Is this destiny?

Sarah walked toward the planning room while stretching her arms above her head.

She cleaned up some basic core functions for Eve, like reading time and accessing various devices, but there is still much to go.

Sarah made a plan. Currently, Eve can get the feed from cameras, and Sarah needs to clean up the functionality where Eve will control the cameras and send an alert when someone enters the camera's view. For now, Eve will not be able to differentiate between friends and foes; that is a separate functionality and if all goes well, that will work as well within two-to-three days.

Earlier, Sarah would spend a whole day on the chair immersed in the code, and not notice the time passing. But now it's different. There are too many things going on, and she was getting hungry. Instead of asking someone to bring her food, she decided to take a walk, stretch, see Aiden and check on the current status, and she will get food before going back in front of the monitors.

Her hope is that they cleared up most of the issues so that Aiden can join her. He can help out in speeding the process and she loves his company.

Sarah was two steps from the door when she heard Felix's voice: "I've got something. It's not much, audio only… Listen…"

Sarah stood at the door and saw that Sophia, JoAnna, Oni, Zack, and Masika are gathered around Felix and staring toward his laptop.

Sarah wanted to greet them and get their attention, but then she heard several unfamiliar voices…

"We were not supposed to attack. The targets were not in this group."

"I had no choice than to shot. The dog was going at me."

"I know… What should we do now?"

"Don't kill them, we are not paid for that. We don't need to give reason to police to look for us."

"Our task was to kidnap two females and everyone in this group are men."

"At least we didn't kill the targets. The customer told us not to injure the women. You wasted tranquilizers on these three."

"Let's get out of here."

"Wait. Are we leaving empty-handed?"

"You want to rob them? Everything can be traced, even cash. Don't joke. We should not linger because they might have more people coming. Let's go."

"No. I meant… we can take these two with us. They are good fighters and not harmed. Ten of our men had difficulty subduing them, and even then we had to knock them out."

"Natalia is not interested in kids."

"This one is grownup."

"Do you think that he will join us willingly?"

There was a sound of a man chuckling.

"Did you forget that Natalia has her ways of convincing people?"

"OK. Let's take him. Don't mention this to the customer. It's none of her business and she was only interested in women; since they are not here, we are off the hook. Natalia will reward us for this. Don't forget that they have good technology. Get all the metal things off from him before we load him in…"

"Crap. This won't come off."

"What are you doing with that knife?"

"You said to remove metal. The ring is not budging."

"If you cut off his finger, he is damaged. Leave the ring. It's some black crap and does not look important. Get the ear stud…"

"Ugh… he is heavy…"

"Don't drag him. Let me help you… Mirko! Come, grab his legs…"

The audio stopped.

"That's it." Felix said.

JoAnna gave a meaningful look to others. "This is good. They mentioned that three people were shot with a tranquilizer. We found two. One was Ade, and the second one was an army member."

They all understood that if Aiden is the third one tranquilized, he is alive, and from the talk it's obvious that they kidnapped him and have no intention of hurting him because Aiden has no value if he is 'damaged'.

"Who is the third one?" Sarah's question made everyone freeze.

"Hi, Sarah…" Sophia said nervously. "Why are you here?"

"This is my house." Sarah stated the fact. She paused when she saw that everyone is avoiding to meet her eyes. "What is going on?"

"Sarah, honey…" Sophia licked her lips nervously. "Can you sit?"

Sarah realized that something is wrong. Very wrong. "No. I don't want to sit. What is going on? Where is Aiden?"

"The thing is… Aiden is missing." JoAnna said.

Sarah was sure that she didn't hear JoAnna right because her ears were buzzing. "What?"

"Aiden went to check the port where surveillance stopped working. They were ambushed and… he is missing." Sophia said.

Sarah's dark expression made everyone shrink.

JoAnna swallowed hard and started talking: "I'm sorry Sarah, we..."

"When?" Sarah cut off JoAnna. She does not want to hear any apologies, she needs to find out what happened to Aiden.

"About three hours ago." Felix responded. He can see the timestamp on the audio he extracted from the lens.

"He is missing for three hours and no one told me?" Sarah's nostrils widened in anger.

"No, no… we found out that he is missing… only… recently…" JoAnna said and wrapped her arms around Sarah with the hope to prevent any violent outbursts that might come. "We know that he was kidnapped and that they will not harm him. We will find Aiden."

"I need to know what you know. And don't hold back anything." Sarah said through her teeth and pushed JoAnna away.

She heard that Aiden is missing, but the information didn't sink in. He was in the house. He said that he will bring her lunch. He said that he is not going anywhere. How can he be missing?

Sarah was telling herself to stay calm because Aiden will show up any minute. He must show up because this is not acceptable.

Sophia and JoAnna took turns telling Sarah how there was a blackout at the port and Aiden and Ade went with Hero and seven other people. There is a number of casualties, Hero has two gunshots, and the veterinarian is performing surgery. Ade has few bruises, and the problem with Ade is that he was knocked out with a tranquilizer. Ade is drifting in and out of consciousness as the tranquilizer is wearing off. Michael, Ron, and Zula are at the port with Bella and Luna to try tracing Aiden's scent. Nico and Beck are also there, fixing the security system.

And then they listened to the audio again and again, writing down bits and pieces of information they can extract from there.

The thugs who spoke, definitely have an Eastern European accent. And four different voices were heard.

Their targets were two women and they were not supposed to engage in a fight unless they see their targets. However, it seems that Hero detected their scent and attacked, which initiated a fight.

It is highly likely that Aiden was knocked out with a tranquilizer, and they took him away because they are in need of fighters. This was not a planned kidnapping, because they said that customer does not need to know about it.

Two names were mentioned: Natalia and Mirko. And it's almost certain that none of those two are the customer who hired the thugs.

The thugs had knowledge about them because someone (assuming the customer) told them to remove all metal things.

Important parts are that Aiden is not useful to them if they hurt him, and he still has his wedding band on, and probably the Eve-lens as well.

Michael called and said that Bella and Luna got excited, sniffed around until they reached the docks, and then they started whimpering and howling while going in circles.

"They carried him to the docks and loaded him in a car or some other vehicle." Sophia said.

"It's a dock. It can be a helicopter or a boat." JoAnna added.

Sarah looked around and all this seemed like an out-of-body experience… like it's happening to someone else. Maybe it's a distant memory… but it's definitely not now. And it's not happening to her. Not to her Aiden.

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