by Rachel Ford
Their steps, as they entered, were muted by a soft carpet of moss underfoot.
“I hate to say this,” Nancy remarked, “but this doesn’t bode well for whatever tech we’re hoping to find.”
It was a sadly accurate prophecy. Time, moisture and vegetation had ravaged the computers beyond the entryway. Power was sporadic throughout the facility, too – which struck Alfred as peculiar, since the entire complex was supposed to be operated on a maintenance free, self-sustaining solar-powered grid.
Still, some rooms had electricity, and some did not. The lobby did not. Its great foyer was dim, lit only by the sunlight that filtered through the curtain of vegetation beyond its windows. Alfred blinked into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
The consoles at the reception desk were dark and rested under a film of musty dirt. “These are useless,” Nancy said as she examined them. “There’s no way I could boot them, even if they did have power.”
“Did you check to see if they were plugged in?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t think of that.”
He was about to remark that she should take this obvious step when he caught the threads of sarcasm in her tone. “Just checking.”
They moved deeper into the building, into a maze of conference rooms and dining halls. They found a long lounge, the walls of which were paneled in dark wood and hung with massive television screens. Some of these still remained, but others had rusted from their brackets and lay smashed on the floor below. One screen teetered at an angle, hanging from only a single fastener. The furniture here was – or rather, had been, before the mold had set in – fine and spacious. Between the growing things and the black sheath of decay, Alfred could still see patches of high-grade leather.
Tucked away neatly out sight among all these executive board rooms and meeting spaces were the kitchens and janitorial areas that, at one time, must have kept them in fine form.
And all of them showed the evidence, even so many years later, of a hasty retreat. Rags of forgotten jackets hung on hooks in offices, time-ravaged hand bags remained tucked away under workstations; an open book lay on a coffee table, spine-up, where it had been set. He wondered at that. What had Futureprise been up to that required such a sudden abandonment of the facility?
At the far end of the visitor center, facing the ruins of a grand garden, was a pool. Alfred wrinkled his nose as they pried the dirt-encrusted door open on its rusty hinges, and a wall of odor hit him.
“Ew,” Nancy groaned. “What is that?”
That, it turned out, was the pool. The roof here had partially collapsed – rotted out, he supposed, by the moisture trapped in the room. For in their abandonment of the facility, the staff had not drained the pool.
It sat there now, still partially filled, its waters turned green and putrid. Despite the portions of open roof, the air was still and muggier than elsewhere. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here,” he decided.
“Except malaria,” Nancy agreed.
They retraced their steps until they came to a staircase, which they ascended. The upper stories seemed more promising. The boardrooms were fewer, the executive offices more common.
He was optimistic that the machines they found here would prove more useful.
But Nancy quickly laid his hopes to rest on that score. “Nope. No way. These things are toast. You can’t leave a computer in this kind of moisture for half a decade and expect it to work.”
The same was true of the papers Alfred found – the rotten remnants of paper, anyway.
The visitor center, then, was a bust. A quick survey of the remaining two wings showed that they were in no better condition and were less likely to be useful anyway. The right wing was lodgings – ranging from swanky executive suites to barebones staff rooms. The other was a touristy kind of area – for the families, the wives and husbands and kids, of Futureprise’s leaders and visitors. There were museums and theaters, and even a gift shop.
Had time been less pressing, Alfred would have lingered at the museum. Whatever his feelings about tax cheats, he had to acknowledge that Futureprise’s boasts weren’t all empty air. This place, this oasis in the Mojave, was evidence of that. He’d have liked to learn more of their story.
But that would wait.
They moved onto the other facilities in the square. The first was a lab, and the second a kind of all-in-one fitness center, hair salon, shopping center and health clinic. The lab was the better preserved of the two, due to the airtight seals on some of the doors.
There were walkways throughout, and digital placards – half of which, now, were dark.
“This wasn’t even a real facility,” Nancy sighed. “It’s just a replica. Look at this: ‘Using patented Futureprise technology, our innovative surgical laser enables incisions as thin as five micrometers across. That’s smaller than the average red blood cell.’ They’re just demoing their products.”
He studied the sign and tool beyond, fixed by a metal arm to a surgical bed. She was right. This was no more a lab than the museum across the road. It was another impressive display to showcase Futureprise’s accomplishments.
He sighed too. “Well, we can still try to get onto their computers. Hopefully they’ve been better preserved here than across the square.”
Chapter Three
They were better preserved, but that proved to be little help. Even after Nancy was able to get onto one of the devices, it didn’t matter much. “There’s wi-fi but no network access, so you won’t be able to access any network devices or drives. And it looks like – yup, there’s a few messages cached offline, but everything else is on the cloud.”
“Which we can’t access?”
“Exactly.”
“Did you try restarting the, uhh, blinking box?” That usually worked at home when his internet went down.
She stared at him. “You mean, the router?”
“Yeah. That.”
“Yes, Alfred. I tried restarting the router.”
Alfred scowled. The heat – to say nothing of the futility – of the day so far was starting to get to him, so he allowed himself to curse. “Fudge muffins.”
Nancy raised an eyebrow at this but stayed on topic. “These people didn’t have much access to anything either, from the looks of it. Their workstations are completely locked down. Just their email, messaging, and a timecard.” She shrugged. “We need to get onto their servers. That’s where we’re going to find anything worth finding.”
He, though, wasn’t ready to abandon their search of the lab just yet. “You said there were cached emails. Anything important?”
She shook her head. “Mostly, just crap about running this popsicle stand. Notices of special guests, changes to open hours, and so on. There is a layoff announcement, though.” She frowned at it. “It’s really generic. It looks like it was a mass mailing – like the names were just pulled out a database. Look, it’s all caps.”
This piqued Alfred’s interest, and he sidled in beside her. She indicated the message in question and, grimacing as he wiped away a heavy layer of dust, he squinted at the screen.
It read:
Dear JOHNSON, FREDRICK,
We regret to inform you that your employment has been terminated as of this morning at 6:00 AM. Please gather your personal effects. Transportation will be provided to a limited set of destinations. From there, a travel stipend has been allocated. Please speak to your department head.
Helicopters will start to arrive at 8:00 AM. You are expected to be onboard.
Thank you for your service to Futureprise Corporation.
Sincerely,
Dawn Carver, Human Resources Lead
“Geez,” Nancy said when he’d finished reading. “I’ve had ‘princes from Nigeria’ put more effort into personalization than that.”
Alfred frowned, confused by the reference, and she started to explain that it was a common email scam; but taking her meaning, he’d lost interest in the whys behind it.
“That matches what the pilot told us,” he interrupted. “About his sister or aunt or whatever she was.”
“Cousin.”
“That’s right. Kelsey?”
“Carla.”
He nodded. “Anyway, that’s how he said it happened.”
“Yup.” She shook her head. “That’s weird as hell, to just up and leave, fire everyone? What were they thinking?”
“We won’t know until we find the servers, I guess,” he sighed. “Where would they be, anyway?”
“In the data center, more than likely.”
“Data center.” He frowned and drew out his phone. He had a map of the compound saved there, and, in a minute, he pulled it up. “Ah, here it is.” He tapped the screen, and then grimaced as that gesture resized the image.
“Let me,” Nancy said. He didn’t argue, but surrendered the phone to her. She stared at its display for a few minutes, frowning and moving the image. Then, she nodded. “Well, that’s a couple miles from here, much closer to the center of the campus.”
“Is it?”
“If this thing’s to scale, anyway.”
Alfred groaned. This was going to be harder than he’d thought.
“Come on,” she said, “we better get moving if we want to reach it before dark. We’ve already wasted half the day.”
The day ran long. Alfred was footsore and sweaty, and more than a little irritable. It struck him now – too late – that it would have prudent to bring a canteen of water along with his sunscreen and cookies. But he hadn’t had the foresight to do so.
Nancy had, and now and again she would take a long swig of water. The taxman would grimace each time it happened, wondering if it was timed to coincide with his own bouts of thirst. Finally, she said, “You should drink something, you know. You’re going to get dehydrated.”
His scowl deepened. “I forgot my water.”
She snorted in laughter. “You’re kidding.” He shook his head, and she pressed, “You remembered cookies but not water?”
“I must have left it in the chopper,” he lied, feeling his face grow even hotter at her words.
She shook her head, and dug through her own backpack. In a moment, she procured a bottle of water. “Here,” she said. “Have one of mine. Don’t want to explain to Caspersen how you ended up dying out here.”
Another time, he might have refused. Another time, he would have remembered that he and Nancy were enemies, or at least not friends. But self-preservation won over spite, and he accepted the water with a forced, “Thanks.”
“Sure thing. I hope at least you remembered your food.”
He grunted his acquiescence and hoped she didn’t inquire too closely. His rations were what remained of the peanut butter cookies, and nothing else.
“Good. Because I didn’t pack enough for two.”
The sun was setting by time they reached an enclave of buildings. At first, Alfred assumed this was the data center. But Nancy frowned at it, saying, “Damn it. That means we’ve still got two more miles to go.”
“It does?”
“Yeah, don’t you remember the map? There was that cluster of buildings before the data center.”
“Heck,” he said with feeling.
She shook her head, a bemused smile crossing her lips, but didn’t turn her attention from the buildings. “What kind of area is this, anyway?” she wondered. “It didn’t say on the map.”
“No,” Alfred agreed. Much of the map was lacking description. He stared at the structures, and was struck by how different they seemed than the square they’d already explored.
There, even under heavy foliage, everything shimmered and welcomed. Here, the buildings were constructed of solid gray block, and the windows were small and barred. “It looks a prison,” he mused.
She glanced up at him, startled, it seemed to the taxman. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. You don’t think…they wouldn’t have been doing any kind of experiments on prisoners, or anything?”
He snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. You play too many videogames, Ms. Abbot.”
He could see the muscles in her neck flex, and her jaw tighten. “Alright, Mr. Favero…what do you think they are, then?”
He shook his head, oblivious to the challenge in her tone. “No idea. Doesn’t look very friendly, though.”
She rolled her eyes.
Number four, he thought. Then, he remembered the water she’d given him, and decided he’d ignore it – this once.
“Well,” she said, “whatever they are, they’re not the data center. We should get moving.”
Here, though, Alfred paused. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“About what?”
“About moving on tonight. It’ll be dark before we reach the data center.” He shivered at the prospect of traveling this tropical Mojave in the dark.
She shrugged. “We’ll have flashlights.” Then, she frowned. “You did bring a flashlight, didn’t you?”
“I…uh…”
“Good God,” she sighed. “What did you remember to bring?”
“I pack light,” he said, sidestepping the question. “But it’s too late to change anything now. I vote we stay.”
“You vote?” An eyebrow climbed the patch of forehead over her left eye. “There’s only two of us. If I say move on, we’ve got a tie.”
“I outrank you,” Alfred reminded her. “So I can break a tie, if you choose poorly.”
She scoffed. “Outrank me?”
“I’ve been there much longer than you.” He shrugged, as if the import of the distinction was self-evident.
“That just means you’re old.” He frowned at her, and she smiled. “But, since you decided to pack like a ninny, I’ll vote with you. We’ll call it a day.”
He shook his head at the word ninny, but let it slide. She’d sided with him, and that was the salient point; they had a unanimous decision. He liked unanimous decisions – there was something to love about the wholeness of one hundred percent. And he liked when people agreed with him – it made everything so much simpler. So, all things considered, he was pleased with the outcome.
“Alright,” he decided, “let’s try…that one.” He picked the center one of the trio at random.
“Why that one?”
“Why not?”
“Whatever,” she said. “Let’s just move.”
At first, the doors wouldn’t budge. Alfred feared that the building might be locked. But Nancy took hold of the handle with him, and together they pulled – and almost lost their balance in unison when the door shrieked wide open on rusted hinges.
Alfred caught himself a moment before he tumbled. She, meanwhile, had pulled out her flashlight and switched it on. A spindly bluish beam of light cut through the dim interior.
Nancy forged in, and Alfred forced himself to follow. He didn’t realize how closely he’d been trailing her until the second time he stepped on her heels, and she turned around to glare at him. “Do you mind?”
“Sorry.”
The interior was dry, and so was the air. Whatever air filtration systems the building used, he realized, must still be chugging along, six years later.
Further, the windows were intact, and while that hadn’t stopped dust from accumulating, it had staved off the harsher threads of decay.
Determining the purpose of the facility was impossible in the dark, and though Nancy suggested taking a quick tour of the building before bunkering down, he was less keen on the idea. “I’d rather sleep,” he said.
“What if there’s something in here?”
“How? The door was shut.”
“Fine,” she agreed in a moment. “But if I get murdered in the night, I’m coming back to haunt you.”
He rolled his eyes, informing her, “Ghosts aren’t real.”
She stared at him for half a moment, then shook her head. “I didn’t say I was coming back as a ghost. I said I was coming back. I reserve the right to decide the manner of my return. I might come bac
k as a zombie. Or a restless spirit.”
That was too much stupidity for him. “Well, actually, a ghost is by definition a restless spirit.”
“But a restless spirit isn’t necessarily a ghost. Come now, Alfred: you’re affirming the consequent. You should know better.”
He scowled, because she was right. And not only was she right, but he’d realized he was committing a fallacy even as he said it. He’d been so eager to show her up, he’d said it anyway. “I’m tired,” he declared. “I need to sleep.”
She shrugged. “Then sleep.” She’d found a room off the lobby, and was propping her backpack up in a corner.
He looked around the room, at the desk in the center of the space and the stiff-looking office chair. It’ll have to do. He settled in to it and shifted around uncomfortably. It’s going to be a long night. Then, a thought crossed his mind. “Oh…uh, did you want this?” He was the senior member of their team. But, on the other hand, expecting a woman – even one as annoying as Nancy – to sleep on the floor while he took the chair was far from chivalrous. It certainly didn’t fit with his internal image.
“Nope.” There was an edge of irritation in her tone, and he opened his eyes. She was laying out a thin bedroll, her back to him.
“You sure?”
“Yup.”
There it is again. He sighed. “Look, if you want the chair, you can have it.”
“I’m good. I came prepared.”
“Fine. Then I’m keeping it.”
“Good. Keep it.”
He glared into the darkness between them, watching as she lay down and spread a blanket over herself. How she’d managed to fit all that in a backpack, he wasn’t sure. She, however, didn’t turn back to him, and in a minute the flashlight went out.
He closed his eyes again and tried to sleep. It didn’t happen all at once. His feet ached. His stomach growled. So he reached into his pack and pulled out the cookies. He scarfed one down, and then another, and finally a third. His eyes started to feel heavy, and his thoughts slowed.