I'm worried.
I haven't heard from my friend for 4 days now and I think he may be in big trouble.
His name is Allan, he has been working at the University of Technology in Sydney for the last five years, at least that is what he told me. I tried to call him there yesterday and they told me that he has not been there for nearly 2 years. Apparently he was asked to leave because he was more interested in working on his own projects than what he was employed to do at the University. In those 2 years he has hardly been seen anywhere outside of the small garage that he calls home. I would see him every month or so and we would get together and discuss music and movies and life in general. So it appears that I am the person who would know him best, and I didn't even know he was unemployed for the last 2 years.
He lived in one of the southern suburbs of Sydney in a converted garage in the back yard of a house owned by a sweet little old lady called Mrs Osborn. It was just one big room with a bed up one end, a kitchen in the middle and his workbench and equipement down the other end. It always used to smell of solder, like he had soldered so many electrical connections that the smell of molten metal and plastic had just oozed into every corner of the garage. There was no built in bathroom so he would have to use the one attached to the rear of Mrs Osborn's house and, as well as paying Mrs Osborn very little rent, each week he could leave what little laundrey he had on her back step and she would wash all his clothes for him. Quite a sweet arrangement I thought and just as well if he had been unemployed for 2 years. He did have a lot of savings though from his university salary and the fact that he never went out. When ever I would come to Sydney to visit it would take me hours to convince him to come and see a movie or a band. That is where I first met Allan, nearly 10 years ago. He was this nerdy looking guy sitting behind the mixing desk doing the sound for "The Late Train", a great little bluesey rock band I used to follow. We struck up a conversation about sound mixing and blues music and our friendship developed from there. We have been friends ever since, even when I moved out of Sydney, keeping in constant contact.
Until now that is. He said that he would meet me the day after our testing of the time
machine/recorder thingy. Then I could not reach him by phone. Then I find out he does not work anymore where he said he worked. So I went back to his garage today after dropping him back there the other night after our first test. He was not there so I went to the house and asked Mrs Osborn if she knew where he was. As soon as I asked she started crying and shaking and stumbled back into her front room into the nearest chair.
"Oh dear David, I don't know, I don't know. They took him, they were so loud, and angry and not nice people."
"Who?" I asked, "What happened?"
"I heard Allan come home late the other night," that must have been the night of the test, "and an hour or two later these men came bursting in and ran through the house looking for him. I thought they were police but they talked like Americans. They found him in the garage and dragged him out to their car. They told me they had to take him away because he was making drugs in the garage. He isn't into drugs, is he?"
"He is an electronics nerd," I replied, "He's never had anything to do with drugs."
"It all looked like one of those violent movies with the men and the shouting and the guns... they had guns, David, I thought they were going to shoot poor Allan."
"Guns? This is serious, what did Allan do?"
"Nothing he could do, they were too strong for him. They kept yelling at him and pointing their guns at him and dragged him away. I called out his name and he yelled something back at me."
"What did he say?"
"It was strange, all the shouting and guns and commotion and it sounded like he said your name."
"My name?"
"He yelled out to me and said to tell David not to give up the guitar, at least that is what it sounded like."
So you can see why I'm worried. I don't know what to do
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