Recalling Destiny

by Michael Blinkhoff

  “Wow, that’s surprisingly simple.”

  “Believe me,” Ma’am huffed. “It took many years of work before it became so.”

  It was from this setup that Catlin had a view on the screen now, she was looking into a part of the world through its energy source ... the thread. Ma’am had passed her onto Station Eight for the next phase of her training and Ursula was guiding her through it.

  “Ok now what?” she asked.

  “See the enhance button, top left?” Ursula pointed.

  “Yep.”

  “Click that. Ok, good.”

  “Oh wow, look at all that colour!”

  “Yes, it can be quite beautiful sometimes.”

  “So why are all the threads different colours?” she said pointing to the maze that had come up on the screen

  “Ms, we are looking into the thread at a certain point in time, which just happens to be now. The colours represent the various stages of its life cycle. The colour that you can see there means a life is in its peak …” She pointed at a deep red colour.

  “And the grey?” she asked, pointing further down at another line.

  “That is a life extinguished, it turns grey and ... eventually, it dims away into nothing.”

  “Oh really, wow.” Catlin traced her finger across the line across her screen, the colour fading as her finger slid along the screen.

  “So, this grey, does that mean this person is dead?”

  “Yes.”

  It suddenly occurred to her, “wait a minute, who’s thread are we looking at?”

  “Someone who is dead of course Ms, can’t you see the grey?”

  “Yeah, but who is it?”

  Ursula nodded and winked at her, smacking her lips together as she did so.

  “It’s customary on everyone’s first foray into the thread that they get the chance to see themselves, as a thread.”

  “No shit! You mean that’s me?”

  “Well the timing looks a few weeks off but yes, that’s you Ms. Rejoice, repent or resent … it matters not now, as that life is gone. Your old life is gone ... now a fading grey light.”

  She pondered the gravity of what she’d just said for a moment and found a tear welling in her eye, memories of her life flooded back towards her as she sat there looking at the screen. It felt as if her old life really had just ended and now she was having the metaphorical moment when your life flashed before your eyes.

  “This is ...”

  “It can be a little breath taking, but trust me, when you’re first learning to read the thread it helps that you already know what to look for.”

  “So, what exactly can I do here, with this thread thingy?”

  “Aha!” Ursula exclaimed. “Now this is where the fun begins.”

  “Ok, so you know your own life right …” she smiled. “So it will be easy for you to look up memories from your past, that’s why everyone who gets training does so using their own thread. Can you think of a memory that comes to mind?”

  “Oh,” Catlin wondered. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, see these colorations here and here.”

  “Yep.”

  “They are indications of high stress, or tension, or some sort of an event that’s had a larger than normal impact on that person’s thread.”

  “Ok, so, I should click one of these and enhance?”

  “Sure.”

  Catlin did as instructed, found the highlighted section and followed Ursula’s instructions to bring up the particular moment.

  “Ok, if you can highlight that section we can send it to the image translator so we can view it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “It’s pretty cool,” Ursula agreed.

  The girls waited a moment for the translator to do its work, once finalised it came up on the screen just as a regular movie file would.

  “Whoa!” Catlin reeled back in her chair.

  “What?” Ursula fretted suddenly.

  Up on screen images flashed of a woman in labour, on a hospital bed, trying to give birth to a child.

  “That’s not me.”

  “What?” Ursula queried. “That’s impossible.”

  “I swear that’s not me.” Catlin had gone wide eyed, confused by the images and Ursula sat there struggling to comprehend. “I’ve never had a baby, never even been pregnant.”

  “Shut it down.” The voice of Ma’am loomed nearby, “shut it down now Eight.”

  Ursula turned, frightened by the command which sounded like a bellow behind her.

  “Yes Ma’am,” she didn’t deign to object.

  “Who gave you authorisation to look through that thread.” Ma’am challenged, coming over to the station where the two girls were working.

  “Ma’am, I was only ...” she started shaking. “I was just trying to show Ms her thread and …”

  “Cease thread view immediately Eight, understood? Delete translator image files, now.”

  “Absolutely, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  She moved her now shaking hand to take control of the mouse, closed the thread viewer file that was open and deleted the image file, just as Ma’am came right up behind them.

  “What are you doing?” she threatened, a look of fear and anger mounting on her face. “You didn’t have authorisation to access my thread.”

  “I’m sorry, we were … I was just trying to show Catlin her thread and …”

  But before she could explain herself a commotion suddenly erupted behind them.

  “You’re a bloody coward man!” A South African accent rang out.

  Catlin turned at the outburst and saw two men shouting, both with their hands locked onto each other’s vests shoving one another back and forth. The man with the accent was burly but not tall, at least in his forties and had dark hair. His counterpart was much taller but clearly lacked the strength of the other.

  “You ran away, you’re a goddam pussy ja!” The South African accent yelled aloud.

  “I thought you were all dead, I ran back to make my report ... somebody had to make it back alive, right?” The man tried to reason.

  Catlin observed the two men, the one with the South African accent clearly the aggressor. She didn’t know either of them but thought she detected fear in the taller man’s voice, clearly heightened by having to face the burly South African man. One thing was clear to her, they were both soldiers, dressed in the now familiar black fatigues.

  “Viper!” The voice of Ma’am boomed out on the floor, everything instantly going quiet when she spoke.

  “Let go of each other, at once!” She commanded, turning from station eight.

  Both men dropped their hold on each other and turned to face her, although the Viper was clearly more reluctant to do so.

  Ma’am came up to them near the back stairwell where their fight had occurred, “what the hell is going on?”

  “There was four of them, not two, we weren’t prepared ...” The taller man started.

  The man was silenced by a sudden back hand from the Viper, he knocked the taller man cleanly on the bridge of his nose with a back flip of his wrist. “This man is a coward, he ran when he should have been bloody fighting, goddammit!”

  This seemed to change Ma’am’s tone, “is this true?” Ma’am questioned.

  His head sagged to his chest. “Well, you don’t understand, they ... he, the black guy …” he was cut off.

  The Viper couldn’t contain himself and again tried backhanding the other man as he did before, but before it landed Ma’am caught the swinging arm.

  “You will contain yourself in my presence Viper.” she held his gaze and his arm firmly.

  The Viper tried to resist her grip but found the woman had an unnatural
strength to her, he looked confused at first and then tried harder to force his hand from hers. Again, she held him firmly and stared him down.

  “Whatever,” he said, relenting and loosening his grip on her arm. He tried to pull away from Ma’am but she didn’t loosen her grip on his.

  He was surprised she’d even stopped his swinging arm, let alone held it there as he tried to get it back fruitlessly.

  “Whatever nothing Viper, now look at me!” She stared hard at him, “You have no choices anymore, only the ones that I give you ... so please, with all respect … do what I say!”

  Not a sound uttered from the room, everyone was entranced by the scene and more incredulously at the physical match up of Ma’am and the Viper. The Viper almost looked like a child trying to escape the clutches of a scornful mother, he wasn’t strong enough to get away.

  The Viper still had a look of defiance on his face, Catlin thought she could see his face twitching as he fought his natural instincts to disobey.

  “May I remind you that you are only here at my insistence, don’t forget who it was that got you out of that mess in Afghanistan, or Johannesburg.”

  “Screw you!” he blurted out, unable to control his rage. Catlin found herself jumping back in her seat at the voracity of his outburst, her heart leapt at the man’s sudden fury.

  “Let me go, dammit!” he writhed in her grip, trying in vain to get free.

  “Like I said,” she continued calmly. “You are only here at my insistence, and can equally not be here at my insistence.”

  His eyes shifted at the mention of that, he knew full well the power of Destiny. A power that she controlled.

  “Are we clear?” she replied calmly, this time twisting his wrist at an awkward angle.

  The Viper bent with her twist and tried to resist her, but was frustrated by his efforts, he was clearly bested by her physically. “Yes,” he reluctantly complied.

  She let go of his arm at his reply, the Viper reeled back a little, clutching his injured wrist to his chest.

  “Now, you have something for me?”

  “Huh?” he frowned.

  “Did you retrieve the device? Your mission was to retrieve the device.”

  “Ja, ja …”

  “Where is it? Give it to me.”

  “Ja, I have it here hey ...” The Viper fumbled around inside his pockets, searching for what she’d asked. He frowned, not finding it straight away and searched again, more frantically this time.

  “Well?” she pressed further.

  He fumbled his pockets again, getting increasingly agitated as he came up empty handed. He checked every pocket twice and then began emptying the contents of his pants out onto the floor in front of him, panicked he couldn’t find what he thought to be there.

  After searching every pocket he could, he looked up at Lucinda with a look of absolute confusion, he cursed, “... shit, I don’t have it?”

  “Well where is it then?”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Think!”

  “Dammit, nobody even got close enough to …” a thought struck him mid-sentence and he went quiet.

  “Well?” Ma’am said, waiting on his response, “Where is it then?”

  He seethed through gritted teeth. “That sneaky little bastard!”

  - -

  Truck

  His eyes shot open in a flash, the pupils dilated slowly and he started to focus his eyes on the room around him. It took him a moment to realise where he was and then all the memories came flooding back in.

  Pigeon dead.

  Harrison unknown.

  With a sense of urgency, he sat upright and realising he was on the floor made to get up. But his progress was halted by a series of wires that’d been connected to his body, I.V lines feeding medicine into his veins.

  Frustrated he wasn’t getting anywhere though, he started to pull on them in an attempt to free himself, not caring why they were there.

  “Truck! What on earth are you doing, you’ve been shot man!” Doc called out as he saw him moving. “Lie back down!”

  “Doc, I ain’t got time to be shot. I got things to take care of.” His head started to reel and he wobbled on his feet as he stood up.

  “Well you’ve only been out for a few hours!” He tried to force Truck back. “You’ll need more time to recover than that, now please lie down!” Doc started re-attaching the wires as Truck was forced to sit back down on the floor.

  After Truck had collapsed on the floor, Suni and Doc had come to his immediate aid. Whilst they did so however, Harrison’s heart had stopped. Doc had to return to stabilise him, leaving Suni to attend Truck on her own.

  Quickly she removed his jacket, cut off his shirt, noticed the two gunshot wounds and went to work.

  She operated on him there, on the floor, whilst Doc had worked on Harrison. He helped Suni as best he could, calling out various instructions to her as they worked in unison.

  Trying to save them both.

  “How’s Harrison?” Truck asked, clearly the only concern he had upon waking.

  “No change I’m afraid.” Doc replied.

  “Is that good or bad?”

  Doc averted Truck’s gaze, unable to face the reality and thus confirming Trucks worst fears. “He took a bullet to the head Truck, there isn’t really a lot that we can do. I’ve removed the bullet but the rest is up to him.”

  Tears started to well up in Trucks eyes. “Oh no ... not Harrison, not you!”

  “Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do,” Suni entered the room. “The bullet has been removed, we’ve patched up the wounds ...”

  “We have to get him to a real hospital!”

  “You know we can’t do that.”

  She was right, of course, taking Harrison to a hospital would only lead to their discovery and subsequent incarceration. They already had a lot of heat on them after the previous night’s efforts, surely the whole city would be on alert for them now.

  “We can just drop him off there, maybe we can get away safely.”

  “Then he’d be under arrest and if he did survive we wouldn’t even see him again, they’d lock him up for good.” Suni explained.

  “Truck,” Doc cut in, “it wouldn’t do him any good anyway.”

  “Why?”

  Doc could only look to the ground, unable to meet his gaze. Truck knew what this meant, that Harrison’s time was limited. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes and he struggled to maintain his composure as he sat there contemplating Harrison’s fate.

  “How about you, how are you feeling?” Suni asked him, trying to change the mood.

  “I’m fine.” He dismissed himself with a wave of the hand. “I’m worried about Harrison … is there anything we can do? We can’t just sit here and wait for ...”

  Doc lowered his head again, but Suni piped up, “Did you recover the device?”

  Truck shook his head. “You asked me that already.”

  “What about Smith, where is he?”

  “He disappeared, ran away for all I know … that piece of shit!”

  “Is he alive?” Doc asked, checking over Truck’s bandages as he sat there on the floor.

  “Man, I really don’t know … I went in, was blinded by the light. Someone took two shots at me and then I went down, Harrison came after I guess, then ...”

  “Sorry Truck.”

  “When I opened my eyes, I saw Harry bleeding out next to me, so I grabbed him from the floor and decided to get out via the back exit. I opened the door and was about to take off down the street when something tripped me up. I hit the ground hard, dropping Harry in the process.”

  “I got back up to see what’d tripped me and see that it’s the dead body of Pigeon. All I can think is that the operation is screwed and I need to get Harrison sa
fely out before he dies … so I leave ... and all I can remember is hearing someone running in the opposite direction away from me.”

  “Smith?”

  “I dunno who it was, I didn’t see a face.”

  “Where was he in all this?”

  “Never saw him. He was supposed to be covering the alleyway but when I came through there I never saw him.”

  “That all must have been hard for you Truck.” Suni consoled him with a hand to his shoulder.

  “Has anything popped up on the wire?” Truck asked. “Any info on who might’ve been involved?”

  “We’ve dug pretty deep these last few hours trying to find something on police scanners, government databases and the web, so far nothing.”

  “That can only mean one thing ...” Truck said.

  “Destiny.” Suni confirmed Truck’s thought. They both knew it was most likely a team from Destiny that had ambushed them, if it was a government division then it would have shown up somewhere on their radar. Destiny was completely off the radar, making them the likely culprit.

  “Suni?” Truck pleaded. “What are we going to do?”

  “Well if I had that device I could change everything, that’s why I asked if you had it.”

  Truck frowned and asked, “why? What is it? What use would it be now?”

  “It’s everything, its power is to change life.”

  “And it does what exactly?”

  “Well in layman’s terms it’s a connection hub, a way to connect to the energy of life.”

  “That’s not layman’s terms.”

  “Ok, well let’s just assume that your life, present, past and future had all been laid out before you were even born and it could be read as easily as a book ... well the device I sent you after would have allowed us to read that book. That, or any book in the library for that matter.”

  “How’s being able to read ‘a book’ help Harrison?”

  “Let’s just say Truck that the device not only allows you to read a book, but also to change what’s in it. To change the story.”