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           You can call me Patch.  I am in the recovery business.  Mostly I recover things that have been stolen from other people, but today I was trying to recover a friend that had been stolen from me.  Kerry was only eighteen, but he was a wizard with computers and other electronic gadgets, and he had already saved my bacon more than once.  Now it was my turn to save him.
            Somehow the Marder Net Gang had put the snatch on Kerry.  This was probably because we figured that it was the Marder Net Gang who had stolen the Sword of Fafnir that we were trying to recover for a client.  That meant that they were probably holding Kerry in one of two places.  This was the first place; an abandoned house on the edge of the city where the Marder Net often did business.
            Getting into the house hadn't been any kind of a problem.  The door wasn't locked and there didn't appear to be anyone on guard so I slipped inside.  The old house was kind of spooky and so quiet I could hear my own heart beating louder that my quiet footsteps.  I checked all through the downstairs and the upstairs without even finding a clue.  Then I moved on up into the old attic.  That was a mistake.  No sooner did I come through the attic door, than I heard the quiet pffut of a hidden air-XXXX and I felt a sharp pain down in my thigh.  Then I only had time to look down and see a feathered dart sticking into my trousers before the whole room started spinning around me and then the floor rushed up to hit me hard in the head.
            The next thing I knew I was lying on an old couch and feeling weak as a kitten.  Whatever XXXX they'd put on that dart had left my whole body feeling pins and needles and it took me a few moments to realize that tight coils of rope were now holding my wrists together behind my back and more coils of rope were hugging my arms tightly to my chest.  Whoever had done this didn't want me to complain about it because my tongue could feel some kind of rag that had been stuffed into my mouth and my lips were aching from several strips of silver duct tape that were now pinching them together.
            Then I looked up to see a big ugly man with a deep scar under one eye standing over me.  It was Marder himself!
            “I tried to warn you Patch,” Marder growled down at me.  “That Sword of Fafnir will bring me and my gang enough cash to retire on.  If you or your young sidekick tries to interfere in that again I’m going to have to break my rules about killing people.”
            Marder dug his big fingers into my hair and yanked my head back until I had tears running down from my eye.  “Understand…?”
            I grunted into the wad of cloth that was swelling up inside my mouth.
            “Good,” Marder grinned down at me with a smile that twisted his twisted face even more.  “But, just so you don’t forget, we're going to be taking curious Kerry with us.  If we see you or any cops before we get a chance to sell that sword, I’m going to be testing its sharp blade on his tender skin.  You got that?”
            I nodded and made some agreeing sounds into the choking gag.
            Then two of Marder’s henchmen pushed me back on the couch and quickly wrapped up my thighs and my ankles in more tight coils of rope to make sure that I wouldn't be following them too quickly.

            Then I got one brief gXXXXse of a bound and gagged and frightened Kerry as the two henchmen hurried him out of the attic and down the stairs.  Then Marder gave me a fake salute and followed them out.  Once again the old house got really quiet and spooky.
            Pride and anger took over my body first and made me struggle and strain against the tight ropes that were keeping me from following Marder and rescuing my friend Kerry and I guess I wasted a lot of time doing that before my brain finally caught up with my body.  I'd never escape this way.  I had to get to my car.
            But my car was two flights of stairs down and then across the back yard.  Oh well, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, or in my case, a single hop.
            Struggling and straining and wheezing into the soggy cloth that was spreading my teeth, I somehow managed to get up on my feet.  Then it took all of my concentration to maintain my balance as I hopped and then hopped again toward the attic door.  Somehow I made it.  Then –
            I only fell twice while hopping down the tricky stairs so you could say that I hopped part of the way and fell the rest of the way.  The sound of my falling worried me more than the bumps and bruises the falls gave me.  What if Marder left someone behind to make sure that I didn't leave?  What if the guard heard my clumsy body falling down the stairs?
            So when I got down to the kitchen I paused for several moments to listen to the old house, but all I heard were the normal creaks and groans that told me that I was alone.  Then I hopped toward the kitchen door, getting better at this with practice, until I could wrap my fingers around the doorknob.  The knob turned easily and the door opened.
            Now I just had to make it to my car where I always kept a sharp knife under the driver’s seat.  And all the way I said a silent prayer for a frightened Kerry not to worry, Patch was on his way.  And this time I would make sure that Marder didn't outsmart me.

Patch played by Johnny
Photography by Caitiff