ODIN'S WAR

Hollow’s End

Back at the Auxiliary post, Jeremy and Willoughby knew something was wrong. They had received word of the cross fire, and realized that the plan believed had gone completely awry. They also that Jensen had either been a “double agent”, or an unknowing pawn in the hands of Spurion.

“What are we going to do next?” asked Willoughby. “We’re too far away to help them in time.”

“We wait,” said Jeremy, lighting another cigar, at which several of the technicians shuddered, cowering in the corner in their white coats.

“You cannot smoke in here!” said one, “It is forbidden!”

“Hollow is not my boss,” said Jeremy, “I’ll decide what’s moral for right now, and you can go to hell!”

“It will unbalance our delicate systems.” Here the technician stopped as Jeremy was glaring at him like a dog that had just been deprived of his meal. He blew a puff of smoke and spat on the technicians’ shoe. At that moment, a woman entered the room. Her face was young and pretty, but she wore an expression hardened by much recent suffering. Her jaw was firmly set, and her eyes seemed wracked with pain; yet she didn’t break, and appeared to have some self-control.

“Linda!” said Jeremy. “What the hell are you doin’ here? Where’s your husband?” “He’s dead”, Linda Jensen spoke quietly, in a barely restrained voice.

“He wrote me a letter explaining the things that have gone on. He seemed to have the presence of mind only just before he died.”

The small party looked on intently, waiting for the unexpected, distraught young woman to reveal for them a previously unheard of horror.

“You haven’t a chance,” she said. “He gave you a false set of plans. Spurion, caught him at the ICCE headquarters, and drugged him out of his mind. Then they. . .” her voice faltered, “Then they planted a device in his chest that would burn him alive if he spoke about the plans, They had him bugged “Jeremy took the cigar out of his mouth and rolled it in his fingers, watching it, to keep his eyes off Linda. “He killed himself,” continued Linda, “when he realized how he betrayed you and he left me a message to give to you.

He couldn’t stand the grief of his betrayal but he wanted you to know what you’re dealing with. Spurion is inhuman. It was he who murdered my brother in law just before the blast. You can’t ever give up; you have to hide, and try to kill Spurion somehow, some way.”

“All right, Linda,” said Jeremy. “We’ll do our best.

“You don’t even have to ask for our support,” said Willoughby immediately, “We want to get moving right away.” His words were backed with a positive murmur from the rest of the party.

“OK,” said Jeremy, “Time to make a mess of this lair.”

“What?” said the little technician, “What are you going to do?” “I don’t think Spurion really wants to keep this little bread box” said Jeremy, “so I think I’ll have to just burn it to the ground.”

“You can’t!“′ shrieked the technician,” You can’t!”

Jeremy stood up, and gave the technician a straight right to the nose, which sent him to the floor, nearly unconscious.

“That’ll shut ‘em up,” said Willoughby, taking a small electronic device from his bag. “And this’ll take care o’ this little shack.” He set the device on the control board and removed a panel from just beside it. He took out several wires and connected them to terminals on the side of the device. “Ready, Jeremy,” he said with satisfaction. Everyone was ushered out of the building, including the technicians. One of the younger technicians spoke quietly with Willoughby. “I want to join your side,” he whispered.

“Why?” asked Willoughby. “Because I know that woman is right about Spurion I can’t work for such an animal.” “And what about Hollow?”

— “I can’t believe in him if he supports Spurion.” “Good,” said Willoughby.

“You can help us. Right now, just concentrate on getting out of here.” After the technicians were bound a safe distance for the buil4ng the party began their trek across the nukescape, Soon an explosion came from behind them. They all turned to look as a bright flame lit up the sky.

“She’s all done,” said one of the blond twins,

“Yup”, said Jeremy, and they all turned to continue their trek to safety, or at least to where they couldn’t be easily found.

Meanwhile, Solomon Hollow’s wife Marie was sitting quietly at home. She was expecting a call from her husband at lunch time, but it never came. She didn’t often sit alone for long, since she had a lot of social events and various activities to go to as the wife of the great preacher of peace, for ICCE, Hollow Hollow. The last few days, however had been extremely lonely, since her engagements had been cancelled from the last week, and her husband had seemed to be very busy, even more than usual.

She went out for a walk in the ‘garden’, to pass the time. She plucked some of the orange ‘flowers’ and sniffed them. It seemed that she had been frittering away hours when the telephone finally rang. She went inside. “Hello?”

“Hello, Marie? This is Sharon. I have some very bad news for you.” “Yes?”

“I was at work today, when the emergency alarm sounded. We had to evacuate immediately. Apparently there was radiation in the life support system.” Marie gripped the phone tighter. Sharon continued. “But when we got into our sonic cars, something trapped us. We couldn’t go forward, backward, or anyplace. We couldn’t even get out.”

“Where’s Will?” asked Marie anxiously.

“Easy, Marie, easy. I’m getting there. While we were sitting trapped in our cars, some people outside the complex started shooting these old guns. A war started, right there. Spurion, the Archangels, and came running out. Will went back to get something or other.” The voice paused, and the brief silence was unnerving to Marie. “But when he came back” the woman continued, “somebody shot him,”

“No !” said Marie, now finding it difficult to breathe, “NO!”

“It was that wild crazy man you knew, with the white, long hair.”

Marie started to cry. The voice continued. “While Will was hurt, he had the chance to say a lot of wonderful things, and the crazy man just ranted and raved. Spurion’s men finally beat the attackers, and only just now got us out. It was too late for …..” Marie dropped the phone, and burst out into tears. She rushed out into the garden, and started tearing up the ‘flowers and plants’ that her: husband had hated so. She muttered and mumbled between shrieks of pure anguish.