7
Earlier the same day on the thirteenth floor of a nondescript downtown building, the team of hunters had reassembled and were rigorously applying themselves to the search for the fleeing squatters. Seven darkly dressed men encircled a vibrant hub of computers. The foreboding figure of the Colonel paced around them.
He knew each member of the team could sense his anger and understood its reason. Although the events of the previous night had begun with victory, they had ended in frustration and a messy encounter with three of the most dangerous skeletons in the Big Man’s closet. Just as it appeared to them that their task was at an end, they had come upon the three freaks. There in the choking smoke the giants had attacked his party. If only he had not been advised to treat them with care, the team could have been subdued much more easily, but he was under the strictest of orders from the Big Man not to kill them. By the time they had finished subduing them, the gigantic brutes had knocked two of his men unconscious and wasted countless minutes of precious time. It wouldn't be the first time bureaucracy and bad luck had hindered an operation.
The Colonel promised himself that tonight would contain no such mishaps.
He looked down at his crew as they worked; their eyes twitched frantically as they scanned the London electronic circuit for signs of the fugitives. Although the reason was lost on him, his team had as yet been unable to detect any sign of the four—the African woman and her boy, the big European and his daughter. Luck aside, he had no idea how they had escaped them. No doubt some credit was due to his own arrogance. But how had they gotten past those infernal mutants infesting the old tubes?
The room they currently occupied was large and filled with the technology used by the Spotters; the Big Man had given them the best of everything that money could buy and some other things that only the government could. The team surfed through millions of gigabytes of information. There were eight screens circling a centrally located processor. In the old days the type of data they were absorbing at once would have required the use of two or three supercomputers. This, of course, was no longer the turn of the century, when electronics research and development was just starting to hit its stride. The full fruition of centuries of advancement past that stage had allowed mankind—or at least the favored demographics of humanity—to do things that sometimes seemed to fit better in fantasy novels rather than reality. This was of no concern to the Colonel or his team. They were equipped beyond the dreams of any normal person. The room was the picture of wireless efficiency.
Moche lifted his head from the computer.
"Colonel, got them on the screen. Ten minutes ago in a tube station near the outskirts of the city. You might want to plug-in and see for yourself."
The Colonel walked over.
"Play it back."
"Yes, sir. Looks like they had a run in with someone in the station. Everyone should have it up now."
All eight pairs of eyes focused on the same image, a freeze frame of an old man with a dirty grey beard leering wildly at the young boy.
"Who is that? What did he say? McKay, Gunn.”
The Colonel squared his jaw and peered into the screen.
"Everyone else, get ready to roll out. I'm going to plug into the city grid and follow that train car. I should have their location in less than five minutes. No more mistakes. This time they won't have any ten ton circus freaks behind them. Five, Six, I need that information quickly."
The seven faces around him nodded resolutely; they were professionals, hand-picked with minds and bodies electronically enhanced, like few other individuals in the world. The Colonel used his left hand to pull a long cord from his right forearm. He inserted it into a female port on the front of the screen. He closed his eyes and exhaled.
(The Colonel watched as) Gus stepped off the train first. The four made their way rather quickly up the tunnel and stairs and into the streets outside. Gus looked around nervously but there was no sign of trouble and so he led the others down the street and away from the cameras before hailing a taxi.
"This address." He handed the driver a piece of paper.
The cab pulled away from the curb and all four passengers relaxed noticeably. Gus periodically checked the rear-view for signs of their pursuers—and, strangely enough, birds—but after seeing nothing he relented and sat back in the passenger's seat.
Their destination was on the second floor of a relatively small apartment complex in Hounslow nears its border with Hammersmith. They were just on the edge of the sanctioned city limits. The man they were going to see was an old friend of Gus’s, although it had been such a long time Gus wondered if they would even recognize each other.
The man's name was Henry Besla. They met each other during the excitement of the 30s, when they both were young and passionate and living in old central London. Gus being preoccupied with governments’ misuse of military power in the Middle East and Africa and Henry focused on privacy, freedom of information, Internet and cyberspace, the two men had somehow managed to find themselves arguing about which was more important. They had left the conversation fervently hoping never to see each other again. Unfortunately, for them they shared too many friends to accommodate this wish and eventually after riding with the same group of people long enough, the two men had enough arguments to realize they were on the same side and then, finally, to begin to like each other.
The taxi crossed Hammersmith bridge.
All this was, of course, in a completely different time and, for as much as Gus was concerned, a different place, before he had agreed to live with the squatters in self-imposed political exile. Why had he done that? Was it out of protest or stupidity or anger? Devotion to a higher ideal? All things that were pointless to think about now.
After driving for another fifteen minutes the car stopped and they all got out. The sun had just reached its mid-afternoon peak but it was only through a small patch of clear sky that it was visible; the rest of the sky looked a gloomy grey-blue color.
Gus led them to the apartment block. It was a six story building with large red bricks and white mortar. Compared to the towering edifices of central London it looked rather pitiful.
After walking hurriedly up the steps the big man pushed the doorbell for room 303 and prayed to God that Henry hadn't moved. The taxicab drove away leaving a long and pervading silence in its wake. The population in this part of the city was sparse; only a few people were on the streets. Gus pressed the doorbell again. He could see from the looks on Nkiruka and the children's faces that fear was taking hold again. He pressed the doorbell a third time. Finally, the loudspeaker stuttered and assaulted their ears with a high pitch squeal followed by two glorious syllables:
"Hello?" The man's voice sounded rough and uninviting.
"Henry, is that you?"
"Nope, who's this? Who am I speaking to?"
"My name is Gus. I'm an old friend of Henry's. Does he still live here?"
"Well you're at the right place. At least it would have been a day or two ago."
Gus felt Jess's hand tighten around his.
"What do you mean?"
"Nevermind, come on up."
The bolt slid open with a mechanical thunk and Gus pulled the door open. He ushered the others in quickly and cast a brief nervous glance to the street behind them. All they could do now was pray they had not been followed. He wished desperately that he had a better plan for their escape and hiding. But of course there was none. This was it. He walked into the building and shut the door behind him.
The Colonel stood still as a statue as he watched the four squatters enter the apartment. According to his statistics he was still watching four minutes behind real time. It was unfortunate, he thought, that he was as yet the only member on the team technologically capable of scanning the CCTV grid. He would have liked to personally see the end of this mission. This thought echoed minutely in the upper recesses of his brain, the majority of his brainpower working on maintaining the visual uplink to the three different security cameras directed on the apartment building.
"How long until the team reaches the building?" The question, a silent one, spoken only to himself, nevertheless received a instantaneous answer.
"We're two minutes away, sir."
"Good, they're in 303."
Inside apartment 303 the squatters received some difficult news. Henry Besla was not in—nor would he be for the foreseeable future. According to the apartment's current resident—a slight, dirty-looking sort of man with brown hair and a contrasting red beard who had introduced himself only as Rufus—Henry had recently been sent to prison. In fact, just that morning he had been sentenced to two years. Rufus explained to them that he and Henry had recently started a website that was renewing the popularity of the torrents. Of course Rufus hadn't the money to support such an endeavor and so hadn't gotten in so much trouble as his accomplice. He noted this with a compromising mixture of guilt and relief.
Gus broke in.
"We really need a place to stay. Somewhere safe and out of the way."
Rufus regarded him. His face change into an apologetic mask.
"I'm sorry you can't say here. In fact, I'm under Henry's strictest order not to let anyone else stay with me. Not even a woman! Would you believe that? It's as if he wouldn't trust me to shine his shoes or shit in the right receptacle! And beside," he looked at them, "you'll have to pardon my rudeness, but you guys look like the type of people who bring trouble to other peoples' doorsteps."
The man reached onto the coffee table in front of him, grabbed a piece of crusty muffin and shoved it into his mouth.
"Please, we really need somewhere to stay," Nkiruka pleaded.
"Oh, I know a place where you can stay." Rufus choked down the muffin. "Just not here. Wait here a minute. I'll fetch the address."
Rufus walked quickly down a narrow hall but raised his voice so he could still be heard.
"He's an old friend of mine. You can mention my name if you like, mind you it won't make a lick of difference to him. He'll take in anyone. A great man, a real guide for the helpless." He paused then added placating, "Not that you're helpless. I'm sure he'll be happy to help you."
He came back into the room with a slip of paper and handed it to Gus before sitting down again.
"What's your friend’s name?"
Before Rufus could answer, a sharp banging noise turned all heads toward the window. The curtains in the apartment were all closed so the view outside was obscured. Rufus stood up to investigate.
"What in the hell is that?"
He paced quickly to the window and drew the curtains.
Faraji and Jess gasped. The raven looked at them through the window, cocked its head, looking at each of them intently with its strange intelligence. It pecked at the window again and gave a great cawcaw.
"Everyone, it's time to go," Gus commanded gravely. "Rufus, close the curtains."
Rufus looked at him strangely. He slid the blinds shut.
"Friend of yours?"
The wizard watched exultantly through the crystal ball. Without so much as a breath his consciousness slid silkily into the hallway camera and back to the closed circuit that covered the rear and main entrances to the apartment.
The stage being set, all plans leading to this end, he had only to wait and watch it unfold.
"They're coming out the back way. Gene, Cordon, O’Brian meet Alt, Hutter and Waite at the rear exit. Turn on active camouflage."
With only a bit of concentration the Colonel held the images of all three cameras before his mind's eye. He watched and he listened. He watched as his men, one by one, flickered briefly and disappeared. Only the rough edges of their silhouettes could be seen. He smiled as the big European walked down the stairs followed by his daughter then the African boy and his mother. He heard as the boy whispered earnestly to his mother.
"How did it find us again?"
The satisfied smile left the his face instantly. What 'it' was the boy talking about?
"Watch it, team. There's something else in play here."
No response. He cursed audibly and the sound echoed around the empty room. The wire held only a dull emptiness. The connection had somehow been severed.
Just then something black covered the vision of the rear camera. The last thing he saw was the scaly claw of a bird pressing the camera down and a flurry of black.
Faraji could barely think for the fear that shocked his heart. He followed Gus methodically like a toy soldier offloading onto a real battlefield. He had no idea how they'd been found. All he could process was the same thought, redundantly, over and over:
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
They reached the door and passed over the threshold.
The four of them had little time to react. Before having taken half a dozen steps a voice from no where commanded them:
"On the ground!"
Suddenly one man materialized directly in front of them, a bizarre set of glasses concealing his face.
"We want nothing from you! We want no part of your world. You have already killed my husband! Save your magic for someone else. We only want peace!” Nkiruka screamed.
The glasses remained dark and pitiless.
"On the ground."
Gus lunged at him valiantly but an unseen force kicked him to the ground. His companions flew into action: Nkiruka unleashed an earth-shattering cry and began slashing the empty air around her like a fitting medicine woman. Faraji grabbed Jess's hand and ran for the pavement's edge but almost instantaneously an invisible force pried them apart and lifted each of them off the ground where they dangled helplessly, kicking and screaming.
Nkiruka, fighting desperately against an enemy she could not see, slapped and clawed and kicked at the malignant phantoms around her person. She was the only one who had not been restrained when a surreal laugh started to echo from around the corner of the building. The laugh ascended into an incredible volume until it died and the figure of the dirty beggar from the underground strolled casually toward the area.
"Three, Four, Six, on him. He's the one from the train station." a voice whispered above Faraji's head.
"Don't move! Down on the ground!" Three invisible voices echoed in unison.
The old man kept walking toward them; this time free of his drunken wobble, the man looked lighter on his feet. He pulled down the brim of his ageless hat and all the men appeared, painted into existence by an unknown force.
"Fire on target." Commanded the now visible man holding Jess and Faraji by their wrists.
But no bullets came; it was as if all their assailants were frozen in time. Faraji felt himself hit the ground beside Jess, who had started crying. He looked up to see Gus bludgeoning an unmoving man to the ground and his mother freeing herself from her invisible tormentors. Their eyes bulged wildly and they strained like horses on the verge of being broken. Nkiruka's gaze flitted viciously between the two motionless men just feet from her before they settled warily on the the old man.
He looked to them, and said calmly, with a certain amount of arrogance:
"As I said before, I think it's best you come with me."
"Who are you?" Gus asked.
The man tipped his hat upwards revealing an ancient bearded face. He lifted his leathery cheeks in attempt at a smile that held no emotion. He stared straight toward Gus with an air of command.
"Right now I am your savior. And one who says now is no time for explanations. There are only two men in this country whose wrath I fear and one of them is most certainly on his way here right now. He will find you no matter where you go. However, if you come with me I will help you delay that inevitability. This time the choice is easier to make. Come and live, or stay and be persecuted."
He turned and began to walk back the way he'd come. Faraji gasped as he saw a big raven detach itself from the side of the building and float lightly onto the old man's shoulder.
Gus and Nkiruka looked at each other and walked dazedly over to their children before following the old man around the corner of the building. The six darkly clad figures of their hunters stood rigid as stones behind them.