‘I can see what you are thinking. I can explain. This room is a sealed unit. When the doors close, then it is impenetrable. It is totally safe in here. The room is swept from the inside almost continually, to make sure that we are unheard. We have developed this as part of our defences. We believe that we can discuss anything in here and not have it picked up from outside the planet.’
‘I will go with you and see what you can glean from my systems. I think I will need all the help I can get, if I am going to redeem myself and get The Keeper back. That is the only way I can see that we will be able to restore The Balance of the Universe. That is if we get the opportunity to do so.’
CHAPTER 72 VEE AND BAR
Vee is there near the chute, as Bar lets her know what his intention is. He has decided that he is going to try to give her the opportunity to escape. She has to trust his judgement on this. He has obviously decided that he is going to try to escape too and at the same time give her as much protection as he can, so she can try too. This means that the transport part is going to be abandoned, but that is a small price to pay for freedom and the chance to continue with their mission. She can’t see enough through the gap to be able to see the cage as it is brought forward, but she can make out some of the soldiers standing in a circle. That gives her a good idea of where Bar is located.
Then all hell lets loose, as Bar seizes his moment and makes a run for it. She sees the chaos that he is creating. The circle of soldiers dissolves as they turn into a chase. Bar has obviously darted this way and that to start with, because the soldiers in her view twist and turn for a few seconds. As Bar escapes, the soldiers follow in his direction. Vee knows that she has to make her move now.
There isn’t quite enough room for her to get through the gap. She can’t slide the metal sheet so she pushes it over, hoping that no one is there the other side watching it. She knows the dogs have gone chasing Bar, so it is only the soldiers she has to look out for.
As the sheet falls over she sees that there are two soldiers standing by the hedge in front of her. It is obvious that they have heard a noise, but they haven’t worked out what it is yet. She slips out of the chute and decides she cannot afford the time to close it. She needs to get away first; there may be an opportunity to come back later to close the chute.
It is her movement that the soldiers notice, but their reactions are far too slow as she glides over the ground, making for the hedge further over from where they are standing. The soldiers are not quite sure what they are seeing, as they move from their place and try to follow Vee as she makes for the hedge.
Vee runs in and is lost to their vision. They spend a few minutes searching and prodding in the hedge trying to see where she has gone. Vee quickly moves along the far side of the hedge to the place where Bar has put the items. Vee knows she will not have long, but this is an opportunity that is too good to miss in the circumstances. There is no way she is going to be able to retrieve much, but she will be able to retrieve some items. She quickly gets to the items and starts picking out the prime parts. She can hear the soldiers searching the hedge a few yards further down. Thankfully they have taken the decision that she must have gone away from where they were standing. One of the soldiers has gone twenty or so yards further down. He is watching intently there, in the hope she will be going in his direction.
Vee has got as much as she can manage for now, which isn’t really a great deal. Bar would be able to carry more, but something is better than nothing. She goes through the hedge and takes a wide arc in the next field, trying to keep as low as she can in case she gets spotted. She decides to test her luck a little, so dumps the pieces she has in a pile in the hedge and goes back for a few more pieces. By the time she reaches the hedge, the soldiers have returned to guard that section of hedge again. It is too risky to even try to grab one piece, so she turns round to go back. Just a she does so some soldiers return from giving chase to Bar. The two by the hedge shout out, that something else has come out from the chute. They go over and show where she went when she came out. The soldiers immediately get on the radio to report this.
Vee dashes into the hedge and picks up two or three more important pieces which would be better to have if possible. She then runs out the other side. The soldiers are gathering by the hedge and one or two are trying to get through the hedge. Vee drops to the ground as she sees this and crawls her way away. The grass is long enough to conceal her as she crawls. She would have been spotted if she had remained standing.
She makes it to her first pile of bits unnoticed.
Bar dives into the ditch at full speed. He nearly falls foul of the change of level, but manages to keep on his feet. Next second he is in the hedge. The other side of the hedge is a fence. He scrambles through the hedge and through the fence, safe in the knowledge that the dogs, even if they can get through the hedge, are not going to be able to get through the fence. He does not stop there but keeps going. He need now to circle round and try to get into a place somewhere along the line, from the mound to where they have hidden their craft. He is hoping that Vee has managed to get out of the craft and evade capture. He very much doubts she will be able to retrieve any of the parts he has brought out earlier, but hopefully she will be safe.
The dogs are barking around the place he disappeared into the hedge. Bar, as quickly as he can, makes his way round the edge of the field. He keeps as close to the hedge as he can. When he has got to the point he is making for, he looks through towards the mound. There are a lot of soldiers prodding around in the hedge near the mound. That cheers him up as that tells him Vee has escaped and is still free.
CHAPTER 73 MARIO & TZ
Mario wakes in the morning to find that he is alone. He almost wonders if it has all been a wondrous dream. He knows it wasn’t, because he can smell her on him. He can smell her on the pillow, where she’d laid her head beside his. She had not spoken again after those few words.
Mario is the last one down. Maria brings his breakfast over to him. She gives him the briefest and slightest of smiles. No one else notices and he is certain that no one else is aware that they have been together in the night.
Breakfast over; they go into the yard to make their final preparations. Ma gives Mario a cell phone and a CB radio. She shows him how to work them. Maria is beside him and touches his arm while Ma runs through it all. He senses that she knows how to work both of them anyway and this is just for show.
Thirty minutes later, both groups are ready to leave. Mario is surprised how little contact TZ has had with him this morning. She is concentrating on doing her bit of loading of the trucks. There seems to be a mighty amount of firepower being loaded on to them. In all Ma & Buzz appear to own four armored trucks, all of various ages and condition. The one thing they all have in common though, is the power of their engines. What little Mario knows about engines lets him know these ones are powerful.
After the others have left, Mario and Maria walk back into the house to wait. Maria disappears upstairs after a while, so Mario takes the opportunity to go out into the yard and have a look at some of the outbuildings. There are no vehicles left in any of them. What had obviously been their arsenal has the door wide open. When he goes inside there is virtually nothing left. It would appear they have taken absolutely as much as they can with them. He almost gets the feeling that they don’t think they will return. He is feeling a little bit upset with TZ, as she had not even come across to give him a kiss goodbye. When he had seen that she wasn’t going to, he had walked over to her. But she had jumped into the vehicle with Buzz and he had driven straight off. She hadn’t looked at him or anything. Something has changed between them overnight and things will never be the same again. It has always been going to happen, but it is never expected when it does.
He is still mooching around the barns when he is joined by Maria. She walks up to him and stands in front of him. She leans in and places a soft and delicate kiss on his lips. The warmth and desire rises quickly in him, so he resp
onds eagerly. She takes hold of his hand and walks away towards the door, across the yard and back into the house. She leads him upstairs and along to his room, where she pushes him down onto the bed before quickly undressing first herself, followed by Mario. He reaches out to pull her down onto the bed; there is no resistance.
A couple of hours later they get dressed and go downstairs. There are a few messages coming in that people are getting close to being in place. He acknowledges them all; ticking them off the list Ma has left for him. There are no place names next to the names, so he has no idea whereabouts they are. The only two he knows are Ma and Buzz. He knows exactly where they are going.
Maria has taken her phone and gone outside, while Mario is busy with his acknowledgments. Mario has no section on his list to tick about Maria’s contacts. In fact, although Maria to all intents and purposes is one of them, now they have a true cause to follow; it appears they are not including her in everything they do. Mario finds that all a little strange. He wonders if they too are scared of her, in the same way her tribe had been. He feels no fear for her.
He is still busy working the phone when she returns to his side. She kisses his cheek as she sits down.
‘How are things with the ones you are activating?’
She leans in closer to him and whispers in his ear.
‘They are getting ready, some of them that is. They want to see something happening first on a wide scale, before they take a chance exposing their true feelings. There is so much pent up hatred and resentment in our people, but they have been suppressed and put down for so long that they are careful before they will take any action. It will happen but not today, or at least certainly not in the first wave of action.’
‘How long have you been able to speak?’ he asks her.
‘For many years; but it has not been a good thing to let anyone know. They would have asked me so much more if they knew. I still cannot talk out loud for long, but that will come when I have someone to talk to all the time. When I have someone to talk to every day and every night. I have been waiting for most of my adult life for you to find me.’ She leans over and kisses him fully on the lips.
A few more messages come through and Mario ticks them off.
‘There are only two or three messages left to come now’ he says when he has finished responding to them.
‘Then we will have to go.’
‘But they said we need to be here to coordinate things.’
‘We can do that from anywhere’ she whispers back ‘but I am not comfortable staying here. They are known to the police and everyone here. If something kicks off, which it is going to do, they will be round here before you can blink. They know that too. So as I said, as soon as the messages are in then we will be leaving. There is a car round the back.
CHAPTER 74 SPIRIT
Spirit backs away from the control room door, before turning round in the direction he has been told to. He walks towards the door he has been ordered to go towards, but stops half the way there. The android in front of him is armed, with his weapon aimed directly at his chest. It is hard to see if there is any sort of safety catch on, but Spirit suspects not. He turns round towards the android that has been showing him round the craft. He is now standing nearer the control room door, but not quite having reached it yet. One of the androids that had been in the control room is now visible coming through the doorway. Spirit can only assume that the other one is going to be right behind him coming out too. He keeps his hands at his side, while he tries to decide the best course of action.
There is nowhere for him to go, without going down the corridor as far as the door he has been told to go to. The problem with him going that far being that is the room they want him to go to. It is already a room he has searched and he is trying to remember what is in there. There is nothing of note in there, so either there must be someone else in there or maybe another android. The alternative to that is that it is the room they have selected to use to keep him in. Whatever way it is, he does not want to comply with their instruction. He is in a bad enough position as things stand. He does not want to become any more restricted than his current position. His guide has no weapon that he knows of, so there are three he has to be concerned about he believes. Plus the unknown factor of the room he is supposed to be going to.
‘You need to keep going to the next door. You have stopped in the wrong place’ he is told as he turns round.
‘I don’t want to go in there’ he replies slipping his thumb back into position in the flap of his pocket. He moves his other hand as a distraction and leans it against the wall of the corridor.
One of the androids is now out of the control room and he can see that the second one is about to follow him out. The first one is starting to move across the front of his guide, effectively cutting off his view. The first one out of the control room is walking facing across the corridor. That means that at the particular second he crosses in front of the guide, the only one with a weapon actually aimed at him is the android who is now behind him in the corridor.
Spirit does not let the first android out of the control room completely block out the guides view, before he slips his hand into the pocket. The pistol automatically slips into his hand with the firing button immediately nestling against his index finger. He does not have time to remove his now pistoled hand from the pocket, nor does he want to do things that way. He does not want to alert the android at all if possible. The shot will be blind, but he is confident that as long as the android has not shifted position, which he doubts he has, then he will take him straight out.
He flips the pistol to fire behind him and fires. There is no sound of fire, but the laser beam sends the pellets through the back fibres of his pocket, taking out the android a millisecond later. He hears the android disintegrating as he flips the pistol round to face forward. The android ahead of him is turning towards him and setting to fire. The guide is reaching for something too. The other android is now exiting the control room at speed. His weapon is already firing indiscriminatingly as he speeds out.
There is no time for Spirit to take his hand out of his pocket to fire. This restricts his movement and angle of fire to some degree, but he has no choice. He knows he has to move out of the line of fire somehow as he is a sitting duck with two, possibly three weapons turning in his direction. One of them is already firing wildly. There is no point going sideways to either side of the corridor. The obvious choice would be to drop to the floor, but the android that is already firing appears to have pre-empted that choice. Spirit takes none of these options. He automatically knows that there is only one way to give him the best chance of survival and to give the greatest surprise to his opponents. Without having to brace or collect himself, he pushes off the floor just in time to avoid the android fire. He goes vertically and starts firing the millisecond his feet leave the ground. Fortunately the ceiling is about five feet above him, so he doesn’t have to worry about hitting his head, straight away that is. He does, though, have to stay vertical so that he can fire effectively forwards. His first pellets take out the android already in the corridor passing in front of the guide. The next pellets take out his guide. The third android has started to roll as he fires and exits the control room. He misses the first tirade of pellets as he slams into the wall the other side of the corridor. His weapon is already turning towards Spirit as he spots he is not where he thought he might be.
Spirit is on the way down now and he is also out of kilter. The question is going to be who gets their act together first. There is a realisation in both of them that this is the case. Spirit has the easier recovery possibility and so it proves. Even before the third android recovers from the collision with the wall, Spirit has fired and disintegrated him.
CHAPTER 75 THE GRAND MASTER
The Grand Master is a trifle surprised at what he has just witnessed. There is nothing left of O at all. He has just disintegrated and the pile of dust has folded into nothing. There is absolutely nothing le
ft of O in existence. It doesn’t seem possible, but it has occurred right in front of his eyes. Where does that leave him?
He has assumed that he would be able to locate the source here on the base and then turn it to his own use. Now that is not going to be possible but as O had said; there was no defence put in place for a situation like this. The Universe has been set in motion and now it is going to run itself. That is how he has interpreted what O said.
There will be no change to his master plan, excuse the pun. He is in fact in a better position to achieve his goals, he believes, now that he is aware that there will be no resistance from anyone or anything at the base. Even so, he needs some privacy and time to think. He goes to what used to be his old room to lie down. Would there be any reason for him to stay here at the base? That is what he needs to spend some time mulling over. Does anyone need to know, though, that the Guiding Masters are powerless and their greater being is no longer in existence. His thoughts twist and turn and he ends up falling asleep whilst going through it all.
When he awakes he is no nearer a solution, but by the time he has walked to the main area he has made up his mind to stay here for a while. At least that will be the case, if the main console is still active in showing what is going on generally in the Universe. It will be interesting to see if Valpar, Grillech and Posdon have made any inroads into their conquests. It will also be interesting to see which one of them is most successful. In the big picture of things it doesn’t matter to him, well not at the moment it doesn’t. As long they achieve their first conquests and then nature and human nature takes it course, so the copycatting starts too, then it will be alright.
When he enters the main room he sees that he is alone. GM6 and GM7 have been restricted to their quarters. It is easier than having them constantly looking at him and trying to figure out what he is up to. He looks at the rows of sensor lights. Normally there is a row of green lights, to indicate that there is nothing going on in the world they should know about.
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