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John Carpenter's
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HOSTILE TAKEOVER - CHAPTER 4
Out in the lobby Wayne was talking to a white haired man in a
trench coat. He explained what happened and what he wanted to do about
it.
"And you are sure about this, Bruce?" The man asked adjusting his
glasses.
"Yes, I am, Commissioner. This man may have saved my company and me
from causing a horrendous mistake. I thank you for all the help from
you and your men."
Commissioner Gordon and the rest of the police officers left the
reception area. Some of the officers were grumbling about having a
hostage situation turn into a tea party. Others commented about the
richest guy in town needed to buy a brain. Gordon ended the remarks
with promises of unpaid vacations if the talk continued. Gordon didn't
like their banter but he could understand it. This was indeed a
screwed up scenario. Wayne was odd but this was insane, even by
Wayne's accounts.
Lucius Fox returned to Wayne's office with two other men in tow. They
were both in their mid-fifties. One was slightly heavy set. His hair
was thick and wavy. It was once a dark-brown. Time has since turned it
to a distinguished salt and pepper. His boyish face only started to
show signs of aging brought on by stress and work. The other man was
of the same medium height but was of a slighter built. His hair was
nearly white and was receding into a high widow's peak. A patch of
skin started to show in the back. They were both confused and
questioning why they were pulled from their duties, carrying every
note and document for station TOMAR they had, to an emergency meeting
with the headman. Lucius tried to placate the men by telling them that
all would be answered when they got there.
Wayne met the men at the door at his office. Sharon, the receptionist,
was still visibly shaken. Wayne gave tried giving her a reassuring
smile. She smiled back weakly. Fox was none too happy about returning
into the room where that psychopath MacReady was. What was Bruce
thinking of? Was he giving MacReady more hostages for the fun of it?
What was going on? Wayne led them into the room. Fox was full of
questions and tried to whisper to Wayne if everything was okay or did
he need to signal in code for help. Wayne dismissed Fox's covert
attempts with a chuckle and smile.
"Gentlemen, I believe we have the potential for a disaster on our
hands." Wayne confided. "Before we get started, I think introductions
are in order." Wayne gestured to MacReady. "This is Mr. R.J. MacCready,
the sole survivor of the destroyed U.S. Outpost Thirty-one." The two
new men murmured. They recognized the name also. This was the lunatic
who blew up his station and killed everyone there. He was here, right
here, in Wayne's office. Oh God, help us now!
"Mr. MacReady has shed some light on what really happened to Outpost
Thirty-one. I believe that he is telling me the truth. If what he told
me is indeed the truth, then gentlemen, we might be endangering
everyone and everything in the whole world. This is something I will
not have, no matter what the cost. Until we can figure out if there is
a danger..."
"Bruce, now just wait a damn minute!" Interrupted Fox. "I've worked
with you long enough to know what you're thinking. You are not serious
about shutting down everything we've worked and sweated over for two
long years to accomplish on the word of some derange-"
"Lucius, please. I'm listening to instinct on this one and my instinct
says he is telling me the truth," Wayne injected. "Now, if you let me
finish, I was going to say; I had you bring Mr. Reynolds and Mr.
Preuss here so that we could discuss this and see if we can come up
with a solution that might satisfy all of those concerned."
The men didn't say a word. They didn't know what to say. Here is their
boss asking them to deal with a man who was going to kill him less
then two hours ago. What was going on? National Idiocy Day?
"Mr. MacReady, this is Mr. Kurt Reynolds, head of research and
development for the ESD-1126, and Mr. Russell Preuss, the site
designer and head of Project TOMAR. "Wayne gestured towards the men.
"And, of course, you've already met Lucius Fox. Lucius is the
vice-president of Wayne Enterprises. He is basically runs everything
for me. He is the one who really runs the show. I do hope there are no
hard feelings from earlier."
MacReady gave Fox a slight smile to signify an apology. Lucius
awkwardly stammered in acceptance.
"Gentlemen, I want you to listen to the story that Mr. MacReady has
told me, then we need to formulate a plan." Wayne looked to MacReady
to tell his tale. MacReady was not used to public speaking and felt
uncomfortable doing so. He hated being on the spot and the center of
attention. On the other hand, he was relieved that he was finally
getting his story listened to. He had an audience that might actually
do something about what happened to Outpost Thirty-one. He couldn't
believe it only took fifteen years to accomplish that. "Well, to start
off, you don't need to call me 'Mr. MacReady', just plain 'MacReady'
will do... or Mac."
Nearly an hour later, Mac finished the terrible story of the fate of
Outpost Thirty-one for the second time that day. This was most he had
said about it in at least thirteen years. When he was first
incarcerated, he tried to tell anyone who would listen to his story.
After that he never spoke of it again. No one would believe him and
all thought he was totally insane. Now, he had someone on his side to
listen. He was still very leery of Wayne, but at least Wayne listened.
The three men could not believe what they had just heard. They could
not figure out who had the worst case of dementia; Mac for spouting
off about shape shifting aliens or Wayne for believing it. What could
happen next? Arms dealing to known terrorists?
After five silent minutes, Wayne spoke up. "Gentlemen, we need to make
a game plan about what to do."
"About what? Fighting a supposed hundred-thousand year-old alien that
is supposedly dead already?" Screamed Preuss defiantly. "This is
madness, Bruce! How can you sit there-" "This is MY call and I say he
is telling the truth. Now I need to hear ideas, not comments about
mental health. Am I understood?" Wayne bellowed with an
authority the three men were not accustomed to hearing. "Now, Preuss,
are you absolutely sure that you couldn't find anything about this
when you researched the area?"
"If what he says is true," Preuss replied, "then the files on it are
probably locked up so tight that the ones who did do it have long
since forgotten about it."
"Hmm, you might be right about that. We'll, let's look over the plans
for TOMAR and maybe we can figure out a boundary that we should
avoid," suggested Wayne.
Preuss offered Wayne a large rolled up map. Wayne opened the map on a
large table situated in the southwest corner of the room. The five men
gathered around to view it and hopefully come up with some answers.
The map was of Antarctica. The spot that marked the South Pole had
many different colored lines radiating out in a spoke-like pattern.
This formed a pie graph to indicate what countries controlled what
areas. Situated near the top of the map was the second biggest portion
of the pie. This area was claimed by Norway. The rest were claimed by
countries such as France, Great Britain, Brazil, Argentina, New
Zealand and Australia. Wayne found it to be an interesting fact that
Norway, the country that discovered the South Pole to begin with,
actually held the second largest territory. The country that
claimed the biggest portion was Australia. In fact, they claimed two
parts.
"Now, this is where Outpost Thirty-one was," Preuss pointed to where
the doomed camp was located at one time on the map. Mac felt his heart
sink just looking at the point. "And here is where TOMAR is. We
couldn't actually build right on the old site due to restraints
brought on..." Preuss' face grew pale and slack. "...brought on by the
U.S. and Norwegian governments." Everybody grew silent in the room.
The quiet was disturbing.
Preuss recomposed himself and brought the group back out of their
ominous thoughts. "And here is TOMAR." Preuss pointed to an area on
the map. It was located about forty to fifty miles northeast of where
Thirty-one was located. A look of shock over came Mac's face.
"This is where you are going put your site?" Mac stammered.
"Is there a problem?" Asked Wayne.
"Goddamn right there is a problem! Look," Mac grabbed the pen out of
Preuss' hand and scribbled two wild circles on the map a few inches
away form the red dot that mark where TOMAR was located. "This first
circle is where the Norwegians were when I was there." He pointed to
the circle drawn a little above and to the left of TOMAR. "And this is
where the thing's space ship was." He pointed to the second circle,
which was drawn higher, and to the right of Norwegian camp about five
centimeters away in distance in scale.
"Wait a minute!" Gasped Fox. "If what your saying is for real, then
TOMAR is about... my God, less than ninety miles away!"
"Yeah, so whose dumbass idea was it to put it there? Pretty friggin'
close for comfort if you ask me," hissed Mac.
"The area was picked because the terrain is ideal for the tests for
the ESD-1126. The authorities didn't say that the area was off limits.
It was just picked for convenience," added Reynolds.
"Well, Christ, they'll more than likely find the ship or remains of
that damned thing. You gotta stop building that site now! Get the
construction workers outta there! You gotta stop it now!" Mac was on
the verge of hysterics.
"Well... We might have a problem there," Wayne replied.
"What? What problem?" Mac's stomach lurched.
Preuss, Reynolds and Fox looked at each other seeing who might speak
up first. The awkwardness was apparent to MacReady. He knew there was
something they weren't admitting.
"What the hell aren't you telling me?!" Mac was getting furious.
"Mac, I'm afraid that the story you read in the paper was
misinformation," Wayne answered.
"What are getting at?" Mac spat out.
"Err, the story in papers read that the camp was going to be built
soon. We'll, we said that to get a jump on the competition who got
wind of our idea and were trying to beat us to the punch and develop
their own extreme subzero vehicle." Wayne paused. He tried to find an
easy way to explain the situation. Finally he looked at MacReady and
just told him the truth.
"The station was completed three months ago and has been at a staff of
fifteen personnel for two weeks now."
Chapter 5
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