Day 124 - Babel - Chapter 20 (1940 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 20

George and Barbara were on the roof of the hotel when the connection was made and the entire crowd, the hundreds of thousands of people got Looped in. They saw the bodies moving in unison, something passed between them all, even at this far away they could see that happening. The first part of it was obviously the synchronised movements, the linking physically, but the next piece was just as physical, but much more subtle until magnified by the sheer number of people undergoing it. There was a tension, like everyone braced for impact in their minds, stiffened limbs, muscles coiled like a spring ready to go. That lasted a micro second and then everyone released that tension, like a collective sigh of relief as they all relaxed again.

The gunman, the man running through them now, stood out immediately looking crazed and desperate to escape from the centre of an impossibly large gathering of people. Their amazement turned to fear when they saw the speed and precision with which they brought down that man, like ants pouring over a larger creature in a wildlife documentary, innumerable and effectively unstoppable. Barbara grabbed at George's arm, digging in and turning away not wanting to look, expecting the worst.

George watched the whole time, wondering if the man was to be torn apart by the crowd that held him fast, stripping away weapons and possessions, peeling away clothes and layers and stripping him to naked yet still bound. It made sense on one hand, the man had attacked, killed maybe and now he was naked and immobilised no longer a threat and no surprises lurked in his exposed self. On the other hand it was a violation of sorts, the complete authority imposed on the man as the Babel now appeared to be acting as one, but also as an assemblage of individuals.

“He's OK, he is, they are just restraining him, it's OK.” George reassured Barbara who had to turn and see for herself to believe that.

“Is he? They've torn off his clothes? Why are they doing that?” She was still alarmed by the power of the Babel now they were acting together.

“I guess it's to subdue him, I mean he did kill two people, or shoot them at least.”

“Two what though? Babel? Or Few? Or... something else?”

George was troubled by the idea that there was a difference between those groups, but now that she said it he could not but wonder if they were something else, not human? “Does it matter? I mean if they are Babel or Few they're still human right?”

Barbara said nothing, kept her thoughts to herself, but she had seen a spaceship, two of them in the last few days and now these human-looking things come out of the small ship, who's to say that they are not aliens, that the man with the gun is not right? She shook her head and tried to settle herself, leading George off the roof and out of sight.

“Do you think we should go and see what's...” George did not finish his question when he saw the fear on Barbara's face, he though he understood it. It was an amazing sight to see the Babel, who he had kind of treated like children for a while now, suddenly become connected and effective, more humanly possible.

“More than humanly possible.” He said it out loud, sharing the idea with his companion.

“I know right? This is not human, they were mindless zombies minutes ago and now.... before they could not see us, or could not react to us, but now? We should stay out of sight, definitely until we know more.” They had reached the room, and Barbara was pouring a drink, strong with alcohol and offering non-verbally to George who shook his head.

“They could have killed him, they could have killed him if they wanted to I mean. Instead they stopped him, stopped him and incapacitated him.”

“They're not human.”

“Well that's just silly, we know they're human, they were Babel. I mean they were human and we know that. Our family and friends are in that crowd.” George had a thought. “I hope they are, I hope they weren't on the bridge when, you know... they couldn't have gotten ahead of us by walking could they? No it was too far away, they were too far and it was on foot, we have the … had the car? They must be in the crowd somewhere... we should go and look.”

“No, no, no. We don't know that they are who we think they are, how long has it been since we've even been able to talk to them? Some of those people, MOST of the villagers we helped … we didn't even know them before. They stopped talking, maybe the Babel were just whatever these things are now, but in hibernation!” Barbara was shaking and took another drink, this time draining the glass and refilling another just as strong.

George walked to the doors, the sliding glass that led to the balcony but she grabbed him violently by the arm and jerking him backwards, violently underestimating her own strength with the vodka kicking in and also making her reel a bit from her actions.

“What the Fuck?” George fell backwards on to the bed.

“You can't let them see you, you can't let one see you, they all... they're connected, you know that right? If one sees you maybe they all do!” She was in tears now, the alcohol intensifying the paranoia and irrationality of her fear.

“That's crazy, look … we can't hide here forever.”

“No, no … but we can for now.” She sounded so hopeless and afraid that George just acquiesced and sat down again, reaching for a drink of his own, just pouring much less into it than she had in hers.

Within thirty minutes she was unconscious and calm, so he tucked her into the bed and left her a note. Gone to explore, will stay out of sight.

Victor was seething with rage, he was naked and angry but he could not move at all. The voice in his head was whispering suggestions, looking for opportunities to escape and break free from this unholy monster masquerading as people. He was being led in bondage to the place where he had placed one of the devices he had set up in a trash-can on the street, not too far from the Quay Street and Queen intersection, and somehow this thing, this gestalt entity that was possessing these lost souls knew it was there.

It was booby trapped and he had no interest in disarming it, it was set to be as tamper proof as possible, and deliberately set so that anyone wanting to get into it, to look to see how to undo it, would trigger it off. There was no timer, no countdown, no fail-safe at all. This was a weapon designed to be used and made to go off even if he were not around to use it. There was a radio frequency transmitter to set it off manually, but the detonators had been taken from him and he had seen them being dismantled. He didn't mind because it was already armed, they all were and ready to go off one by one if tampered with. He had lost a few explosive devices to rats in the past, he had made them as fool proof as possible, you needed to prise open the casing to really set off the back up detonation, but sometimes rats would squeeze into the tiniest gaps and force the connection open.

The container was off it's post and they were handling it with care, there was a visible explosive inside the main compartment, you could see that by looking inside, and there was no connection to the outside and no motion sensors, this was not high tech, but it was designed to be deadly as possible. They were taking him to the wharf where he had shot the two people, he wondered that maybe his instant guilt and reaction was wrong now. He had thought that he had killed two human beings, that he had reacted too fast, that his instincts were wrong, the voice that was supplying him information, maybe a fifth columnist inside the alien fleet, was wrong.

He had seen the rest of them scatter like roaches in the sudden light. Then when they touched the others, some kind of psychic bond happened, connected the latent alien influence inside the Babel, who were probably not even human any more.

“They're not, they're under their control.”

The voice in his head was no longer screaming, he or she or maybe even IT, had returned to normal no longer trying to get his attention now that the rage was burning into a sharper focus and they could converse again.

“How are you talking to me?”

“How are they controlling the Babel, the things that were once human? How do you think they are controlling them?”

“How do I know that you aren't controlling me?” Victor knew that the voice was not though, Victor was in control, he always had been.

“You are different, special and simply put 'not on the right wavelength', so I can talk to you and you to me, when we are in contact that is... these are not so lucky, it's one way with them, under their thumbs.”

Victor was standing naked and unbowed on the edge of the Queens Wharf with the trash-can bomb in front of him, surrounded by the alien controlled 'ex-humans' who were gesturing at him and the makeshift bomb, they obviously knew to be too dangerous for anyone but the maker to know how to defuse. Victor struggled against his bonds and then shrugged his shoulders, he could do nothing bound up like this.

There was no conferring, not that he saw anyway, and the nearest of them untied the ropes that held him and kept the exit blocked so that there was no way out and the bomb was in between them and Victor, with the wharf's edge behind him. Victor ran for the edge, ready to dive off and into the water like some action hero, but hands were on him so much quicker than he thought they could have moved, let alone guessed what he would do in that situation.

Once again he was presented with the bomb he had made and all sorts of signs were telling him he had to defuse it. He looked about and counted a hundred of these things surrounding him then and there, he was ready to take them out with him.

“Death or Glory then?”

Victor nodded, though only he knew why and he looked up at the people around him, checking their faces before leaning into the bomb.

“Where are you cockroaches from anyway?”

“Would it be any use if I told you? You'll have not way of knowing where it is will you?”

Again he nodded to himself and sighed, loosening his shoulders, appearing to submit as he opened the casing of the bomb.

Just before the moment when he knew it would go off as soon as the casing was separated he could not help a smile, and it was read by more than nine hundred thousand minds, and they knew as soon as one of them suspected, what was going to happen.