Chapter 8

About mid-morning of the fourth day, the gang came back. We Wolfians had stripped for action. The only thing that we were wearing was our assault rifles. By standing quietly against a wall, we were virtually invisible. We had been dressed like this since yesterday, and we were getting bored. We were so hard to see that the locals were ignoring us as they went through their daily routines. By now, the food duplicators and the escalators were operating normally, so the locals were quite happy. Furthermore, we had promised to protect them against the gang and to try to recover the kidnapped women.

This time, there was no pussy-footing around. The gang leader led the way into the large ground floor room and walked up to Tussok. He was sitting behind the Information desk, and he greeted the gang leader with the comment, "It's about time that you came back. Return our kidnapped women or face the unpleasant consequences."

"Ha! Who is going to force us to do that? You are too weak to make us do anything, and we have decided to take over this building. All of you who have been living on our property will become our slaves. We will take all of the women to be our whores, and we will castrate all of the men who object. What do you think of that?"

Tussok had no chance to answer because I couldn't help commenting, "Okay, Buster, you just signed your death warrant." I raised my rifle and fired a single bullet into his gut. I was so pissed off at him that I didn't want him to die too soon. I had the pressure set low so that there would be little danger of the bullet ricocheting around the room, and there was little noise associated with the firing.

All 30 of his henchmen were in the room, and I called to the other Wolfians to begin firing. Suddenly, bullets were flying under fully automatic mode, and none of the henchmen survived more than a few seconds. It is really amazing what a bullet that size can do to human tissue. None of us were sorry to see the end of that gang of cutthroats.

I walked up to the leader and kicked him in the side to get his attention. Even a kick with a bare foot from a Wolfian was bound to cause some pain, but that was only a slight addition to what the wounded man was feeling from the gut-shot. "Where are the rest of your people camped? You think that you are in pain now, but you have no idea how much anguish I can make you feel if you don't answer me. A lie is as bad as no answer."

"Who are you? Why is it so hard to see you? Don't hurt me any more. I'll tell you anything you want to know. By the ancients, I am in pain. Can you do something for me?"

I told him that I would end his pain as soon as he told me where to find his camp. A look of relief came over his face as he told me where they were. As soon as I was sure that he was not lying, I shot him in the head. That fulfilled my promise to end his pain.

The demise of the gang leader was enough to get the locals to jump to obey my commands. I ordered them to clean up the mess of dead bodies while we were gone to the gang's camp. Tussok could not hide the fear in his face as he directed his people to comply with my order. I figured that returning the kidnapped women, one of whom was his wife, would smooth over any shock and fear of us that he might feel.

I asked AI to teleport us to within a few hundred meters of the gang's camp. I was pretty sure that we were going to have to shoot the remaining members of the gang, at least the men. We would treat the women and children as appropriate.

We were still nude, so we did not have to do anything to hide our presence. We were able to walk up to the camp without attracting any attention. How do you notice somebody who is virtually invisible, especially if the concept is completely foreign to you? There appeared to be no organization to the camp, so we split up to cover as much area as we could in a short time. Communication would be no problem because of our internal "mental" communication chips.

Bill was the first one to spot the kidnapped women. He called the rest of us to his location and pointed out the 20-odd naked women, many who showed signs of physical abuse. AI transported these women to their home, and Sarah went along with them to keep them from panicking when they suddenly found themselves in a new location. They were moved by AI into an empty room so that they would not be embarrassed to be seen by their friends and relatives, especially their husbands.

It took a few minutes for Sarah to get the women calmed down so that she could find out if there were any more of the kidnapped local women still in the camp. The answer was that all of the women had been rescued, and it was now up to the women to make themselves known to the other people of their group. The women all rushed off to grab some clothes and to announce that they had been rescued.

AI brought Sarah back to the rest of us. We considered what to do to make contact with the rest of the gang who now consisted mostly of women and children. I was elected spokesman for our group, but I was going to have trouble talking to people while I was almost invisible. I solved that problem by having Sue douse me with a bucket of water. I rolled around on the ground until I picked up enough dirt so that I could be seen.

The rest of the group stayed invisible to provide cover for me in case somebody tried to sneak up behind me while I was trying to talk to the remnants of the gang. I was now easy to see, though I did look somewhat unusual, as I walked to what appeared to be the center of the camp. I was seen and followed by a number of people as I made my little walk, so I had a few people to talk to.

I shouted for all of the people of the camp to come to where I was so that I could make an announcement. Apparently, these people were used to being bossed around because I soon had most, if not all, of the people of the camp there to listen to what I had to say.

I didn't try to sugar-coat the situation. "You people know that you have been running roughshod over other people, and that situation has now ended. My friends and I have killed all of the 31 men who went to try to bully the local residents. They may have been the loved ones of some of you, but they could not be permitted to continue to act as if they were the owners of the world. Therefore, they were wiped out to a man."

At that point, I was interrupted by cheering and applause. Frankly, that caught me completely by surprise. I said, "Now I am confused. Is there anyone here who lost someone they cared for this morning?" I was answered by total silence. As far as I could tell, nobody was faking a lack of concern for the dead men. I was determined to try to get to the bottom of this lack of concern. "Is there someone here who can act as a spokesman to tell me what has been going on?" In only a couple of minutes, one woman was kind of pushed forward to discuss the situation with me.

I said, "Okay, my name is Andy. What is your name?"

"I am Sica, and I know most of what has happened since I was kidnapped seven years ago. I have been around the longest, and I don't know how much longer I would have lasted with the new women being brought in."

"What do you mean?"

"Most of the men seemed to be bored with me because I have been with them for such a long time. Mostly, few women lasted more than a year before they were murdered. I think that the only reason the men kept me around was because two of the children, both boys, were mine. I don't know which of the men fathered them.

"We women were passed around among the men for sex most nights, and I was not chosen much lately. That's why I figured that I did not have much longer to live. I think that you saved my life by killing those bastards. What happened to those women who just disappeared?"