The Advent Of Smouse - Chapter 8 - Under Surveillance

Estelle continues with Chapter 8 of her intriguing story, The Advent of Smouse, a story, half-fantasy, half-reality, that uses non-violence as the solution. In this chapter, 'Under Surveillance,' Smouse and Mentr, follow Peri and X to school to discover more about them before bringing together the chldren of both families to consider the possibilities. Within the drama are subtle key guidelines to living a harmonious life.

Transcript

Welcome again,

We're back in time for chapter eight of the Advent of Smouse,

Under Surveillance.

Smouse and Mentor arrive early at the Black's house before Perry and Ex leave for school.

As they wait hidden in the garden,

They spot the cat,

Scat.

It's stalking a bird.

Smouse sends a warning vibration and the bird flies off.

Scat turns in fury to find the cause.

She can see nothing but she senses their presence.

She arches her back and spits and hisses.

Smouse is at a loss as to how to pacify her.

He knows aggression is never a solution.

Mentor also studies Scat.

She's bad tempered and easily upset,

But she obviously takes a pride in her appearance.

Her fur is sleek and thick and her eyes clear and a brilliant green.

Warning Smouse to stay concealed,

Mentor reveals herself.

Given her back by the sudden appearance of a dog,

Scat tenses,

But before she can attack,

Mentor greets her with a smile and compliments her on her appearance.

She describes how she's noticed that the cat always looks so beautiful,

So groomed,

And wonders how she manages to look so good.

Scat is totally thrown by this approach.

She relaxes,

Settles back,

And outlines her daily routine.

While she's on a roll,

Mentor asks about the family and the garden.

Scat is so pleased by Mentor's interest that she forgets to be mean.

Mentor introduces herself.

The cat reciprocates.

Suddenly Scat tenses as a voice calls her name.

It's X.

He appears before Mentor can blend into the surrounds.

X is surprised to see the strange pink dog,

Especially as Scat seems to have made friends with it.

He suddenly recalls Perry's morning encounter from the previous day.

The pink dog with the black spots.

He laughs out loud.

You're real.

Mentor mows his over to him.

X is intrigued.

He's never seen Scat except a dog,

Not even Raz next door who is eager to be friendly.

He's actually never seen a pink dog with black spots before.

From his hiding place,

Smouse communicates telepathically with him and introduces Mentor.

X is puzzled and looks around for the voice,

But it seems to be inside his head.

He examines Mentor and mutters to himself about dogs can't talk.

Despite this,

He automatically replies and says his name is Dane,

But everyone calls him X because when he first went to school,

He signed his name with an X.

He bends down an affectionately pat Scat who is weaving her way between his legs.

Without thinking,

He asks Mentor where she's from.

If she's a stray,

Is she lost?

How'd she get into their garden?

Smouse remembering that humans and their animals can't communicate with each other as they can on Imperium,

Stays silent.

As X continues to talk half to himself and half to the animals,

He sits with them,

Stroking them gently.

The moment is broken by Perry calling harshly from the house,

Demanding whether or not he's ready for school.

Scat darts up the nearest tree.

X stands up immediately.

Sorry guys,

I've got to go.

She's in a foul mood today.

Frantic about not being able to find something.

Mum was on about the same thing.

Smouse and Mentor exchanged the same mental thought.

They were missed.

X grabs his mountain bike,

Bag and helmet and hastily joins his sister.

Smouse and Mentor melt into the surrounds and follow them as they wheel their bikes through the garden.

As she makes several derogatory remarks about his state of mind,

He scowls and decides not to tell her about the pink dock.

He swats her on the arm and ducks as she retaliates with a fierce punch.

As they open the front gate,

Perry has the feeling that they're being followed.

She keeps turning around.

X turns to look too.

They sense shadows behind them but see nothing.

Once they're on the footpath,

Perry mounts her bike and rapidly takes off across the beach road.

Irate motorists blast their horns at them,

But she laughs and gives finger signs as she weaves in and out of the traffic.

X shakes his head with a sigh of exasperation and takes off in pursuit.

Smouse and Mentor let them go.

Smouse tracks their frequencies so that they can follow their route and transport themselves to their destination.

Perry and X's destination is a school.

Smouse and Mentor soon track them.

They pick up their trail just as the duo arrives.

Perry still cranky hurtles into the school ground,

Ignoring a teacher's request to dismount.

She skids into the bike enclosure and drops her bike on the ground before darting away.

X calmly follows her and locks both their bikes into the bike rack.

Once they're at school,

The siblings separate.

Perry is in the junior school,

While X is a senior.

Smouse follows Perry and Mentor shadows X.

They spend the day at school studying the children's behaviour in the classrooms and in the school ground.

Perry seems to be the leader of a group of girls.

During the recesses,

They appear to be embroiled in an ongoing dispute with an older group of girls over who has the right to sit where.

X and his friends spend their free time on the oval,

Playing football.

Perry's last lesson is in the computer lab.

Smouse asks Mentor to join him.

At first,

The computers work well.

Perry is obviously one of the experts,

As the computer teacher often defers to her.

She is ungracious in her responses and ridicules those who are having difficulty.

Members of her group support her and others laugh with them.

Suddenly several of the computers start to fade and a jagged red line appears across the screens.

The students start to harass their teacher.

He is bamboozled.

He asks if anyone has downloaded an illegal program,

A virus or malware.

The children vehemently deny it.

As one,

They turn to Perry,

Whom they know has previously,

Against the rules,

Loaded new games onto the computers.

They expect her to behave arrogantly,

As usual,

But Perry is stunned by the sight of a familiar red image on her screen.

Smouse and Mentor carefully study the children and their computers.

Some of the computers are new and carry the black Diablo logo.

These are the ones that have died.

Mentor sends a strong message of sympathy to the teacher and smouts an urgent request to Perry that she apologizes for her behavior.

Perry stiffens.

Apologize?

Never.

She fights a battle between herself and Smouse.

Their opposing attitudes ring in her head,

One harsh,

One loving.

Before she can stop herself,

She admits that against the rules,

She was sending silly devil messages to her friends who had the new computers,

And then she blurts out an apology to her teacher and the class.

The red lines gyrate angrily and then gradually fade,

And the computers slowly regain their power.

The class and teacher look at Perry in surprise.

They can't remember her admitting guilt before,

Let alone apologizing.

Smile.

The voice in her head persists.

Smile.

Perry smiles.

The class and the teacher are so surprised by her response,

They smile back.

The bell rings to signal the end of the session.

Perry hurries off quickly before anyone can question her out of character behavior.

She tells herself that she must be getting an illness or something.

Class and mentor smile.

By the time X catches up with Perry,

They are almost home,

And he has heard about her behavior.

He starts to rib her when he senses a pink and black spotted image out of the corner of his eye.

He stops and spins around.

Mentor stands several meters behind him.

Is she smiling?

Perry turns to see what has caught X's attention.

She just catches a blur of pink.

X stands wide mouthed in amazement.

The dog has vanished.

She's gone,

He exclaims.

Perry taps her head significantly and opens their gate.

There in front of them stands Mentor.

Mentor smiles and says hello.

Both children look about them for the voice.

They look at each other for confirmation and then back at Mentor.

She smiles.

Again the voice tells them to put their bikes away and they'll meet them inside.

They?

It's too much for Perry and X to comprehend,

And they do as Mentor suggests.

No sooner have they let themselves in than there is a knock at the front door.

Still in a daze,

Perry opens it to find Tamari,

Bubbles and Sam with Raz.

Sam who is the same age as Perry but much slighter is carrying a black Diablo computer in his arms.

Tamari smiles and said they've come to return one of the computers that she and her father took home from the warehouse.

She explains that they managed to fix the others but this one wasn't responding.

But now it seems okay.

Perry tries to focus and reaches for the computer but before she can take it from Sam,

Their dog Raz pushes past them and disappears into the black's house.

Sam and Tamari urgently call him back.

Concerned that he might damage something,

Perry hastily puts the computer down and hurries after him.

The sight that greets her in the family room is beyond all comprehension.

X and the pink and black spotted dog and Raz are facing each other.

X and Mentor are smiling and Raz is frantically wagging his tail.

Between them is Smouse.

Perry stops dead in her tracks and Bubbles who has followed cannons into her legs.

She gives a squeal of delight.

Smouse!

Unable to contain herself,

She pushes past Perry into the family room and scoops him up in her arms.

She sits cross-legged on the floor between X and Mentor and Raz.

Perry steps into the room,

Tamari and Sam crowd in behind her.

All three are speechless.

Smouse settles comfortably in Bubbles' lap.

Mentor and Raz sit on either side of her.

The four teenagers stand frozen like statues.

As Smouse opens his arms wide and smiles broadly,

They hear a soft hum in their heads and then an engaging voice invites them to sit down.

Hypnotized,

They do as it suggests.

The voice flows through their heads as Smouse speaks.

Smouse keeps the story simple.

He gives a brief history of the demise of their solar system until only two planets,

Their home,

Imperium and Madrog's Tataris remain.

He explains how Madrog gained power by spreading fear and greed through corruption and disruption until the other seven planets destroyed themselves.

And how they are committed to keeping the universe,

Which includes Earth,

Safe from him.

The intergalactic communication network is essential for the protection of the universe.

Without it they have no voice,

No power to keep the balance.

It's vital to keep the channels open.

Madrog is drawing power from the black computers.

This energy drain is interfering with their intergalactic communication network.

How does he use the power from the computer?

The question comes from Sam.

Mentor turns towards him and answers.

Everything Sam is made up of some form of energy.

There is positive and negative energy.

Positive energy has a purpose,

But if it overruns the positive energy,

It can become highly destructive.

Madrog gathers the negative energy and condenses it into a powerful entity.

He then releases it like a virus.

It spreads more easily than positive energy,

Creating fear,

Greed,

Distrust and disharmony.

As it spreads,

It grows and consumes.

Then it destroys by self-destruction.

The group is aphonic,

So Smaus continues.

He recounts their progress so far.

The group is confounded as he describes the extent of the problem and the strange variables creating it,

How certain computers are and aren't affected.

He finishes with the problems encountered in Perry's computer class.

After he has finished his story,

They remain silent.

Bloody Sam again breaks the trance and finds his voice.

He asks if they have solved the mystery of it affecting some computers and not others.

Smaus and Mentor consult.

Mentor nods.

Smaus suggests that perhaps they could have something to eat and drink.

Mentor would love some H2O and if possible,

He'd like some crunchy peanut butter and whiskey.

Perry jolts out of her catalepsy at the mention of peanut butter and whiskey.

Her eyes widen and she fixes her gaze on Smaus.

She mouths the words.

It was you.

Dad reckons more was missing this morning and the peanut butter jar was open on the bench.

Smaus gives a start.

It wasn't a dream.

He has the grace to look guilty and apologetic.

X responds quickly.

Citing a smile,

He asks Smaus how he'd like the whiskey and peanut butter.

He hears the answer in his head.

The others ask for juice and biscuits.

Tamari offers to help him.

And here is the end of Chapter 8.

I hope to see you back for Chapter 9.

Reviews

This is one of my favorite chapters so far. I am loving this fun story.