TITLE: MISSING IN SEATTLE AUTHOR: DISCLAIMER: Not mine, of course. ARCHIVE: Lone Gunmen Mailing List, anywhere else just ask SPOILERS: Tiny insignificant one for Three of a Kind SUMMARY: Written in honour of the Gunfen Convention in Seattle, 2002 11 pm, Saturday 2 March 2002 Frohike beginning to yawn and to have difficulty keeping his eyes open as he drove the VW van through Seattle. Byers and Jimmy were asleep in the back, and he had asked Langly to sit up front with him and talk to him to try and keep him awake. But they were all tired, tired to death, and when Frohike looked sideways he saw that Langly too had fallen asleep, his head resting against the window. Frohike sighed and reached across to punch Langly in the arm. "Hey, wake up and start looking out for a hotel. If I don't get some sleep soon I'm gonna put us all in the hospital." Langly rubbed his eyes. "Get one of the others to take over." Frohike shook his head. "They're exhausted too. C'mon, we all need the rest. We'll be better if we grab some sleep now and start fresh tomorrow." Langly shrugged and peered out of the window. After a few minutes he called out, "There!" and pointed to a sign. "West Seattle Travelodge." Frohike nodded. "Looks okay" and pulled off in the direction of the hotel, and soon pulled up in the parking lot. "Go see if they've got a room." Langly muttered but got out and disappeared in the direction of the reception area. After a few minutes his figure reappeared in the doorway, signalling a thumbs up and beckoning gesture. Frohike took that as a "yes" and got out, banging on the side of the van to wake the others. Byers and Jimmy emerged, sleepy and yawning and looking around. Jimmy rubbed his stomach. "Hey, are you guys hungry? Why don't I take the van and go get some pizza or something for all of us?" Frohike grumbled but Byers was more patient. "Sure, Jimmy, go ahead" and while Jimmy climbed back into the van and headed off, he and Frohike picked up their overnight bags and headed towards the entrance where Langly was waiting, fidgeting. As they met up with him they could see he was excited. "Hey, this place is crawling with chicks! Some of them are really hot babes. There was this really cute brunette . . ." Byers looked round, alarmed. "Why, what's going on?" "Some kinda convention, the desk clerk said." Byers was worried. "Lucky we're all still in disguise." He ran his hand through his spiky hair, and looked over at Frohike, unfamiliar in glasses and a toupee. Langly looked crestfallen. He'd forgotten he was still wearing the Islamic kufie with his blonde locks concealed under it. He remembered how the girl had stared at him, in appreciation he had thought. "Jeez, she probably thought I was some kind of weirdo." Frohike chuckled. "Maybe she just needed new glasses." Byers was impatient. "C'mon guys, let's just get to our room." But he was still interested enough to look closely at the group of giggling women who came out of a room down the corridor and passed them, talking at the tops of their voices. Langly slapped him on the shoulder. "C'mon Byers, what is it about the word "convention - as if we don't know. Look we know Susanne is not gonna be here." The bearded man smiled. "I know - " and broke off as Frohike yelped in surprise behind them. They turned round to see the smaller man looking in astonishment down the corridor at another group of women who had just passed them. The older man was rubbing his butt in pain. "I bent down to pick up my bag - and one of those women goosed me!" The two younger Gunmen burst out laughing. "Wow, Mel, you must be really tired. You're hallucinating!" Frohike was adamant. "I know what I felt." Byers and Langly headed towards their room, Frohike following behind. Now, if he could only work out which of the women it was . . . ********* Langly and Byers were looking for their room. "It must be down this corridor here." "No, it's not this way. Try this way . . . keep back!" Langly grabbed Byers and pulled him back round a corner as another pair of women came down the corridor towards them. "You're way too jumpy, Langly. They're not going to look at any of us dressed like this." "You never know, Byers. You never know what these chicks get up to when they get in a bunch like this. They can be . . . dangerous, ya know? The . . . um . . . pack instinct, you know, Frohike . . . . Frohike? Mel???? They looked around, panicking. "Mel? Mel, where are you?" They looked back round the corner in the direction they had come. On the floor in the middle of the corridor, lay Frohike's disguising toupee. And a pair of fingerless gloves. ********* "What are we gonna DO? They must have taken him." "Calm down, Ringo. Who took him?" "THEM. You know. THEM." "Which particular THEM, Ringo?" "Well, I dunno. But, we gotta go look for him, John." They stared at each other in consternation. They had found their hotel room and gone to ground like a couple of hunted foxes in a burrow. "Where do we start?" Byers thought hard. "Let's hack into the hotel register, see if there are any names we recognise." Ten minutes later . . . "this is no good. They're probably holding him somewhere on the premises . . . we gotta go look for him." "Yeah . . . look, one of us had better stay here in case he comes back, or till Jimmy turns up." "Okay John, I'll go scout round." Langly paused by the door. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes, okay? Don't open the door to any one else." Twenty minutes later Byers was pacing the room. "Where is he? I'd better go look." He headed out and down the corridor, back towards reception. Turning a corner, he spotted something dark lying on the floor by the wall. He bent down and picked it up with a sense of sick horror. It was Langly's kufie. ********* A short distance down the corridor, a large conference room had a "Private" notice on the door. He put his ear carefully to the door. Female shrieks and giggles came from the other side. Suddenly he was aware of a presence behind him. He turned round. "What are you doing here!" ********* Jimmy knocked for the third time on the hotel room door. "Where are you guys?" Perhaps they had all fallen asleep already. Now, could he remember what Frohike had showed him about picking locks? Five minutes later after a lot of cursing he let himself into the empty room. "Guys?" There were their bags, but the beds were all empty. "Guys?" He almost jumped out of his skin when there was a sharp knock on the door. He was about to open it when something Byers had said came back to him. "Never open the door unless you know who's there." He sidled up to the door. "Yeah . . . who is it?" Dead silence from the other side of the door, broken by shuffling sounds and giggles. Female giggles. "Er . . . guys?" "Open the door, Jimmy." "Er . . . who are you? Where are the guys?" More giggles. "Come out and see, Jimmy." "Er, no . . . I better not." More giggles. "You don't know what you're missing, Jimmy." "Er . . . no thanks all the same." "You'll be sorry, Jimmy." He kept quiet. Maybe they'd go away . . . There was a lot more giggling, then finally silence. After a a long wait Jimmy got up and cautiously opened the door. There was no-one there. He shut the door again and sat down on the bed. "I wonder what they wanted?" END