The only response Sarah Moore could give to being slapped by the woman that had just dragged her all over was stunned silence which was apparently all Kassia wanted.  She watched with wide eyes as a man put a collar on her husband that seemed to electrocute him.  Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to formulate words but she could not manage to get any sound on.  Mrs. Moore sputtered and gasped as these…<i>hooligans</i>shoved her lifeless husband into the back of the van and peeled away.<br/><br/>By now a small crowd had gathered around the middle-aged woman.  Some people, especially the women, were trying to comfort her.  A few others, mostly younger men, had taken it upon themselves to try to chase the van down but Jeremy’s erratic driving made it almost impossible to follow or even catch a license plate number.<br/><br/>The exhausted woman burst into tears from the stress and collapsed to her knees, sobbing into her hands.  Murmurs of calling the police began to travel through the small group that had gathered until finally, one older man took it upon himself to actually place the call.  It took some time before a patrol car actually pulled up but by that point, a woman around Mrs. Moore’s age had managed to calm her down and get her to sit on a nearby bench, soothing her with quiet words about how they would get her husband back and he would be just fine.<br/><br/><hr class="bbc-hr"/><br/>“This is Channel Six Action News coming to you with breaking news.  We have reports of an abduction that may have taken place downtown in front of the Melius building last night.  Witnesses reported seeing a young woman beating a man with a big sign before attempting to kidnap his wife.<br/><br/>Witnesses also reported that a young black woman was struck by a car during a chase in which it appears that she and the woman’s husband were trying to follow the kidnapper.  According to witnesses, the young woman refused medical attention at the scene.<br/><br/>We’ve also received reports that a black van may have been involved in abducting a Mister Thomas Moore.  We are awaiting confirmation from the police on this matter.”<br/><br/>“Tamala, we’ve just received word that some viewers have submitted video footage of these events.”<br/><br/>“Thank you, Dave.  Viewers, we are going to show some of these clips in the hopes that you may recognize any of the people in this video and can provide information to the police regarding this matter.  Please call the police department with any information you may be able to provide that would assist in this investigation.”<br/><br/>A video recorded on a cell phone was played but the vantage point was wrong and it was hard to make out any details due to the position of the shooter.  All that is seen was the back of a dark-haired young woman pulling an older woman through traffic.<br/><br/>“We apologize for the poor quality of this video.  We have just received notice that someone has shared a video from a website called... [Gen]eration [Inform]ative...that is much better quality.  Parents, you may want to have younger children leave the room at this point."<br/><br/>Imogen’s video was shown next, showing Niarah getting hit by the car before getting back up and the view of the potted plant as Gen hid.<br/><br/>“Our last clip tonight might be a little too mature for our younger viewers.  Parents, we highly suggest you have your young children leave the room.”<br/><br/>The next video clip was from another cell phone video.  It was short, showing a dark-haired man jumping out of the back door of a black van and slapping a collar around a middle-aged man with a paunch.  The strange device lit up blue and the older man dropped like a sack of potatoes.  The younger man dragged the body into the back of the van before the woman from before jumped in the front seat and the van pulled away.<br/><br/>“Please tune in to the news at noon for updates on this developing story.”<br/><br/><hr class="bbc-hr"/><br/>The scene in the kitchen was picture perfect.  A couple, packing up and preparing for their life together, both of them sneaking glances at the other and trying to hide goofy grins.  Every so often, she stepped closer to bump him gently with her hip.  They worked together with ease, not getting in each other’s way but working around the other, their bodies in sync as they packed up the rest of Brandon’s kitchen.<br/><br/>Natalie was wrapping the last coffee mug in newspaper when a loud alarm sounded in her head.  The unexpected noise startled her and caused her to drop the mug.  It shattered on the counter, shards and pieces flying everywhere.<br/><br/>“Oh my god, babe!  I’m so sorry!  I know that one was your favorite.  I’ll check Amazon later and order you another one.  It just slipped out of my hand,” she spoke as she began to gather up the bigger pieces of pottery.  The mug had been a present from her to him for their six month anniversary.  Those big blue eyes he loved so much filled with sadness as she picked up the biggest hunk with a big red heart and the words<i>Best Boyfriend <b>Ever</b></i>.  “I’m so sorry..”  As she spoke, she toyed with the edge of the shard, not paying one lick of attention until pain shot through her finger.  Her expression changed to one of bewilderment as she looked down to find herself bleeding from a small cut on her fingertip.<br/><br/>“Oh!  Oh my gosh.. Don’t move.  I don’t want you cutting your feet.  Just let me go clean this up in the bathroom and I’ll be right back,” Nat called over her shoulder as she hightailed it down the hall to the bathroom.  The cut needed to be tended to but she also needed to figure out what that alarm in her brain meant.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.<br/><br/>She closed the bathroom door and locked it before turning the cold water on.  The injured finger was held under the flow of water to rinse the blood away.  Natalie winced at the initial sting before the cold began to numb her finger.  Her eyes began that rapid flickering as she accessed the android database.  The entry she was looking for was flagged for easy retrieval.  Nat groaned inwardly as she realized that Thomas Moore was no longer operable.  His location was unknown but he was definitely offline and an offline android usually meant bad things.  She sighed then reached to turn the water off.  Her wound seemed to have stopped bleeding so she dried it off on the towel hanging on the rack.<br/><br/>Unaware of the absolute debacle that the Moore incident had become, she exited the bathroom and headed back to Brandon.  “I’m okay.  Just a little cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding.”  She rose to her toes to kiss her very tall boyfriend before cleaning up the pieces of the broken coffee mug.  Once that was done, they finished the last little bits of packing.<br/><br/>It was too late at that point to head over to the new place so the decision was made to enjoy one last night in his apartment before they started the next phase in their relationship the next day.  They spent a decent chunk of time taking silly pictures around the apartment, selfies and pictures of the permanent coffee ring on the counter from where she always set her mug down before promptly forgetting about it, the spot in the back of the closet where they’d written ‘Nat + Bran’, themselves in the bathroom mirror that was hung just a hair too high for her and a touch too low for him.  Eventually, they tumbled into bed, tired and tangled with each other, holding hands the way they always did when they slept.<br/><br/>Natalie was the first to wake up the next morning and, like she always did, she grabbed her phone off the nightstand to check Facebook and Instagram and read the news.  Her news feed was full of shares of grainy cell phone videos of an attempted abduction outside of Melius.  A few more taps brought her to the Channel Six page where Imogen’s video was posted along with the other videos that were being broadcast all over the news that morning.  The blonde android exhaled a curse before nudging her boyfriend lightly in the ribs.  “Hey, babe..you have got to see this.  Some chick with a sign, like one of those twirling sign things.  She attacked an older guy with it and then tried to kidnap his wife.  Shit’s crazy.”  At that moment, she had absolutely no clue that the man was Thomas Moore.  It wouldn’t be until later that evening when they were starting to unpack with the television on in the background that she would put two and two together.<br/><br/>She yawned and rolled over to cuddle into him, nuzzling her cheek against his chest.  Fingers began to trail up and down his upper arm as she wedged herself as tightly against his body as she could.  “I was thinking maybe we could get a puppy?”