75

75
Rue's Perspective

With two reports of attacks coming in one after the other, back to back, within such a short time interval, I knew that something must be wrong. It was one thing for our son to report it first, but for the Minister of Information to actually have the same report, then something really had to be the matter. Right now, I decided that it needed to be taken care of immediately before it developed into something more. So, I looked at the man beside me before turning to the one in front, taking the reins from him because he seemed to be deep in thought and actions were to be taken immediately.

"Tell me," I said to the minister, "how did it happen, and exactly when did the theory of the attacks take place?" I wanted the exact locations and a specific range of time for each of the theories in a detailed report.

"Sure," he said, "I'm having it filed right now to report to you, but right now, I can already tell you about it with my mouth," he said, making me stop and look at him with interest. "They happened sequentially as if in a pattern, first of all in the rainbow water fountain, and then in the other two places. The locations seemed random enough to me when I checked them, but they might not be. I'll mark them out on the map for you so you can see if you can draw any pattern between them. There were actually three of such attacks, and it was very serious. Properties weren't just taken; lives were taken as well, and people lost their family members due to it."

Suddenly, Carl spoke, and he didn't sound pleasant as his voice sounded. "This is very strange," he said. "As much as I am aware, people are very afraid to cause any trouble, as they have been in the last couple of years. Right now, with the peace that is still ringing up soon, for them to actually stir up some trouble and to even kill some people while they are at it makes it the most serious kind of crime. I reckon it's not coincidental, and it's not an accident either; it's a deliberate act, and it's the start of something big," he said slowly, as he looked at both of us intently.

I could feel pressure and responsibility—the kind of pressure and responsibility that I hadn't felt in years—weighing down on my shoulders once more. This wasn't the usual crime of lying or false witnesses; it was actual death and killing of people. It was a kind of massacre, or at least it would be if I let it continue, and we needed to stop it as soon as possible before it could spread.

"I don't know what you think about this, but I take it that there's a group of people who want to make a name for themselves," Carl said, his opinion clear. "This is probably the act of some kind of cult group," he said, "or maybe a new kind of rogue pack. Anyhow, it's something that's going to continue if we can't curb it right in the nick of time."

I glanced at the minister, wondering whether he believed this. If both of them really had the same view, then it might actually have something to it, but honestly, I didn't see any way this could be so serious. It was just three attacks. As much as we wanted to blow it up, it still remained three random attacks that just so happened to take place sequentially, one after the other. I didn't want to be making a mountain out of a molehill just yet, so I decided to oppose.

"Maybe that's too much of a stretch," I started, looking at Carl and putting my hand on his to calm him down. "I think it's too much to simply assume that there's such a big problem when we haven't even seen any sign of it yet. That isn't very decisive and conclusive."

"It's decisive and conclusive enough," he said in response, not flinching a bit. He looked like he was about to give him everything to fight against whatever was about to come up before it was even strong enough to strike. It was very proactive of him, and I admired the way he took the call to action, but honestly, I thought he was overreacting a little.

Obviously, he didn't think so himself because he was speaking once again. "We can choose either to let this go on and deal with it like it's a small problem or diagnose it as a symptom in the large scheme of things and try to curb it from its roots," he said to me, looking very decisive with the words he spoke and the deep voice he spoke them with.

I knew that his mind was set. He was going to do everything until digging out how it happened. I took a breath, knowing that there was nothing else I could do to convince him against it. I simply had to watch him do this and hope that he wasn't making a mistake. Well, what was that could go wrong?

I said out loud, finally giving my support and deciding to go with him like I had gone with him over the last couple of years leading to the success that we were now seeing. "At the very worst, we spend all our manpower—or at least a very big amount of it—finding it out. And if it's nothing, then it's good. If it's something, we'll be glad that we handled it in time before it could grow into something bigger," I said with a smile on my face, completely agreeing with him.

The minister looked at us both like we were insane. That look was a look I had gotten over the years back from a lot of people, most of whom thought that it was a silly idea to try to unite all the packs and even integrate even the little rover packs that were around so that they would have all the resources that everybody had and be part of the larger organization, part of the larger pack that we called ourselves right now. It wasn't a colonization, no; it was a good government for everybody, and even though it was a very big change for everybody, they had adapted right now, and we were glad we did it.

"All right, fine," he said, raising his hands in surrender, even though I knew that he still held my previous view. "I'll do everything I can to get you the information you need about the people who made such attacks, and then I'll get you everything else you think you need in order to curb them once and for all," he said. "I don't think I can even do more than that if I wanted to," he said, "sure, I don't have the manpower to put people on this case, after all, in order to defeat those people who went about making this move."

"Sure, sure," Carl said, nodding and smiling at him, "it's fine if you don't have that manpower; I'll make sure to deal with that. All you have to do is to do your job and leave the rest for us. I'll do the critical analysis based on the data he gave me and then leave all that on what to happen. I want it done very quickly."

"Yes, sir," the minister said and bowed. He stood upright again and was about to leave, but Carl was speaking once again. "Wait," he said, "I want everything to be resolved and all my information in neatly filed documents by morning," he said. "I guess your little birds can work all night and get everything ready." He had raised an eyebrow like it wasn't some kind of impossible task he was handing this man. He frowned a little, thinking about the difficulty of it, and Carl smiled in response, knowing fully well the answer he would give.

This was one of the reasons we liked this particular minister. No matter how challenging the task was, he never rejected it and never really asked questions, making it easy for us to work with him, especially since we needed complete obedience, and we couldn't get it from everyone. "Fine," he said, "I'll do my best, and I won't disappoint you."

"I know you won't," I said to him sweetly before slipping my hand in Carl's hand once again and moving forward with him. We went at least with a couple down until we got into our room, completely forgetting about the incident that had been reported to us because we already had some measures in place. Into it, I knew that it was going to be broadcast in the news, since it was of such importance. Even if it wasn't about to be, because of how little it was and how the minister would not have liked to put everybody in a panic, with us actually looking into it, he was definitely going to let everybody know about it and know that we were already on the move.

I glanced at Carl and asked, "Are you sure we want him to tell everyone about this? We can still stop him before it becomes online and everywhere with everyone talking about it. I don't think we want everybody panicking."

He considered it for a while but shrugged it off eventually. "Don't worry," he said, "he would do what he thinks is best, and if he posts it on the news, then so be it. I'm pretty sure we want everyone alert right now; it might be bigger than we think."