To a new life and a new world

[koran]

Herena pushes Teika to the side suddenly, grabs the pistol suddenly and backs against the wall so everyone is all in front of her holding the pistol up at Marken and Paul. "Get away from him," she almost growls. "I just saw him put something in his pocket!"

[koran]

Leyd grabs his kids and backs away as fast as he can, as does Dave. Paul looks paniced untill he realises the gun isnt pointed at him and backs away too putting his hand in his pocket. He pulls out a small metal object, a key.

Teika says, "Give me my gun. If you have an issue then let it be brought forth, but not by force." As she does she takes a step towards Herena. As Herena's eyes flicker to Teika Marken jumps at her in an inhuman leap (literally about 6-8m forward). Teika having moved slightly in his path gets hit in the side and knocked to her knees. Marken, slightly out of control impacts against Herena grabbing the gun as she fires a shot, which misses, passing over his right shoulder, and they fall to the floor holding the pistol.

[koran]

Herena takes a hand off the pistol and elbows Marken in the face. Pushing his shoulder against her Marken yanks hard, pulling the pistol out of Herenas hands. He pulls out the clip and throws the gun to the nearby Teika.

"I know you're not going to believe this, but it's the truth" he says, "I have no idea how that key got into my pocket, so understandably, I tried to get it away from myself. I'm not the murderer. Search me, my room, everywhere I've been in the past 24 hours. Trust me, you will find nothing. That's all I have to say. If you find something, I'll come quietly. That's how sure I am."

[koran]

"Why wouldnt you just tell us? Why put it in my pocket?" asks Paul.

"Shoot him!" shouts Kitty at Teika.

[koran]

Marken turns to Paul andwith an apologetic look says, "You happened to be the closest, and you had already been checked. If you hadn't been checked, I wouldn't pick you, simply because that would put you in the hotseat. Where I am now as a matter of fact." To Kitty he says, "You know, I am the one with the ammo. And if she were to try and reload, I'd...."

At that you all hear a barely audible sliding of metal against metal and see Teika with her hands behind her back. Marken jumps at her, again a vastly inhuman distance concidering he does it from standing on the spot.

Unfortunatly for Marken, Teika is ready and as he impacts against her she rolls backwards with it, kicking him over her and coliding with a wall. Rather gracefully she rolls up and backing against the wall finishes loading the pistol with a spare clip and backs away towards the wall opposite from Marken waving the pistol at the whole group. Leyd automatically steps forward in front of his children who let out a scared moan.

"OK, everybody stop," Teika demands. I've had about enough of this. My turn for some questions."

[koran]

"Now are you going to shoot him?!" asks Kitty sarcastically while backing away from Marken.

"Maybe we should just all calm down," says Paul, looking at the whimpering children sheltering behind their father.

Marken looks at the gun, clearly concerned by it"If your going to ask me questions, don't make me do it at gunpoint. Just put that thing down!"

Holding the gun pointed at marken but glancing at Dave, Teika says, "Since you say you have no idea as to how the key came to be on your person, is it possible that Dave hid it on you when getting you from your room? And would you care to explain how you just performed these acrobatics? Don't try anything else or I will not hesitate to shoot."

She then turns to Herena and Paul and says, "Perhaps you should continue the search while everyone remains nice and calm and makes no sudden moves."

[koran]

"So who are we searching first?" asks Herena.

Teika says to Marken, "When I can be certain there will be no more theatrics by anyone, especially yourself, then I'll put this away, though I gotta say trust levels are pretty low in this room right now." Then to Herena and Paul, "Finish the search and we'll see."

[koran]

Dave looks offended and says to Teika, "Why would I put the key in his pocket? Even if I was the murderer, which Im not, giving it to someone who was about to be searched would be stupid as the blame could be put on me."

Marken looks at everyone, "I used to enter small competitions for money. After a while, you grow stronger. I also have some performance enhancing drugs, but I just had the last ones while in my room. I don't know what came into me when I took them, but they let me do things no normal person can do. This combined with my rather good health and practice lets me jump and do the athletics I just did."

[koran]

Herena steps towards and starts searching Kitty while Paul searches Leyd.

Leyd has nothing and as soon as Paul is finished his children run to him clutching at his legs.

Herena finds nothing untill she gets to Kitty's right arm and takes a quick step back. "She's hidden something up there!"

[koran]

Dave looks from Marken to Teika and says, "He's lying."

Teika asks Marken, "Performance enhancing drugs you say? Are they injectable? Do you have syringes on board? How performance enhancing are they, other than what we've seen? What else can they allow you to do?" Then more generally, "Ok Kitty, you still got the spike? Leyd, I'm sorry but the kids are next. Just in case..."

[koran]

Marken smiles. "They were like capsules. I guess I was worried about this murderer, so I took my last ones. They can increase the power of my senses and increases my muscle strength for pretty much everything in my body. My heart beats faster, somewhat like an adrenaline rush. If you take too much, it will kill you though, so I was just saving some to get some quick money when we would get here. Not gonna make much of a difference. It lasts say... 3 or 4 days before the effects are completely gone. Then, I'll have to take a nice long rest because my body will have been in overtime. In the meanwhile, I have no need for sleep and I should be able to hold off pretty much anything short of a gun."

Herena and Paul start walking towards Leyd and his children but stop when he steps in front of them and says, ""No way... No one is ever getting thier hands on my kids... Theyve been through enough withought you guys feeling them for weapons... Honestly does it look like any of them would know how to use a weapon?"

[koran]

"He's got a point," says Paul. "Im not sure I could easily do that much damage with that pole, how could they?"

"They're just children!," adds in Marken. "If you want to be absolutely sure, just search their rooms. Don't actually pat them down. They've been under enough pressure already, and I'm amazed they haven't broken down entirely."

[koran]

"How are you not caring about the fact that Marken is lying about this 'drug' he's been using?" asks Dave. "I dont know about you but after this long of trying to watch people bluff at poker I can tell when someone is lying and he most definetly is!"

[koran]

"I'm not asking to search the children because i believe they did anything," explains Teika, "I want them searched, because as we have seen, things can be hidden or passed off to other people, an aware adult no less. I'm sure they would rather be searched now than having to confront their, murdered father in the near future. So do it. And Marken may be lying, but why not anyone else, I have heard nothing credible yet. So what is the solution?"

[koran]

"Not that I want to point fingers," says Paul. "But if Marken has drugs that make him stronger, or whatever it is that makes him stronger, shouldn't he be the prime suspect in Captain Relans murder? I mean it'd take alot of strength to put a metal bar that far into someones head, I dont think most of us could do it. Herena, did you know any reason Marken and Relan might have fallen out? Or anyone?"