YEAR 2030 - MOTORWAY BETWEEN SOUTHAMPTON AND LONDON
When the truck had come to a sudden standstill, Jake, and the others had known that something had gone awry. Frank's meticulous plan to ferry them into the compound had hit unforeseen complications. They were still several miles away from their destination and the fate of the planned rebellion relied heavily on them achieving their goal.
Jake had urged them all to remain silent and to listen out for any clues as to what was going on. They had heard the sound of Otto's convoy loom up on them and surround the truck just before it came to a halt here on the hard shoulder of the motorway. They had heard the rear alarm of Paulsen's truck backing up towards them and the agent announcing himself to their unwanted visitors. The execution of the two drivers had made it very clear that they were in serious danger and the orders from the lone voice of the assailants had made that very clear.
'First, we secure the boy, Numen wants him alive' Jake heard the man say. 'Once you have him do whatever you wish with the others'.
The announcement of their impending doom had put Sam and Mike in a state of high alert and like true soldiers, they were ready to go down fighting. They stood up and aimed their guns at the back of the truck ready to take as many of their enemies down as they could. Whilst Jake recognised the valiant and brave course of action the two men were prepared to take, it would not help the planned rebellion if they went down as martyrs to the cause. Getting into the compound and breaking the stranglehold their enemies had on the system was essential to ending the status quo.
'Wait' he whispered. 'Everybody calm down and take a seat'.
'Jake these guys are coming in here in a matter of seconds and they don't intend to take many of us as prisoners' Mike argued in a hushed tone so as not to draw attention.
'I have an idea, but you are all going to have to trust me' said Jake again with a bit more force. 'You all need to sit down and close your eyes'.
'Are you freaking kidding me right now' whined Sam, droplets of sweat hanging on his brow. 'We are about to get turned into a bunch of dust clouds and you want us to sit down and do some cum bye yah ritual!'
The looks Jake received from both Phoenix and Mike suggested they tended to agree with Sam's brutally honest assessment of the predicament they were in. Nevertheless, he was not about to give up and the movements outside suggested that time was running out.
'You have to trust me. Now sit down, shut your eyes and bind hands. Do it now' Jake asserted through gritted teeth, keen to make his point and to keep as quiet as humanly possible.
Sam turned to his older, chiselled cousin, looking for some backup. Mike just shrugged his heavy shoulders and did what Jake said, taking a seat and taking hold of Jake's outstretched left arm. Phoenix too gave a resigned look back to Sam who was now rubbing his closely shaved head with mock laughter. Phoenix took hold of Jake's right hand and now offered her free arm to Sam.
'Fine' he whispered, shaking his head furiously, taking hold of Phoenix and Mike's free arms. 'For the record, though, when we're all dead and where ever we end up let it be known that I think you're all absolutely off the goddamn charts, bat-shit crazy. Just saying'.
'Duly noted. Now close your eyes and clear your mind' Jake said with a tinge of sarcasm.
He now took a deep breath and closed his eyes and one by one the others followed suit even though they could hear the intruders outside clambering on to the back of the truck and releasing the lock.
In the days leading up to the initiation of the uprising, Jake had spent much time alone trying to recover his abilities. He had drawn upon the teachings of his childhood when Shengani would make him practice for hours and hours, clearing his mind of all of his fears and anxieties and just imagining endless possibilities. His old master had taught him that anything was possible when your mind could convince your body that the great visions it constructed could be achieved in reality. He had argued that the mind could create endless realities that the heart if fully tuned in could make real. Shengani had taught him that contrary to popular opinion, it was the heart that made people's dreams come true and the mind was merely the space that created the possibility. The key was getting them in synch.
Just a few days before he had been trying to put these teachings into practice alone in his room. He had just been informed by Isaac that his unique skills would be required to ensure Van Duyn activated his part of the passcode which they both knew he would not do voluntarily or even under duress. Without spelling it out to him Isaac had been telling him that the whole plan was entirely dependent on Jake's ability to take possession of the president and to make him do as they wanted. Jake did not have the heart to tell his faithful host that his abilities had completely evaded him. He had laid on his bed for hours agonising over the impossibility of what was being asked of him certain that he was going to fail.
Once he had burned off all of the nervous energy and thoroughly beaten himself up to point of self-loathing and utter contempt of anything he had ever been able to achieve in the past that was when Shengani had emerged in his head. The quirky little man prodded him with his walking cane and gave him a look of derision and disgust. Shengani had then been stood at the top of a very large wall that had taken shape in Jake's subconscious, looking down at him.
Think not, how high is the wall I must climb, Shengani's voice had echoed in the deep recesses of his mind. Think only, how to get to the other side.
After a few moments, Jake had imagined flying over the wall, crashing through the middle of it, digging under it and simply walking around it. There were an infinite number of ways to address the obstacle and yet he had been looking at the hardest and most obvious solutions for everything up to this point, no doubt trying to choose to scale the wall and clamber to the other side, but for that he would have needed a rope, a hammer and a series of climbing clips none of which he had. It was at this point in his refresher course that he had a moment of clarity. He had been focussing on all the things he could not control rather than imagining the things he could.
If your mind can create it and your heart believes it. Then for you Jake, anything is truly possible. Unrelenting belief is what will set you free. Shengani had said before disappearing back into the depths of his brain.
When Jake had awoken from this internal lesson on how to free up his mind a few days ago, he was no longer on his bed within the confines of the mansion. He was now back on the mound at the front of the grounds, the twinkling stars above there to greet him. Jake had for the first time teleported himself.
Back in the truck, Jake had managed to establish a connection with his three friends who were oblivious to the fact that he was about to try the inconceivable and to teleport them all out of there. They were like a bunch of guinea pigs being subjected to an untested trial, but given the stakes, Jake saw no better alternative. He flooded his thoughts through the minds of Phoenix and Mike with relative ease, like a huge tidal wave crashing through feeble flood defences. Sam had offered much greater resistance but now Jake had managed to quell his contracting neural pathways, bursting them open with a bright energy that made anything and everything possible.
Within a brief moment, Jake could see the bright synapses firing in all of their minds, exploding balls of energy shooting across a web of thought processes that began to glow brightly and began to spark like a swarm of shooting stars all catapulting off into the distance at an intense velocity.
It was as though they were no longer sat huddled behind the wooden stacks in the back of the dingy container, but were instead gathered together as one glowing form on the most phenomenal rollercoaster journey through outer space. A bright glowing light rocketed ahead in front of them and it was as if they were charging at light speed behind it, just trying to keep up. Then as they got closer to it the bright light now expanded in front of them like a beautiful flower blooming and swallowing them in. The white light now sucked them in with a powerful vacuum, a dark tiny circle hurtling towards them in the distance growing larger and darker with every split second that passed until the bright white light had entirely evaporated, consumed by the greedy darkness that now enveloped them entirely, slowing their pace until it was as if they were in suspended animation and not moving at all.
The sudden dose of adrenaline kicked in and the four of them know jerked back into life still clutching tightly to one another. Startled and confused expressions flashed among the quartet as their hungry eyes ravenously took in their new surroundings. The dingy container was gone, the fresh breeze of the morning swept across their faces, the emerging light of day all around them. Mike was the first to get to his feet, looking back to the truck that had been surrounded by four SUVs, the inhabitants of which had now opened the back door to where they had been hiding just moments before. From this high viewpoint, it took him a few moments to gather his thoughts and realise where they were.
'We're on top of the other truck' he said somewhat bemused.
'You think?' Sam chimed sarcastically, now looking over the side of the truck to the remains of the dead agent, Paulsen, on the road.
Phoenix was completely stunned at what had just happened and had been the slowest to recover. She was chattering incomprehensibly and trying to stop her body from shaking from the shock.
'What the hell just happened?' Phoenix blurted finally.
'There's no time for that now' said Jake pointing to the rear of their previous abode that had now been breached and was full of activity. 'We need to get out of here'.
He took hold of Phoenix and led her towards the gap between the rear trailer and the driver's cabin to ensure that they remained out of sight. Mike and Sam now jostled for position, each desperate to get down quickest to assume driving responsibility for the truck.
Mike won the race to assume control of the vehicle, Jake, and the others clambered into the passenger side unaware of how long they would have before they were detected. Mike now reached out and grabbed at the heavy door, he caught sight of Agent Paulsen’s body in the wing mirror, prostrate and rigid on the road at the tail of the truck. The sickening image causing him to tug harder on the door than he intended and resulted in a large slamming thud.
'I know why don't just wind the window down and scream at the top of your voice 'hey assholes I'm over here'' snapped Sam sarcastically in irritation at Mike’s clumsiness. 'I suggest you get us the hell out of here before they catch wind of what has happened '.
Jake alert to the noise that had broken the eerie silence that had concealed their escape to this point now began checking for any movement from the opposite wing mirror. Mike ignored his cousin and put the engine into motion.
'Well, if they hadn't heard us before then they will now' he said pushing the large transporter into action down the road and away from the collection of SUVs and the abandoned truck that began to shrink into the distance.
Jake's eyes fixed on the wing mirror, surely it would be a matter of time before their escape was detected and the sound of the truck's engine triggered a response, but as he looked, nothing happened and they were soon getting further out of sight.
He turned back to the others shaking his head. 'Somehow I don't think they even heard us' he said.
Mike snatched a look in his mirror and he too could not make out any movement as the truck drifted out of sight.
'I still think that whatever happened back there was totally crazy by the way. I stand by my original statement' said Sam a cheeky smile beginning to emerge. 'It was so cool, though. Crazy, but very cool'.
They were now on their way, deviating from the original plan but well on target to get to the London compound to enact the next stage of the plan.
The tension in the back of the abandoned truck had reached a critical level. The rebels had somehow foxed Otto and his men and gotten by them undetected and had now clearly escaped in the unsecured truck that could no longer be heard having pulled off into the distance.
The Chimera agents and the armed foot soldiers had been locked in an unnerving stalemate for all this time, but it was clear that any sudden movement would trigger a situation that would result in a firefight of immense proportions.
'No one does anything stupid' Otto grunted back to his men. 'Nobody makes any sudden moves'.
The robot soldier whom he had been stood face-to-face with now recoiled back into a standing position. The black and green giant figure towering over Otto and his men filled the expanse of the container, and his fellow foot soldiers now stepped up alongside him creating a wall of green and black metal that caught the glimpses of light from the emerging day outside. The foot soldiers now raised their guns and aimed them directly at the intruders.
'Now hold on a minute' Otto said loudly, trying to assert a dominance from his lowly position. 'We are all on the same side here. We all work for the Empire' he reasoned.
Otto's men might have backed up their leader at this point in the negotiations by lowering their weapons to show they did not pose a threat, but they remained locked into a position of attack.
Otto began to panic, small little droplets of sweat forming on his brow. They began to descend his pallid facade like a group abseiling a cliff face. Each drop then trickling to the edge of his pointy chin and splashing down onto his boots.
He imagined how he would explain the situation to Numen, how he had allowed the quartet to escape, having failed to secure both of the captured trucks. How would he explain how the boy and his fellow stowaways had slipped his elite trained troops and given the current face off, what would he say was his brilliant resolution to that? Surviving this situation was one thing, but he was certain that Numen was going to kill him.
In the tense cauldron of the container, it was as if his internal inquisition was given a rather divine response. Over the silence that had engulfed the scene, a voice cut unexpectedly across the airwaves like a message from god.
'I told you to call me when you were done' Numen's angry voice echoed from Otto's ear piece.
In the split second that the general's voice carried into the container, the unexpected interruption had caused Otto to take a step back and he found himself tumbling backwards over an empty wooden box. It was as though he had been the first in a series of dominoes to kick a tragic sequence into action.
Startled by his fall, one of Otto's men had gotten an itchy trigger finger and let rip with the first shot into the back of the container. In a scene fitting of an old gangster movie, Newton's third law of motion was beautifully and tragically proven. The foot soldiers reacted to the gunshot instantaneously, unleashing their own arsenal of firepower. Within a brief moment, the whole of the container was alight with the fire of hell. Both sides unloaded the full extent of their weapon capability with the bodies of the Chimera agents evaporating into smoke and the fallen foot soldiers obliterated into piles of scrap metal.
The gunfight lasted just a few moments with the entirety of the insides and all the people within it being destroyed and decimated. A cloud of dust swept out of the back of the truck amidst a raging fire that had erupted inside the giant metal container.
'Otto. Otto. Otto answer me' Numen's voice could be heard from the ear piece that had been catapulted to the exit of the truck, still embedded within Otto's dismembered ear. 'What the hell is going on there? Otto, answer me' he continued to shout.
Through the destruction of the back of the truck, the bloodied and dismembered figure of Otto could be seen dragging himself towards his missing ear. He was covered in blood, both his legs missing and his attire covered in congealed blood, dusty remains of his colleagues and burns from the flames that chased behind him. He dragged himself to the mouth of the opening and clutching his ear tightly, tried to reattach it to his head entirely unsuccessfully.
'Otto, I swear if you have failed me again, I will personally tear you limb from limb' threatened Numen over the ear piece.
Otto rolled on his back and began to laugh uncontrollably, his wounds extensive and beyond repair. He tossed the ear into the flames that were slowly creeping towards him, killing off the voice of his General. In what was an ironic twist that was fuelling his painful laughter, Otto had been killed by his boss after all. The flames now hungrily fed on the bloody stumps where his legs had once been and his laughter was replaced with sheer blinding agony. The white hot burning sensation climbed up to his midsection and he began to fit and foam at the mouth, his screams of agony throttled by the intense heat that was drowning his inflamed lungs.
Then in what came as a flash of merciful magic, Otto's excruciating anguish was ended by an enormous explosion that ripped through the belly of the truck. The flames rose up into the early morning sky, a trail of murder and devastation in its wake. The rebellion was just getting started.