by David Archer
"My name is Sam Prichard. I'm with Windlass Security, contracted to DHS." Sam spoke in a crisp, businesslike tone, maintaining his professional stance until he could figure out what Georgie would best respond to. "I understand North Forest Hospital has been questioning you, but there are some interesting circumstances surrounding this case, and my team has been given jurisdiction."
Georgie didn't respond. He almost looked like he was in a trance of some kind. Knowing North Forest Hospital, it wouldn't surprise Sam if Georgie was half out of his mind and high on drugs he didn't need.
"Do you prefer Georgie or 2219?" Sam asked, recalling Melanie and Eric and the way they felt about outsiders using their names.
Still no response, and Sam didn't want to come across as soft until he knew more, so there would be no kid etiquette for the time being.
"Georgie, then." Sam opened the folder in front of him and looked over the pictures of the demolished building. "You've made quite the mess, Georgie. They're talking about retiring you."
Georgie might have shifted at that, but it also might have been Sam's imagination.
"I won't presume to understand a kid, but I don't think you want to be retired. Retirement is a rather… permanent outcome, wouldn't you agree?" Sam interlaced his fingers and rested his hands on the pictures, unsurprised when Georgie didn't answer the question. "I think there are a lot of things a kid would do to stay out of retirement."
Georgie moved his head ever so a bit, his chin lifting just enough for Sam to know he was listening. Other than that, nothing.
"If you cooperate with me, I can make sure you aren't retired, Georgie." Sam held back a smirk at the thought of how North Forest Hospital would react to that. "I was given that authority by the director himself."
Georgie moved his head the tiniest bit more, but he still sat with dead eyes and a bowed head.
"Georgie…" Sam softened his tone a bit and eased into the chair the previous interrogator had used. "I just want to find out the truth about what happened this morning." He paused, tilted his head a little to catch the vacant, faded eyes, and then he spoke again. "People were hurt. People were killed, and I don't think you wanted that. I don't think you wanted any of this." He paused again to let his words sink in, gauging the young man's body language. "I think your silence is a response you can't control—" He almost said 'conditioned response,' but that would have been a dead giveaway, and they hadn't been given that much seniority on the case. "—and I think you want to help, but you don't know how. Or maybe you don't think you can."
Georgie kept staring at his lap, but his shoulders moved a little, a subtle display of discomfort that had been absent up to that point.
Sam considered Georgie for several moments, then he looked down at the pictures again, and then he leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Okay, Georgie. Let's come at this from a different angle: I'll tell you what I think happened—" with many euphemisms and codes, because North Forest Hospital guards were standing right outside, "—and we'll see if you feel up to helping me fine-tune my theory."
Georgie still refused to say anything, but Sam was alright with that. If Georgie was even half as traumatized as Eric, it would take more than a few quick words and evidentially unsupported assurances to open him up.
"Let's see…" Sam flipped to the first page of the report and tapped the sheet. "At 7:32 AM, you set off a bomb on the fifteenth floor of the North Forest Hospital building…"
* * *
"What kind of game are they playing?"
Sam kept his arms folded over his chest but raised one of his hands to his teeth, chewing briefly on his thumbnail. "We expected some kind of retaliation after we took full custody of Eric. This could be it."
Darren shook his head and gestured vaguely to the television screen. "But they're completely unrelated. What's the message here? You took one of our consultants, so we're gonna… blow some of ours up?"
Sam skimmed the text scrolling across the bottom of the screen and then looked at the smoking building again. "I don't know. We should get a victim list as soon as possible. They might have attacked someone close to Eric, maybe to—"
"Sam, did you see the news?" Denny burst into the room with a disheveled Eric on his heels. Denny noticed the screen before anyone could answer his question and continued. "We were getting coffee when it came on."
"They're gonna lock the whole thing down, Mr. Prichard!" Eric was plainly trying not to shout, but he was just as plainly failing, and his fingers periodically traveled up to his mouth to be chewed. "They must have made one of the guys do it so they can link the bomb to us, and then they'll have a valid reason to lock down the entire facility until the investigation is over. All the files, all the computers, all the consultants—everything! And they can and will make the investigation drag on for months."
Darren looked at Sam. "Well, now we know what it has to do with retaliation."
Sam held out a hand toward all three members of his team. "Let's not jump to conclusions. It's unlikely this explosion is unrelated, but it's still possible. We don't have a list of casualties or injuries, no suspects have been named yet, and no action has been called for."
"True, but we want to be proactive about this." Darren gestured vaguely to the screen. "We don't want to react to them any more than we have to."
Denny jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I'll swing by Darren's place to see how Melanie's doing. Maybe she knows something about this."
Darren began moving before Denny could. "No, let me check. If they're watching us, and you go to my house right after they set off a bomb, it'll be suspicious. I don't want them taking Melanie when we're not looking." He gave Eric an encouraging pat on the arm as he breezed past, halfway out the door when he called, "I'll let you know if we find anything out."
Sam nodded but said nothing, still watching the news footage. "Eric, did you know any consultants who dealt in explosives? Even if you didn't speak with them, were they on your ward for any period of time?"
Eric thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. "No. I heard of a couple, but I never met any, and I can tell you none of them were on that floor. I could still write down their names." He fidgeted nervously in place, shifting from one foot to the other.
Denny folded his arms over his chest. "They might have picked someone who wouldn't usually mess with explosives. We have to remember, North Forest Hospital is preparing for a court case just as much as we are."
"That's assuming this was planned by North Forest Hospital. We need to maintain objectivity until we know more." Sam slowly lowered the hand he had been using to gesture, both arms refolding over his chest. "However, assuming this was them, they could be trying to show how untrustworthy and dangerous consultants are. Something to make the public doubt they can ever really know what a kid is capable of until it's too late."
"Then we need to get on top of this," Eric rushed, a renewed panic in his voice. "The company has to, I don't know, make a statement or something. You have to make sure North Forest Hospital doesn't retire the people involved, and the consultants at the hospital have to be interviewed as witnesses, and we have to—"
"Eric." Sam turned to look at him, speaking steadily but softly. "Deep breaths."
Eric tried to do as he was told, but his hands were jittering and his eyes were wide with fear. "I don't wanna go back, Mr. Prichard." He shook his head rapidly, tears welling up and clinging to his lashes. "I don't wanna go back. I don't wanna go back, please."
Sam and Denny spoke in unison. "You aren't."
Eric swallowed and looked nervously at the screen again. He didn't seem convinced, his hands still twitching and wringing each other and pulling on every colorful, odd, discordant piece of clothing on his frame.
"I'll get in touch with DHS." Then, after a moment of thought, Sam added, "I'll call Donaldson, too. If we can get some higher-ups to side with us, we might be able to get some seniority on this case. It wouldn't be the first time we worked a bombing, even i
f we most of the time only get involved once it's serial." Sam licked his lips and thought for another moment or two. "Eric, if you're right, our suspect is going to be a kid. Can we use the pretense of finding more bombs?" He looked at Eric for an answer, expanding a bit when he saw the confusion on Eric's face. "Can we insist that a kid would never orchestrate something so simple as a single-bomb incendiary attack?"
Eric thought about it for a moment, cocking his head one way and then the other. "I think that could definitely work. North Forest Hospital might come up with that themselves, actually. Depending on the record the kid has, you might be able to say you want to make sure that a useful kid isn't being framed by a more delinquent one, as that would be a waste of government resources."
It once again hit Sam—as it so often did, in the oddest of moments, when he least expected it—that Eric still saw himself as expendable. He didn't know how to justify his existence outside of usefulness.
Sam simply offered a nod. "Alright." He gestured toward the TV. "They have a suspect in custody, but they're unnamed. We need to find out who they are and get on this immediately."
Denny jerked a thumb over his shoulder and began walking backwards. "I'll talk to Summer. She's gotten pretty good at weaseling information out of North Forest Hospital, and she might be able to do some damage control with the press."
"Good plan." Sam dismissed him with a brief wave, looking back at the television screen and the black smoke rising into the sky. "Is Jade in the building?"
"Yeah." Denny stopped in the doorway. "You want me to send her in?"
"Yes. I want to get to the explosion site as soon as possible." Sam was already pulling his phone out, ready to call in every favor he had ever been owed. "And I want her there with me when I go."
Denny gave a thumbs up and left the room.
Sam dialed DHS and put the phone to his ear, giving Eric a small but genuine, almost self-satisfied smile. "Everything is going to be fine, Eric. Trust me."
Eric bit down on his lip, hazel eyes wandering back to the television. "I do, Mr. Prichard." He swallowed, both arms folding protectively over his middle. "I'm just… scared."
"You're allowed to be," was all Sam could say before the phone stopped ringing.
Eric kept staring at the TV, gnawing on his lip with anxiety in his eyes.
* * *
"You didn't run." Sam leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers and resting his hands on his stomach. "You didn't try to hide from any of the surveillance cameras leading to the wing where you planted the bomb." He tapped his thumbs together. "You essentially lit the fuse and waited to be arrested. That's a bit odd, don't you think?"
Georgie swallowed but continued to keep his head down, hands dangling limply from where they were cuffed to the table. Goosebumps rose up and down his arms, the North Forest Hospital scrubs doing little to protect him from the chill of the interrogation room.
"You aren't known for working with explosives. You aren't known for violence at all, actually." Sam tilted his head almost curiously. "I've seen your file, Georgie." He let that hang for a moment, examining Georgie's body language, and then he elaborated. "I've seen your unredacted file."
That got him a little shift, almost like a squirm, but nothing more.
"You killed seven consultants, Georgie. One of them was only eleven years old." Sam pulled the photograph from the folder on the table and slid it across. "She was in four pieces, not including the bits too small to find." He tapped the glossy print. "You did that, Georgie."
Georgie shifted again, and when he breathed, it was a little more intentionally level than before. His jaw was clenched, the muscles clearly defined as his teeth ground together.
"Did you plan to do that, Georgie?" Sam watched for a reaction, but Georgie didn't give one. "Did you mean to kill that little girl?"
Georgie didn't move, and for a moment, Sam considered going harder, but he finally decided to back off. They would leave that line of questioning open, let the last question be something poignant and accusatory; something to hover overhead like a dark cloud while the interrogation continued.
"You targeted an interesting part of the building." Sam returned to his folder and flipped through the contents, stopping at a small-scale replica of the blueprints. "From what I understand, this is a very unique floor. There's a lot of conspiracies and superstitions about what goes on there." He slid the picture across the table to Georgie and then leaned back again. "In my experience, legends often have an origin in truth. Was there something in that wing you destroyed, Georgie?" He narrowed his gaze. "Something you didn't want us to see?"
Georgie did something odd then. He sniffed. It was quick and dry, not the kind of sniffling that came with watery eyes, but maybe the kind that came with an inflated ego. Only Georgie didn't show any signs of arrogance, and he had refrained from making any noise for the eight and a half hours leading up to that sniff. It could have been nothing, but with a subject so unresponsive, every detail had to be taken into account.
Interesting.
"Well, Georgie, let me tell you what I already know, and you can decide whether or not you want to fill in my blanks. Hmm?" Sam arched a brow and flipped to the next page in his folder. "We know of at least seven different projects running out of that wing…"
* * *
"…but even after spending almost ten years inside that facility, I have no idea what they are. Well, that's not true. Well, it's kind of true. Well—"
"Melanie." Darren held up a hand to stop her, but made sure to keep a soft expression on his face. "Just… tell me what you know."
Melanie nodded rapidly, half eager and half frazzled. "Right. Right, got it." She slid over a bit and patted the sofa next to her, gesturing to the monitors set up on his coffee table and chairs. "So, North Forest Hospital has twenty-four floors, each named after a letter of the Greek alphabet. This screen has the blueprints for fifteenth floor, Omicron. See anything weird?"
Darren looked back and forth between the blueprints for the building as a whole and the individual floor plan. "It has an extra wing." He could tell just from the way the layers and supports were arranged.
Melanie nodded her head. "You got it. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta are all labs, garages, supercomputers, and so on. We do all our work there. They're at the top, so if anything goes wonky, there's no one in the floors above to get trapped, and there's less weight on top of the damaged area. They changed the layout after 9/11." She began to type again, working on something off to the side while the screens in front of Darren remained unchanged. "Epsilon through Psi are floors where consultants are actually held; each floor has seven wings for consultants and one wing for faculty and recreation—the library, the gym, the breakroom, and so on—except Omicron. Omicron has nine wings. Guess what got bombed?"
Darren opened his mouth to reply.
"Bingo! Wings O7, O8, and O9, and here's where things get spooky."
Darren arched a brow at her—it genuinely wouldn't surprise him if she began talking about Wing O9 being haunted—and hoped she hadn't lost sight of the objective.
"See, consultants have this… not-so-unspoken theory about the North Forest Hospital building." Melanie switched to a keyboard for the monitor on the coffee table, fingers flying from key to key as the blueprints began to shift. "We call it Endworld, and as you can see, there's an unofficial basement on the blueprints that isn't labelled or defined in any way. They didn't even put the dimensions on here, so no one knows how big it really is unless they've been down there, but no one has." She pointed to the portion of the screen dedicated to the basement. "I've never been there, I've never met anyone who went there, I've never heard of a project there—nothing. It's like Endworld doesn't exist, which it shouldn't, but it does." She turned toward Darren a bit and folded her hands in her lap, fingers tangled between each other, trying desperately to keep her from gesturing too enthusiastically. "Have you ever been in the building?"
Darren shook his head, torn
between increasing curiosity and wondering how likely it was the secret basement was related to the bombing fifteen floors up. I've seen weirder things, and I've had a feeling from the beginning that this case was gonna take a slot in the top five weirdest cases I've ever worked.
"Well, if you ever go there, you'll see there's no button on the elevator to take you to Endworld." Melanie grew more animated as she continued, clearly thrilled to have someone to share the story with. "Legend has it, if you have an access key, you can put the key in and hold the Omega button until it takes you all the way down."
"Legend?" Darren's eyebrows show up.
Melanie looked a little embarrassed, but she didn't stay that way for long, her hands waving excitedly. "It's not—Look, there was a guy, a long time ago, who allegedly went down there once. He used to do tons of secret assignments, so we figured it had something to do with that. He disappeared, like, two weeks later, and we never saw him again, but he had already spread some information by then." She got back to her computers, pointing at the first screen with the floor plan for Omicron. "It's been theorized that the additional Omicron wing has something to do with Endworld. None of us have ever seen staff go in or out, and if there are consultants being held there, they're completely cut off from the rest of us, even if we're on the same floor."
Darren frowned at that, leaning back on his sofa. "We have thirteen dead and counting. If Wing O8 is supposed to be the breakroom and library, there shouldn't have been many people in there. We know it was shift change, and they wouldn't let consultants out to use the facilities with all that chaos going on. Too easy for things to happen without being noticed, and they're too careful for that." He leaned in closer to the screen, scratching thoughtfully at his chin. "O7 would have had consultants, but only a portion of O7 got hit. Most of the bodies were consultants, not staff, so… it's definitely possible for consultants to have been in O9…"