Eric was pleased to see how efficiently they had been deployed and thought that this next phase of operations had started off well. As he took to monitoring the status of each of the robots in stealth invisibility mode where they walked through the city unseen, he admired the progress he had personally made for this particular capacity. Previous versions of this technology had relied on what was now seen as ancient methods to hide the robots by using refraction and reflection of surroundings based on projections onto the outer surface of each robot. The technology first deployed during the identification microchip scheme, had been superseded by a new material for construct of the robotics where the outer surface contained nano programmable light refraction properties for rendering it invisible. No active systems were required to maintain each robot out of the sight of people - it was simply a characteristic of their build. For any purposes relating to requirements where they were needed to be seen, each robot would project a holographic skin in any configuration the near autonomous robot deemed fit. Eric had played with the development of this characteristic, visualising some of the worst apparitions he could muster as programs for holographic skin projection, in order to scare the wits out of any person who was unfortunate enough to be in its presence. But after consideration and realignment of his thought projections by his nano mechanics, he had developed three distinct versions, which to anyone in witness would still ensure the robot appeared sufficiently menacing in order to obtain strict compliance.
The robots were operating with their maximum range capacity to scan for signs of John’s DNA. At two hundred and twenty three miles, they were able to reach as far as Buenos Aires to the east, and almost to the outskirts of Santiago to the west. When the data began to display on his holographic bank, at first it was just a series of co-ordinates and location beam bearings. Each robot was designed to send a forty-five degree wide beam for scanning, which panned out to significant width over the two hundred odd miles. The first readouts were nominal with nothing really of interest. It was only when one of the robots showed a fleeting positive result for less than a second, that Eric took real notice. Almost before it had registered, the positive identification data had disappeared, so he engaged the data recording sequence to analyse the result.
There, floating in full three-dimensional projection in front of Eric, was John’s DNA sequencing. His delight was only momentary before his nano mechanics influenced him to proceed with further analysis and to respond.
John and Tobias had made it safely across the border between Argentina and Chile, using the dummy identification devices he had made back near Omaha at the farm. When they arrived in Santiago, they immediately caught a public transport south for the two-hour trip to Concepcion. Upon arrival, they boarded another transport and went straight to the coast to find the port and then to make enquiries about working on a fishing boat. They were fortunate to secure work on a vessel leaving that evening.
“Ah, you are just the two men I need. Fortune has indeed smiled upon me today…and maybe for you. I am in much need for two hard working men to help me with my final catch before the winter currents come. It is perhaps fate, yes?”
“Maybe,” John replied. “Tobias and I would be willing to do whatever work you have. We are both fit and can endure a lot of hardship. So if things get rough, we will handle it.”
“Oh, they will get rough I can assure you of that! Meet me here in two hours. We will go over a few things and depart as the sun sets.”
When they arrived back at the dock, Tobias and John were introduced to the only other person to crew the vessel aside from the captain. He was a dour looking man without any sense of happiness or openness, and merely grumbled a hello with his short hand shake.
“Ok. We are going well off shore on this trip. The fish are said to be running a long way out this time, so we will be far from land. The shoals are running from the south to the warmer waters north of Peru. Are you good with being far out to sea? I hope you are because you told me you can handle rough things.”
“We are good,” Tobias replied. “Let’s get going then shall we.”
“Just a minute. Help me finish fuelling up my boat. We don’t have many of those fancy new electric power cells in these parts, so I need to run a few of the older fuel cells and they take a while to charge.”
As the boat left the port, three scouter roots and five military HyperJets landed in Santiago, where the robots were immediately put in scanning mode. When John helped secure one of the nets that had worked its way loose ninety minutes after they had left port, one of the scanner robots was re-deployed to Concepcion. Thirty minutes after it had landed inside the transport ship, it was operating with its forty-five degree scanner beam sweeping the city. The beam covered the suburban areas within minutes without result.
This baffled Eric for a few minutes, as he was sure the readings for Santiago had been correct, and that by taking the initiative as suggested by his nano mechanics, the additional analysis of Concepcion, would ensure all prospective destinations for John Matheson were covered. He could not determine why John could not be found until his nano mechanics considered that John might be on a sea faring vessel. He instructed the robot to move to the coast and scan out to sea in an instant, but again, there were no positive results. Eric was at a loss, but not entirely. He had almost cornered John and he knew he was not far away. With this data, his internal robotics instructed him to consider focusing his search in the area and out to sea, whilst accounting for all viable outcomes resulting in John being aboard a vessel out to sea.
As it is and has been, co-incidence has often seen as being appropriate for the time and within intention, where it flows like the river of consequence to the entanglement of quantum particles and beyond. Further then to what some say is miniscule, and then in a similar lineal vision, to the largest of manifestations be they stars, or galaxies and more. At the time of the experience, one is left to wonder why and to wonder how – putting it down to chance devoid of influence. But when science begins to study the notion of influence, even at the sub atomic spectrum, the mere intention of study, bears influence upon that which is studied. Erratic matter and energy, becomes fluent in a more lineal form, for it is this form where presumption resides and therefore creates influence.
When consequences and events seem to arise from this co-operative creation of incidents, in most perspectives, they are cast into the realm of understanding with the idea of little understanding actually in existence, yet, they are present, and so they are more than just the mere occurrence of something seen as a chance, for chance is not so much a construct emanating from nowhere. It becomes apparent due to the elemental flows beneath the applied understanding, to make itself known.
Humans have largely played their role in learning as they are shown these incidences throughout the generations, and yet, minds immeasurably unbound, discern these as measure bound to the limits of their minds. In itself, this is a paradox, for the infinite knows no boundaries and so too there is limitlessness within for within includes all seen as outward, as both are the one and same progression of natural elemental flow. For John and Tobias, their voyage upon the seas was one such progression as they travelled first from Mendoza, to Santiago, then to Concepcion, and then beyond continuing out to sea. Collectively, these events led to their evasion of those pursuing them, though this mostly involved John, for they were not after Tobias. When they rode upon the forms unseen in construct, other than the light projected by the water beneath their vessel as waves, they were fortunate in their quest to endure and their quest of intent – to implicate no person or no thing, other than themselves for what they intended their outcomes to be and not to be. Such outcomes were yet the next progression. And…with this next progression, they were successful in delivering it to themselves and to their captain, as they dragged the net containing the first catch of fish being what all the men had intended to realise when they had set out from port.
Whilst they realised theirs, so too
did their adversary realise his. With the all the swiftness his nano mechanics could enable, Eric strode through his mind, strode through his decisions, and then strode onwards, issuing commands to the officers under his charge. Within the time it had taken to complete his directives, the robots had re-gathered and taken again to flight. Such was their capacity that the open seas beneath, proved as no hindrance during their preparation to take the vessel. And in the heart of the man behind their acts of forthcoming deprivation, there was not really so much as a heart, but a machine. Inside the vortex central to the sustenance of humanity, and central to the connection to soul, resided the tiny unseeable machines, and machines are always without heart – even if they take the machine form to create one.
John and Tobias, nor the other two men, could see what was lurking a mere one hundred feet above them. They had no notion through audible awareness, of the inner workings of their soon to be captors – for the robot was silent, yet menacing. It was without warning that one of them appeared on deck, startling them almost beyond belief. And it was without any means that they resisted, for resistance was only to abandon the vessel, which was clearly impractical so far away from land. Whilst all had done what they could to sustain themselves, both through escape and through catching fish, there was nothing they could do now as the robot seized them and then flew them back inside of their transport ship.
Now, there had been co-operation to create incident on many fronts. The escape, the work aboard the fishing boat found so easily, and also, the work carried out by Eric, where he manipulated the robot into position after finding them via the sequence of events leading to the very moment. To each of them, this was unreal. Their captor was unseeable, yet it held them. Their ascent seemed without power as is normal for upward thrust, and now they were held in some type of place where they could barely work out what it actually looked like, such that it was a place in pseudo flux – a place neither here nor there, yet everywhere.
What was this machine, this device of menace where its character was not seen, yet certainly felt both physically and in their hearts…and souls. How on Earth had it found them and why, two of the men asked. Simply…what was it? How was it? And where was it?
Tobias too felt the amplification of sorrow that seemed to emanate from outside of them, yet permeated them to their core. He could sense his own type of discontent too, as he thought of his dear friend John, and of what may be in store for him as time progressed. His own self was also in disarray as the unknown in such circumstances, can often lead to apprehension bordering on fear. Tobias was not one for so much fear in these times, as he may have had in the past – his endurance and the words from Chan had helped him.
Then, what of the others near Arequipa? They would be expecting the triumphant return of both him and John in around four weeks, where then, they would all be able to live peacefully on the farm for as long as they could. How much their dismay would be, when the two men failed to show, and this added further to the internal pressure Tobias felt. Such a sinking feeling was not like anything they would experience had the fishing boat gone down – it was far more eternal in essence, yet it would not last forever. Eternal was his heart, as was those he loved, yet the expectations had not delivered what his heart had told his mind, and so Tobias began to question if there was any validity of the strength within himself.
When he cast a glance to John who was just sitting there as if he too was experiencing similar dissociation, Tobias could see as if he was reading his mind. John was preparing himself already for what they would do to him and to the others, and for devising a means of escape.
In times years before, Chan had recognised the strength of the prevalent co-incidental nature of progression. Then as is now, it was at play mostly unknowing and perhaps unwilling to the conscious mind, yet apparent through outcomes. Intentional elemental alignment had served in the coming together of friends long lost. It had manifested the events carrying forth the circumstances leading to both the rescue of the others, and of the Torus from the hands of a maniac. And in construction of yet further progression, their escape led to the Agent’s actions, and the authorities reactions. In consequence then, it had come to pass leading to the pursuit of John as a matter of urgency, and so the series of events were progressive in both sense – to those seeking alignment as a whole, and to those as captors and of menace, who sought alignment for control.
The transport streaked high above the long southward stretch of the South American continent as it reached for it nominal altitude. Then as it was stationary sixty thousand feet above the backbone of the Andes, its officer in charge of flight direction took a moment to consider what he was to deliver to his superiors, and of the recommendations he would receive for his quest to become a trans-human of similar values to Eric Gunter. With a smirk of satisfaction, he turned to the holographic control array, positioned his finger over the forwards thrust engine control, and then immersed it within the projection to propel the craft beyond the continent at over five thousand miles per hour.
Chapter 32
The Agent knew of the Torus in proximity, but he was unable to determine precisely where it was in location. His re-built amplifier provided an indeterminate readout response to the signals he was sending out, indicating it was somewhere below him as he orbited the Earth high above South America.
Beyond his knowledge was the apprehension of John, his more ardent target of hate, and so he was still of the mind, wherever it was presently, to seek out and to take the man as his own personal advisor on technology. As for that former superior bitch, he would give her the last vestige of patience he could endure, before he subjected her to his type of futility through oblivion beyond oblivion. Nothing came close in his senses, to the extraction of soul, and to the extraction of self, he would force upon her, and oh, how he would so dearly enjoy her demise – her utter despair, and her utter becoming unto nothingness.
A quick manic decision resulted in the spaceship suddenly descending from orbit, with the Agent instructing it to engage the automated re-entry sequence. On a trajectory over the South Atlantic Ocean, it streaked through the sky, before he embarked on a reverse angle back to South America through the atmosphere. Within minutes, he was following the eastern coastline of the continent, beginning south of Buenos Aires. For the day he continued to scout along the fringe of South America, looking for a more precise reading from his amplifier. But none became apparent, and this only served to hasten his rise into yet another bout of maniacal anger.
Brazilian authorities were watching him as he flew back and forth through their skies a few times. They had HyperJets on standby in case the Agent descended to an altitude where he could cause damage to their people or their systems, which was precisely what he did.
His first vent was to sweep low over the capital – a city still a stronghold for the authorities, and destroy what he could of the eight interlinked high-rise towers. Simultaneously, his amplifier charged each laser bolt with a virus aimed at destroying the data systems maintaining the operations of each tower. As blazes erupted over one hundred floors above the streets below, the automated fire fighting systems failed to engage. On his second run, he directed his aim at the military airport on the fringes of the city, destroying three HyperJets before they could ascend to the sky to give chase. When he saw two others take a steep incline on a heading directly for him, he considered them as worthy opponents – worthy of his destructive intentions. They came firing all their laser cannons in the hope of diverting him away, knowing their firepower was useless for destroying the spaceship. The Agent laughed as the bolts hit his craft, causing only a slight jolt here and there, and then he laughed again as he watched both of them explode into fireballs as his laser canons struck. In a flash of maniacal mood change, he suddenly took to being serious, abruptly turning his spaceship around to head back into the city and wreak further havoc.
“How dare you even consider challenging me you pathetic fools,” he said calmly as he eye
d the high-rise again in his sights. This time he carefully aimed his weapons, destroying three of the towers and sending them cascading to the ground. When again, a sudden mood change erupted within him, he turned and left the scene entirely, heading directly west to recommence his search for the Torus.
Within thirty minutes he was in the sky above northern Peru, where he once again, began to send out signals from his amplifier. When he reached the coast over Mollendo, his amplifier began to sing to him. It vibrated and resonated with a high-pitched scream, as if it was calling to become whole with a song one could only describe as sounding of misery. Another sequence and he narrowed the readouts to show the Torus was within a one hundred mile radius of his present location, and that was as accurate as it could determine where it was. He would have to do the rest himself, by making low fly overs of the entire area at an altitude of a few hundred feet, so he could obtain a more defined reading and pinpoint its location to within a few miles. Where it sang to him with its highest pitch in screaming song, he knew he would have the result he sought.
Höllenbadt: Book two of the Torus Saga Page 29
