This story is set late in Season 2 of Earth Final Conflict and after
the final episode of the
Sentinel. .
Notes on u>The Sentinel/u> and Timing: I'm assuming that
Blair did become a
Detective after [i]The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg[/i] with perhaps
a few bumps in the
road but no major disasters. After much thought about the multitude
of short comments
at various times on u>Earth Final Conflict/u> I am dating the
Taelons arrival between
January and February 2005. I believe that it was established that Thompson
was already
President when they came. Second Season runs from May 2008 (a
screen in [i]A Stitch
in Time[/i] was dated the first week of June 4 A.C.) to Wednesday November
5 2008 (the
day after the Presidential Election for that year)
RE: u>The Sentinel/u> I am assuming that the improved medical
technology
introduced by the Taelons will allow these characters to be as physically
fit as they were
just under a decade before.
Please note I have no idea if the Universidad de Salamanca really offers
a doctoral
program for Cultural Anthropology. I also decided to use the
real location of the Guaica
tribe rather than the one in Lili's sarcastic comment to Sandoval if
anyone really cares.
Also on the terms Resistance and Liberation. I have noticed that
many groups seem to be
called Resistance but only the official main group seems to be called
the Liberation. So I
use the term Liberation only to refer to the group Marquette, Boone
and Liam belong to
and Resistance to refer to anyone who actively opposes the Taelons.
All Liberation
members are in the Resistance but not all Resistance members are Liberation.
I don't
know if any of this is official but it helps me keep track of who I'm
talking about.
Slowly, she inched closer to two men speaking in the shadows.
"I've been promoted.
Another couple of weeks in this cell and I should be trusted to carry
messages to other
cells. After that it should only be a matter of time before I
can identify the new leader of
the Liberation."
"Good, I've received word that there is an operation in progress to
deal with Doors. With
your information we will be able to strike. In one day the Liberation
will lose all its
leadership. Old and New. Cut off the head and the snake dies."
Slipping between the shadows she moved carefully closer trying to get
a clear look at
their faces. Suddenly she froze as an object was pressed between
her shoulder blades.
"Jim, that Jags game was great, when…" The longhaired man broke off
suddenly. His
taller companion had stopped walking, his head tilted to one side.
The first man stepped
closer to his friend placing a hand on his arm. "What do you
hear man?"
"Someone is calling someone Resistance scum. It sounds like a fight, this way."
The two men moved swiftly but carefully through the maze of alleyways.
Looking
around a corner they saw three men attacking a fourth person who was
already subdued.
One of the three looked up and spotted them. "Someone's coming
let's get out of here!"
he said to his companions. They took off.
Jim pulled his weapon and shouted "FREEZE, CASCADE PD" but the men disappeared
behind a corner. He started to follow.
Just then a confused voice said "Enquiri?" Surprise pulled Jim
up short. He looked
down at the figure on the ground that his friend had bent over.
He saw a woman
struggling to rise from her position on the ground. For a moment
brown eyes met blue.
Then the woman on the ground succumbed to her injuries and collapsed.
Part 1
Cascade General Hospital Emergency Room
The long-haired man stood at the desk in the busy emergency room displaying
his ID to
the woman at the computer. "I'm Detective Blair Sandburg, Major
Crimes. Have you
identified the woman we brought in yet, and do you know her status."
"She's suffering from some internal bleeding, a number of bruises,and
a concussion." the
desk clerk answered looking at her screen. "She should be out
of the OR soon and will
have to spend several hours in recovery. With the drugs she's
on she won't be coherent
enough to answer questions until the afternoon. We haven't had
time to search for her ID
but since she is the victim of a crime I can give you her DNA and Brainwave
patterns so
you can search the system for her records yourself.
"Thank you" Blair turned and took out his global rapidly transmitting
the information to
the Major Crimes computers initiating a search.. As he did so
he walked towards Jim
who was sitting in one of the many chairs lining the room. He
sat down next to his
partner and said, "I assume you were listening."
"Yeah. How long will the search take, Chief?"
"A few hours at least. We can head back to the loft for a few
hours rest. We need to get
to the bottom of this quick though. If she recognizes you as
Enquiri then she probably
knows that you're a Sentinel. There couldn't be a worse time
for this to come out with all
the rumors of Taelons experimenting on humans."
Jim sighed. "Later, Chief, I can't deal with this at three in the morning."
As the two friends departed from the hospital they were unaware of the
dreams passing
through the mind of the object of their interest.
Part 2
Two young girls ran through the woods.
"Kayla wait up" called the younger.
"You're too slow Maiya at this rate we'll never get there," she replied.
"What are you two doing out here?" asked a man's voice from behind them.
The girls spun to see two men approaching them.
"Hadi, Watchman, we…we were…just looking for berries," said Kayla hesitantly.
"Would you like to answer that question again, with the truth this
time?" asked the
Watchman sternly.
"Kayla was going to take me to the ridge" Maiya said in a small voice.
"You know you're not supposed to go there alone. It's dangerous,"
replied the one Kayla
had addressed as Watchman.
Maiya sighed and turned back taking the hand Hadi held out to her
but Kayla stamped
her foot and shrieked "It's not fair! I'm not a baby I can
go where I want!" and she turned
to run away.
The Watchman took a step forward to catch her and everything shifted.
A dark haired boy in his teens departed the tent as a slightly older
Maiya entered it.
Maiya glanced at him over her shoulder. "Hadi, who is
he?" she asked, "I haven't seen
him before."
"His name is Jason he has traveled from a distant land to join our
tribe. He is my
apprentice and will be your spiritual leader when I am gone."
"He will be the Hadi?"
"Only if he finds a Watchman to guide along with the tribe." Seeing
her puzzled look he
asked "Is there something you don't understand Maiya?"
"I know there is something special about the Watchman but all the
adults seem to know
what it is so no one ever says."
The Hadi chuckled, "I can see how that might be a problem, Maiya.
A Watchman's
senses are more powerful than ours. He can see further than you
or I can, he can hear
your heartbeat and know if you are lying to him, he can smell the
faintest scent, taste the
poison in bad food long before it can harm us, and feel a
crack in bone with the lightest
touch. When a tribe has a Watchman to guard it, it will prosper.
He can track game
easily and locate attacking tribes long before they reach us.
A Watchman needs someone
to guide him, keep him from being overwhelmed. Doing this
is what makes the spiritual
leader of the tribe a Hadi as well."
Everything shifted once more.
Two teenaged girls moved quietly through the forest with the Watchman
and the Hadi.
Suddenly the Watchman paused silent, listening.
"What do you hear Enquiri?" asked the Hadi.
"The Cherdahs, their planning an attack, Tal. Maiya, Kayla,
head back to camp and warn
everyone we'll stay here to find out their plans."
Shift
"Maiya, I have to do as the Taelons ask. They have already
killed the Watchman and the
Hadi. If I do not agree to serve them the Iberrians will be
no more. You and Jason and
Kayla must hold our people together. Prepare them to fight
the Taelons. I will buy you
as much time as I can."
In the hospital room Maiya's eyes snapped open.
Part 3
Cascade PD, Major Crimes Unit, Captain Simon Banks' Office
"We've identified her as Isabel Martinez. She's a doctoral student
of Cultural
Anthropology at the University of Salamanca. Her dissertation
is own how the arrival of
the Taelons has affected the culture of isolated tribes in the Amazon
Basin. She's in an
exchange program and taking a couple of courses at Rainier this semester.
No obvious
connection to the Chopec, most of her work has been in the Orinoco
region, most
recently with the Guaica, so we can't be sure if she identified Jim
as a Sentinel," stated
Blair.
"Obviously the two of you need to investigate this until we know about
that but just how
do we justify a simple assault case as falling under the jurisdiction
of Major Crimes?"
asked Captain Banks.
"We've got two possibilities for that and both are related to the same
event. According to
my information she was taken in for questioning in Washington D.C.
by Ronald Sandoval
on 'Suspicion of Crimes Committed against the Taelons' of the Liberation
and ten
minutes later she was logged through customs at the Caracas Portal.
It's like she was in
two places at once," replied Blair.
"Or someone else was using her ID," added Jim.
"The type of hacking involved in changing an individual's identity like
that would
certainly be Major Criminal activity since you would have to access
a number of
different government databases. The other possibility is that
if she is Liberation the men
who attacked her could be Taelon operatives," continued Blair.
"This seems likely because I thought I heard one of the men call her
'Resistance Scum.'
Of course she might not have any Liberation connections, the mere possibility
would be
enough for some people. Cascade has been relatively quiet as
far as Resistance activity is
concerned but if she is a member of the Resistance this could be the
first battle in a street
war between these two groups," concluded Jim.
"When will you question her?" asked Simon.
"We have a couple of uniforms posted outside her room just in case her
attackers track
her down. They'll let us know when her doctor says she's conscious
and coherent."
Chirp, Chirp
Blair opened his global.
"Isabel Martinez woke up an hour ago, Detective, if you wish to question
her about the
attack you can come by any time."
*******
End Chapter 1