46. The battle of persuasion

Nico and Francois stowed their equipment and they evaded the task team because their first priority is now in tandem with the rest of their new group. The rescue operation must be arranged and everyone must gather at the meeting this evening. They know Morrison will demand answers and luckily the task team was absent when they emerged from the fort. They are probably still at the neighboring smallholding to which the wrong set of stairs and tunnel led them astray. The other people departed with Jack’s car while Nico and Francois walked to their car hidden amongst bushes on an adjacent piece of land. They were gone before the task team could track them.

Now every one of the group has organized what they could and the task team probably followed them and is surely watching them unobtrusively. All the guests have met the others and took their seats. The conference room is designed as an amphitheater and Emilie stands with Nico at the microphone ready to address all of them. They deliberately turned the blinds of the big windows so that the air outside and the city are clearly visible and so that all of them will be able to see when the things fall from the sky. All of them must see so that they believe the strange news they are going to hear soon.

The building is strategically situated in the Govan Mbeki main street with a few nightclubs still open. Quite a few cars are parked with theirs alongside the street and people are standing and talking near the cars. From the conference hall, the group is looking down at a restaurant askew from them with people on the pavement sitting at tables with peaceful music caressing them from inside.

Nico and Francois scrutinize the building opposite in search of a sharpshooter with a listening device aimed at them but they see nothing. They deliberately keep the windows closed so that the pipe type listening device can’t detect sound through open windows. Now they are looking out for a laser light from the opposite buildings but a laser can also be aimed at an angle from the street below. Probably they won’t know whether the task will by some way or another eavesdrop on them. The task team is now suddenly a threat because they don’t know what to expect of Morrison. He will be furious and suspicious because they didn’t report back and now this meeting! He would seriously want to know what is at hand.

Emilie starts the proceedings: “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I am Emilie Shaw, a marketing manager, and this is the conference hall of our company and luckily I could quickly arrange the meeting for all of us here. I am glad to see that so many of you are at such short notice able to join us. I have arrived only this morning from England and am surprised, just as you are, with the news that we must meet urgently. I don’t know what you were told, but I know you were all contacted by people who care a lot about your well-being and for this reason glad to get you here in any way possible.”

Emilie points at Nico next to her. “Nico is the South African member of an international task team that investigates an occult group whose actions necessitate this meeting. Nico will explain to you why we are meeting here and thereafter you are welcome to ask questions and then we can discuss our plan of action.”

Nico takes over and commences with the hard task of convincing the audience: “People, we are now going to tell you a secret which was divulged to our eight people today and we have little time left. Tonight there are going to be released things over the dark side of the earth. These things will bring a deadly plague all over the earth which will destroy all civilization as we know it. That is why we opened the blinds so that you can see it and, hopefully, when you have seen them, you will believe us and we can then work together on a plan to save our families and whomever we can convince in time.

“Things resembling spiders will fall in swarms from heaven. They are not going to attack anybody tonight and are going to creep into mainly the sewerage systems, lay eggs and multiply but on Friday night they will emerge from their hideouts and attack people in the cities and towns. One bite will ensure that people become sick within seven days and will then change into man-eating monsters so that people are going to attack one another and the world will become chaotic. After the first seven days, people will infect others in the same way as it happens with the cold or flu virus. Everyone infected will change into a man-eating monster within 24 hours. People, from Friday onwards all institutions will collapse and the world as we know it will perish. There will be no law and order and all money will be worthless.

“We are gathered here to arrange a rescue plan with you so that we can evacuate all of you with everything that you need to survive out of the city before next Friday. We are planning to get you to a farm where you will have the best chance of survival.”

Suddenly there is pandemonium when all the guests excitedly want answers and they all speak together.

Nico tries to pacify the people. “People, please speak to me. One at a time, please. It is no use talking all together. Please put up your hands and I shall answer all your questions one by one and please introduce yourself to the rest when you have an opportunity.”

Eventually, they calm down after a few tries by Nico. He points to a black man who sits with his family with the Bosch family. The man rises: “Nico, I am Doctor Khayalethu Siya and this is my family. Rene invited us. What strange spiders are you talking about and from where are they coming? How did you hear about them and who warned you?”

“Kadin, Billy and Michael please come forward and relate your stories to them.”

The three come forward and Nico whispers to them. “Tell them everything except about the fort. You can tell them the professor waited for you at the house where he was kept captive. They don’t need to know we are going to stay behind and not accompanying them to the farm, they will trust us less if they know.”

Kadin starts and after her Billy and Michael relate their experiences and how they met Nico and after that Nico continues and tells them everything the task team had found out about the occult. Also how they developed the viruses over years with the purpose to destroy the current civilization.

As soon as Kadin, Billy, and Michael sit down, many hands are in the air. Nico gives a corpulent man the floor and he rises slowly. “Hi, I am Oscar Brown, a colleague of Jack and he invited me and my family. I am sorry, but this thing sounds hopelessly too farfetched. I think you are watching too many thriller series like The Walking Dead and The 100.”

Nico answers: “Why don’t you wait a bit. These things are going to come down between eleven and one-o’-clock tonight and we will be able to see them through the windows.”

Oscar looks at his wristwatch. “It is already after twelve and nothing has happened. I’m sorry people, you must excuse us. I think someone is playing the fool with you. That’s it. We will talk again tomorrow. If it is true that this will happen all around the globe we will be informed by the international news coverage and we will then see if we are interested. But until then, I’m sorry, we are going to leave you. We have to rise early for church and it is late in the night.”

Doctor Khayalethu also rises: “Sorry, people, I agree with Oscar. We also must attend church early in the morning and it is late. Thanks for caring, but we’ll see over the news if something happened.”

He points to the outside. “It is already after midnight and nothing strange is happening outside and I’m sure nothing will happen. There are just too many things that don’t make sense. I am sorry.”

Tony, Billy’s squash captain now rises. “Why don’t you wait for at least another hour? These people are worried about your wellbeing. That is the only reason they have invited you.”

Ronald Chetty, sitting next to Michael, also rises and supports Tony. “This man is correct, people. Think about your families. Wait a while until one-o’-clock, and if nothing has happened, you may go.”

Oscar asks: “How do you plan to get everybody on the farm? How will we all live there?”

Nico explains: “Our plan is that we all club together and create a huge fund so that we can buy caravans, tents, trucks and everything we can gather and plan a thorough rescue operation together. The world is going to fall into chaos and no one will be safe. We want to establish a well-equipped community on the farm while we can and we have only time until this coming Friday.”

Oscar shakes his head and looks at Khayalethu for support. “You want us to put our hard-earned money casually into a fund and leave everything behind and flee the city because of this mad theory of yours!”

Nico shakes his head: “People, from Friday onwards everything will collapse and money will be worthless and there will be no law and order. We must all be at the farm by that time with as many provisions as possible to survive there. We are going to be threatened by highly infected people that might flee the city. We will have to keep them at a distance and put such people under quarantine until we are sure they are not affected. The world will be chaotic and survival will be difficult. No one will be safe against the many looters who want to take our provisions from us. There will be masses of monsters that want to hunt us down as soon as they discover us. We are going to hire many things and buy with loans and will achieve much more in this way because loans and rent won’t have to be repaid after Friday. We must gather as many supplies and weapons to survive all onslaughts.”

Oscar shakes his head: “And where is this farm? How are we going to know whether it is safe and what makes it different than the city? I think you are rather going to create problems for yourselves. Where are you going to get weapons? It seems to me you are planning illegal activities.”

Nico points at his friend Hunter sitting next to Francois. “Hunter, please come forward and tell these people about the farm you can arrange for us.”