Kyle and a mystery caller!

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Drawn to the ringing of a phone he didn't even know existed, Kyle intercepts what he believes is a prank caller pretending to be Doctor Farouk kidnapped by ninjas. Unfortunately for Farouk, he is the caller, and ninjas may be on the way.



Farouk ducked into the store, fumbling with the cell phone that he rather unceremoniously stolen off a bike messenger a few minutes ago. The girl had a bright pink helmet, was about 15 and clearly fought back tears as he run off down the street with her sparkle-covered treasure in his hands.

Amahl didn't feel too good about it.

Still, needs must when devil drives. He had to assume that all his usual channels were compromised and the first thing he did when it became clear that he was sold out was get rid of every single possession he had on him at the time. Which meant walking away not only from three Saville Row suits still in his hotel room, but also junking all of his electronics.

Which put him in a rather ridiculous position. Most of the contact and safe-house numbers he bothered committed to memory were useless, until he knew who in his own organization or among the Alamut leadership has shopped him to Neramani. This only left the mansion. God knows Kane owed him a few favors.

All the mansion numbers were in his cell phone where he laboriously entered them so that memorizing them would not be necessary.

Farouk stared at the purple-and-gold contraption in his hand blankly. "Shit!"

Kyle hadn't even been aware there was a phone in the tool shed until it started ringing. Who the hell put a phone in the tool shed? He had a phone, a perfectly good nearly indestructible phone. He wouldn't have even answered the thing, except for one thought. If the phone was there, Cain must've put it there. And if Cain put it there, it could've been him calling! So Kyle grabbed at the phone, ignoring the gouges he put in the plastic with his claws. "Yo, tool shed. Mr. Marko, are you totally calling to come back?"

Farouk scanned the street again. Ten minute on the outside, he decided. More likely about five before he needed to be very gone from here. The interference, the sudden (and very loud) fight next to a cassier and noise on the other end of the line meshed into a mind-boggling cacophony but he thought he heard a voice in between what sounded like an out of control chainsaw.

"Hello? Who is it? Gibney? Is that you? Hello?"

It wasn't Mr. Marko. Kyle swore. Under the static and the noise from the woodchipper eating the bramble he and Yvette had cut down, he could sort-of hear a vague accent to the words. "Yeah, it's me? Who is this?" Who would have this number, he wondered. Maybe it was in some list somewhere. "Forge? Are you fucking with me? I swear to God, I know where you sleep!"

Amahl closed his eyes and breathed with deliberate slowness. It would have to be Gibney, of course. With the way his luck was running lately, it just had to be the number for Marko's shed that the remnants of the Shadow King threw up from his memory, and it had to be the mansion's resident ADD advertisement who'd pick up his call.

"Kyle, this is Professor Farouk. Focus. What I am about to tell you is very, very important. I need you to contact Kane or Munroe as quickly as possible. I am in Bombay and it's a bit of a dog's breakfast."

Something was bothering him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Shaking off the vague feeling os wrongness Amahl turned back to the conversation.

"You listening? Tell him I need extraction and to come heavy. I am fairly confident that I am being boxed in by the professionals. Possibly the Guard. Certainly ninjas of some sort."

The pause in the other end of the line stretched and Farouk sighed, unaware that the slang for Special Operation troops he used was completely lost on Kyle who interpreted the term 'ninjas' quite literally. "Gibney? Concentrate, boy! Do you understand what I just said?"

From the other end of the phone, all Dr. Farouk could hear was the slightly perturbed noises of one Kyle Tyler Gibney laughing his fool head off. "Dude, who is this? Angelo? Julio? Oh, wait, Dude, Angel, did you get one of those voice deepener things? Come on. Okay, look, first of all, Doc Farouk is not gonna get kidnapped by ninjas. Second, why the hell would he be calling my tool shed? He and Mr. Marko like, hated each other."

He rested his forehead on the wall of the shed, still laughing. "I mean, dude, you got me for a second there, but come on." At the lack of response, he snorted and laughed again. "Okay, fine, don't own up to it. But I got you and you know it." And then he hung up. Because really, if somebody was going to prank him but wouldn't actually own up to it, they deserved being hung up on.

Farouk stared at the phone with faint disbelief. The little fucking bastard actually hung up on him. He hung up on him!

"Well, if I can mug a teenage girl for her phone, the least I can do to Gibney is brake both of his legs." He muttered as he started redialing. And then stopped as the understanding coalesced. He suddenly realized what had been bothering him - the street that was bustling and humming with action only moments ago was emptying rapidly.

Time to go.

As he slipped deeper into the store, heading for the service exit Farouk mentally amended his plan to include a liberal application of a blunt instrument to the brain matter. Gibney'd heal eventually, after all.