CAIN AND ABEL
by Teresa
CHAPTER TWO
Robert Bridger closed his car door. It had been a long day. He was looking forward to seeing Anna and Michael. He bounded up the front steps and eagerly pushed his key into the lock. It was then he noticed that the door was already ajar. He felt a sharp pang in his stomach and immediately pushed the door open and ran inside. The place was a mess. The lounge chairs had been upturned, papers and shattered glass littered the floor, and cabinets were broken.
“Anna! Michael!” he screamed as he began to run through the house.
“Anna!” he yelled. Every room was just like the other; none of his furniture had been left unturned. “Anna! Michael!” Robert continued yelling, even though he was beginning to realise they weren’t there. He swirled around in circles desperately, not able to stop the panic in his throat. Damn! He couldn’t call the police because he couldn’t afford to have them involved if this had happened due to his work.
He closed his eyes trying to push away all the awful scenarios coming into his head. He ran to the phone and picked it up. The line was dead, just as he suspected.
He took his mobile out of his shirt pocket and began to dial a number. Why he was calling his father he wasn’t sure. But he just needed someone now.
The tone stopped and his father picked up the phone, “Dad,” he said quickly, “I need you here now.”
***
Nathan had arrived at his son’s home in a matter of hours. Although he was a fair way away he’d taken the fastest transport available. By the time he had arrived it was well into the evening. He ran up the porch steps and gave a few rapid taps on the door.
A surprisingly looking calm Robert answered the door. “Robert!” Nathan exclaimed, “Are you alright? Have you called the police?”
“Dad, Dad, calm down,” Robert used his hands to gesture that Nathan slow down, “Come in.” He opened the door to allow his father into the house. Robert had had the opportunity to clean up a lot of the mess but Nathan could still see that some of the couches were ripped into and noted the amount of shattered glass and porcelain on the floor.
“Oh my God,” he said to himself.
“Its okay, its all okay now,” Robert told him hurriedly.
“What do you mean its okay? Have the police found them? Did Anna call you?” Nathan was wondering why his son wasn’t with them if they had been found.
“No, no,” Robert said, “I called work……”
“Your _WORK_!” Nathan cried, “Your work has something to do with this?!”
“For God’s sake!” Robert was annoyed, “Of course my work has something to do with this. I have enemies everywhere. That’s what it means!” Robert was trying to come across to his father as a-matter-of-fact but Nathan could detect the self-loathing in his voice.
“A Party Operation team had already detected that something was wrong and rescued Anna and Michael. They are both at headquarters now. They’re safe.”
“A Party Operation team ‘rescued’ them,” Nathan said skeptically. ‘That’s a load of bull,’ he thought to himself.
Nathan could see there was something that Robert wasn’t telling him but, remembering Robert from when he was a teenager, he knew that he wasn’t going to get anything from him. So he let it slide.
Robert sighed, “They won’t be back for a while, they’re going to be checked out to make sure they’re okay.” Robert looked around, “I wanted to have this place cleaned up for them anyway.”
“Sure, no problem. Let me give you a hand.” Nathan offered.
“Thanks, Dad. Thanks for coming.”
“No problem.” Nathan laughed turning to walk over to the couch and examine it. The smile fell from his face slightly as he noticed the tear in the cushion. Thankfully, Robert had his back to him and didn’t notice. It was the kind of tear that had just been put there to make the place look like it had been searched. But the cushion had obviously not been searched. Whoever had done this had not been looking for anything. What kind of enemy of a secret organisation would kidnap an agent’s family and then trash the house without reason? Usually they would just make off with the family, or they would have actually been looking for something.
He heard Robert approach him. Surely his son would have noticed this.
“Dad?”
“It all just seems a bit strange,” he commented.
Robert pursed his lips, almost in annoyance, “I’ve been here a while, this is really stressful. I’m hungry too.”
“Alright,” Nathan said, “We should go out.”
Robert left the house first and Nathan patted his back as he walked passed. He then turned back to look at the lounge room with a skeptical look on his face before following his son out of the house.
***
Sympson paced around the small room with several security screens monitoring a house. He walked up closer to one in particular and watched Nathan Bridger leave the lounge room. Sympson shook his head. Party Operation had taken the Bridger’s in an attempt to to get Robert to keep them more ‘inconspicuous’ so that they could be safer from threats.
The younger Bridger had been angry when they told him. But he had done well in lying to his father. Despite that, Sympson couldn’t shake the concern of Nathan Bridger’s involvement.
***
Two men and one woman huddle around a large metal door. One of the men was tampering with the lock. The other can be recognised as Micah, the last one captured by Section Seven.
“Do you think we can get the door open?” Micah asked.
“We might, but what will we do after that?” The small blonde woman in her early thirties next to them asked in her American accent. Despite her size she seemed somewhat hardened. She was from a Macronesian colony North-West of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean. She had been a Macronesian citizen for a while. But she hadn’t lost her will to fight. She was originally from the United States and she still held the fundamental ideals of their society.
“There’s only one way to find out,” The other man responded.
The woman didn’t respond. She just sighed and walked over to where another two women were sitting. Micah turned and watched her as she sat down, well away from the other girls.
“Jana?” he asked kindly. She ignored him. Micah was a beautiful man but she suspected he was a few bricks short of a load. Actually, they all had differing political opinions, which didn’t help.
They all had various theories as to why they had been taken. They really had very little in common. Micah was from mainland Australia and Lauren; the younger of the other two women was from mainland New Zealand. The rest belonged to various colonies.
The Macronesian colonies where called the ‘real’ Macronesia. Oppression and government cruelty there was a lot a worse than it was on the mainlands, mostly because the smaller populations which was much easier to monitor and defeat. As a result there was a noticeable tension between Micah and Lauren and the other three.
The only things they had in common was that they all disagreed with the Bourne government for various reasons, but had not been perceived as a threat, also for various reasons. All of them avoided conflict. But apart from that, they were completely different people.
Micah suspected that the UEO had taken them; he thought that the UEO was really just as bad as Macronesia and seemed to be a bit of an anarchist. Lauren agreed. She had a firm belief that Macronesia was actually a derivative of the UEO, set up so that America could take over the world. They all thought she was cracked. Jana especially didn’t like her. The older woman blamed the Australian, New Zealand, Indonesian and Papuan governments for their incompetence in allowing an alliance like Macronesia to develop in the first place. The man tampering with the lock, Stephen blamed the UEO. Jana’s hate was aimed solely at Alexander Bourne.
However, none were patriots. Once they got passed their political differences they got on quite well. All of them were good caring people who just showed it differently.
“Gargh!” Stephen yelled triumphantly as the lock gave way. Micah moved quickly over to help him. The two men grappled with the door. Jana jumped up and walked over to them. Lauren stood up dusting the seat of her pants and looking down and the older woman as she stood slowly. Kirra was in her early sixties and was getting way too old for anything like this.
The door was painfully pried open and the five of them stood looking at what appeared to be freedom for a few moments, fear lacing through there hearts.
“Lets go!” Stephen yelled. He step through the door and was quickly followed by the rest of them. Before they could begin looking this way and that to work out which way to go, Stephen swore loudly.
They all followed his gaze and realised he was staring into the lenses of a camera mounted on the brick wall right in front of the door to their cell. The wall extended for as far as they could see and curved around a corner in a convex shape. Basically, it appeared that they were trapped in a circular hallway.
“Lets just go!” Jana yelled, “This way!” She darted off to the left and the others followed. As they rounded the corner the walls panned out, making it look as though they had an exit. On the right there were a set of steep concrete stairs. Stephen, Jana and Micah were in the Macronesian forces and knew that if something looked easy, it was the wrong way to go. Lauren began to bound up the stairs.
“Lauren, no! This way!” Jana called desperately.
“I’m going this way!” The girl called.
“I’m going with her,” Kirra told them.
“Oh God,” Jana sounded more annoyed than concerned. But she knew that Lauren and Kirra were both tough women. Despite the fact that Lauren was only 22, she could still hold her own.
“Come on,” Stephen ordered and they continued to run ahead, sprinting as fast as they could go.
***
“How the hell did they get the door open!?” the large boned middle aged section seven officer demanded as he stormed along.
“We’re working on that, sir.” The younger officer panted as he tried to keep up, “They were only suppose to be kept there temporarily anyway.”
“How many escaped?” he demanded.
“Well, all five but we managed to recapture two of them.”
The older man stopped and turned to him, “So there are three Macs running around somewhere and we don’t know where they are?”
“Actually, they’ve headed out through the brick access way. They only place they can be is Toya colony. It’s in UEO territory.”
“Alright,” the officer had calmed down slightly, “Lets get to it then.”
***
The three Macronesians ran as fast as they could through the crowded open square, pushing people out of the way and looking for a place to hide. Micah glanced behind him and noted that they were being pursued closely.
“Quick put these on!” Micah grabbed a set of white garments that many of the citizens were wearing. The three of them threw on the clothes and quickly blended into the crowd.
The section seven leader stopped and looked around, annoyed. The others with him ran and stopped next to him.
“Damn!” he cursed. He turned to his comrades, “Find them! Whatever it takes! Find them!”
The section seven officers moved into the power core of Toya. The leader walked arrogantly over to the colonist in charge of the systems. “This is UEO business get out,” he demanded. The man looked at his badge but did nothing. The section seven officer grabbed him, “I said OUT!”
He turned to his fellow who were meddling with the systems, “Shut down power in the colony. We’ll trap the Macronesians that way.”
One of them turned to him concerned, “Sir, ALL the power? That will cut all support in the hospitals, heat, and lighting. People will die.”
“A small price to pay, agent. All the power. Now.”
***
“Incoming distress call, sir,” Tim O’Neill announced, “Its from Toya colony.”
“Alright,” Hudson answered.
A desperate and frightened man appeared on screen, “_SeaQuest_ this is Toya. Our systems are down. We have no way of getting them back up. Help us, its crazy down here.”
“We’re on our way,” Hudson told him, “Prepare to accept a sub.”
Hudson turned to Lucas, who was sitting at his station, “Ensign Wolenczak, you find out what happened to the power down there and try to bring it back on line,” Hudson turned to Ford, “Mr. Ford, I need you to find out who’s behind this.”
The officers left the bridge and Hudson addressed O’Neill, “Get me McGath.”
***
“TheUEO blames it on these ‘rogue’ Macronesians.” McGath explained to Hudson, “Although, Bourne denies any involvement I find it hard to believe that these Macs were working alone.
“Why would they target this particular colony?” Hudson asked.
“That’s what I want you to find out, Captain. McGath out.”
***
Robert and Nathan walked slowly along the beach in silence. Nathan had expressed his concerns about Party Operations involvement in what had happened to his family. It had ended in a few angry words and now the two were both wanting to make amends but not really sure how.
Roberts phone beeped, breaking the silence, “Yeah?”
“Eltherington,” Robert was addressed with his code name, “Some of the Macronesian’s that Section Seven took have escaped. They are in Toya colony in the Atlantic.”
“Yeah I know where it is,” Robert replied.
Nathan and Robert had stopped walking and Robert had turned away from his father to take the call. Nathan had turned towards the sea to give him some privacy.
“Listen, they’ve shut down the power. It’s caused terrible havoc. We’ve already got people down there looking for any section seven officers that may still be pursuing them. I need you down there. See what you can find.”
“Alright, I’m on my way.”
Nathan sighed as he heard his son’s last words. Robert turned off the phone as Nathan turned towards him. Nathan was the first to speak, “I would have liked this to work out better.”
“It was just the circumstances, Dad.” Robert assured him, “We’ll be okay.”
The two men gave each other a quick, semi-awkward hug before Robert left his father to stand on the beach alone.
***
Lucas crouched near the same system that the section seven officers had been working with. He shifted slightly and reached for his PAL, tucking his short hair behind his ear.
“Sir, this is Wolenczak.” He said, “The systems have definitely been tampered with. Whoever did this definitely knew what they were doing.”
It becomes apparent that Lucas is being watched from somewhere in the large room
“Can you get them back online, Ensign?” Hudson asked him.
“Already done, sir. I was just going to run a cross-check to find out exactly when this happened.”
Hudson nodded in appreciation, “Good work, son. Let me know when you done there, we’ll get a transport to bring you back.”
“Yes sir.” Lucas replaced his PAL and took another look at the machinery.
Before he could get immersed in what he was doing, there was a subtle shuffling sound from behind him. He stopped what he was doing and frowned slightly. Before he could turn around he was grabbed roughly from behind and thrown against the consul. Lucas cried out in surprise and pain.
The Party Operation officer twisted the boy’s hand behind his back, “Did you do this?!” he yelled into Lucas’ ear.
In shock Lucas slowly shook his head, his mouth slightly ajar.
In response he was roughly slammed against the consul again. Lucas grunted loudly, “Did you do this to the systems?!” the man yelled at him.
“N-No! I was sent here to fix them. I’m Lucas Wolenczak from the SeaQuest.”
“The SeaQuest?” the man asked. To him this seemed to confirm his suspicions. “Don’t lie to me you stupid little bastard! I can see your UEO!” The officer picked Lucas up and threw him onto the floor.
Lucas rolled onto his back and desperately tried to crawl away, “What are you talking about? The SeaQuest is UEO.”
The PO officer withdrew a bottle and a rag from his pocket. Lucas realised what he planned and began to panic.
“No,” he said as he scrambled to his feet and ran for the door.
But the officer was too quick for him. He grabbed a hold of the young man and threw him to the floor. Lucas hit his forehead with a sharp smack, which disorientated him enough for the officer to cover his mouth and nose with the wet rag. Lucas was conscious long enough to hear the Party Operation officer’s last words to him, “I’ve had enough of you Section Seven pricks.”