The Uneasy Alliance
by AJ Marks
Part 12
Boomer quickly made his way over to some ruins which he could use as a place to hide from whoever attacked him. He looked around gaining the best advantage he could find unsure who, or what, had attacked him in the first place. Everything he had seen he had no answers to what happened. He thought maybe those machines had attacked the humans here, or whatever civilization was here, but looking around nothing made any sense.
He carefully walked along having the feeling he was being watched but could not see anyone and it all felt a bit unnerving to him but kept his guard up in case. Looking around the broken building he wondered what its purpose had been when it was used and who had built it in the first place.
He took a closer look seeing the metal rusting away before picking up a piece as it disintegrated in his hands. It obviously had been there for a while to be able to decay this much. He saw no pictures, or anything which might indicate writing to give him an idea of who might have done this.
Drawing his blaster at a noise he waited a second scanning his surrounding for anything which might move. He saw nothing and decided he should be on the move again as whoever had shot him down was probably looking for him and the escape pod. The last thing he wanted was to be caught again.
He made his way back out of the building glad it didn’t collapse on him due to age. He noticed an entrance to a tunnel off to his left and decided to take a chance on it and head below the surface rather than stay on the top. He carefully navigated his way down broken stairs and was surprised to find the tunnel had a bit of lighting and took off hoping he might discover the solution to the problem of this planet.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs he looked at the walls, seeing cracks but it showed no signs or danger of collapse. He went straight along the tunnel into a large room which appeared empty. There were debris all over the floor but nothing which made any sense, broken bits of ruins, concrete and metal.
“Well Boomer, looks like you’ve got yourself in a strange mess now,” he said to himself as he continued on down and headed to another tunnel to explore some more. He might find some answers to what was going on with this planet, which might help later on when the rescue group came.
*****
DE watched on the monitors along with the group of humans with him as what appeared to be a male human stepped out of the escape pod. He cautiously walked round looking at the ruins. They studied him a bit as he reacted to his surroundings and appeared to not know what had happened as he picked something which turned to dust.
“Strange,” DE said to the humans as they watched him. “He looks to be human in appearance yet doesn’t act like any human I know.”
“Could he be part of the group of humans that might have left Earth during the time of war?” Niobe asked causing DE to search the files.
“I have no knowledge of such an event, if anything happened it was never written down or seen by any machine,” DE replied.
“Perhaps some stimuli would work?” Niobe said.
“Interesting,” DE said, then sent out an instruction to the watchers.
One made a noise and they watched as the man drew a weapon very fast, faster than DE had expected it to be. They looked on a bit more before Niobe said anything.
“That weapon looks very familiar to the one the robot had that we fought,” Niobe said.
DE looked closer but had no knowledge of the attack Niobe said. It would have to take her word for it. They refocused their attention back on the man who now had walked out of the building all the time keeping an eye out for anything which might be watching him. DE was glad the watchers were small I size and were able to hover on their own. Otherwise it felt they would have already been spotted as the man’s observation pattern was on the ground. The man then disappeared into one of the tunnels.
“We can go no further,” DE told them. According to the recent treaty with the humans no machine would go into the underground tunnels as long as the humans remained at Zion
“I know,” Niobe replied. “I hope Morpheus finds him first.”
“I could follow him, to make sure,” DE suggested.
“No our council is still very leery about the machines and if they see one they might thing you’re declaring war against them,” Niobe replied logically. DE had no idea what was going on with the human council.
“Then we will not,” DE said. “We shall wait, until then, there is work to do.”
It turned to head back to the work of defending the city against these attackers, and the latest knowledge did not help anything out to it.
*****
“I hear Morpheus had returned,” one of the council members said as Zac watching s Zac came walking back into the room to probably address the council on the latest news.
“Yes he has, and he took another one who refused to listen to us,” Zac stated to them.
“Perhaps we should listen to what they have to say and figure out what is going on,” another council member said calmly.
“Nonsense, we all know Morpheus has delusions of grandeur ever sense of the end of the war. It’s a classic case of being unable to adapt to peace. He had been out of the loop and made up this story to gain favor with us again,” Zac replied to the group. “We shall keep him isolated until he can be treated properly.”
“I don’t know about this,” one woman on the council said. “Morpheus needs to be treated with respect, or the others might view this as some sort of vendetta you have against him, and turn against the council.”
“He must be restrained otherwise panic will sweep though the population and start another war which we are not ready to fight,” Zac said. “He must be kept isolated so his lies will not be spread.”
“Very well, he shall remain in jail for now, but I urge you to listen to the story,” another member said to Zac who appeared to have not heard the second part of the verdict.
“Good, you won’t be disappointed with your decision,” Zac said, turning and leaving the council in a rush leaving the group sitting in silence, wondering about his sudden stubborn attitude.
*****
Morpheus looked over to see Ben lying down in his cell and realized if the situation wasn’t so serious he might be able to laugh at the whole thing. Instead he wondered why the council was content to ignore everything going on in the outside world at all costs.
“Not what you expected I assume,” Ben said speaking up and looking over at Mropheus.
“No, not at all what I was expecting. I thought they might be open to discussion,” Morpheus replied looking around at the bars. “Instead we’re treated like criminals.”
He hoped to allowed to appear before the council to argue his case, but now that he was here he knew his chance of something like that happening was almost non-existent anymore. For some reason Zac and the council were closed-minded at anything other than what they thought.
“We’ll have to wait and see now,” Ben replied back.
The door opened allowing Turner to walk into the room giving Morpheus a glimmer of hope. Perhaps he had been able to talk to the council about what was really going on.
“I’m sorry about this Morpheus,” Turner said looking Morpheus.
“You’re only doing your duty, but what’s going on?” Morpheus asked, hoping to get a straight answer.
“The council is keeping you here, they don’t trust you,” Turner said. “Contact s to be limited.”
“Then they are bigger fools than I thought,” Morpheus replied unable to understand what the council was thinking anymore. At least during the war he could have a discussion with them.
“Not everyone believes the, or should I saw Zac,” Turner replied back to him with a bit of a smile, giving Morpheus an indication he had at least one ally.
“Guess that’s better than nothing,” Ben said from where he was still lying down.
“So, how bad is it up there?” Turner asked, turning the conversation to the current crisis.
“Bad,” Ben answered before Morpheus could say anything.
“They need more volunteers,” Morpheus replied. “And we’re still not sure who they are.”
“I think I can find some, the problem will be getting them to the surface with all vehicles grounded it will be a struggle to get up there,” Turner replied back to them.
“John knows the way to the surface,” Ben said to them. “They could walk to the surface.”
“Not an easy trip, slower but they could make it there,” Turner said, giving the idea considerable merit.
“It is the right thing to do,” Morpheus replied back to him.
“All right, I’ll ask around discreetly and get John to go as well. Have to avoid the council, if they get wind of this things could get ugly real quickly,” Turner said before heading out of the room to carry out his new plan.
*****
Boomer felt as if he had been walking around for days and now figured he was completely lost in the tunnels. Everything appeared to be the same everywhere. About the only thing he knew for sure was he was lost. He didn’t even know how to get back to the surface.
He kept walking almost wishing now for something to appear in front of him. He rounded another corner in a never ending series of corners and stopped. Up ahead he was sure he heard sounds, but was unsure as he knew sounds could echo in these tunnels. He made a decision and ducked down behind some rubble and waited as the sounds became louder and he could not make out the conversation.
“John, how much longer is this going to take?” a female voice asked.
“We’re about halfway,” a male voice replied back and Boomer thought he heard a few groans to accompany the answer. “Never said this would be an easy trip.”
“Yeah, we know, but still, we couldn’t have stolen a vehicle or something?” another voice said.
“No, the council is being stupid,” another male voice said.
Boomer had no idea what that all meant but knew he might have a chance at getting some real answers for a change. Looking around the debris he noticed a larger group than he expected, about fifteen to twenty people, all heading in his direction with lights. They seemed unconcerned about what was going on, and complaining about some trip they were taking.
He quickly weighed the odds that this group was part of the group who shot him down. If that was the case then they were probably out looking for him, or heading to the spot where he had been shot down. But it made no sense, why not use a vehicle, and who was this council they were talking about.
Perhaps there were different factions on the planet? The group who shot him down were up on the surface and this group lived underground, some leftover split from whatever war had been going on up on the surface of the planet. He also had a feeling the group wasn’t looking for him.
With that in mind he stepped forward to make contact with the group, and hopefully some help.
End part 12