“I just wanted a variety,” Lin replied, and proceeded, “there’s only one more type though, but it’s my favourite,” and she removed an object resembling a small, silver briefcase.
“What’s in there?” asked a fascinated Eve, who had started taking a mild liking to the power of weaponry.
“The only things that are in here are bullets,” said Lin.
“Bullets?” said Lon.
“Yes, bullets”.
“Aren’t you gonna open it and show us?”
Lin expressed her excitement with a hearty laugh, “A ha! I was waiting for you to ask! You can’t ‘open’ it!” she beamed widely.
“What do you mean, you can’t open it?” asked Eve. “Are you having a laugh?”
“Let me show you,” she was clearly overjoyed. She unclipped the latches of the briefcase and gave the bottom a yank, and part of it slid off.
“Huh? It’s not a briefcase?” said Lon.
“Just watch,” Lin replied, and she continued to pull sections, rotate parts and push pieces.
“Oh! I see what it is!” said Eve.
“That’s pretty clever,” Lon added.
A few clicks and clunks later she was holding a submachine gun.
“I didn’t expect anything less from you,” stated Cat with a smile.
“I always deliver the goods,” said Lin.
Eve regarded her current attire and wondered if there were any alternate meanings to her words.
“Ja, so I only managed to get one more of those. They’re pretty expensive because they’re designed not to be detected, and they’re tricky to get hold of”.
“How much did one of those set you back?” asked Lon.
“Well, hun, that’s not for you to know”.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because it’s not your money”.
“Whose money is it?” Eve joined in.
“It doesn’t matter where the money came from,” said Cat, “what matters is we’ve got what we need”.
“It’s Chris’ money, isn’t it?” he said.
Cat stared at him blankly; she never expected it to be so obvious.
“I knew it was his money! Does he know you spend his money on weapons?”
“Of course, he knows where every cent goes,” said Lin.
“Is this what you meant when you said he’s a powerful man? Because he can afford to buy weapons?” he asked Cat.
“No, that’s not what I meant at all”.
“What are these weapons for anyway? Do you often buy things like this?”
“Wait a minute,” Eve butted in, “are you guys terrorists?”
Both Lin and Cat sighed and breathed out heavily.
“We’re not terrorists…” started Cat.
“We’re freedom fighters,” Lin finished for her.
“Freedom fighters?” said Eve.
“Listen, I told you yesterday, I can’t explain everything at once. You’re already freaking out, and we’ve hardly told you anything!”
“Ja man, don’t worry yourselves about it, you’ll find everything out sooner or later,” said Lin.
“Wow, that sounds very certain,” said Lon sarcastically.
“Just chill okay, there’s still a lot we don’t understand too, and we’re not entirely sure what the next move is,” said Cat.
“This is my next move,” said Lin, and she turned around to lie on her belly in the sun and unfastened her bikini top to expose her back and a large portion of the sides of her breasts.
“Lon, I’m thirsty,” Eve quickly said, “aren’t you? Shouldn’t we go get a drink?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m thirsty too, but don’t we need Cat to pay?” he said.
“Okay, I’ll go with you,” Cat said. “Do you want anything Lin?”
Lin lifted her face from the surface of the towel. “Yeah, get me something strong please, and some apple pie too”.
“Got it”.
“Before you all leave, can you please help me to put the guns back in the bag?” Lin requested.
“Of course hun,” said Cat.
Lon and Eve helped while Lin remained motionless under the sun’s rays.
“It’s a bit difficult to squeeze everything in though because of all the boxes of ammo,” she added.
After struggling to replace all of the arms into the bag, they walked in the direction of the diner.
“I don’t like her,” Eve informed Cat and Lon.
“That was a bit forward,” said Lon.
“Well,” said Cat, “I did say you have to take her with a pinch of salt”.
“A pinch?!” More like a handful!” said Eve.
They proceeded to get drinks and apple pie from the diner, and took them back to where Lin was sunbathing.
“When do we have to be at the Tech Centre?” Lin asked Cat, who checked the time on her palm screen.
“Soon. We have time to relax for a little and finish our drinks,” she handed Lin her tipple, and sat the plate of apple pie next to her.
“Good,” Lin said as she lifted the top part of her body with her elbows in order to take the glass, “I need a little hair of the dog, you know, I’m hanging right now”.
“You might want to cover yourself,” Eve suggested to her in reference to her exposed areolae.
She responded with a smile and said, “Don’t worry hun, there’s no need to be jealous”.
“Why the hell would I be jealous of you? You’re built like a runway,” she retorted.
“You’re one to talk,” said Lin.
“Ladies,” interrupted Cat, “there’s no need to take digs at each other. Both of you are lacking compared to me anyway”.
The argument ceased.
Lon was surprised. Did women argue about asset sizes often? Either way, Lin was in fact well endowed.
“Just shut up and enjoy the silence while you can,” added Cat.
The scene certainly was peaceful. Barely any cars passed through during the group’s time there, and the several NGT tracks in the distance were silent.
No further plans were discussed, and soon they all returned to the car.
Lin arrived at the front passenger door before Eve. “I’m riding shotgun this time,” she said, and pulled open the door and threw the bag full of weapons into the footwell before getting in.
Eve offered nothing in response and climbed in the back opposite Lon. She had a sort of ‘I want to punch her in the back of the head’ kind of look spread across her face. Eve certainly was not a pleasant character when annoyed.
“Why are we going back to the Tech Centre?” asked Lon.
“Because we need to explain some things to you,” replied Cat.
“It’s about time,” he said.
“Why can’t you explain them now?” Eve asked.
“Because there are things I can’t explain myself,” said Cat.
“I take it you’ll be introducing us to another new person?” said Lon.
“Yup, kind of”.
From departure to destination, the journey was filled with Lin’s incessant bragging about how wasted she had been at several points that week, the pinnacle of which, apparently, was the previous night when she had come home wearing different clothes, and had twice the amount of money in her bank account.
Eve wanted to offer her a likely explanation, but did not due to her lack of enthusiasm for further arguments.
By the time they had arrived at the Tech Centre the sun had almost reached its zenith. There were fewer cars in the parking areas surrounding the building, and fewer people coming and going than the previous day.
The group of four exited the car, entered the building, and made their way to the company space where Cat worked in the atrium. Most of its office windows were blacked out, probably due to some kind of meeting or conference being held.
Today it seemed Kaya was not working, therefore the reception was empty.
They passed through a door to the right into one of the meeting rooms.
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At the centre was a desk large enough to seat roughly twenty, yet only four men were taking up the space, each fairly young, not more than the age of thirty.
“Take a seat,” Cat instructed, and they all joined at the desk.
None of these people were recognised by Lon or Eve. They were talking quietly between themselves, and every now and then looked across at the four new additions. One of these people eventually said to them, “We’re just waiting for Strys”.
Lon slowly turned to Cat and whispered, “Are we going to be interrogated?”
She smiled. “Relax man, we’re all on the same side”.
The door opened behind them and in strode Strys, who sat somewhere in between both sets of four people.
“Okay, I think we should start,” voiced a dark haired man at the far end of the desk. “To begin with, I think it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves. My name is One”.
The next man spoke, “My name is Two”.
The next, “I am Three”.
“And I’m Four,” said the last unknown man.
“And I’m Strys, but you already know that,” he sniggered.
Lon, who was taken aback by their creative nicknames, looked at Cat, who gestured for him to speak. “I’m Lon”.
Eve then took her turn, “I’m Eve… um, pleased to meet you”.
It was clear due to the lack of self-introductions on the part of Cat and Lin that they were all already familiar with each other.
“First things first,” said One, “please tell us everything that’s happened to you”.
Eve’s expression immediately went blank and Lon loured. Perhaps they should have recorded their story in some manner, and updated it after every significant event in order to save time and energy explaining it to every new person upon the first meeting. However, they had not done so, thus were forced to narrate their tale an extra time.
They began, and finished approximately thirty minutes later; they had to pace themselves in order to recall and recount properly all that had occurred up until the previous night.
“Thank you for that,” said Two.
“What did you bring for us Lin?” asked Three.
Lin stood, removed a small digital storage device from a pocket on her person, and walked towards the centre of the desk where she leant over to the built-in projector and inserted the device, following which a holographic image of a pistol emerged. She then powered on her palm screen and configured it to work as a controller for the projector. “The bounty this time isn’t so plentiful, but I have got a couple of nice toys. First off, four of these,” the pistol’s specifications were also displayed in the projection. Then she tapped her palm screen to change the image to that of an automatic rifle, “I got two of these,” she changed the image again, this time to the shotgun, “only one of these, but we’ll likely never use it. And two of these wonderful little things,” and she changed the image once again, this time to display the details and specifications of the briefcase guns.
“Oh,” said One, “so you managed to get hold of them”.
“Ja, of course I did!” Lin replied. “I’d love to show you in person how to transform it, but this hologram will have to do,” and she tapped her palm screen again to start the demonstration animation.
“Excellent,” said Four, “but I thought this gun was developed to be able to avoid most forms of detection”.
“Ja, that’s right,” said Lin.
“Then why didn’t you bring one up here with you? It would’ve been a good test of its stealth capabilities”.
“To be honest, I couldn’t be bothered getting one out of their bag. It’s in the car though, you can go and take a look if you want”.
“We don’t have time for that now,” said One, “we need to continue”.
Lin ended the projection, removed the storage device and returned to her seat.
One directed his attention towards Lon and Eve. “To maintain a certain level of personal safety and anonymity, we cannot tell you a whole lot about ourselves. We will, however, tell you what we do. I imagine you’ve already been informed to some extent, but I shall continue nonetheless. As you must be aware, the government of our country are highly corrupt and oppressive. For most people, particularly the lower classes, they restrict what we know, what we earn and even what we’re allowed to do and think in our own country. But there’s a lot that you probably don’t know, including issues like trafficking into and out of the country, forced prostitution rings and with it forced sterilisation,” he stood and, holding his hands behind his back, began to pace around the far end of the table while continuing to speak.
“These are but a few matters that need addressed, but they aren’t strong enough reasons for the UN, or any other such groups, to interfere in the government’s dealings, especially without solid evidence of the depth and scale as to which these problems are implemented. Yet these aren’t the most pressing issues regarding the government that require resolution. We, as a group, are very aware of other, far more serious offences and severe human rights infringements; for a number of years we have been cataloguing and mapping human rights violations across the country, and collating them with national political events in order to build a case to take to the Southern-Hemisphere Development Community Tribunal, the International Criminal Court, or whoever else will listen. But damning evidence is scanty, and attaining it is quite near impossible, for a multitude of reasons”.
Lon shuddered at some of the reasons he had just heard. “So, do you think the government is behind all these disappearances that have been going on in the city recently?” asked Lon.
“Unfortunately, we can’t pin that one on them; there’s nothing that implies it’s their doing, there are hundreds of other possible culprits in this city alone”.
“However,” said Two, “if we’re lucky, we might learn something new about it once we’ve completed our objective”.
“What’s your objective?” inquired Eve.
“To put it simply,” began Three, “there do exist overseas groups who are interested in spreading condemning evidence of what the government has been doing for all these years, which in turn, we hope, will give good reason for foreign governments to step in and reform the country”.
“That sounds simple though,” said Lon.
“But it isn’t simple,” said One, “otherwise somebody would have done it a long time ago”.
“Well, what makes it so difficult?”
“Okay, can you give me evidence of the things that have been happening here?” said One.
“No… I don’t have any,” Lon replied.
“Then tell me how to obtain some evidence,” said One.
This stumped Lon, he had no clue. He looked at Eve, who was equally as puzzled. “But if it’s happening on such a large scale, then shouldn’t evidence be everywhere?”
“Like One said, we need proof of the scope of their dirty deeds,” explained Two, “there are a lot of factors another country has to take into account before it will consider stepping in, and it’s difficult to uncover that scope when it’s the government, the institution that runs the whole country, that is hiding the evidence”.
Four continued. “You’ve got to realise that this country is an economic superpower, and upsetting its internal balance can have unwanted effects elsewhere around the globe; we have an important economy that if tampered with, could send the world into crisis”.
“Basically, we need seriously damning evidence,” stated One.
“Your clarification makes sense,” said Eve, “but based on what you’ve said, it seems too difficult to find the proof you need. How are you going to do it?”
“Well,” Strys voiced up, “we do happen to know a thing or two about the government, hey. Its main servers is where it keeps all its backup information, so it must be where all the evidence is,” he leant back in his seat and rested his hands on the back of his head.
“Okay, simple enough, hack their servers,”
said Lon.
Strys fell forwards and dropped his hands on the desk with a thud. “Ag, no man! It ain’t simple! We need to get to the servers in real life - face-to-face - because they’re impossible to hack via a connection, man! And we don’t hardly know nothing about the place where they are”.
“Where are they?” asked Lon.
“The Science Centre”.
This came as a shock to Eve, for she knew the scale of the Science Centre, it’s sophisticated security, and its complex design. Locating a group of servers in that place was not necessarily an easy task. “How are you gonna manage to physically find and hack a server in the Science Centre if you have no information about it?”
“Until now we’ve never truly had direct access to the Science Centre,” said One.
Lon’s stomach froze. “Until now?”
“Now we have Eve who works there. She’s our direct access”.
“Sorry… what?” said Eve.
“You have access to the Science Centre because you work there, meaning we now have access too”.
“Just because I work there, doesn’t mean I’m not a wanted criminal!” she was becoming frightened.
“The fact that you’re a wanted criminal works better for us,” said Three.
Eve could not fathom why.
He continued, “basically, in your situation you have two choices: you can either continue to be a fugitive and do nothing but hide forever; or you can infiltrate the Science Centre, retrieve the information we need to condemn those government pigs, and potentially prove yourself innocent and discover where your friends have been taken at the same time. There’s nothing for you to lose”.
“Nothing to lose?” said Lon, “she could lose her life!”
“That’s obviously something we want to avoid, therefore we need to plan this carefully,” said Four.
“So it would be helpful for you to tell us everything you can about the inside of that building so we can factor it into the plan,” said Two.
“Don’t I have a choice in the matter?” despaired Eve. She turned to Cat to look for her disagreement with the proposition, however she did not get the response for which she had hoped.
“We don’t want to be heavy-handed like the government, but as it stands now, you’re the only person working in the Science Centre who we’ve managed get to see things from our perspective, which was all a massive coincidence anyway. This opportunity won’t arise again,” she explained. “Furthermore,” she continued in hopes to bring Eve around, “remember that Citizen Profile Database we were talking about earlier? It’s also backed up, meaning there still exists official information about your family connections”.
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