Lutts
led us outside the hangar and we walked for fifteen minutes over to a large
building complex. In front of the
building there must have been ten air freight containers as well as a dozen or
so trucks (lorries to you Brits).
At the windowless door there stood four robotic soldiers. There were no national markers and their
ID signals were none that I could identify with any country. They might be the General’s or they just
as well could be Lutts’s. Either
way, they ignored us and allowed us to continue to follow Sir Terrance
inside. The room looked like some
gigantic shipping business with all the boxes and shipping crates spread
about. I could tell that all of
them were empty. Towards the back
of this warehouse I caught the distinct smell of dead flesh. Lutts walked us past a dumpster that was
not empty. Legs, arms and heads
were hanging out. They were all
Africans. They all wore orange
jumpsuits that were now rather black looking from the dried
blood.
“My
God, Terrance, who are they?” the Princess asked in a strained
voice.
“Enemies
of the General, my dear. The
General loaned them to me to help me unpack. He expressly told me to dispose of them
when I was done and I was done. You
mention god, have you backslided?”
“Don’t
be absurd, it just a figure of speech when confronted with something
horrible.”
“Yes,
it does look brutal. However, it
was far more humane than what the General was doing to these enemies of the
state in his Concentration Camp.
Only 1 out of 50 were still strong enough for our
purposes.”
Then
we came to another windowless steel door.
Inside was a control room of some sort. It was occupied by only three
others. All of them went by the
same name – Sir Terrance Lutts.
At
the sound of the door all the occupants turned and each one walked over to greet
the Princess. I could tell it was a
creepy experience for both the Princess and Frank. Same clothes, same hair, same face and
same voice.
“Which
of you is my real husband?” asked the Princess.
Each
of the four Luttses answered with a smirk, “We all our.” The Lutts who had brought us here then
said, “We are all very democratic, my dear. We all believe we are Sir Terrance and
in fact, we are. We work together
as a single entity with the sole purpose of succeeding in this great
cause.”
Another
Sir Terrance said, “In a few minutes you will witness the beginning of the
attack?”
“How
is it going to come down?” Frank asked in his reporter
voice.
The
Sir Terrance who was now sitting at his computer consol said, “We have had to
change our original plans because your Jewish friends have succeeded in
destroying our primary bases. As
vain as we are, we were realistic enough to have a final backup plan. With the security and help of General
Andican we have this secret base.
Which reminds me to ask you, how did you find us?”
“It
was easy. I asked myself where
could a world class criminal go?” Frank said in an even tone, “but you still
haven’t answered my question.”
Another
of the Luttses who was standing by an array of transmitters spoke up, “As I was
saying, our first delivery system was going to be air borne using micro
drones. We had enough drones to
reach 107% penetration.
Unfortunately, we have now had to settle for a water based delivery
system. Twenty miles from here we
have converted an abandoned water works to hold water borne nano-vectors. It will only take them five hours to
flow down the Limpopo and enter the Indian Ocean. From there they will spread by ocean
current all over the world. The
nano-vectors are so small they can become air borne from wave action or
evaporation. With ten trillion of
them they will within their sixteen month life expectancy become inhaled or
consumed by 70% of humanity. It
will not totally wipe out religion, but it will be enough to make religion
irrelevant.”
Another
Lutts took up the narrative, “We have not totally put our eggs in one basket,
Mr. Huntington. We have four
shipping containers on ships that will explode and release four billion
nano-vectors into the air. One is
off the coast of California, one is off the coast of Chile, a third has just
entered Southhampton and a fourth is sailing past the west coast of Italy. They will insure that the American and
European powers don’t try and figure out how to stop the main body of
nano-vectors from slowly traveling around the world. Who knows, we might reach 80% of
humanity if we are lucky.”
By
now, all of the Luttses had taken their places by some important piece of
equipment.
“In
order to activate the nano-vectors we need to heat them to 36.7 degrees Celsius
or as you Americans would say 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Sir Terrance, what is our current
temperature?”
“27.3
Celsius,” said one of the four Luttses.
Frank
walked over to the Princess and said in a whisper, “We have to try and stop
them. There are three of us and
only four of them. I had worse odds
in a bar fight.”
“Frank,
I’ll try, but the only fight I ever had was with my sister when I was nine and I
lost,” the Princess said in a low whisper.
“Jack,
I know you can’t attack a human unless I am in danger. Please extend that to her Highness. In the meantime when I take these
bastards on I want you to gum up the works.”
It
took me a nano-second to figure out what my master meant by gum up the
works. My logic and slang sub
routines figured out he did not really want me to find some chewing gum and put
it inside the equipment. Chances
are a piece of gum would not do any damage inside a computer that has no moving
parts. My historic language node
had records of when humans would throw monkey wrenches or some other hard object
to jam the gears in a machine.
There were many silent films where heroes like Charlie Chaplin saved the
day by ‘gumming up the works’.
There were countless knobs and cables about that could be damaged.
Frank
wandered over to the nearest Lutts and said to him, “Do you think the General
will be able to protect you once the world starts losing their
religion?”
“Mr.
Huntington, we don’t plan on being here when the world’s elite who depends on
religion to maintain their power tries to stop the unstoppable or try to seek
revenge on us. They will soon be
forced to adjust to the new secular reality or be
replaced.”
The
Princess then moved from her spot to be close to one of the other Luttses. She asked a baited question, “Do you
think I intend to remain your wife?”
The
Lutts she now stood behind gave a small laugh and said, “Frankly my dear, I
don’t give a damn.”
I
thought that was very clever answer as it was an allusion to a famous movie from
the early 20th Century.
The
Princess oddly enough let out a small laugh as well and then asked, “Why did you
marry me?”
“You
were a guinea pig, my dear. You
were the first human trial and I wanted to continue to observe how you reacted
to losing your religion. You were
famous for your religious zeal.
Someday I hope to dissect your brain to see what happened on the
molecular level.”
Frank
had been waiting until there seemed to be a moment when all the Luttses needed
to pay attention to their consoles. He did not get that chance. The Princess grabbed the hair on top of
Sir Terrance’s head and smashed his face into his keyboard twice before the very
surprised Sir Terrance struggled to get up and away from her reach. Before the
second slam into the keyboard Frank picked up a piece of equipment by his Lutts
and smashed him in the face just as he was turning towards the Princess. I also sprang into action and attacked
the transmitters. I turned dials,
switched off buttons and then started to rip off some heavy cables coming from
the side.
Frank’s
man was taken out by his first blow and so with one Lutts slumped in his chair,
Frank started to run over to the closest Lutts. The Princess was now launching a frontal
attack on the stunned Lutts who was vainly trying to hold back her arms. A couple of swift kicks in the groin
stopped her Lutts in his tracks and she was able to push him down on the
floor. A swift three kicks on the
poor man’s head finished his consciousness for the rest of the
day.
Two
down and two to go. Frank reached
the other Lutts and engaged him in fisticuffs. Sir Terrance tried to defend himself,
but it was obvious that they did not teach boxing at Oxford anymore. Meanwhile, I had grabbed one of the
transmitters and pushed it over. I
was surprised to hear something that sounded like arc welding and then smoke
started to pour out of the transmitter cabinet.
Frank
had turned his Sir Terrance’s face into hamburger and was about ready to grab
him when a shot was heard. At the
same time I felt a bullet go through my arm. Almost immediately six busfault alarms from my arm
told me that it was now offline.
The
Sir Terrance farthest away now pointed his gun at Princess
Marianne.
“Stop
or I will blow her brains out.”
This
activated my protect protocols and I ran towards the Lutts with the gun. The Princess screamed and cowered down
on her knees. I do believe she was
honestly scared for her life. Her
scream was just the distraction I needed to get myself between her and the
gun. Lutts finally saw me coming
and fired his gun again.
Thankfully, he was rather in a panic and missed me. I was traveling at about 35 miles an
hour when I hit him. His body went
flying as did his gun from his hand.
He landed against a wall and struggled to remain standing. Slowly his legs gave out and he sagged
to the floor leaving a streak of blood on the wall behind him.
That
only left one Lutts unaccounted for.
He must have been stunned when the Princess had launched her attack on
the Lutts who wanted to dissect her brain.
After witnessing two Luttses mauled and one killed he made a run for
it. He did not get very far as
Frank was on him like a bolt of lightning.
The last Sir Terrance had gotten to the steel door and was trying to
enter the keyed combination to open the door lock. It did not go well as I heard two error
buzzes from the door lock. Before
he could try a third time Frank grabbed him from the back and turned him towards
him. Frank’s first blow was to
Lutts’s solar plexus which doubled him over. It took only one well placed blow to the
side of Sir Terrance's anguished face to send him to dreamland.
Frank
and the Princess took a big breath and finally realized it was all over. Frank looked at me and said, “Jack, do
you think you can make sure all this equipment is turned off with only one
arm?”
“I
think that should be no problem, Sir.
What are you going to do with your prisoners?”
“First
thing is I think I will take some of that cable over there and tie them up,”
Frank said with a grin.
“I
don’t think you need bother with the one over there,” I said pointing to the
Lutts with the smashed head against the wall.
“I
think you are right, Jack. I
believe that is your first kill,” he said with a big
smile.
The
Princess did not say anything, but wordlessly helped Frank drag the other
Luttses by the legs over to where Frank had already started to tie up the Lutts
he knocked out with the equipment.
“Jack,
can you get a message to Colonel Mann?”
“Not
in here, Sir, the rooms seems to have that foam Sir Terrance invented. I can step outside. What do you want to ask
him?”
“What
about the robotic soldiers outside?”
“They
will continue to guard the building.
Since none of the Luttses can tell them new orders they will just stand
around.”
“Crap,
I’m glad those Lutts’s didn’t try to start that damn foam on fire. Ask the Colonel to send a team to
us. Tell him we have all the
Luttses. Warn him about the robotic soldiers outside.”
“Will
do, Sir,” I responded.
“Oh,
tell him to bring a bottle of Jack Daniels, too.”
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