Meanwhile in the real world...

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Dave Kramer was a worried man. He wondered about how his past 24 hours changed his life forever and wondered what would happen to his lovely wife and daughter if he met his demise today.

The day before he was woken up from in the middle of the night by his boss, who asked him to investigate an abduction and torture of a relatively lesser known public figure. His boss was personally requested by the next heir of the Vlad family and paid a sum in excess 10,000 Dollars to find out the assailants. Vlad family was one of the wealthiest in the world, whose footprint could be found from defense contracts to plasma screen televisions to the microwave ovens. From what Dave had heard Katrina Vlad had personally come to the offices of Wren Private Investigative services to ask for their best investigator, Dave.

Dave was ex FBI, one of their best, before a stray bullet clipped one of his wings and he was delegated to desk duty. He quit FBI and took a high paying job in Wren PI investigating cheating wives and stray husbands to satisfy his inner Sherlock Holmes. He accepted the job in a heart beat thinking it would make a nice change from endless hours in disguise, planting spy cameras, to catch celebrity spouses having sex with anyone apart from their significant other.

Within the first few hours Dave found out what he could about the victim, namely a John Stanson. Mr Stanson was a highly unremarkable individual, if not for a couple of things; first and foremost HE WAS BANGING KARTINA VLAD and secondly he was the face of Drak Guild in Mythica. Dave was a high level player of Mythica himself so he knew that Drak guild was one of the top 3 guilds with fearsome offensive potential and not something to mess with. The first thought he had was that this was an indirect attack on Lady Katrina, however he rejected it immediately; Vlad family was after all famous for being more cold blooded than a fish living near Arctic circle; any ransom or blackmail demand on Lady Katrina would have amounted to less than the sum paid as investigative charges and not a penny more.

Dave had scrimmaged through the labyrinth of various CCTV footages, obtained by either influence or well placed bribery to narrow down the list of suspects. He had assumed that since Lowendes street was a fairly unsafe part of city, police patrol cars were not uncommon, hence the victim must have been stuffed onto the trunk of the car. He eliminated all hatchbacks, trucks and open hooded cars. Which narrowed down the list of vehicles passing the McDonalds in front of the parking lot to 12. He further eliminated all chauffeur driven cars and taxies reducing the number to 4. He now had 5 faces, a little blurry perhaps but clear enough to pass though facial identification, his goal was to identify the assailant and not try him in front of a judge so even a 60% match was good enough for him. He went to his office and sent the digital images to one of his FBI drinking buddies who promised him a quick run in return of a free pitcher of beer. Dave took a quick nap and a shower and proceeded towards the FBI building, only to see his friend standing in front with a frightened look on his face. Then suddenly a dark van proceeded shot from the corner. Everything happened so fast...He was clubbed on the head, sandbagged and put into the van, driving to an unknown destination.

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Dave woke up to find himself naked, trussed like a turkey and bound to a chair. A giant halogen bulb was lit in front obscuring his sight, leaving only a faint outline of a couple of shadows. With a sudden stroke of clarity it hit Dave, these were the people that abducted and tortured his client's lover. He cursed under his breath realising that these people were not thugs nor mafia, they were professionals, and they had the guts and clout to threaten an active FBI officer and kidnap a EX FBI officer. Whatever it was he had stirred the hornet's nest and he shuddered thinking of the consequences.

Just then he heard a looming voice, "I don't like people prying into me or my people. Nor do I like people lying to me. You would be well advised to remember that."

Dave could only nod when confronted by the deep baritone and the smouldering red cigar.

"So tell me why were you looking for one of my people. The facial recognition alerted us to the query and a few pointy questions answered the rest.", barked the man with a deep baritone.

"My name is Dave Kramer, I was... ", started Dave but he was interrupted in the middle by a second set of voice.

"Dave Kramer. Ex-FBI Organised Crime Squad, considered to be a hot shot, next in line for Deputy Director. Shot in the shoulders losing 50% of mobility. Currently working as a porn photographer at Wrens.

We have your resume Mr Kramer. We need to know who and why?"

Thinking it best to not hide anything Dave recounted the entire event step by step from the moment he got the infernal call.

"Impressive. Your deductive powers are really good.", replied the second voice.

"No, it was not, you were just sloppy Thirteen. You should have erased the CCTV footages.", said the man with a deep baritone.

"With all due respect Sir, I left it as it is, precisely for this reason. We need to know the opponent a little.", argued the second.

The man smoking the Cigar ignored the tirade and addressed Dave

"I have a couple of job options for you Mr Kramer and only one of them doesn't lead to an unmarked grave in the ocean somewhere. Which one would you prefer? Think carefully and answer. You can take your time. I don't mind waiting a little."

Dave was not a fool. He knew the people in front had the resources to make him dissapear from the face of the earth. "What do I have to do?" he replied almost immediately.

General rose up from his chair switched off the halogen bulb and then turned to Thirteen, "He's all yours."

The man known as Thirteen saluted the General, turned around and asked Dave with a hint of smile, "Hi Dave, how do you feel about playing I-SPY?"

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Zero's Adventure continues from Ch11 onwards. I added a side story because I wanted a pivotal character in the fiction. The chapter serves as an introduction to Zero's first ally, although it will be quite some time before they meet.