Chapter 62

Mai Woo's death did not put an end to our evening's activities that night. It only caused a pause that lasted but a very brief time. Once Nimue had collected her emotions and she had gotten a grip on herself, we turned our attention back onto the bastards that were still standing about the lobby wondering what we would do to them.

The first thing I did was to call for more men from the troops that had been arriving outside the resort's main building. When they arrived I had them first search every last person in the room for any sort of weapon. I also had them grab any thing that looked like a communications device. I didn't want to give these bastards any kind of chance to communicate with their Earth or anyone else on Game World if the opportunity arose. Surprisingly not many of the bastards were armed. The soldiers picked up a couple of revolvers, four semi-automatic pistols, and what looked like a space age laser pistol. That I kept for myself. After the soldiers were done I had them cover Mai Woo's body with a blanket. Then I ordered them to carry it out so it could be transported back to Oak Hall. I planned on seeing her laid to rest in a proper manner. When that was done, I turned my attention to the cringing slaves instead of the bastards from the other Earth.

"Is there one amongst you who can act as a leader?" I asked in English, stepping towards the group as I did.

Heads swivelled about at my words and frightened faces looked at me for a moment or two before they glanced about at their fellow slaves. I waited patiently for a moment to see if any of them understood my words. My answer came a moment later.

"I can act as a leader," a woman said in a heavily accented voice. The woman had been lying on the floor amongst a number of other women. As she spoke she stood up to face me. Her skin was a deep cinnamon colour that suggested that she came from a native aboriginal stock such as the North American Indians that I was familiar with. Her eyes and hair supported that thought as did her facial features. Her eyes were brown and her hair was long and straight and black while her nose was broader than most Europeans. She was still very pretty.

"Good," I said in response, "for I have work for you. My name is Charles Marcus Sextus and I am here to liberate you from your bondage. While I am dealing with these bastards, I want you to gather up all your people, here in this room and take them out to the golf course. My people will take care of you and give you clothing to wear. Then they will begin transporting you to another place where you can live freely. While they are doing that, I want you to take some of my men down into the barracks below this structure so they can release the people that are being held there. Those people will also go up to the golf course to be transported to safety. Eventually all of you will be transported away from this place and then given your freedom."

The woman looked at me for a moment or two and then she looked at her companions and they looked back at her with wide-eyed disbelief. Then the woman looked back at me and spoke.

"Why should we trust you stranger?" the woman asked me bluntly.

That caused me to pause for a moment and wonder as well. Then I asked her a question.

"Do you know where you are?" I asked her pointedly.

"No," the woman replied, shaking her head. "I have been here a month now and I don't even remember how I got here. All I remember was that I was sitting in my office working on a task and then I was here being stripped naked by men who spoke in a foreign tongue. After that ... well I've tried to forget what happened next. It isn't worth remembering."

"All right," I acknowledged solemnly, "I'll leave that alone for a moment. Instead tell me if you've ever heard my name before?"

"Never," the woman replied without hesitation.

"Has any one else heard of me?" I asked at all the faces looking up at me. All I got was shaken heads in reply.

"No one," I stated with a sigh. Then I glanced over at the bastards and scowled. Most of them had the decency of looking away. Disgusted I looked back at the woman and asked her what her name was.

"Moon Flower," the woman replied.

I smiled in response to her name and thanked her for speaking with me. Then I apologized to her. That took her by surprise. When she asked why I was apologizing, I told her why.

"Normally I would take the time to tell you everything," I said to Moon Flower, letting my regret fill my voice, "but I can't do it tonight. To tell you everything in detail will take all night and I don't have the time. Once I'm done speaking to you I have to turn my attention to these bastards and others like them. I still need to free the slaves that are being held in the apartment tower and in the bungalows. All I can do for now is to say that I am not like these men and that the place that I am going to send you to is better than this. Once you are there, others including a pair of my wives will speak to you and they will explain everything to you. If you don't like what you hear from them, then you can leave that place and strike out on your own. No one will stop you from doing that. Regrettably for now you must cooperate with me. You really have no other choice."

Moon Flower took my words bravely. After a moments reflection she started speaking to the people about her. Ten minutes later they were gone from the lobby, escorted out by two of my soldiers. When they had left, I turned my attention to the men who were still here.

"Employees," I barked sharply, glancing towards the three or four dozen men who were dressed up in the weird bellhop uniforms. "Move your asses and get over where the slaves had just been huddled."

These people moved quickly and without much prompting. In a couple of minutes they were all gathered in one area. I smiled at that and then spoke into my translator that I was wearing about my neck. I called to Richards down in the teleport control room.

"Richards do you hear me?" I asked aloud. He acknowledged that he did as second later. "Good," I went on. "I've had all the employees of the resort who are in the lobby moved over to the reading area. Can you lock on to them?"

A minute passed and then Richards came back and acknowledged that he could.

"Excellent," I said with a broad grin forming on my face, "I want you to transport them all to Izmir. I'm certain my good friend Lord Omar can do something with these people. I want nothing to do with them."

It happened instantly. Bright lights started to form in the area where the employees were standing a second after I had told Richards what to do and then when the lights disappeared the people were gone. With two groups dealt with, I turned my attention to the last. We were down to less than three hundred people to deal with.

"Now it's time to get down to some serious matters," I said addressing the group that was still there.

"Serious matters indeed," one of the bastards said in a snarky manner. As he spoke he elbowed his way out from amongst the rest of the bastards. Amazingly this man wasn't a big fat blob like the others. Instead he was tall and thin and very old. His head was bald and his skin hung on his almost skeletal face and he had liver spots all over his exposed flesh. I looked at him in surprise as he continued to interrupt me.

"I know exactly who you are," the man spat out in a vehement manner, "and I'm not afraid of you. You're the hired thug that other world foisted upon us as part of that stupid bet. Well boy, the way I see it you've screwed yourself over and your employers."

"Oh," I inquired calmly, "and how do you reason that?"

"You hid," the old man said, grinning with pleasure as he said it, "and the deal was that you had to not hide at anytime during your stay on our Game World. By hiding you voided the deal between my Earth and your employers, so there."

"But I never hid once," I told the man bluntly. "In fact I've been wandering around in the open for the last few days heading straight for this place. If you didn't see me coming here it isn't my fault. Obviously your recording system failed you."

"Bullshit boy," the man spat out at me. "You cheated and that is that. On top of it you've imported firearms which I will add is also against the rules so again you've breached the deal between my government and your employers. As far as I'm concerned the deal is off. Now get out of here and leave us alone."

"The deal isn't off," I told the man coldly, "but it may get changed very soon if that is the kind of attitude that I'm going to have to deal with after today. The fact is that your technology has failed you and now you're facing the consequences of your own arrogance. As for these weapons, it was one of your own networks that provided them for us. According to my intelligence, Bronze Network transported a military cargo plane from an alternate Earth ten years ago and then promptly forgot about it and its crew. Well the crew, members of the Royal Bulgarian Air Force were able to land their aircraft once they realized that they weren't where they were suppose to be. Regrettably, like most people thrown onto Game World by you bastards the crew ended up dead within a few days of landing on this world. However, their aircraft and the cargo that it had been carrying survived until this day and recently I lay claim to it. Imagine the surprise of my people when they founded it packed full of military grade weapons."

"That doesn't matter a bit," the old man grumbled in response, scowling at me as he interrupted me again, "so you can spare me your prattling and just leave. If you don't then we'll just have to deal with you like we deal with any other vermin."

"Oh really," I muttered in response, amazed at the man's balls, "and how are you going to do that."

The man didn't get a chance to reply. The sound of screaming and the sound of automatic fire from outside the complex interrupted us both. Immediately the fat bastards started throwing themselves onto the floor. It was good that they did as a second later the windows to the lobby started shattering as bullets passed through them. Of course not everyone was fast enough to get out of the way. Several of the bastards were torn to shreds by the gun fire. Thankfully, most of my people were out of the line of fire or protected by a building support that ended up deflecting the incoming weapon fire.

Instinct kicked in as did several of my old lives and I was moving and giving out orders before I even realized it. My first command was to the men about me. I told half of them to get the fat bastards up and moving and out of the lobby and into one of the side rooms that had no windows. I told the other half to take up firing positions and to cover all the approaches to the room. Then I started demanding intelligence from my men outside.

Talbot answered first. Robots had suddenly teleported in from out of nowhere. Their first action was to open up on the men helping the women liberated from the slave barracks. Those men had been taken by surprise and they had been cut down as had several of their charges. Talbot reported that his men had returned fire on the robots but with only minimal effect. It appeared that these robots were tougher than the ones that I had encountered within the resort and they weren't falling down dead when they got shot. Hearing this I told Talbot to draw his men in towards the building and to get them under cover. While he did that, I would have a look at what we were now up against.

There was a restaurant on the second floor of the central complex that overlooked the golf course. It was accessible from the lobby by a flight of curving stairs. I headed for them even before I was done speaking to Talbot. Naturally Nimue and Dork fell in right behind me.

As I climbed the stairs upward I got Richards on the line. I demanded to know what was going on. All he could tell me was that someone was teleporting in robot soldiers from the other Earth. He did reassure me that no one had teleported out. It wasn't much of a reassurance. I told him to do his best at clearing the robots as he had before and then I started yelling at Danvers. When the man came on line I told him to get his people under cover as well. I also told him to get soldiers down to the control room to reinforce it. I figured that I would be a priority target once the robots got into the building.

From the balcony of the restaurant I was able to see what we were up against. It helped that the exterior of the resort was well lit as were the edges of the golf course. The first thing I spotted was the death and carnage on the golf course. There were at least two dozen bodies lying out on the green bleeding out with no help or assistance. The second thing I spotted was the robots.

There were two types of robots. There were the humanoid robots similar to what we'd encountered in the subbasement of the resort. They were advancing on the resort in troops of ten. A quick glance told me that there was at least fifty of that model. The second type was similar to the vehicle mounted type that we'd seen before patrolling the grounds. The difference with these ones was the fact that they were armed with chain guns. The roar of their weapons was very distinctive and I knew instantly that we were in trouble. There were five of these models and they were providing suppressing fire to the advance troops of humanoid robots. We definitely needed to do something quick.

There was only one thing to do and I did it. I brought my carbine up and I put my finger on the trigger to the grenade launcher. Without hesitating I lined up on the closest big robot that I could see from my vantage point and I let rip. The grenade leapt out with a resounding bang and then flew through the air at the target like the missile it was. It slammed into the big robot a second later and blew the thing to pieces. After that all hell broke loose. Instantly every robot that was within range of my position opened fire on me.

The bullets shredded the glass partition that had surrounded the balcony throwing pieces into the air to add to the mess that was flying at me. The rounds slammed into me with force. While the fire from the rifle carry robots was annoying, the chain guns fire was something else. The first burst that hit me sent me flying backwards from where I had been kneeling. The force and momentum actually spun me about and I ended tumbling back into the restaurant. I wasn't the only one hit. Both Dork and Nimue took hits as well and they ended up on their backs beside me. It took a moment or two to recover.

By then chaos was descending down upon us. I could hear people calling out for help from below and I knew that shit had hit the fan. I groaned as I rolled over and tried to get to my feet. As I did, I called out to Dork and Nimue. Nimue was the only one to answer me.

"I'm okay," my little elf told me with a gasp, "but Dork is down and out of it for now."

"Is he breathing?" I asked anxiously. While I did, I glanced about looking for my weapon. The carbine had gone flying when I had been hit. I spotted lying several feet away and I immediately went to it, ignoring everything else.

"He's breathing," Nimue muttered a few seconds later. "It looks like he hit his head and got knocked out."

"Grab his shotgun," I told Nimue, "and his ammunition while you're at it. You're going to need it."

As I shouted this to my mate I cleared the grenade launcher on my carbine of the spent casing of the grenade and plopped in my last one. Once it was seated and ready for action I turned back towards the balcony once more. This time I dropped to the floor as I moved out onto it and kept myself low. As I inched towards where the glass barrier had been a few minutes ago, I called out to my troop leaders and I started giving them orders.

"Talbot ... Danvers ... Tobias," I called through my translation unit, "get your men with grenade launchers into position and use them against the mobile robots. I just took one out and I'm about to try again."

I didn't wait for a reply to my orders. As I reached the edge of the balcony, I brought my carbine up and I took aim, again placing my finger on the grenade launcher's trigger. Almost immediately I started taking fire. The long burp of a chain gun warned me of what was coming and I rolled to my right just in time. Bullets pelted the spot where I had just been lying and then they chewed into the wall of the building spraying chunks of concrete down upon me. I kept rolling until I hit the metal rail of the balcony. When I did, I rolled back to my left once and then took my shot hoping once more that my luck would hold out. Fortunately it did.

The grenade struck the stationary robot and blew the thing to kingdom come. Pieces of it went up into the air and then they came down. It was an impressive sight. Regrettably I didn't get to stay and enjoy it for long. A second after I had fired the grenade, automatic rifle fire started zeroing in my position. When it did, I started rolling again to my left until I could work my way back into the restaurant without getting shot. By the time I did, the sound of several more explosions filled the night's air and I knew instinctively that my men were fighting back.

I didn't hang around to find out how successful my men had been. I could hear gun fire coming from below and I knew that the men there were probably in the need of a little help. Pausing only long enough to take a quick look at Dork to make certain the man wasn't bleeding to death, I hurried back over to the flight of stairs that we'd come up. Luckily I was just in time to provide some help.