“You'll see we're losing her too!” Timea said.
All three of them rushed back to the room. Inside, they found the same nurse, overseeing the changing of the bed sheets.
“I'm sorry I couldn't call you.” she said. “I don't know what to tell you. The patient had to be moved urgently to intensive care. She fell sick at the tomograph.”
Another nurse appeared and called her colleague to another room. The nurse stepped outside. Timea looked around her, but the medical record was not there. The bedside table was empty; there was nothing on the bed panel either; she also drew the louvers, but on the window sill there was nothing, except for a brick-red pot with a wilting bonsai tree. She rummaged through the drawers. She found the old lady's wallet and opened it. Inside, there was only a Greek ID card. She took a picture, as she could not understand the letters. She managed to put the wallet back right before the cardiologist with whom they had first spoken came in. He invited them to take a seat and told them that, despite all his efforts and those of his colleagues from the intensive care unit, the old lady's heart had stopped. The CPR manoeuvers had failed and they had been forced to declare her dead.
Ryan asked him in a low voice, hesitating, if he knew who would take care of the funerals. The cardiologist thanked them for their interest and assured them that everything was under control. They asked for details.
“When the lady was brought to us, the people from Trench Pioneer left us their contacts and asked us to invoice them. They are covering all the expenses for her hospitalisation. As far as I know, they asked to be informed about the patient's progress and they committed themselves to the funeral expenses if death occurred. Now please excuse me, I have to get back to work. I'm really sorry that you have travelled so much only to receive such sad news.”
”Now, do you believe me?” Timea asked. “Trench Pioneer is the main sponsor! They knew!”
When all three of them arrived at their hotel, they went up in the Dulays' apartment and leaned back in the armchairs. Timea spoke:
“Are we giving up? I think we should. We have no more ideas and no more leads. Furthermore, I'm afraid Ryan was right. If we keep insisting on this, we could be in danger.”
“We still have the journal...” Ryan whispered. “I wonder where it could be...”
“Marion told me that her parents had a summer house in Skiathos. Maybe the old archaeologist kept it there...” Ronnie said.
”Maybe...”
Timea looked at the picture she had taken with her phone at the hospital. The card within the picture had Greek and Latin letters. She used the internet to check and translate, hoping that she would find the address in Skiathos.
“We're in luck!” she said. “It seems the Karides family had double citizenship, and this is indeed a Greek ID card. I think it contains the address of the island property. Or at least, it looks this way...”
“Let's go there!” Ronnie said, getting up.
“How do we get in? Do we break down the door?” Ryan said.
“Well... I won't exclude this possibility...” the young man replied. “Would you look at that?!” he continued, as his phone rang. “What a strange coincidence! It’s the people from Trench Pioneer!”
Ronnie turned on the speaker. The sponsor's representative started talking: he was calling to inform them about the tragic death of Marion's mother. He asked them, with a kind voice, if he had visited her at the hospital, accompanied by the Dulays. He supposed it was because the hospital staff had told him that the old lady had been visited by three of her friends. So he had guessed that they could have been those friends. Meanwhile, Timea gestured towards her husband and whispered: “Like hell they guessed! They knew for sure! Most likely, they are watching us!” Then, the sponsor representative informed them that Trench Pioneer would handle the old lady's funeral, trying by this to pay their moral duty to the Karides family. “I sincerely doubt that your conscience rebukes you in any way!” Timea continued to whisper to Ryan. Her husband frowned and gesticulated with his palm towards her. The sponsor continued his discussion with Ronnie. Beside communicating the sad news, he also had a request. Trench Pioneer, together with various societies from the field of history and archaeology, wanted to organise a museum in honour of the Karides family. This museum was to present to the world the great scientific achievements of the father and daughter, but also less known aspects of the family life of the two archaeologists. That is why they wanted to ask the three people to make a trip to the house of the Karides family in Skiathos, and bring from there various personal items, notes, family pictures, and anything else they could find there and would consider suitable for a memorial museum. Obviously, the sponsor's representative explained further, the employees from Trench Pioneer would have done it themselves, if they had not been busy with what was going on. “All you have to do – the sponsor said – is meet one of us somewhere in Athens, so he can give you the address and the front door key, which our guys took when they transported Mrs Karides to the hospital. Thus they made sure that the old lady wouldn't be robbed during her absence, God forbid!” The sponsors had prepared some special mandates for them, as well, translated into Greek, for the unlikely situation that some zealous neighbour would call the police. “Of course” – he added – “all expenses will be fully covered by Trench Pioneer!”
”This is strange!” Timea said when the call ended. “Does that mean that I rummaged through her wallet for nothing? Do they deliver anything to us? Address, key, warrants, transport? Don't you see anything suspicious in this whole story? Do they really believe that we'll ever set foot in that house? By ourselves? Huh!”
“But what if it’s there? That journal Marion's mother kept talking about... That journal I think is our only hope...” Ryan said.
Timea looked at her husband. He sighed, then kicked a chair with his foot, making it fly through the room, hitting a table. The cups from it fell and white shards spread all over the floor. I know what you feel, my love... Timea thought. Your soul is ripped in pieces. You're angry because you don't have more power or influence, you feel guilty because you are tempted to consciously let the people die and you really fear for our lives. In such a short time, so many people have died around us. All these deaths seem to have reasonable causes. Even I, when I fell sick, was exhausted from the heat. So you probably believe that we let ourselves become paranoid and that there is actually no conspiracy. I wish I could make you trust my instincts!
She caressed him and asked:
“What are you thinking about?”
“Mm? Oh, nothing much... You know, I really have to trust your instincts more. You don't make many mistakes at all! I was thinking... what could have happened to you if you hadn't asked me to walk outside right away?”
Timea did not answer. Her eyes and her mouth were largely opened and she hit her forehand with her hand. How come I've missed that so far?
“Ronnie!” she said. “When you visited the Horse and you fell sick, how long did you stay there?”
“Where?”
“There! In that gallery, near the statue!”
“I didn’t stay long, because a friend kept calling and sending me messages... The other tourists were beginning to look at me in an annoyed fashion, and a guard pointed at the sign that banned the use of mobile phones at the exhibition. So I went out to talk to my friend. But then I fell sick and I don’t know how I got to the hospital...”
“But I thought that it was impossible to enter the gallery with a mobile phone!” Ryan said.
“I have an old model, with no camera! They allowed it.”
”Really?”
The two men started talking, but Timea remained silenced. She thought so many times about an exposure. I missed an essential aspect. Or I didn't have the time to think this through, because interruptions have always occurred. But it's so simple! She remembered some fundamentals. In every exposure to a toxic or infectious agent, an essential factor is the length of exposure. She and Ronnie had sta
yed for a short time in that hall, therefore they had had symptoms, but had managed to recover. What about Ryan? Ryan had also been exposed and for a short time as well, but he had had no symptoms. What made her husband resistant? Nothing crossed her mind. They were both myopic, but Ronnie didn't wear glasses. Ryan didn’t suffer from any disease. He didn’t possess any particular physical feature. All three of them were normal people.
Ryan opened his mouth to ask her what she was focusing on, but Ronnie intervened. The young man's opinion was that they should go to Skiathos.
“We can’t leave things like this!” Ronnie said. He kept talking about what finding that journal would mean. “It's an extraordinary opportunity! That journal contains essential clues, I know it! We may find the explanation of what's going on!”
“I strongly disagree!” Timea said. But how could she explain why? She lowered her chin, searching for synonyms of “conspiracy” and “trap”. Where could she find some trust again? How could she understand why people were left to die? Anger flooded her thoughts: I have no proof to back up what my instinct is telling me; I have no God damned solutions! The idea of giving up reappeared. It was appearing and disappearing like the light of a beacon. But what if that mysterious journal contains unknown information? She suggested that they should go to sleep, and the following day they would decide what they would do. Under no circumstances am I going to set foot in Skiathos, not to mention the house of the Karides family. What the hell! I escaped death once, I don't have even the slightest intention to search for it now, on purpose! On their way to the bedroom, she said to Ryan:
“I'm afraid we’re way out of our depth! Who are we to confront all this?”
“I know, we move around, finding nothing. No one listens to us!”
“Maybe it will be better to return to our lives and forget everything. But I believe I might have said that before, right? I also believe you won't give up, right?”
“No! At least not until I lose all hope, no matter how small!”
“You told Ronnie to stay here overnight, right?”
“Yes, he will sleep here, at the hotel and we will meet at breakfast. It's better to stay together. But now I don't want to think about anything. I just want to kiss you and make love to you!”
***
The next morning, Ronnie didn’t show up for breakfast. He was not in his room either. The backpack, never far from him, was gone too. The receptionist confirmed that he had left very early, in a cab to the airport. Timea called him. His phone was off. The hours began to pass by and Timea kept calling. Ronnie answered. He excused himself. He had decided to go to Skiathos. He had contacted the sponsors, who had quickly prepared everything he needed: a ticket for the first flight, a rented car, travel money. A representative from Trench Pioneer was waiting for him at the airport and gave him everything, including the key to the house of the Karides family. Ronnie apologised again to his friends for leaving like that, without notice; but as they had refused to go, he felt it was his duty to try. Stubborn young man! Timea thought. Ronnie was determined to find that journal; he was convinced that he would find it in the house on the island.
”OK, I see... I can't change your mind, even though I tried my best... Pfff... At least, try not to spend too much time there, and come back as soon as possible. Please, call us, so we know you're fine.” Timea said.
That evening, the young man had not called yet, nor answered the phone. The two spouses made a lot of calculations: sufficient time had passed. Ronnie should have already reached the holiday home three times and rummaged through it at least as many times. Ryan started searching for the phone number of police stations in Skiathos. It proved quite hard to find someone who spoke English; however after a few attempts, he succeeded to notify them that their friend could be in danger. He provided Ronnie's full name and the address that Timea had obtained. The following day, Ryan received two phone calls, one after the other. First, the police department from the island called. The cops had searched for the young man, especially because they had received a similar request from Trench Pioneer. Unfortunately – they said – the news could not have been worse. The young man had been found dead in the courtyard of the house. The presence of the Dulays was not required, because no indications of violent death had been discovered and the student was not carrying anything, except for a backpack with a few clothes, a history book and a few pictures of Marion Karides with her parents. He was carrying his ID card, so an identification procedure was not necessary, and the people from Trench Pioneer had already assured the authorities that they would take care of all formalities.
Timea and Ryan didn’t manage to say anything before the phone rang again. This time it was Gabriel from Trench Pioneer. “I really don't know how to express more deeply my regret for this new tragedy!” He told Ryan then that this unfortunate event had been impossible to foresee or prevent. The autopsy had shown that the young man had had a cerebral aneurysm, and a sudden death was for him just a question of when, although he had probably had no symptoms. Gabriel reiterated that the corporation would cover all the costs, even if it was getting more and more difficult to do so. They had already announced the Ulysses disaster, which had resulted in the share price going into free fall. Anyway, he continued, everyone hoped that, despite this avalanche of painful events, things would soon be back to normal.
After the call, Ryan and Timea remained silenced, looking at each other with bitter smiles. Normality? There could be no normality anymore. They needed no words: this time, they had to accept their helplessness. If they had continued to muddy the waters, even with the few resources they had, they would have faced the same fate as their friends.
”Maybe it's just a series of unfortunate events and the coincidence made things happen at certain times. But maybe it's not how we think. Maybe the explanations are the ones they presented to us.” Ryan said.
”I’m tired.” Timea answered. “I don't know where to look. I'm afraid of everything that is happening. But I will never accept all these... coincidences as they have been presented to us. Unfortunately, I don't have proof to back up what I believe.”
They paused for a while, then Timea spoke again:
“Did they say that the autopsy found a cerebral aneurysm? When have you heard of autopsy results being ready within a day?”
“Well, maybe it was considered an emergency. You know very well, if he had an aneurysm, that would be clearly seen during the autopsy.”
”I still believe something is wrong.”
“I feel the same. But I really don't know what to do anymore.”
They started reading the news. Indeed, Trench Pioneer had announced everything that had happened recently: the tragic loss of the submarine, together with Marion Karides and her team, and, shortly afterwards, the death of her mother and of Marion's assistant. Through countless press releases, the archaeology community had shown itself shaken by these misfortunes and everyone was supporting the main sponsor. Even though Trench Pioneer had accepted responsibility for the loss of the submarine, “most likely due to a technical error of the central system” - as Timea and Ryan read – all the press agreed that the sponsors had fulfilled their moral duty to properly honour the memory of the deceased. The news was spreading quickly on the internet. There were lively debates on the courageous, but - in the end - irresponsible act of Trench Pioneer: trusting a system exclusively controlled by artificial intelligence with human lives. Many voices had already stated that, no matter how advanced a cybernetic system was, it would never make decisions as a human being does. For a computer, everything was cold, objective and based on numbers. A person, even when the numbers were against him, would risk, would do crazy things, would hope until the last second. It might seem a chaotic attitude, in which the emotional component played the leading role, but this very attitude had changed the course of history so many times over centuries. The germs of the theory according to which humanity was not yet ready to be controlled by artificial intelligence systems,
had developed. Those who wrote books or made movies about a robot-controlled mankind and self-sustaining machines had been right. Even though history had not even slightly reached that age, the people were asking questions. There had been even more radical voices, which had stated that the tragedy of Ulysses and his crew, even so terrifying, had a good part, from which mankind should learn something. Maybe the time has come – many had written or said it online - for research on artificial intelligence to be set aside, and for mankind to try to evolve in other directions, while keeping control of people's lives in human hands. In a short time, what at first glance seemed just the beginning of a new perspective, had become a radical online movement, which demanded that the study and the efforts towards developing artificial intelligence be abandoned forever.
Timea started to pack their bags, gathering the things spread across their hotel room.
“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.
“I think it's time for us to go home. If we keep agitating everyone around us, something bad will happen to us. Anyway, I don't know what to do from now on. I will never set foot again in those places where our lives could be endangered. Let's hope that we'll be able to work for at least 25 years and then retire and enjoy our old age, crocheting, reading and sowing roses. Let's hope that maybe one day the truth will rise to the surface.”
Ryan nodded. The silence enveloped them and only the rustle of Ryan's cotton shirts, which Timea was packing, could be heard. Their phones beeped at the same time. Both of them checked their phones with automatic movements. After two minutes, Timea spoke first:
”What is this imbecility?”
“What did you get?”
The Trojan Horse Pandemic Page 8