The Grand Master

by Bill Stenlake

  There is no time to waste taking anything other than the most direct route she can. She can already hear more transport arriving and the sound of orders being given. She can also hear the faint thump-thump of a helicopter coming this way. In fact there is more than one helicopter coming.

  She sticks to the edge of the field, trying to keep partially hidden at least by the tall grass and the undergrowth. She sees something familiar moving off to her right. She stops to wait for Bar. He joins her and is surprised that she is carrying some of the bits.

  ‘I thought we would have to leave all of that.’

  ‘I would have got more, but the two soldiers were calling in others to help them. We will have to manage with what we have. You never know, we might get the opportunity to come back for more.’

  ‘I think they will seal up the chute we used. I expect they will search the surrounding fields thoroughly and find the rest.’

  ‘As long as they haven’t found the craft we should be alright for now.’

  ‘Come on, we had better get there as soon as possible. Although I am thinking that we may not be able to take off again until it gets dark. What do you think?’

  ‘Let’s see how it is when we get there.’

  They retrace the steps they had taken earlier. Just before they reach the place where they have hidden the craft, they come across some more soldiers. They manage to remain unseen, well as far as they know they have. The soldiers are forming a line and are standing only a few paces apart.

  ‘Do we risk it and try to break through the line or do we wait it out until dark?’

  ‘Or do we try to skirt round them?’

  ‘Could be a long way round for all we know.’

  ‘I’ll go along for a bit and see how far they are’ Bar says and doesn’t wait for an answer. Vee moves deeper into the hedge. She hears some dogs start barking. The noise is coming from the direction Bar has gone off in. The noise becomes more intense and there is a significant amount of shouting going on. Vee notices it is enough to distract the soldiers standing in a line in front of her. They are quickly reminded by someone unseen, to keep their eyes peeled for the other one. Suddenly the noise stops from Bar’s direction. That will mean either they have lost him or Bar has been captured. She really wants it to be the former.

  She hears a crackle ahead of her. She also notices the soldiers becoming even more alert. Then she hears one of them talking to the man next to him.

  ‘They’ve got the dog like robot. One of the dogs trapped him.’

  Vee feels her heart go into her mouth. Bar has been caught again. She has to make it to the craft now and see what she can do to help him. There is no point trying to go along the line like Bar did. At least there are no dogs here, or at least she hasn’t seen any.

  The longer she waits the more soldiers are going to arrive to join in the hunt. She quickly digs a little hole in the undergrowth of the hedge and secretes the parts she has been carrying in there. The helicopters are all over the skies above her and where the mound is. It needs to be sooner rather than later. There is no way she is going to be able to slip past them without them spotting her. It is too long to wait for darkness to fall too.

  Vee gets herself ready and then launches out of her hiding place. Initially she makes a bee line for the nearest soldier, but he is more alert than she would have hoped. He lets out a yell the second he sees her. Vee turns fractionally to try to run between him and the next soldier. His reactions are very fast, but thankfully for Vee, not quite fast enough. He dives to make a grab for her, but she manages to do a zigzag just in time to thwart him.

  She is through and trying to see where she needs to be heading. She spots the landmark she’d noted earlier, which tells her where the craft is hidden. She runs as fast as she can over to it. It looks like it has not been discovered. There is going to be little enough time to get there and in, let alone get ready to take off, before the soldiers are upon her. The camouflage will soon come off when she starts to take off. She flings the door open and clambers in. The soldiers are only a few paces behind her by the time she shuts the door. She senses more than sees that the soldiers come to a halt only a few feet away from her. She wonders why, but is silently pleased as this will make all the difference. That is before the cargo net drops round the craft from overhead. They secure the edges to the ground. Vee is going nowhere at the moment.

  CHAPTER 80 Mario & TZ

  Mario starts to get nervous as he waits for the remaining messages to come through. There has been no communication whatsoever through the CB radio. Maria had said to him shortly after the others had left, that she doubted there would be.

  It has been an hour since the last messages has come and still he is waiting. He can’t help but keep one eye on the track into the ranch, looking for dust clouds. In his mind the way that TZ had left, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she or Buzz tipped the police off to come out here to get him. But then he isn’t the one going around with a boot full of heavy weaponry.

  Maria has brought the car round into the yard. Since then she has disappeared into the house a few times to get stuff to put in the trunk. She doesn’t say what it is, but Mario is fairly certain it is personal stuff and not weapons. He is also certain that she has been on her cell phone a couple of times. She looks calm and relaxed, so he isn’t concerned about his safety from that direction, despite what the others have tried to tell him about her.

  Maria appears from inside the barn. She walks over to the car and climbs in the driver’s side. She switches on the car radio. Mario can hear snippets of voices as she flicks through the channels. She then stops on one where a man’s voice is urgently broadcasting something. He sees Maria lean forward to listen more closely. A minute later she is out of the car and coming over to him at a fast walk.

  ‘Time we left here! Stupid idiots couldn’t wait could they? It sounds like Baz has kicked off in the first place on his journey.’ She grabs the CB radio and tries to make use of it. She is trying to get hold of Ma or Buzz or maybe both. There is nothing but static coming through. She tries several times, but she isn’t picking up anything or anyone. She slams it back into Mario’s hand and grabs the cell phone out of his other hand. She dials some numbers from memory, but she doesn’t get an answer from any of them.

  ‘It looks like they maybe didn’t tell us everything’ she announces as she gives up her communication attempts ‘it’s time we made it out of here. Baz is such an idiot. They’ve got him cornered and the idiot left the plates on. They’re gonna be swarming all over us soon. Are you ready? I’ll drive?’

  By the time Mario gets to the car, Maria has already gunned the engine. As he gets into the passenger seat, she is putting it into gear.

  ‘I’m gonna take the back road out. There is no point going out the other way, cos if they are coming they will meet us head on. It’s gonna be a bit rough, but this bird will handle it alright. I’d put your buckle on.’

  TZ wakes early. She isn’t surprised to see Buzz lying next to her. She is a little surprised that she fancies him, as he isn’t her usual type of guy. The first minute she had seen him and she knew he had taken notice of her, she knew things had changed. It wasn’t a conscious decision in her head to snub Mario, it had just happened. It seems in her head as if he is just a blur on her peripheral vision. She has noticed the way Maria looks at Mario too, so she isn’t feeling too bad about it. After all, Mario is only her brother. She and Buzz are doing something different. But it isn’t just that which has changed. This whole episode of the money, the calling to come all the way up here to meet these guys; it is as if someone is controlling them. Now they are here she has this urge, not only to sleep with Buzz but also to be beside him in whatever they are going to do.

  She knows she should be a little worried for Mario because of some of the things, most of the things that Buzz and Ma are saying about Maria. But she can see that what she has been told and what she can witness, are possibly two different things. Mario and
Maria appear to be just fine together. In fact Ma says that she has never seen Maria like this before. It is as if she has been waiting for this moment all her life. Now that she is thinking that, she feels pretty much the same way about being with Buzz.

  She hears Buzz talking with Ma just before they leave. She hears that some of what they’ve told Mario and Maria isn’t entirely correct. That information is their destination. She also hears them say that they expect the ranch to be raided, so it is important they can’t tell anyone where the rest of them are.

  The vehicles are not exactly able to blend in with the other traffic and it is no surprise that they are attracting attention. That is why they have sent Baz off to set up a diversion and take some of the heat off the rest of them. According to Buzz, Baz is one for getting stuck in against the odds. He doesn’t know when he is beaten, so he will keep the authorities mightily distracted long enough for the rest of them to disburse safely.

  It doesn’t take long for the radio stations to pick up on his exploits. As they drive along, they are almost given a running commentary on the chaos he is causing. Typically for Baz, he has made sure that everyone knows he is around and it isn’t long before he is apparently cornered in a stand-off. Buzz says that Baz will have engineered that and will have an escape path all worked out.

  CHAPTER 81 SPIRIT

  A quick check in the androids’ room makes Spirit realise that there may be more of the androids. He goes back into the control room, but there isn’t one in there. It would have been so much easier if he had managed to get the job done of checking all the areas. Now he is going to have to start again.

  He decides to check the room where one of the androids had come out, but that is empty. A worrying thought sends him back to his craft. The auto defence system is still intact. Suddenly he hears a noise, but can’t place where it is coming from. Certainly it is from somewhere else on Luvus. As fast as he can, but still taking extreme care as he does so, he makes his way back to the control room. The noise is continuing and if anything is getting a bit louder.

  When he reaches the control room there are some warning lights flashing on the console. Unfortunately he has no idea what they may have to do with. There doesn’t seem to be a great urgency to the warnings. It is not as if there are sirens blasting out.

  The door into the control room closes on its own. Spirit quickly goes over to investigate. The door has been locked from the outside, however that is possible. Spirit walks back to the console and starts to flick some switches. He is trying to find if there are any cameras he can switch on, to see what is happening everywhere else. Eventually he comes across the right buttons to press. What he finds is that the screens are mostly blank. He guesses that the androids are systematically putting them out of action, on the way to wherever it is they are making for. At last his fingers catch up with their progress; well he can see there are at least two of them. The noise is still audible, as is a vibration trembling through the floor. Spirit isn’t sure if it is time for him to get worried yet.

  His attention is diverted by an audible signal from the console. He goes back over there and presses the button that is flashing. On the console it gives him a verbal description of what the warning is about.

  ‘Land cargo bay being opened’ Spirit hadn’t been aware there was a land cargo bay. Where is that, as he certainly hasn’t seen that?

  ‘Vehicle is exiting land cargo bay’ is the next thing to appear on his screen.

  Spirit hears the roar of an engine carry all the way to him in the control room.

  ‘Land cargo door closing’

  Spirit tries to locate the outside cameras but he can’t find any, or any that are working. He has no idea how many androids are on whatever it is. He has no idea what sort of transport it is either. He does have an idea that the engine noise is more suited to a terrain vehicle, rather than to a space vehicle. The question is how has he missed seeing the land cargo bay? He thinks about it for a minute and comes up with the only feasible answer. It is exactly what it says it is on the console. It is a ‘land cargo bay’, that meaning it isn’t part of this but is actually on the planet. The bay must be right by Luvus and that is why the noise was reverberating up through the base. He hadn’t been shown an exit door on the lower level, but there is obviously one there. Somehow he needs to get out of the control room. It is slightly puzzling why they have bothered to shut him in, if they aren’t considering doing something else. That is the point when an array of alarms start going off.

  Spirit taps away on the keyboard trying to find out what is wrong. The answer is simple. The place has started to destruct. He keeps tapping away while he still has power. Is there an escape hatch away from the control room that he can access?

  The immediate answer back is positive, but there is no information as to where he might be able to find it. He can hear sparks outside the door. The noise is increasing and suddenly the console goes dead. Spirit has a quick look to see if there is any way he can get access to the memory, but that isn’t possible. So he turns all of his attention in trying to locate the escape hatch. Smoke is staring to creep through the crack at the bottom of the door and through the seals at the side.

  There is little point in starting with the door wall, so he starts with the wall opposite. He reckons that one, as it is the only one which is not joined onto another room. His eyes take in every little detail, as he makes his way from one corner to the other. There is nothing obvious that he comes across. It would make sense; at least he is hoping it would, for the hatch to be manually operated. That is always assuming it is designed as a non power emergency escape hatch. He starts back the other way, but again finds nothing on that journey. A quick examination of the other three walls comes up with a similar blank. That leaves him the floor and the ceiling. The floor makes more sense, but that search is fruitless too.

  He lets his eyes wander to the ceiling. It looks as if that is going to be fruitless too. The ceiling is too high to reach without some form of steps or similar. What would the point of an emergency hatch be if you can’t reach it? The only place where he can easily reach the ceiling is if he stands on the desk at the consoles. That is what Spirit does next.

  CHAPTER 82 THE GRAND MASTER

  I, The Keeper am chained to one android in my quarters. I am resting on my bed when The Grand Master walks in. I don’t get up from my bed. I open my eyes and look at the man who has taken me away from my peaceful world. The Grand Master has said little to me and I am wondering why he needs me to be kept here. I don’t want to dwell on that thought too long. I have already found out that The Grand Master disposed of every one of those who came with him to Earth to fetch me. That disturbs me somewhat, as I know that at any time the same fate could be dealt out to me. The android I am attached to is extremely alert and sensitive. Every single twitch or movement and the android is enforcing his authority. A person would fall asleep at some time, giving you an opportunity to at least move without everything being ultra defended.

  The Grand Master looks at him carefully. He is wondering what he should do now with The Keeper.

  ‘There must have been a reason why they created all this around you’ he eventually speaks.

  ‘I am sure there must for it to have been planned the way it is. Every generation only having one child and that child being a boy is very unusual, if not unique’ I, The Keeper, replies.

  ‘It is just with everything else being so simple. With everything else providing no resistance, it is tempting to think that there is nothing out there to stop me or anyone for that matter doing what they like. So why all the fuss and ado about you being the Keeper of the Balance and having an android watch over you?’

  ‘I have no idea. Until you arrived to kidnap me, or very shortly before you arrived, I wasn’t even aware that I was not from Earth. I haven’t been given a set of instructions of what to do or how to do anything, in the event of the Balance needing to be restored. But I have to say that there does appear to be somet
hing in it all.’

  ‘That was what I thought when I was a Guiding Master. Three of us stationed here keeping an eye on things, doing a few visits as and when we were instructed to by O. Then what happens when I break that cycle? I come back here and search the place to root out what lies out of view. I find the place where O is and what do you think happens? This O just disintegrates in front of my very eyes into nothing. It disintegrates first down into a pile of dust and then nothing. What do you think of that?’

  I sit silently for a few seconds letting what has been said sink in. Then I chew over the information for a couple of minutes before responding.

  ‘Now that sounds to me, as if that was planned’ I open with, believing what I am saying. ‘It wouldn’t have been able to do that unless it had been designed to, in case of attack.’

  The Grand Master tells me that the files were destroyed too. I remain silent again for a few minutes after that.

  ‘Destroying its files could mean anything. It could mean that there are things you can’t be told about, or I suppose it could be a bluff. I think that it goes against everything that has not happened so far when you have challenged the system. I think O has a plan. Of course we may all be pawns in a bigger game.’

  ‘Yes, I agree. I was hoping to gain access to the main system here on the base. I could hardly believe my eyes when it just disintegrated.’ He stops in thought standing there looking at me. His eyes are open, but there is a faraway look in his eyes. He stays this way for an unnervingly long time. I can’t go anywhere, so I stay lying down watching The Grand Master. Eventually I notice that he is coming back to me.