Cobb thought about the manila folder which currently sat on his desk at the field office, conspicuously lacking any mention of David Beach’s on-line activity.
“You know his reddit user name then?”
Hannah picked a lemon out of a basket under the granite topped island, and pulled a knife from the block by the fridge, “I do indeed.”
Cobb nodded to himself, smiling at the fact that Hannah Beach elected to keep her back turned to him as she sliced the lemon.
“You care to share?”
Hannah thought about David’s posting habits, which were mostly innocuous. What harm could there be really. He certainly hadn’t ever posted anything that would incriminate him. She sucked the lemon juice from her fingers, “Would I be committing an offense if I refused to tell you?”
“No, not at this point, but there’s a possibility that we can help David if he’s in danger.” Hannah still had her back turned to him, “You’d want us to be able to help him right?”
Hannah poured the loose tea into a glass diffuser then set it down in its resting place over the glass kettle, “Could you give me some idea what’s going on first? Is that too much to ask? I’m sure David will be home shortly.”
Cobb brushed his fingers across the granite counter, “Where would your brother be coming home from exactly? I mean, he’s told you that he is persona non grata with undersecretary Carlton right?”
Hannah listened to the electric kettle reach full boil, then click off. She watched the carafe on the coffee maker starting to fill up, her mind on Stephanie now, “He’s probably just gone to pick up Stephanie.”
“From the Bleaker’s right?” Cobb grinned, sure he was on point.
Hannah picked a steel spoon from the drawer beside her, and poured the water from the kettle over the back of the spoon, watching the loose tea shift and bob in the diffuser as the glass kettle filled slowly, “No, I’d imagine he took her to school.”
Cobb’s eyes went to the clock on the wall beside the refrigerator, “Hannah, it’s um … it’s getting on eight.”
Hannah looked at the clock, throwing the spoon on the counter, “Gah, what the fuck David?”
Cobb flinched, taken aback by the sudden outburst. She didn’t know.
“You haven’t seen Stephanie then?”
Hannah picked up the glass kettle, and turned to face Cobb, leaning across the counter as she set the kettle down in front of him. She looked Cobb in the eye as she reached under the counter and pulled a china cup off a hook, sliding it across the counter towards him, “This guy turned up this morning, said he was here to help. I was tired, I really didn’t pay much attention and I went back to sleep for a while.”
“Thank you Hannah,” Cobb offered as he picked up the glass kettle, “So when you woke up?”
Hannah turned her back and took a large mug from a cabinet by the window, pouring herself a coffee, “When I came downstairs, Stephanie was on her own, singing like a banshee, jumping around the couch cushions.”
“No sign of David?”
“His car was still parked out front.”
Cobb’s eyes widened involuntarily, “So you looked outside?”
Hannah took a sip from her coffee and nodded.
“Did you notice any other vehicles?”
Cobb looked kind enough, trustworthy, but then Hannah knew she was shitty when it came to judging people by their looks. She thought he was handsome though, classically handsome, if you were into that kind of thing, which she wasn’t.
“There weren’t any other vehicles no.”
“You’re sure of that?” Cobb eyed the sliced lemon on the counter behind Hannah, hoping she’d take the hint.
“Most of the neighbors garage their cars overnight. Anything parked on the street stands out like a sore thumb. We all enjoy bitching about each other’s house guests.” She noticed that Cobb’s eyes were wandering, and she glanced towards the counter behind her, “Oh shit … Sorry, here.” She passed the plate to Cobb.
“No big white van?” Cobb asked, dropping a lemon slice into his tea.
Hannah squinted, “You don’t squeeze it?”
Cobb shrugged, “Should I?”
Hannah’s nose curled, “It’s up to you dude, I don’t drink that shit. I just figured you’d squeeze the lemon.”
Cobb laughed, sipping the tea gingerly, “I mean, it tastes good. I don’t know that the lemon needs to be any stronger.”
Hannah set her coffee down on the counter, “There has been a van here, every morning. It wasn’t there this morning.”
Cobb’s body rocked back and forth, almost imperceptibly, a subconscious acknowledgment of Hannah’s statement, “Do you remember the markings on the van?” he asked, trying to gauge how observant Hannah was.
Hannah wondered why the van was relevant, but she offered the information willingly, “It was a cleaning company. I’ve talked about them with David. I mean, I asked the Bleakers next door if they’d hired them, because they were kind of parked part way between our drive and theirs, you know? Best any of us could figure, we thought it might be one of the houses on the other side of the street.”
Cobb sipped again, “The van was a FBI ops vehicle.”
Hannah smirked, wondering why the agent had offered that information up.
“Usually, the men operating that vehicle would have checked in, sometime before noon, drop in their duty log, file reports, return equipment to storage, etcetera, etcetera …” Cobb rolled his hand in the air, “That didn’t happen this morning.”
“Oh.”
Hannah’s mind started to race, but with no plausible avenues of thought, her brain missed a gear, and she swallowed the wrong way, coughing and spitting coffee at Cobb. Unflinching, Cobb settled onto one of the tall stools, wiping his face with his sports jacket, “I’ve been assigned to your brother’s case, because two things happened today. Firstly,” Cobb tapped his index finger on the counter, “Two field agents failed to report in, and their vehicle and comms went completely off grid.” He raised his hand with his index finger and middle finger pointing to the ceiling, then he brought his hand down and tapped the two fingers on the counter, “Secondly, your brother goes off grid. His phone, gone. Car, gone.”
Hannah looked worried now, and Cobb knew her fear was genuine, “Now, believe me, those two things; neither of them are easy to achieve. Neither are easy to explain.”
“Not easy for an average person, maybe …” Hannah suggested, smiling nervously.
Cobb laughed, “Given your brother’s skill set, I’m going to go out on a limb and say impossible.”
Hannah frowned, “Then what? You think this guy …”
Cobb rested both of his elbows on the counter. Something about this wasn’t making any sense. He looked at Hannah, “Have you been questioned at any point before now Hannah?”
“I have not.” She cocked her head to the side, wondering why the agent looked so concerned all of a sudden.
“No, I didn’t think you had.” He leaned forward, staring into Hannah’s eyes seriously, eyebrows furrowed, “Tell me Hannah, do you think your brother had any involvement whatsoever in the assassinations?”
Hannah laughed, then sucked her bottom lip, running her fingertip around the rim of her coffee cup. It struck her that Cobb hadn’t made up his mind about this situation. It seemed as if he genuinely wanted her opinion. She held up a finger, and leaving her coffee cup on the counter, she walked into the den. She returned a few seconds later, carrying a laptop, placing it in front of agent Cobb with the lid raised, “Here. This is the fucking mastermind you’re talking about.”
Cobb read the text which ran down the screen in a series of comments, “So David is Shadowcab73?” He pulled a phone out of his pocket and typed a quick note.
Hannah turned the laptop towards herself and flicked into his David’s comment history, “Yes, my brother is the genius behind such deftly worded trolls as,” she pointed to the screen and read aloud, “Suck it ass-hat, Tier
nan FTW, exclamation, exclamation.”
Cobb laughed, “Tiernan for the win? So, he’s an ardent enough Tiernan supporter that he’s rallying behind him even in his down time and in complete anonymity?”
Hannah scrolled through the comments, tapping the screen, “Read for yourself. David has been scared witless by this whole thing.”
Cobb read slowly, sipping his tea, but his mind really wasn’t on the screen. He wondered silently why McMahon or Carmichael hadn’t interviewed Hannah Beach? She was level headed, approachable and cooperative, not to mention, a goldmine of information. It made no sense to Cobb that the two lead agents had made no mention of Beach’s on-line activity.
“Hannah, do you mind going back to that original thread?” He watched the screen as Hannah navigated, then, “There, do you mind clicking into our guy’s history?”
Cobb wasn’t particularly surprised to see that ThaneOfTheVoid had no comment history before his replies to David. He made another quick note on his phone, returning it to his pocket. He leaned his weight against the counter, waving his hand to indicate to Hannah that he’d seen enough, “Do you mind answering some more questions? I really want to hit the ground running with this.”
Hannah reached over the counter, to pick up her coffee cup, and Cobb noticed a small tattoo on the side of her midriff. He cocked his head at an angle, but didn’t quite have time to read the cursive text.
Hannah took a large gulp of coffee, then setting her cup down, she looked at Cobb “It says ‘Puri sermonis amator,’”
“Pardon?”
“My tattoo,” Hannah replied, “it’s Latin.”
Cobb smiled, “Terentius right? ‘A lover of pure and simple speech’ …”
Hannah’s smile conveyed her surprise, “Fuckin’ A!”
Cobb laughed as he poured himself more tea, “Ah, the benefits of a classical education.”
“Hans Gruber right? Die Hard …”
Cobb nodded, “Touché. You know, for what Gruber’s classical education was worth, Plutarch said that Alexander wept at Anaxarchus’ discussion of the infinite number or worlds in the universe, because he hadn’t even conquered one.”
Hannah stared at the carafe on the opposite side of the kitchen. She felt highly strung, but she still felt that more coffee would help. It had started to bother her how easily agent Cobb could play to her interests. She wondered if perhaps this was some well-rehearsed ploy to gain her confidence, then she snapped to her senses, remembering that her tattoo had started this aside. David’s paranoia must be starting to rub off, she thought, but then again, it was entirely possible that his paranoia was well warranted.
“Do you mind if I try calling David’s phone?” She asked, a sense of dread mounting in her.
“You can try Hannah, but believe me, when I say his phone’s gone, I mean …”
Hannah sighed, “Oh shit, you could turn it on remotely right?”
Cobb shrugged.
“What about Stephanie’s phone?”
“You could try.”
Hannah pulled her phone out from her back pocket, dialed, listened to the carrier message that the customer was out of reach, then stuffed the phone back in her pocket. She looked at Cobb, her lips pursed.
Cobb’s eyebrows raised, “You’re wondering what we have on you?”
Hannah scrunched up her face, “Kind of, yeah.”
Cobb laughed, “Surprisingly little. Worryingly little.”
Hannah patted the counter as she got up and made her way back to the coffee pot, “Awesome.” She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at Cobb again, “Is it awesome? I mean should I be concerned that I’m not rebellious enough to be worthy of the FBI’s attention?”
“Your street cred is intact. I’ll be writing up a report on our conversation. You will be well documented in our files as of today.”
Hannah gasped mockingly, then poured herself another coffee, “You’re going to find David and Stephanie right?”
“Don’t worry Miss Beach. I’ll bring him in safely.”
West stood up from the couch and walked over to the window, leaning his arm against the glass as he spoke, “Before my removal from the city, there were only two people who might have called me friends. Truth be told, even those frail bonds were formed on utilitarian and selfish desires. My closest friend Pieterossa, or Petra as she was commonly known, was an adopted daughter of Rornick and Heenar Kith Ergiss. I befriended Petra, because her closest confidant was one Reiner Kith Tiarsis, grandson of Stracklin Kith Tiarsis.”
Stephanie volunteered the first confession that came to mind, “I’m only friends with Kate Midland because she’s friends with Shauna Rae Pritchard, and her dad gets free tickets to the cinema because he works there.”
West watched Stephanie’s blurred reflection in the window, watched the headlights of a car passing through her, “I’m sure many friendships begin that way. In the end though, on the day I was cast into the void garden, theirs had been the only faces I had looked for through the flames of the zenith pyres, and they were the last faces I saw before I lost consciousness.”
“So it was that Petra and Reiner were the only people I could imagine would come to my aid upon my return to Allim. I didn’t imagine that either of them would have strayed from the path laid out for them by Arctum Academy, and it didn’t take much asking around in the science sector to learn that the two had wed their fortunes together.”
“Then something happened, the first time I approached the home of Petra and Reiner Kith Tiarsis.”
West looked over his shoulder dramatically, slapping his hands against the window, “The moment I touched the glardium surface of their home I felt it. I heard them. I understood finally what had been so important about Silinthalis, about the river Dannum, about Stracklin Tiarsis’ research. As my hands stroked the wall of their home, it was as if the city spoke to me, nine-million voices whispering, nine-million dreams and memories flooding into me through the glardium rills. Then just as I felt sure I would collapse under the onslaught of so much experience, the voices thinned out, the shrieking storm of thought narrowed to one pure whisper, blowing a chill wind through me. For the first time, I heard the mind of Ahken Kith Tiarsis.”
Stephanie jumped on the couch beside her dad, leaning over the couch back to watch West more closely, “Can you remember what you heard?”
West’s voice lowered, “Ahken was dreaming. I could see it, shadows upon shadows, huge geometric shapes bursting from the darkness. The sounds though …” West opened the window latch and lifted the window wide. The sound of New York filled the room, cars passing by in the streets below, horns sounding occasionally, music thumping from open windows, people laughing, or yelling, and West spread his arms wide, “This was what I heard, through the glardium rills, erupting from that child’s mind.”
Stephanie frowned, “You heard a city?”
West looked suddenly wild, “No Stephanie, not any city. This city. These …” He pointed out into the street, “these were the first sounds I heard from the child of the thirty-thousand year dream. He was dreaming of New York, twenty-first century, as it has come to be, and as it was always destined to be. The longer I held onto the wall, the stronger my connection to Ahken’s dreams became, and although I didn’t understand fully what it was I was seeing, I knew that it wasn’t Allim. So, the first time I saw New York city, walked the streets, gazed through the windows of a department store, heard the cacophony that the void garden was truly capable of, it was all through Ahken, thirty-thousand-years ago. Through Ahken, I could hear the conversations, and even the thoughts of these apparitions of his dreams, and I knew that their world was more complex and vibrant, free of the oppression of Dannum. In my arrogance, I became so sure that night that the quest I had set for myself, that of destroying Pretchis, revealing him as Dannum, usurping his reign, must all come to pass. There was the proof, in this child’s mind. How could it be any other way?”
Stanwick stood up and walked over to t
he window, leaning her head out into the breeze, “By Ahken’s account, those were truly the first murmurings. No coincidence that West was there. No coincidences in the events that followed either. Everything happened as Dannum must have known it would happen, as he had foreseen it.”
West smiled at Stanwick as he turned to face the others, “I waited three days before I approached the boy. I followed him to the food halls of the West Tertiary, not far from Arctum. There he was, sitting with his best friend, a girl, both of them filling their faces and laughing as if they hadn’t a care in the world. I introduced myself as a fellow scientist and asked if they would mind if I joined them. The girl sticks her chin forward, and says something to the effect of, ‘piss off and get your own food scrubber.’”
Stanwick laughed, “I think that upon examination, you’ll find that what I actually said was, ‘Touch my food and I’ll gut you with your own mandible.’”
West punched her shoulder, “Yes! That was it … god you were a vicious piece of work.”
Stanwick glared at the other three, “You do not want to come between me and steak.”
Giggling, Stephanie ducked behind the couch cushion.
West carried on, “We talked briefly, and I asked Ahken Tiarsis to deliver a message to his parents. We shook on it, and as I held his hand, my path was rewritten. As sure as I’d felt his dream through the walls of his home, in that second or two of contact, I saw more flashes of revelation, glimpses in to the storm that was building in the child’s mind.”
“What I didn’t realize until I’d found my own place to stay in the agricultural district, was that a vital piece of technology had changed during my absence from Allim.”
“Just changed mind you,” Stanwick reminded him, “in fact the changes were wrought only days before West’s return to the city.”
West looked excited, “The bright young minds of Arctum had developed a means of recording the experiences from the hopper. It had become possible for another person using the hopper to walk through your dreams and memories, as if they were their own. It had fast become the most popular means of entertainment, and few people seemed to care about the ethical issues that the technology presented. I understood only too well though. Ahken Tiarsis’ dreams … those glimpses of a future beyond Allim; they would be the key to Dannum’s downfall. Once they could see the world as Ahken could see it in his dreams, they would do everything in their power to bring that vision to fruition.”
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 18