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Post by William Blake on Jan 17, 2011 16:18:41 GMT -5
Nothing like a perilous mission to take your mind off of things. At least, that's what Will had thought repeatedly as the hover-train took him East across the Nevada desert towards the location where his Dad's base was supposed to be hidden. It was the first argument he had used when Anna had stood, arms folded, eyes narrowed, telling him that she wasn't going to let him go, not after what happened last time.
"This is for my Dad, Annie. He was the one who asked me to do this. Me. And as crap as he might have seemed these past years, I respect him enough now to follow his wishes."
She'd agreed. But only if he stayed on comms with her the whole time.
This was going to be a long journey.
The train ground to a halt outside an old, run-down station somewhere close to the border, it's last stop before it sped straight for L.A. Why the thing stopped here, he'd never really know. Maybe his Dad had some sort of deal going with the train service provider. There was barely anyone around in the surrounding town. It was about one in the morning, so within reason, the only people on the streets were clinging to the shadows, talking to one another in hushed tones as Will passed. He could have sworn he saw someone with a missing ear. What was this place?
Without any transport available, Will ignored the chatter in his ear and broke into a garage on the outskirts (which made him think of Natalie), borrowing a workable motorbike. I'll return it later, he promised Anna. The engine rumbled beneath him as he screeched down the dirt track, his tracker bleeping every two seconds, telling him that he was on the right track. As it began beeping faster, he slowed down, eventually drawing to a halt. Off to the right, and in the direction the tracker was pointing, was a range of low lying hills. It appeared the base was in there somewhere.
The bike took him closer, and he hid it away so any passing bandits or whatever wouldn't run off with it - otherwise he'd be leaving a lump of credits at the garage along with a profuse apology. After walking a good couple of hundred feet in each direction around the bike's hiding place, he came to the conclusion that his Dad had hidden this place, or at least the entrance to it, pretty damn well. It fact, if he hadn't accidentally leaned against what he originally thought was a wall, and turned out to be a holographic representation of one, he wouldn't have found it at all.
Blind luck, always good to have that on your side.
The cave was pitch black, so he had to dig his comms out of his pocket and switch the torch on just to see where he was stepping. Deeper and deeper into the hills he went, wondering if he was just going to pop out the other side non-the-wiser, until he heard his foot make a splashing sound. Looking down, then pointing the torch out in front of him, he found that he was standing at the edge of a large stretch of water, which reached out to the wall on either side of the cave.
"Bollocks.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just my Dad never makes anything easy."
"Rather like you then, huh?"
"Shush."
Will hovered at the edge of the water for a couple of moments, trying to decide whether to go sans clothes, or risk getting them wet. He was in the desert. And it would be better if he could swim back to dry clothes. "Without clothes it is." He'd just roam around his Dad's office in his underpants.
Eh, he'd done worse.
Stripping off his clothes, he plunged into the water - he voted to go with that as opposed to dipping a toe in and prolonging and agony of clambering into freezing cold water - his whole body letting out a convulsion at the sudden drop in temperature. The stretch of water wasn't too long, only a few pool lengths in the end, so he made it to the other side quickly, coming face to face with a large metal door.
Which had no visible handle or locking system of any kind.
"What am I supposed to do now?"
A bright light shone from somewhere over head, a green laser scanning his semi-naked body.
"DNA identification check complete. Welcome Mr. William Blake."
"And that is why I let you go."
"Thanks."
The door creaked open, and without hesitation, he walked on in, the lights and various screens automatically activating at his presence. It didn't take him long to find what he needed, a handy drive storing all of the information that he could find about R4. It felt almost like it had been too easy getting in here. But who was he to complain? They finally had some leverage against R4. And it was about damn time.
Looking around the place one last time as he stood by the door, he closed it, and now that the outside cave was illuminated, he noticed a switch on the wall - a switch that brought up a metal mechanical walkway out of the water. "Wonderful." He was relatively dry by the time he got back to his clothes, so tugging them over his sticky wet skin wasn't too much of a hassle.
Outside the cave, he had one last thing to do - he had to make sure no one would find the base again, as per his Dad's request. The other reason he had wanted to come - he didn't trust anyone else to do it.
His Dad had given him a safe word, something which he had to say once he was out of harms way. Pulling the bike out to a safe distance away from the cave, he said;
"Jillian."
His mother's name.
A small explosion went off somewhere inside the cave, the hills above sagging slightly as a rock slide buried the base. His deed was done.
It was time to go home. |
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