12 |

Off the coast of Pico Island, Azores

 

Gavin Thatcher stared at their two prisoners, both zip-tied and blindfolded, and shook his head. He closed the door and stepped back out onto the deck, the men who had captured them standing at the bow. “Why the hell did you take them?”

One of the men, Tark Gerald, shrugged. “He saw what we were doing.”

“So? He saw some men working on an undersea cable. How would he know what we were actually doing? All you had to do was wave him off, but instead, you chased him in a submersible and attacked the woman he was diving with!” He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “Now we have two prisoners who know we’re up to something. What the hell do we do now?”

Another shrug. “Kill them?”

Thatcher spun at him, his eyes and mouth wide with horror. “Are you kidding me? We’re not killers! What the hell do you think we’re trying to do here? We’re trying to save lives by making the world realize it’s too dependent upon modern technology! We’re trying to force people to interact more, to learn from each other, to empathize with each other, by reintroducing them to good old-fashioned face-to-face conversations. This entire exercise is to prevent the violence that is resulting from a lack of human contact. And you propose to further that cause by killing two of the people we’re actually trying to save?”

Tark stared at the deck. “Sorry, I just thought it was more important to, you know, save the mission. Better to lose two than the thousands or millions to come.”

Thatcher stared at him for a moment. The idiot was right, in a simplistic fashion. It was why they had weapons. And if these two people had indeed been a threat, he could understand the logic, though still wouldn’t have condoned their deaths. But they had never been a threat. One had stumbled upon something he didn’t understand, and the team had overreacted. “Okay, well they can’t stay here. We’ve got work to do, and I don’t want to risk having them on board, just in case one of them gets loose or someone comes looking for them.” He pointed at Tark and one of his buddies, Oswald “Spud” Fletcher. “You two take them ashore and secure them until we’re done.”

“Where?”

Thatcher growled with frustration. “Do I need to think of everything? Just take them somewhere they won’t be found!”

“And should they try to escape?”

Thatcher clasped his hands behind his neck, closing his eyes. “Don’t let them.”

“But if they should?”

Thatcher sighed, dismayed by what he was about to say. “Then kill them. We can’t risk the mission being compromised.”