Surviving The Theseus (24 page)

Six months later, most of it had blown over,
but not for those that lived it.

Pyramid Cruise Line got the report from
SPARS, and all survivors were sworn to secrecy or they would be
silenced another way. Another way was not specified, but they all
knew what it meant.

No government agency anywhere was punished
that Regina ever found out about. She suspected it went deeper than
she knew. What she did know was that it was a night for
celebration, celebrating the destruction of a planet, and hopefully
an end to any chance of the virus ever resurfacing. As an agent not
controlled by any one government, TRAST became her friend. She
didn't want to know how they did it or what they created, but
something powerful enough to destroy not just every living thing on
the surface of a planet, but the planet itself. She was sure this
would bring a new era of potential nightmares if the wrong people
got a hold of it. But, at the same time, that planet needed to be
destroyed, or someone, somewhere, sometime, would venture onto it
again, and that was more inherently risky than some planetary dooms
day device. At least, right now.

Regina had not worked for six months, taking
an extended leave. She sat, alone, in a dimly lit lounge, her head
down in thought, waiting for Michael. Not a date, but someone who
became a friend, one who made her laugh, and she needed that.

She lifted her head and looked around. It was
busy. The lounge had an open seating plan with plain looking wooden
tables and wooden chairs, an L-shaped layout. Regina watched,
facing the corner of the L so she could easily see both sides. A
large group of friends dominated one section, with a mish mash of
couples, friends, male and female, on the other end. All seemed
happy or deep into some conversation.

Regina dropped her head again, looking at her
scarred and burned hands. What did she have to show for all her
work? She tried, tried hard to get back to the hunt, but after
being the hunted, it didn't feel right. Not yet. The SOAD were
lower in numbers, but by no means overworked. There were others to
cover her work, for now, maybe forever. She just didn't know.

When she lifted her head again, a man stood
before her table, staring at her. It surprised her, and she snapped
back slightly. Only six months and she didn't notice a strange
looking man approach her. Sloppy. He wasn't totally repulsive, but
her bad vibe alarm rang out. Something about him was off. He seemed
neat in appearance enough, clean-shaven, dark hair styled, ironed
dress shirt and jeans, clean cut. His expression said
otherwise.

"Hello, Regina," he said.

"How do you know my name?" Regina asked,
staring directly at him, but watching four other men, two on each
side, out of her periphery.

Even before he said anything, she knew
something was wrong, and she also knew it was too late. She wore a
half leather trench coat, concealing her necessities, but she
didn't dare reach for them. She didn’t dare move her hands.

"Look, SOAD, there are no less than four high
caliber rifles trained on you as I speak. The door is secured and
the artillery for the show about to be set up. Pull out your weapon
and place it on the table."

It was them, the murdering workers who felt
they were so wronged, but now they not only stepped over the line,
they erased its existence. They were off planet, coming a great
distance to what? Exact revenge because she killed one of their
own, if they even knew about that, or was this the continuing
attempt to wipe out the SOAD? She would be the first in six months.
The SOAD department never did discover the leak, and this person
must have figured six months was long enough to wait to continue
their campaign.

Regina slowly reached into her jacket. "This
is a new low for the pussy pack."

"Such language, for a lady."

Regina didn't say anything. She brought out
one gun and placed it onto the table, black shining metal in the
dim lounge light. She watched from the corner of her eye as rifles
inched closer to her, the bearers probably getting nervous and
stiffening their arms forward.

"Do I really need to bring out a detector?"
the Strange Man said.

Regina reached in and got the second weapon,
placing it beside the other, both double barrels pointing at the
man.

"Two SOAD destroyer weapons? Wow. Most of
your type just have one."

Regina blinked, saying nothing. Thoughts of
Michael entering the bar and getting killed concerned her greatly.
She had no time to mess around. Things needed to be put in order,
and fast. Time was on her side though, because she got to the bar
two hours before she was supposed to meet him. There was an hour
left. She hoped he did not arrive early like she did.

"Nothing to say?" He paused, putting a hand
behind his right ear in a listening pose. "Good. What about the
forty-five? I was told you carry a forty-five."

"Not today, friend. Normally I do, you're
correct, but since I started using a second destroyer, I didn't
feel the need for it anymore." Regina couldn't help it; she gave
him a fake smile.

"Well then, you'll understand that I don't
trust you." He turned and nodded at somebody behind him.

A portly fellow, middle-aged, panting at the
trek from two tables over to Regina's table, brought out a
weapon-detecting device. The fat man waved the handheld device a
safe distance away from Regina, down from her head to the top of
the table. The fat man looked over at his friend.

"Stand, please," Strange Man said. "And take
your jacket off and leave it on the seat."

Regina complied, pulling the jacket off and
placing it on the table instead of on her seat. As she did, Strange
Man picked up her weapons and held onto them. "Heavy," he said.

"For some." She couldn't resist.

Strange Man looked down at her belt, furrowed
his brows, and said, "Nice belt."

The fat man continued the scan, walking
backward as Strange Man waved for Regina to come out into the open
and away from the table. She, again, complied. "Nothing else, sir,"
the fat man said.

"Good good. Thank you." The fat man walked
back to where he stood previously. "I think you will find this
little experiment . . . interesting."

Until this point, others looked over
curiously, but nobody paid any real attention. The men with rifles
were visible but hidden somewhat from the view of others. It was
not until two groups of three men came in that everyone stopped
what they were doing and worry spread over all their faces.

As the two groups of men each carried in a
sentry gun, each gun attached to a tripod, somebody else closed,
locked, and guarded the entrance door. They placed them both down,
grunting as they did so, in parallel with one another, barrels
facing opposite directions. The tripods were squat and did not
stand far off the ground, the guns themselves maybe two feet in the
air. The guns were short barreled, Regina guessed they were sawed
down, and very high caliber, of the type she would normally see
attached to a gun ship. The ejection port alone looked like it was
four inches in length. The carbine holding the ammunition sat under
the middle of the gun, feeding up underneath it, and it took up
almost the whole length of the gun and rested on the floor. Regina
didn't know how much ammunition there was, but it was a lot, more
than enough to kill everyone in this bar and probably five other
bars.

Some people got up from their tables, and
that's when the rest of the guns made their appearance. There were
twenty men, aged twenty to at least sixty, spread throughout the
bar. The appearance of weapons was enough for some people to sit
back down, but others had to be told to sit down and shut up. All
eyes moved to Regina and the Strange Man.

"I'll be blunt, Regina. Any way this goes
ends with you not walking out of here. I'll give you two options in
a minute, but first, a little display of my sincerity."

Before Pyramid, Regina never needed or wanted
to understand, but now she did. Why did these blue-collar workers
go from hard working to hard killing with seemingly no remorse? It
made no sense to her. "Can you please explain one thing to me,
before you do this, and I'll go quietly."

"What's that?"

"What happened to you? You lost your job so
you're willing to kill all these people, just to prove a
point?"

"People like you will never understand. It's
more than that. Those jobs --" He air quoted the word “jobs”. "--
were handed down generation to generation. It was our pride, our
livelihood, everything we've ever known. It wasn't to be taken away
from us. It's no different than somebody coming into your home,
kicking you out, and then living there, using your things and
living your life. Sacrifices are a necessity or this will happen
again and again."

Regina then knew that these people would
never be reasoned with. And she also knew that these people needed
to be made an example of. Murdering others to make a point was
unacceptable, intolerable, and her blood began to boil. Whatever
you are, you are, and she felt no guilt and no remorse at something
she felt down to her core to be right, and to be necessary. How,
was the question. There were still four guns on her and the
slightest movement would bring her down and then she had no doubt
everybody in the bar would die.

Strange Man turned around, after he got no
response from Regina. "Everyone," he spoke at the top of his voice.
"I need you to please get up and move over to the other section of
this place." He pointed over to the L-Section where the guns were
not sitting. Most popped up and hurried over. Some hesitated.
"Hurry, people. If this goes as it should, none of you will be
hurt. We are here for --" Still facing away from Regina, he swung
his left arm back and pointed at Regina with her own weapon. "--
her only."

The strays got up and moved over to the other
section. Most everyone stood, watching, and any that were seated,
also stood to see what was going on.

"That includes you too, my SOAD friend,"
Strange Man said.

Regina moved over with the others, all of
them backing away from her like she smelled bad.

Strange Man handed Regina's weapons to one of
his men. "Now, before we start, I must warn you all." He looked at
the group, his men standing beside or behind him, two men now
guarding the door, and Regina figured there would be more outside
around the building. "Please, stay where you are. These weapons are
sentry guns and believe me, they are ultra sensitive to the
slightest movement. When they fire, your instinct will be to panic
and run, but that would be a mistake. I promise you that where you
are now, the barrel facing this way cannot reach." He clapped his
hands together. "Good good."

Strange Man turned to his companions. "Turn
it on -- oh, that reminds me." He turned back to the crowd. "Just
in case you're curious, because I think this is pretty cool, the
guns will not fire upon myself or any one of my men. They're smart,
smart guns."

One of the younger men brought out a remote
and pressed a button. The gun facing them activated, a green light
glowing on the tripod, and the gun rose up from its slumped down
position. Strange Man grabbed a beer bottle from a table, himself
between it and the gun. "Now, just so you all know, as far as the
gun sees things, this beer bottle is seen as an extension of myself
so it won't fire, but once I let it go -- whew! -- well, you'll
see. It's pretty exciting."

The crowd did not share his enthusiasm. They
were pushing back, stepping on toes, and distancing themselves from
the guns as much as they could, or maybe it was just her. Regina
moved to the right more. The gun did not fire so they must have
been out of sensor range.

Strange Man threw the bottle into the air.
The ceilings were low, and normally, throwing a bottle in the air,
it would have hit the ceiling almost immediately, because from his
arm extension to the ceiling only left three feet. The bottle
shattered in a roar of bullets, most of them pelting the wall
behind, puncturing holes through the plaster and out through brick.
What was left of the bottle, shards, fell to the floor. The spray
of bullets lasted a second, but it didn't lessen the acoustic rape
of everyone's ears.

People, men and women, screamed.

"Whew! Good good. Exciting. Sorry it's so
loud. Hard to avoid in this small space. Gotta take the good with
the bad, my friends."

These guys were not going to let any of them
live. They were not hiding appearances at all and Regina was sure
they had much more killing to do to prove their point, and, of
course, the goal of wiping out the SOAD. And, they must have
followed her to the bar, so why wait so long? They could have
gotten her outside.

How much time had passed? She couldn't be
sure and none of it would matter if Michael showed early. She never
lost sight of who had her weapons, nor lost sight of the four men
pointing guns at her. All she needed was a second, maybe not even,
but they never stopped watching her.

Strange Man clapped his hands, like he was
applauding the gun for its performance. "All right, Regina, this is
the moment. Are you ready for your two options?"

She did not respond.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said. "Short
and sweet. Here it comes. Kill yourself and everyone else lives or
we start killing everybody one at a time, until either they all are
dead, then we kill you anyway, or --" He winked at Regina. "--
until you finally agree to kill yourself wherever we are at with
the killing of the rest, and then we'll stop at that point."

The crowd looked at Regina, some of them
shaking their heads, she hoped because they thought it was an
impossible decision. She didn't know what the pussy pack thought
she was, but it was not stupid. The nerve. The fucking nerve. She
had been considering letting some of them live, the ones that
didn't get in the way, but now she knew she would kill them all.
Regina had not an ounce of doubt in her mind that even if she did
kill herself, they would kill everyone anyway.