The Watcher

by Bill Stenlake

  As the plane makes its descent and eventually the undercarriage is lowered, Bar moves their craft to a place that will be totally out of sight, to anyone inspecting the airplane. They land and as soon as the plane comes to a stop, it is surrounded by army vehicles. They don’t spend long there, but they do inspect the Airplane, to the best of their ability. Bar has managed to find a place where they will not be able to find them, unless they actually climb right up. Obviously they don’t really expect Vee and Bar to be there. There is a possibility that they also think they are much bigger than they really are.

  The time moves slowly round and they wait in their hiding place, until the time when the airplane starts to move once more. They quickly slip out of their hiding place and down onto the tarmac. Bar quickly gets them to their next hiding place; under the truck that is pushing the airplane away from the gate.

  From there they move to another truck and then another, until they get to the cover of the terminal building. Once there, they find it easier to move. They wait until darkness, before they make their way round to the other side of the terminal and hitch a ride on the underside of an airport bus. Vee manages to see the destination, before they attach to it. They are on their way to the bus station on Manhattan. Well that is what is on the front of the bus. It won’t get that far, because the tunnels and bridges are closed.

  Chapter 37 Mario & TZ

  Mario pulls up in front of the cabin that Maria directs them to. It is like all the others. It is new, it is fresh, it looks very nice and the inside is good too. They take a quick tour of the cabin. It has a large open plan kitchen and lounge. Then there is a bathroom and two bedrooms. She goes thru to the front and puts the catch on the front door.

  ‘We don’t want them just barging in on us, do we?’ she says to him, as she walks right up in front of him.

  ‘I’m guessing not’ he replies, knowing that is what is expected from him.

  ‘Right answer’ she says and then tugs on the front of his pants, as she starts towards the main bedroom. She starts undressing as she walks. By the time she is at the bed, she is completely naked. Mario has been walking after her, but he hasn’t started to undress yet. She grabs him and pulls his clothes off. There is an animal-like aggression to the way she does this. She then flings his naked body on the bed and throws herself on top of him. She starts kissing him, passionately and eagerly on the lips. He is responding, but it is not enough for Maria at this moment. She stops kissing his lips and starts to kiss his face, his neck, his chest, his stomach……….!

  Mario had fallen asleep, after Maria had totally satisfied herself with his body. He is still hot and sweaty, when she wakes him up a short time later.

  ‘We need to go and meet them.’

  ‘I think I need a shower before we go.’

  ‘There isn’t time and anyway I want them to smell me on you!’

  Mario doesn’t say anything. Maria wants him to go and so he will. She has been a bit of an animal in bed the past couple of hours. He has seen a different Maria; well he has seen Maria behaving differently. What Maria wants, Maria gets. If she wants it from you, then you must give it to her. If she wants you, then you must give yourself to her. He had found it very enjoyable, but to be honest, he finds her a bit scary too.

  He gets dressed quickly. Maria is dressed already. She looks quite wild and untamed. He is not sure if that is the look she intends to give, or whether it is just the way she looks as she has dressed. Maria is already out by the car. Mario comes out of the cabin and they drive down to the meeting hall. When they arrive down there, they find the parking lot is well over half full. There is a varied variety of transport there, but the majority of them are pick-up trucks. They find a space and pull up. Maria is straight out of there and walking towards the door.

  When they get inside, they find the place is virtually crammed with people. This is a bit of a surprise, but then they have all come to state their wishes. Maria and Mario walk down the center aisle, towards the stage at the bottom. There is a long table on the stage and there are two people sitting there, looking at them approach. Maria climbs the 3 stairs and walks over to the table. She sits down beside her father. Her brother is on her father’s other side. That leaves one chair empty, beside Maria. Mario climbs the stairs and sits down beside Maria.

  They are no sooner sitting, when her father gets up to address the audience. He talks to them in a calm manner. He tells them, from his experience, how life was in the beginning. He then moves on to how life was, when he was growing up. He then tells the story of his life and how it was when he was grown up and chief. He finishes and he sits down. Maria’s brother is next to stand up. He starts his story with his childhood. He tells from his perspective, how he felt about growing up, without his sister. He tells how he was growing up, feeling a second rate citizen in his own country and on his own lands. He tells how he was told that his sister, Maria, had a look in her eye. This look was one that every elder knew. It was the look of someone who would not be told, would not listen to reason, who would believe that everything was hers, would take the tribe to war, just because she felt that the way out of everything, is aggression. He says that he has not seen or heard this for himself personally. It will be her turn to speak after him. He moves on, to tell them about how he has approached improving their lives, as members of the tribe. How he has secured better tangible things for them. How they have more of their lands back, under their own control. How they earn money from the lands they have not got back too. How they have integrated in society and become respected citizens. How they have better living conditions, better jobs and working conditions. He has delivered all that they need. He sits down and gets a standing ovation. It lasts for fully five minutes. Mario feels it will be a hard act to follow.

  Maria stands and lashes out verbally, at her father and brother for being weak. She lashes out at them, for letting themselves be persuaded they have a good deal. It is our land they are giving us, not theirs. Everything is ours, but they pretend it is theirs to negotiate over. She says there is only one way to resolve this and that is to take up arms against them. First is to demand return of all lands. Second is to demand payment for the time the lands have been stolen for. Third is to set a short time limit to achieve this, or Maria will lead them into battle and victory. She is only half way through what she wants to say to them, when they start booing and stamping their feet on the ground. She feels impelled to stop. Someone stands up in the front row.

  ‘We don’t want you here. We don’t need you here. We have what we want. Take the vote now!

  There is loud cheering from the rest of the audience. Maria tries to continue, but the audience shouts “Vote! Vote! Vote!” repeatedly, until she stops. When she tries to start again, they start up again too. It doesn’t take her long to realize that she has said all she is going to be allowed to.

  Her father gets up and addresses the audience. Vote for Maria and change now. There are no hands showing at all. Vote for what we have already and no change. There is a sea of hands. It is unanimous!

  Maria says nothing. She stands up and walks down towards the door. Mario follows her, several steps behind. She gets into the passenger side of the car and waits for Mario to get in to the driver’s side.

  ‘Where are we going to, Maria?’

  ‘To the cabin! I’m not finished with this yet!’

  TZ goes round to the car repair shop with Buzz. She opens the shutters and lets him in; with the vehicle he is going to use to dump the bodies. This vehicle has no plates. They have been removed for the vehicle to be sprayed. It takes them only a few minutes to drag the bodies thru and load them into the back. Buzz covers them with old sheeting he finds at the back of the shop. TZ queries again, if this is the best thing they should be doing at the moment. After all, there are police check points on the streets out there. They got stopped by one earlier. If they look in the back and find the bodies, then they are going to arrest him at best, shoot him at worst. Buzz loads u
p a couple of weapons into the truck. He says that they will get him out of trouble, if any comes in his way. Something is bugging TZ, but she can’t place her finger on it at this moment. The kind of vehicle Buzz is taking is more likely to get stopped, as it has room to hide things in. His has dead bodies and two powerful weapons. They will not like that. Buzz isn’t having any of it. He will be alright. TZ opens the doors and he shoots out of there, as if he has the devil on his tail. As he screeches away, the thing that has been bothering her pops into her head. Why is he taking the heavy weaponry with him, if he is going to dump the vehicle and the bodies by the river?

  She locks up and walks back towards Randy’s place. She stops at the food mart and buys some provisions. She realizes that she won’t be able to carry it all back with her in one go. The owner offers to send his boy round with her. She would prefer no one knows where they are going to stay for a few days. She says she will take one load back and send her man for the rest. She knows he isn’t there, but that is what she says. She returns fifteen minutes later for the other bags herself.

  Back in Randy’s apartment, she puts the things out on the kitchen worktop, except for the items that need to go in the refrigerator. With that done, she starts on the preparation of something for them both to eat. She is going to knock up something Italian for her and Buzz. She buries herself in the preparation of the food. Time passes by and it is over an hour later that she notices that Buzz isn’t back yet. It is too early to worry. Maybe he can’t get a lift back, in a taxi or something. Maybe he is walking back. Either way, he will be back soon enough. Another hour passes and she is still alone. The food is ready to eat. The smell of it is making her hungry. She goes thru and switches on the TV. As soon as the picture comes up, she knows something is wrong. Buzz is the one in the wrong. It is not because his name is on the screen. It is because of the truck that is in the picture. Buzz isn’t in the picture.

  The truck is standing on the road by the river. The back doors are open. There is a body lying behind the truck. TZ recognizes the clothes, as belonging to one of the three guys. The pictures are being beamed from a building some distance away, but in the line of sight. Other pictures are being taken from a helicopter circling nearby.

  Suddenly the truck bursts into flames. She doesn’t know where Buzz is, but that shot probably comes from one of the weapons he took. She watches the screen for what happens next. The helicopter has backed off some. The other pictures are still coming in. The cameraman is scouring the area, to try to pick up who fired the shot at the truck. He finds him. He zooms in on Buzz. There is absolutely no doubt this is Buzz. Buzz is walking out of a warehouse. He is carrying his weapon. He aims it at the sky and fires, presumably at the helicopter. He misses that, but in the meantime there are several sharpshooters who have targeted Buzz. He goes down before the sound comes thru. The camera fixes on his body, lying on the ground. It is still moving. He is still holding the weapon, but not for much longer. Another three or four bullets make sure of that. Buzz has taken his last breath.

  ‘Why has he done that?’ is all that TZ says.

  Chapter 38 Spirit

  Spirit looks up the stairs. There is nothing but stairs to be seen. That is because at the top of the stairs, is a doorway. The door is shut of course. There is no sign of a camera, but he is guessing that if there are people and or androids and robots up there, then they will know he has found the stairs. He has found it now, so he has no choice but to investigate. He climbs the stairs warily, ready for an attack at any second. He reaches the top step and presses the button to open the door. If they are standing on the other side, armed and ready to gun him down, then he won’t stand a chance. The only thing he can do to protect himself from this, is to start firing blindly through the gap, as soon as it appears. That is what he does. As the door slides open, he is firing through the gap. His shots destroy the wall beyond it, but nothing else. They aren’t there waiting for him. Behind the destroyed wall is just rock.

  He steps through the doorway and sees there is just one door leading off this short corridor. He is not so exposed on this one, so he presses the button and the door opens. He has now found the transport room. That is strange. He thought this was a higher level. In fact it is, because the transport entrance is at a different height. The side track rises to this level. There is no activity going on here, but there are a couple of vehicles. He sees the one they brought from Luvus and another one. He carefully makes his way round the transport area, checking everywhere for robots and androids. There is the big door that obviously goes to the outside. He isn’t going to open that one just yet. There is a door which is quite big, going off to one side and he decides to investigate that one next. Somehow he has been expecting there to be no one up here either, but this time he is wrong in that assumption. He casually presses the button and the door opens. He immediately steps back and to the side. The room is just like the control room downstairs. There are four robots that he can see and definitely one that looks different. That one is sitting in front of a huge control panel and is tapping away on a keyboard. The four robots turn towards him, but the other one keeps on tapping away, doing what it is it must do.

  That raises alarm bells for Spirit. Surely there can’t be anything more important for them, than to repel his attack. Well, apparently he is wrong. This android is going to do what it has to, as a first priority. Spirit takes aim for it, but before he can fire his weapon, the other four are firing at him, or at least the space where he was. Their weapons are not that powerful. If there had been four of his weapons firing at the doorway, it wouldn’t be there anymore.

  Worse news is ready to hit him though. There is noise from back in the far corner of the transport area. Then there is the sound of feet on the floor. He can’t really afford to go back to see, but then he needs to. That is only because he needs to do something. Otherwise he is the meat in the sandwich and he has no intention of being that, if he can help it. He hasn’t been in existence long enough, to have that taken away from him so soon.

  He darts across the floor and as he nears the door that leads to the stairs, he leaps onto the wall and angles his fire down from that position. It is probably the last place they are expecting him to fire from. There are only two of them, and they don’t stand a chance. What they have done though, is to give the four from the new control room the opportunity to come thru into the transport area. Because their weapons are not that powerful, they assume that Spirit’s weapon is just the same as theirs. They are walking openly towards his position. He fires and takes two of them apart, before they realize that it has happened. The other two make a dash back for the control room. Only one of them makes it thru intact. The door starts to close, but Spirit fires at the button on the wall. He has toned down the power of his weapon as he fires, but even then it takes out a chunk of the wall. It also stops the door from closing anymore. There is still a good gap for him to get through. He runs over and peers through the gap. The android is still working away at the keyboard. He can’t see the robot that has just gone back thru. Spirit fires at the android, but there must be a screen protecting it, as his shots come to nothing. He moves carefully into the room. The robot is waiting for him, just round the corner. Only the speed of his reflexes saves him from being hit. He spins as he sees the robot fire at him. In the process of doing that, he fires at it too. His shots land and the robot disintegrates in front of his eyes. The android is sitting there, working away, as if nothing is going on. Spirit fires again, and again his firing has no impact. It must be something special that screen. Then he realizes that it isn’t a screen at all. Where he thinks the android is, is only a reflection of its position. He quickly walks further into the room. The android looks up as it sees him, but still continues to do its work. It must be really important, is all that Spirit can think of. Has what it is doing been completed and sent? At this moment he has no way of knowing. He is only going to know in time. The android suddenly stops what it is doing.

  ‘T
he Grand Master will not tolerate this attack. I am summoning the others to come and regain control over you. It turns back to the keyboard and lifts its hand, as if it is going to press the return key. That will result in what it has been writing being sent to its intended targets. If that is the case, then Spirit has no intention of letting it happen. The android dissolves in front of his eyes. Its fingers were only a few centimeters away from pressing the vital return button.

  Spirit quickly checks out the rest of the room. Primarily his interest is in whether there are going to be any more robots in there. There do not appear to be any more. When he is satisfied with that, he moves over to the control desk, to see what communication this android was making and to whom. It appears to be to three individuals, namely Valpar, Grillech and Posdon. He deletes all that has been written and then destroys the keyboard.

  There are two more doors coming off the transport area, other than the big door, which he is sure leads outside. The first one is some sort of rest room, but a rest room for robots and androids. There are chairs and sockets, but no robots in there. The next room is a bit of a mystery. As he opens the door, he is expecting to find some more robots there. The room is empty though. It is completely bare. There is nothing in there whatsoever. He searches it as best he can, but there aren’t any concealed buttons or further doors in there. He is at a loss as to what it is for, but he can always come back to it, if he needs to at some point.

  In his head, assuming there is nowhere he has missed in the structure, he has two things left he can investigate. One is the door in the downstairs control room. The one where the robot just went through, almost pretending he wasn’t in the room and watching him. The other one is the back door. He is loath to leave this area and the control room downstairs, in case they come back. His first thought is to destroy both control rooms. His slight reservation, is that doing that, might then leave him wishing he hadn’t, if he needs something to get them away from here and he can’t because he has destroyed things. On the other hand, if he leaves them, then he is leaving valuable technology, which he might well come to regret, if it is used against him or them, in the future. To that end he takes his weapon out again and fires continuously on the control desk in the transport area.