Welcome to Percotran -Part XXV

By Richard Davidson

“So what makes you think he’d be out here?” Ted asked, as Thawala punched it, and they skated across the water at the most ungodly speed.

“I don’t,” answered Thawala, who had swam all the way to a small cove where he knew the Percotran Navy kept this boat, while Ted had been clinging to a buoy.

“I only took the boat so I could get YOU.”

“I’m just a low-level Percotran Employee. I don’t know why you’d want me,” Ted groused, not feeling particularly honored by Thawala’s efforts.

Thawala brought the boat to a stop.

“I guess we’re far enough away now,” he intoned, menacingly.

“The entire purpose of my life has been to infiltrate Percotran. It was the purpose of my father’s life, and his father before him.”

He paused, and looked far away.

“There was once a world of many nations; many peoples; many religions; many languages. There were lands that weren’t even part of any country, just wild, free lands, where my distant ancestors roamed freely. Slowly, the corporations gained more and more power, each swallowing up the next, and they squeezed all the beauty from the world, and sold it for profit.”

Ted had no idea Geneticons had such a flair for the dramatic, and he was transfixed by the passion of Thawala’s speech.

“Those people who escaped the consolidation of country after country spent countless generations perfecting the technology that allows islands to float, after the first couple of hundred years of being destroyed whenever a corporation wanted to expand.”

“Such technology must be amazing,” Ted almost whispered.

“Amazing yes, but not like your big machines, and computerized mumbo-jumbo. Man discovered hundreds of years ago how to become one with nature. It was the most beautiful event of all His history, and most of you idiots missed it.”

Ted’s eyes were as wide as steel dromulets. Thawala grabbed him, and shook him violently.

“You don’t GET IT, DO YOU?” he shouted, “Everything is ALIVE, man, ALIVE!”

“What do you mean; like a rock is alive?” Ted asked, bewildered.

“Of COURSE it is!” Thawala almost sobbed, “OF COURSE IT IS!”

“So I’ve been apprehended by a loony,” thought Ted. “Great.”

Thawala settled down just a little.

“A ray of light is alive. A drop of water is alive. Everything is alive until men transform it into something else, and even then some life remains. A tree is alive. When you cut it into logs, each log is alive. When you burn the log, you kill it, but you create a new life, which is the flame, and the heat; the energy you have re-channeled.”

“So even the ashes are alive?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Try to stay with me, here. Of course the ashes aren’t alive; they’re the ashes of a life that is no more. However, those ashes contain the very seeds for life itself, because out of all death, the cycle must be complete.”

He paused to let Ted’s inferior corporate mind absorb all that, and began picking some fish out of his teeth.

The world sounded like such a magical place; and to think his whole life he’d been convinced Science had an answer for everything.

“Your science is mere superstition,” Thawala grimly informed him.

Thawala pushed a button on the dash, and the boat’s cockpit opened with a whir.

“Behold.”

He held out his arms, and several dolphins surrounded the boat.

For the next several minutes, Thawala and the dolphins made squeaking sounds, occasionally bursting into fits of laughter.

Then, they swam away.

“They don’t think much of your science, either, I’m afraid,” Thawala said with a smile.

Ted liked seeing him smile. It calmed him ever so slightly, giving him the idea that he might live through this yet. And Thawala had a very handsome smile, indeed. How could this man have passed for a Percotran Security Guard? They were usually such sloths.

“I have neither the time, nor the inclination to explain the wonders of the Universe to you today. Let us just say that the islands move because we ASK them to, and they oblige out of friendship.”

Although novel, Ted liked this concept, and wished this man, or Geneticon, or whatever, didn’t consider him an enemy, or more likely, as Ted was beginning to reason, bait for catching 17.

“Where is he?”

Ted was annoyed.

“You seem to be reading my mind; why don’t you tell me what you know?”

“Don’t take a tone, corporate man; I could crush the life out of you with this one hand.”

“Well, I don’t know where he is. I didn’t even know where you were, until you almost killed me with that torpedo, or shell, or whatever.”

Thawala laughed.

“I barely grazed you. If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. If you’d been left to the Percotran Navy, they’d have extracted your entire mind by now, leaving you as little more than a zombie.”

He had a point. Ted probably wasn’t going to be Employee of the Month now, that was for sure.

“I want to know where your friend with the XP-2,000,000 is.”

“And what are you going to do if you find him?”

“He’s going to give it to me, or I will kill you.”

“That’s your plan?” Ted was angry again. “You think he’ll give up a powerful device like that to save ME? Well, you might as well kill me now.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Thawala warned, “I’m not in a very good mood right now.”

“And suppose he does give it to you; then what?”

“Then I’ll probably kill you both, I guess.”

That plan really sucked, as far as Ted was concerned.

“Then what?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Why should you tell me about living rocks, and talking dolphins? I don’t know, just tell me.”

Thawala paused.

“I’m going to take over Percotran. The people who created my race think I’m going to hand it over to them, but I’m not. I’m going to end Corporate Rule over this planet forevermore.”

Ted made an involuntary whistling sound.

After a moment he said, “I’ll help you.”

Thawala laughed, this time with tears running down his face.

“Oh little man, I truly will not enjoy killing you. You have been the source of much amusement for this tired warrior.”

Ted didn’t know Geneticons ever got tired.

“You take me for a fool,” Thawala chuckled, “why would I believe you would do anything to help me?”

“You tell me,” answered Ted, folding his arms across his chest in anger.

“Just tell me where your friend is, so I don’t have to torture you,” Thawala said diplomatically.

Ted gulped. He’d never liked the ring that word had, having worked with Commander Richter for so long.

“Look. We were working in the farthest reaches of the Southwestern Division’s Records Department, and when we drilled into a Priblam plug, the walls gave way, and we were washed to sea. You know as much as I do about where anybody went. I found myself alone in the harbor, and swam to an ancient buoy.”

“Yes, yes, I know all that, but what were you doing down there? There was a power outage; your friend had destroyed that poor Richter fellow’s mind; and you were down there drilling into Priblam plugs? That’s not the sort of thing a Percotran Worker, or Records Handler would be doing, for any reason I can think of.”

“Well frankly,” said Ted, “I think 17 had ideas of his own about taking over the Company.”

“Now was that so hard?” asked Thawala.

“What?”

“You just told me where he is. Thank you. I will make sure your death is quick, and painless.”

“What? I didn’t tell you anything. I don’t even know where he is myself.”

“Yes you do. Think. I know it’s very difficult for you, but do try.”

Crap. Ted suddenly realized exactly where 17 was. He was most likely trying to get to Command Center 2533, although that probably wasn’t an easy task.

“What makes you think he’s made it?” Ted asked.

“What makes you think he hasn’t? He does have one of the most amazing devices your idiot scientists have ever come up with, you know.”

And with that, Thawala closed the cockpit door, and hit the accelerator, wherever that was.

“We’re going in.”

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