Chapter 9
Warriors of Beaconsfield
After a slow and laborious journey, they approached another close by town. At first, it
looked dead, roads and buildings looked empty, but there were a few faint sounds.
And as they trotted further in, Arthur noticed a few frightened faces buried deep
inside buildings, discreetly peering out.
‘They must have seen us from far and hidden. It’s no wonder with the army of tin
cans we bought with us!’ Arthur ordered everyone to stop and looked over a large
building, ‘people, don’t hide, you have nothing to fear – we are not here to hurt you.’
His voice echoed but failed to meet with a response. After a few brief moments, there
were sounds of shuffling and then arguing between a female and a male. Seconds
later, a young woman, wearing a loose white dress, stormed out, holding a large
glimmering sword. One she was actually struggling to carry and nearly cut herself
with when she tried moving her long brunette hair that kept floating in her face.
‘Elaina! Come back here!’ A man’s voice whispered loudly. But the young lady kept
up her pace until she approached Arthur, trying to ignore the fierce looking robots.
‘Who are you and what do you want, coming into my town? She huffed, her dazzling
blue eyes opened wide. Arthur, taken aback by both her incredible beauty and her
valour, was lost for words, ‘I... we...’ Amy noticing that Arthur may not be able to
craft even a basic sentence while staring at her, decided to intervene, firstly by
coughing loudly and then rolling her eyes. ‘Hey princess! We’re not here to hurt you
– we’re on the same side!’ She spoke aggressively.
‘Really? Well how do you explain those things?’ She yelled, still not looking in the
direction of the robots.
Arthur regaining his senses, cut back into the conversation, ‘Who is in charge of this
town?’
‘I am! My name is Elaina.’ Arthur was baffled at how a young and fine-looking
woman was the head of an entire town, but he had no time for stereo-typing.
‘Ok gather all your people – we need to talk.’
The lady although hesitant, knew deep down that if they wanted to harm them than
they would not be talking.
After a few moments, the young lady gave the orders and people began pouring out in
drips. To Arthur’s astonishment, the people flooding in were only women and
children.
‘Where are your men?’ He asked, carefully looking around. But she did not say
anything, she simply pointed over at the rooftops of the buildings. When Arthur
looked around he could see rows of strong men with bow and arrows, sticks, swords,
large rocks and some even had more advance weaponry – guns. Arthur smiled as he
gazed around, I like these guys already!
‘Please come down – we are not here to fight with you.’ Arthur admired there
strategic plan.
When everyone finally gathered, a tall and well-built man approached Arthur. His
shoulder-length black hair bounced gentle waves as he walked and the lean strands
muscles exposed from the white vest, flared as he clenched tightly to a remarkable
sword.
‘Who are you?’ The man asked in a husky voice. Arthur marvelling at the fact that
none of them backed down, even considering the circumstances.
‘I am Arthur...’ and before Arthur could say anything else, the man lowered his sword
and his sparkling hazel eyes opened wide.
‘You are Arthur... the Arthur?’ The man said, looking at him up and down. Arthur
nodded his head slowly and began imagining all the deluded stories he may have
heard about him. Maybe in this town he was a dragon slayer, a giant, or maybe he
could breathe fire or even fly... The list went on.
‘I thought you would be...’ the man paused.
‘What? A giant? Made out of metal?’ Arthur smiled.
‘I was going to say taller,’ the man smiled back and rose out his hand and shook
Arthurs hand firmly.
‘But what the...’ the man looked over at the robots baffled, ‘how could this be...’
Arthur turned to the Marcus who had climbed off DK and was stretching from a stiff
body. The man looked at Marcus in complete amazement, his eyes stretched as wide
as they could and his jaw dropped. ‘It can’t be...’
Arthur nodded at Marcus who raised the over-sized sleeve of his tattered black top
that Ryan gave him. All the people of the new town paused and stared in disbelief,
some grinned in excitement but most remained frozen stiff.
‘I can’t believe it... so it is true... the boy really exists! All these years!’ The man
raised his sword and turned to the people in his town and roared, ‘now we fight!’ and
there was a loud cheer from the crowd, even the children cheered, although not all of
them knowing exactly why.
‘My name is Khan. Welcome to Beaconsfield, and this is my daughter,’ he pulled
Elaina from behind him, ‘you are going to have to excuse her anger.’
‘No... I think it’s great!’ Arthur said and then took a minute to think about how that
would have sounded.
‘You all look cold and hungry, come inside... please.’ Khan insisted.
The town, like every other in England was dark and gloomy, and somehow resembled
the dark ages, although, they all knew the irony was that man innovated to bring
himself out of the dark ages and just to lead himself into much darker ages.
The building they entered was much bigger in contrast to Wycombe’s place of
gathering and appeared well maintained. Although there were signings of rust and
paint chipping-away, the door and window frames were in pretty good nick. The
building stood completely straight, the glass was still in the windows and even the
roof tiles were up to a reasonable standard. On entering the building, the ground and
the ceiling could not be further apart; the floor was wooden and polished. Similar to
the hall that they gathered in Wycombe, it had an area at the front with a chair,
presumably were the leader sat.
‘Through here...’ Khan said, pointing to a large door to the side. This led to another
room almost identical to the first, except this had long, dark-brown, wooden tables
with thinner planks running along both sides of each table, like garden benches.
Khan insisted they all sit and organised a plan to get food served.
‘Have you noticed that it is warm in here?’ Nicole whispered into Marcus’s ear.
‘Yeah... and I don’t see any fire... they must have some other type of heating. Khan,
who happened to have outstanding hearing, was unintentionally eavesdropping.
‘We have solar panels on all of our roof-tops... they provide us with enough power for
the heating and lighting.’
‘That’s great... it feels lovely in here!’ Nicole smiled.
They all sat enjoying the food and the warmth; all the while, the children from this
town were climbing onto the robots and swinging off their arms like they were
branches on a tree. The robots remained on alert, but stood still like huge iron statues
surrounding the building.
Back inside, everyone was full to the brim. They were all so hungry that they ate
much more than what their bodies were used to and definitely more than what they
needed. Thomas had to loosen the top button of his trousers just in order to breathe.
But before they had a moment to digest anything, the ground began to tremble and the
children from outside came rushing in screaming. They were so frantic that they were
unable to explain what they just saw outside. Everyone rushed out and to their utter
amazement they saw something unbelievable – an entire Army of robots, almost twice
the size they already had come barging into the town and stood next to the others and
faced Marcus. But before they had time to think, the same metal ball-like eyes flew
over the sky and it was now obvious that, even with this great army, they were in
danger.
‘They have seen everything, haven’t they?’ Marcus asked XJ2.
‘Affirmative, the control centre has observed us and is formulating an attack strategy.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘That is what I would do.’
Marcus quickly climbed onto XJ2 and stood tall on his arm.
‘Everyone! listen up! We don’t have much time, they know of me and of this army.
We are not safe, they will be planning for war... and we will not sit here and wait for
them. We are going to war... we are going to the towers and we will fight to the end!
Come with us... please, we will need all the help we can get. Instantly, Khan and his
daughter stepped forward with the swords raised. And there was a great cheer from
the huge crowd of people. Marcus looked around at everyone and could not believe
that he, a boy that did not even know what he is doing here or how even got here, was
leading such a great army on a quest that he didn’t fully understand. He was terrified
and felt like telling Arthur that he couldn’t do it and that Arthur should lead, but he
knew there must be a reason that this was all happening, or at least that’s what he kept
telling himself. As he climbed down, he was met by Nicole’s almost mocking
expression. ‘Well aren’t we just the talky ones now. You went from shy to fly.’ She
smiled, immediately cheering Marcus up and calming his nerves. Marcus was still
finding it hard to get used all the different eyes that stared at him, as if he were a
special artefact in a museum – a feeling he didn’t think he could ever get used.
‘When shall we leave?’ Arthur asked Marcus. Marcus moved closer to Arthur and
whispered, ‘when do you think?’ Arthur smiled and remembered that he was still
only a young boy.
‘We will gather what we need and rest for no longer than an hour. And then we head
towards London.’ Arthur addressed the crowds of people.
‘London?’ Elaina asked.
‘At last, we’ll find out if the rumours are true! London is said to have many people
and even a great little army.’ Arthur then turned to Khan and said, ‘I don’t suppose
you have any horses or any other form of transport? I don’t know if the robots will be
able to carry everyone.’
‘We have limited horses but they will carry the strong men. Your women and children
can remain here with ours and we can leave some guards for them.’
Marcus butted in saying, ‘I will instruct a few of the robots to stay... you’re right we
can’t drag them all into this.’
‘Ok. It’s a shame, we have many vehicles, some small and some large. They could
carry many people but we have never needed them before nor did we have any fuel
for them.’ Khan said, pointing further down the long road.
‘I have an idea...’ Marcus said, rushing into one of the buildings.
‘What is it?’ Arthur and khan said as they followed him up the spirally stairs of the
building. This being the tallest building in the town, allowed him to see all the roof
tops. Marcus’s eyes sparkled, ‘every roof has solar panels...’
‘Yes... go on...’ Arthur said – not being fond of the suspense.
‘We will use the panels to power the vehicles!’
‘But... how? We did think of this once before but the cars have all got computer
systems that are probably linked to the Empire’s control centre! Churchill, fought
with us and felt that he could do it, but he was stopped by the previous leader of the
town. He is good at circuitry and pretty much made the entire solar power system
work perfectly throughout the town.’
‘Where is he?’ Marcus asked.
‘He lives in his workshop two roads from here.’
‘We should go and see him.’
‘Ok but I must warn you... he is completely mad and does not like guests!’
‘We’ll take our chances!’ Arthur said as they hurried back down the stairs.
A couple of narrow side alleys and a few trips into the large pot holes later, they
approached the shabby workshop. It was dark and had a long brown sign running
across it, but the paint was so worn that it was impossible to read what is said. It was
two storeys and had a few boarded up windows. There were absolutely no lights or
sounds coming from anywhere.
‘Is he asleep?’ Marcus asked looking at the front door, which was a long semi-circle
rather than the usual rectangle and looked like a ghostly mouth opened wide.
‘Churchill!’ Khan shouted.
‘He’s not in! Now go away!’ A loud and irritated voice spoke back from within the
building.
‘Come on Churchill... we need your help... there are some people that want to speak
to you.’
‘O, now you need my help! Now!’
‘Churchill, please open the door.’ Khan asked nicely, but both Khan and Arthur had
the urge to kick the door down and barge in.
‘No! Go away!’
‘Maybe I should try!’ Arthur asked.
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary,’ Marcus stepped closer to the door, ‘uh...
Churchill... my name is Marcus, I am not from around here and I could really do with
your help. I need your help with the wiring the solar panels to power the vehicles in
this town!’ There was a long silence, ‘Churchill...’ and just when they had given up
hope, there were loud clunking sounds, rusty metal squeaking and several locks
opening. The wooden door’s rusty hinges screamed as it crept open and short plumplooking
man with long fluffy white hair emerged. Strangely, he had his stripped
jumper tucked into his brown trousers, which were lifted way above belly-button
level. And it was hard to distinguish whether he was receding or just had an
exceptionally large forehead; either way, it suited his round face and thin white beard
quite well.
‘What do you know about the vehicles?’ Churchill said, peering over his thin-framed
spectacles, and using the question as almost a type of initiation.
‘I know that if you configure the software in the vehicles computer then you can
disable the Wi-Fi chip!’ Marcus said with a smile.
‘Astounding!’ He replied and his rosy cheeks bloomed brighter. ‘Well please come
in!’ They all stepped inside and gazing around, their attention could not focus on one
thing; the entire room was filled with bits and bobs. Tables were scattered with metal
objects, old batteries, and circuit boards – the walls infested with bits of paper, even
the floor was cluttered with junk.
‘Welcome to my workshop...’ Churchill said, both nervous and excited.
‘Jun
k-yard more like...’ Khan muttered under his breath.
‘I heard that...’
‘Sorry, what?’ Khan pretending he didn’t say anything.
‘I’ll get the tea on shall I...’ Churchill growled, cutting Khan a seriously evil look.
‘No... we don’t have the time. Thank you.’ Arthur said, hoping that Marcus would
the back of the wall and stared contently at strange numbers, letters, symbols and
small diagrams, in like a brainstorm, splattered all across the back wall. He somehow
recognised the formula, knew what it meant and knew that it was slightly inaccurate.
Churchill noticing Marcus’s interest, stood shoulder to shoulder with him and they
both got lost in the diagram. After a few brief moments, Marcus picked a pen up from
the close by table, and scribbled a few numbers and letters at the end and then went
back and crossed some symbols and numbers and wrote out new ones. He smiled,
pleased with himself and walked back to join the others who didn’t have the foggiest
of what he had just done.
Churchill concentrated for a few moments, all the while, mumbling to himself, ‘but
how can... oh...oh my, but what about, oh yes... yes, of course! He yelled at the end.
He turned to Marcus with eyes gleaming, ‘who... are... you?’ He asked slowly –
baffled at how a young boy, could have solved something that had taken him years.
They sat and spoke for a sort while and Marcus explained who he was and what he
was about to do.
‘Outstanding!’ He said, gazing at the wall.
‘Will you help?’
‘What do you need me to do?’ Churchill stood up in excitement.
‘Let’s get to the vehicles, we don’t have much time!’ Arthur stood up and they all
stormed out.
‘When we get back to the hall, Marcus, go with Churchill and do your thing, we will
prepare for the journey.’
Back at the hall, Nicole, Louise, Tommy, Mary and Ryan were getting ready to go
with the army, when Amy approached them, ‘what are you guys doing?’
‘We’re getting ready.’ Louise said.
‘I don’t think so... you guys are staying... it’s too dangerous!’
‘But...’ Nicole moaned.
‘No buts! It’s too dangerous.’ And they knew she wouldn’t budge and that Arthur
would back it up. When Amy left, Nicole smiled, ‘we are going... o, we are definitely
going!’
‘But you heard what Amy just said, there’s no chance!’ Mary said, sounding a little
relieved that they weren’t going.
‘Mary... in fact, all you guys – you should stay. I... I have to go. It’s just something I
need to do!’
‘You’re not going anywhere without me!’ Louise said, with her head tilted and hands
on her hips.
‘Yeah count me in!’ Ryan smiled, excitedly.
‘Ok, Mary and Thomas you guys stay here, we’ll come back to get you when this is
all over.’ Nicole said optimistically. And Both Mary and Thomas didn’t need to be
asked twice and agreed to stay.
Arthur and Marcus rushed back and XJ2 and another robot were assigned to escort
Marcus and Churchill to the showroom of vehicles. Before they left, Marcus
approached Nicole and the others, ‘hey,’ Marcus smiled.
‘Hey, you ok?’ Nicole asked.
‘Yeah, think so...’
‘How about you guys?’
‘We’re great!’
‘Amy said no, didn’t she?’
Nicole nodded.
‘But that’s not gonna stop you is it?’
Nicole shook her head and grinned. Marcus smiled, ‘I’ll be back soon, make sure you
are ready, I’ll figure out how to get you hitchhikers a ride!’
But before he walked away, he peered back, ‘Mary... Thomas?’
‘No, they’re not coming!’ Nicole said quickly.
‘Ok, good idea. No offence.’ He said looking at Mary and Thomas’s faces.
‘None taken!’ Mary said joyfully.
‘Ok, great!’ He said and he rushed off.
Churchill, from a quiet and a unsocial little man, turned into a monster – he was
ranting and raving, ordering people to get a few of the solar panels off the rooftops,
but still ended up rushing around with them because he couldn’t trust them to take
them off without breaking them. And did not decelerate for a moment, fuelled by
excitement and the strong feeling of finally having a purpose, he persisted in shouting
and ordering people; he even got people to carry his heavy suitcase around with him
everywhere he went, not trusting it out of his sight. He had around twenty young men
running around, while he, Marcus and a few men, carrying his equipment, rushed to
the vehicle showroom.
On entering the web-infested showroom, Marcus was amazed to the see the amount of
vehicles that there were parked perfectly in huge room. Most of which, aside from
having a coat of thick dust, were in immaculate condition. And the range varied from
huge buses, SUV’s to high performance sports cars. Churchill noticed Marcus’s eyes
glued on the range of Italian sports vehicles and stood in front of his sight, ‘they may
be a little inappropriate...’ Churchill, lifting an eyebrow.
‘Yeah... of course...’ Marcus, thinking practical again, ‘the solar panels won’t power
the buses, will they?’
‘Probably not... I think it’ll be better to focus on the SUV’s.’
‘Ok.’ Marcus opened the driver side door and climbed into a black, seven seated, car
and Churchill climbed into the passenger side. The men carrying the heavy equipment
and solar panels from the roofs put everything down and looked exhausted.
Marcus wiped the dash so he could see the dials in the car and then began wondering,
where do I start?
‘Pull the leaver near the pedals and open the bonnet!’ Churchill pointed. Marcus
found and pulled the leaver, releasing the hinge on the hood. As they got around the
front of the car and Churchill asked one of the men to raise the hood, Marcus stared at
the engine and the small black battery in the corner.
‘No... this isn’t right...’
‘What do you mean?’ Churchill asked, studying the mechanics.
‘This will take us days to do... we have to re-design the entire operation of the car!’
‘But... we can do it... I know we can!’
‘We don’t have the time and besides, these cars were around in late nineties, early
twenties!’
‘Ok... what’s your point?’
‘This is a museum, not a showroom. Come on...’ Marcus began rushing further down
the huge room until he approached a large double door that was locked with a keypad
lock.
‘There’s no power in this building so we won’t even be able to attempt the code!’
Marcus said. The men moved Marcus and Churchill to the side, ‘allow us to try!’
They began kicking and barging the door until it gave way and collapsed.
As they stepped inside the room, they caught sight of an entirely different planet. The
vehicles were worlds apart from what they just saw. They were much curvier and the
elegantly shaped bodies camouflaged more than half the tyres like a skirt covering
most of a person’s legs. Some of the vehicles headlight’s were small and triang
ular
and some thin and rectangle but the tail lights were all small round circles and only
varied in the number of lights on each model of vehicle.
Marcus, realising that they don’t really have the time to stand and marvel, rushed to
the largest he could find – it was a gleaming black and the rectangular lights stared at
them like an angry ogre.
‘Now, that’s more like it!’ Marcus opened the door, which flung up like the doors of a
Lamborghini. He got in and opened the stretched hood. The entire engine looked like
a huge battery.
‘Churchill... this entire engine is electric powered.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t know how, but I do. Can you juice it up?’
‘I can certainly try!’ Churchill smiled briefly then turned to the man who was carrying
his suitcase of tools, ‘come on man, bring me my stuff, we don’t have all day!’ The
man, rolling his eyes, lifted his heavy suitcase and dropped it right next to his foot.
‘Careful!’
‘Whoops!’ The man said sarcastically.
‘I need the panels... they have a storage battery and providing these, brutes got the
right ones, I should be able to make the connections!’ The men took no notice,
especially as Churchill went with them and chose the panels himself. Marcus stayed
inside looking at the controls while Churchill worked his skills on the engine.
The men stood guard and tried to ignore Churchill talking and arguing with himself.
‘This is absolutely remarkable!’ Churchill poked his head into the vehicle, making
Marcus jump.
‘What is?’
‘The power required to get this vehicle going is extraordinary... well let me show
you.’ Marcus followed him out to the front of the car. ‘Take a look at the battery cell
from the engine and compare it to the one in the panel. This battery from the solar
panel, according to this, should be able to power this vehicle for days, maybe even
weeks. It’s truly amazing!’
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’ Churchill asked with his eyes sparkling.
‘Well... shall we crank this baby up?’
‘What? Yes, of course!’ Churchill made the connection and looked at Marcus, ‘well?’
‘Let’s have a look inside...’ They climbed in anxiously and sat in silent, not knowing
exactly what they were expecting, but expecting something. Churchill sighed in
disappointment, a sigh he had well rehearsed from many disappointing experiments.
Marcus, on the other end of the spectrum, was not disappointed at all, ‘even if it is
powered, it’s not just going to start up, we need a key for the ignition!’ But they
couldn’t find an ignition, ‘look for a key hole, a card slot or something...’
But then it hit Marcus, they must have got past key and card methods by the time they
made these, ‘Engine start!’ Marcus said as clearly as he could. But everything
remained silent, ‘it was worth a try, I guess.’ But a red led light on the dash began to
blink and then lots of little lights began to blink and car started to make a faint and
prolonged buzzing noise like a milk float.
The men standing outside were a little startled with the sound, and deep down didn’t
really think they would get it going.
‘So what now? How do we drive this thing?’ Churchill asked concentrating on the
controls.
‘I’m not quite sure... but let me have a look at this...’
Churchill sat completely still and amazed as Marcus whizzed through the vehicle’s
computer. ‘According to this, we can drive this thing manually... or... we could...’
Marcus turned and faced Churchill what’s the name of the road the large hall, we just
came from, on?’
‘Umm... it’s the... yes... it’s the high street!’
‘Ok, we should be able to use the computer’s navigation system and there is autodrive
that should get us there.’
‘Amazing!’
‘Ok, it’s right here...’ Marcus took a deep breath, ‘drive to the high street.’ The
vehicle rose a little higher, with a light hissing sound. There were a few crackling
sounds as the vehicle struggled to move forward. ‘It’s stiff from being parked in one
place for so many years... but it’ll be ok.’ Or at least he hoped it would, ‘engine stop!’
The car stopped and the buzzing noise decreased.
‘Let’s crank a few more of these up!’ Marcus said, excitedly.
The Dark-Tec Towers
Fredrick came running and banged on the door.
‘Come in Fredrick!’ Fredrick barged in huffing and puffing.
‘Master... master...’
‘Get on with it Fredrick! Have you found the boy? And where on earth have Hex and
his creeps got to?’
‘Master... the boy, we’ve found the boy!’ Fredrick showed him the footage of Marcus
and the robots gathered in Beaconsfield.
‘Well this is interesting – how is he doing that? Get word to Hex and give him the
boy’s location!’
‘That’s the thing... Hex and his team are missing.’
‘What!’ He shouted so loud Fredrick stumbled back and covered his face with his
arms. ‘I don’t know what I expected... if you want something to actually get done, you
have to do it yourself! Maxwell!’ he shouted, and after a few seconds Maxwell
appeared.
‘Maxwell! The system?’
‘We have too many bugs and it’s not ready!’
‘Maxwell, you’re really pushing me now!’ he frowned, ‘prepare the army and get my
transport ready.’
‘But that would not be advisable... even with the system online, not all the bridges
have been made, some areas are completely dead. It would be dangerous – you could
die.’
‘I know the risks, just do it. The boy is close!’
‘He has got control of the old robots and we can’t override them – even the system
going online will not guarantee anything!’
‘I will not back down from this boy! I want everything we have prepared for battle!’
‘I think you are overreacting. It will not be necessary for such move.’
‘Really... so, you think now! Why don’t you tell me how the boy is taking control of
the ground army?’ Maxwell remained silent.
‘Exactly! Prepare for battle now!’
‘Right away.’ Maxwell disappeared.
‘Well done Fredrick! You’ve really made me proud and as your reward you will join
me to battle.’ Fredrick was petrified of fighting and hated the thought of tagging
along, but hid his feelings behind a nervous smile and a nod.
Inside the towers, every light was turned on, every door was open and the huge fleet
of robots in the basement activated and briefed. The towers, from a deadly silence,
began screaming with ground trembling and terrifying sounds. There were loud hisses
as gas released, screeching metal and pounding thuds on the ground. Every robot, big
or small, fighter or non-fighter, ready or not, was configured for battle.