The Turn: Chapter Thirty-Five

The Turn

Chapter Thirty-Five

~Beginning of the End~

Two Years Before The Turn

Puppetmaster sat on top of his desk. He carved away at a round block of wood as he finished a head of a doll. Shuppet sat still beside him. It was uneventful in the shop. The other dolls stayed relatively still. Other than the steady ticking of a clock somewhere in the shop, Puppetmaster’s carving was the only noise.

The purple sphere attached to his hair flickered. His violet eyes glanced at the sphere. He looked outside. It was a relatively nice day and yet, something felt off. Puppetmaster placed down his work and rested his chin on his folded hands. He closed his eyes in thought.

The door suddenly opened and some official looking gentlemen came in. There were four men in general. One of them, supposedly the one in charge, walked up to Puppetmaster.

“Excuse me,” the man said, “Have you seen or been in contact with any of these peoples? They may or may not be traveling together.”

Puppetmaster opened his eyes. They were darker than normal and made the man uneasy. The dolls all seemed to sense his sudden mood change and stirred to see what had made their master upset. Puppetmaster looked in the man’s eyes for a long moment. The room seemed to darken and the shadows seemed to grow from the corners of the room.

“Good morning,” Puppetmaster stated, “Don’t they teach you manners in that Tower of yours?”

“Er, um, sorry, sir,” the man took a step back, “Good morning, sir.”

The dolls leaned closer. They looked menacing as if, at the word of their master, they would attack. Puppetmaster lowered his eyes to the paper the man was holding.

“I haven’t seen them,” Puppetmaster looked at the man again.

The man cleared his throat, “Are you sure? How about you take a closer look?”

Puppetmaster smiled and snapped his fingers. The dolls on the shelves stood up. Shuppet stood up as well.

“You know what? How about,” Puppetmaster started, “you get out?”

Shuppet jumped at the man. He screamed and jumped back. The other dolls followed Shuppet’s lead and attacked. They jumped on the others. The men tried desperately to rid themselves of the moving dolls. One of the men managed to get out of the building and once he did the dolls stopped attacking him. They got up from the ground, dusted themselves off and waited by the door as they watched the man run off.

The others followed suit and ran out of the shop. Puppetmaster sighed and pulled a string that opened the door to let his dolls back in. He turned slightly when he heard something to his right. He smiled when he saw Zara.

“Did that wake you? I’m sorry about the noise. They won’t be coming back if you want to get more sleep,” Puppetmaster said.

Zara walked up to him and bent down to pick up Shuppet, “No, I think I’ve slept enough. Something wrong?”

Zara noticed Puppetmaster look out the window. He looked at her and sighed.

“Something big is going to happen today,” he said.

“Good or bad?” Zara asked.

Puppetmaster shrugged, “I can’t tell. I guess one should always prepare for both.”

“Do you have any idea where we can get some weapons?” Zara asked.

Puppetmaster looked at her with interest, “What for?”

“I think the ‘something big’ your sensing might be the New Order finally coming to the Island,” Zara placed Shuppet on the desk; “If we’re going to save the Island we’re going to need weapons.”

“I’d hate to put more on your plate but the Tower is looking for you,” Puppetmaster smiled, “How do you intend not to get caught?”

“Once the fighting starts I don’t think they will care very much anymore,” Zara stated.

Puppetmaster nodded. He got down from his desk and walked over to a door just behind the desk in the corner. When he came out, he carried a big wooden box. He placed the box on the desk and opened it. Puppetmaster pulled out two katana from the box and handed them to Zara.

Zara smiled as she took them, “Where did you get these? I thought I wouldn’t ever see them again.”

“I have my ways,” Puppetmaster smiled.

“What else do you have in there?” Zara tried to get a closer look.

Puppetmaster put the lid on the box again, “Now, now, no peaking. Not until the others wake up.”

“What if we’re already awake?” Hina stated as she walked into the room.

She was followed by Chaud and Vicky. Naru and Deontay brought up the rear. They all looked like they could have used some more sleep. Even if they were a little tired they looked ready for the task at hand. Puppetmaster looked at them all for a moment. How did they grow up so fast? He also felt that they would grow up even more before the whole ordeal was over.

Puppetmaster opened the box, “Chaud, I believe you’ve been missing these.”

“Hey, my gunblades! I missed those,” Chaud received his lost weapons.

“Hina,” Puppetmaster handed her a pair of forearm length gloves with chains attached to them. At the end of the chains were metal diamond pendulums, “You might have use for these.”

Hina looked at them, “Eh, we’ll see how it works out.”

Puppetmaster looked at Naru, “I wasn’t able to get my hands on many of your things unfortunately but I do have a compound bow that you might be interested in.”

Naru smiled, “I’d be very interested.”

“Vicky, I found you two large shuriken and a few throwing axes if you want them,” Puppetmaster handed them to her.

“Thanks,” Vicky turned red.

Deontay nudged her, “Watch out, y’all! This might be the day little Vicky here just might come out of her shell!”

“I’m sorry, Deontay,” Puppetmaster sighed, “I wasn’t able to find those claws you were so fond of.”

Deontay brushed it off, “Not prob. I find I like it this way.”

“He’s a tank by himself anyway,” Chaud stated, “If we gave him a weapon it would be unfair for the people fighting him.”

“It’d be considered cruel and unusual punishment,” Hina agreed.

Deontay nodded, “It’s true. I’ve got to give them a fighting chance.”

Puppetmaster watched the six teens interact with each other. He smiled and looked down at Shuppet. He too seemed amused.

“Come on, we have to get going,” Zara instructed.

“Are you sure you can’t stay a little while longer,” Puppetmaster looked at Zara.

Zara crossed her arms and sighed, “We can stay a few more minutes but that’s all. We really do have a lot to get done.”

IOIOIOIOI

Sirius walked into an elevator and waited. He leaned his back against the glass wall and rubbed his tired eyes. Waking up at midnight was starting to take its toll. On top of trying to relocate Zara’s team he had a myriad of other things to do.

Some of the computers contracted a virus. The computers needed to be quarantined immediately and disposed of before the virus got to the other electronics in the Tower. Sirius had several papers to sign and people to talk to in order to make sure the computers didn’t end up back into the hands of consumers.

His son, Lynx, said that a shipment of crucial equipment hadn’t arrived when it should have. In order to finish the new project that he had taken up he needed those parts. Sirius’ job was to locate said shipment and yell at whomever was in charge. Granted he could have someone else do it but he was in an overall bad mood and yelling at someone sounded appealing at the moment.

The Tower’s coffee intake had reached such levels that it got its own committee. Apparently there was a spike this month that required the committee to get together to discuss alternative beverages. He wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, Sirius suspected his wife had something to do with it, but he found he was on the committee. That meant that he had a meeting later on in the afternoon.

His wife had a new line of clothing coming out at it was his duty, as it was hers when he had public appearances, to stand by his wife’s side. Sirius’ adopted daughter, Amber, had a recital as well. The whole family would be going and Mrs. Galaxy wouldn’t allow him to be absent no matter how critical the situation.

On top of all that, he had to deal with Kaiba and the New Order. Sirius’ shoulders fell as he sighed. The elevator stopped and the doors opened.

He walked into a large room called the Mission Room. An enormous screen hung on the wall in the front of the room. It showed the current locations of all the Agents they had out in the field. There were rows and rows of people sitting in front of smaller computer screens. There were about 150 people present at one time. Each person had a printer on their desk as well. They talked into their ear pieces. Sirius walked forward and up the few steps to the main computer. Kaiba sat directly ahead as he typed away. A clear blue screen displayed diagrams and other figures. To Sirius’ right was Kiri. She too was busy typing.

To the left was another girl. Sirius had no trouble remembering her name as she always wore bright red outfits. She was a little hard to miss let alone forget. Her name was Leena. She was an intern. If memory served him, she was in several of Chaud’s classes. She scored high marks in all her classes especially anything relating to computers. Basically what Leena was training to do was to be another Kaiba: knowing everything about computers and critical thinking.

Sirius walked up to Kaiba, “What did you call me up for?”

“The New Order,” Kaiba stated. He brought up a long list, “These are the items that we think they have been stealing over the past few years.”

Sirius scanned the list, “It’s a lot more than I thought.”

“Yes,” Kaiba nodded, “It’s a lot similar to the items you would need to make a space rocket.”

“Space rocket?” Sirius looked up from the screen for a moment. He saw a girl below typing feverishly at the computer. She stopped suddenly and appeared to be shaking.

“Yes,” Kaiba continued, “I highly suggest that we make the New Order a priority since we’ve been sleeping on the job so far.”

“Uh, huh,” Sirius watched. The girl tentatively reached over and tapped the gentleman sitting beside her on the shoulder. He shooed her away but she tried again, more forceful this time. The man looked at her, annoyed.

Kaiba sighed, “Are you listening, father? This is a rather important subject. A little more important that the coffee meeting you have later on today.”

Sirius looked at him, “Of course, I’m sorry. You were saying?”

Kaiba looked at his father, “I was just saying the New Order has been collecting these things for years. Who knows what they might be planning to use them for. Maybe they just really want to visit the moon but that possibility has a .000001% chance of happening and I was being generous.”

Sirius’ gaze shifted again. Maybe it was due to how tired he was. The girl he was watching had somehow managed to get the man’s attention. The man looked at her screen and had gone stone still. The girl pressed a button on her desk. Kaiba looked at his screen.

“51’s calling,” Kaiba stated.

“I got it,” Leena stood and walked down to the computers below.

“Are you feeling well?” Kaiba asked.

“I’m just a little tired, I guess,” Sirius smiled.

Kaiba shrugged, “I haven’t slept in three days.”

Sirius looked at him, “Try saying that when you are my age.”

“Mr. Galaxy,” Leena said when she got back.

Sirius turned. He saw the girl that he had been observing earlier standing beside the girl in red. She shifted on her feet awkwardly. The girl held a Tower provided tablet in her hands. Leena looked at the girl and nudged her.

“Well, go on then! He hasn’t got all day!”

Sirius glanced over at his son. Her personality reminded him of Kaiba in some ways. He looked back at the girl.

“No, it’s alright,” he smiled at her, “What is your name?”

“Marron,” the girl stated.

“Well, Marron, what did you find?” Sirius asked.

“I got a call from a fishing boat about 100 miles off the shore to the east of the island. They said that they saw something but the transmission was bad so I decided to look into it,” Marron looked down at the tablet as she tapped into the main computer.

She continued, “I accessed a satellite that we have in orbit. You know, to try to get an image of what they were reporting. I got this image, sir.”

Marron flicked her finger and the image appeared on the large screen. Silence fell over the entire room as all eyes looked up at the screen.

Sirius leaned into Kaiba, “I think I know what they were using the materials for.”