The Spirit Box (9)

Chapter 9: Home Grown Terrorists

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Al Kapa-kai, a new group, had managed to blow up a building in downtown Los Angeles.

The news was on, and the person who called in gave the name of the group he was in and the names of the people he claimed were responsible

“Hello, my name is Che Guevara. Yes, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary who was executed. I am back, thanks to a vessel who has kindly opened my box and let me use his body. Things have not changed since I have died, the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the American government is ongoing. I am here with my friends, who are also using vessels, Ulrike Meinhof, a founder of the West German militant organization Red Army Faction, and Andreas Baader, the militant who co-founded the Red Army Faction with Ulrike. We have demands, and will keep attacking government buildings on American soil until our demands are met.”

“What are your demands?” The reporter said.

“Our first demand is that America remove all military forces from Latin America. Our second demand is that the American government pay, financially, for any and all damages it has done. The third and final demand is that the American government gives up greedy capitalism. That is all, have a nice day,” the caller said and hung up the phone.

“Damn it, Mysterious Joe. Stop giving away bad spirits,” I grumbled.

“Do you think you can track down whomever is responsible for these attacks?” Chief asked.

“It seems we know who’s responsible,” I said.

“I mean, these vessels that they’re using. We have no idea what they look like,” Chief said.

“Well, they did blow up a bank. Let’s see if they have camera footage,” I said.

“It was Bank Argo,” Chief said.

“Wasn’t that one of the banks the Reznick twins robbed recently?” I asked. Chief nodded.

“They’re not having much luck. I’ll go check it out, see if there footage was stored somewhere, like a server room or data center,” I said.

“‘Maybe it’s on the cloud,” Yi suggested.

“I’ll call the tech department. They’ll know how to recover the footage,” I said.

I called them. A minute later, there were about half a dozen videos of the attack, from all different cameras and angles, on my phone.

“Thank you, tech department,” I said.

I watched the videos and found the face of a man who I had seen placing one of the bombs.

“Gotcha,” I said. I sent the video to my computer and ran the face through facial recognition.

It took the computer three minutes to identify the man.

“Jimmy Noxxis,” I read aloud.

I printed the address and we went to his house.

“Wait in the car,” I said.

“Why?” Yi asked.

“In case something goes wrong. I don’t want this guy Che knowing there’s two of us,” I said.

“How do you know it’s Che and not one of the other two possessed terrorists,” Yi asked.

“The other two had German spirits, and would have had German accents if they spoke. Che is the only one who wouldn’t sound German,” I said.

“Good call,” Yi said.

I started to approach the door when an army of armed men in military fatigues surrounded me.

“Yi, I need your help now,” I shouted, then inhaled John.

Yi got out of the car.

“It looks like you could use some help,” he shouted and inhaled Bruce.

“No shit,” I said and quickly grabbed one of the armed men and pushed him in front of me.

One of the men shot at me anyway, killing his own man.

“Crap,” I said.

“Ha, you see, there’s no hope for you. Now die! Die as an example not to interfere with our…” before he could finish speaking, Yi broke his neck.

“You die! Don’t interfere with the police,” Yi said.

As they all turned to Yi, I charged into the fray, taking down one terrorist after another with powerful punches and swift footwork. Their heads were exploding all over my fist.

One man got the drop on me, so I quickly turned around and knocked the gun out of his hand. Yi jumped next to him and kicked his head straight off.

"Need some help?" Yi asked with a grin.

"I thought you'd never get here," I replied, dodging a blow from one of the last terrorists. Then I punched his head into a bloody explosion.

“Nice work,” Yi said before he unleashed a flurry of kicks and punches, taking down several terrorists in a quick and bloody succession, his movements were graceful yet deadly.

“Good god damn, I wish there were more of these guys to fight, I could do this all day. The carnage is amazing,” I said.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Yi said and smiled, wiping terrorist blood off his face.

But even with Yi's help, we were outnumbered and outmatched, and I feared we wouldn't be able to stop the terrorists before they carried out their next attack on Los Angeles.

“Yi, I might need you to go around back and see if Che is trying to escape,” I said.

“And leave you hear alone to have all the fun?” Yi asked and let out a fierce roar, pounded his chest and launched himself into the air, delivering a devastating kick that sent several of the terrorists flying through the air and into the wall that surrounded the house, where their bodies exploded.

I took a breath and looked around.

“That’s the last of them, Yi. Good work,” I said.

“Damn it. I still have blood lust,” Yi said.

“Don’t worry. There’s always fight night at The Blue Mercury,” I said and smiled.

“Sounds great! Let’s get Che,” Yi said

"We can do this!" I shouted.

And with that, we redoubled our efforts.

I kicked down the doors and Yi smashed in the house through the window.

The back door was open.

We ran outside and saw Che’s vessel, Jimmy Noxxis, running away.

“Yi, jump in my arms now,” I said.

Yi did.

I threw Yi over a hundred feet, and he landed right on top of Che.

“Gotcha,” I said.

I searched the house and found Che’s spirit box.

I took it over to Yi and Che.

“You've caused enough trouble for today. It's time to put you back where you belong."

Che glared at me, his eyes burning orange. "You think you can stop me? You're fools. The revolution will live on, with or without me!"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. Now hold still."

I opened the box and kicked Jimmy in the stomach.

“Sneeze, Jimmy, or I’ll kick you again,” I said.

“Please, don’t,” Jimmy said and sneezed. Che’s spirit slowly slipped out of Jimmys nose, screaming as it was sucked back into the box, and Jimmy slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Yi stood up, dusting himself off. "Well, that was a workout," he said with a grin. "Thanks for the toss, by the way."

"Anytime," I replied, smiling.

“Now how do we catch the other two,” Yi asked.

“You don’t. They catch you,” a woman said and we heard a gun clicking.

Yi and I slowly turned around, hands in the air.

“You must be Ulrike. Where’s Andreas,” I asked.

“All you need to know is he’s safe. You’ll never find him,” she said and laughed.

She started shooting at us and we dove into the bushes.

“Shit,” I said.

“What?” Yi whispered.

“I dropped Che’s box,” I said.

I watched from the bushes as Ulrike grabbed the box and walked off.

After she was gone, we went to Jimmy. He was groggy, but slowly waking up.

“Any idea where she took Che?” I asked him.

“Yes. Probably to her secret lair,” Jimmy moaned.

“Any idea where that is?” I asked.

“Sure. I’ll only tell you for clemency, though. And I want that in writing,” Jimmy said.

“Deal,” I said and smiled. I quickly typed up what seemed like a legitimate clemency contract on my phone, and had him sign it with his index finger.

“She’s at 1337 Ocean Front Walk, Venice Beach, CA 90291,” Jimmy said.

“Damn, you had that whole thing memorized?” I asked. Jimmy coughed out a weak “yes.”

“Ok, so we’re going to take you down to the station for some more questioning. Then you’ll be free to go,” I said.

“I’m not under arrest, am I?” Jimmy asked.

“Not as long as you cooperate. You’ll get your clemency. Don’t worry,” I said.

We got back to the station and there were men in suits waiting for us with Chief.

“Chief, what’s going on?” I asked.

“These men are with the F.B.I. They caught Ulrike fleeing to Mexico and have caught Andreas,” Chief said.

“What about Che? Did he escape and get a new vessel?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, Fred. We know all about the spirit box and have secured all three spirits inside the proper boxes,” one of the agents said.

“But how?” I asked.

“We’re the F.B.I. That’s how. And we’ve had our eyes on Mysterious Joe for months now. We’ve been tracking all the spirits he’s been giving out. We even know about your spirit box vault,” the agent said.

“You’re not going to take my collection from me, are you?” I asked.

“We weren’t planning on it. We know you’re trustable. As a matter of fact, we were planning on asking you to take these off our hands,” the agent said.

He then handed me the spirit boxes of Ulrike, Andreas and Che.

“No way! Thank you. These will go right in the vault,” I said.

“They better! We don’t want them falling into the wrong hands again,” the agent said.

“Do you have a card, in case I need you guys?” I asked.

“If you need us, we’ll find you,” the agent said.

He nodded at me and left the room. His men followed.

“Well, that was interesting,” Yi said.

“Sure was. I’ll get these to the vault. Wouldn’t want to piss off the F.B.I.” I said.

“How did they know about the vault, anyway?” Yi asked.

“They were asking about the other spirits you stopped and what you did with them. I had no choice but to tell them,” Emily said.

“Of course it was you,” I said and rolled my eyes.

With that, I went home and locked Che and his buddies securely in the vault, excited to add them to my collection of spirit boxes.