Thursday, October 17th, 1996. 8:56am
Scene Chaos Factor: 3
Expected Scene: Handing over the Shanis
Testing the Expected Scene: 4 - Expected Scene
Do the Shanis wake up with the sudden braking? 50/50 - 97 - Exceptional No.
Has either of them died in their sleep? Very Unlikely - 84 - Exceptional No.
Three exceptional no results in a row. Who would have picked it?
A bunch of soldiers with assault rifles came running up, circling the pickup. I shut off the engine, then made sure that I had both hands up where they could be seen. The last thing I needed was some trigger happy grunt filling me full of holes after all the trouble I'd been through for them.
Do any of the soldiers recognise Eamon's pickup? Likely - 43 - No.
I stayed there for a few minutes, just keeping an eye on the troops. One of them pulled a radio off his webbing and made a quick call. I guess that someone in command gave them an all clear, as the one with the radio barked an order, and the squad lowered their weapons a bit, although they were still pointing in my direction.
The one with the radio came up to the driver's side door, his rifle barrel pointed at the sky, and gave me a signal to wind down the window.
"You Eamon O'Sullivan?"
"That's me."
He took a look in the backseat, and saw the two unconscious figures. "Who are they?"
I looked over my shoulder at the backseat. Both of them were still sound asleep. "The young one is the guy I was asked to look for. The older one is his father. Kind of a package deal, really."
"Stand by," he said, and stepped back from the pickup, raising the radio up to his ear again. He had a short conversation, then came back up to the door again.
"OK," he said. "You've been cleared through. Drive between the two APCs up there, and some one will guide your from there. Do not make any sudden course deviations or take any sudden actions. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal," I said.
"Right, move along," he said.
All he needed was the white stormtrooper armour, really.
I started the truck again, then carefully moved up towards the personnel carriers. As I threaded my way between them, a soldier signalled to me, and indicated that I need to park up alongside one of the Sentre trailers that were set up there.
As I pulled the truck up next to one of the trailers, a door opened in the side and Ms Bellon stepped out looking down at me. I gave her a half-hearted wave, then shut the engine down again.
I glanced over my shoulder at the Shanis. Now I was here, I felt like shit betraying them like this, but it might be for the best. Sentre is going to want to know what Nym was up to, so they were likely to provide them with some sort of medical aid and bring him back to health before they questioned him.
That's what I'm going to keep telling myself anyway.
I got out of the truck as Ms Bellon came down the stairs.
"Mr O'Sullivan," she said. "I'm surprised to see you back so soon. I expected you would take longer. I see - by the look of your pickup - that you ran into some trouble along the way."
"Kind of," I said. "The road between here and Barstow is complete shit, and I managed to roll my truck over on the way down, yesterday. Not long after I sorted that out, I damn near got caught in a freaking tornado. If I hadn't been lucky enough to find some shelter, this would probably be in a lot worse shape than it is now."
Bellon chuckled. "Sounds like quite the eventful journey."
I shook my head. "You don't know the half of it."
"Did you learn anything useful?"
I jerked a thumb back at the pickup. "Well, that depends on whether you think that having Nym Shani and his father in the backseat is useful or not. Neither of them are in particularly good shape though. If I hadn't found them when I did, there's a good chance they would have died within another couple of days."
Bellon's eyes went wide, and she hurried over to the pickup and peered into the backseat. "I'm impressed, Mr O'Sullivan! I did not expect you to return with Shani. I was hoping you'd just give us a solid enough lead for us to find him." A look of concern spread across her face. "Are they still alive?"
"Well, it was sheer dumb luck, more than anything else. I literally - more or less - stumbled into them overnight. But yes, they're both still alive. I guess the past few weeks caught up with them, because both of them passed out not long after we got on the road. Shani's in a bad way, though. He's been lost in the neuroscape for the best part of a week, and has lost most of his strength. His father's sick with something, and isn't a whole lot better."
I looked directly into Bellon's eyes. "I presume you have some sort of medical facility here?"
Do they? Very Likely - 48 - No.
Bellon shook her head. "No, we don't. We have a first aid station, but what these two need is probably beyond what we're currently prepared for."
"Well," I said, "someone's going to need to do something pretty damn urgently, or he might die on your watch. He's had a little bit of water since I found him, but he could barely keep that down. He's not eaten in a week or more, and his father is not much better."
She folded her arms. "I'll see what I can do."
"Look, apart from what you told me the other day, I don't know what Shani's been up to. I haven't even had a chance to talk to him about it. But his old man is good people. He's completely dedicated to his son, and if it wasn't for him, young Shani would already be dead, rather than just mostly dead. So, I hope that you can do something for the old man, as well. I think that owe him that much at least for keeping his son alive for you."
Does Bellon play hardball about Vinit? 50/50 - 98 - Exceptional No.
Bellon frowned. "That wasn't part of the plan, but - as I said - I'll see what I can do. If he's as dedicated to his son as you say, he may well help us convince Nym to cooperate with us. Especially if we give them some medical attention and bring them back from the brink of death."
She looked into the back of the pickup again, studying the Shanis. "Right, I'll organise some medical assistance for these two now, and once they're dealt with, I'll debrief you properly."
"If you can also point me at some coffee while I'm waiting, I'd appreciate it."
Bellon smirked. "I'll make sure there's some for the debrief session."
End of Scene Bookkeeping
This scene went pretty much as expected, with no surprises, so the Chaos Factor decreases to two.
Added Leah Bellon to the Character List.