20 July 2012
8. Simon dragging Paul by the arm, turning and twisting and jockeying for position as they climb down the narrow spiral stairs. Paul took a peek over the railing, it was a long way down. The path down was well illuminated.
As they continued with the descent Paul's head went through a number of crazy and unlikely scenarios. Was Simon leading him into an air raid shelter?. Had Simon finally lost his mind and was Simon lureing him to his death. He was scared, scared for himself but more importantly for his wife, home alone. Paul wanted to turn around and head back up, Simon had a tight grip, he wasn't going anywhere without permission.
At the bottom of the staircase Simon and Paul crossed the threshold into a new room. The room was full of lights. Flashing, hypnotic and inviting. The lights were neatly spaced out on towers of metal and plastic which were housing circuits and mile upon mile of wire. Each tower connected by even more wire. At the far end of the room fixed to the wall a large flat screen monitor was dead, a pitch black window. A red standby button blinking at a steady rhythm waiting to come to life.
Simon headed straight towards it. He again pulled out his ID card and swiped it through a slot in a black box, connected to the monitor, on the waist high bench in front of him. The monitor came to life. "This is what I need you to see" said Simon. The monitor loaded up its operating software in next to no time. Simon studied the display looking for the correct file. He found it 'Home'. He pressed his finger against the icon for the file and held it in place so the monitor could check his finger print. Accepting his identity as valid the file opened. "You ask me about the Great War, I don't talk about it for good reason. The War was not great. I done some things I have nightmares about" said Simon. "You want to talk about the war now!" snapped Paul. "Just hold on a second, please" Simon tapped away on the keypad on the desk. "Look" Simon pointed at the display. A birds eye view of Town appeared on the display, "This is us" said Simon. He pressed a few more keys and the map expanded, showing more and more. As the image grew, more towns appeared, according to the scale at the bottom of the screen they were separated by tens of miles. Littered in between there were dozens of small settlements. They were not the same as the towns. They were smaller and not one had a brick structure. Paul was aware of the layout of the Towns and recognised each one of them from his school days. The smaller places were new to him. "What is this, what's this got to do with anything?" said Paul. Simon zoomed into the closest foreign settlement, about eight miles out from Town. "We call them Natives" explained Simon. "You see them on the news every now and then, the terrorists, it's a cover up" Paul was puzzled by the nonsense coming from Simon. The old man knew Paul wanted him to get straight to the point. Paul was not a patient man. He went on to explain,
"They are not terrorists, they used to live the kind of life you and I have, we took that away from them. We started the Great War boy".
9. Mary paced up and down her living room. She was sick with worry. As she peered out of the window she could see Agents moving down the street towards her. Covered in black body armour, heavily armed and some had riot shields. They stopped at Marys neighbours home. Surrounding the house with assault rifles trained on entry and exit points while a man wearing a black suit entered via the front door. The man although not heavily armoured had a pistol in hand, held down by his thigh. He was less aggressive in his way of movement. He seemed calm, oblivious to the noise. The Agents were looking for something or some one.
The hum from the heavens was still present. Constant and not changing in tone. Mary picked up her comms and pressed the speed dial for her husband, Paul, who was still with Simon, as far as she was aware. Surely Paul had heard the noise. Why hadn't he come home?. The comms device let out a series of beeps. No response. Mary figured that Home and Welfare had shut down the network after issuing their order, making sure that who ever they were looking for couldn't liaise or plan with an accomplice. Mary told herself to shut up. She was home alone during a lock down, didn't have a clue as to what was happening outside, and assumed now that Agents were after two people.
The panic in her head now at paranoia levels. She contemplated they could actually be after her. She scanned her room looking for hiding places. What about the cupboard by the door?. Everything gets lost in there. "Don't be so stupid woman" she said to herself.
She peeked out of the window again and saw that the agents were finishing up at her neighbours. The Agents retreating from their positions. As the man in the suit left the building his subordinates formulated a circle around him, as if waiting for new orders. The man in the suit pointed towards Mary.
9. Although underground Paul could still hear the noise from outside. He could feel it too, vibrating the walls visibly, moving through his hands placed onto the workbench for support, down through his gut, his legs and then being absorbed through the thick black rubber on the boots on his feet. A steady shock of direct current. The monitor was fixed in place and was unaffected by the shock. Paul wiped the sweat from his forehead on the back of his hand. "What do you mean Si?. We took their life, you said we started the war?". Paul's voice was trembling, it was hard to tell if this was because of the vibration running through his body but Paul was scared. The monitor now illuminated, flashing information, it was a timeline of events. Simon highlighted the first entry on the touch screen.
"This here, this is why" removing his finger from the monitor a new file opened up revealing a list of places and names. "Listen, we are millennia old, we travel from world to world taking resources by force. We take the best of their culture, their way of life, to improve our own. We are the epitome of evolution. We survive, we near enough wiped out the human species". Simon was disgusted with the string of words that came from his memory. He couldn't look Paul in the eye. He continued "that noise you hear, that's our second home, coming to take us, it is time to move on".
Paul's mind struggled to process the crazy statement. It made no sense at all to him. He had a million and one questions for Simon, the lone thought that struggled to the top of the mountain was "you mean... I am alien?".
Simon shook his head, "No not alien, you are human, you were designed to be the best physical human but retain all of the traits of the civilisations we conquered before". Simon was interrupted. The light above the monitor was beginning to dim. The generator powering the room was dying a slow mechanical death. Simon took note of this, he knew time was running out. He inserted a flash drive into the bottom of the monitor and typed away on the keypad.
"I am downloading all you need to know, take it and go back to Mary, there's not much time, the Agents will try to arrest you, if this happens demand to speak to Andrews, and show him this" Simon handed over the hard drive. Paul didn't know what to do with himself, the room was spinning. He realised that old Si' was not a crazy deluded man, he was telling the truth. He didn't want to leave him, it wasn't just because he cared for him, he wanted to ask those millions of questions he had racked up. Simon ushered Paul to the door leading back to the spiral staircase. "Go, don't worry about me, I have some things to take care of. I will be fine. Go!". Simon pushed Paul through the threshold before activating a door which locked shut in front of him.
X. The Contubernium, menacing, in black armour moved in towards their next target. The house with the self inlicted vandalism on the front door. Agent Andrews, three steps behind them as they crept forward in a well drilled formation. The wind catching Andrews white hair, an annoying distraction. Andrews' distraction was interrupted by another. His in ear comms came to life. New instructions were fed to him from Tactical division "Abandon search, we have detected unauthorised access to cetra-base, priority, apprehend Simon".
Andrews relayed the order. The ten man squad obediently acknowledged the order from their superior. They set a new course for the run down shack at the end of the street.
Mary now accepting she had nothing to worry about still let out a sigh of relief as she observed through her living room window Contuberniums detour. A new panic and set of worries washed over her. The Agents were not heading towards her next neighbour as she assumed. They were heading to the bottom of the street. Straight towards her husband.
Paul made it to the front door, he opened the door slightly giving himself enough space to squeeze his head through. His neck catching on the lock mechanism, he could barely turn his head. He could see the armed Agents in the middle of the road, some couple of hundred feet away. He could make out rifles pointed straight at the shack. "Shit!" Paul couldn't see a way out, stuck between ten armed men and no doubt more agents further down the street. "Which one of them is Andrews?". Paul questioned himself. He took another look up and down both ends of the street and decided he would make a run for it. Run anywhere, it didn't matter, he knew they would catch him sooner or later. First though he had to get out of Simons yard.
Clutching the hard drive in his left hand, he crouched down. He decided he would use the hills of metal left by Simon as cover. Moving quickly from one mound to the next, he was closing in on the perimeter of the yard. There was no more cover. Just the road and the prospect of being caught. As he sat behind the burned out engine block shielding him from sight, he wondered if
The End : Aggregate (Part 2) • Opuss № I