The Camper_First Contact and the Planet Tamer

by Richard C Holmes

  He was thinking very naughty thoughts. If she was stronger than she now was, that was concerning. He usually disciplined his mind to reject naughty thoughts out of hand.

  After a few moments she reached into her blazer and pulled out an envelope addressed to him. "Sir a small memento of this meeting? Would you like it?" She handed it over.

  He saw his name printed carefully on the front, then he ran ahead mentally. She’d been collected without warning yet she had this in her blazer waiting for him. She seemed to have predicted everything and led from the get go.

  "It is a character flaw sir I'm afraid," she said into the silence and he marveled at her intuition into his thought processes.

  He opened the envelope and inside was an ornate invitation to 'Lafayettes' for two for this night. This night only and that indicated just how well she had anticipated this. "Ms Smith is this the last clue? Is this the clue that you are prepared and ahead?" He watched her take a small bow, still sitting.

  "I do enjoy the company of statesmen" she said, "So I hope you will please excuse me now, time is getting on and I have another gentleman to visit before the evening."

  She stood quickly as he struggled to his feet. "Ms Smith this has been so far my most surprising hour in my office. Perhaps there will be a next time?"

  She just nodded slightly, hesitated, "Too early to say sir, but I suspect late next week or the week after we can have a short chat about unfolding events, just before they unfold in fact. Perhaps I should be pushy, as I often am, and suggest that our meetings might best be kept very private. I do hope you will excuse me for stating the obvious sir."

  He chuckled, "Ms Smith, secrecy is our stock in trade. Till later," and he shook her hand again.

  Out they went and the secret service eyed her with suspicion.

  She was then escorted down in the lift but declined an offer of transport, "Thank you for thinking of me, I appreciate that but other people over the street are tasked with keeping me under observation, so I shall upset them now. Share and share alike."

  She smiled into the woman agents somewhat annoyed face. "Till next time," as she left the building quickly.

  The agent watched, then to a subordinate, "Quick, get the gatehouse to find out who she cadges a lift with."

  She watched the small girl scoot past the gatehouse then walk straight up to a parked car with two men in it, tap on the window, discuss something for a few seconds, then get into the back as they drove off.

  The agent let the images sit for a moment in her mind. "Is there any doubt she can look after herself? If they're ax murdering rapists on crack, we'll find their bodies when she's good and done with them."

  The other agents present thought that a fair comment.

  ---oOo---

  Taming a Region

  AK+3

  Raymond Alphonse Garcia was born into abject poverty as had so many millions like him in slums spread across cities all over the world. His slum in Bogota was a brutal one though. Like so many others he was brutalized by poverty and violence, learning very early that his mother and father lived on the tenuous edge between life and death, with violent death never far away.

  As he grew it became apparent to those around him that 'Raymond is special' as everyone saw how smart he was. Not book learning smart but situation smart. He sensed the emotions in a room, in an area, in a street or wherever he was and made the most of it. What people did not know was that Raymond was special for other reasons; he was cunning and without fear when it came to getting his own way and he covered it up well.

  In a five year old boy or even in a ten year old boy, everything usually revolved around food or games or friendships but not for Raymond. Initially it had been that way but not for long when he had realized he could get so much more by being clever and covering it up.

  This realization came quickly after beatings from older boys who took offense at 'that little grub Raymond' as he became known, poking his nose into things that should should not concern him. Also, the deadly nature of the neighborhood was not for an instant missed by him; people who stood up to be noticed were machine gunned or 'disappeared' in the night to return as corpses, often with terrible signs of abuse all over them. That it applied equally to men, women and children was not something he missed for a second.

  Then just after his tenth birthday everything changed forever.

  School in his neighborhood and for a family like his with next to zero spare money was not much of a school by many standards. The teachers were universally the lowest paid people but sometimes those teachers were there by virtue of a 'calling'. They came because they wanted to improve the lot of their students, to give them education to lift them out of the terrible cycle of poverty, violence and drugs that fed the crime based culture that was self sustaining and self destroying for so many.

  Raymond's' fifth grade teacher was one such teacher but a man like no other he had ever met or heard of, a tall thin older man with sad eyes who Raymond adored with every fiber of his body. He would sit quietly in a trance of concentration as his teacher painted word pictures of different lives, of different countries, of places that felt to him like being on different planets. His time with Mister Alberto as he was called, shaped much of his life and eventually the lives of half his country.

  What Mister Alberto had done was open doors in his mind, release him from the slums and to give him an inner confidence. Mister Alberto gave him the incalculable gift of imagination that to a person from the slums, was a gift beyond value. Raymond was able to imagine a world that was not like where he was now and to imagine how he would make it come about.

  However it all came crashing down around his head and shoulders one fateful day.

  ---oOo---

  Mister Alberto was at the blackboard with chalk going over the learning-lesson for the day as he called it.

  Mister Alberto split the day into three; board learning where he taught mathematics, spelling, grammar, writing and all the other 'essentials for survival' he said. "Without these tools you cannot rise above and become the people you really are." That was something that stuck with Raymond till the day he died. Education gave people tools.

  The second part was what Miser Alberto said made the difference between a person and an animal; this was his 'civics' as he called it. He tried to give his students a feeling for being human. He used history extensively, talking about the Roman Empire, about America and her greatness, about the Vikings and then the British Empire. He gave his students a huge exposure to what it was to be human.

  The last part of the day he spoke about 'ethics' and what it was to live with others successfully. He spoke of how a community could be good or bad, how it could rise above or become absorbed by whatever ailed it. Whilst this was the smallest part of the three streams he taught it was to many of the class the most telling. That someone would advocate standing up to the cartels, to standing up to the drug and crime lords was extraordinary.

  Unfortunately the notoriety of Mister Alberto was his undoing. His students talked about him, worshiped him as an idol and this eventually made its way to ears that were exactly of the kind he despised. That he made his feelings known and that he made it known that 'the people should rise to depose these criminals' set his future demise in stone. He’d become a threat.

  One morning as Mister Alberto was at the blackboard leading the class in the times tables a man entered, walked up to Mister Alberto, pulled out a gun then shot him in the head, then three times in the chest as he lay on the floor. The man turned and started to walk out through the stunned group of children sitting on their chairs.

  The room was starkly silent and still, every eye on him in that moment of violence as he moved through it. But one child's arm flashed too quickly for him to see till it buried itself in his stomach with the knife it clutched, angled upward, into his heart killing him almost as quickly as he had killed Mister Alberto.

  Raymond knew what he had done had ended his own life, the life he was no
w living was gone forever more.

  He reached down, took his knife out of the dead mans stomach, wiped it then put it back into the scabbard behind his back. He reached down then took the gun from the man, then started to move when he realized he needed to slow down. He turned back, stooped down and ran his hands over the dead man feeling inside his clothes for whatever was there. He found a wallet he took all the money from then he found two spare magazines for the gun which he also pocketed.

  These were his defining moments in his new life; taking advantage of those you killed, collect their resources and make them your own.

  Standing slowly he looked around, he saw the whole room full of children, his classmates, all looking at him, cowering at his bravery but also cowering at the threat he now was. Anyone knowing Raymond, anyone saying they were his friend, anyone who might help him would be hunted down. The vengeance for the death of this man would be terrible and wide spread.

  He started to run but stopped almost instantly, again thinking, again showing his appreciation for the moment.

  If he ran he would be seen instantly as someone who was guilty. If he walked quietly but quickly his chances would be better, so that is what he did.

  He held the gun behind him, low down behind his leg clutched in his small hand as he walked quickly out of the shanty school room then almost collided with another gunman outside, fidgeting, looking nervous. No doubt the gunshots had been heard and equally, no doubt would draw attention.

  Almost of its own volition his right hand brought the gun around and touching the man in the stomach he pulled the trigger. Since he was only a little boy, shorter than the man, he was pointing upwards so again Raymond killed another man instantly as the bullet plowed through his stomach then up into his chest and heart. Again Raymond stooped down to collect what he could from the body.

  The sounds of the gunshots brought attention so Raymond was now the center of that attention. Everyone knew what he had done and the terrible consequences of those actions.

  Raymond looked at the people staring at him and this time he ran. He ran in terror at what he had done and he ran in abject misery at the loss of Mister Alberto his idol, his mentor, the man who had given him a dream, and now the dream was breaking. All thoughts of remaining hidden were lost in his terror.

  That day he hid. That was the only thing he could do. He could not go home as he could not bring himself to tell his mother what he had done, and his father would surely beat him for his stupidity. So hide is what he did; he knew the slums as every child did, staying out of sight of adults was not difficult.

  In the early evening when darkness came he ventured out. The two guns he had, the spare clips of ammunition and his trusty knife were his only physical tools but not his main tools; the truly dangerous ones were in his head.

  Mister Alberto had taught him to dream, taught him that he was capable of changing things around himself and rising above. Mister Alberto had given him courage and the ability to dream of a different future.

  It took an hour to carefully work his way back to his house but that was where the waking nightmare began.

  He found a car outside his house, parked a short way away so as to not look suspicious but he knew every car that had ever been in the area. This was a gang car, and no doubt it was from the same gang as the men he’d killed.

  The lights in his house were out with not a sound was to be heard, so he knew something terrible was happening. Silence was bad. He should hear the radio or his parents doing things. Also, every other house in the area was quiet and not a soul was on the street when usually there would be a dozen children running or sitting or playing. The neighborhood knew when trouble was near.

  He slunk back into the shadows, stayed low near to the ground on the other side of the street from the car sitting still as he waited quietly. He waited for hours and in all that time not a sound was heard.

  It was well after midnight when his wait was rewarded; three men came out of his house very slowly, slinking, creeping out looking up and down the street looking for him no doubt. In the shadows, not moving, he was impossible to see but he could see them. He could also see the blood on them, his parents blood.

  The men scanned the area slowly, then shrugging got into the car. As the doors slammed, the driver before starting the engine on this hot night, put all the windows down which was the only impetus he needed. He saw his opportunity.

  As quickly as his ten year old legs would carry him he ran from across the street them put both his hands inside the car, then he started pulling the triggers on the two guns he held. One pistol had thirteen rounds, the other only ten but his total lack of marksmanship, the recoil of the big guns and his weaker muscles meant his shots went wildly around the inside of the car. That saved him.

  The bullets flew at random, totally at random, so there was little chance of the men not being hit by at least one of the twenty three bullets which was exactly what happened. Raymond managed to kill the driver and the front seat passenger outright but the rear seat passenger was only hit in the legs, arm, stomach and a glancing wound to the head that stunned him.

  Raymond was still pulling the triggers long after the guns were empty, just standing there looking at the dead men. Then a few seconds later he heard the groaning and movement in the back seat. He dropped the guns then opened the back seat door, the man moving slightly, covered in blood, groaning.

  He took his knife and pushed it forward time and again, stabbing him in the side, in the stomach then one final hard time under the chin driving the blade upward imagining it going into his brain.

  He stepped back and was about to run when he realized his earlier lesson. He stopped. Then slowly as if in a trance walked back to the front of the car, opened the front door then methodically searched the dead men. He found more guns, he found more magazines of bullets he found more money, but in the trunk he found something that made him stop and think; he found a box of grenades, six of them.

  Grenades! He knew them for what they were, every little boy knew what these small and heavy things would do. He’d seen them used in war movies on a television and he’d imagined throwing them at ‘baddies’. He’d heard other boys talking about them. It was an exciting feeling picking one up but also frightening.

  However with that fear and an expectation that was born of the war movies, a plan formed in his mind.

  It took him a few seconds to make his mind up then he collected and reloaded the original two guns he had. He pocketed the money and the spare magazines then he picked up the box of grenades.

  He turned and ran as quickly as he could. It hadn’t taken more than a minute but with the rapid gunfire and every pair of eyes looking out of darkened rooms at night, he’d knew he’d been observed. The windows were dark allowing people to look out to watch but not be seen, something he and his family had done countless times when violence roamed the streets. Watching was safe, especially watching from a safe location in the dark.

  He ran and he ran.

  He knew his parents would be dead.

  He knew who had done it and he knew where they came from.

  He knew the car, he knew where it was parked for much of the time when they were not using it, he knew the house where the gang headquarters was. He ran there, quickly, through the backstreets, in the shadows, a small boy running quickly clutching a box to his chest.

  The trip took him a few minutes, not long, not long enough for the news of the demise of the three men in the car to reach the gang.

  Raymond approached quietly. Out the front of the building a man stood guard with a gun in his belt, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette.

  Walking slowly with his head down, holding the box of grenades to his stomach and with the knife in his right hand obscured by the box he walked forward. The guard saw him then stood up straighter, taking the cigarette out of his mouth, "What are you doing out so late," he spat out. As he said that Raymond drew level then quickly slashed the knife forward an
d up under the mans rib cage killing him as he stood.

  The man toppled slowly to the pavement clutching his chest, making a dull clatter that was hardly heard a dozen yards away. It was certainly not heard in the building where music was playing as the men were either lounging, drinking or playing cards.

  He knelt by the dead man, putting the box of grenades on the pavement. He opened it, took out a grenade, tugged out the pin then threw it through the open window on the right hand side of the front door. He took a second grenade and threw it though the left hand side and a third through the right hand side. Then he threw himself down flat with his hands over his ears. He heard shouts and screams then the explosions came, shutting down everything else. He jumped up and repeated it with two to the left hand window and one to the right.

  This time after the explosions he stood up, got both his guns out then ran up to and through the opened front door. He found a man kneeling with his hands over his ears shaking his head. He put a gun to the mans head and pulled the trigger. Running into the room he encountered dead men but also men staggering to their feet. He ran as quickly as he could, put a gun to their head or chest and with a single bullet killed every single one. He ran around the area, he ran into the other rooms, he shot and killed as he went.

  Barely a minute later, still running he was unable to find anyone alive, everyone dead. He stopped then sank to his knees and sobbed.

  It took time for the terror, the shaking and the sobs to stop but then he looked around. It was time to take stock and think, to collect and move.

  Again he searched and again he took all the money he could. He emptied wallets, he looked in cupboards and boxes tipping out their contents, he hunted and he found lots of money. He also found a lot of guns and bullets. Making a quick decision he kept all the money putting it into a leather bag over his shoulder. He took boxes of bullets, many hundreds of bullets that would fit his guns, and that was all he wanted. Knives he saw and was tempted but his own had worked so well he didn’t want another.