Chapter 6
‘Why do women always have so much luggage,” the Captain asked jokingly
when he put Catherine’s travelling bag from the Chevrolet into the van.
Actually Catherine’s travelling bag wasn’t very big. ‘Have you even got
everything a woman needs for a journey?”
‘I don’t know what you think a woman needs for a journey but I think
I’ve got everything I need,” Catherine replied and gazed at Jack’s old leather
suitcase, which was very obviously bigger than Catherine’s.
Jack, who had seen her gaze, said: ‘You don’t want to know what’s in
there. But I’m starting to wonder whether we will ever get to open our bags on
this trip.”
Once again Jack sat down behind the wheel and they headed North on the
Interstate 95. When they passed the motel near the road Catherine was thankful
for not having to sleep there. There hadn’t even been a coffee machine in their
room.
Thinking of coffee suddenly let her stomach rumble and Rex Matheson also
seemed to be hungry because he unpacked three mugs filled with coffee – that
wasn’t really hot any more – and a box of doughnuts from another box he had
taken with him.
‘Wow, Rex, you’re getting ahead,” Jack noticed, grinning, and almost ate
the first doughnut at once, then had a huge gulp of coffee.
Catherine also helped herself to a doughnut.
When she later examined the glove, she noticed that she could zoom into
the holographic map up to a certain distance, but it wasn’t close enough to
locate the weak signal of Gwen’s coding unit. However she hoped it would work
when they were closer to Las Vegas.
After Rex had explained all of the different devices in the van to her
and started to be a bit more friendly, the scenery that flew by made Catherine
tired and she cuddled up in her seat. Just a bit later she was fast asleep. She
didn’t even see Jack smiling at her through the rear mirror.
‘Cathy, we’re there.’
A hand caressed her cheek and Catherine was awake immediately. Jack had
stopped at a petrol station and the sky was dark. She could see the blinking
lights of the city that never sleeps only a few miles away. Rex, however,
wasn’t there – he had to be in the building.
Jack was leaning in the car’s doorframe next to Catherine’s seat. ‘Did
you sleep well?” His eyes wandered over her face and she hoped that there
wasn’t any trace of saliva in her face. Apparently there really wasn’t because
Jack bent forward and blew a kiss onto her lips. She immediately was more awake
than ever before.
‘When do you sleep, Jack,” she asked while she got out of the car and
stretched.
‘I’ll be able to sleep again when I know that I’ve got Gwen back,’ Jack
said and turned towards the flashy city again.
Catherine got the glove that she had put onto the seat next to her, then
she had a look around. Jack had parked behind the petrol station building so
no-one would disturb them – only if they had to go to the toilet. Rex also came
back to the car in this moment.
She put on the glove and again she could feel this weird coldness
inside. She activated the holographic map, which showed up immediately. His
eyebrows up, Jack watched Catherine zoom into the map rapidly. Just a second
later, they could see Las Vegas in front of them. What they couldn’t see when
they were back in Vidal Junction now showed up in detail. All of the Weevils
were in one building and there also was a small, blinking light blue dot among
them which made Jack cheer.
‘That’s her! If they
didn’t take the coding unit from her then she’s exactly there. Come on, let’s save Gwen!’ Jack turned towards the van and almost
crashed into Rex Matheson, who was still looking at the map and shook his head
in disbelief.
‘What,” the Captain asked. ‘Hey, CIA, what is it that you don’t get?”
‘That’s the ‘Planet Earth’,” Rex replied as if it explained everything.
‘THAT’S the ‘Planet Earth’,” Jack asked amazed.
‘What’s the ‘Planet Earth’,” Catherine wanted to know. She hadn’t heard
of this hotel before, but the two men seemed to know the name.
‘The ‘Planet Earth’ was opened about half a year ago,” Jack explained.
‘It’s all about Science Fiction in there. They have a huge model of the ‘U.S.S.
Enterprise’ in their lobby, you can also eat in there, and the amusement hall
is in a round building which looks like the Death Star from ‘Star Wars’. The
staff are all wearing costumes so the guests can feel like they’re on an
intergalactic base.”
‘Well, then we know how they’re hiding the Weevils. Because they
aren’t,” Rex realized. ‘But there’s something else that alarms me and Jack.
After the Miracle Day, the CIA tried to follow the traces of the string
pullers. And there wasn’t a direct evidence, but many of those traces ended at
the ‘Planet Earth’.”
‘But I thought you got those people back then,” Catherine said. ‘Didn’t
the explosions in Shanghai and Buenos Aires kill the leaders?”
Jack shook his head. ‘Oh no, Cathy. They surely were important people
for them but those three families are all around the globe. They’ve got their
folks everywhere. And when we ruined their idea back then we did harm them, but
we couldn’t stop them.”
‘And now they seem to use that Rift near the Parker Dam,’ Rex added.
‘You can already imagine what they’ll do with all of those weapons, drugs and
Weevils.”
‘Okay,” Jack sighed. ‘Let’s get Gwen out of there. Everything else needs
to wait until Torchwood is complete again.”
‘I hope you’ve already got a plan for that,” Rex replied. ‘It’s most
likely that they already showed our faces to those monsters and that the first
one will already get us in the lobby.”
‘That shouldn’t stop us,” the Captain clarified. He searched for
something in the pockets of his coat and revealed a small, flat capsule.
‘Well, you get to prove your broad equipment now,” he said and turned to
Catherine. ‘Did you bring a small mirror with you? I don’t want to crawl into
the rear or side mirror.”
Although she didn’t know yet what he needed it for she searched for a
mirror in her handbag and found one: a quite large hand mirror.
‘Okay, you win that point,” Jack laughed. He opened the small box and
put in contact lenses in front of Catherine’s mirror.
Catherine observed him, puzzled. ‘And how am I supposed to understand
this?”
‘Here,” Rex shouted from the van. ‘I’ll show you.”
Jack and Catherine entered the back of the van. Rex Matheson had turned
on a computer and Catherine could see herself looking at the monitor. She
turned around and looked right into the smiling Captain’s eyes.
‘Contact lenses with cameras,” she asked amazed and he nodded.
‘Rex needed some more time back then,’ he stated with an ironic
undertone in his voice. Rex snorted disdainfully.
Catherine looked back to the monitor where she could now read the words:
‘Contact lenses with cameras.”
‘Wow,” she said, ‘those things really read what I said!”
‘Type something into the keyboard and I’ll be able to read it,” Jack
asked Catherine.
Catherine moved closer to the monitor and it took her a second to figure
out what she should write. Then she typed in some words. When she didn’t get a
reaction from Jack, she turned towards him.
He looked at her with a serious expression on his face. ‘I hope so, too,
Cathy,” he said quietly and it was the right answer to what she had typed into
the keyboard.
‘Okay, the lesson for the highly intelligent pupil is over,” the Captain
then said and took his place on the driver’s seat. While he started the engine,
he explained his plan to the other two.
‘Rex and I will go in there. You’ll stay here in the van and you’ll be
able to see everything I can see. If for some reason our mini headsets will
fail then you’ll still be able to read everything someone says to me. You’ll
also check the holographic map and warn us if a Weevil comes too close to us.
You’ll lead us to Gwen. Savvy?”
‘Aye, Captain,” Catherine said and tried to sound hopefully.
Jack drove the car into the blinking city. Soon he left the Interstate
95 and drove towards the Las Vegas Boulevard on the Beltway. Then they entered the city’s colourful nightlife
and Catherine didn’t know where to look first. They first passed ‘Luxor”’s
majestic pyramid, then the ‘Bellagio”, whose water fountains showed a great
spectacle, skilfully illuminated. They had reached their destiny after
‘Caesar’s Palace”.
No comments:
Post a Comment