Robot Riders

                        Robot Riders

     An Image Monitor takes an image of two single riders as
they continue past it…


             


… It continues taking images every second for the next ten
minutes. Ellion watches each image as it appears on the
Image Monitor. Suddenly, he taps a button on the control
panel under that monitor. The last image on it stays there.

    Ellion leans back in his hovering chair and laces his
fingers behind his head. He smiles. “It doesn’t look like
they have been followed again.”

    “I can see that,” Monch says as he steps behind Ellion.
He sits in the chair next to Ellion. “What I don’t see is
the problems that our friends have caused in the community
of Tigun.”

     “That because I have been watching to make sure our
friends haven’t been followed.” Ellion leans forward and
starts tapping buttons on the control panel in front of him.

     The last image on the main monitor disappears. Only to
be replaced with moving images of Tigun as the two robot
riders ride around that community causing a lot of trouble.
Everywhere they go they are slowly destroying it with both
explosions and weapons fire.

     One of the robot riders is throwing the explosives. And
the other one is using small hand weapons to shoot laser
bolts everywhere they want to shoot them. The Locals have
been trying to stop them. But they haven’t been able to do
that so far.

                             #

     Monch and Ellion are standing on opposite sides of a
floating sleeper where Ritta is at in her natural form.
Staring down at her as two others are busy getting her ready
to leave there again. “How is Ritta doing?” Monch asks.

     “Is she going to be okay?” Ellion asks.

     “Of course, they will be,” Tunni says. “They just got a
little bit too close to a couple of the explosions during
their last attack on Tigun.”

     Tunni looks at Vallare on the floating sleeper behind
her. “Vallare is already ready for another attack. I’m sure
Ritta will be soon.”

     “How soon?” Ellion asks. “The sooner they return to
Tigun the better.”

     “I’m not sure how soon it will be.” Justum answers.
“But I don’t think it will be too much longer.”

                             #

     Ritta sits on a hovering chair in a clear box with a
Data Monitor right in front of her. She glances over at
Vallare in another clear box next to her. Then she looks at
the Data Monitor in front of Vallare that has an image of a
male on it. Ritta returns to looking at a different male
image on her monitor.

     After placing her hands and arms into the curves on the
arms of her chair, Ritta closes her eyes as a thin glowing
line starts from her fingertips and goes up her arm toward
her head. Once at her head, it begins to go through her
body, and it doesn’t stop until it gets to her feet.

     Now there are glowing lines all over Ritta. And those
lines are starting to change her into the image on her Data
Monitor. Within a few minutes, Ritta is that image. She gets
up and slowly turns around. As she does that, her image does
it too. Ritta stops turning when she is facing Vallare who
looks like her image too.

     The male Vallare smiles. “Now comes the fun part. We
learn everything there is to know about ourselves.”

                             #

     A HoverRide turns into a landing space in front of a
large building. After it floats down in that space, the
front left side of it disappears. The male Vallare steps out
of it and heads for that building. She stops just before the
entrance and looks around her before she enters it.

     Vallare stops to slowly look around a large very busy
room. She pushes her way through the Unnians to the front of
those waiting to be helped next. When the next Unnian is
announced, Vallare goes up to another Unnian standing behind
a clear box with an opening in the middle of it.

     The other Unnians there don’t like it. And they are
complaining about it. Some of them are very rude. But
Vallare ignores them. “You do know who I am, don’t you?”

     “Of course, I do.” The female Unnian within the clear
box says. “You are one of our biggest Credit Collectors that
we have here in Tigun. How many credits are you going to be
giving us today?”

     “I’m not here to give credits.” Vallare pulls out two
long hand weapons from his clothing. One he points at the
Collector. The other he aims at the others behind her. “I’m
here to take all of your credits.”

     Those behind Vallare start to panic. “If I don’t get
all of them, I will kill everyone in here.”

     While Vallare is at a Credit Collectors building, Ritta
is at a Gems Collectors building doing the same thing. Only
she is further along in her collection. They are being very
helpful there. Placing every gem they have into large cloth
containers while Ritta waves a long hand weapon at a big
group of Unnians.

     Monch and Ellion are watching what Ritta and Vallare
are doing on two large monitors. “It looks like everything
is happening the way we want it to happen.”

     Ellion looks at the two smaller monitors next to the
large ones. One shows Ritta’s male running among some trees.
No one else is there. Vallare’s male is behind the controls
of a HoverRide as it moves down a HoverPath in the middle of
nowhere. There doesn’t appear to be anyone near him either.
“Neither one of our Collectors will be able to deny what
they are doing right now.”

                             #

     Vallare’s male skids into another HoverRide as it turns
from one HoverPath to another. The Locals right behind her
almost destroy that HoverRide with their laser bolts as they
continue to try to stop Vallare’s male before she can get
out of that community.

     Ritta’s male pulls back on her control bar so that her
HoverRide can fly over several Locals who have the HoverPath
blocked with their HoverRides there. As she is sailing over
them, Ritta drops a few explosives that kill the Locals. It
creates a large hole too.

     Monch and Ellion are watching it all on the large
monitors in front of them. They are also talking to them.
Telling them where the Locals are at. It doesn’t stop them
from leaving that community. But it does slow them down a
lot. Ritta is the first one to leave Tigun with several
Local HoverRides and SingleRiders right behind her.

     Vallare leaves that community a few minutes after Ritta
does. But she is closer to where they are headed. So, she is
slightly ahead of Ritta. And she also has some Locals behind
her. Their laser bolts getting closer to her. The Locals
have almost gotten to her too.

     “It doesn’t look too good for Vallare,” Monch says. “I
don’t think she’s going to get back here alive.”

     “It’s even worse for Ritta,” Ellion replies. “She is in
between the Locals who are after her and Vallare.”

     Monch and Ellion look at each other. “What are we going
to do?” Ellion asks. “If Ritta and Vallare are stopped, then
the Locals will find out what we have been doing.”

                             #

     “We can’t let that happen,” Ellion says. “Even if it
means we must kill Ritta and Vallare.”

     Ellion looks at Monch. “I know how you feel about Ritta
and Vallare. And I feel the same way too. But we can’t let
the Locals know who they really are.”

     “Unfortunately, I agree with you about the Locals not
finding out what is going on here,” Monch says. “I don’t
want to kill them either. But we may need to do it. The big
question is how do we kill them without the Locals seeing
them as themselves?”

     “I don’t know.” Ellion answers. “But we need to do
something. The Locals are about to kill Vallare. Then they
will go after Ritta from both directions. Which means that
she is almost dead too.”

     Monch looks up at Ritta and Vallare as they continue
trying to get away from the Locals after them. “I can think
of only one thing that we can do. And that is nothing. We
need to let them decide what to do.”

     Ellion sighs. “I don’t like that. But I think you are
right. Ritta and Vallare need to decide what to do with the
Locals after them.”

                             #

     “I don’t think that we have anything to worry about,”
Monch says. “I’m sure that they will make the right decision
about what to do about those Locals.”

     “We need to be ready to just in case they don’t make
that decision,” Ellion says. “But I think that they will
make the right one too. We just need to be ready to kill
them if they don’t do it.”

     Ellion reaches for two small square boxes with a big
red button on the top in the middle of them from the control
panel under the large monitors in front of them. He keeps
one for himself. And give the other one to Monch. “Now we
can kill them if we need to do it.”

     “I just hope that we don’t need to use these,” Monch
says as he looks at his square box. “But I don’t think that
we will.”

     “Do you know the worst part about us killing them?”
Ellion asks. “It’s not that we will miss them. Of course, we
are going to do that. We can re-create them. Maybe even
better than before. The worst part is that we will be
killing all of those credits and gems too.”

     Monch points at the large monitor in front of them. “It
looks like we are about to see what that decision is.”

                             #

     Vallare’s male turns his HoverRide around to face the
Locals almost upon her and stops. Ritta’s male suddenly
stops too. Together they start using explosive and laser
bolts against those Locals. In only a few seconds all the
Locals there are killed.

     Ritta’s male turns to face the Locals behind her as
Vallare’s male comes up beside her. Once again, they are
together as they kill all the locals still there. It just
takes them a little longer to do it because there are so
many of them. But kill them they do.

     After all the Locals are dead, Ritta’s and Vallare’s
males turn around and head back to where they have come
from. As they are doing that, they become Robot Riders once
more. It’s as though they are going through an invisible
entrance. On one side they are still the males in their
HoverRides. But as they go through that entrance they are
Robot Riders again.

     “I told you that we didn’t have anything to worry
about,” Monch says as he tosses his square box back onto
the control panel there.

     Monch looks over at Ellion. “Do you think that we have
enough credits and gems to create all of the Robot Riders
that we need to take over this planet too?”

     “Not quite yet.” Ellion answers. “I think that we need
to use a few more Unnians to get what we need.”

     “Let’s go see how Ritta and Vallare are doing.” As
Monch and Ellion get up and start walking out of that room
they both clank a little.


                     Word Count = 1,911