Minions

by Addison, Garrett

  Just like Whitely had wished, Tania was now all alone. With the unfortunate passing of her support sponsor, she too now had no-one. As ever, Reymond struggled between his professional obligation for concern and his long shelved personal indifference to her. It might be sad that Tania was now without a friend in the world, but Reymond wondered if Tania, sober or otherwise, felt anywhere near the pain that he’d felt over the years.

  * * *

  Detective Reymond felt it fitting that he would draft his resignation by hand. Short and sharp, it captured what he wanted it to say, particularly when he held grave doubts that anyone would actually read it. Handwritten as it was, or in hardcopy as the world would now describe it, his resignation said more than it needed to in some regards, but less than was obligatory. He didn’t pander to any expectation that he reminisce over a career worth of fond memories, professional challenges, camaraderie and how the Force had evolved with a changing society. Similarly, he didn’t suggest that he was indebted to those who had seen fit to allow him to stay in the force beyond what was traditional, nor did he reduce himself to using it as a soapbox.

  Instead, he limited himself to a series of thankyou’s, and a summary of what he believed was the most important role that he’d played in his time in the Force. He doubted whether anyone would understand, but he didn’t really care.

  Mr Alan Reymond left the station with his chipped mug.

  Chapter - 78.

  Devlin could not differentiate between surprise and relief to see Lori in the bunker. He rushed to hold her, but she was more reserved and held him at arm’s length, as if wary of the gesture as some precursor to a sexual advance. “I’m just happy to see you!” he said, but Lori was unconvinced.

  “You’ve heard about Ikel then?” Devlin asked.

  “Yes, I heard. And it’s sad, but right now I’m a little focussed,” Lori replied as she typed and focussed on her screen.

  Devlin was disappointed in her ambivalence. “You sound like Glen. I thought you would have shown more interest than that, particularly given your history.”

  “Frankly, my history is the last thing I want to think about at this point.”

  Suddenly guilty that he wasn’t sharing some pending workload, Devlin logged into his machine, but noted that there were no messages awaiting review. Only then did he realise that Lori was using the Research Interface. “Who are you looking at then?”

  “Save me the banter.” Lori made no attempt to hide her actions, which made her appear even more brazen. “If you want to get busy, turn on the stereo.”

  Devlin interpreted Lori’s words as a request rather than a suggestion, and he obliged accordingly. As soon as the music started, he looked to Lori for some sign of approval but she responded with a gesture indicating that he should turn up the volume. With the volume set unreasonably loud, Lori ushered Devlin closer. “I’m not being rude, but I have bigger fish to fry than just ….”

  Lori stopped reactively when the stereo was suddenly silenced as Glen opened the bunker door and took a seat.

  “Devlin, when I introduced Lori here, I mentioned that she was a prostitute. That she may well be still a prostitute is neither here nor there. But I could have said that she was also once a member of the Police force. And that she is still in said Police force, would that mean less or more?”

  Devlin assumed that this was a matter between Glen and Lori, but he was more than happy to listen in.

  “How long have you known?” Lori asked.

  “I’ve always known. It didn’t worry me then, and it doesn’t worry me now.” Glen edged himself closer to Lori’s screen and to see what she was doing. “It’s the lying that gets me though. And the turning up the volume so as to help keep your little secrets and to corrupt Devlin here is just …wrong.”

  “I’m just doing my job.”

  “And I have no problem with you or anyone doing their job. I just don’t like secrets that don’t include me.”

  “So if you know I’m with the Police, where’s the secret?”

  “Lori, if you’ve learnt nothing in your extra-curricular time here at LastGaspStore, I would have hoped that it would be that perceptions are everything. Consider this. If I had a governing body, and I don’t, but if I did, they would have seen your history and advised me that you were not the kind of employee that LastGaspStore needed. Me on the other hand looked at your history and saw proof positive of honesty. Men approach you for sex, transaction is conducted, nice and honest. You see it’s all a matter of perceptions.”

  “I’m surprised that you didn’t perceive the Police as synonymous with honesty,” Lori suggested.

  “Well yes, but then again I’m the suspicious one, and I’m all the more suspicious that the Police are still so determined to breach LastGaspStore for their own purposes.”

  “So this is not the first time?” Devlin asked. “You said still, as if you’d been breached before.”

  “Instead of asking that, why don’t you ask Lori why she’s here?” Glen directed his attention towards Lori and suggested that Devlin do the same. “Lori?”

  “Officially, I’m here to get closer to the LastGasp’ security. We couldn’t breach it from outside, so we had to try from the inside.”

  “But why, Lori? Tell Devlin what was so wrong with my privacy, and indirectly the privacy of all of the LastGaspStore members? And if you’re reluctant to disclose that, why not just tell him who you were just researching. For all you know, you might have a lot in common.”

  Glen stood up to leave, but on reaching the door he turned for one last salvo. “For the record, this changes nothing between us. You’re more than welcome to stay Lori, if you want. Just don’t interfere. It’s all I ask.” He left the bunker, being as careful as ever to secure the door behind himself.

  Devlin looked to Lori for something, beit advice or a suggestion of some description, but once the shock of her being outed had settled, she only returned to her keyboard and continued typing. “What are you doing?” he asked, edging closer so as to look over her shoulder.

  “I figure that it’s only a matter of time before he locks me out.”

  “Is that all you’re concerned about? I’ve spent the last few days terrified that crossing Glen or LastGasp’ would be paramount to a death sentence.”

  “Oh God, no!” Lori exclaimed, though not pausing enough to interfere with the rate of her typing. “I’ll just be replaced like the others before me. I’m not the first and I more than likely won’t be the last.”

  “What’s to work out? Why LastGasp’ employees have a habit of dying?”

  “People die, Devlin. My mandate is to understand how it is that Glen’s managed to keep his system secure.”

  “So you’re sure that it is secure?”

  “As I said when you first joined, the fact that Glen is not awash with Law suits is proof enough for me, but professionally speaking, yes I sincerely believe this to be the case. However, I’ll be the first to admit that we are talking purely theoretical here, and so my comments are technically subjective. In any case, that I’m here at all represents my highers’ continued interest.” Lori directed all of her attention to a single key, repeatedly tapping away, seemingly without regard to the effects. “I’m out. Glen’s locked me out.” There was disappointment on her face. “What were you saying?”

  Devlin wanted to explain, his zeal to do so overpowering the lagging fatigue that he’d otherwise fought hard to suppress all day, but Glen re-appeared before he’d progressed much past sharing his suspicions surrounding the list of names. He was suddenly reluctant to continue.

  “Don’t let me stop you, Devlin, please continue.” Glen edged forward as if genuinely interested and oblivious to Devlin’s reticence to explain further.

  “Sorry Glen, but you being here makes me feel a little seditious, particularly given that Lori here is clearly no longer welcome.”

  “I’d be terribly disappointed if Lori left, particularly when doing so would leave me so u
nderstaffed. Lori?”

  “I just figured that given my access has been removed, then that was paramount to a warning of my sacking.”

  “Certainly not. I’ve just disabled your access to the Research Interface is all. Curiosity is one thing, but not when it’s as overtly subversive as yours. Don’t get me wrong Lori, I’ve appreciated your curiosity until now, even if it was covertly professional in its intentions, but not if you’re going to interfere.”

  “But my access to the Research Interface is still fine,” Devlin commented incredulously. He couldn’t help but test his own access while listening to Glen speak. “So I’m still OK?”

  “Of course. I sense you are on the cusp of learning something Devlin, and I’d very much prefer for you to make this realisation here and now.”

  “But …”

  “The Research Interface is there to be used, Devlin,” Glen hinted without subtlety, adding, “I’m not the bad guy in this.”

  “I just don’t know how Tania fits in.”

  “I’m only surprised that you haven’t found this out for yourself.”

  “I was going to…”

  “And you’ll do what about it?” Glen pressed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do, and you’ll do the right thing.”

  “But ..”

  “But what, Devlin? You do your homework and you make up your own mind.” Glen nodded to Lori and left the room, leaving Lori initially silent and Devlin making faces to himself as if thinking.

  “Who’s Tania?” Lori asked, keen to coax Devlin from his distant state.

  “I was going to explain Tania before Glen re-appeared.”

  “Who’s she, and what’s she to you?”

  “She’s no-one to me!” Devlin replied, sensing a hint of jealousy in Lori’s tone. “To explain I have to tell you about pretty well everything that’s happened to me over the last few days.”

  Chapter - 79.

  Devlin couldn’t believe how quickly Lori assimilated his protracted recap of the preceding days. He expected her eyes to glaze over as his explanation turned into a saga, but instead it seemed that she was all the more interested with every word that he said. She didn’t ask a mass of questions and immediately formulated a plan. He made no secret of his appreciation either, deferring to her to take the lead and allowing her to take control of his keyboard.

  The only discussion between Lori and Devlin related to the order that they undertook their research. Lori was keen to start with Malcolm, whereas Devlin was adamant that as everything and everyone pointed to Tania, then surely she should be investigated first. Only after Lori conceded that her covert investigation, until now at least, had yielded little did she agree to look first at Tania. Devlin then wanted to learn what he could of the man that Angie had described. He still felt for her, in spite of whatever she’d said about him.

  “I need everything you know about her,” asked Lori.

  “I don’t know a lot, really just her name. I could maybe remember her address if I tried.”

  “That won’t be enough. If you’re vague, you’re punished for it. If you enter a name or a word, it tells you everything that could possibly be associated with that word from all of its sources.” Lori gave a cursory look to the security camera mounted high on the wall against the ceiling. “You enter more, you narrow your search. Unlike Google, this will capture your intent.”

  Devlin removed the list from his pocket, anticipating Lori’s interest. “Her name came up when I tried a list of recent readers names.”

  Lori paused a moment, her hands hovering over the keyboard. “Summarise everything you know about her.”

  Devlin cautiously and sparingly offered names and facts. He focussed less on the banal details of his meetings with her, and more on what he’d gleaned from what Whitely and Reymond had said. Lori executed the search as soon as she was confident that Devlin was complete.

  Clearly more adept at the use of the Research Interface, Lori had managed to order the result. While Devlin noticed that the result still amounted to 38 pages worth, at least it was chronologically ordered which would make it substantially more logical than the seemingly randomised results that he’d seen in the past. Presented before him was the life, or at least part of the life, of Tania Wilson. They started to read, each silently communicating to the other when they were ready to move to the next page.

  After a few pages of reading, Devlin decided that ‘unfortunate’ was the best word to describe Tania’s life. Her employment history could have been interpreted as eclectic, as if she wanted to sample working life in as many roles as possible, but it wasn’t. She’d drifted from job to job, each a little lower in profile than the last. From senior management she’d progressed to less and less responsibility, until she wasn’t considered responsible enough to fetch a cup of coffee for herself. Family and friends obviously helped her get jobs but they couldn’t help her keep them.

  Somewhere along the way, substance abuse became obvious in her employment and life in general, though it was difficult to assess whether her decline was caused by the alcohol and other drugs, or vice versa. In any case, if her professional life was a mess, there could be no mistake that her personal life was worse. She managed to isolate herself with antisocial behaviour evident with drug induced highs, and depressive or hungover lows. One by one or in droves, friends and acquaintances gradually had enough. Tania’s circle of friends, much like her circle of influence, shrank accordingly.

  Devlin glossed over some of the names from Glen’s list, but not all. Many recent readers knew Tania to some degree; Ikel was her dealer for a time, and David was her counsellor of some description. Perhaps the others were there too, mentioned by reference instead of name.

  It could easily have been overlooked, but Devlin also noted his association to her; the guy he killed was her relative. That Tania didn’t broach this point when they’d met spoke more of her isolation than any remarkable forgiveness on her part.

  About the only thing that was improving in Tania’s life was the volume of police interest. The more Devlin read, the more he accepted that police sources constituted at least part of the repository that the Research Interface accessed. She had a few convictions, each for relatively minor incursions against public decency, and episodes of drink-driving, public drunkenness and assault.

  Devlin identified references to the accident that killed the Detective’s daughter, Whitely’s wife. In reading the media reports of the accident and public outcry that ensued from her acquittal, he felt renewed sadness for both the Detective and Whitely. The tabloids had obviously latched onto the story and went the extra mile to paint Tania as the one who destroyed lives, particularly the lives of Whitely and the Detective. As much as he understood the popular outrage, Devlin also empathised with Tania for how she was portrayed. Except that the Detective’s account confirmed everything that was and wasn’t in the media releases, Devlin felt for how she was demonised.

  She was involved in a mass of other incidents ranging from corporate fraud to theft and ultimately to narcotics, for which she’d been spared convictions, typically for a lack of evidence or dubious levels of involvement. The popular press kept her close, and it seemed like the slightest hint of Police suspicion was enough for her to return to the public eye. Devlin couldn’t help but be sceptical as to whether the media was following the Police, or vice versa. There could be no denying that the media got their information from somewhere.

  “So what does this tell us?” Lori asked as soon as she finished reading. She ran her fingers through her short hair, and tried in vain to draw some imaginary bulk into what would have been a ponytail had her hair been longer. “It tells me…”

  Glen appeared again. “Thanks Lori, but I don’t want to hear what it tells you, though I appreciate your refined instruction on the finer points of my Research Interface. It’s nothing personal, I just don’t want your opinion to taint the developing thoughts of Devlin here.”

 
; “So what do you want me to do?” Lori asked, clearly expecting more of a reprimand.

  “Do what you like, but not here.” He thrust his chin at the door. Lori stood and left the bunker, dragging her hand casually over Devlin’s shoulder as she passed.

  Comfortable that he was now alone with Devlin, Glen looked at the keyboard and asked., “So now what are you going to do?”

  “Tim? Tania’s brother?” Devlin asked tentatively, as if subtly asking for Glen’s guidance or concurrence.

  “Why him?”

  “Because David as much as suggested some responsibility for his death, so surely that’s something.”

  “I’d suggest that such an investigation at this time wouldn’t help you.”

  “Alright,” Devlin thought for a moment. “I want to know about the guy from Angie’s message. I expected to see his name somewhere in Tania’s history.” He edged himself closer to the keyboard and started keying in all of the names and details mentioned in Angie’s message.

  Glen nodded his concurrence with every detail he saw typed. He smiled as soon as he saw Devlin execute the search.

  It was remarkable how the Research Interface charted Nebojsa’s history. He’d managed to be granted asylum from the former Yugoslavia in what was later red flagged as an administrative error. Only after he’d been welcomed did new information come to light that he had more to fear from retribution than persecution in his homeland. Some bureaucrat had buried the truth rather than expose his department’s mistake. In a stroke of pen, he’d been allowed to re-invent himself as an impoverished, wartime refugee ready to embrace a new country and a new start. Devlin recognised Tania’s brother’s name as the bureaucrat, surely localising the fallout from his sister’s error.

  The Research Interface was awash with pictures of Nebojsa with famous and less famous faces. Whether or not he was genuinely an orphan on coming to this country, it seemed that he now had no shortage of friends.