The Watcher

by Bill Stenlake

  They emerge from their craft and are guided across the launch area, to a control door. They enter a control room, which is devoid of people too. There is, however, an android there waiting for them.

  ‘O sends his greetings. As you might have been aware, he cannot actually be here to greet you in person. Some things will change inevitably. This is a step too far for him, just at the moment. It might happen in the future, but for now I am your host, for O’

  ‘Thank you’ says The Watcher. He is the only one present who understands what the android has just said, about the one who calls himself O. The others are just prepared to go along with things for now.

  ‘First of all, can I get you all some refreshments? Then after that, I will show some of you to your quarters, for a rest. I will show some others of you, to a place where you will be in our brand new engineering department. One of you will come with me and will meet O in his current form. He has things that he needs to show you and make you aware of.’

  The android shows them to some comfy chairs, while he goes off to get them refreshments.

  ‘So who else is in for a dose of engineering then?’ The Watcher asks around those present.

  They all look at each other. It is no surprise when The Wise Soul ends up smiling and pointing at himself. The Watcher had already known this.

  The refreshments arrive and they take their time taking on board what they are given to eat and to drink. It is a surprise that The Wise Soul takes all this too.

  ‘I am a human’ he replies mockingly offended. ‘It is just that I have some parts that are not.’

  They all laugh and finish off the refreshments. Bluechen and Marlitta are the first ones who are escorted to their apartments to have a rest, change of clothes and generally get themselves ready for the next stage of this journey. The android comes back for Draton and Elkante next. They too are led to an apartment where they can get cleaned up, changed and rested too. Next the android comes for George and Cassie. The android takes them to an apartment and settles them in. It tells them it will return when it is ready for them to join it again. The Wise Soul and The Watcher are then escorted to the engineering department. When they reach there, they are taken to different areas, where they are greeted by other androids. Neither will be allowed to see what happens to the other. No one will be allowed to see what happens to The Watcher. He is a rather special android in his own right. There is only the one Mark 2 Watcher.

  Once everyone has been taken to their respective quarters, the android returns to one of the apartments. There he explains to one of the occupants, that they must accompany him to see O. George is that selected occupant. Cassie is fine with him going, even though that means she is left on her own in this apartment.

  George follows the android into the corridor. They walk to the end of the corridor, where there appears to be just a blank wall. The android points to a screen and a touch panel, on the wall in front of George.

  ‘I will have to leave you alone here, before you will be allowed access beyond this point. Only O controls the area beyond this. Look at the screen and follow the instructions.’

  The android leaves him and George stares at the screen. It isn’t long before an instruction appears on the screen. George is soon allowed through the door that opens up for him. He goes down in a lift and goes through several more changes in directions and levels, before he ends up in a much smaller control room.

  Two hours later George arrives back in his apartment. Cassie is asleep, but wakes up on his return. He tells her what he can about his visit to O, but there are things it is wise for him to keep to himself. He retires and soon he is asleep in bed beside her.

  It is many hours later that the crew are awakened by the android. They meet up again in the control room, where he serves them a range of food and refreshments. The Wise Soul is back with them, but there is no sign of The Watcher. It is later in the day when The Watcher returns to them. He looks exactly the same, but I think they all expected him to. The only difference you could explain about him that is different; is that he has a determined look on his face.

  Once he is back with them, the android soon comes along. He tells them to get ready, as it is time for them to go back to the launch pad. When they reach there, the first thing that they notice; is that their old craft is no longer there. In its place is another craft. It is much bigger than their old craft. It is much newer than their old craft. It is much better armed than their old craft. It looks like a war machine and that is exactly what it is. This is a craft built to do a job and that job is to win over other craft, other people and other planets. This is the ultimate in cruising war machines, armed with the latest Air Micro Compounder weapon systems. It is powered by the latest Air Micro Compounder engines. It is the fastest craft in the Universe. It is the strongest craft in the Universe. It is captained by the most able android in the Universe; The Watcher.

  Chapter 28 Vee & Bar

  They don’t come across Franz next. They come across another group, fighting in the street. From the looks of it, it isn’t an ideal fighting position. They are wedged between two sets of forces from the authorities. Those forces aren’t exactly large, but then in the situation that they have found themselves to be in, they don’t need to be. The attacking forces had actually been on the way to their intended starting point, when they found themselves boxed in. It couldn’t really have been a worse place for them. It was their own fault though, as they had decided to keep to the side streets when they broke cover, rather than move along the main drags at a pace. They have been struggling to get their vehicles in a good position to defend, as they had all been moving along as a convoy. The forces at both ends have successfully blocked off the end of the street they are on. The attackers are not confident that their vehicles have the power to break through the blockade. So it is a bit of a stand-off. The attackers don’t want to do too much damage, as they are afraid that they might trap themselves in if they do. This is one of the smaller convoys and realistically too, they don’t have any huge fire power machinery.

  Vee and Bar take stock of the situation. They don’t feel that they can just move on and let this situation sort itself out. Because the street is so narrow, it makes it slightly awkward for them. It is virtually certain that they will be seen on any approach and there isn’t a great amount of room, for them to take avoiding action if they are fired upon. Bar takes them up higher, so they can see if there is another way to get this job done. It is then that they realize that the street being narrow is exactly what is going to help them. The street is narrow because it is in between buildings. That is obvious, but it is these buildings that will provide Vee and Bar with the cover they need. It will also give them the element of surprise; those extra few seconds, which will allow them to catch the attackers, off-guard.

  Bar flies them round to the other side of the buildings, on one side of the street. It takes them less than five seconds to work out where the attackers will be in the next street. It takes them another five seconds to decide where will be the best place to gain access to this building. It takes them another ten seconds or so, to actually gain entry. The warehouse they are in is empty. It wouldn’t have made a lot of difference if it hadn’t been. They have to get to the other side, empty or not.

  The wall that borders the street where the attackers are is a solid one. As long as they haven’t moved; and that is unlikely, then they will come through the wall at the ideal position to attack the first vehicles. The powerful weapon they have, the Air Micro Compounder, will make light of the wall, no matter how thick it is. They don’t need to destroy the entire wall. All they need to do is to make a hole in the wall, sufficient to allow their tiny craft to get through.

  The weapon works quietly, although it is inevitable that the wall being broken through makes enough noise to attract attention. It is not as if they are taking minutes to get through the wall though. It takes just a few seconds. By the time people have looked in the direction the noise is coming f
rom, they are through. Well, the hole appears and then a second later, so do Vee and Bar. Vee is already concentrating on taking out the vehicle they have come through beside. One shot disables the front wheels. The second shot takes out the rear one on the same side. The next few shots take out the machine gun on the top. That is followed by a curve of fire, which takes out every one of the attackers on the back of that vehicle.

  To give them their due, the attackers are really alert and quick to act. They don’t realize exactly what it is that has taken them by surprise from within the building. They do all turn and aim their fire on that direction, before Vee and Bar are finished destroying the capabilities of that vehicle. The only problem the attackers have is that they haven’t work out what to shoot at. They know where the attack has come from the building, but they are expecting the attackers to be an elite unit of SAS, or something like that. They are expecting the attackers to be humans and therefore the size of humans. They can’t see any humans. They are shooting blindly at the area where they think they should be. In fact if their men in the vehicle had not already been killed by Vee, then they would have been caught in the cross-fire from the rest of the attackers.

  Bar has actually taken them back through the hole in the wall. There is so much fire being rained across to them, that they would be very likely to get hit, if they stayed out.

  It is not that they are not going to carry on. It is just they are going to break through the wall in another place. This they do a few seconds later and again take out a vehicle, before the attackers know what is hitting them. By the time they have repeated this exercise another couple of times, the attackers are in a state of confusion. They have had to hold their fire, as they realized they were doing damage to their own forces. On top of that, the authority forces have taken the opportunity to fire upon them too, as they have revealed themselves in their eagerness to fire on Vee and Bar.

  Bar takes to the ground level flight strategy once more. He weaves his ways under the vehicles. Vee aims for the fuel tanks. There isn’t time to try to save some of their lives. The job needs to get done and that is what she is doing now, in the shortest possible way. The vehicles start exploding, left, right and center. The firing stops from the two ends to the street. It is hard for them to make out their targets. There is a mass of black smoke, as the vehicles go up, one after another. The attackers have no choice, but to abandon their vehicles.

  In less than five minutes, all of their vehicles have been disabled. The vast majority of them have been disabled permanently. There is nowhere for these men to go and they know it. The commander of the army unit at one end of the road uses his loudhailer, to tell the attackers to lay down their arms. The reality of the situation is that they either do that, or they will get mown down. That will either be by the units at the end of the street, or it will be by the hand of Vee.

  That isn’t necessary and they quickly throw their guns to the ground. They don’t have the stomach for this fight anymore. Vee and Bar wait, to make sure that this is really the end and as soon as they see that it is, they move on.

  The next group they come upon is outside a tube station. The grills have been pulled across and there are some vehicles parked, to stop the authorities getting to the front of the station. They don’t know who the attackers are here and initially they don’t think it is a situation they need to become involved in. That is until they get close enough to the authority forces, to hear what is happening. There is a large group of men who have gone down into the underground system. If they have decent portable gun power, then it could be a massive problem. Vee and Bar are thinking about helping, when they hear a name that is a game changer for them. Apparently it is Franz and his squad who are doing this.

  There is no way they are not going to get involved now. Like the last place they were at, this attack also has some flaws to it. The underground sounds like an ideal place to make an attack from and if you think about it, the network is huge. But it is also a very vulnerable place, if you haven’t thought it out properly. Franz has not thought this one out very well at all. As soon as the attack started on the underground system, the authorities switched the system off. They cut the power to the trains. From being a massive potential underground threat, Franz now finds his force in a system where it is impossible to move around. Yes, he could walk his men along the tunnels, but they won’t get very far, very fast at all.

  In fact his men had just got onto two trains, some going one way and some the other, when the power was switched off. One of the trains had already started off towards the next station. It was about a minute into its journey when it came to a halt. They sat in that train for a few minutes, before they realized their mistake at being so vulnerable to such an easy counter move. Not knowing how far it is to the next station, they began to make their way back, towards the station they had just left.

  The other train hadn’t left when the power was cut. They quickly exited the train and made their way up to the entrance, only to find that the authorities had already surrounded the exit. They retreated back down, leaving some of their number to keep up some form of firing against the authorities.

  The others made it back into the station. A fair amount of squabbling took place before they decided to keep that for later. What they needed to find, was another way out. Most stations have old tunnels and stairs that are no longer used. The problem is that you need to know where they are located. They found a few doors and blasted their way through them, but they haven’t managed to find what they need to yet.

  Bar swings them away from the area and takes them along to the next station. Although it is under guard, they find no difficulty in flying into the station unnoticed. Having done that, it is no problem to fly down and into the tunnel. They fly swiftly back towards the station where Franz is. They come out onto the platform area. There are no people who aren’t armed. They don’t stop to think about it. Bar flies them round in a twist and turn pattern, while Vee takes out everyone who is there. They move around the platforms, until those areas are clear. They find Franz in the area by the escalators. He has just found a door, that when opened looks promising. A couple of men have gone in and are investigating. Like Joe, Franz has his name on his cap. They just can’t help it, but to let their men know who is in charge. In this case it is who was in charge. Vee just takes him out.

  They spend the next five minutes moving round the station area, clearing up the last of the resistance in the station. It soon becomes clear that Franz’s men have had enough. They haven’t been able to take a shot at these micro attackers. They fling their weapons to the ground and surrender. Vee and Bar escort them up to the surface, where they shout out that they are surrendering.

  Chapter 29 Mario & TZ

  Buzz and TZ make it back to the garage without any further incident. When they get there, they find that everything is as they had left it. They park up out front and make their way in again. It is eerie, knowing that there are three bodies at the back of the shop, but there is nothing that they can do about that, not that they want to.

  ‘I wonder where Randy lives’ TZ says, as they stand there trying to decide what to do next.

  Everything has come to a bit of a damp fizz. They don’t have contact with any of the others and certainly none of the family. They have become very isolated in what they are trying to achieve. The plan hadn’t been that good after all.

  ‘I guess we could look at their things.’ Buzz says after a minute or two.

  ‘Let’s take a look in the office first. I don’t know which of those guys Randy was anyway.’

  They walk over to where the guys used as an office. It is a pretty untidy place. There seems to have been little order in that department. They might be good mechanics and repair shop guys, but in the office department, they were seriously lacking. It soon becomes clear that they aren’t going to get any information out of there. They back out and look at each other. They know what is coming next and to be honest, neither of them really want
s to do the searching thru the pockets that is going to be required. Buzz suggests they make a mug of coffee, before they go to do the job. He suggests they do the searching together. That way it will be easier if one of them holds the body, while the other one searches it.

  Twenty minutes later they are ready to start. It is easier and less distasteful than they had been imagining it would be. Buzz holds them and turns them, while TZ goes thru the pockets to get their wallets. They decide to get all three in the one go. That way the job will be done in one, rather than to have to keep going back, if they don’t find what they need.

  They take their finds back across and make another mug of coffee. Buzz flicks thru the first wallet. There are a few bills in there, which he takes and pockets. On that thought he goes thru to the office, to look for cash there too. He doesn’t find any, so returns to find TZ is looking thru the next wallet. The bills in there that she finds, she puts on the floor, while she checks the rest of the contents. A smile comes across her face.

  ‘It looks like this place belongs to Randy.’

  ‘Belonged, I think you will find it is. The guy is dead!’

  ‘Alright, you know what I mean. It looks like he has, sorry had; a pad just a block or so away.’

  She shows Buzz how she has found this nugget of information. They decide to check the third guy’s wallet. There is a little cash in there, but nothing else. There is nothing to give any idea where he might live. That was the same as the first guy. He didn’t have any clues as to where he lived either. It doesn’t matter. They have something to go on. The next big question is going to be; did he live alone. There is only going to be the one way to find that out. They finish their coffee and lock up. There is no point in taking the car there. It isn’t that far and it might not be as straightforward as they hope. It is easier to hunt for a number when you’re on foot. They are soon outside the door. TZ has a bunch of keys. In fact she has two sets of keys. One was in his pocket and the other was with the car key. It is that set that lets them in the door, but only after they have knocked and not got any reply.