“Of course, we don’t have all the answers here, Ronald, what news have you brought with you?” He turned to a white-haired man, seemingly the leader for the small group.
“We have none Samuel,” he relented. “Aside from what you see on the screen we are in the dark. Communication channels have largely been shut down on a global scale. We came here in the hope that you may have been able to shed light on the subject and assist in re-establishing a connection to the world.”
“Indeed.”
“We also need to finalise plans for aid in the cities, having communication channels open to us is a necessity.”
“We will of course make it a priority Ronald. Any such assistance or information you could render in return would be most welcome. We have always had a strong working relationship.”
“Now, we can understand that your government are going to be very busy cleaning up as a result of this event so we shall not hold you up any longer. We’re sure returning to your duties is far more important than being here, rest assured we are trying all that we can to ascertain the cause of the incident and will notify you as soon as possible.” Samuel brushed his hair out of his eyes as he continued.
“We just got here,” Ronald replied. “Do you really expect us just to leave straight away?”
“Well if you had have called we would have told you not to bother coming out, there is little that your presence can achieve here, are we right?”
“Well I …”
“Ronald, perhaps you can man one of the stations, or repair complex electrical wiring? Or perhaps you can help the network administrators?”
The questions clearly insulted the man, but he also knew Samuel was right. He had no idea how to resolve this mess, how it had occurred or what to do about it. They had come here on a whim and loose suspicions over the facilities operational capabilities.
Samuel knew the man must’ve had an inkling the Destiny facility could have been responsible, but also knew that any accusations could lead to a downfall in their mutual cooperation. He spied a look over at Thomas and tried to mask the disdain he felt towards him, he must’ve been the one to contact them.
“Samuel, our man Thomas, he will remain to oversee on behalf of us.” Ronald paused a moment before adding, “I will also remain here with a small contingent of guards.”
“Guards?” Samuel interjected, “they look more like soldiers to me.”
“Yes, well we believe that considering the nature of this incident it best to remain vigilant. They will help to secure the facility for you and they will help to protect us in case of any incidents.”
“You can remain here, we do not require the use of your soldiers.”
“I must insist Samuel, for the protection of the facility and for my own personal security.”
Samuel waved his hand away at the man, clearly not interested in housing soldiers at his facility. “You may keep your bodyguards with you Ronald but that is all we will allow, we do not need soldiers here, out in the middle of nowhere, we pose no threat to anyone out here.”
Ronald agreed, albeit reluctantly, with a nod of his head.
“As we said, it is a remarkable event what has occurred today. For us to find out what has happened we will need to rebuild first. Our installation has been destroyed in this event and we have suffered casualties as well.”
Catlin’s head turned at the mention of fatalities, for downstairs there had been none that she was aware of. Perhaps he was referring to someone else upstairs.
“To help us rebuild there are a few things that we require your assistance on, which we shall provide to Ronald as he is staying with us. So yes Ronald, you will be most welcome to stay here as long you and your aide Thomas can accommodate our needs as well?”
Ronald and Thomas exchanged an awkward look with each other, but no words passed between them.
They all nodded their acceptance, except for the lady in the room who spoke up. “Samuel, where is Lucinda?”
“Yes, Dorothy, as we said, we have had casualties.” Samuel paused to allow the information to sink in. “Ms Conley will be running point on this one. She is our new lead given that Lucinda has passed.”
It almost didn’t register with Catlin what Samuel had just said. And then, like a light bulb flickering momentarily before it finally comes on, she realised suddenly what he just said.
Lucinda? Holy shit, Ma’am’s dead? What the hell happened?
She covered her mouth to hide her thoughts from the room, already her mind was a racing mess and if she opened her mouth she was only likely to incriminate herself. She’d been sitting there this whole time thinking she was about to be interrogated before this information came out.
Catlin only saw Ma’am minutes before the event happened. She remembered seeing her leave from Samuel’s office upstairs and go into the thread room moments later, surely she was ok. But if she was, then why had Samuel mentioned to the others that she was dead. Catlin was confused.
And why did he say I was now the lead? What in the hell did that mean?
She pondered Samuel as he sat there, discussing matters with the government officials as she thought things through. He almost sounded like one of them in his responses. He just sounded so practised, so rehearsed and so fake. He must have prepared this statement for the government officials, he seemed very convincing and had all the answers. He played them like a fiddle, all smiles.
Catlin, even with her limited knowledge of Destiny, had the suspicion Samuel and Ma’am had something to do with this event. Catlin didn’t think it plausible that a biological attack could be staged on this kind of scale, and certainly one that left no trace. She still remembered the two policemen who dropped dead in front of her, knowing now that Destiny was responsible.
Clearly the government had some intuition as well and that was why they’d come. Added to the fact all communication channels seemed to be inoperable, could this have been the work of the digital software Destiny ran?
She thought it most likely Destiny had caused it, the real Destiny under her feet and hoped she wasn’t the cause.
“Time is short people; do we have any questions?” Samuel asked of the room, ready to wrap up the meeting.
The small group of government officials took a moment amongst themselves, whispering so that nobody could hear them.
Ronald spoke up after their exchange, the spokesperson for the group “Samuel, there are a million questions right now,” he paused a moment before continuing, “… but I think you are right when you say now is not the time for talk. Now is a time we need to get back to help our nation in this …” he wasn’t quite sure what to call it, “ummm … disaster, event … apocalypse.”
He stood, “We are happy to stay and ensure you get the proper help you need.” He motioned for the others to rise and leave the room. “Everyone else will return to help rebuild.”
Catlin, rose quietly and nodded to each member as they motioned for the door. Samuel shook hands formally and wished them well as they departed, but Ronald, the last to leave, stopped mid handshake and leaned in to Samuel’s ear whispering, “we are watching you Samuel and if I find out this is your doing I will have your head.”
The two of them locked eyes, but remained smiling like a pair of political opponents as they shook hands and smiled between gritted teeth.
It confirmed to Catlin something was afoot, if this government man had suspected Destiny may have been responsible, then surely there was some truth to it, there’s a little truth in everything.
When the door closed behind the still smiling Ronald, Samuel let out a deep breath, calmed himself and turned to face Catlin.
“Now Ms Conley ...” she jumped as he called her name. “You have some work to do, don’t you?”
“Huh?” she said, still slightly confused.
“They’re all yours.” he pointed to the cr
owd outside. “Have you been told nothing child?”
And then it clicked, the reason why she was here. They must have, Samuel must have, wanted her to be here for this, to take over Destiny and be its leader.
Ma’am was gone, she was the new lead.
She beamed with both pride and fascination at the realisation, regardless of the manner of it coming about. She felt like she’d stepped into the light, she wondered endlessly on why she was so important, why Destiny wanted her and now she knew.
She was brought here as a replacement for Lucinda.
She had been brought here to run Destiny.
- -
RECALLING
destiny
Catlin
It had all gone by in a blur, a dizzyingly great whirl of emotions, information and surprise. Since finishing their meeting with the government, Samuel had spent the rest of the day trying to bring Catlin up to speed on what expectations he had of her in being the new operations lead at Destiny.
The fires had been extinguished in the facility and all the staff had since been instructed to their respective stations and were busy trying to rebuild the damage. In amongst this the two of them had taken time to walk the facility and for Samuel to explain Destiny to Catlin.
At first, he seemed purposeful and deliberate, explaining things as if he was fully engaged. But as the day wore on Catlin could tell the task was starting to bother him, as he became more flippant on subjects, his impatience starting to wear through.
He was refreshing at the start, but then it seemed something was bothering him, grating at his attention to the task and beckoning him elsewhere. She was beginning to understand why Ma’am had been in control, for Samuel seemed to lack attention to detail or interest in the subject. She could almost see him inside his own head, arguing about something or lost elsewhere in thought. And his constant use of the word ‘we’ concerned her too, as if he had an alternate personality she couldn’t see.
He didn’t tell her how this had all started or why he was in charge, although she did wonder. He did explain that Destiny was sitting in the driver’s seat for knowledge for mankind, that never had anyone had the ability to play god with their purpose, to look through the spyglass of time and discover secrets, or to change the course of history.
“It is almost like we are dealt a set of cards in life Catlin, and we’ve always had to accept those cards were what we got and we couldn’t change it ... until now. We worshipped false gods Catlin, but now we know better, now we are better.”
Catlin surprised herself with how much she’d been able to handle since getting to Destiny. Her past had been a whirlwind of different experiences and she truly believed all the craziness she’d endured was now beginning to show signs of use, of purpose in her future life.
She’d never considered the effects her adrenaline fuelled life may have had, she’d merely mistaken it for some deep seeded desire. But through these experiences she’d developed over the years, somehow enabled herself to remain rational in thought during times of high stress.
Surely it had something to so with why she was here, with why they’d now made her Operations Chief. They needed a strong, cool mind to run point. A mind like hers, that was tried and tested over the years.
“Those government people,” Samuel continued. “We keep them amused by feeding them small pieces of information but they know nothing of our operation or its capabilities. They are aware of the capabilities of upstairs and not downstairs, although they do suspect something. This is paramount in your role here. You must keep knowledge of downstairs from them at any cost. Do not let the facility fall into enemy hands.”
He emphasised the point. “At any cost, understand?”
“Understood.”
“They don’t know we can learn anything about them and crush them at our whim,” his voice was almost fervent. “We have had to deal with them in the past.”
Catlin hoped he didn’t mean what she thought he did. “So why bother dealing with them at all?”
“Because, they possess more people, more resources, more money and connections … not that any of these things possess any real threat to us, but it makes them very useful. It serves us not to destroy them, we utilise them as a resource.”
“The government intelligence agency spies on a scale that is almost equal to the power of our own. So at least from our point of view we don’t need to waste resources here when we can outsource the work ... back to them. This way we can also do contract work for many companies and turn profit without actually doing any of the work. Something has to pay the bill’s Catlin.”
“Also, your predecessor utilised them to gather information for our own purposes. It is much easier you know to gather intelligence the old-fashioned way, rather than using the threads. They can be time consuming, especially if you get Marion offside.”
“Marion?”
“She heads up Station Eight, she’s a pain in the arse sometimes but she is the best at working the thread. She understands it like nobody else.”
Of course, Catlin was only a newbie. Ursula had spent countless hours with her trying to explain the intricacies of the ‘thread’. She’d read the manuals and understood much less, so knowing she already had Marion on side made Catlin feel at ease. She was going to need all the help with the thread.
She understood why the term thread was used, at a distance when looking at it, initially it looked kind a like a piece of string or rope, but as you got closer you realised it was made up of more threads, closer still more threads appeared until you were in a veritable maze of events in a person’s life.
Also, there was no set pattern, like a straight line, for finding information … it was all just bundled into a veritable haystack … but if you pulled on a piece of string you could find what you were looking for.
“In return for the government assistance,” Samuel continued, “we have made them feel they are part of the loop and make them feel like they have a voice here. But really they don’t.”
“Now as far as your concerned Ms Conley, you need not worry about them. At the high level they typically deal with us, and on occasion in the past with Ma’am but ...” he paused a moment and had a look on his face suggesting he just remembered something.
“… Find out what happened to Ma’am and if you can, bring her to us alive. This is to be your biggest priority. Do you understand?”
“What?”
“We want you to make it a priority to find Lucinda.”
“I thought you said she was deceased?”
“No, don’t be stupid! She was the one that made all this happen.”
Catlin’s stared agape, she suspected earlier something was afoot, but was shocked to learn from Samuel it was her who caused the event. The news troubled Catlin, for who would want to be responsible for the murder of millions of people.
“Find her, understood?”
“Yes Samuel.”
“Terminate if problems are faced.”
“What?” she said, alarmed.
“We have no need of traitors in our ranks, if you find her and can’t bring her to bear then it’s best to make her disappear.” The look in his eyes almost scared her for a minute.
“Wait, I don’t even know what she did, or …”
“Don’t trouble yourself, just make it a priority to find her, you have a whole operations team at your disposal.”
“Ok.”
“Now, we have no idea what has caused this catastrophe, absolutely none bar that she was responsible for it. And let me tell you Ms Conley, this is not something that we are used to. We have always been at the tip of the sword, we like it there and we need your help to get back there. So please, do your best to find out where she’s gone and what she did to cause this.”
His eyes were so mesmerizing, not that she was interested in him, only w
hen she looked at them she seemed to lose herself for a moment, suspended as if under a spell. He was the kind of man that when he spoke, people instinctively listened. But then again, his eyes would turn and he would have a distant look, as if he’d gone somewhere else.
“I don’t even know where to start looking for her Samuel, I, I’m new to all of this and …” she started to feel lost. “I don’t have the foggiest clue about how to run this facility, I know nothing of what really goes on, I …” she was clearly at a loss. Up until now she’d managed to keep a straight face, but she started to feel she was well out of her depth.
Samuel leaned over and rested his arm on her shoulder in a gesture conveying both calm and comfort.
“Catlin?”
She stopped and looked up at him.
“We are never really ready for anything that life throws at us. And we can assure you, you are not ready for this.”
She furrowed her brow but he raised his hand to stop her protest.
“All you need to do is steer the ship, Ma’am had a very well trained operation down there so it should be easy enough for you take control. Everyone down there has been barked at for years by Ma’am, as such they are extremely competent at their jobs. All you will need to do is take the information that they give you, disseminate it and make a decision.”
“But what if I make the wrong decision?”
“Then you will learn from it.”
“What about …” she was cut off with a wave from Samuel.
“Do not trouble yourself, you will find the answers come rather quickly to you.”
“But …”
“It’s ok, just remember ...” he said, “capture Lucinda and don’t let the government find out about us downstairs, ok?”
“Yeah, but …”
“No buts, keep the government out of the facility at all costs … find Lucinda. That is all we require of you right now.”
Recalling Destiny Page 26