Page 42 of Soros
“You mean a brain implant?” Nerix asked.
“Yes. I assume so. Of course, now we don’t rely on anything like that and neither do you Eidrons. But I’m sure there was a time when our ancestors were as technologically limited as humans are now.”
We stood a moment in silence and said nothing while looking at the phone in Lios’ right hand.
“I hate waiting,” Nerix grumped and tapped his foot.
“Me too,” I said.
We didn’t wait long before Lios pressed on his phone again and called our contact person. “Any luck tracking Tania?” he asked.
Nerix and I stayed close even though with our telepathic connection we didn’t have to.
“They’re tracking the phone as we speak and so far, we have a detailed map from the hotel, through SoHo and now around Greenwich Village. They are still moving.”
“Is it Tania? Can you zoom in on her?”
“Zoom in on her? Ehm… no, I can’t even know for sure that she still has her phone. Any kidnapper would know to get rid of it immediately. It could have been picked up by a random person or your target could have dumped it discreetly in a shopping bag belonging to a stranger going in the opposite direction.”
“But if you can track her, then why can’t you zoom in on her and see if she’s still with Star?” Lios asked.
“It’s not that easy. If you can give us photos of her and Star we can run our facial recognition software and see if the thousands a surveillance cameras around Manhattan have picked up something. There are regulations though and it’s time-consuming because of all the false hits that the system comes up with. You would be surprised how many people look alike.”
“We need to get to the last place they were tracked.”
Our contact person answered, “I was just about to send a patrol to search for them but give me your location and we’ll have a car pick you up.”
We looked around. “We’re in front of a store called Starbucks and it’s right next to a Domino’s Pizza.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything. Do you see a street sign or a hotel in the area? Can’t you just send me your location from your phone?”
Lios rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. “We had to ask for help to figure out how to answer this phone. I have no clue how to get it to send you our location. Nothing here works with mental instructions, and we don’t have Zobran here to figure out how to operate such manual low-tech devices.”
Our contact person made a disgruntled sound. “I’m not too technical myself. If it’s too difficult for you, then stop someone and ask them where you are. Preferably a young person who can figure out how to send me your location from your phone. They should know how to do it.”
He was right. We spotted a group of four girls who giggled and spoke in high-pitched voices when they showed Lios how to send his location.
“Are you for real? Who has only three contacts in their phone?” one of them said as they all stood cramped together. A girl with pitch black hair, large loop earrings, and unnaturally long eyelashes navigated the device while her friends looked over her shoulder and gave us side glances.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” one of them asked me with a shy smile.
“No. We’re just visiting.”
“Are you from Italy?”
“No,” I said and gave them a polite smile to end our interaction. But the girls didn’t take the hint.
“Let us guess where you’re from,” one of her friends said and tossed her long red hair over her shoulder. “He looks like he’s from Ireland or Scotland,” she said and pointed to Nerix, who kept his focus on the phone and didn’t pay attention. Instead, he asked, “Did it send the location yet?”
“Yes. Your friend has your location now,” the black-haired girl with the large earrings answered. “Is it a woman?”
Lios gave her a surprised look. “Why do you ask?”
All four of them giggled. “Just curious. If you’re tourists, we can show you around.”
I had lived on Earth before and so I knew the effect that we Eidron men had on human women, but Nerix and Lios seemed taken by surprise that four teenage girls would flirt with them.
“Tell us where you’re from,” the red-haired girl said with a huge grin. “Is it South Africa or Australia? Come on… you can tell us.”
