TITLE: MISSING IN SEATTLE
AUTHOR: Alison
FEEDBACK: Please! xalison@excite.com or lammasday@yahoo.com
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, of course.
ARCHIVE: Lone Gunmen Mailing List, LoneGunmenFic, 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