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Soul Source: Back and There Again

Page 22

by Charles Vella


  "We shouldn't've sent her without more training on how to operate the vehicle," Kristen said with a shake of her head.

  "Then she's..." Agnes couldn't say it. Another body piled in front of her. Like a wall of ghoulish smiles. All facing her in her dreams. In her dreams? She saw them when she was awake. Saw them now.

  "Ten kilometers and three months?"

  "That's correct Sturgell."

  "What the hell happened?" Griff asked.

  "They must've diverted," Eileen said.

  "Diversions don't really happen," Griff said.

  "Tell that to Veronica," Eileen snapped.

  "What's a diversion?" Isn't that the word Sturgell mentioned at the launch? Agnes's head had swiveled between the two of them. Couldn't these people speak English? She was a scientist for Chrissake. She should have some idea what they're talking about.

  "So far they're only a theoretical possibility," Sturgell Bob said, turning to Agnes. "Besides. To divert by ten kilometers and three months she'd've had to encounter an obstacle almost at the point of origin."

  "Would you please just tell me what you're talking about?"

  "Theoretically," Sturgell Bob emphasized the word, "...a diversion occurs when multiple closed timeline curves are opened too close to each other. That's why we never run missions within a month of each other. We don't really understand it but essentially the closed timeline curves seem to try to avoid each other."

  "It's quite a conundrum," Dutch said nodding. He winked at Pruitt, who was staring fixedly at him.

  "A conundrum?" Griff snapped. "What the hell happened you mechanical nightmare?"

  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, actually, a titanium and steel alloy would be more effective..."

  "Ah Dutch," Warren broke in. "Do you have any idea what might have caused this. Might it've been a diversion?"

  Dutch thought about it. His inane smile disappeared for a second into a blank face. "There isn't sufficient data at this time to draw a conclusion."

  They all stared at each other. Pruitt considered Dutch with a look of concentration before finally breaking the glum silence.

  "Well, at least the accident is explainable to the authorities at the time."

  "Thank God for that," Griff snorted.

  "There's nothing we can do for Veronica. But if that truck had ended up on top of a building it could have caused deviations we can't begin to comprehend." He turned to Agnes and she had to fight shrinking under his stare. "When you talk to your masters, you might want to reiterate how close to disaster this was." And still might be, she read in his eyes, for you.

  "Close to disaster?" Eileen half rose out of her chair, looking as if she might cry.

  "Sometimes you're almost human Pruitt," Griff snorted, burying his face in his hands.

  "We need to get Veronica's body back," Eileen said, staring into Agnes's eyes.

  "Impossible," Pruitt said flatly. "It's too risky to send another mission for that."

  "What if someone runs a DNA test on her and finds out who she is?"

  "Acceptable risk," Pruitt said dismissively. "Sturgell's team has already run the numbers."

  "Already run the numbers?" Griff said incredulously.

  "We had to," Sturgell Bob said defensively. "It's standard procedure."

  "Everyone just calm down," Agnes ordered.

  "I can't believe," Eileen said, slowly coming to her feet. "That she's a little girl back there at the same time we're abandoning her dead body." She walked out, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.

  "If your masters have any sense of responsibility," Pruitt broke the silence.

  "Sense of responsibility?" Griff said incredulously.

  "...they need to drop this entire hare-brained idea." He shot Agnes a significant look then turned on his heel and walked through the door as it swished open in front of him. Except it didn't.

  Pruitt reeled back from the impact with the door, catching himself with one hand on the table and the other on his forehead. The door swished open. He glared at the door, looked around at the stunned faces around the table, then stalked out of the room.

  "Nothing seems to be working today," Dutch said cheerfully.

  The shock wore off Griff first and he laughed into his hands. Even Warren smiled faintly.

  "I'd pay to see that again," Griff said.

  "Well," Dutch said. "If there's nothing more to discuss here." He stood. "I have to see a woman about a horse." He grinned, pointed his finger around the room. The door swished open and he passed through.

  "Does Dutch," Sturgell Bob drawled, "...seem to be acting unusual? Even for Dutch I mean?"

  No one answered, but Warren stared at the closed door with a slight frown.

  "What now?" Agnes asked, looking around the table.

  "That appears," Warren said, slightly arching one eyebrow, "...to be up to you Agnes. Do we continue with the mission, or, as Pruitt suggests, call it off?"

  Agnes looked around the table at the eyes looking back at her and wished she had the answer. Questions spun around in her brain like a blizzard, blinding her. If she dropped the mission Rick and the president would shove her out and put someone else in, unless Verma gave them the tape first. And Sarah. She'd been there. Agnes'd seen her. What does that mean? That it'd already happened? It was too late anyway? And could Pruitt be right? Had someone killed, murdered, Veronica? Who? Pruitt wouldn't've sabotaged the mission after having it moved up. Would he? Why not? It's exactly the kind of thing he'd do. He'd said it. He didn't feel guilt. He'd keep piling the bodies up until she couldn't climb over them. So what to do? Just to go to Rick and confess? Throw herself on her sword before anyone else was hurt? But was that the right thing? Agnes found that once the idea of stopping the attack had taken hold in her mind it wasn't so easy to let it go. She rose without answering and had to steady herself on the table. They all stared at her. She stared back. She finally turned and approached the door. It swished open in front of her and she left.

  "What are you going to do?"

  She'd walked blindly a fair way down the hall before Griff's voice broke into the storm in her head. She stopped.

  "What'd you say?"

  "What'd I say?" He almost ran into her. "I was practically shouting. Are you alright?"

  "I'm fine," she snapped and strode away again, hoping she wasn't tottering. Get a grip. Just because the world's falling apart's no reason to fall apart with it. She had to find some way to get her hands around events that were spinning out of control. It felt like the old days driving a speeding car onto a sheet of ice, fighting a wheel that refused to fight back, or even acknowledge you.

  "I said," he trotted to catch up. "That you've got to stop..."

  "What is it with that guy? Dutch?" she asked, stopping so suddenly this time that he did run into her.

  "What'reyou doing? Sorry," he steadied her and took a step back. "Dutch? What about him?"

  She started walking again, more slowly this time. "I don't know exactly. He seems..." They reached the elevators and a door slid open.

  "Dutch is a cyborg. Ted's pet project. Him and Abe."

  "A cyborg?" They got in the elevator and the doors closed. "You mean he's...he's..."

  "Level zero. Part human and part mechanical. Sort of like Frankenstein's monster with a worse sense of humor."

  "And who controls him, now that Huang's gone?"

  "I think people are starting to wonder. What happened with those controls doesn't make any sense. I hate saying this, but I agree with Pruitt. Somebody could've tampered with them. But who'd do that?"

  But who'd do that? The doors swished open with the question still ringing in Agnes's ears and they were in the corridor, walking toward her office.

  "It had to be Dutch," he answered his own question as they passed through the outer office. "He controls all the technology. Ted used him like a walking master switch. But Dutch wouldn't've done it on his own. He just doe
s what he's..." Griff stopped at the door and stared inside. Agnes turned and followed his stare and her stomach dropped. She'd forgotten he hadn't left either.

  "Rick," she said.

  "Agnes," Hartron acknowledged her from her chair, half sprawled over her desk. He nodded at the man sitting across from him. "This here's," he raised an eyebrow, "Michaels?" The man nodded, staring over Agnes's shoulder at Griff. "Just call me Mike."

  Agnes felt Griff disappear behind her without another word. The man, Mike, stared over her shoulder, deflated. Who was...of course. The policeman. So what was wrong with him? His eyes stared at the door that'd closed behind her as if he'd lost his best friend. Michaels. That's Griff's last name. Another complication that she couldn't absorb into her over-crowded brain. Agnes's eyes scanned the room. The desk sat crookedly between the two men as if it'd been turned over and set back upright. Everything that'd been on top of it was strewn around the floor. Her eyes finally honed in on Rick, on his hand, or what was in it. He was waving an old-fashioned video tape like a conductor's baton. She caught her breath. The tape. Verma'd given it to him? But had he seen it? Did he know what was on it? Surprisingly, somewhere deep inside, Agnes felt relief tugging at the panic that was trying to pull her in. Over. Maybe it was all over.

  She walked into the room in a daze, stopped in front of the second chair, which was turned over in front of the desk. Mike jumped up and righted it for her. She fell into it without acknowledging him and nodded at the tape in Rick's hand. She found her voice.

  "Must've been a bad movie to make you tear the room apart."

  "What? Oh this," he waved the tape around once more and dropped it on the desk. "Picked it up from the floor. Figured it was yours. Agnes collects these old things," he explained to Mike.

  "Verma didn't give it to you?" Was that hope or resignation she heard in her voice? She'd lost the capacity to tell the difference.

  "Verma?"

  "Your inside man."

  Rick dismissed Verma with a wave of his now empty hand. "What the hell's goin on here Agnes? What happened this morning? What's all this?" He raised his waving hand to encompass the room.

  She shook her head, reached over and lifted the tape off the desk. He didn't know. So if she'd been ready to resign herself to the truth why not just tell him? Stop the whole thing?

  "Oh dear."

  They turned to the door to see Dutch, standing in the doorway with two men in starched overalls behind him.

  "Not now," she tried to put command in her voice but whatever edge she'd gotten into it bounced off Dutch without effect.

  "Right over there," he said to the men behind him. "In the corner," he prodded when they hesitated. The first one carried a small table and the second two boxes.

  "Aagnes," Rick whined.

  "Won't take a second," Dutch said as the first man set the table down in a corner and the second put the boxes on the floor and opened one. "Actually it will take approximately forty-three seconds. That's an idiom to illustrate that it won't take very long."

  "Aagnes."

  "We couldn't find the adaptor, but it turned up," Dutch explained, holding up a plastic box with two slots in the top. "Did you know that buildings used to have these slots right in the walls?" He shook his head in wonder as Rick's frown swiveled between him and Agnes.

  "Aagnes."

  "There," Dutch said. "See? Already finished." He held up a wire with two little prongs sticking out of the end. "This goes into the adaptor." He leaned over and stuck the prongs into the slots in the box as the two workmen scurried out of the room, the second one throwing a backward glance on his way out or that told Agnes he was heading where he wanted to be, anywhere but here. Lights lit on the front of the machine as it whirred. "Now..."

  "Now if you're finished we're tryin to..."

  "Now if we only had a way to test it," Dutch said with a theatrical frown. Agnes felt her blood run cold. They all, even Rick, turned and stared at the tape in her hand. "Ah," Dutch said brightly. He walked over and plucked the tape like a flower petal. 'She's guilty. She's guilty not.'

  "That the same kinda tape we're goin after?" Rick asked, suddenly interested.

  Dutch walked back to the machine and stuck the tape into the front. He pressed a button and the machine clicked and whirred. The screen flashed into life. Rick leaned forward, Mike chewed his lip and watched. Agnes started to melt as a stairwell flashed onto the screen.

  Not a stairwell. The stairwell. It was the tape. Well what else would it be? How many video tapes were rolling around these days. It'd finally happened. The guilt, shame, fear. It was all ready to come crashing down on her in a wave of public humiliation. No. Not public. Rick and the president would never let it become public. She'd be buried in a disgraced obscurity that no one would understand, but everyone would know to stay far away from. No one would come within a mile of her, and she'd be left to stare at her four walls and live it all over and over again until her brain turned to mush and she was a shell of a human in some old folk's home, muttering to herself while everyone who came in contact with her wondered how long she'd hang on.

  "Not much of a show," Rick snorted.

  "An empty stairwell," Mike mused, staring hard at the screen. "Who'd want to record an empty stairwell?"

  "Working," Dutch said cheerfully. He pushed a button and the screen went blank. The tape shot out of the front of the machine. He plucked it out, stuck it under his arm with a wink, she didn't imagine it, did she? He winked at her, didn't he? She watched him walk by with the tape under his arm. Grab it. And explain that how? It had to be the tape. He'd just rewound it. Hadn't gotten to the part with her in it yet. But why? And she'd just watched it walk out the door? Her future was in the hands of that inane smile and pointed finger? Or could it be...No. She didn't dare hope. That somehow there'd been a problem with the tape. It hadn't recorded her. There wasn't any evidence. No one could ever prove it was her. Then all she'd have to worry about was the guilt, which she'd dealt with for so long that she hardly noticed it anymore. Was that good enough at this point?

  "Strange fella," Rick said after he'd left.

  "That stairwell," Mike said with a frown. "Something about it..."

  "So," Agnes fought through the thicket of panic and confusion that'd turned her spine to jelly at the sight of the stairwell. "I suppose you've heard."

  "What in the world's goin on here Agnes?" Her question brought him back to where they'd started. "Your gal out there," he tilted his head toward the door.

  "Louise."

  "...said somethin went wrong. And what's all this?" He looked around the room. "Where's your security?"

  "At sensitivity training evidently."

  "Sensitivity training?"

  "I don't have any idea what happened here," she said, following his eyes around the room. "As for the mission, something went wrong alright. No one seems to know what happened."

  He frowned. "Those gals..."

  "One of them doesn't seem to've made it. The other one's alright."

  Rick shook his big head. "An no one knows what happened? I thought they do this all the time."

  "It seems possible that someone sabotaged the mission intentionally."

  "Sabotage?" Rick's eyes narrowed. Something he could understand. He planted his elbows on the desk and nodded sagely at Mike, who looked as if he'd wandered into a movie and discovered it was in Swedish. "Sampson," he said like a man confirming a long-held belief.

  "Sampson? What about Sampson?"

  "Who's Sampson?"

  "Course. Has to be," Rick said to himself. He leaned back in his chair and looked across the desk at them, waving his hands around in the classic gesture of someone pulling a theory out of the air and trying to sell it. "Who else'd wanna sabotage it?" That was a good one. Sampson had the best motive in the world for getting that tape back, if she'd had any idea it existed.

  "But how could Sampson get in here? How would she even find ou
t what's going on?"

  "Who's Sampson? Sabotage what?" Mike asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. Well at least his mind seemed to've been pulled off why that stairwell looked so familiar.

  "Who's Sampson?" Rick said with the incredulousness of someone who spent his life obsessing over the news feeds when encountering someone with better things to do with his time. "What rock you been livin under? Delilah Sampson? Runnin for President?"

  "What's she got to do with this? What mission are you talking about? Is that why you want me to talk to Ansari?"

  "Sampson," Rick said flatly, ignoring the questions. He slapped a palm on the desk. Wagged his head at Mike as if somehow it were his fault, then turned to Agnes. "We need to get this show on the road Agnes. Where's that...what'd you call'im?"

  "Who?"

  "Security guy. Verma," he said with a snap of his fingers. "Sensitivity training?" He shook his head, nodded at the policeman. "Someone needs to take Mike here down to the prisoner. Get this thing goin."

  "What do you want me to say to him?"

  "This is very confidential," Agnes said.

  "It must be because I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

  "We need to find out as much as we can about the attackers' movements before the attack," Agnes said.

  "We need to know when they went into that buildin and when that tape went missin," Rick said, jabbing a finger into the top of the desk.

  "What good will that do?"

  "It's hard to explain," she held up a hand to Rick, who glared at her but didn't say anything. OK. She wasn't getting to the prisoner first. She'd somehow had to manage the message between this policeman, Mike, and everyone else. "If you can go down and spend some time with him. Create a time table of their movements, say starting the day before the attack." She ignored Rick's rolled eyes as Mike glanced across the desk and frowned. "I'll explain afterward. When we have more time." She hoped her smile was encouraging.

  "Louise," she called. The door swished open and Louise's panicked face appeared. She looked older than she had when Agnes'd gotten here, what, could it be only two days ago? Maybe Warren was right, Agnes ought to take it easy on her. "Would you find Verma and ask him to take Mike to our guest. He'll know who you mean."

 

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