Chapter 40

9:13 AM, inside the Last Castle Café

Leon, Mayoni, and Amy were left standing in the vacant lobby. Mayoni walked across the room to look out the window. Amy went over to the computer desk, pulled out some equipment from her backpack, and started looking at the cable connection. Leon was standing still for a moment, his mind turning over infinite possibilities of what to do.

"Uncle Leon," said Mayoni. "There are two SUVs and eight policemen standing right outside, next to our bicycles. I think they might be a guard..."

"Uh huh... Shit... I was wondering about leaving the bikes out there like that..."

Mayoni looked at her uncle thoughtfully, imagining the strain of being the team leader in such a dire situation. "We didn't have much choice... It would have looked really weird dragging them in here with this carpet, they're so muddy... And it would have been a disaster if you had left one of us to guard them. I don't think guard duty is a job for a bitch around here..."

"No, I don't suppose either..."

"Uncle Leon," called Amy. "Main power is out, but the internet cable itself is still live... I could splice some wires, run the cable modem off the laptop batteries..."

Leon thought for only a moment. "Sure. No b... uh, no guts, no glory. Let's do it!"

9:48 AM, on the road outside Harmin...

One thought was racing through Kara's mind as the pistols fired, to save the lives of her beloved son and sister-in-law. She grimaced as the shots exploded, determined to remain alive long enough to turn and target Bert. Her body seemed to go into shock at the blasts. She had pre-programmed her attack pattern into her mind, deciding as she slipped the Glock into her hand a moment before that she would make sure Steve was eliminated before targeting Bert. Her first shot caught Steve at the bottom of the sniper's triangle, dead-center and low on the breastbone. Her gun continued to swing up rapidly, and she fired again to catch him square at the base of his throat just above the collarbone. She started to change her swing to her planned overhead arc, and her third shot at Steve drifted slightly off center and hit him in his check just at the left side of his nose.

Kara's body seemed to go numb as she completed her arc and she desperately fought to remain conscious. In less than two seconds, she sighted her next target at the top of the sniper's triangle. Bert was staring at Kara in total bewilderment, his pistol still lying on the ground by his pants. A small part of Bert's mind was screaming at him to pay attention to the threat, but he just couldn't change mental gears fast enough and move away from his desire to hump Lois up her ass.

Kara fired and a third eye appeared on Bert's face directly between his other two, a deep red wet eye at the top of the bridge of his nose. The lights of his other eyes turned off as if someone had flipped a switch, and his body crumpled to the ground.

"Mother!" screamed Mahi and he started banging against the inside of the SUV.

Lois jumped up and ran barefoot to Kara within seconds, catching her as she staggered. "Kara! Where are you hit?!"

"I don't know! I can't feel anything!" Kara looked down at her body, searching for the wound she knew would be at the top of her uterus, certain that the lack of sensation meant her spine was broken. But she remained able to stand, and as the seconds rolled by, feeling began to return to her body. Kara pulled her hand from her abdomen, amazed there was no blood on it. Kara's and Lois's eyes searched frantically for the bullet wound. But as the seconds passed, they both slowly realized Steve's shot must have been a clean miss. Kara shook her head in disbelief, trying to remember the strange flash she saw just before the guns fired.

9:49 AM, inside the Last Castle Café

Amy spoke softly from the floor under the computer table. "You should have internet access... now."

"Confirmed," replied Mayoni. "Launching search agents..."

"Boy, that took longer than I expected," said Amy, as she rose from under the table. "There's something weird about this cable modem."

"You did a fantastic job Amy." Mayoni looked over at her uncle sitting beside her. Leon's gaze appeared somewhat unfocused, his mind intensely deep in thought. Mayoni leaned over and kissed him. "How are you doing uncle?"

"Trying to put together a plan to get out of here..."

"To make it back to Cider Junction by 1:30, we really should leave here by 10:30 at the latest. Earlier if it's raining..."

Leon sighed. "I don't think we'll get a chance to leave until after the generator is fixed." He smiled shyly at Amy as she got up from the floor. She smiled shyly back. "Amy," he said, "would you prostrate yourself again? Just in case somebody looks in?"

"Sure! I'll try to get some rest. Anytime you want your boots kissed Uncle Leon, just click your fingers. Ha!"

Mayoni paused from her work at the keyboard. "I think you're right Uncle, about the generator. Think Carl can repair it before 10:30?"

"Change a rotor brush that fast? No way... Probably closer to 1 PM... I know I couldn't work faster with an M16 pointed at me... Sal is an idiot..."

Mayoni sighed. "Thirteen years as a brothel bitch... I'm not looking forward to it."

A lump caught in Leon's throat. He had been forcing himself to think of Mayoni and Amy as his team members, but he was acutely aware that they were also his beloved nieces. He did something a little unusual for him. He leaned over and hugged and kissed Mayoni. "Courage Mayoni. You too Amy. Courage and hope. I'm working on a plan... Give me all your gold, both of you..."

"Huh? Okay." Mayoni reached into her pocket and handed Leon her Gold Eagles. When her grandfather came to live on Aina, Tom had brought with him fifty of the coins, and each team member was carrying four.

Amy handed over her gold too. She looked uncertain. "Uncle Leon, twelve gold coins, do you think it's enough to bribe the police? Enough to let us go?"

"No Amy. A bribe wouldn't work in this situation. The police would just keep the gold and we'd still be prisoners. But I'm not thinking of this gold as a bribe. I'm thinking of it as bait. And I think this is more than enough to bait the hook..." Just then there was a tremendous clap of thunder and a few seconds later sheets of rain began to fall from the skies. The road back east would not be dry.

10:31 AM, stopped on the road to Harmin

It had been over twenty minutes since the deadly pistol duel, and Kara was coming out of some deep brush near Route 32. Rain was beginning to fall heavily. Kara looked at the skies for a moment. It looked like rain all over, and the skies north were positively weird. High in a nearby tree, two Saw-whet owls stood watching her. Kara took a second to smile at their beauty. They gazed back solemnly with their owl faces and yellow eyes.

Kara looked at the sky again and took a moment to think. "These clouds, yellow stripes mixing with black? What the hell is that? Hope Mark is paying attention. Oh Kara, stop worrying! Of course he is!"

Kara walked out of the brush and up to her team. Lois and Mahi had moved both bodies to the back of the SUV, and all traces of the battle had been cleaned from the road.

Mahi smiled as he saw his mom. "Team leader, I suggest we abort the mission."

"Oh yeah, you've got that one right!" said Kara. "Our scenic tour of Harmin will have to wait for another day. Lois! Mahi! All set to ride back?"

"More than ready." said Lois.

"There's just one thing I want to do first. I'm going to drive the SUV into a ravine. It's just down this hill. Cover the tracks behind me. Let's make this SUV disappear."

10:46 AM, survey point just south of Davis

"Let's not rush this," said Mark. "We still have some time." Kiana and Va'an were currently using the team's two pair of binoculars. The team was in a thick patch of woods about twenty meters east of Route 32. The small town of Davis stood at the bottom of their hill, and team-A had been observing it for over a half hour.

The scene was an unusual combination of abandonment and neatness. There was something about the town that was making the hairs on the back of Mark's neck stand up, but he couldn't put his finger on the problem. Mark looked up to relieve the tension, and noticed something shocking. The wind had died down ten minutes ago, and in the intensity of observing the town Mark had failed to pay attention to the sky. The yellowish bands were swirling in a great circle above the town.

Kiana looked up from her binoculars. "Place has to be deserted, right?"

Va'an also looked up from her binoculars. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, it's well after 10 AM. We've been observing this town for almost an hour now. There's been absolutely no movement. And the storm about to break is going to be major league. Look at all those trash cans in the streets. They're going to blow all over the place. If people were there, they'd bring them in."

"Yeah... Makes sense..." said Va'an. "But that chain-link fence around the town, it's so high! Must be four meters at least. Once we're inside, we'll only have two narrow exits, up north or back south. Mark, are fences around towns common?"

"Unheard of when I was here. Times could have changed I suppose."

"Well," asked Kiana, "are we going down?"

Mark sighed and made his decision. "No. I'm aborting the mission."

"Huh? Why?"

"Somehow I just can't imagine all those trash cans lying there like that, either in a deserted or an active town. I just don't understand what's going on."

"Mark... I could scout out the place myself... You two could cover me..."

"From here?! Absolutely not... Kiana, why do you want to continue?"

"Well... What have we seen so far? Some trees... a few rocks... clouds... There was an artistic looking branch a while back..."

"I think I get your point..." Mark smiled at Kiana and patted her shoulder. "Nevertheless, we're heading back. "

"Nuts! I can just see us finding an old newspaper in one of those houses. It's only five minutes away. We could be reading about what's been happening on Earth."