The Intruder

by Greg Krehbiel

  Hanna's mail routines had automatically tried to re-send the queued messages every ten minutes. They continued to be rejected until just before she came into the dorm. That was why MacKenzie received a flood of messages from Hanna just before she saw her. Apparently, she had been kept in a communications blackout until just before she came into the dorm.

  Having done everything she could with Hanna's mail log, she started reading the 42 messages she had just received. Fortunately, Hanna had kept her wits about her during her confinement. She mailed updates on her situation periodically. Those messages could have been erased from her implant outbox if her captors had had the right equipment, but apparently they hadn't, and MacKenzie was able to read the journal of her ordeal from the messages. It would have been fascinating reading except that it had happened to her best friend.

  Chapter 10

  More relentless questioning. I wish I could send you something more substantive, MacKenzie, but I've been sitting in this chair in this same room forever. I eat here, I sleep here. Fortunately they let me go to the bathroom and stretch my legs a little, but it's just me, the room, and the interrogator's voice. They keep asking about Jeremy, and of course I tell them nothing, but I'm afraid they'll use drugs on me before too long.

  That's it for now.

  That was the 42nd and last message, but it had been sent three days before MacKenzie received it. The 41 previous messages detailed Hanna's experiences from the moment she got into the car with the security officers, whom she later suspected of being phonies. They had taken her only a little way before one of the guards covered her face with a smelly handkerchief that knocked her out. When she awoke she was tied to a chair in a dark room, completely alone. In the 40 remaining messages, Hanna detailed the same, monotonous, endless questioning about Jeremy: who was he, what did he know, what had he said about Dr. Berry, what had he said about the images he claimed to see, why did he see them, did anyone else see them -- and on and on it went for hour after hour and day after day.

  At first, Hanna was full of questions and complaints about her treatment, but after she decided that her questioner was a machine, she tried not to reply any more. She found that as the questioning wore on, she occasionally found herself responding. She didn't answer the questions, but she was talking back, arguing, complaining and protesting her innocence. As soon as she was aware that she had started speaking again she would be silent, compose another message to MacKenzie and resolve to keep her mouth shut, but it was only a matter of time before she found herself arguing with the questioner again.

  After what seemed like an eternity of questions she fell asleep in her chair. When she awoke she found herself untied and in a different room: one with bathroom facilities and a very meager serving of vegetables and rice. She was ravenously hungry and ate the bland food quickly, then used the facilities. As soon as she was done she heard a hissing noise, became disoriented and passed out. She awoke in the same chair, listening to the same questions, going through the same mental torture.

  And so it went until the final message. They probably did resort to drugs, MacKenzie assumed, and that explained why Hanna hadn't sent any more messages, and why she looked so terrible when they finally let her go. MacKenzie had to assume that Hanna's captors knew everything about those things Jeremy had been seeing -- or at least they knew everything Hanna could tell them.

  MacKenzie turned her attention from her implant screen and looked around the darkened bedroom. Hanna was sleeping peacefully in her bed, and MacKenzie's own head started to nod.

  She was the perfect computer student. As long as she had a project to keep her busy, she could stay awake and remain productive for days. But as soon as the job was done, she crashed, recuperating for the next marathon session. It was midnight now. She knew she wasn't going to last much longer now that there was nothing else to do, so she slid her chair next to Hanna's bed and tried to cover herself with the corner of Hanna's blanket, then fell asleep.

  * * *

  Hanna's alarm went off at 7:30.

  "Shut up!" she yelled. It was a programmable alarm clock, and she could have programmed anything she wanted as an off switch, but her previous attempts at gentler commands never seemed to work. It was too easy to say "off," or, "good morning" and roll right back over on the pillow. Yelling "shut up" at the decibel level she had programmed into the off switch helped to wake her.

  MacKenzie slept through the alarm and the yell. Hanna headed for the shower, suddenly realized that she had been wearing the same clothes for a week, tossed them into the launderer, then retrieved a new outfit from her dresser. Three minutes later, clean and dressed, she tried to shake MacKenzie awake. After a Herculean effort of shaking, tickling and prodding, MacKenzie woke up enough to mumble "coffee" and went back to sleep. Hanna remembered that MacKenzie's alarm clock didn't make a sound -- it was set to brew a strong cup of Jamaican coffee at 8:00. It was the smell that woke her up. Usually, it was a nice arrangement. The only problem was when she spent a few days in the computer lab; then she had a nasty mess to clean up when she came back to her room and found a few days worth of coffee spilled all over the machine. The cleaning robots would take care of the carpet and the furniture, but the appliance itself would have to be scrubbed by a microbot. They were expensive, and the university didn't provide them. Hanna thought she might buy one for a Christmas present.

  Hanna looked down at her friend, slumped over in the chair, only half covered with the corner of the blanket. She realized how much MacKenzie had been through in the last several days. She bent over and kissed her on the cheek and then went down the hall to the food concession to get a cup of coffee. When the smell reached MacKenzie, she took a sip, rolled off the bed and stumbled toward the shower. Hanna set the cup of coffee on the narrow ledge where the launderer stuck out from the wall and sat in the room's only chair. She had a lot of back-logged mail to go through and she wanted to see if there was anything from Jeremy.

  MacKenzie stepped out of the shower and went for her coffee before she even touched her clothes -- such was the power of her addiction. A few minutes later they both ran a brush through their hair and set off for McDonald's. Except for a few necessary grunts, neither of them spoke until they were out the front door and into a beautiful spring morning.

  "So what did you find out?" Hanna asked as soon as they left the building, as if she had been eagerly waiting to be out of the dorm before she spoke.

  MacKenzie wasn't sure how to answer. She had two concerns. On the one hand, she wanted to figure out what was going on so they could find Jeremy and help him if they could. On the other hand, she wanted to help Hanna restore her memory of the last few days, and she wasn't sure about the best way to do that.

  "I didn't find out much that is useful, actually," she said, clearly disappointed in herself. She was used to working miracles. "Have you started to remember anything from your experience?"

  Hanna slowed down, as if walking fast and deep memory work didn't fit together, and shook her head. "The last thing I can remember," she said deliberately, "is watching that dog tear off after Jeremy." She turned and looked up at MacKenzie. "Did he get away?"

  "Are you starved?" MacKenzie asked. "Do you mind if we try something before we go to eat?"

  It wasn't like MacKenzie to be evasive, or to postpone breakfast, so Hanna figured she was up to something. She shrugged and MacKenzie pulled her somewhat bewildered friend off in a different direction. She took Hanna to the park where they had their long talk with Jeremy a week earlier. MacKenzie walked to the place they were standing when the police dog started running after Jeremy, and she asked Hanna to visualize the whole scene in her mind. Hanna closed her eyes and thought for minute, then opened her eyes and looked around, imagining the sound of the officer whistling at the dog, and then seeing the dog take off after Jeremy. Suddenly she put her hands to her mouth.

  "He was hit by a car and thrown into that sign," she said, and started running toward it, just as she had a we
ek ago. It was starting to work. Her memory was starting to come back, but she couldn't remember what happened next.

  "That's enough for now," MacKenzie said. "Actually, it's better than I expected. Let's go get something to eat and come back, okay?"

  * * *

  MacKenzie picked up some food at the bagel shop across the street as Hanna put her thumb on the identification plate of the autodispenser to get her large coffee and two egg muffins. A familiar voice from behind her said, "Eating a real breakfast for a change? That's good."

  "Jeremy!" Hanna said in surprise. She threw her arms around his neck. "Where have you ..." She couldn't continue. Jeremy put his finger to her lips to keep her quiet, then pointed outside with a nod of his head. Hanna followed him out and they found MacKenzie waiting for them in the alley, all smiles, with a touch of cream cheese on the corner of her mouth.

  "Sorry to hush you like that, Hanna," Jeremy said, "but I need to keep a low profile. Come with me."

  He led them deeper into the alley between McDonald's and the office building next door, then behind a large cargo vehicle and a few trash receptacles, through a door and into the physical plant of the office building. The hallways were like a maze, but Jeremy picked his way through quickly and confidently to another door that said "Janitor" on a small, red nameplate. He pressed his thumb to the locking device, opened the door and led them in.

  The room was clearly not for a janitor. An attractive, very busy woman sat behind a large desk, working meticulously on a very small electronics device with a pair of hand-held instruments, not unlike surgeon's tools. She greeted Jeremy with, "Hi, Mr. Mitchell." Jeremy nodded and hurried Hanna and MacKenzie past the reception area into a small conference room and shut the door.

  "Jeremy, what's going on?" Hanna said, looking around in wonder at the room. It was posh in the extreme, unlike anything she had seen in Washington.

  "I really hate to say this, especially since you've probably been worried about me for the last week, but I can't tell you." He looked sheepishly at both of them, expecting a torrent of righteous indignation, but MacKenzie just shrugged and said, "We should have expected as much."

  "So what can you tell us, then?" Hanna asked. "And can I eat my egg McMuffin in this place? I'm starved."

  Jeremy nodded and held out a chair for her at the conference-room table. "What I can tell you is that I wasn't hurt too badly by my run-in with the car, and that I still need to keep clear of Dr. Berry, and probably the police, for a little while." He looked them over for a minute and then continued. "But you both look like you've got your own story to tell."

  MacKenzie had been riding on an emotional high since Jeremy spirited her out of the bagel shop. Her best friend was back safe, and now Jeremy seemed okay as well. She wanted to talk so badly it hurt, but she realized that she needed to work with Hanna on recovering her memory, and she believed, based on something she'd picked up in a psychology class, that associations were the key to memory, and lost memory had to be recovered very carefully. Anything she said here might make the process more difficult.

  She composed a private message to Jeremy. Just at that moment, Hanna started speaking.

  "Yeah, something weird has happened to me," she said. "I can't remember anything from the time you were hit by that car until yesterday afternoon." Jeremy looked at her with concern and remembered Peter's words that her organization had checked up on his friends. He had received a few delayed messages from Hanna yesterday at about noon, but they didn't say anything about being kidnapped, and he assumed they had been delayed because of his situation, not hers.

  His implant chimed an incoming message.

  From MacKenzie. Chat mode requested.

  Accepted, Jeremy replied.

  "You can't remember anything?" he said.

  Don't push her, Jeremy. I've got a strategy for helping her get her memory back, okay?

  "Nothing, really," Hanna replied, "except little pieces of images from here and there." She paused for a minute and looked at her McMuffin. "I remember that I didn't like the food."

  "That's not saying much, knowing your habits," MacKenzie said disdainfully, and then sent another message to Jeremy.

  She was kidnapped by somebody. She composed lots of messages to me that explain what they did to her.

  "I'm so sorry, Hanna, it must have been terrifying," Jeremy said.

  Can you send me copies? I got five messages from her as well. I'll forward them to you.

  "I guess it was, but, ... I don't remember," Hanna said.

  "That's okay, Hanna, don't worry about it now," MacKenzie said. "We'll work on it."

  I guess that's okay, MacKenzie replied. Secretly she was pleased that Hanna had sent 42 messages to her, but only five to Jeremy. She forwarded the messages.

  The room was suddenly quiet, and then Jeremy laughed. "This is maddening. We've all got these tremendous stories to tell, and we can't say a thing."

  * * *

  "Okay, this is where he left us, right?" Hanna said to MacKenzie as they went over the events of that fateful night for the fourth time. "Then he ran that way," she pointed, "then the cop sent the dog after him, and it looked for a minute like he was coming after us, but then right here," she walked forward about 30 feet, "the dog veered off toward Jeremy." MacKenzie nodded and the two of them started walking toward the street, following the path of the dog. Hanna munched on a candy bar, still trying to catch up from a week on a starvation diet.

  "Then there was all that foolishness in the street, and the collision, and then Jeremy came flying through the air and hit his head against this post," she said, laying her hand on it. She had reviewed this scene enough to be fairly dispassionate about it now, but the first time she remembered that Jeremy had been hurt she begged MacKenzie to tell her what happened. MacKenzie refused, and Hanna finally decided to play along.

  "That's right," MacKenzie said, leaning against the post herself, "and what did the dog do?"

  "It came right back here and started growling at Jeremy, but then the cop called the dog off. I think he knelt down next to him like this," she did it, "and started looking Jeremy over." By now they were both immune to the curious stares of passersby, and continued to act out as much of the events of that night as they could. They had informed their professors that they would be out of class for at least a day. MacKenzie hoped they could get this over with soon. She was dying to talk to Hanna about what happened during her interrogation, but she had committed herself to trying to rebuild Hanna's memory one step at a time, and she was pleased to discover that the method was working.

  "And then I saw the emergency vehicle hovering over that building there, and I waved to it," Hanna said, "but it was already on its way. I guess the cop had already called for it."

  They continued like this, working on every scene in the park until Hanna could remember everything as well as MacKenzie, or better. Then they went to the hospital and repeated the procedure. The process picked up momentum: the more Hanna remembered, the easier it was to remember more. By dinner she was able to recall some of her experiences in that dark room. MacKenzie decided she had done her job, and that she would go over all the messages with Hanna later.

  The day's work drained them more than either expected, so they decided to treat themselves to a fancy dinner and relax. When the wine arrived, Hanna made a toast. "To my best and truest friend, MacKenzie," she said, holding up her glass.

  "Wherever you go, I go," MacKenzie replied.

  * * *

  "What kind of a perverted, criminal outfit do you run here," Jeremy yelled at Peter. He had finished reading about half of the messages MacKenzie had supplied him and he couldn't contain himself any longer. The rest of the staff, loitering around on the edges of the main suite were in shocked silence, afraid to show any interest, but too intrigued to miss hearing this confrontation. Peter was not a man you yelled at.

  "You kidnapped me and put a cast on a healthy leg, and you kidnapped my friend and half tortured her.
I don't care who you work for or what kind of high-and-mighty moral principles you have, you can't treat people this way."

  Peter stared at him for a solid minute, completely unperturbed by his rampage. He could have been considering what to have for lunch, or whether or not to kill him on the spot, but you couldn't tell it from his face.

  "How do you know we kidnapped her?" Peter asked in a calm voice, and then walked away.

  Jeremy was so boiling with rage that Peter's words took a few minutes to sink in. He stood there, not sure whether to yell or throw a punch. Finally he stomped back to his office and shut his door. He wished he could slam it, but Society doors didn't work that way. They slid out from a cavity in the wall and were opened and closed by pulleys and engines.

  Jeremy fell into his chair and closed his eyes, allowing the torrent of emotion to flow unrestricted through his mind. After a few minutes he began to calm down and systematize his thoughts. It embarrassed him to explode like that. He knew he had a violent temper and he preferred to keep it under control. So far in his life it had only caused him grief, but part of him still believed it was a hidden asset that served him well, somehow.

  From Peter to Jeremy. Come into my office in five minutes.

  That was the last thing he expected to hear from him. So, he has to dress me down now, he thought. He looked for an object to hurl across the room, but there was nothing available. Instead, he took a deep breath and began to analyze what he knew about Hanna's situation. He had five minutes to get his thoughts in order and decide whether to yell at him again and quit, or whether he had jumped to a wrong conclusion.

  * * *

  "Give me five reasons why it probably wasn't us who kidnapped your friend, and five why it probably wasn't the Network," Peter said as soon as Jeremy entered her office. He did his absolute best not to look sheepish, but Peter had such an austere look about him, he wasn't sure he had pulled it off. Ever since Jeremy had signed on with his organization, Peter had been a rigid taskmaster. The last four days had been the most intensive experience of his life as Peter ran him through a series of lessons and drills. He had learned more in the last 48 hours than he thought possible.