Chapter 3: Attack

Ayel (choking Kirk): Your species is even weaker than I expected ... you can't even speak!

Kirk: (garbles)

Ayel: What?

Kirk: I've got your gun!

-- Star Trek (2009 Movie)

Wednesday, July 20 2011
Munich, Germany

It was dark when Sabrina Vogel woke up. Someone seemed to be using an impact drill inside her head. She hadn't felt this bad the one time she got dead drunk. And she was pretty sure she didn't drink the day before.

Slowly becoming more alert, she started taking inventory of her body. Cold. Being cold was the first thing she noticed. Okay, that was to be expected when lying around in the open in the middle of the night. She wondered why she did that. Next she noticed a dull ache in her left upper arm. She had a cut, which looked pretty deep, but curiously didn't hurt very much and there was almost no blood. She thought that was probably because she had lain directly on it. She would have to get it cleaned up.

Looking at the wound, the events of the last evening slowly came back to her. Oh, well, she was alive and she knew where she could find Maria, what else was important? She felt the adrenaline rush through her veins and quickly sat up. Bad idea, she decided at once, seeing the world spin before her eyes. She barely managed not to puke. Maybe she might want to take it a little slower.

It took her almost fifteen minutes to clear her head enough to slowly and steadily stand up. She didn't know that of course, having lost everything with the current time on it – namely her wrist watch and her cell phone – but it didn't really matter. Checking her rucksack, she found that almost everything was missing. Not only all her money and papers, but also most of her clothes. On the other hand, she still had the slip of paper where she had noted the directions leading to the area where she hoped to find Maria.

Without money she couldn't use public transport, and with her dirty clothes there was no hope she could hitchhike. That only left going on foot, but she hadn't anything better to do anyway.

For the first half hour she wandered the streets pretty aimlessly, until she found a public information point with a big map. Finding the direction in which to go, she went on her way with much more vigor. Happily she noted that the sky slowly started to brighten.

Neustadt, Germany

Daniel Keller woke up at quarter past five this morning. He felt restless but didn't know why. Sometimes that was a sign that something bad was up, but he didn't know what it could be. Well, more times than not it was just a sign that he might get a cold. Too bad they hadn't found a therapy against that, yet.

Getting up, Daniel moved to the fitness room in the basement. He worked on the machines for about an hour before starting on his daily morning run.

For the first time in living history, Jennifer Maier woke up before the first alarm rang and couldn't go back to sleep. She waited in her bed until the first alarm clock rung, then got up and went into the bathroom, much to the astonishment of her father.

When she joined him at the breakfast table, Gerhard looked at her and thought she looked slightly sick.

"Don't you feel well? You are pale."

"I'm fine. I just couldn't sleep any longer. And I had some weird dreams and woke up often during the night."

"Really, what did you dream about?" He asked.

"I'm not sure, when I woke up I just thought they were idiotic dreams, but I don't remember what actually happened in them.

"You could try writing them down right after waking up; it might help you find out what's going on in your mind."

"Yeah, I actually thought about that. Not sure if I really want to know that – I would probably have to send myself to the psychiatrist afterwards..." she grinned.

"Well, who wouldn't?" he shot back.

"Too true..." she thought.

That day Jennifer arrived at school fifteen minutes early, actually right behind Daniel.

When Daniel entered the school auditorium, he noted the buzz going on around him. He wondered what was happening, usually it meant that either the soccer team had won a game or one of the soccer players had a new girlfriend. He was pretty sure there was no soccer game the day before.

He saw Jo navigating in his direction, but before he could start wondering what she could want of him he noticed her looking at something behind him.

"Hey Jen" she greeted her best friend.

"Good morning Jo, are you better? I missed you the last two weeks, but I didn't think you would be back already?" he heard Jennifer reply.

"Yup, for some reason I had to work hard on the doctor to let me go back to school. Seems he wanted to keep me home for another week, but I wouldn't have survived that."

"I believe you are the only person in school who tries to get out of staying at home. It tends to be the other way around, you know."

"True, but you know me. Sitting around doing nothing doesn't suit me, and a little virus isn't capable of knocking me out for long." Johanna said. It was true, Daniel knew as he listened. Whenever he saw her she was running around doing something. Standing still was a concept completely foreign to her.

"So, have you heard the news?" Johanna asked.

"No, has some soccer player broken up with his girlfriend of the day?" Jennifer said. Daniel grinned, noting he wasn't the only one thinking the soccer mania was a bit much.

"Not really, but it seems Big Blondie has gone missing. She hasn't been seen since she left home yesterday morning."

"Oh? Well, she probably just suddenly forgot the way. Someone will find her in the next city asking for directions to school" Jennifer grinned.

"That's a bit harsh, but you know it actually might be possible" Johanna said.

Thinking about it, Daniel couldn't even remember Big Blondie's real name. She was known for two things. Big tits – well, huge actually. Some people thought she looked good, but Daniel thought it looked pretty obscene. The second thing she was known for was the fact that she was the current girlfriend of the soccer goalie, and had been so for three months, making it a new school record for the whole soccer team. That she wasn't the brightest bulb in the room – independent of who was in the room with her – was also widely known.

"Well, let's go to class, the first gong has sounded." Jennifer said to her friend.

"True. Which leads to the question, why are you here already?"

"Couldn't sleep" was all Daniel could hear as they moved away from him.

Unit Seven HQ, Germany

"Lieutenant Müller?"

"Yes, Sergeant?"

"Something is going on in Neustadt. The police are searching for a school girl that went missing yesterday."

The Lieutenant had told his people to keep an eye on anything unusual in the city Group 19 was running around in, hoping he would hear nothing. Well, there wasn't much hope anyway.

"Get me a copy of the files for the case, please." The Lieutenant told the Sergeant.

"I'm already working on it."

Munich, Germany

By the time noon came around, Sabrina felt thirsty and hungry. Her head hurt. Where was one supposed to find something to drink in this big city without the money to pay for it? She didn't want to steal, and she was sure there were ways to get water for free. All the homeless people in Munich weren't thieves, were they?

For now she saw a public toilet. She shuddered, but didn't see any other choice for the moment. Entering it, she almost fell back when the smell assaulted her. Just great, wasn't there someone cleaning these toilets? Making the mistake of opening the door to the toilet stall, she saw that someone had obviously defecated on the floor next to the toilet bowl. Feeling even sicker, she was somewhat relieved that at least she didn't have to enter that stall.

Her target was the washing basin. It wasn't exactly clean either, but ignoring that she held her head under the faucet and drank the water coming out greedily. She barely managed to avoid puking.

Leaving the public toilet, she fervently hoped that Maria knew of better ways to get to some water.

Unit Seven HQ, Germany

Reading the short file, Lieutenant Müller felt the cold creep up his back. There was nothing in it to tie Group 19 to the case of the missing girl, but he was sure it was one of them anyway.

So, he made a decision that he knew would probably cost him his head – literally.

"Sergeant, get Group 19 here at once. They need to have left Neustadt in two hours."

"Lieutenant, the normal team isn't here yet."

"I know, but it's more dangerous to let them stay there than to let Keller out of our eyes for one day. It's my decision, get going."

"Yes, Lieutenant."

Neustadt, Germany

The message got to the team only seven minutes later. It made the team leader distinctly unhappy. Here he was in paradise, and he hadn't yet had the chance to get himself some girl pussy. Even one of his men had found himself a nice new toy.