The Man between my crosshairs (girl X assassin)

Chapter 13/The Walking City

A/N Video - Walking City designed in the 1960's. Photo asassin chic for all you party/convention goers out there. 

It took them well over an hour to approach the city. From the space port.

At first Zoe thought they were approaching a massive brown multi-legged oil slick. When they got closer she realised they were approaching a huge migrating flock of bison.

"What are they?" Said Zoe "did someone's rug fall off and it evolved by it's self?"

"Them ? " Cathy said " That's what we call the beans heard. It's unmanaged, which means no one owns it. I can remember when it was legal enough to shoot them. The problem was if you shop one from a distance the others would just keep on eating grass. They would only move on if a predator approached. It was far too easy. People would take potshots from their cars, and sometimes even from the city if they got close. That was like 80 years ago, no one does that any more. I remember going to a shooting picnic when I was younger. " said Cathy.

"So how do they get around the planet?" Asked Zoe.

"They walk. They are in permanent migration. They spend a few days grazing grass, then they walk a bit to new grass. The planet only turns at about three miles per hour. "

"What happens if they stop walking" said Zoe. She paid more attention to Cathy. No wedding ring, no mark on her finger.

"If they stop moving they die" said Cathy.

Zoe's glasses had some tech in to analyse Cathy. Zoe could see some of her vital signs. Cathy had tensed at the statement of death. The hit instructions were simple, quick and clean. The kind of instructions someone gave as a curtesy to someone who must die. Mother had speculated the hit had come from someone within Harry's company. Now she realised it could be from within his own family. Did Cathy want her father dead?

Technically an assassin wouldn't know who ordered the hit. This separated the killer and contractor. The contractor wouldn't know the assassin was there either. If Zoe was caught she wouldn't have anything to identify the contractor. How ever this was a business. If a contractor liked you they would use you again, so not taking out the contractor by accident was a good way to do business.

Cathy had been driving diagonally and soon they were near the back of 'The bean heard'. Cathy stopped talking as she tried to concentrate on avoiding hitting the larger cowpats left behind. It didn't take long for the smell of the flock to hit them. The flatulence of nearly 1,000,000 bison entered into the car.

"Ahr that's bad" said Zoe holding her nose. "That's worse than Donald Trump's underpants."

"Yeah thats why its' called the bean's heard. It's particularly bad today. They think it's because they eat the city's rubbish sometimes." Said Cathy turning the air conditioning on.

"They say your a native of Archigram if you were born and could smell the bean heard." Said Cathy.

"So are you a native?" Said Zoe.

" I can't smell the bean heard any more." said Cathy smiling.

As they got closer to the city, they passed trucks, RV's, caravans and cars crawling at a fast walking pace moving parallel to the city. As they got closer again Zoe started to get an idea of how huge these buildings were. Imagine an office building onit's side. These vehicles were huge, bigger than ships. Most of them used tank tracks or legs. The wheels in the tracks were bigger than the size of a house. Compared to them everything was tiny. Huge metal caterpillar, monster

"You make these?" Said Zoe in amazement.

"My father and mother began making these for over 700 years ago. Each segment ways over 32,000 metric tons. They are joined up at the front and the back to other segments. Archigram being the sector Capital is the biggest at over 52 miles long. It's flanked on either side by daughter cities. Do you see that one over there."Said Cathy pointing two a second walking city.