ZION: THE REBELLION Chapter 7

Outside of Zion, on the outskirts, the Zionists had eight guards, referred to as the Chameleons, who protected the city from the experimental creatures that roamed the forest. Four of the Chameleons were posted at the four corners of Zion; the other four were posted at the middle point of each electric fence. The Chameleons were invisible, some stuck to the shadows, others took refuge in the trees and others did not hide, but stood in plain sight. W.J. Einstein had engineered the clothes they wore – which were boots, trousers and a hooded top – to be able to blend into their surroundings at a push of a button on the wearer’s cuffs. Once the button was pressed, the clothes would automatically change to the colours of the surroundings the person was standing in so they could blend in.

The problem of the face was solved by Einstein sewing on the front of the hood some material that the wearer could see out of, but another person looking at it could not. That could also blend into whatever surroundings the person was in. The weapons they had on them – bows and arrows, knives, and guns with a silencer – were also engineered to blend in as well.

One of the Chameleons, a man called Jehu, was posted at one of the corners. Jehu kept looking very quickly from one place to another from his perch in a tree. The reason he kept looking around was to avoid becoming bored and consequently tired, but also because he was worried about looking at one area to long and missing something important in another.

Then, amongst some nearby bushes, he spotted a velociraptor crouching as it watched the sanctuary. That was not good, if it was watching Zion. Jehu decided he should kill it before it could do anything. He reached slowly for the gun on his belt, when he remembered that any sudden noises could alert the creature and it would run off. Bearing that, he decided that the safest method would be to use the arrows. So he reached up to take the bow and arrows (he decided to use two arrows to be sure) out of his quiver slung onto his back and was about to take hold of them when the velociraptor’s head whipped around and the eyes locked on him.

Jehu tried to calm his racing heart by reminding himself that with the tampered clothes on, he was invisible to it. Had it heard something? Then a big toucan landed on a branch right above his head. To his horror, he realized that the velociraptor was watching the bird, licking it’s lips, and also looked like it was getting ready to jump straight at the bird and subsequently bump into him! And he suddenly remembered that velociraptor’s were poisonous.

The velociraptor suddenly pounced. Jehu instinctively jumped off the tree at the same moment it jumped up and landed flat on his face and stomach, therefore bumping the button on his cuff, turning off his cover.

He was rather winded by the fall and it took three minutes before he could breathe again. He stood up, his body wrapped in pain, having momentarily forgotten about the part-dinosaur behind him. Then he heard the low growl, then the hiss of the velociraptor/snake creature. Jehu ran, trying to lure the creature away from everyone else. He heard the creature following and knew he would not have long before it caught up with him as velociraptors were very fast. And double deadly when mixed up with a Black Mamba.

Jehu grabbed his bow and notched an arrow. While running, he turned to fire and tripped over a rock, sending the arrow in the wrong direction. He fell and rolled a few feet down a slope. He was suddenly jerked up and found himself hanging upside down. The velociraptor/Black Mamba was coming down. He looked up and found that one of his feet had been caught in one of their traps to try and catch food. That would set off the alarm, he thought. Einstein had designed the traps to set off an alarm in Zion whenever something was caught in one of them.

The velociraptor began to circle him, with what looked like a smug expression as both of them knew that Jehu could not escape. His bow and arrows had all fallen on the ground, so had his gun and knife. The dinosaur reached down and picked up his knife. Oh no. It threw the knife, which cut through the rope holding Jehu’s foot. He dropped to the ground, but flipping over onto his feet before he could hit the ground. But he slipped on landing and fell over backwards. The creature growled and advanced. Suddenly, an arrow pierced it’s arm. It hissed in pain and turned to face the new adversary.

Jehu felt relieved as Alexei emerged from the bushes, brandishing his light saber. The velociraptor charged at Alexei, who stood there waiting for it. The velociraptor suddenly veered at the last moment as Alexei swung the light saber. Alexei had tried to lop off it’s head, but ended up just swiping off one of the arms. The velociraptor charged again and jumped straight up in the air, intending to land on top of Alexei. Alexei raised the light saber and managed to decapitate it this time.

Alexei sighed and turned off his light saber. Jehu stood up and began picking up his weapons, with Alexei helping. “Thank you,” Jehu thanked.

Alexei smiled. “What happened?” he asked. Jehu recounted his whole ordeal. Alexei fell over backwards laughing. “You…ran…this far?” he asked between laughing.

“What about it?” Jehu asked defensively.

Alexei did not say anything, but just walked off laughing.

CHARLES’S HOUSE, THE PEAK

Charles E. Ville was standing by one of the many windows in his house, this one had the palace in full view. The palace was designed to look like the palaces in what was formerly known as China, as the Peak was fixated directly in the middle of China. Charles was going over his plan to kill Noland to make sure it was foolproof and to see if he could somehow improve on anything. It was excellent. Nothing could go wrong. It was just a matter of waiting for the perfect moment.

There was a beep! and a holo-image of Callum Sebastian and Cathy Farnon appeared from a little communicator he had installed in a statue of Grendel he had in his lounge. Charles turned away from the window and looked at the two. “What is it?” he snapped.

“One of the velociraptors/snakes you had implanted in the restricted zone has recorded something interesting today,” Callum said.

Charles was all ears. Cathy sent him the footage to Charles’s phone. He watched through the creature’s eye as it crouched down, watching some village. No, city with people going about their business. He paused the footage. “What’s that…city?” he asked.

“We’re not sure, but, we zoomed in on some of the faces as the velociraptor/snake was turning it’s head and guess what? We saw Eileen Peretz, the Jewess who had escaped from what was formerly known as Israel. Eileen and her daughter, Zipporah, were the only ones of the Peretz family to escape. So I assume Zipporah is most likely there,” Callum said. “We also saw Ellen and Joe Plummer, Axel Diesel, and a lot of people who’ve escaped over the years.”

“Seriously?” Charles was surprised.

“But that’s not all,” Cathy piped up. “We saw King Edward X of Eden’s widow, Anne, and their son, Alexei.”

Charles was rather stunned. “They’re alive? Are you sure it’s them?” he asked.

Cathy and Callum both nodded. “We checked with Facial Recognition,” Cathy said. Then she instructed Charles to play the video a little further for exactly six seconds. He did and then froze the image. He zoomed in and enhanced the faces as they were a bit distorted. He ran the two faces through the facial recognition program installed on his phone. Cathy and Callum were one-hundred-percent correct.

Then, he noticed that Alexei’s face looked very similar to the description that Julius Caesar had given of the Geheimnis after his encounter. So, you must be the trouble maker that’s been causing us agony, Charles thought. So, this must be Zion. His eyes went wide with delight. Clever plan, picking that area for the base. “Well done, you two,” he congratulated. “Send me the exact co-ordinates.” There was another beep! as the co-ordinates came through. He then abruptly ended the call. “You’ve evaded us for ages, Geheimnis,” Charles muttered to himself. “But not anymore.”

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