Ntshona by Matthew A Robinson Page B

weapons he had left on the back seat, “what should I do with them?”
    “You’ll have to put them straight into my car, the doors aren’t locked. I’ll go pay while you do it,” said Cat.
    “Okay,” he said, and walked over to join Tan at his car, as did Eve. He opened the front door first and picked up the pistol that Eve had left there, then he opened the back door and leant in to grab the other pistol, “Eve, can you please grab these for me?”
    She initially felt uneasy as she complied with his request; never had she even touched a real gun before that morning, yet now she was holding two. She examined them. These two relatively small pieces of longstanding technology felt like they could offer her a large amount of protection. She gave the handles a squeeze. Although not particularly lightweight, they felt as though they had been crafted for her hands. She became a little less ill-at-ease handling them as she imagined how much less useless they could help her to be.
    “You look kinda cool with those,” said Lon, holding the baton and machine gun.
    Her cheeks turned slightly red. “I don’t like weapons,” she quickly retorted.
    “I don’t like guns, but today those pistols really helped”.
    “But we wouldn’t have needed them if the police didn’t have guns either,” she said.
    “You’ve got a point,” agreed Lon.
    They carried the weapons to Cat’s car, which was parked close to where Tan had parked his, trying not to make obvious the fact that they were in their possession to the people inside the diner.
    Lon opened one of the back doors and put the weapons on the seat.
    “I’ll be off then,” said Tan as he stood by the driver’s side door of his own car.
    “Thanks for helping us Tan,” said Lon.
    “No worries. Let’s just hope we can get somewhere with this. I’ll see you soon,” he climbed into his seat and closed the door.
    Within seconds the car was silently reversing out of the small car park and onto the road, facing the direction of the city centre.
    Cat returned from inside the diner and requested that Lon and Eve get in the car, which all three of them did, again with Eve in the front passenger seat and Lon in the back.
    “Cat,” said Lon, “where are we going now?”
    “Somewhere safe,” she said while she started to drive the car out of the parking area.
    “Where is it?” asked Eve.
    “South,” said Cat.
    She certainly was not being generous with the details.
    They were on the road and began travelling southwards on a highway surrounded by wispy clouds.
    Although Cat was generally very laid back, Lon and Eve found it difficult to strike up a conversation with her. Instead, they both took the opportunity to snooze.
     
    By the time Lon awoke, the group were travelling through another highly urbanised area to the south of the city centre. Here most of the structures did not rise far above the roads and streets, forming the illusion of being close to ground level.
    He looked at the time display on the window to his left. It was going on 3pm. less than twenty-four hours ago he and Eve were still with their three friends. He thought about what could be happening to Andres, Alta and Marcus. Were they prisoners of some sort? They must still have been alive, what use was it to abduct people in secret just to kill them? He was convinced by now that the government or police were closely involved, and the notion of terrorists had become somewhat childish to him.
    This district was very different, almost like a smaller city within the main one. There was certainly the population for it, yet it was substantially lower than the city centre in which Lon and Eve lived. The most notable differences here were the tops of natural peaks forming part of the background for the comparatively short man-made structures, and the evidently greater focus on aesthetics; more artificial nature, parks, ponds and lakes, as well as the visual aspects of the shorter edifices. This place was much