“Well, we'll agree to disagree on that one” said Danny, “but these shadow figures, people, or whatever they are, why are they only protecting one person?”
“Well they could be protecting more than one, we don't know that it has to be one person, we just know for a fact that Monique wasn't being protected”
“Do they choose who to protect? Or are they told to protect someone?”
“Dan, I don't know, we're theorizing here, I only know what I just told you” Brandon replied. He couldn't provide any concrete answers, even these theoretical answers could be completely wrong; he had no answer sheet to check.
“Yeah, sorry” Danny said apologetically, he couldn't expect Brandon to have all the answers, especially with something as odd as this, “Of course, we're missing two other things here”
“Which are?”
Danny hesitated for one moment, neither point was a particularly satisfying outcome, but they were both possibilities.
“Well firstly, there's the chance that the ancient texts are incorrect and they don't protect people, they don't live in the line between the good and the bad, they are evil themselves and have been misunderstood”
“And?”
“The ancient texts are correct and they are here to try and protect us, but the evil it's encountering is too powerful and they can't do it”.
They were both very good points and Brandon had to admit that they were stabbing in the dark here. Either of them could be the reality of the situation, but he really hoped that they weren't.
SATURDAY - GINA’S APARTMENT
Gina awoke with a start. It was another night of disturbed sleep, and she had fleeting memories of strange nightmares where she was being chased by creatures from some kind of folk tale, at least that's how she could recall it. She had woken up numerous times in the night to find herself sweating, half-lucid, and certain that her dreams were spilling out into her bedroom. She had been having a few restless nights all of a sudden, which was very unlike her. She had mentioned it to her boyfriend, Tom, but he claimed to have not seen or felt her thrashing around like she thought she had been, and had never heard her cry out. Tom was a very deep sleeper though, so this didn't surprise her in the slightest. He could sleep sitting on the top of a jet engine and not be roused from his slumber.
She turned over to him and caressed his chest as he gradually started to stir, his eyes opening very slowly before smiling at her. Tom was the love of her life. She'd had many relationships in the past, but they'd never worked out, people just didn't quite get her, but Tom did. He was practically her polar opposite in most ways and you would never expect them to strike up a relationship like they had. He was a labourer on construction sites, not taking any direct responsibility himself, and that was the way he liked it. It kept his day simple, not exactly stress free, but he didn't have to carry his work home with him. Gina's profession was lost on him a little. He understood about robotics and he understood about engineering, but couldn't quite grasp what it was that Gina did when she told him all about her day. She talked about circuit boards and algorithms and things that sounded like she had just made the words up. All he had in his head were Terminator-like machines, and Gina was their creator. Of course, he knew this was nowhere near the truth, but it gave him an image he could understand in his mind and something interesting to tell his friends.
“Did you sleep okay?” Gina asked him.
“Yeah, like normal. Are you still having nightmares?”
She nodded.
“It's working with those Terminators” he laughed, “You do know they're going to take over the world if we're not careful”.
She had heard that argument many times, but there were lines of code programmed into them that should stop any android uprising, besides, that kind of autonomous functioning was still decades away and like most humans she had decided not to worry about it as it wasn't going to happen yet. They both got out of bed, slipped on their dressing gowns, had their usual morning cuddle and went down for breakfast. Gina had her daily bowl of healthy cereal while Tom tucked into fried eggs, fried tomatoes and something else fried that Gina couldn't quite distinguish. Their differences ran to almost every facet of their daily lives, but it kept every day and moment different. They hadn't planned what to do with the day yet, perhaps a walk in the park, maybe go and catch a movie. They discussed it as they sipped their orange juices, deciding that it looked like a nice day for a walk. The winds were light and the clouds were sparse, allowing the warming rays of the sun to filter down to the diverse carpet of flowers outside.
“I feel a bit better today” Gina said, “I think I've definitely been working too hard lately”
There was a reason why Tim brought up the Terminators giving her nightmares. He was joking, but there was a serious side to what he said. Gina had been mentioning the last few days that she was feeling weird, and was noticing people around her almost acting and looking robotic to her. She decided that she was so fixated on her job that it was starting to affect her in strange ways, which alarmed her. She knew she was working too hard, trying to be a perfectionist, and it was messing with her brain and she was unable to let the circuit boards and transistors go.
“A walk in the park will do you good, there won't be any robots there” Tom said chuckling to himself. He agreed she was taking her work too seriously and needed to have a step
