27 From Green to Red

27 From Green to Red 'I wish Rockwell were here to see this,' said Little- Bit as the rising surface of the multicoloured water twinkled in the morning sun. 'He would have loved it.' 'I know,' replied Peanut, sadly. 'I wish he were here too. He did so much to get us to this point, he really deserves to be witnessing this moment. She turned around to look behind her, half hoping to see Rockwell somewhere in the crowd. Instead, she saw a large group of very sweet cartoon animals, obviously visiting from the Cute Quarter. They were all holding cameras high in the air and desperately trying to take photographs of the marvellous scene playing out in front of them. A large-eyed, patterned

owl was fluttering just above the crowd, snapping away with camera after camera, each one being passed up by friends eager to secure a photo of this historical event. Behind the cute cartoon gang, several pointillism women wearing elegant bonnets were holding hands with men wearing towering top hats. They swayed in rhythm as they chanted along with the crowd. Right at the back was the impressive row of RAZERs, lined

up shoulder to shoulder and floating just above the ground. They were all identical except for their numbers, and each one was staring forward blankly, their eyes glowing bright green. Peanut let her gaze drift over to a class of rowdy comic- book schoolchildren. She was trying to read what was written in the voice bubbles above their heads, when something else caught her attention. The RAZERs' eyes all began switching from bright green to bright red, one after the other, in a kind of domino effect. Peanut followed this red wave as it made its way around the entire line of robots. ' Er, Little-Bit, look!' she shouted, struggling to make herself heard above the noise. She pulled off both her and her sister's ear defenders. ' LB! The RAZERs! Their eyes have all just changed from green to red!' 'So what?' replied Little-Bit. She was rather preoccupied with watching a ridiculously cute cartoon bushbaby trying to climb onto a cartoon red panda's shoulders. 'Didn't Rockwell say that's what happened with 67?' said Peanut. ' He told us their eyes flashed red. And, come to think of it, do you remember what happened when we were on Die Brücke with 72 that time? With all those RAZERs in the lookout towers? Their eyes went from green to red whenever we passed. Since then, I've always associated red RAZER eyes with bad news. I guess Rockwell did too! That's what he was trying to tell me!'

Don't worry, Peanut,' said Little-Bit. '67 is in charge of the RAZERs now. I'm sure everything will be fine.' 'It just seems a bit odd, that's all. Their eyes have been green up until now. Peanut looked back at the line of red-eyed robots. Suddenly, and almost as if on cue, they began to move forward as one, with perfect synchronicity. Within a few seconds, they were bumping into the backs of the women in the bonnets and the men in the top hats. They, in turn, were forced to move forward and bump into the cute cartoon animals. The animals then bumped into Peanut, Little-Bit and the Resistance operatives around them. Before long, everybody in the crowd was being forced forward by the red-eyed RAZERs. ' Uh-oh,' said Peanut as she shuffled towards the edge of the lake. 'I've got a bad feeling about this. I'm starting to think that I should have listened to Rockwell!'