©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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.
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