by Will Mosley
“Fifty or sixty?” Luke scowled in terror. “Is that an appropriate number? You sure there's no exaggeration in that figure?”
“At least, Luke. No exaggeration. They're more machines than men. Damn fine soldiers, though. But, if that were to happen and the media had names to go on, those names would eventually turn up birth certificates, hometowns, families and lead back to their employment with Whitewash. They...” Heather rolled her eyes. “I guess I should say 'We'. We took no chances here, boys. These are human robots the likes of which the world has not seen. I think Russia might have tried something similar during the cold war, but this is uncharted territory.”
Luke rubbed his forehead, took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and returned the glasses to his face. “Okay. So, you want us to find out where Whitewash is keeping these guys – if they're keeping them at all and if they haven't already murdered them, all of these guys have no names, no birth certificates, no identity, no leads, they're extremely dangerous to boot, no employment history –,”
Heather nodded and smiled. “Now you're starting to see the challenge. And we have to find them fast. They know something. We need to know what they know. I don't think the boys at Whitewash have any clue what's in the heads of these guys.”
“Then why would they be keeping them?” Brian asked. “You said that they might be holding them for some future mission, but logic would dictate that if they are so dangerous, they'd have to be housed somewhere extremely secure. Transporting these men would pose risks to their staff and if the staff is not trained equally as well, these men could escape. Why wouldn't Whitewash just kill them and train a new batch of men for future missions?”
Heather respectfully grinned at Brian. “That's why I like you computer geeks. You're always thinking. I hadn't thought of that angle. And you're right, they would have to be put somewhere secure. But if that logic is right,” Heather dropped her head in thought and mumbled. “That would mean Kimble was just pulling my leg about his knowledge of the transmission. He is holding them! He's waiting for it to wear off!”
“Waiting for what to wear off?” Brian asked.
“Heady, there's over 200,000 files on that hard drive!” Luke said.
“They're in there, Luke. You two just need to find them.”
“For what is he waiting to wear off?” Brian persisted.
“That's not your concern, Brian.” Heather said.
“This isn't even brain intensive, it's just slave labor!” Luke said to Brian and he agreed. The pictures were laid in two rows of three. Heather took her finger and touched each one in a sweeping motion, one row after the other, saying, “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon. That's how you will address them to me.”
“How will you know who we're talking about?” Brain asked.
“I worked with them for years. I know them well. We better get going, boys. You can't work on this here.”
“Aw, come on heady!” Luke begged. “I was hoping to get at least a sponge bath outta this. You can't deny me of that!”
Heather stood and waved at the equipment, signaling that they needed to get their things packed up. Luke and Brian disconnected their computer equipment from the electrical jacks in the room rolling up wires and returned control of the video feed to the central office of the nursing home, though still maintaining a local feed until they were ready to walk out. Then, Luke stopped and gasped at his monitor.
“Are you alright?” Brian grabbed Luke by the shoulder. Luke, mouth slightly agape, his eyes still and focus, said nothing. Brian looked at the monitor. “What, dude? What's up?”
“Shit!” Heather said. She sprinted over to Luke, bumping Brian from her path, and stuck her head between Luke and the computer screen. “Oh, shit!”
“What?” Brian said, his concern growing.
“Luke, get it together, man.” Heather said. “You two have got to get out of here fast!”
Both Luke and Brian doubled their gathering speed and sloppily tossed balled up wires into their black satchels. Luke fruitlessly tried shoving his laptop into his bag, but because of their unorganized storage techniques, the laptop wouldn't fit. He tucked it under his arm, buckled his satchel and reached for the door knob. Heather slapped his arm away.
“No!” She said. Then, she pointed at the window. “That way.”
“Heady! Come on!” Luke begged.
“This is the life, Luke. Take it or leave it.” Luke sighed and followed Brian to the window. Brian worked the latches for a moment, as if he were new to the concept of opening a window, until finally the locks clicked loose and the window sprang open.
“What about my monitor?” Luke asked.
“Go!” Heather said with a quiet scream. “Worry about that later!”
As elegant as walrus's, both men clumsily tumbled from the window sill and into the hedges just a foot below. The moans of both men were reminiscent of Camel calls as they fought with the labyrinth of limbs, motionlessly swimming, flailing their nonathletic physiques, battling the inanimate bush.
“...Ow, stop kicking me Bri...”
“...Where's my bag? I lost my bag!...”
“...I got limbs in my butt!”
Brian rolled to the ground first and reached all fours when Luke rolled out, landed on Brian's lower back and extinguished his progress. A few seconds later, both men were up and running, stiff legged, across the Autumn Gardens grounds. Four Mexican men gathered around a landscaping truck parked diagonally in the back parking lot, were now leaning over the bed of the truck, one man on his knees holding his stomach, one man sitting in the passengers seat – one leg dangled out of the opened door – holding his stomach as well, made no attempt to hide their laughter.
“Assholes!” Luke's scream cracked in anger as he ran past them.
Heather wanted to share in the laughter, but there was no time. She shut and locked the window, then she turned back to the computer monitor. No one was there. She expected as much, but lowered her brow and approached the screen when she noticed flickering movement in one corner of the gray and white screen. Suddenly, long mouthed Bill walked into the picture and timidly stood in the center of the screen with something white clinched in his right hand that seemed to glow on the screen. He impetuously looked behind him, then to his sides, then repeated the actions. When he felt that it was safe his Cro-magnon face looked up directly into the camera as if he could see Heather. Bill lifted the white object, which she now realized was a sheet of folded paper, and opened it. Over the closed circuit monitor, the white paper appeared to radiate internal fluorescence and whatever was written thereon could not be discerned. As the video camera mounted in the central hallway, directed at any visitors who crossed its recorded stare, automatically adjusted the white balance and dimmed the area surrounding the sheet of paper, three letters materialized as if they were formerly apparitions and blazed in stark contrast to the glowing paper written on it with a thick tipped marker: R-U-N.
Mild panic coursed through her limbs as she focused to control it and use the panic to excite her mind into action. Heather turned to the window, deeming it as the most obvious route of escape. She took three rapid steps toward it – almost running – then stopped. Though, age had not deteriorated her physical conditioning, it had introduced something new: wisdom. Intelligence was not wisdom. Wisdom, just as it was to her older uncles and aunts, and even her mother before the dementia took her to some blissful realm of lunacy, seemed to have compressed all of life's past challenges into tightly wound ball of quick access information. It was telling her now, 'Why run? You're too smart for that.' She stood at the window, looking out at the courtyard, through which Brian and Luke had bumbled, and less than a moment later the heavy oak door to the room rattled due to some powerful force banging on it.
“Heather, open up! I know you're in there!” It was PK and he only stopped pounding on the door when he had something to say. “What are you doing in there?”
Heather intentionally graveled her voice. “Ho
ld on, hold on.” she said calmly. “I'm coming.” She shuffled the sheets on the bed, then leaned on it with her full weight until the bed creaked. Then, the banging stopped.
“You sleep in there?” PK asked.
“Was.”
“Regardless, open the door. I have to talk to you.”
Heather waited for a few moments to give the delayed impression that she was actually asleep, then she opened the door. Before it was fully opened, Phil rushed in and surveyed the room, nearly knocking Heather over as he searched, swinging his head side-to-side as if his eyes had picked up some sightless scent. Behind him were the two men who had been following her earlier in the day. Heather nodded to them.
“Linus. Alex.”
“Yo.” Linus said.
“Hey, Heady.” Alex said and casually saluted her. Both men followed PK's lead, then sat on a fold out sofa before Phil finished searching.
“Sleep, huh?” PK asked.
“Resting, really. Trying to get my mind clear.” Heather returned.
“Thought you were going to look for another job.” He badgered.
“That's my business, PK! What's it to you?”
“You said –,”
“I know what I said, alright?” Heather sat on the bed and rubbed her eyes. “I applied for a customer service position over at Kinkos earlier. The position starts at 7.50 an hour.” She yawned. “Figured in about ten years I'd make crew leader, and from there, the opportunities abound.”
Alex and Linus snickered to themselves which drew a scorn from Phil. “Bullshit!”
“No, really. I told them I was eager to learn the ins and outs of duplicating and collating documents, stapling and paper clipping. They might have to hold my hand at first, but I'm persistent. I'll learn. Then, I came here to see mom. I figured you'd probably come here, I just needed you to check the undue force at the door.”
“And you didn't run? Like you did from these two earlier?” PK pointed at Alex and Linus.
“Run? Why? From what?”
“Heather, come on.”
“From what, PK? I'm asking. You're the one who barged in here like a buffalo. You knew where I'd come. Why would I run?”
Phil huffed, dropped his gaze and then returned it to Heather. “So you're not working with Lucus Haskert?”
“Lu – Lucus?” Heather laughed obnoxiously. “Lucus? You're kidding? What – You think I'm giving him hand jobs after school or something? Working with him in what manner?”
“Heather,” Phil sat down on the bed beside her. “We've been through a lot, you and I, and you can't tell me that you don't know what's going on.”
“Phil, I left the office, evaded twiddle-dee and twiddle dumb over there, picked up some flowers for mom, then came here. I haven't seen Lucus Haskert.” She lied.
Phil stared into her eyes as if they were nebula's and he – with his ice gray gaze – could detect lies as new born stars at their inception, twinkling hot white in her iris's. Heather passively held the stare. She was master in the manipulation of the male ego and even held a doctorate in Phil Kirby. “Dammit!” He broke eye contact and looked to the floor. “Lucus made off with our database. Not just a file or two, but everything! We had to send nearly everyone home. Christina's there with Kimble now, but that's it.”
“Everything?” Heather looked genuinely concerned.
“Everything.” Phil stressed.
“Did you check the backups?”
“Who do you think stored the backups? All of our computers were linked to his! It's just a big mess down there.” Phil's shoulders slumped in defeat, but Heather knew that this was his initial stage of battle – his first wind. Once he recovered, he was Genghis Khan like in his resolve to win. “And if that doesn't just beat all, he replaced the files with the game Solitaire, you know, the card game.” If she didn't laugh, she knew that Phil would have taken her extreme concern as false. Too much laughter would label her as a conspirator. She giggled.
“Sorry, PK. That's almost unbelievable.”
“That asshole. We figure he's planning on selling the information he finds to the media.”
“I would.” Heather said, firmly placing herself outside of the Lucus Haskert camp. “But he has to find it first and all of that data is encrypted.”
“Who do you think encrypted it?” Phil asked. After a moment of pondering his future and his lush position with WhiteWash, he turned back to Heather. “You know why I'm here, don't you?”
“I figured you'd be pissed about my electrified door stunt. You can't blame me, PK. I didn't want you following me.”
“I know. But you know the protocol: Three months.”
“I understand. Just don't expect me to standby while WhiteWash rummages through my trash cans and my private life.”
“And don't expect us to stop until those ninety days are up.” Phil looked at Linus and Alex. “Guys, give us a minute.”
With no hesitation, both men rose, straightened their clothes and left the room.
Then, Phil turned back to Heather. “What's up?”
“Nothing.” Heather said flippantly.
“I know you're up to something, Heady. I'm not an idiot.”
“I didn't say you were.”
“You didn't. But, you knew I'd come here. It's almost as if you wanted me to.”
Heather sighed and stood up to put distance between her and PK. She then crossed her arms and shook her head. “Our business here is done, PK. I didn't know you'd be here and the last time I talked to Lucus was at the office.”
“So who hooked up that monitor?” Phil lazily flicked his fore finger at the computer screen. Heather spun around, noticed it and her mind ran a program of acceptable lies that would throw him off.
“I –,”
“And next you'll tell me you learned to hack into a secure video feed at the behest of Whitewash, huh?” He waited for a response, but knew that any words that came next would be fantastic. “Listen, Heady,” He stood in front of her and held her shoulders. “I'm not a suit, alright? They promoted me to this position against my will. They would have released me if I didn't accept it and I don't have much time before retirement and I didn't want to leave all of this excitement behind. I had to take it. You must understand that. I'm not them. I'm the same PK that was with you in Kuwait. Nothing's changed.”
Heather, mesmerized as always by the seeming translucency of his eyes, nodded. “To be sure, you stayed for the transmission.”
Phil released her shoulders and let his hands fall to his sides. “Yes, I did.”
“Because you know as well as I do that there is more to it.”
“I do.”
In another place, in another time, that tiny phrase was held motionless by possibility. For no more than a second it caught her off guard – reduced her to the emotional, the weak sub-species of human she associated with house wives and secretaries – and her next words fought through invisible saw dust to escape her throat.
“Th-Then why didn't you tell Kimble that?” Her voice was a raised whisper.
“Because they know about it as well. They know that they made a mistake.”
Heather looked surprised. “But the guys didn't talk to him. Did they?”
“Perhaps. I dunno. Either way, Kimble heard the transmission himself. He's probably got a copy of it at home. He's no fool, Heady. Besides, the CIA told him that if during our operations, if we found that our guys were acting strange, seeming to keep secrets, or doing anything out of the ordinary, he was to report it. He heard the transmission after the debriefing and never told them. They have no idea. We – you, me, Kimble, probably Richardson and Hunt, and the guys – are the only ones who have ever heard that recording.” Phil paused to let Heather absorb what he had said. “That's why I'm here. Kimble knows you have a copy of it and thinks that you can't do anything with it without Lucus' help, but he knows you will move whatever stands in your way of figuring it out. When he found that Lucus was missing this morning, he sent me afte
r Lucus, not you. You're just under mandatory surveillance. He's even ready to capture Lucus and turn him over to the CIA and tell them that he hid audio files from the operation just so Whitewash will be a part of whatever they find, and they know Lucus can figure it out. Whatever's over there, Kimble and Hunt are ready to move heaven and Earth to get. So, I return to my question? What's up?”
Heather wanted to ask him whether he had any recording devices on him. But she trusted PK and he had been more open about the transmission than she had expected. She sat back on the bed and nearly felt defeated herself.
“Lucus is helping me, PK.”
“I knew that.” He said.
“But not with the transmission. I've listened to that file countless times and I've come to one conclusion: we're not going to figure it out unless we have the guys.”
Phil fervently shook his head. “Nope. You can't do that.”
“He's going to search the files –,”
“Nope –,”
“And try and find any links that may help him figure out –,”
“You're not listening, Heady! No one knows where they are!”
“We'll find them.”
“No you won't! Only Kimble and Hunt have that information. You think that they would have put information about Project Tophat or Trojan on a file where there's even the slightest possibility that Central Intelligence could find it? That's ridiculous. They wouldn't risk that.”
Heather stood up toe to toe with Phil, “And you think those old bastards would trust their deteriorating minds to keep that information locked away, for years? That's what's ridiculous, Phil! The information is in those files. Lucus will comb every file – all 200,000 of them until we get a clue as to where Whitewash put them.”
“Heather, this is nonsense! Can you imagine the security – not to mention the facility – where they're holding them? You think you're just going to walk in there and discuss classified intel with them? That is, if they're not dead already.” Phil said.