Legacy of Seconds

by Edge O. Erin

  “It’s all right, Lester, relax.”

  Lester composed himself and tilted his head slightly towards the security camera in the ceiling.

  Despite being eccentric and shy, Lester was perceptive.

  Had he also discovered an issue with Mary?

  Jon typed in a code and simultaneously uttered a few voice commands.

  “Recordings disabled; we’ve five minutes before reset.”

  “How did you?” Lester inquired.

  He waved off the question.

  “Proceed, Lester.”

  “Daco, it’s Mary, I mean M503. I’m worried about her status.”

  “What do you specifically find worrisome?”

  Lester looked puzzled and slightly embarrassed.

  “It’s rather nuanced, maybe it’s nothing… perhaps I should return when I’m more certain.”

  “Lester,” he raised his voice slightly, then relaxed, “please continue. If you have found evidence that corroborates my suspicions, then time is of the essence. And ‘Mary’ is OK, we both know whom we are talking about.”

  He tipped his head towards the camera to propel Lester onward, and his expert Data Analyst continued,

  “Some hiccups in the data stream. It’s particularly vexing. Nothing empirically suggests a major issue, but night-before last, there were some singular perturbations in her brainwave activity.”

  Lester produced a graph, “See here… and here in particular… it’s as if she was on LSD.”

  He had to recognise Lester for a job well done as this paralleled his discovery, albeit via other mediums and methods.

  He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath; this was about to get messy.

  “And you elected to bring this to my attention now, unofficially and not through established procedures. Why?”

  Lester looked down at his feet, “Because I can’t bear to see her lost or destroyed. I, I…”

  “You love her?”

  Lester looked up at him and said proudly, almost defiantly, “Yes… yes, I do.”

  He nodded his head at him and with a compassion that surprised even himself and said, “It’s all right, Lester, I don’t want to see her hurt either. I’ve known her for a long time, and in some respects, she resembles an adopted niece. Your analysis is on point. Mary is having issues, and I’m not sure if it’s indicative of an imminent breakdown, or if metaphysical in nature.”

  “Metaphysical…” it wasn’t a question, “do you care for her too?

  “Yes, Lester, she’s much more than ‘M503’ to me too.”

  “I’m curious, how is that you came to learn of her issues?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Lester. Wait, did you download her feed from yesterday, or was this a real-time analysis?”

  “The perturbations are too subtle to see in real-time. I typically download segments of Mary’s day I find, err interesting. This just popped out at me.”

  “Did you go back a second time to retrieve more data outside of a specific window, for purposes of further analysis?”

  “Yes, I did. Why?”

  “Because it would be flagged as a potential anomaly if not coded by a superior. Did you not read the latest revision to the protocol?”

  “Uh, no, I must’ve missed that one.”

  “And presumably, you captured this anomaly and sent it to the central printer?”

  “Of course, how else could I show you?”

  “Crux!”

  “How did I do wrong now, sir?”

  “Because apart from being flagged as an anomaly, which might be put down as a procedural blunder, a printout of said anomaly will be forwarded to ‘Security and Data Verification’. They will almost certainly put the pieces together. I suspect people will be banging on our door within the hour.”

  “Oh, my Goddess-gosh! What about Mary? What about my job?”

  “There probably isn’t a lot we can do for Mary, but I will caution them to use restraint and not jump to conclusions. As for you, the fact that you found the anomaly will save you from a suspension.”

  “But you found it too? How will you explain that?”

  “I don’t have to. All the data investigators have is a record of is your analysis.”

  “But surely, they will see your findings.”

  “No, Lester, they won’t. You need to trust me on that.”

  Lester looked at him, curiously.

  “I don’t know if I should, but for Mary’s sake, I will.”

  He reached out his hand. “Lester, you have my word I will do what I can to help Mary.”

  Lester shook his hand firmly. “Let me know how I can help.”

  “I will. We’re in this together… for Mary.”

  Just then, his com sounded, “Data Security here to see you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mispenie. I will be ready in five minutes.”

  “Might as well take a seat, Lester, and wait for them to drop in. Until then, the camera goes back on, and we rehash the anomaly as if it just presented itself to us, and we were preparing to call it in. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir, got it.”

  Chapter Six

  After filing his report as a follow up to their adequate explanation to Data Security, he joined Lester at the water cooler. Like most, Lester filled a drinking container with purified water before leaving for the day.

  “Here, Mr Mistre, I found you that thick-wall water bottle you asked about. They tend to evapo-rate so you can have my extra one.”

  Initially puzzled, Lester twigged to the meaning.

  “Oh, thank you, Sir.”

  “No problem. It’s not as if I palmed it; I have an extra quota.” He passed him the bottle, such that the base seated in the palm of Lester’s hand.

  “Thanks again. Have a good weekend.”

  “Well, as you know, I will busy monitoring the situation.”

  “Yes, right… anyway, hope it goes well.”

  “It will.”

  The biofilm evaponote would disintegrate within seconds, and the resultant message transferred from the water bottle to Lester’s palm would vanish two to four minutes later. Lester would have to be quick.

  He filled a cup of water and casually watched Lester walk down the hall and enter the washroom. Good job, Lester, no cameras in there.

  As programmed, the microbot cluster on the lid reorganised itself as a camera perched on the top bar of Lester’s inordinately round spectacles.

  ***

  Hand-written letters sealed with wax were old-fashioned, but the man was stubborn, and this was how he did it. So many traditions had fallen by the wayside. Yes, Ghan rites and rituals had been around for numerous generations, but as his grandpa said, that doctrine was in its infancy compared to their own. The Bajausy traditions were indeed ‘hoary with age’, but the Ghan ways were blanketing them like noxious weeds.

  The old ways were old, and ‘old’ was becoming synonymous with backward and outdated, but he took solace in the cycles of life. As in antiquity, the seas would overcome the land, and the Bajausy would be the difference between survival and extinction in the murk and the mire. He ran an index finger over the tattoo of a Common Reef Octopus on his bicep. The tattoo had faded such that the red cephalopod was nearly hidden in his weathered skin, which he found appropriate literally and biologically.

  It reminded him of an ancient poem:

  The tentacles hold fast on the barnacles so encrusted,

  On the broken fishing boat long discarded and rusted,

  A mix of sea creatures gathers round for food and protection,

  And divers take what is needed for the appetite’s resurrection.

  It was curious yet strangely comforting that he couldn’t remember the name of the new guard assigned to the back door but recalled verbatim a poem from when he was knee-high to a short tortoise. It seemed the most important things sank in deep, and the fluff of mundanity floated away.

  He rose and slid a quarter-pound weight down the line, which cl
attered against the iron helmet on the man lying face up in the water. The tide was not significant here, but it was coming in slow but sure, and the man’s heels had begun to lift from the bottom. It was about weights and balance and buoyancy.

  “I told you I didn’t tell anyone, I swear!” The man tried to lift his torso further up from the water, but the heavy ropes prevented it.

  Given the distraction, ending the letter was proving more difficult than usual:

  ‘It’s not a matter of…’

  “Please, by the Goddess, I swear…”

  For heathen’s sake already!

  He walked along the ledge to where the man could see him. He raised the lantern so the man could see him. “Does this look like the face of mercy? At this point, all I can offer is a quick finish… if you tell me what you know.”

  He walked back to continue the letter.

  ‘It’s not a matter of who one believes is trustworthy; it’s about the facts and…’

  “Maybe the other guy knows who told them about it?” The man coughed words and water.

  ‘Fuck me.’ Attention torn from the letter; it was back down the ledge. Lantern turned up and raised; the ‘other guy’ further out was illuminated. The man had drowned.

  “He isn’t talking.”

  That shut the guy up, and he returned to his letter.

  ‘It’s not a matter of whom to trust, or who is trustworthy, it’s about the facts, and the facts point to a new alliance.

  The echoes of a ‘clank’ clued him into the fact that he had just sent another weight down the line.

  “Maybe it was his taskmaster?” The prisoner was desperate or on the verge of telling the truth… perhaps he was starting to drown.

  He put down his quill; he about had it with this Menhancer. He grabbed a harpoon from off the wall and, using the blunt end, jabbed the man in the ribs.

  “Tide’s moving in faster now. You have about three minutes. There is no worse way to go than drowning.”

  He turned to walk away, and the man sputtered, “Yazmin… it… it was her.”

  “Yazmin Yugon? Daughter of Emaris?”

  “Yes, by the Goddess and the Grim Reaper, I swear it.”

  Yazmin Yugon, he had reason to suspect her, but this was a game-changer.

  He reversed the harpoon and was about to finish the man, but a wave of clarity came over him. He waded into the water and removed all the weights from where they had slid against the helmet and made slack the rope harness, buying the man — and him — another twenty minutes.

  “You’ve bought yourself another fifteen minutes… use them wisely to think of what else you know or suspect, and I might not let you drown… I might not even run this harpoon through your side. I have another pressing matter to attend to and will be back shortly.”

  He continued down the ledge and slid into the water. After swimming underwater for three minutes, he emerged into a cave bathed only by a sliver of light from a hollow tube in the ceiling.

  He opened one of the chests on the floor, grabbed a piece of waterproof paper, and a small, sealed canister.

  He scribbled a note on a piece of paper, put it in the canister, and blew it up and out of the tube. His oldest friend referred to this as “quasi-pneumatic by near-geriatric.” It made him smile, and he stole a moment to look at his dad’s photo in the chest. His dad had also been a humorous and honest man. In some respects, the apple had fallen a fair way from the tree.

  After a quick look around revealed all was in order, he took a few deep breaths, submerged, and popped back out into his ‘Dungeon of Creeps’. He walked back along the ledge to where the man lay. The harpoon was embedded in his chest, and bluefish were tearing at his flesh. He stayed in the darkness and waited… outside of the lapping of water and bluefish feeding there was no sound. Carefully, he moved back to his desk; nothing appeared amiss.

  He grabbed his sailor’s knife from the desk and hugged the wall until he reached the one and the only access door. He opened the peephole cover that was offset from the door. With its mirrors, it afforded a view of the doorway and the base of the stairwell. The new guard— Kola, yes, that was his name, was not there.

  The letter! He strode back to his desk. It was gone! No, he had not used any names, nor addressed, finished, or sealed it with wax, but it would still be valuable in the wrong hands. That it was gone indicated it was in the wrong hands. The manila envelope bearing the official letterhead of Marine Stewardshipping was still there but may have been noted. Marine Stewardshipping was as bogus as a fishmonger selling cupcakes, but its illegitimacy spoke to a different truth.

  He donned his waders and moved out to where the man was being eaten. He stabbed a ten-pound bluefish and flung it onto the concrete; his growing hunger would not be satiated by worry. Unhooking the man, he dragged him and the remnants of the other corpse out to the mouth of the abyss. He said the words. Clones, or not, they deserved some words.

  ***

  He stepped into the walk-in closet; one he had constructed in the townhouse bequeathed to him by his departed brother. Once inside, he closed the sliding doors and activated his front door alarm, which, if anyone attempted to bypass, would automatically electrify the outside of the door, including the passage set, and almost certainly incapacitate whoever was trying to enter. If the system were breached and bypassed, a trapdoor would give way, and he would drop unceremoniously four feet onto an old beanbag chair. From there, it would have to be a hasty exit down a tunnel just big enough to crawl through to the underside of a faux rock fountain nestled against the alley fence. Then it would be out the covered-over and unused dog gate in the fence, down the alley and away, or at least hopefully away. Perhaps that day would never come, but he resolved it would be interesting to find a new mole-hole in the ground if it did.

  He reached under the stool and flicked a toggle that caused a thin but reinforced pocket door to slide out and lock behind the sliding doors. Now secure, he readied his workspace by pushing clothes hangers to one end and installing a unique projection device in place of the overhead light bar. He sat down in the modified chair and depressed a button on the underside of the armrest. The room lit up all around him; it was a remote-viewing window a MEM science team had developed to enhance the analysis of data and scenes.

  Operatives had already visited the target area and deployed tiny cameras, sensors, and microbot clusters to maximise transmission and post-event analysis. Within minutes Lester would walk into range, and the show would begin.

  A strange feeling came over him then. It was worry infused with trepidation. Was there more he could’ve done? Would Lester get hurt? And Mary, what of her and would her replacement be Riot? Was this supposed to happen, and where would it lead? It was then he dug below his chair and produced a small flask. He wiped off the dust and, with difficulty — for the sweet liquor had caused the lid to stick, opened it, and took a sip. It didn’t taste good, but given the moment, it was appropriate.

  His Wristpad pulsed, it was time, so he touched a pad on the pocket door beside him, and his fingerprint authentication started the show.

  The message to Lester had been simple enough: “Microbots on your person. Observe and make physical contact with Mary at Chez Fluse.”

  From his closet cinema, he watched Lester walk determinedly down the boulevard. He certainly looked like a man on a mission, pivoting his head back and forth and looking behind him far too often. Despite no experience and many risks, Lester was determined to help. And as the Grand Lady indicated, he would also be a suitable patsy if the situation went awry. Jon didn’t want any harm to come to Lester, but this was bigger than the life of one person.

  Lester walked by a defunct dry-cleaning shop recently appropriated by PEDE and renovated to house various security apparatus. Today it was occasioned by an SAU or ‘Signals Analysis Unit’ to keep tabs on Mary. And with newfound concerns for her mental stability, an extraction unit would also be nearby. These deployments were in addition to her regula
r security detail, which numbered thirty strong.

  He was pleased that Lester had the presence of mind to grab a large iced-chiller from a nearby vendor and find a place to sit near the small fountain outside Chez Fluse and as close as he could get to the security perimeter. He also recognised the reflective ‘Stand-by’ tag on his jacket, which showed Lester had the forethought to request last-minute dining. While his chances of getting a free table were slight, his being a government employee and being registered on the Chez Fluse waiting list meant he would draw little to no suspicion.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised by Lester’s preparation; his intelligence and work ethic had kept him on while several others failed in his sister position. Lester appeared satisfied with his role; he lacked the leadership and people skills to advance anyway. All entities and agencies needed people like Lester, capable, reliable, condition-able, and above all else, compliant. He checked himself on that for Lester had stepped outside of his comfort zone and was risking his job — and person — in this endeavour, and he felt a tad guilty thinking of him as a potential patsy.

  Mary’s air-launch dropped down a hundred feet from where Lester sat. Security pinned tight to it as the passenger door folded upward, revealing Mary was sitting on a luxurious white leather chair, sunglasses on and smiling as if the world was her playground, which was often the case. She was wearing a relatively short red dinner skirt and a white, pink, and black V-neck accentuating her assets. Seemingly playing to the crowd, she slowly and gracefully slid sideways in her chair and arched her legs out one at a time before easing onto her feet as smoothly as descending feathers touch the ground. Once on her feet, she waved softly and calmly to the crowd, and VIPs, space-fillers, and seat-warmers alike all cooed, clapped, and clamoured to get a closer look. Lester was right beside the security fence, and readouts began panning across the vision screen. Thus far, everything looked normal.

  Clearly, Lester was utterly mesmerised by Mary, for he watched her every move. It was weird, but understandable, for Mary was otherworldly attractive. Few men stood a tall 5’7” and with prominent cheekbones, dark eyebrows, rare sparkling hazel eyes, red hair that fell below her waist, brownish-red skin, and a voluptuous figure, she was an object of admiration, fascination and fantasy. Knowing her genesis, namely Eumoonian Ghan Red and exquisitely crafted clone, probably enhanced Lester’s intoxication.