Hedrick had been listening intently, leaning forward with his eyes fixed on the image of the blue planet. He turned to Amy, ‘What was so unbelievable about the drone data?’
‘The first problem I noticed was that the social development rules had been breached. There were multiple languages, multiple religions, multiple races, multiple virtually everything. The whole social structure was a complete mess; instead of being cohesive, it was producing competitive tribes. The breakthrough was when Daniel and Mohammed came up with a scheme to recover the planet’s history.’ Amy paused, ‘At this point, I was going to ask Daniel to explain the process but, as he is not here, I will ask Technician Mohammed, to speak on his behalf.
Mo shuffled out of his seat, cursing under his breath as he took the remote control from Amy. He stood with his back to the meeting and started mumbling inaudibly as page after page of tabulated figures and coding flashed up on the whiteboard. ‘Technician Mohammed!’ Hedrick snapped, ‘Perhaps you could face the meeting and speak up, and please remember that not all of us are technicians.’
Mo turned to face the table, his head bowed, his tail curled between his legs as he continued to mumble. Hedrick interrupted again, this time clearly irritated, ‘Technician Mohammed! You really will have to speak-’
Amy interrupted, ‘Director, maybe it would help if I asked Technician Mohammed specific questions?’
‘Maybe it would,’ Hedrick snapped.
She stood up and turned to face Mohammed. ‘Mo, do you remember when Daniel, Penny and I came to your laboratory?’
‘Yep’
‘You showed us a printout of the drone data you had downloaded. Can you tell us about it?’
‘It contained stuff about the planet.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘Planet stuff.’
Amy could see that Hedrick was about to explode with frustration so she held him off with a raised eyebrow. The presentation had turned into a court-room drama, with Mo playing the uncooperative defendant and Amy acting the part of his advocate, in front of judge Hedrick and the jury. ‘Now Mo, and this is very important, I want you to tell us exactly what this stuff revealed about the planet.’
Mo lifted his eyes slowly from the meeting room floor, glanced at Amy and started to speak, ‘The download from the drone’s memory was very raw, impossible to understand, so I had to write some code to crunch it down into a form that could be read.’
‘And what did that reveal?’
‘What you just said, the drone had recorded multiple insertions. Instead of only a single language or religion, hundreds had been inserted. Now he was speaking technical, Mo was beginning to loosen up, his voice becoming more confident, and he even managed the occasional glance at the others around the table.
‘So presumably this drone was faulty?’
‘Possibly-’
‘No! That’s not right.’ Jessian shouted.
Amy held up her hand to stop the interruption, ‘Sorry, Mo, please carry on.’
‘Daniel asked me to analyse the data that night, so I took the memory cartridge home and worked on it there.’
‘What were you trying to find?’
‘I was trying to produce a timeline of the planet's development.’
‘And did you manage to do that?’
‘Indirectly. I found an array of servers which had the tag Google - these held virtually all of the planet’s history and data.’
Amy let Mohammed describe how he had decrypted the drone data to create a map giving the position of every atom in the Google server array. From this he had been able to rebuild the server structure and access the planet’s history. She could see Hedrick was starting to shift in his seat, so she moved Mo’s explanation along, ‘Mo, what did you find in this Google database?’
‘Well, it was obvious they’d seen our planetary drones. They call them UFOs, Unidentified Flying Objects. There are thousands of entries about them.’
‘By they, you mean the planet’s intelligent life?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shouldn’t the insertion drones be invisible?’
‘I suppose, it's not my speciality.’
Amy looked through the papers in front of her, and pulled out a specific sheet. ‘Mo, I’ve got an image here that you printed out for me. Can you display it on the whiteboard?’ Mo clicked another button on the remote and a crude image of a very familiar face appeared on the whiteboard. Hedrick’s eyes snapped to Amy and he mouthed the word Anubis at her. She acknowledged him with the slightest of nods, then continued to question Mohammed. 'Mo, how did you find this image of Deputy Director Anubis 45837?’
‘It was an accident really, I just typed in the name Anubis.'
'Why Anubis?'
'It wasn’t just Anubis, I was searching for anyone who had worked on drone software.'
'This image looks like a painting. Where was it located?'
‘It’s a wall painting from inside the burial chamber of a pharaoh, that’s a sort of director. According to the Metadata, the location was a town called Egypt. I think the local time reference was about 1320 BC.’
'So Deputy Director Anubis has been to this planet?’
'How else would his image get there? There are thousands of references to him in the Google database and hundreds of museums on the planet have images and statues of him. They think he is from On-High.' Mo realized what he had said and looked warily towards the end of the table to see if the silhouette reacted, but it remained silent and motionless.
Amy turned to Hedrick, 'Director, I would like Technician Jessian to explain to the meeting how the drone firmware was deliberately sabotaged.'
Haamiah spoke before Hedrick could reply, 'Director, we have conferred with Those-On-High and it is clear to us that the corruption of this blue planet was intentional. The question is, what is to be done about it? As the angel spoke, the image of Anubis was replaced by Earth slowly spinning in Space. ‘If we do nothing, the contamination will spread to other galaxies, compromising the production of Dark Matter. The angel Abraxas informs us that Anubis and his accomplices have returned to this blue planet with the technician, Daniel. If we extract this universe immediately… all our problems will be resolved.
For a moment Amy was speechless, staring open mouthed at Hedrick in disbelief. Then she stepped forward to confront the angel, ‘NO!, ‘You can’t do this… you can’t kill Daniel!'
Haamiah turned to face her, 'Miss Amy, your own presentation confirmed that Anubis is the source of the problem. If we allow him to develop temporal technology on this blue planet, then the whole galaxy could be contaminated. As Director Hedrick told us, he has attempted this in the past, the contagion spreading through whole universes, rendering them useless. No! The logical solution is to extract the planet now… without delay.’
'But, Daniel is totally innocent!' Amy pleaded.
Haamiah's enigmatic gaze turned into a frown and she started to expand her presence. Hedrick quickly stepped forward, putting himself between Amy and the agitated angel. 'Haamiah, Amy is not criticizing your decision. We all realize this universe has to be extracted.'
'NO!' Amy screamed again, trying to fight her way around Hedrick to confront the angel.
Hedrick pushed her to the floor and shouted into her face, 'Amy! Leave this to me!' He turned back to face Haamiah, 'We all agree that this universe has to be extracted but Daniel has unique, first-hand experience of the blue planet’s problem. He can provide crucial information to the drone technicians who can quickly resolve the problem and, using his input, we can write new auditing procedures that will prevent this from ever happening again. If you extract the universe, Daniel and this vital information will all be lost.'
'Director Hedrick, this is very tiresome. The angel Rampel has already agreed with the Prima-Ghosta how we are to proceed.'
'But, Haamiah, with these new auditing procedures that will not be necessary - those ghosts will be free to work on more productive activities.'
Rampel's presence started to grow, his face frowning at Hedrick, 'This is ridiculous! There is no debate! Just extract the universe and be done with it.'
Everyone’s eyes were on Haamiah who was staring at the silhouette sitting at the end of the table. Hedrick realized she was receiving new instructions. Then her enigmatic smile returned and she spoke, 'Director Hedrick, we have great respect for your opinion and so we are going to allow you twenty-four hours to recover the technician, Daniel but, come what may, this universe will then be extracted. Do we make ourselves clear?'
'Of course, Haamiah. The universe will be extracted by this time tomorrow.' As Haamiah turned to discuss the outcome of the meeting with her colleagues, the presence from On-High vanished, as did the poltergeist. Without further discussion the angels drifted from the meeting room in single file, followed at a respectful distance by the ghosts. As Haamiah passed through the door her voice filled the room, 'Creation has been released from lockdown.'
Amy leant on the table, her face buried in her hands. Penny sat with her arm around her shoulders, trying to console her. Mo, Jessian, Ravi and Director Hedrick were all staring into space, trying to come to terms with the outcome of the meeting. Eventually Hedrick spoke, 'What I do not understand is how Anubis managed to take Daniel out of Creation. It is impossible for us to leave this dimension. It is a fundamental rule.'
Jessian looked furtively at Mo and said, 'That's not strictly true, Director.'
Hedrick looked across the table at her, 'What is not strictly true?'
'That we cannot leave Creation.'
'Miss Jessian, you may be a technician, but do not try and tell me about the Rules of Creation. I have been auditing them since before you emerged.'
Mo started to explain, 'We’ve been undertaking some research, Director, looking into the possibility of inter-dimensional travel.'
'Rubbish!’ Hedrick barked, irritated at the thought of such an activity occurring without his knowledge, ‘I know every research programme that is being undertaken and nothing has been authorised that includes inter-dimensional travel.'
'This isn’t exactly an official programme, Director,’ Jessian said, taking over the explanation. 'A few engineers came up with a theory that inter-dimensional travel might be possible and have been experimenting in their spare time.'
'Spare time! What spare time? What experiments? Where did the allocation come from? And what project codes are the hours being booked against?' Hedrick's irritation had escalated.
Jessian was visibly shaken by the response so, Mo took over the explanation. 'We used our own time, Director. We begged and borrowed equipment and materials, most of which was just junk. The drone we used was one of the first prototypes. It was going to be scrapped anyway.'
'DRONE! You used a drone! Do you know what the book value of a drone is?' Hedrick was frantically making notes on his audit pad, convinced his retirement key was about to downgrade to copper.
In a moment of epiphany Amy sat bolt upright and, wiping the tears from her face, exclaimed, 'Director, if Anubis has taken Daniel to the blue planet, then we can use the same technology to get him back!' She turned to Mohammed and Jessian, 'Is it possible?'
'Could be… but to do it, we need to know exactly where they are,' Mo said.'
Jessian jumped up, pushing over her chair and, without saying a word, ran out of the meeting room. Nothing was said as everybody strained to hear the telephone conversation she was having at Penny's desk. After a couple of minutes she returned with a smile on her face, 'I managed to catch Usha before she left.'
'Who's Usha? Does she work at PI?' Penny said.
'Usha’s a planetary drone. She was due to be launched this afternoon, but I've just spoken to the launch pad coordinator and she's going to stall the launch for half an hour so we can put their parameters into the scanner utility. We’ll find out exactly where Daniel is when Usha returns, in about two hours.'
While Jessian had been out of the meeting room, Hedrick had been mulling over the situation. He really had no alternative but to go along with the rescue plan. The damage had already been done. The only way he was going to get his diamond key back was to ensure that this fiasco had a successful outcome. 'Technician Mohammed, is it really going to be possible to recover Daniel using a drone?’
Mo stood up and started to leave the meeting room, 'By the time Usha returns, I'll have an answer for you, Director.' Jessian quickly picked up her papers and followed him out of the room.
'This is all your fault,' Penny said to Ravi, jabbing him in the shoulder.
'My fault! You try being possessed by a psychopathic poltergeist and then see whose fault you think it is.'
'None of us could have foreseen this, Penny,’ Hedrick said. ‘If anyone is to blame it has to be me. After all, it is my department which should be auditing to expose exactly this sort of situation.’
Amy interrupted, 'Director, we've got less than twenty-four hours. Shouldn't we be doing something?'
'For the moment we just have to wait for Usha to return. Without Daniel’s location we can do nothing.'
'What can I do to help?' Penny said.
'Make some coffee!' Amy and Ravi sang out.
‘That sounds like an excellent idea, I would like one too, please, Penny,’ Hedrick said, as he left the meeting room.
Hedrick closed his office door and slumped back into his chair, eyes closed. While he waited for Penny to arrive with his coffee and biscuits, he let the silence massage his brain. His mind began to wander, replacing Amy’s face with that of his deceased daughter’s as he replayed the presentation. Oh, Amy… it had taken years to accept Miah’s tragic death, but now, every time he looked into Amy’s eyes, she came back to haunt him. He shook his head clear, blew out a sigh and opened his eyes. Haamiah was floating in front of his desk.
‘What now?’ Hedrick snapped.
‘There is something we should have told you, Director.’
‘We agreed on twenty four hours, Haamiah. And twenty four hours it will be!’
‘That is not in dispute… this matter is slightly more sensitive.’
‘Carry on.’
‘Anubis.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well…’
‘Come on Haamiah. It has been a long day… just tell me.’
‘He has a background you are unaware of.’
‘What sort of background?’
‘Anubis was once… an angel.’
‘What!’
‘His true name is Lucifer.’
‘Well, what in Creation is he doing here?’
‘Punishment. Following the rebellion-’
Hedrick interrupted, ‘What rebellion?’
‘Heaven is in turmoil, Director. The Creation project has been extremely divisive. So many entities losing their purpose, terrified for their very existence. A rebellion was inevitable and when it came, I was not surprised that Lucifer was behind it. He was always a nonconformist, seeking power. I tried to warn Those-on-High but they were blind to his treachery and could not see the mutiny coming. The poltergeists rose first, followed by over two hundred packs of angels led by Lucifer. But the battle was short-lived and Those-on-High prevailed. Twenty thousand angels were condemned to Purgatory and the poltergeists were banished back to Geistora.’
‘But why was Anub… Lucifer not condemned to Purgatory with the others?’
‘Because Those-on-High feared that he would become a martyr, fuelling his followers to rise and rebel again. So they sentenced him to eternal servitude, locked inside the body of a creationist.
‘Locked inside the body of a creationist who was to become my successor! Couldn’t they see it would end in disaster?’
‘The purpose was to demonstrate to all angels that the Powers-to-Be are almighty. But when Lucifer heard his fate, he pleaded to be implanted in the body of a technician, promising to create a portal that would allow Those-on-High to covertly monitor Creation without the need of poltergeists or angels. In spite o
f my council, they took the bait, and Lucifer was implanted in Anubis’ essence.
‘So when did all this happen?’
‘During his last year at the Academy.’
‘I should have been told!’ Hedrick said, slapping the top of his desk with his open hand.
‘Those-on-High could not reveal their vulnerability, especially to a creationist.’
‘Why? Did they think I might rise up as well,’ Hedrick said, half laughing.
‘Do not underestimate Creation’s importance. Soon the production of Dark Matter will be handed over to creationist technicians using mechanical drones that even the angels do not understand.’
‘I take it there is something about Dark Matter I am unaware of?’
Haamiah sighed, ‘You ask a lot of me, Director.’
‘You are asking a lot of me, Haamiah.’
The angel paused, a frown carved into her face. Hedrick was about to speak when he realised she was taking council. He held back. Suddenly her expression changed, she was more relaxed but still displaying an element of unease, ‘The true purpose of Dark Matter is to… to provide sustenance for Those-on-High.’
Creation- The Auditor’s Apprentice Page 15