Hackers and Hotties -a serial

The Mice Start off Running

It was beyond Ken how Yomoto could have sent the entire police station up with one bang; they never let him play with the fun stuff. Nevertheless, it was obvious that a large majority of the building Ken and his two saviors had been standing in minutes ago was no more.

If he had time, Ken would have laughed at the odd irony of being completely helpless now that he had evaded his father's attempts to kill him, but he didn't. Instead, he picked the two cowering girls up from the pavement and sent them running.

Tina's back was a little smoldered, as was her friend's, but they were sufficiently healthy to run as fast as they possibly could. Ken was never that fast, and two blocks later, he was lagging behind. After the third block, he called for them to stop.

The crazy woman spun around and marched back to Ken, who was doubled over, gasping.

"Goddamnit! Get up and run. If you didn't eat like a god damn anorexic you'd be able to move!"

"SHUT UP!"

Tina shut up. Her friend looked at him like he was going to grow a gun out of his ass and shoot them both. If the option was there, Ken would have taken it.

"We can stop running. We have to get off the main streets. If we keep going this way we'll probably get shot." Cursing his cramp, Ken ducked into an ally. The two girls followed apprehensively, and in silence.

After a few minutes of creeping around the back of houses, Tina spoke up again.

"Um Ken, do you know where you're going?"

"No."

"Oh, that's just great!" Tina's friend kicked a trashcan for emphasis, sending a few rats squealing on their way. "Just my luck. End of semester and I have to fall in with a gangster yakuza boy who's lost and about to be bumped off. Tina, girl, if you ever get obsessed with any boy ever again, I'm gonna put you away for good. Ya hear me?"

"Obsessed?"

Tina didn't hear him. Instead she was squealing and hugging her friend. "Celine! I love you! I knew I kept you around for a reason!"

Before Ken could tell her to shut up, she was jumping up and down in front of him. "Kenny! I know where we can go! This guy has a really hidy out thing! They'll never find us there! It's really close! Come on."

She grabbed his arm and started tugging the way they had came. "Wait, Tina!"

"What?"

"How far back is it?"

"Maybe half an hour, why?"

Ken tried to picture where Yomoto would be by now. He had probably managed to get out of the jail, maybe realized that Ken had gotten out too, and was now tracking them. "I don't think we should backtrack too much. Is there another way?"

Tina thought for a moment, and nodded. "It's a lot longer though."

"Let's go that way instead."

"Why?"

He was getting blank stares from both the girls.

"Because I said so."

Tina snorted. "Oh do you now? Well, as I see it, if it weren't for our intervention, you'd be a crispy hotdog right now, so maybe we should go back because /I/ say so."

Nothing good ever happened to Ken. Nothing.

"We can't go back the way we came. It's suicide!"

"We can't go the other way! /That's/ suicide! We'd never make it by dark. It's at least a four hour walk if you want to stay off the main roads!"

"I don't care! If we go back, we're as good as caught!"

"Ok, stop it children." Celine was in-between the two, her arms poised to hold off a brawl. "Me and Tina are gonna take the short way, you take the long way. Tina, just give him the address. If we stand here any longer we might as well shoot ourselves. Okay?"

"Fine. I don't care if Kenny wants to get lost in the inner city." Tina scrawled an address on a random piece of paper and handed it to him. "Have fun hacker boy. It's been nice knowing you."

Ken scowled as he took it. "You too."