Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2026
When he approached, a surveillance or security orb, though not the one that had flown overhead before came to him with a whooshing of air and started shouting commands at him in particular in Sinese, then Muskovite, then the Nipponic tongue, then finally a pigeon that included some words that sounded familiar to him.
He had already guessed at the commands, and had removed his mask and goggles by the time the machine blurted out, “cover off” followed by some words he could not comprehend.
Its central camera eye stared sightlessly at him as he blinked against the stinging sweat that the removal of his goggles had caused to cascade towards his eyes.
It started shouting in its grinding metallic voice for him to get back and it repeated this with increasing volume until he did so. Pool retreated 20 or 30 meters with the thing following him, looming over a meter above his head, when abruptly it became silent whirled around and zoomed off in the opposite direction, no doubt to harass some other poor soul.
As it did, and perhaps the real reason for the orb’s withdrawal was a cacophony of shouting in the vicinity of the incident.
Pool still had no idea what the commotion was, only that it had attracted more than just a flying, shouting machine, and unwisely he crept forward again, contrary to the commands, keeping to the shadows behind collapsing stacks of debris and the nooks and notches formed by the uneven building construction.
Crouched behind a large pole or tower encrusted 50 meters up with disk and rod-shaped antennae, and plastered with incomprehensible posters, Pool watched.
A dozen armored and armed security men (?) gathered around a smaller group of beaten and bloodied others, four men and five women, who had been stripped of their masks and much of their clothing. Their hands were bound behind their backs and one of the security thugs was pulling dark sacks over their heads.
At least one of them was whimpering, and another continued pleading—pool could only identify the tone, not the meaning—until he was struck on his bagged head by the butt of a rifle, which shut him up as he crumpled to the ground, only to receive several brutal kicks about his torso.
Meanwhile all of this action had attracted a mob of twenty or thirty others coming from both the far side of the incident, down that street, and a few coming out of an unseen side street or alley.
These newly arrived men and women were jeering and shouting over the already loud shouting and commanding security orb which had given up yelling at Pool seconds earlier.
While the security drone was yelling commands, two of the armed men—“police” if you like—were also shouting at the gathered crowd and raising their rifles at them.
Unexpectedly, for Pool at least, and quite abruptly, there was the unmistakable report of a shot. The crack echoed up and down the chasmous street, repeating over and over.
An instance of dead silence as the mob processed that one of their own had crumpled to the dirty pavement, then screams and cries of anguish erupted.
With the shot, Pool made himself as small as possible behind the pillar, still watching but from the best cover he could manage.
The mob broke, some running in any direction possible (including toward him and his hiding place) and a small cohort charging the clump of police or whatever they were.
Several more shots rang out when the group scattered, but when the charge began, the bullets flew. Staccato clacks mowed down the center of the group, but not before a couple got to the nearest security men and took them down with fists and what looked like a piece of wood.
Those men fell with the downed security men under the same barrage.
The shouting machine hung directly overhead of the fray blasting an earsplitting alarm interspersed with more commands.
One of the hooded victims made an attempt to run away, more or less in the same direction as the one running towards Pool’s shelter, and together those two were taken down, screaming and crying as their bodies were ripped apart.
A shell hit the far side of the pole that Pool was covering behind, and a spray of something hit his cheek, goggles and breather, which he had put back on by this time.
Pool wanted to help the one in the hood, who he could tell was still alive, or nearly so, but to do so would have been meant his death.
He ran.
It wasn’t until he got back to the hostel that Philoctetes told him his face was covered in blood and dye.
Ion Fyr 