Lon’s brother’s workshop was in a building past the halfway point on this side on the piazza.
After several more minutes, and luckily no interruptions or confrontations, the two reached the entrance of a metallic blue coloured office building.
Lon was the first to proceed into the construction, followed by Eve at the heel. They walked through the lobby past the security and check-in desk.
“The good thing about workshops,” quietly whispered Lon, “is that they’re classed as ‘commercial establishments open to public trade’”.
“What does that mean?” asked a slightly confused Eve.
“It means,” said Lon, “that we don’t need to check in”.
“Thank god for that!” Eve exclaimed catching the attention of one of the security staff at the reception desk.
Lon quickly offered him a wide grin, to which the guard instructed “Keep your voices down,” then reverted back to the screen he was staring at.
“We’re lucky,” stated Lon as they continued walking, “he was probably too bothered about watching his soapies”.
There were pairs of lifts at the sides and the far end of the lobby. Lon directed Eve to the pair on the right, where he pressed the call button and waited for the doors to open.
Several seconds elapsed before the doors parted and the two slid inside, then turned to face outwards as the doors joined back together.
“Please take turns to state which floors you would like to go to,” came a voice from above them.
“Eighty-fifth floor,” confirmed Lon.
A moment of silence followed while the computer waited for more input. “Only one destination has been selected: the eighty-fifth floor. Is this correct?” asked the voice, to which Lon simply replied “Yes”.
Both Lon and Eve felt their bodies compress slightly as the lift rapidly rose.
Eve felt her ears pop shortly after.
The blue digits on the display above the lift entrance flashed every split second, indicating each floor they sped past. Around the eightieth floor the lift quickly began to slow, and came to a complete halt when the number “85” displayed above the lift exit.
“Eighty-fifth floor. Please beware of any gaps when exiting the elevator”.
The doors of the lift opened once again, and the two stepped out into another reception area.
A sign above them read “Silvertech”, and sitting behind the reception counter was a young woman in her mid-twenties, tapping away at her workstation.
She finished the sentence she was writing and began to look up. “Welcome to Silvertech Computer Services. How may I-” she realised who had come for a visit, “oh, Lon! Nice to see you”.
It was not unusual for many people in the city to work so late at this time of year.
“Mandy, is Chris still here?” inquired Lon.
The receptionist got to her feet, “Yes, let me get him for you”.
“It’s okay,” interrupted Lon, “we’ll just go through”.
“Of course,” said Mandy returning to her seat.
The two proceeded through a door behind the reception desk, on the other side of which was a long, somewhat rectangular room outlined by workbenches with electronic parts and pieces scattered upon them.
Spread across the work surfaces were numerous computer terminals to determine the centre of each individual workstation.
To the extreme left of the room was a semi-open, kitchen area half-hidden behind a wall, with the far side edged with full-length windows from where a few lights and the side of the neighbouring building were observable.
To the opposite side on the far right was a locked door with “Server Room” emblazoned upon it.
There were other doors and rooms within the rectangular area; meeting rooms, restrooms, and other rooms Lon was not certain as to the contents thereof.
It was not the tidiest of work spaces, but the nature of a workshop was to be worked in, and for a computer technician it was often counter-productive to tidy.
Furthermore, working with miniscule pieces and intricate circuit boards, as well as coding immensely large computer programmes was a regular task, thus comfort in the workplace was a must, hence the excessively loud Scandinavian Power Metal music blazing from speakers hidden within the walls around the room, which greeted Lon and Eve like a strong blast of wind.
“Shit, that’s loud!” yelled Lon.
Eve quickly clasped her ears to protect her eardrums from perforation.
The pair of them noticed that, as well as Lon’s brother Chris who was hidden behind a large, almost semi-circular, semi-transparent screen several metres opposite them, there was one of Chris’ employees working silently at one of the workstations on the left side of the room close to entrance to the kitchen area.
Neither of them noticed Lon and Eve’s presence.
“Chris!” yelled Lon, afraid to go any farther into the room in fear of internal bleeding brought on by the intense atmospheric pressure caused by the music. “Chris!” he again bellowed, this time much more loudly.
The other worker in the room glanced over his left shoulder to look at the pair, then acknowledged their existence.
Lon recognised the man as Tan, a long-time friend and employee of his brother. The clothes he wore gave him a very casual appearance, and, coupled with his longish, shaggy hair and thick, styled goatee, he always gave Lon the impression he had never worked in a non-technical role before that required regular human interaction; a true techie.
Tan swivelled his chair around to face the room’s two new presences and held up his hand as a gesture of salutation. Upon realising no verbal communication was possible due to the intense music, he gestured again, this time holding up one finger, and mouthing the words “Just a moment”. He swivelled back round to face his desk and began searching through the pieces of hardware in his workspace for something not too big that he could throw. After a few seconds he gathered up several parts that, from a distance, looked as though they could have been transistors or something of the like.
Tan launched the first object over his head at Chris, trying to capture his attention, but missed. He threw another, this time hitting the surface of the desk close to Chris, however still eliciting no response. The third he winged directly at Chris’ head, and somehow hit his target.
Although the force was not great, Tan managed this time to get noticed.
Chris pushed himself sidewards away from his monitor so as to inquire why the transistor-like object had been thrown.
Tan pointed towards the room’s entrance where his younger brother along with his companion stood.
“Oh!” it looked like he exclaimed, before quickly sliding his chair back towards his workstation to mute the music.
The air in the workshop immediately felt more breathable.
“You’ve really got to be careful listening to that music so loud!” shouted Lon at his brother.
“But we find it relaxing,” responded Tan in Chris’ defence.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t matter,” Lon went on, “if the police or someone find out you’ve been listening to it, you know you’ll get into trouble”.
Chris got out of his chair, “But only aggressive music is illegal,” he said in his own defence.
“That music’s pretty aggressive,” added Eve, “especially when it’s so loud!”
Chris shrugged. “Nobody’s gonna find out. Anyway, it’s not usual for you to pay me a visit this late these days. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Tan nodded in agreement and added “He’s right, you don’t come by often any more”. He focussed his attention on Eve, “I see you’ve brought a lady friend too. I’m Tanner, but you can call me Tan”.
Eve obliged him with a response, “I’m Eve”. She noticed he had a slight American accent.
“Nice to meet you Eve. Please don’t mind the mess, it’s how we work,” he returned his attention to Lon, “why don’t you introduce Eve to your brother?” he asked.
Eve qui
ckly cut in, “No, it’s ok, we’ve met before a couple of times”.
Chris nodded in agreement.
Lon was getting impatient. “Chris, we really need your help with something,” he said.
“Well,” said Chris, “it depends what it is”.
“Can we talk in private?” asked Lon, before turning to Tan and adding “No offence,” to which Tan replied “None taken. I’ll just continue with my work”.
He swivelled on his chair one more time to return to his working position. “Oh, Chris, before you go into the other room, can you please put track six on?”
Chris accommodated the request and returned the music to half its previous volume before beckoning Lon and Eve through the door behind his desk.
“Wow!” exclaimed eve upon entering the new room. “This is a pleasant surprise!”
The three of them had just entered a dimly lit living room, complete with all the furniture and appliances necessary for living comfortably, along with a kitchen area. Furthermore, there was a series of full-length windows covering the wall space in front of them, through which a large portion of the eastern area of the city could be seen.
“Do you live here?” Eve inquired.
“No,” replied Chris, “but I sometimes stay here if I have to work late or come early in the morning”.
“There’s a bathroom and two bedrooms as well,” added Lon.
Eve was temporarily engrossed in the magnificent night-time vista outside the window, comprising the city’s eastern skyline, perhaps millions of lights, and a few of the brightest stars fixed upon the otherwise clear sky. She had to tear herself away so as to examine her more immediate surroundings, which, in the living room area, consisted of furniture, a tidy workstation, and a ceiling height television built into the wall, among other things Eve did not care to notice. “Wow, if this place is only where you stay when you work late, then what’s your proper flat like?” she asked.
“Forget that,” said Lon, “we need to sort this thing out”.
“So, what is it? What’s the problem?” asked Chris without the slightest clue as to what the issue could be.
“Well,” said Lon, “I’m honestly not sure where to begin, but basically, our friends Alta, Marcus and Andres were taken”.
Chris was puzzled. “Taken?” he repeated. “What do you mean?” He sat down on one of the couches positioned up against the windows.
“Well, we all went to that new Mediterranean shopping centre that opened recently, and at one point when Eve and Alta were looking at clothes, the three of us guys were waiting outside where Marcus accidentally bumped into some guy who started a fight, and punched him in the nose and then… well, he called us all scumbags or something, so I kicked him in the head”.
At this Chris sniggered.
Lon went on, “Basically he got up off the floor and tried to attack Alta who was standing the closest to him, then… then there was a flash of light, then we could hear gunshots and people screaming. We couldn’t see much because of some thick smoke that had been set off, but I managed to see some…” he shrugged, “some riot police, or something. It seemed like they were just shooting anyone, so I grabbed Eve and jumped into the nearby canal and hid under an upturned boat”.
At this Eve began to well up; it was the first time either of them had recounted the story since it had happened a few hours earlier.
Chris was finding Lon’s story hard to believe. Not every day does your little brother and his friends get attacked by an unknown task force. “Are you pulling my leg?” he worriedly asked.
“No,” replied Lon, “let me finish. We waited under the boat for a while, then the noise died down, but we didn’t get out from under it for a bit longer in case the people who attacked us were still in the shopping centre”. He paused to take in a large gulp of air in order to regain his composure and to try to reduce the choking sensation in his throat. He continued, “We eventually got out of the canal,” he took another deep breath, “and everyone was gone”.
Chris was more worried now. “Wha-” he gulped, “what do you mean, ‘everyone was gone’?”
“That’s exactly what I mean, everyone was gone. Nobody else was there! It was as if nothing had happened, and as if nobody had been there at all! There were no bodies, no spent bullet cases or bullet holes, and there wasn’t any blood anywhere, not even where it had fallen from Marcus’ nose after he’d been hit”.
“What the hell?” uttered Chris in disbelief. His brain started to tick as he began to deduce what he had just been told.
Eve sniffled and continued the explanation. “That’s not the end though. We left the shopping centre without checking in to the NGT system because we thought it would be better to, you know, stay off radar seeing that we didn’t know actually what happened to us, or who did it. But when we arrived at Central Station… when we wanted to leave the NGT platform…” she sniffled again as a tear slid down her cheek, “we had to check out, and the console welcomed us instead of saying goodbye”.
Chris knew what this meant. “Crap. That means they’ve probably labelled you as a fare dodger, at least”. He turned his attention back to his brother. “But you used your palm screen, didn’t you? So you should be fine”. Lon’s increasingly upset and worried appearance unsettled him.
“That’s another thing,” explained Lon, “our palm screens stopped working at some point, so I had to check in with a retina scan”.
“Oh crap. That means the government will probably be after you as well”.
“Yeah, so that’s why we came here; I thought it might be safer for us, and I was hoping you could help,” said Lon.
“I wonder,” added Chris, “what the shopping centre surveillance has to say. It might help to explain to the police why you fare dodged”.
“Oh yeah, I just remembered!” exclaimed Eve, “We saw part of a news report on the tele when we were on the NGT; it said there was no surveillance footage! The cameras were all offline”.
“That’s right!” Lon quickly added. “The news report said that there was a flash of light, then the surveillance feed was cut!”
“And that’s when your palm screens broke,” explained Chris. He got to his feet and walked to the door they came in through. As he pulled it open music spilled in from the other side. He left the door ajar and momentarily disappeared from view, returning several moments later along with Tan. The door was closed behind them, once again ending the flow of sound from the workroom.
“I take it you need my expertise for something?” speculated Tan.
“We might,” said Chris.
Both Lon and Eve were puzzled. It seemed as though Chris had an idea of what was going on.
“Explain to him exactly what you’ve just explained to me,” Chris said to the two upset people sitting on the couch.
Lon and Eve repeated their story for Tan.
“Wow, sorry that you had to go through that,” said Tan in response to their recounting. “That really sucks”. He turned towards Chris, “I guess you want me to give you my opinion, right?”
Chris nodded. “First of all, tell me what you think the flash was”.
“It was obviously an EMPG,” said Tan, confidently.
“EMPG?” repeated Lon.
“What’s an EMPG?” asked Eve.
Lon answered, “A grenade”.
“An ‘Electromagnetic Pulse Grenade’, to be exact,” iterated Chris. “It’s a type of bomb that emits a large pulse of electricity to disable certain types of circuitry”. He turned back to Tan and inquired “What else do you make of it all?”
“Well,” began Tan, “we don’t know enough to make a decent assumption, but I reckon it was funded by someone with a lot of money”.
“That could be anyone though,” stated Eve despondently, “there are too many people in this city with too much money”.
“True, but we have more information to work with,” said Tan. “Think. How could they have removed the bodies from the shopping cent
re?”
Eve winced when she heard this. She was hanging on to the hope that her friends were not simply “bodies”. “Well, there were probably a lot of attackers that took everyone away,” she said.
“But how did they get them out of the building?” asked Chris.
“The NGT would have been the quickest way,” said Lon.
“And I doubt they could have used the NGT in the same way as the public, otherwise they would have been noticed,” said Tan.
Eve was not sure what Tan was getting at, “What do you mean? Are you saying they didn’t use a public train?”
“That could be the case,” Tan said in response.
“So it was something to do with the government?” asked Lon, almost asserting his opinion.
“It could be,” said Tan, “but like Eve said before, it could be anyone with money and the right connections”.
“So we have no idea,” stated Chris. “But, that’s why I asked Tan to lend us his expertise”.
“Oh?” Tan appeared to become excited.
“Yes,” Chris began to explain, “we can easily get a map of the NGT system off the web, but we won’t easily be able to find a complete list of public or private sector companies with personal access to it”.
Eve was still uncertain of what Chris was suggesting. “I’m not sure what you mean”.
“Think of it like this,” Chris began to explain in more depth, “there are companies that have private access to the NGT system because it’s directly linked to their businesses”.
Eve nodded to indicate her understanding.
Chris went on. “Because they have private use of the system, they also have some level of business secrecy. Plus, there are companies that are physically linked to the NGT system”.
“Oh, you mean like the science centre? That has an NGT station in the building,” said Eve.
“Yes, that’s one of them,” said Tan “but there are many other businesses that have as well. Also, most of the NGT system is run by the government, just like most other public amenities in the country”.
“So it’s more than likely the government who did it?” asked Lon, intent on laying the blame on the leading party.
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