Red to Fade (13 page)

Gragon says, “I know a place where we can take a look at the file. Space Surf, it's an internet café on Lakadar Street.”

Connor says, “Well, let's go.”

Gragon exits the four-lane highway and drives into the city.

Connor says to Gragon, “Hey man, what's your name?”

Gragon replies, “Gragon.”

Connor says, “Gragon, I'm Connor, thanks for your help back there.”

Gragon says, “You're welcome.”

*

Meanwhile back in LA Dylan opens up the safe in his bedroom and takes out $3,000. Dylan puts the $3,000 into his wallet. Dylan is wearing black trousers, a black t-shirt, black boots, a gun holster with a black 15-shooter handgun and handgun magazine clips. Dylan puts on his grey jacket and puts his FBI badge, passport, wallet and planet communicator into the inside pockets.

Dylan phones for a taxi, then goes into the living room and waits. After ten minutes the taxi arrives. Dylan exits the house and locks the front door. It's a hot and sunny day in LA as usual. Dylan gets into the front passenger side of the taxi and tells the taxi driver to drive to the planet transport station. The taxi driver sets off.

Dylan doesn't realise that he's being followed in a car by some of Joel's agents. After fifteen minutes the taxi finally arrives at the planet transport station. Dylan pays and thanks the taxi driver and exits the taxi. Dylan walks into the front entrance of the planet transport station. The planet transport station is a bit busy. Some earthlings and morphians who are going to travel in a planet transport ship that departs from the LAPTS, arrive in cars, at the LAPTS. Cars that arrive at the LAPTS must be parked in the car park. Citizens and immigrants who are going to travel in a planet transport ship take luggage out from the boots of cars that are parked in the LAPTS car park. Humans and Balaxians in buses are departing from and arriving at bus stops beside the LAPTS. Agent James, who has been driving in pursuit of Dylan, parks his car in the LAPTS car park.

Agent Ryder, who is in the front passenger seat of Agent James' car, says, “You wait here. I'm going to follow him.”

Ryder gets out of the car and enters the planet transport station. Ryder suspects that Dylan is going to buy a ticket to go to the Red Planet to meet up with Connor, so he asks around to find out where the space flight desks are. The space flight desk area has space flight desks for all of the glacitone domes on Mars and on the moon.

Dylan is at the Red 1 desk. The space flight desk area is very quiet, with not many beings around. Ryder, keeping himself hidden behind a cement pillar, can see Dylan buying a Red 1 ticket from a distance. Dylan buys his Red 1 ticket and goes to the planet transport security check-in. Dylan and many other passengers are going through security checks at the planet transport security check-in. Dylan passes the security checks and goes to the Red 1 boarding area to sit down and wait for his boarding call.

Ryder walks up to the Red 1 space flight desk, pulls out his badge and says to the receptionist, “My name is Gordon Ryder, I'm with the FBI. I just want to check if you have a Dylan Hart on any of your Red 1 space flights.”

The receptionist says, “There was a man called Dylan Hart who just bought a ticket a few moments ago.”

Gordon asks, “Was he a bald African-American man?”

The receptionist says, “Yes, he bought a ticket for Red 1.”

The receptionist uses her computer to get more information about Dylan's flight.

“His space flight number is R1-560 and his flight leaves in forty-five minutes. Is there a problem?”

Gordon says reassuringly, “There is absolutely no problem at all. Dylan also works with the FBI; we just wanted to make sure that he made his flight. Thanks for your cooperation.”

The receptionist says, “You're welcome.”

Ryder walks away from the Red 1 space flight desk and exits the planet transport station. He enters and stores the flight number R1-560 as a note in his planet communicator. Ryder opens the door of the front passenger seat of Agent James' car, gets inside and closes the door.

Ryder says to James, “Dylan is on his way to Mars.”

Ryder dials Charles' number on his planet communicator. Charles is still driving around the city with Joel and Johnson, looking for Connor. More of Joel's agents have landed in the Big Rock following the shootout in Sunred Motors and the freeway chase. Joel has also made arrangements for them to pick up assault weapons and R1LEVs. The agents who have landed in the Glass Tomb have armed themselves with guns and have collected Red 1 law enforcement vehicles. Joel's new group of operatives are driving around in R1LEVs, also looking for Connor.

Charles hears his planet communicator ring and answers it.

Ryder says, “Charles, it's Ryder. We followed Dylan to the LA planet transport station; he bought a ticket to the First Dome. His flight leaves in forty-five minutes and his flight number is R1-560. I think he's going to meet up with Connor.”

Charles says, “Good work.” He hangs up and says to Joel, “Dylan is on his way to this city. I have his flight number.”

Joel says, “Get some men to wait at PTS-R1 to find and follow Dylan.”

Charles makes some calls to get agents to find and follow Dylan when he arrives in the Red 1 planet transport station. The agents who are going to wait at the planet transport station of the first built glacitone dome have received Dylan's flight number from Charles.

*

Gragon finally arrives at Space Surf on Lakadar Street and parks the R1LEV in an alleyway behind the internet café. Gragon wants to keep the R1LEV out of sight because he doesn't want to draw attention to Connor, Gabrielle and himself. He thinks that there's a possibility that one of the agents chasing him might have got the licence plate number of the R1LEV he's driving.

Connor says, “We can't go inside that internet café with all of these weapons; we'll get a lot of attention.”

Gabrielle says, “I'm pretty goddamn sure I'm going to be armed when we take a look at this file again.”

Gragon says, “You two wait here, I'll see if I can get a large carrier bag.”

Gragon exits the R1LEV. He walks out of the alleyway and onto Lakadar Street. There are many shops around. It's not too busy; there are a few people walking around on Lakadar Street. Gragon walks along Lakadar Street and sees a clothes shop called Stryker's. He enters the clothes shop and buys a large sports bag with his bank card. Gragon exits Stryker's, walks down Lakadar Street and into the alleyway where the R1LEV is parked.

Gragon gets inside the R1LEV and says, “Here, I got a sports bag. Put the weapons in here.”

Connor and Gabrielle place their assault weapons into the bag. Connor takes out another assault rifle and the rest of the magazine clips from the middle seat weapon compartment and places them into the bag.

Connor says, “I don't think it's a good idea to drive around in this R1LEV anymore; we won't be too hard to find if we're driving in an R1LEV with no tyres. We should leave the R1LEV here.”

Gragon says, “Affirmative.”

Gragon carries the sports bag and exits the R1LEV. Connor and Gabrielle also exit the R1LEV. Gragon walks to the back of the R1LEV and opens the boot. There is a BGL-34 in a case. A BGL-34 is a morphian-manufactured machine gun/grenade launcher. There are also machine gun magazine clips, hand grenades and grenade shells in a grenade shell belt in the case. Gragon takes the machine gun/grenade launcher, magazine clips, hand grenades, shells and belt and places them in the sports bag.

Gragon closes the boot of the R1LEV. All three of them walk out of the alleyway and into the Space Surf internet café. It's quite busy inside; some earthlings and morphians are surfing the web and playing video games. Connor sees a desk counter with a guy standing there. Individuals have to pay the guy to use any of the computers in Space Surf. Connor walks up to the desk.

Connor tells the guy that he needs a computer to surf the web. The guy says that computer number fifteen is free. Connor pays the guy to use the computer for a couple of hours. After the guy at the counter has been paid, he logs computer fifteen onto the internet from his own computer. Connor, Gragon and Gabrielle walk over to computer fifteen and sit down. Connor puts the disk inside the computer.

On the computer screen a digital window for the disk loads on the computer operating system. In the window for the disk is the R-1 file. Connor clicks on the R-1 file and it begins loading. Gabrielle is very nervous; she keeps on looking at the entrance door of the Space Surf café, waiting for Joel and his crew to come bursting in and open fire.

After a few minutes, the R-1 file loads. The file shows sentences above one another. There are hyperlinks in the file as well. There is a hyperlink that says
Map of CSB-R1
. Connor clicks on the hyperlink and a software map of CSB-R1 opens up. The map pans around the CSB-R1 base. The base has a glacitone wall surrounding the entire compound.

There are many watchtowers and buildings in the CSB-R1 base. There is also a spacecraft hangar and a runway beside it. There are two buildings with labels on them that say
file hive
. There is a glacitone wall attached to and surrounding the two file hive buildings. One file hive building is made from concrete and the other from glacitone.

There is a space between the two file hive buildings and a glacitone tunnel connected to the glacitone building. Connor minimises the map and starts to read the sentences. One of the sentences says,
When DC file has downloaded, launch DD-12 on Red 1.
There is a hyperlink for DD-12. Connor clicks on it. A software diagram of a DD-12 rocket opens up.

The software diagram pans around the DD-12 rocket. The rocket looks like a nuclear missile.

Connor says, “I think what they want to do is download the DC file, get out of this town and then launch the DD-12 rocket at this dome.”

Gabrielle says, “I thought that there was no type of rocket that can destroy glacitone.”

Connor says, “Maybe this DD-12 rocket
can
destroy glacitone.”

Gabrielle says, “We have evidence of their plans, but we don't have any evidence of who is going to use these plans or when these plans are going to be used.”

There is a sentence in the R-1 file that says,
When glacitone and RB-7 robots have been created, execute Space Drill launch to attack Balaxian ships.
There is a hyperlink for Space Drill. Connor clicks on it. A software diagram opens up and pans around the most advanced and state-of-the-art rocket launchers. There is an SDRL label underneath each rocket launcher.

SDRL means Space Drill Rocket Launcher. There is a line pointing at the rocket of an SDRL. At the opposite end of the line is a label; the label says
SDR
. SDR means Space Drill Rocket.

Connor explains, “I think what these guys want to do is get their hands on glacitone and the RB-7 robots and then completely wipe out the morphian race with the DD-12 and Space Drill rockets.”

Gragon says, “Is DD-12 in the Space Drill station?”

Connor says, “I don't know. I've never heard of DD-12 or Space Drill until today.”

Gragon says, “What are we going to do now?”

Connor says, “I tell you what we're going to do, we're going to show these plans to everyone on every social network site and to every media corporation.”

All of a sudden a black window with red writing appears on the computer screen. The black window says,
This file will delete in ten, nine, eight, seven, six…

Connor says, shocked, “Jesus, they're erasing the disk!”

Connor pulls out the disk from the computer before the countdown is finished. After the countdown finishes, the R-1 file is deleted from the computer. Connor puts the disk back into the computer. On the screen a window for the disk has loaded on the computer operating system. There is no R-1 file on the disk.

Connor says, “Man, I don't believe it, they erased the goddamn disk! We need to get the fuck out of here; whoever erased that file remotely might know our location.”

Connor thinks that the file was erased remotely, when actually the file was erased automatically by a timer.

Gabrielle says, “I thought you said that Dylan said that nobody could track us.”

Connor looks at Gragon and Gabrielle and says, “Well, I don't want to take any chances. They might have found another way of tracking that file. Come on, man, let's get out of here!”

Gragon, Gabrielle and Connor exit the Space Surf internet café. Connor sees a bus at a bus stop near the internet café.

He looks at Gragon and Gabrielle and says, “We'll get on this bus.”

All three of them walk fast to catch the bus and get on board. Connor pays the bus driver for three city travel fares. A city travel fare ticket allows you to travel on a bus for a full day. There aren't many beings on the bus. Gragon, Gabrielle and Connor sit down on some empty seats. Many minutes later, Connor says to Gabrielle and Gragon, “We have to find a place to hide, and also a place where we can meet Dylan. We can't sit on this bus all day.”

Gragon sees a giant, newly built shopping mall through the window of the bus. There are morphians working inside the Fragma Plaza Mall, and on the wall of the mall there is a huge poster that says,
Fragma Plaza Mall will open in two days.
Gragon presses a button to make the bus driver stop the bus at the next stop. He points at the mall and says, “We can hide and meet Dylan in there.”

The bus driver stops near the Fragma Plaza Mall. Gragon, Gabrielle and Connor get off the bus. The mall is huge; it's about the size of a village. The Fragma Plaza Mall is a multi-storey building. There is a huge car park in front.

Gragon says to Connor, “Here, Connor, take this bag for a second.”

Connor grabs the bag and carries it. Connor, Gabrielle and Gragon walk to the entrance doors of the Fragma Plaza Mall. Gragon opens one of the doors. All three of them walk inside. This place is massive; there are loads of shops on every floor. Fluorescent lights attached to the roof light up the mall, and the lights inside the shops also add light to the mall. There are huge steel pillars attached to the roof; the huge steel pillars are not attached from the roof to the ground. The steel pillars look like massive icicles attached to the roof of a large cave.