slowly and sat down.  He leaned forward.  ”I’m going to tell you something that I probably shouldn’t.  But this mission seems…wrong.  One of our wealthiest clients paid for you to watch a movie.  They paid, they paid well, and they paid enough to keep the mission off the books.  We could have bought a copy of the damn original film for what they paid!  Besides us, only two others know the full details of the mission.   Your pilot doesn’t even know.  She knows where to drop you off and that’s it.”

Wraith stood up.  ”I just thought you should know.  Now get going.”

Nightingale stood up, saluted, and headed for the prep area.  He opened his locker.  The equipment they took into the field was based on the mission; it seemed that he was cleared to take his katana, a couple knives, some basic climbing equipment, and a standard issue multi key.  Sparse equipment for a normal mission.  Nightingale shook his head and left for the airfield.

The flight was long but uneventful.  Wraith was right about the theater; getting in was extremely easy.  Someone had even left the staff door propped open when they went out for a smoke break!  A couple glances at the schematics lead him right to the projectionist’s booth for theater 3, and his multi key easily opened the lock.  He inspected the room.  A screen showed the countdown to the next film (2 minutes), and from what he could tell everything was digital.  He sat down to wait.  The lights in the theater dimmed, and a trailer started to play.

["In a world gone mad, one woman struggled to bring down an empire...."]

Nightingale felt a blade press against his throat.  A female voice said, “Don’t move.  I just want to talk.”

[A flash of lighting and a peal of thunder.  In the rain, a woman stands in a field holding a sword to a kneeling man's throat.]

Nightingale raised his hands, then he spun, planting his shoulder into the woman and throwing her back, while his hands moved quickly to disarm her.  She chuckled and in a blur he was facing the tip of a sword…..his own sword.

["You took children!  You have turned them into mindless warriors!  You will pay for what you have done!"  She beheads the kneeling man.]

Nightingale gulped.  He said, “OK, what do you want to talk about?”  Now that he was facing her, he could see that she was a little shorter than him, with short golden hair and a lithe body.

The woman chuckled again and said, “You.  The truth.  You interested?”  She tossed him his katana.

[The woman stares directly in the camera and says, "You're next"]

Nightingale eyed her warily.  ”How can I know that I can trust you?  I don’t even know who you are!”

["Snowfield pictures presents: A Rose Among Thorns"]

The woman grinned impishly.  ”Of course you can’t trust me.  But you can call my Chrys.”

She walked towards the door, stopping for a moment in the doorway to grin at him one more time before stepping out of the room.  Nightingale stood perplexed for a moment, indecisive about what to do next, but then he shrugged and stepped out of the room to follow her.

[to be continued]

[continued from Episode 3:  "In that same year, he carefully chose his target.  He didn’t choose one of the top 4; on the off chance that he did win, he would be a marked man (even more so than usual).  No, he chose to go after the 5th….."]

He walked behind his opponent on the way to the enormous Dueling Hall.  She was a small girl, a foot shorter than him, slim, with close-cropped black hair.  She walked with an air of confidence, and no wonder.  He knew her record; she had obtained her rank and codename a year ago, taking out a guy who had outweighed her twice over and had 10 kills of his own.  Since then, however, she had only had to defend her rank twice.  That was one of the main reasons why he chose to challenge her; 5th was a respected position, but it didn’t attract the attention that the top 4 spots did.

They both stopped in front of the teacher who stood in front of the Hall.  Behind the teacher were two doors.  The teacher looked up.  ”Nightingale, I know you have been here before.  Do you need the rules explained to you again?”

Nightingale shook her head.

“Fine.  Until the duel is over, I hereby bind you to follow the rules on pain of death.”  The teacher pressed something into her hand.  ”Head into the left door, prepare, and wait for my signal.”

Nightingale nodded at the teacher, nodded to him, and then entered the left door.  There were no wishes of good luck, no camaraderie.  While they hadn’t been the best of friends before now, they had at least been friendly to one another.  But given what they were both planning on doing, you had to break all ties of friendship before going in.

The teacher turned to him.  ”Well, I know this is your first time here, so I’ll go over the rules.  There aren’t many.  Once you pass through that door, you will have time to prepare.  You each will have access to the same set of equipment, and you may take as much as you think you need.  When you are ready, just stand by the inner door.  I will be observing the both of you at all times, so I’ll know when you are ready.  Understand so far?”

He nodded.

“Good.  When I see both of you are ready, I will unlock both inner doors.  Once you pass through, the door will lock behind you.  Inside you will find both open space and closed environments.  The only thing I will tell you is that the doors will put you in opposite ends of the Dueling Area.  You are free to engage your opponent in any way you see fit:  set traps, frontal assault, distance weapons, etc.    However, I must make this clear.  You enter the Dueling Area, one of you will die.  That is the primary rule; either you die, or she does.  If you yield, she will kill you.  If she yields, you are to kill her.  If neither of you can follow the rules, we will kill both of you.  Do you understand, and do you wish to continue?  This is your last chance.”

He nodded.  He wasn’t going to back down now.  There were a couple students who had backed down before, and they had been made fun of at every turn for it.  ”Are you going to run again, little Rabbit?  Run!”  Even he had made fun of them.  In the end one had transferred to another division, but the other one had taken his own life.  Oh, it technically hadn’t been suicide, but when he challenged the number 1 ranked student to a duel….  Well, it ended up being pretty much the same thing.

The teacher held up a hand.  In it was a small stone etched with a rabbit design.  ”Take this, and keep it on you.  Nightingale has a similar stone with her.  If you succeed in killing her, find it and take it along with yours to one of the cameras.  Show it to us, declare your opponent dead, and then we will come in to collect the body.”  He took the stone, and the teacher led him to his door.  ”Until the duel is over, I hereby bind you to follow the rules on pain of death.”  The teacher turned and left.

He went inside and looked around.  Several kinds of weapons, gadgets, and traps lined the walls.  A quick look confirmed a rumor he had heard: no rations of any kind.  He smirked.  They didn’t want the duel to take that long, and frankly neither did he.  Alright, weapons.  Though students were trained with several types of firearms, apparently The School preferred duels to have more of a “classic” feel; the only weapons available were blades and bows.  Huh.  They probably probably got tired of fixing bullet holes.  It wasn’t a big deal, since he had trained extensively with swords and knives.  He strapped on a standard katana, one knife to his leg, and after thinking for a moment, stripped off his shirt so he could strap a knife between his shoulder blades.  He put his shirt back on and looked at the rest.

Trip wires?  Good, he’ll take a few of those.  Laser detection alarms?  No, too bulky.  The same thing could be said about a few of the other gadgets.  There were backpacks provided if you wanted to take several things with you, but he wanted to travel light.  Shurikens?  Definitely.  He hid several about his body, making sure the more concealed ones were wrapped in leather.  He had a couple of scars in embarrassing places from when he had forgotten……  A bow?  No….  That could give him an advantage if he got a clear shot, true, but more than likely it should just slow him down.  He sighed.  OK, enough.  Wait.  What was that in the corner?  There was a tiny bottle of spray medical sealant, just enough for one use.  It was the sort of thing used in the field for medical emergencies, to keep a person from bleeding out before they could get to a hospital.  What was that doing here?  The whole point was….  Eh, who cares.  He grabbed it and zipped it into an inside pocket.  Could come in handy.

He stood in front of the inner door.  The teacher’s voice came on over the intercom.  ”Both duelists are ready.  Unlocking the doors in 3, 2, 1…”   There was an audible click as the door unlocked.

He raced into the room.  Houses.  Streets.  The Dueling Area was essentially like a tiny neighborhood that they had studied about in class, complete with grass.  He went to the closest house and started scaling up it.  Perhaps if he could get up high enough he could find his opponent.  He reached the top of the house and carefully climbed onto the roof.  Crawling on his belly, he got to front edge and looked around.  No sign of her yet.  He could see now that while there were many “houses”, none of them were wider than a room or two.  They had windows, porches, driveways…  He glanced in a window.  Yep, they even had some furniture.  But it was as if the builders had gotten lazy and just stopped working on each house halfway through.  He waited for a few minutes and then….there!  It looked like she was setting traps all around a couple of the taller houses.  He sighed.  OK, well, perhaps it would have been a good idea to grab the bow.  Nothing can be done about that now, though.

He carefully climbed down the house and made his way over to one of the houses she was at.  As he got close to the porch, he found the first trap: a razor sharp trip wire stretched across the doorway.  He shook his head.  She won with those tactics?  He went over to the window…  Scree!  Scree!  Scree!  Damn!  She had hidden a laser detection alarm!  As he turned and started to race away he heard a loud thud.  What the heck?  Turning back, he slowly made his way around the house.

There, in between the two houses, was Nightingale.  Oh….  She was lying facedown on the grass, her face and the grass underneath covered in blood.  Perhaps she had tried to jump off the house and misjudged?  She stirred.  This was his chance.  He could win without a fight! He unsheathed his katana and strode towards her.  Pain lanced through his legs as he fell, his katana falling to the side.  Shit!  He had just walked right into a expertly concealed razor trip wire.  He swore some more and gingerly pulled his legs free of the wire.  He started to get up….. Icy hot pain lanced through his body.  He looked down.  The tip of a katana stuck out of his chest.

Nightingale put her foot on his back as she tugged the blade free, kicking him to the ground.  He gasped for breath as he rolled onto his back.  Blood seeped out of the wound.  His sword!  Where was his…..  He saw that Nightingale’s own blade was still sheathed.  Stabbed with his own sword.  It was bad enough that he was going to die; did he have to die being such an idiot?

Nightingale walked over to him, wiping blood off of her face.  He could see now where she had carefully cut some of her own clothes to make a tourniquet for her left arm.  She saw his glance.  ”Yes, I drained some blood out of my arm.  It’s amazing that little trick has worked on three of you guys now.  I wonder who the fourth idiot will be?  Now just lie still.”  She eyed him critically.  ”With that wound I give you….oh, let’s say 3 minutes if you stay still.  But”, she said as she raised the sword, “only 3 seconds if you try to move.  Consider it a last kindness.  Pray to your god, make amends or whatever, but just be quiet and die.”

She held the sword to his throat as she rummaged about his clothes.  A moment later she had his rabbit etched stone, as well as the knife that was strapped to his leg and several of his shurikens.  She walked towards a nearby post which he could see had a camera inside.  He could hear her talking.

He fumbled in his clothing.  He nearly blacked out before he found what he was looking for: the sealant.  He carefully used one hand to open the wound slightly.  A spasm of pain made him gasp.  He looked at Nightingale.  She hand’t noticed.  He pressed the tip of the sealant can into the wound.  He pressed the button.  Blood flowed down his chin as the pain made him bite clear through his lower lip, but the sealant had done its job.  As he slowly sat up he could still feel a little blood coming out of the wound on his back, but he was no longer bleeding as freely.

He blinked rapidly.  He might not be bleeding, but he had lost a lot of blood, and he knew it.  He only had moments.  Struggling to maintain silence, he got to his feet.  He reached up his shirt and pulled out his one, last knife.  Reaching into his clothes, he found one shuriken.  He fumbled and finally got the leather wrapping off the shuriken, and then he cupped it carefully in his hand.  He staggered towards her in silence, this time stepping carefully over the trip wire.

Nightingale was still talking to the camera.  A voice was coming out of the speaker below.  ”You know the rules, Nightingale.  If you don’t finish him off, we can’t come in there.  Are you certain he’s actually dead?”

“Fine!”  Nightingale said, “I’ll…”  Her words finished in a scream as he thrust his knife into her back.  As she turned, he took every ounce of strength he had left and thrust his other hand forward, burying the shuriken in her throat.  Her mouth moved soundlessly for a couple moments, then she collapsed.  He folded up next to her.  He started to black out again….

No!  He got up on his hands and knees and started searching.  A moment later he found what he was looking for in her hand: the two stones.  He grabbed them and held them up in front of the camera.  ”She’s dead!”  With that, he collapsed and fought to stay conscious.

A moment later a door burst open and 3 medics came into the room followed by the teacher.  One of them went to check on Nightingale.   The medic nodded to the teacher.  As the other two medics bound him to a stretcher, the teacher bent over it and said, “Congratulations, Nightingale….”

[to be continued]

[continued from Episode 1, the Narcoleptic Ninja is remembering: "He had jumped between two buildings….and then woke up in the infirmary."]

He blinked.  What happened?  What had he been doing?  Right, the mission!  The main part of the job was done: the woman had taken seemingly forever in the lab, but she had finished whatever it was she was doing and they had all prepared to leave.  He had climbed up to the top of the building adjacent to the lab, and as they got underway he had leapt to the next building…..  He shuddered.  That was it.  That was where his memory just stopped.

More importantly, where was he?  Well, no one had tried to kill him yet, so good.  He flexed and moved around.  OK, he seemingly was on a bed but not tied down, also good.  But why was it so dark?  And where were his weapons and tools?  He cautiously got to his feet, and then froze:  footsteps.  Faint, but getting closer.  Feeling his way, he slowly found a wall, then the door.  Locked.  Damn!  He knew a dozen ways to open a locked door (a faint smile as he remembered a few which didn’t leave a door behind at all), but only a idiot tried to bust open a locked door in the dark with only your hands and feet.  He waited.

The footsteps stopped.  A female voice called out, “Look, I know you’re awake, I know you are right behind the door, and I know if I unlocked it right now you would try to either incapacitate me or take me hostage.”  He heard a long-suffering sigh.  ”You can’t imagine how many operatives who come back unconscious assume the worst when they wake up, so we developed this little room to allow them to wake up slowly and not be able to hurt any one.  Oh, and I might add that the last person who tried to take me hostage woke up back in that room….2 days later after he had time to heal.”

He considered this, and then asked, “So who are you?  Why should I trust you?”

“If you remember your training you shouldn’t trust me, but know that my codename is Naginata”.

He relaxed.  Only one person he knew of would dare use that codename; rank and codename go hand in hand at The School, and he knew that she had killed the last three people who tried to “assume” her rank.  He also knew that she was the head doctor in charge of dozens of other doctors and nurses, and it paid to remember that even they went through the training.  But why did Naginata herself want to see him?  As far as he knew she had never paid any attention to him before, and he hadn’t been in the infirmary for anything more than the regulation shots before now.  Feeling his way carefully, he backed away from the door.  As soon as he got back to the bed, the lights came on and she opened the door.

“Good”, she said, stepping into the room, “we can bypass that tedious exercise.”  Naginata, upon closer inspection, rather resembled the weapon her codename stood for.  She was dressed plainly in a doctor’s lab coat and black pants, and though her facial features included a sharp nose and chin, the rest of her was, well, normal.  He might have even passed her in The School and never noticed.  But like her namesake, her movements were graceful, flowing, and obviously when underestimated, deadly.  She indicated that he should sit down, and after he carefully sat down on one end of the bed she sat down on the other end.

“So”, she continued, “I’m sure you have many questions, but I don’t have the time right now to sit and answer all of them.  Besides, I don’t have all the answers.  What I can tell you is this:  you, young man, should be dead.  From the reports your teammates gave you only jumped halfway across that gap and then fell out of sight.  When your teammates got to you, you were laying on the ground unconscious.  But that’s the problem.  By all accounts you fell from 3 stories up in an alley that had no fire escapes, ledges, or anything else that could slow your decent, but upon inspection you were still alive.  And there wasn’t a scratch on you!  You didn’t, by any chance, activate any grapnel or such on the way down, did you?”

Dumbfounded, he shook his head.  ”No, ma’am.  I remember starting to jump and then…nothing.”

She stared at him for a moment, then sighed, “No, I didn’t think so.  Well, that’s one mystery that will have to stay that way for now.  As for your passing out, that part isn’t a mystery.  I’m sorry to tell you this, but you seemed to have developed narcolepsy.  Normally we wouldn’t have even tested for this since you hadn’t shown any of the symptoms before now.  However…. well, I might as well tell you now since you’d just find out later: you’ve been unconscious for several days.  Due to the circumstances of your, let us say ‘accident’, we kept you unconscious until we wanted you to wake up.  During that time we performed several tests.”

He decided for the time being to ignore the bit about being kept unconscious against his will.  ”Wait a minute, couldn’t I just have passed out from, I don’t know, exhaustion or something?”

“Believe me”, she said, “we thought about that already.  All the tests we could think of showed negative.  It wasn’t until someone decided on a whim to check your hypocretin and orexin A neuropeptide levels. They were far enough below normal to convince us to compare your genetic pattern against known cases of narcolepsy.  I’m sorry.”  She did actually sound sympathetic.  ”We will probably start you out on atomoxetine and see how that goes, combined with some sleep therapy sessions.”

She stood up and walked towards the door but then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, and for the next month you are banned from going out on any missions.  But for now you are free to go home.  Report back here first thing in the morning.”  With that, she walked out the door, her footsteps echoing down the hall.

He didn’t really know what to do.  Not go on missions?  Is she crazy?  They couldn’t stop him from going on missions!  Oh, wait, they could.  Disobedience wasn’t tolerated, and though he felt he could count on his friends for a good many things, he knew they wouldn’t risk their lives.  He laid back on the bed and closed his eyes.  What could he really do?  He can’t blame them.  He put the whole mission at risk by passing out when he did.  But he had to do something.

He opened his eyes, then immediately jumped off the bed and crouched on the floor, scanning the every inch of the room.  Satisfied no one was there, he reached back and grabbed the envelope that had fallen off his chest.  Still keeping an eye out, he carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the slip of paper inside.

“Trust no one.  You didn’t develop your condition.  It was given to you.”

He slipped the paper back into the envelope, and the envelope into a pocket.  He walked out to the hall.  As he suspected nobody was there, though the hallway stretched for a good 25 feet without another door or window to go through, and even the soft slippers that he had on made some noise, albeit faint.

So someone had been able to make it into the room while he was lying there, leave a note, and get back out.  All without even the sound of a footstep.  He knew only the very best could accomplish that feat.

He shook his head.  For now, home.  Tomorrow?  Well, at least now he has something to do, and he has someone to find.  He has his mission.

[to be continued]