by Thom Parsons
“I worked for a Special Projects Division of the FBI that owns one of the few working PRoGRaM machines. We were contracted to take people’s memories away from them, and to solve crimes by using people’s memories of past events. But business turned personal. The FBI’s Special Projects Division had nothing to do with what happened. I acted on my own. People died, and I went off the rails. But I did what I had to do to find out the truth.”
“And you realise that you broke a hell of a lot of laws in doing so? Which is why you’re here now?” Victoria said, reminding him of his current situation.
“I’m well aware of that,” Owen said emotionlessly.
“Then what kind of leader takes his team on a stupid and deadly personal mission like the one that you recently undertook?” Victoria asked, the anger almost showing in her tone.
“They didn’t know what they were doing,” Owen lied. “They had no idea that they were acting on my own personal authority, and not under the authority of the United States Government or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I take full responsibility for their actions.”
Owen and Victoria both sat in silence, starring at each other.
“Mr Archer. What kind of person are you?” Victoria asked, breaking the tension that hung in the atmosphere.
“You ask what kind of person I am? Well, if my job is anything to go by, and the way that everyone in my team looks up to me, only for me to lead them astray, then there’s only one kind of person that you can call me, isn’t there?” Owen said, almost spitting the words out as he said them.
“And that is?”
“A manipulator.”
PART TWO: ANNIE ARCHER
“There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
Chapter Ten
Date: December 9th 2035
Location: Unknown
I’m here again. Being fired through random events in my life by my own subconscious. I’ve been here so many times that I know I'm dreaming before anything even happens.
The feeling that surges through me tells me where I am.
Dreaming.
Dreaming again.
That stupid, recurring dream. I know how it goes, but I’m powerless to control myself. I'm powerless to wake up. Here I am, forced to sit and watch the action play out in front of me, like a soul trapped in a possessed body. Like a puppet with someone else pulling the strings.
I’m floating, surrounded by darkness and emptiness. My own eyes are forced shut by some unknown force controlling me. But even without my sight, I can feel the world around me coming to life. The immediate and incredible sound of metal scraping against metal forces itself into my ears. I begin to wake, expecting to find myself surrounded by machinery capable of making such noises.
But no.
The noise stops, and I open my eyes. Instead, I find myself inside a building in a small, peaceful office room. The source of the noise? Nowhere to be seen.
I’m sat behind a desk looking at a man I’ve never seen before in my life. “Welcome to Special Projects," the man tells me. “Welcome to the world of PRoGRaM.”
But in the blink of an eye, it’s gone. It’s all gone. The chair I was sitting in has turned into a wooden bench. The scenery all around me… changed.
I’m no longer inside, but instead I’m sat in the middle of a graveyard. I look over my shoulder to see a church nearby, its bell ringing, calling out. Calling to me.
“It’s time Owen," a female voice nearby calls out to me. I stand up, but I can’t look at her. I’m too lost in my own sadness to make eye contact, to see this woman's face. I walk a long, lonely road across the graveyard, towards a huge crowd of people standing out in the middle of the grassy area. The woman, the one who spoke to me only moments before is nowhere to be seen. There’s just me, walking alone in the blazing sun towards my destination.
“In the midst of life we are in death,” a deep voice calls out in the distance, coming from the centre of the huge crowd of people ahead of me. I make it to the edge of the group, but nobody seems to notice me. Nobody pays me any attention as I walk around the large group of people, trying to find a slot which I can squeeze through. I just want to see what’s happening… In the end, I find a space and push my way through to the front to see just what it is that’s happening here.
“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” the man leading the recital calls out as he throws some dirt down onto a coffin. I look up, scanning the faces in the crowd, and lo and behold there I am. I see myself standing on the opposite side of the circle, looking down onto the coffin, saying goodbye.
Goodbye Annie.
A flash of lighting, a change of scene. Once again, the world dissolves from one reality and into another. Everything I was looking at moments before is gone, including the sun, only to be replaced by the moon.
It’s dark here now, wherever the hell 'here' is, and the rain is throwing itself down, soaking me through. I’m standing in the middle of a crossroads, seemingly in the middle of the city, with four endless roads stretching out into the infinite.
Redford Avenue.
And here, there’s one lonely building, sitting on the corner of the crossroads. No features, no colour. Nothing about this building stands out, except for one thing, and one thing only.
A red door.
I look down all four roads to see nothing and nobody nearby. The rain is still hammering down from above. The puppet master controlling me forces me to walk over to the nearby red door, only for me to find that it's locked. I rub my hand down the smooth red wood and over the metal numbers forty five, which are right in the middle of it.
I'm forced to walk around the windowless house, and inspect it closely, yet I see that there are no other entry points. After a full lap of the building, I end up back at the red door, but it doesn’t want me to go inside. Not yet.
I turn around and walk away from the house, until I reach the pavement. For some reason, I cannot step down onto the road. Instead, I perch on the edge, waiting.
The rain is still firing down, bouncing hard off the ground. I’m soaked through, but I don’t mind. For some reason I stand and wait.
Almost as if I’m waiting for something to happen.
It's true. I know that something is coming.
A creaking noise behind me brings my mind back from it’s emptiness. It came from the house. It came from the red door. I turn to see that it’s slowly opening. A slow creak releases as the door opens wider, but this time, I could have swore that it called my name.
Owen.
Owen Archer.
It’s calling to me.
The door stops moving, now fully open. Although, I cannot see what lies within. All that exists is a small ray of light coming from the open door and piercing the consistent darkness all around me.
It wants me to step inside.
Into the red door.
Into 45 Redford Avenue.
My body feels torn. Should I stay by the road, by the emptiness that surrounds me? For some reason, this body that I’m in feels compelled to stay here. Almost as if it know’s something is going to happen. Almost as if it’s afraid of what lies in wait behind the red door.
Or instead, do I turn away from this crossroads at which I stand, take a leap of faith and walk towards the light?
I see the next part before I hear it. Some lights appear, far, far away in the distance. They're to my left, down one of the four endless roads. Gradually, sound begins to accompany it. A rumbling noise building up, slowly getting louder. I stand still, watching, mesmerised by the lights coming towards me, seemingly unable to move myself. I realise that I’m staring at a car coming at full speed down the road.
I know that car! I realise as it gets closer. I know that driver! It’s Annie’s car! It’s me! And Annie, she’s there too, she’s the one driving.
But why are we out here? Why are we driving in the middle of nowhere?
As I look on in confusion, the car ge
ts closer. It’s thirty feet away now, and I can see Annie in the drivers seat. But she doesn’t notice me. She can’t see me standing on the side of the road waving my arms at her, trying to signal her to stop the car. She has to stop, because I know what happens next.
I’ve been here too many times already.
All around me, time begins to slow down. Not to a total stop, but to a tantalisingly slow pace. The raindrops falling from above begin to slow in their descent, and the speed of Annie’s car seems to drop slowly.
But I know how fast she’s driving in reality.
As for me? For some reason, I’m not affected by the change in the flow of time. Whoever is controlling me seems to be able to move my body completely freely and unhindered. I can’t pretend to understand the rules of this world. I just have to abide by them.
The next part is the part I hate. The part that I want to change so badly. I stand on the side of the road unable to move, forced to just stand and watch. There I am, wanting to shout out her name to try and get her to notice me. To try and change fate. To change what I know is going to happen.
But it's too late.
Opposite me, on the other sidewalk is something which I hadn’t noticed before. There's a man standing there, wearing all dark clothes. From where I am standing, I cannot see his face. He has a man next to him, with a black bag over his head. He’s down on his knee’s with his hands tied up behind his back. This dark figure looming above him is pointing a gun at the back of the bound man’s head.
Suddenly, a huge white van materialises out onto the road just behind of me at the crossroads, mere meters away from the drivers side of Annie’s car. I know what this part of the dream is. I just wish I didn’t have to see it. Especially not here. I don't want to remember her like this.
Her head moves in slow motion, looking in the direction of the huge van as she realises it’s too late. I watch her face change in slow motion, and just as it’s about to hit… that screeching noise that woke me. The sound of metal upon metal. It’s not a workshop full of machinery.
Beep.
It’s the noise of the impact in slow motion.
Beep. Beep.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep
MAKE THE NOISE STOP.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Chapter Eleven
Date: December 9th 2035
Location: Owen’s Apartment, New York
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Owen jumped to life the second the vehicles collided, forcefully kicked straight out of his dream and back into the real world. He bolted into an upright sitting position, breathing heavily and feeling deeply out of breath. He ran the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping a cold sweat off of it and onto the bedsheets. His brain had woken him up immediately. All of the tiredness had been instantly kicked out of Owen as a result of that vivid and bizarre dream sequence.
Beep. Beep. Beep. The noise was still ringing in his ears. He realised eventually that it was just the sound of his alarm clock, going off from his bedside table. Owen reluctantly collapsed backwards from his upright position, his head landing back on top of the pillows. If only I could get through one night without that waking me up… he thought, before suddenly realising that he was still dressed in the same clothes that he had been wearing the day before. A faint light came in through the window, signalling another cold New York winter morning. Looking outside from his position on the bed, he noticed he hadn’t even bothered to close the blinds the night before.
Reaching over, Owen turned the noisy alarm clock off and settled back onto the bed for two minutes, just so that he could try and gather his thoughts together. As well as his forehead, his entire body felt covered in a cold sweat. His hands were shaking slightly from the vividness of the nightmare he had just endured. He pulled himself together, got up off the bed and got into the shower to try and wake himself up a bit. Not that the cold water helped. It couldn’t get the image of Annie’s car about to be smashed up out of his head.
By the time Owen had gotten out of the shower and had put some fresh clothes on, it was coming up to 8:15. He knew that he didn’t need to head out until around nine thirty, but he didn’t want to sit around the apartment on his own until then, so he decided that he would head off to his teams PRoGRaM Analytic Base just as soon as he had gotten himself ready and checked his work email for any important updates.
Owen walked into one of the spare bedrooms of his apartment which he had recently turned into an office and switched his computer on, leaning back in his luxurious office chair and waited for the system to boot up. He lived in a fairly large apartment thirty-three floors up in a decently wealthy area of the city. His apartment had a huge entrance room, which was both his living room and his kitchen all in the same space. Off the main living area was a small corridor which led to his main bathroom and three big bedrooms, one of which acted as his office.
First things first, he opened up his personal email account, as well as the usual popular news and social sites, just so that he could feel like he was keeping up to date with the real world. Looking through his mail, Owen found that there was nothing new there, just the usual junk and spam from companies that had somehow got a hold of his personal email address.
Deleting and blocking them, Owen moved on and opened up a secure connection to his work system, which he had the luxury of being able to access from home. After what had happened to Annie, Owen made work was his only objective in life. He seemed to spend every waking moment on one PRoGRaM based job or another, and eventually the FBI’s Special Projects HQ had given in to his unrelenting demands and set up him a secure connection from his home. Owen liked to think that it was just so that he could keep an eye on things. But really, work was the only thing that he felt any sort of connection to these days.
After securely logging in and going through the authentication processes, Owen found that there was only one new unread message sitting on their system, with a subject line of ‘FAO Owen Archer’.
That’s not right. He thought to himself, immediately sensing there and then that something was wrong. He’d worked this job for a few years now, and he knew for certain that something like this could never come through to his teams work system. At least not under normal circumstances. The fact that it has my name in the subject field is worrying me.
Owen’s New York memory Analytic Team had one work server, with one, in-built highly secure email address, designed specifically for receiving information only. This was the way that the FBI’s Special Projects Headquarters sent their PRoGRaM teams the information that they required. Pretty much anything in this inbox came from them. Or from Owen and Nick's boss, Richard Sterling.
Even then, any messages that were delivered only ever consisted of official documentation on any PRoGRaM assignments that they currently had on. They contained the information about the people that Owen and his team were manipulating. Necessary information that he and Nick were going to need to complete their job.
But Owen was curious, and out of this curiosity, he thought that he’d give the email a chance. Archer wasn’t sure why he felt the need to look at it, but he couldn't resist. Maybe because the message is in our secure email address inbox? If this is some kind of spam email like those I get through to my personal email address, then this obviously shows that there's some kind of issue with the security system, which needed to be plugged and fixed immediately.
But if this is the case, then why is it marked up for my attention?
Opening up the secure email to look at its contents, Owen found that it contained no text, but instead there was just a single video attachment. To make it that little bit stranger, the message seemed to have come from a blocked and completely untraceable email address. Against his better judgement, his curiosity won out, and Owen hit the 'download' button, saving the file to his computer.
It took a few minutes to download the file t
o Owen's computer’s hard drive, so he grabbed some toast and wolfed it down whilst waiting. When the download had completed, he opened the file up, because for all he knew, it could just be another mission. But in all honesty, he wasn’t sure about it from the get-go. Something in his gut told him that there was something wrong with this. There were only a few computer terminals in the world which had authentication to send information through to his group's work system email address. Anyone else’s emails would just get bounced back.
So it must be official, right? Owen said to himself, completely unsure of what he was about to get himself into.
This was no mission. This was no paperwork. This was no documentation. It was something completely different, something completely unexpected. Over the next few minutes of his life, everything that Owen ever believed in… changed.
Chapter Twelve
Date: November 23rd 2035 (Two Weeks Earlier)
Location: Redford Avenue, New York
“You alright?” Owen asked playfully from the passenger seat, loosening up his bow tie around his neck from the only suit that he owned.
“Yeah, I’m okay," Annie Archer said without looking his way. keeping her eyes fixed on the road as she drove the two of them back home to their apartment on the opposite side of the city. "Whats up?"
“You just seem quiet, that’s all,” he replied, reaching his hand over and placing it on her knee as she drove. It rested at the bottom of her expensively elegant black dress which clung to her figure magnificently. She turned her head quickly and shot him a smile from the drivers seat. Her long dark hair flicked outwards as she moved.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, don’t worry. Did you enjoy yourself tonight?” she asked, classically changing the subject away from her.