Seven Sins of Man Part 6

6

The seven of us are once again a family but we have no more mentor or mother to call upon. Maddie Price has died in the Vault. She was a mother to me; I trusted her and I loved her. But she betrayed me in the end. She used me to get the family back and if need for Sally, I would never had known. Our first objective is a new place to lived; someplace safe and secure where no one will know us or find us. We have yet to find it but we are now in a motel off some freeway. We booked for the next three nights as we needed time to rest and figured out our next move.

It was time for me to speak to Sally as she is the youngest and I am not sure on her loyalty to us.

Sally told me she was put with Ms Kristen and she is coached by private tutors. Although they lived in the same house, she hardly see the son of Ms. Kristen. On occasion she is brought to Global Research and asked to check some computer programs or hack into one. She tells me that once she is on the network, her mind just whizz her through the complicated algorithms with ease. She does not know what is happening but she is moving it on her own pace. I believed her as she has become Sloth; her other ego inside her. She told me she could sometimes see herself and be able to sent out messages which is what she did to me. But most times Sloth is in command. It was Sloth who told them to come to the Vault. Its was Ms.Kristen who tells Sloth what need to be done. But the surprising part was she does not access any network when she is at home except for the TV and her game consoles.

I left her to some cold ice cream so that I could speak to Gareth. He has been quiet since we took him here. He is twelve like Angst but he is not tall. In fact , he is obese and right now he is eating a large bowl of popcorns as he watches the TV. I hardly know Gareth as he always munching away at some food unless he is sleeping. I know of his abiliy as he shown it to me. His chair was too low for the table so he lengthen it by making the legs grow. Gareth told me he was staying with Doctor Fukuda, and he gets private tutors too. Besides that he assist in Doctor’s Fukuda works in enlarging specimens so they can study it more closely. Once he enlarged a circuit board to the size of a table top and the analyst had a great time on it. But he tells me when he does that, he gets very hungry and needs food. That was how Doctor Fukuda controls him; he hold back the food unless I do as he says. I asked if he wants to go abck, his reply was no. Sometimes Doctor Fukuda starved him to get him to cooperate on certain projects. Once he had to enlarged a man’s hand causing the man great pain. It was all Doctor’s Fukuda’s request. He did asked for Maddie as he was close to her too. She was like his mum too, but I told her she died in the Vault fire. That was the first time I seen him stopped eating to look at me with his teary eyes. I held him as he cried for his lost godmother, Maddie Price.

I did not speak to Lois as Evie was talking to her. Both of them looked happy to be together again, and they are sharing a lot of updates together. So much for family reunion as now its time to make sure we stay united. I don’t know why I am taking the lead but I am the eldest so that gives me the position I guess.

The girls are with me in one room and the boys took the other one. It was our second third night when I realised something was wrong. There was no sound from the surrounding area and the other rooms were all quiet. Normally, we will hear some doors closing or the sounds of the TV blaring away. But now its all quiet. I looked at the clock on the bedside. It was 2:30am. Maybe its quiet at this hour.

Or maybe not that quiet.

I grabbed Sally and hollered to Evie to grabbed Lois. All four of us jumped off the bed when the sonar wave came in at where we were sleeping. Its a narrow band and it was focused on the bed. Or whoever that was supposed to sleep on the bed. I projected the room door to burst out and then the chairs to followed suit. I put Sally down and ran to the doorway. There was the SUV with its back hatch opened. They are trying to adjust the sonar wave to me but I am Pride.

“Be nice to me or I will be Pride if I need to tear you apart” was needed now, as I projected onto the SUV and had it overturned to the topside.

I saw the second SUV and the men around it. I got the men to be slammed to the SUV head first. The rest who are still standing at the other turneovered SUV decided to retreat by their own will. Graham had joined me then with Angst.

“Get the rest. We are leaving now.” I need to know how they can detect us.

“I think they tracked me because I contacted Ms.Kristen.” We were in the MPV on the route on the freeway and Sally spoke up. Graham looked at her and she went into her ‘I did not know’ look. It always followed by the tears and then the bawling sound. I pulled over and told Graham to take over. I sat by Sally and held her so she can always feel wanted in this family. Soon she was sleeping and so was the rest except Graham. I told him to pull over at the next motel. But there is no new motel until we hit the town at sunbreak. Its a small place with like twenty shops and two rows of street, and both leading in and out except different directions.

“So, boss. Right or left?”

“Right. There is the place with the signs of vacancy on it.” We booked in for one week and we became the tenants of Mrs.Peace in the small town of Midway in the middle of somewhere on this planet. We got two rooms and one warm person who serves some nice cookies. Angst had checked the new members for trackers and found none, so we did another check with the same results. They claimed they had none on them as they were staying with the Executives. I then questioned Sally on how she got in touch with Ms.Kristen. She told me that Ms.Kristen planted a comms build into my head so they can communicate by thoughts. She did not know it can be also be used for tracking.

That is wonderful; she is the homing beacon.

I asked Angst to check if we can removed it. He said he needs to do some more research and more delicate equipments are needed like in a hospital. And that mean getting her into a proper hospital which is not easy given the level of threat we are facing. Nevertheless, I checked with Ms.Peace and she told me there is a medical research facility about an hour away. It has also medical facilities as they once send a boy who needed emergency surgery.

I left Graham in take care of the other kids while I went with Sally, Angst and Lois.

Its not any medical facility but its a goverment facility with soldiers manning the gates. Its a bio-research centre and they do have medical facilities for their own use. I have no choice, so I drove up to the guardhouse tbhat night and Lois projected on them to be subservient to our command. They opened the gate and let us through in which Lois got them later to sleep in the guard house. I drove up to the main entrance and walked in. Lois did her mood on the sentries there and I got one of them to direct me to the correct unit.

It has everything that are needed and Angst went to work. He put Sally ease with his administration like a proficient surgeon. He is not talking but doing scans and checking the results to continue his works. Its unbelievable as the twelve year old kid work, pause and then re-check his workings or input in new data. Then he stopped and said; “I can do it. We got all the equipment I need.”

For the next hour or so, I am just sitting down on the chair with Lois watching a kid operating on another kid. Its unreal like as the kid place the laser to the scalp on the side of her head and began the incision. Then the whole works went into motion and then there was the kid standing there with his hands on his side.

“Angst?” I looked at him and can see he is very tired.

“She will be fine. It may take some days but she will fine. I will get some drugs from the cabinet which can help her with the coming headaches.” And then he fainted but I caught him before he fell down on the floor. Lois and myself grabbed hold of him and laid him on the nearest table so he can rest.

“Lois, do you think you can get me a drink or drinks for all of us.” I know she is capable as she just waltz out. In ten minutes she came back with a tray of food and drinks. We were out of the place an hour later with two sleeping patients. No one stopped us at the gate or the road. We drove back in silence and Sally took a week of bed rest while Angst was up by late supper. He then told me he shut down the comms unit but its still inside her head. Its too difficult to remove without the possibility of fatal results.

We holed up for over two weeks now and there was no intimidating SUV or armed men raiding the house. And just as we thought things were getting good; home deliveries of pizza and milkshakes, we were visited by a man in a hawaiian shirt.

“Ms.Pride, my name is Alan Carter. I am from the Clan as you know it. Please before you shoot me out of the window, please allow me to explain myself. I am asked by the Clan to negotiate with you. As I am sitting here, we have been moving our people and equipment in. And as of now, your family as you called them are trapped. We got twelve sonar wave on this house now, more than you can handle at any one time. So here is the deal. Your family worked for us and we will not harm or hunt you down. If you disagreed then we will terminate you and your family. We have another backup team which we can use. You are not the only one that works. There are one other Pride besides you.”

“How did you find us?” I am curious as to how they knew we were here.

“The medical research facililty which you used for Sally. We accessed those files and we knew you were there. Then it was simple to track you MPV.” Alan Carter was getting smug on his intelligence.

“I need sometime to talk to my family.” I gave him my ‘puppy’ look and he could be buying it.

“You got twenty four hours. No more.” Alan walked out of the door like he owned the place. It was when Mrs.Peace walked in.

“Is that your relative? If its, then take the road next week. If not, then he is not coming in anymore. If he threaten you, just let me know.” With that she walked out back to her kitchen. I got five family member standing at the door.

“Can we discuss in Sally’ room? She is awake and she wants to be involved.”

I nodded my approval. We are one family.

Alan Carter will be walking into the house about now. And he will discovered we are all missing, but he won’t know how unless Mrs.Peace tells him. But she has left the house six hours earlier for a trip to see her sister across some hundred miles away.

Mrs.Peace had arranged our escape by leading us to a secret passage behind the fire place to a labyrinth of tunnles. It was built by her late husband who was afraid of the invasion on the land. He built and designed the secret passages that leads to the last house in their street. Its was her husband’s home before he moved in with her. Mr Peace was an intelligence officer in the War Department and he died from the paranioa of his own thoughts that the invasion was on.

We are now in the borrowed car of Mrs.Peace heading for the next town where we will leave the car for its rightful owner. There we will find our own transport.

But all those times when we were on the road, I was thinking of the words of Carter on the other Pride. If there is one Pride, then there is more of the others. So we are not alone after all. We spoke of it and we decided there cannot be another group. We have to rescue them as they may not have the same info which we had. They could be kids like us.

It time to fight back and hit below the belt of Alan Carter. Its three days now since we last seen Alan.

From the mainframe of the multinational office in a small city, I have Sally and Graham to assist me. Our objective was Alan Carter, and a new complex security protocol. We went to work but this time the person getting the data was Sally so she has the least to work on. I was afraid her last brain incision may not be full healed. We were hit back by the system  but we got what we need. We got Alan Carter data and we need to get him fast before they realised he is our target.

“Whoever it was, the person is good. I got shut up just before the new protocol went into action. Was it another Sally or my better version.” I looked at Sally and smiled. I hugged her to assure her that none is as good as her. I need to keep the motivation going or this family will break soon.

Alan Carter is still waiting for us at Mrs.Peace’s house. And he is about an hour way. We did not leave far as we liked the place, we just drive and stayed at different motels for the last three nights. The small city was near the old town where we lived.

Now we are going back. Not all but just me and Graham with Angst as backup. We reached the old town just before sunset. Everything looked normal; too normal for any town. But chance was on us. Alan Carter just stepped out of the house. He is walking down the street towards us. This is our chance.

We are in a dark van by the side of the street and when he was next to us, Graham and his double opened the side door and grabbed him. But it work on the paper only. Graham and his doubles were shot with tranquilizers from all directions.

Its a trap and we are in it.

But I need Alan Carter. So time for me to act.

“Angst, do it.” He set the nearby bushes, trees and houses on fire while I mind swept Alan to slammed into the side of the van. I got out and grabbed him to pushed him in. I then reached for Graham and I can feel the sonar waves. But something also happened then. Angst blew the van horn knocking me back for a while and I grabbed Graham. Then the sonar wave came again. My head feel like its going to explode. I crawled to the driver seat and put the car into gear while Angst is cringing on the floor in pain too. I turned the wheel and drove on with no thought of any safety. The pain was still there and Graham is slowly recovering.

“Graham, the grenades.” He is still groggy from his attack but he nodded. He grabbed the bag off the back of the van to removed the box of grenades. He pulled the pin and dropped the grenades off the open sliding door as we drove by. The explosion dampen the sonar on my head and I was able to focus better now. We are off the street and now turning to the main road. It was there we saw the two SUV on the road blocking us. I project my mind on the SUV like before but this time I am pissed.

Pissed angry.

The two SUV slammed to the sides and exploded into flames. But it was worth the trip getting Alan Carter in the van now.

“Pride, we got company.” I looked at the side viewer and saw the three SUV on our tail. While one Graham double took out the next bag, another dropped the spiked chains. The double who took up the bag retrieved the hunting rifle from it. Another double opened the rear door and that double propped the rifle on the bag for balance. That double then laid down on the van flooring and fired off the shots. The SUV stopped before the chains and the quick succession shots took their enthusiam off on the chase. We are on the clear. We dropped the van and moved to our next pre-arranged vehicle, another MPV.

Soon we were in the clearing of some woods and Alan Carter is held against his will by the tree trunk held by Graham doubles. He was recalcitant initially until we set his trousers legs on fire. Then we moved up to his knees and he started talking fast.

But he did not talk long before he went silent. Angst tried to relieve him but he was already dead. Then we saw the wound on his head. It left a telltale mark; the same unit that was on Sally’s head. So they have replaced the tracker with that now. And its not easy to remove and it kills too.