In Shenzhen, on the other side of the world, where Santa's digital camera will probably be shooting photos later this December (when, or IF, the rescue team manages to reach the destination), there is another group that has just been put together in haste and that is likely to shoot much more penetrating things than just photos, and the target will be no more, no less, than Wolverine, one of the nine fine animals. This group of pursuers consists of the two policemen who have touched the beast's tail tip and have interviewed those who have seen the beast. In this group there are also two other units, first being a police intelligence unit to assist in finding the target and, last but not least, a police commando unit with a special training to deal with any hostile target.
The police patrol officers show the bulletin on Wolverine to the police intelligence unit. Monkey, the leader of the police intelligence unit, takes a quick look at the bulletin, then opens the back door to the police van and takes out a drone, a helicopter-looking object. There is an image of a dragon on the drone. Then he produces the remote control unit and starts the rotors.
One of the police patrol officers looks at the drone and asks,
'What's it called?'
This is called Dragon the drone, Dragon for short.
Then Monkey starts explaining to the police patrol unit what Dragon can do. He tells them about the flight range, flight altitude, and about the equipment it carries and how to use different features.
Who is your comrade?
This is Rooster, my right hand man. But let me continue,
'Dragon flies a bit higher carrying a thermo and motion detector. Dragon obtains surveillance feed through the detectors and sends it to the headquarters and to everyone in our team. Rooster comes into the picture because Dragon cannot go into any thickets but Rooster can. He flies short distances closer to the target guided by the surveillance feed that he sees on his virtual reality glasses and distracts the target from detecting the approaching commando unit. So he helps them take down the target by surprise, to strike entirely unnoticed at best.'
One of the police patrol officers feels something soft but at the same time sturdy and heavy sliding smoothly and silently against his back. He glances slightly to the right over his shoulder and sees first a huge paw as broad as his own head come out from behind his back, followed by an enormous striped body and then in a split of a second this gigantic animal leaps six metres effortlessly onto the spot right next to Monkey.
Both the officers freeze to their places. What they see and hear makes them paralyzed. To their great surprise, Monkey doesn't look petrified at all even though this enormous animal is ten times bigger than him.
-May I introduce my master commando Tiger.
-Ti.., ti.., tiger! stagger the officers and feel faint at the knees.
- 'No need to be afraid. You are not the target', says Monkey.
'Executes only the orders that the headquarters give to him.'
One of the officers mumbles silently to his patrol partner, 'Headquarters!'
-Does only the things they order him to do.
'That's...nice...to hear,... I think.' mumbles the police officer and wonders what kind of sympathy, if any at all, these headquarters possess towards any living being.
Then Monkey keeps on explaining the procedure of this task.
-...in this case, it goes as follows:
Dragon passes surveillance information to all of us, and
to the headquarters.
Then Rooster and Kunming approach the target.
-Kunming?
-Meet Kunming.
Kunming sprints quickly to Tiger, his superior, and stops by him. Kunming wags his tail excited, because he can't really wait to get down to the chase. Tiger gives him a sign and Kunming lies down immediately beside him, no questions asked.
-Wow, he is energetic.
Monkey lifts his arm as a reproach.
-Let me explain the procedure to the end, will you.
-Oh, sorry.
Monkey keeps on explaining,
- When they locate the target, they mark it.
-How do they mark it?
-When he has spotted the target and is very close to it, Rooster presses the location button
on his right ankle with any of his left claws.
-What if somebody shoots down Dragon?
-Stop speculating, right now! You are slowing down our well-oiled operational machinery and in the worst case the target may escape. Then you will be charged for preventing us from completing the task.
But since you asked, it is not easy for anybody to do that but on the off-chance this may happen we have the procedure, as follows:
If the wireless connection is disrupted, the only task for us to do is to complete the task, come what may, last man standing.
To be more specific,
Rooster flies back and forth to pass information about the location of the target to Tiger, the master commando.
Kunming approaches the target on the ground from his direction and further distracts the target by making fake attacks and signalling the location by barking.
Tiger approaches the target silently from another direction, attacks and eliminates it.
After a little pause Monkey continues,
'You two shut your mouths now and let me tell you again in a nutshell about
how we work together and what the chain of command is like.
First of all, the role of the headquarters is
to follow us
through the cameras on Dragon and
through the cameras on the goggles the rest of us wear
and
to interrupt us and to give us more orders if they consider it necessary.
But normally there is no need for them to interrupt.
They have given us very specific orders to complete the task,
which, in this case, is to destroy the target.
Second, I am responsible for leading the tracking here on the spot.
I obtain surveillance data through Dragon, pass that on to
Rooster, finder, locator and distractor, and
Kunming, finder and charger, and
Tiger, eliminator.
Last, what role you have here is to confirm us when we supply you with more surveillance feed that the target is the correct one.
If Dragon is out of operation, we'll show you the feed from our cameras or
in the worst case if they don't work either, we'll take you closer to the target and
you'll confirm the target is correct.
But now you just wait and see, and
ask no more questions!'
Shortie or Ccookie?
The Chinese Zodiac animals have an important role in matchmaking in China. Check their meaning in Ccookie 4.
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