Minions

by Addison, Garrett

  The guy was an animal too. Devlin waded through massed evidence, not just speculation which proved that Angie was only one of many to be victimised by the guy. He didn’t bother counting them; that the list only started with his arrival in this country suggested that there were surely others, and he wondered what the guy had done beforehand.

  It was obvious too that the guy was being closely followed, but less clear as to who or which organisation, or organisations, were keeping tabs on him. Devlin was comforted that it was more than likely Police, but that only spawned thoughts as to why he would be allowed to continue. Devlin also marvelled how appropriate his real name was. Nebojsa. It meant ‘fearless’.

  “Everyone’s suggested that LastGasp’ sees information being passed onto Police. So why’s this guy still around?” Devlin asked with more than a little puzzlement. “Surely he should be locked up …or euthanized.”

  “Derrell thought the same thing. But what does this tell you?” Glen asked, watching Devlin closely, but he fell short of any attempt to make eye contact, as if he was looking more to gauge Devlin’s reaction than engage him. “I’ll tell you almost anything you want to know.”

  “I don’t get it,” Devlin began. “Maybe I should be looking at Angie and not this guy.”

  “Or maybe you’re not looking hard enough.”

  Devlin looked over the Research Interface again, this time less pressured to read quickly. “I feel like I’m looking for something, and when I find it, it’s not going to be good for me, you or LastGasp’ either.”

  “I could care less what happens to LastGaspStore. Technically, it isn’t even mine now, anyway.”

  “But ….”

  “I’ve never cared that LastGasp’ persists for my own gains. I’m not so naïve as to think that you’re not capable of the maths necessary to work out that you guys are all paid inordinately highly for what is essentially a free internet service. Clearly I’m paying you out of my own pocket rather than the proceeds of whatever sponsorship the site generates.

  “As I said when we first met, I’m more interested in the service that LastGaspStore provides. I was sure that the world would see it the same way, and on the main, I’ve been right.”

  “But regardless of whether it’s yours or not, it’s still your baby.”

  “Bastard child is more accurate. I’ve been forced to see the good and bad, the best and the worst of people, and then I’ve seen it corrupted.”

  “So why don’t you kill it? Terminate LastGasp’ and just walk away. Surely the money that you’d be able to walk away with would buy a clear conscience.”

  “I’ve been trying to for years. The problem is that at inception I didn’t realise that LastGaspStore was so corruptible. Of course I understood the attractiveness of the repository, but not the extent to which it could be exploited. I couldn’t walk away, in much the same way that a nuclear power could hardly leave their weapons in the hands of some apes just because they’d grown weary of their responsibility. Whether I liked it or not, I was trapped by my creation.”

  Devlin picked up the semantics of what he’d heard. “You said, was trapped.”

  “Indeed I did. Initially I thought like Wonka and his chocolate factory. I couldn’t walk away, but I could retire, leaving it in the hands of someone I trusted. And you’d think it would be simple.

  “Where everyone before Derrell had issues about my vision to be a passive observer in the simple service of delivering a posthumous message, Derrell changed the rules. He was the one who suggested that my vision was flawed, and the one who suggested that I needed the means to do a little homework.”

  “The Research Interface?”

  Glen nodded. “At the time I saw the merit in his suggestion, and while I had my suspicions, I tended to focus on the upside.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “You know, different people, different readers more specifically, responded differently. I discovered that Derrell was doing the rounds of hospices. It seemed he was befriending masses of terminally ill patients, encouraging them to become LastGaspStore members no less.

  “The guy was the embodiment of what I wanted for LastGasp’. I’d found the ‘Charlie’ for my chocolate factory.”

  “So what was the problem?”

  “I called it an ideological misclose at the time, but I don’t know what I’d call it now. The problem was that we basically wanted the same thing, except that we wanted to achieve it differently.

  “So why aren’t you trapped now?”

  “I’m probably just as trapped as before but with acceptance comes comfort. Now I’m just more comfortable with what I’ve created, and you can thank your friend Malcolm for that.”

  “Why?”

  “I know I explained that Derrell represented a ‘changing of the guard’, but I don’t think I explained that this was more literal than cliché. My readers are effectively my guards, and before Derrell, their commitment was to the task at hand, to guard and protect LastGaspStore. But those who followed had their own agendas.”

  “Is that why they were killed?” Devlin risked the cheap shot as he re-scanned the list.

  Glen didn’t bite. “You know, Sampson Burbino had the same concerns as you. He joined me towards the end of Derrell’s time.”

  “The Detective mentioned that he thinks that Malcolm is actually this Burbino guy.”

  “Quite,” said Glen. “For a time after Derrell, there was only Carson, Sam and myself. It was hot on the heels of Derrell’s departure and I was decidedly wary, but we settled into a rhythm and things went well.”

  “Sam’s not on my list.”

  “Sam’s not on any list and that was intentional. I knew I was on a winner with him. Some personal issues had forced him into isolation from when he was young, so he was denied a lot of corrupting influences, but of course he didn’t live his entire life in a bubble, so he wasn’t a saint by any means.

  “I still remember when I interrupted Carson and Sam discussing the future of LastGaspStore. It didn’t occur to me at the time because they weren’t looking to breach my system, or otherwise bring it down. The status quo worked for me.”

  “So what did they want?”

  “I know you’ve got your concerns about my protocols, all readers do, but Carson and Sam went even better. The fact is that there’s always someone worthy of attention, the issue lies in what’s done thereafter. Most want to punish someone, and I accept that. Readers are only human, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “You know. The reason why I recruited Carson is that I understood the need for a woman’s empathy at LastGaspStore. I don’t like to generalise, but I figured that women would be better at this, and a lack of testosterone would reduce the potential for a liability like many of those who preceded her. Again, I say that different people have responded differently to the stresses of being a reader. Some change, some don’t.

  “Carson and Sam both made an effort to pull me to their side. Ordinarily readers have a nasty habit of feigning dumbfounded silence, but they both felt confident enough to argue their case. Carson suggested that the protocols were crap because they didn’t see bad people go down. Sam, in a sense, agreed.”

  “So what was the problem?”

  “Semantics arguably. Sam wanted the good to be protected, at whatever cost, personally, and to LastGasp’. Carson was less interested in protecting the good so long as those worthy go punished.

  “It’s all about the greater good, Devlin. It’s always about the greater good.”

  “So what happened to Carson?”

  “Carson lost sight of the greater good. Anything else that I could tell you about her wouldn’t help.”

  “Wouldn’t help you, or me?”

  “Wouldn’t help anyone,” Glens face softened. “I’ll tell you something about me, and I tell you this only because I think that you might understand this better than the others.”

  Devlin heard this and sub-consciously felt a little odd, as if he h
ad achieved something the others had not. He wondered if this meant that he was any more, or less, at risk than he was previously.

  “David and the others felt that their role was one of community service, and there’s some element of truth in this.”

  “And what about Sam?”

  “Sam moved on. We had a parting of ways, of sorts. We both understood how LastGaspStore was corruptible, and unlike others, we both weren’t prepared to see it further corrupted.”

  “So why would Malcolm, Sam, change his name? If he’s hiding from you and you know his new identity ...”

  “He’s not hiding from me. If I ever wanted to, I guess I could track him down, but that’s beside the point. I don’t want to find him, just as I don’t really want him found.”

  “Why, if you’re friends?”

  “We are friends, but ideologically opposed and now distant. When last we spoke, he accused me of being just as bad as some of the people that we read about every day, and I’m not just talking about LastGaspStore messages here either. If I knew someone was at risk or at harm and I do nothing, am I guilty? Perhaps.

  “It was then that we parted. If the Police and others could be so content to sit on information and do nothing, then I didn’t want to facilitate any further corruption.”

  “So what did Sam, Malcolm, want?”

  “Malcolm wanted to use the guilty.”

  “How can you use guilt?”

  Glen scratched his head and sat forward in his seat. “What would you do if you met or even discovered the person who outed you?”

  “Not only is he already dead …”

  ”So you maintain, and thanks to you,” Glen interrupted. “But humour me.”

  Devlin thought about the confident way that Glen had raised the point and the doubt that it left in him was emptying. “Are you saying that he’s not the one who outed me?”

  “How should I know? My point is that you clearly aren’t certain, even in hindsight. And look at what happened.”

  Devlin raised his eyebrows and made to defend himself from the accusation, but Glen held up his hand as if to retract the comment. “Whether you had cause or not is irrelevant. He’s dead, you’re not and when the media loses interest you’ll be able to continue with your life.”

  “But if he’s innocent then …”

  “He’s still dead. What you are grappling with is the question of whether or not he deserved it.

  “Until now you’ve defended yourself with passion that you did what you did for the right reasons. In so doing you killed a family man over what amounted to a personal grudge. Now tell me what you’d do if you learnt, without question, that he was not the one who made the accusations.”

  “I’d …” Devlin couldn’t even begin to frame a response. The thought ate away at him. He remembered that when his nightmare began, he was naïvely confident that the world, or at least a jury, would see the provocation that led to the whole incident.

  “You don’t really need to tell me, but consider this. What if you learned, before or after, that the world was better off without him. Wife beater, rapist, serial killer, income tax evader. It doesn’t matter. How would that change how you feel now?”

  “I’d sleep better.”

  “What if only you knew the truth?”

  “I’d live with it.”

  “So you’d live out your life knowing that what you did served a greater purpose, regardless of whether anyone else knew?”

  Devlin finally gathered where this was heading. “The greater good?”

  Glen nodded. “I’ll bet you’re itching to use the Research Interface at this point. It won’t change anything of course.”

  “But I have to know.”

  “Just make sure that you can handle each of the possibilities. That he’s not the one, that he is the one and you’re now public enemy number one for what amounts to a community service, and that he is the one but not the monster that you’d hoped.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Alright then,” Glen offered. “Because others couldn’t.”

  Chapter - 80.

  Devlin pushed himself away from the keyboard until the wheels of his chair stopped at the wall. He remained fixated on the screen, but he wasn’t able to read anything but the largest type from that range. It didn’t matter. He was finished.

  “Was it worth it?” Glen asked sincerely.

  “Probably not.”

  “You see Devlin, in the wrong hands, all the remorse or anger in the world won’t change anything. But in the right hands, there is opportunity.

  “You’ve got two, at least two, choices here. You could keep on with your anger at the world, but that won’t get you anywhere. The world doesn’t care, and neither do I. I see enough regret every day, as have you. Missed opportunities, lost moments. Regret and loss is everywhere and I don’t want to see you waste your life on something that will be old news before the dust settles on your grave or you make your first parole review.

  “Or you could get on with your life. Move on. That’s why I recruited you.”

  “So your employing me is … what exactly?”

  “Just like I’ve said, I just don’t want you to head down a dead end path.”

  Devlin was incredulous. “Bullshit! Look me in the eyes and tell me that this is all to protect my interests.”

  “I sincerely do have your best interests at heart, but I won’t look you in the eyes. It’s not you, it’s me. I do it, or more correctly don’t do it with anyone.”

  “So why’s that?”

  “Years of conditioning!” Glen struggled a smile. “Others too have confronted me on the subject. They’d argue that they could never tell if I was telling them the truth unless I looked them in the face. ‘The truth is in your eyes’, they’d say.”

  “I tend to share that opinion.”

  “The fact is that I don’t look at people because I don’t want to know whether they are telling me the truth.”

  For arguably the first time, Devlin understood something of what Glen was saying. “So if you’re looking out for me, why didn’t you look out for David and the others?”

  “You have to understand that until Derrell, my readers were there for me, but after Derrell and Sam, I changed my focus.” Disappointment was obvious on Glen’s face. “I’ve felt for each and every one of those who died because I wanted to help them. I figured that exposed to other people’s secrets, they might learn something and save themselves.

  “Most recently, David, perhaps found it too confronting to have his bias for forgiveness challenged. Maybe he could tolerate it particularly on account of his professional past, but not when immersed in guilt all day, every day. Whether that guilt was his or someone else’s is no longer important.

  “And Ikel. I thought I could change him by showing him how he and others like him have affected people. The problem with him was that he was so fickle that he was oblivious to my efforts and came to see LastGaspStore as a cash-cow and a means to meet bereaved women. Before you ask, I’m not above sadness that he died, but you saw the way he drove. It was just a matter of time. Perhaps the LastGaspStore message that he received from his uncle gave way to some great epiphany.

  “So why then would Whitely feel the need to warn me?”

  “Whitely’s heart’s in the right place. I trust that you know of his history, his shared history with your friend the Detective. You might know that he was arguably the least corruptible of my readers and I was appreciative for that. I thought I could drag him from his shell and get his mind off revenge. In that sense I was partially successful; Whitely’s still alive and out of jail.”

  “And Malcolm?”

  Glen took a look at his watch after first shaking his wrist and holding it to his ear. “Can I ask you to hold that thought, your question, for a few hours.”

  “Fine,” Devlin reluctantly accepted the request with a sigh.

  Glen stood and stretched his arms high such that his palms approached the ceili
ng. He gave Devlin a heart-felt but gentle pat on the shoulder. “Relax. You’ll understand more before too long.”

  Devlin shrugged as if accepting the suggestion, but with reservation. He tried for an answer to a different but he presumed related question. “So why tolerate the Police here at all?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Why allow Police on staff in the first place?”

  “For so long as they are trying to get in, then I know that LastGaspStore is secure. When they stop trying, then theoretically I should be worried.”

  “I think you’ve been breached.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Don’t you think that it is amazingly co-incidental that Malcolm would meet Angie, and that Malcolm would tell her about me.”

  “It’s not co-incidental, but not important, just the same.”

  Chapter - 81.

  Tania woke in unfamiliar surroundings but in a familiar place. It was daylight, early morning judging by the lack of any traffic hum, and her memory of the preceding night was patchy.

  She knew the drill. She first allowed her body to check for any significant injuries before she even moved, and only after she was satisfied that nothing was broken did she make any effort to roll off her stomach onto her back. As soon as she moved her legs she felt the constriction at her knees, her underwear for sure, and she knew the rest instantly. She began her ordered injury assessment, first face, then limb by limb. She anticipated the pains and damage, but still checked them off in a mental ‘top to toe’ checklist just the same. Her hair was sure to be a mess, even as short as it was, but at least it didn’t smell. Her face felt like orange peel, even after scratching off a little gravel, but at least there was no bruising and no grazes, so nothing that wouldn’t be fixed with a long shower and adequate hydration, water not alcohol. Her jaw was stiff, but that would pass, as would the taste of rubber. She still had most of her clothes, though she wouldn’t be considered presentable in any forum. Getting home and changed, dressed, would be a priority, but not before checking the rest of her body. Sore breasts? Check. Sore, sticky, wet loins? Double check. Sore ass? You betcha. She hoped she still had some haemorrhoid cream at home.