Manipulator

by Thom Parsons

  “Not really. You know I hate parties like that.”

  Annie sighed. “These are the people that I work with Owen. You have to socialise sometimes, you know that right?”

  “I know, I know. They weren’t that bad I suppose. But then again, on the plus side, at least they don’t have these get togethers often.”

  She tutted at his anti-socialistic nature as they drove on without another word on the subject. The radio played out in the car, filling the gap in conversation that hung between them. Some new indie pop band that Owen had never heard of before played through the speakers in the car. Admittedly, it was a catchy song, but just like the party he had managed to wiggle out of, it wasn’t really his sort of thing.

  He sat half listening to the music as he stared out the window, at the nightlife of the New York City streets before him. The rain was absolutely pouring down from above, dramatically hindering his view of the city before him. It's a miracle that Annie can even drive in these conditions…

  But there was one thing that the rain couldn’t quite block out.

  In the distance, looking severely out of place in the rain, Owen saw a man standing still on the sidewalk, looking down at the ground. The rain that was throwing it down from above didn't seem to phase him. This man stood perfectly still, wearing a long brown trench coat which hung down over his body and stretched down to his ankles.

  In his right hand, he held a gun.

  Owen raised his eyebrows as he watched the man in the trench coat intently, and as their car moved forwards, something even more out of place appeared next to him.

  "Annie?" Owen asked gently as he continued to stare out of the window. He quickly turned his head around to look at Annie, to see if she had noticed the same thing that he had, but she was too focused on the road in front of her to see it.

  Next to the man in the trench coat, and now in full view of Owen, was another man. His hands were bound behind his back and he was crouched down on his knee’s, with a black bag over his head.

  That’s when everything seemed to happen too fast for Owen to comprehend.

  “OWEN!” Annie screamed from behind him, scaring him half to death. He snapped his head around to look at where they were going.

  But the problem wasn’t in front of them. It was to the side of them.

  He quickly looked over at Annie, her voice urgently calling out to him, and that was when he saw it.

  There was a huge white van heading straight for the side of their car. Owen felt Annie swing the steering wheel to the right to try and escape the monstrous van’s oncoming path, but it was just too late.

  Annie screamed.

  Owen held his breath.

  A shockwave fired through their car as the van smashed directly into the driver’s side of their vehicle. The impact was so forceful that it almost instantly flipped their car over.

  Owen's entire body shook violently as he felt the impact rip through his body, throwing him like a rag-doll around the car. His head smashed against the passenger side window, but still he was glad that he had his seatbelt on. His head injury had almost instantly rendered him unconscious. He could feel darkness coming for him, but he was determined to stay awake just that little bit longer.

  The impact had flipped their car upside down and thrown it into a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. He heard tyres squeal as the van that had just smashed into their car drove away as fast as it possibly could. Owen looked out of the smashed windscreen in front of him as he felt a small trickle of blood run down the side of his head. He was looking back down the road which only moments before they had been driving on.

  "Annie?" he spoke into the air, unable to turn his head due to the pain firing through it.

  No answer.

  "Annie?!" he said again, more urgently this time. But still, Annie didn't respond. All that Owen could hear was the intense sound of the rain on the other side of the smashed windscreen.

  Directly in front of him, Owen saw the dark figure still standing there on the sidewalk, with his hostage still kneeled down next to him. Owen watched as the man in the trench-coat mouthed some words to the bound man, before he remorsefully raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

  Owen recoiled in horror at the distant sound of the gunshot, and then watched helplessly as the bound man fell face first into the sidewalk. The dark figured turned and walked away, but not before he glanced back to the scene of the crash, and stared right into Owen's eyes.

  And right then, he couldn't keep his eyes open any more.

  Everything turned black.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Date: December 15th 2035 (Present Day)

  Location: Unknown

  “How did you get involved in all of this Mr Archer?” Victoria asked. “It’s not like these kind of jobs are advertised openly on the internet now, is it?”

  “That depends on how you look at it,” Owen replied.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ll get it eventually. Shall I tell you about myself?”

  “Is it central to the story?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then go ahead.”

  Owen nodded at Victoria’s approval and tried to figure out in his head just where to start his explanation from. He figured that like everything else, he might as well just go from the beginning. “I’ve been a part of the PRoGRaM team for almost two years, since the time of its creation. The road into this business wasn’t too strange. I wasn’t put through some black ops training camp. I simply did my regular day to day job and got noticed.”

  “What were you doing before… this?” she asked, choosing her words wisely.

  “I was a detective up until I turned twenty nine, then I quit the job and became a private investigator.” He watched Victoria’s facial expressions and reactions as he spoke. In his head, he was trying to figure out just how much of this she already knew. Was she as naive to Owen’s life and PRoGRaM as she was letting on? Or was she just a damn good liar?

  “A P.I.? At twenty nine?” Victoria asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “Young?” Owen answered. “Yes, but I’m damn good at what I do, even if I am only thirty five. With police work, I don’t believe that experience and knowledge come with age. I think that it’s just intuition, and you either have it, or you don’t. I left the police force because of the bureaucracy involved, it was all too official. Everything had to be documented, nothing investigated without just cause. Solving a crime isn’t like that. We may have all the technology in the world, but I firmly believe that at the end of the day, the feeling in someones gut is just as important as any lead.”

  “Was it that same gut feeling that got you into this mess?”

  “It was. I was warned off by my superiors before it all kicked off, but I chose not to listen.”

  “And how did that work out for you?” Victoria asked, trying to hide a vindictive smile as she spoke.

  “I found out everything I needed to. This whole mess now? This is just a setback.”

  “So you went from being a P.I. to a Memory Analyst? Just like that?” she asked, unconvinced by his story.

  “Yes,” Owen said. “I was a damn good private eye. I did an amazing job. I came highly recommended, and word must have gotten around about me, because after a few of those high profile ‘in the spotlight’ jobs, I received a phone call that turned my life around.”

  “This all sounds a bit cliche,” she said, still unconvinced by what she was hearing.

  “I know, I know. But… just stick with me for now. You’ll get your answers soon enough,” Owen said, again off-putting certain pieces of his story. He didn’t realise just how much he was getting to Victoria by doing this. But she kept her composure and made sure that his minor annoyances didn’t show.

  “Carry on,” she said, once again gesturing with her hand calmly.

  “It sounded interesting,” Owen continued saying. “So I took the bait, got some information, and just like that, I
was lead on the New York PRoGRaM team. That was two years ago, right around the time of PRoGRaM’s creation. There were a few drawbacks of course. I signed a lot of secrecy agreements, in the fact that I couldn’t tell anyone what I did.” Owen put a lot of emphasis on the word anyone. But then he thought about it and decided to clarify his previous statement.

  “Well, actually… My employers were fine with me telling my wife, there were no problems there. I just had to keep it vague. I couldn’t give her the specific details of my job. I just played it off as a promotion. Annie was pleased.”

  “Your partner is Annie Archer, yes?” Victoria asked, flipping through another one of her endless files that now lay scattered across the table in front of her.

  “Yes,” Owen said bluntly, knowing that these questions would have come his way sooner or later.

  “Let’s talk about Annie,” she said, finding Annie’s file in amongst everything and bringing it up so that she could read through some of the finer details. “After all, isn’t she central in all of this?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded in agreement with him. Annie was the centrepiece of everything that had happened. “How did you two meet?”

  “We met in high-school. Stayed together ever since. We got married at the age of 25 after seeing each other for over seven years. And this year, three weeks ago, almost ten years into the marriage. I buried her.”

  “Tell me what happened with your wife’s… accident,” Victoria probed, wondering if she could get away with such difficult questions this early on into her interrogation.

  “Well,” Owen said. “We both know it wasn’t an accident. Don’t we?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Date: December 9th 2035

  Location: Owen’s Apartment, New York

  Owen opened up the attachment that had finally finished downloading onto his personal system. It started to play, but for the first few seconds, all that could be seen was static and white noise. Owen began to think that maybe this was some kind of error, some glitch in a system somewhere, and that maybe the file had been sent in error, but suddenly, the static started to become a little more clear, and out of nowhere, a voice started talking to him.

  “Your name is Owen Archer,” the pre-recorded voice said, causing Owen to snap up to attention. If he hadn’t been committed to watching the video before, he certainly was now. Their contractors, the ones who usually sent information through to the secure email address shouldn’t know his name. How they hell do they know my name? Who the hell is this from?

  Owen stared at the computer screen in front of him. He waited for the voice to speak some more as he held his breath intently. The video that he was looking at was unclear and fuzzy, like looking at static noise on a TV screen that isn't tuned in correctly. If you looked closely enough, you could just about see the outline of someones head. This is someone talking into a camera. But going on from that, the audio quality was just as bad as the video quality. The voice coming in through the static was scrambled and heavy with interference. It was almost robotic, but yet oddly understandable.

  “You were born on February 27th, in the year 2000,” the synthesised robotic voice continued. “By the time you are watching this, you will be 35 years old. Don’t be surprised to see me, I can guarantee you that this is real.” Owen’s eyebrows lifted as he listened and watched, trying desperately to make out the mans face from the video. That’s even if it is a man. He thought. The video and audio were so badly scrambled, it could of easily been a woman talking.

  “Today, is your wedding anniversary, and Annie is not with you. But she should be, and there are people to blame for that.” Owen took a deep breath, feeling a cold shiver run through his body, making him cold inside. The hairs on his arms suddenly all stood on end at the sheer mention of Annie’s name. How do they know about my wedding anniversary?! How do they know about my wife?

  “First of all,” the synthetic voice continued. “A very important address that you need to know. 45 Redford Avenue. That address will mean everything to you, and only you know why.”

  It was starting to get personal, and Owen just couldn’t figure out how he was supposed to be feeling throughout all of this. Going from the first few details, he genuinely thought that it could be some sort of a joke. Okay Owen, this could be some sort of prank, that information is readily available to anyone who knows me, or anyone who is willing to look far enough into me to find it. But now? Now that this voice is starting to talk about Annie’s death? The place where she died? This isn’t a joke. This is personal. This is serious.

  “I will keep this short, because I don’t have much time,” the voice said. Just as it finished speaking, a huge banging noise could be heard in the background. There was clearly something else going on wherever this video had been recorded.

  “There are three people responsible for Annie not being there. Their names are Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes.”

  What?! Owen thought, taking a sharp breath inwards, thoughts running crazily through his mind. Annie’s death was an accident, how can anyone be responsible for that? The rain was pouring down, she couldn't see the red light and…

  It was starting to make him feel angry. Owen could feel himself clenching his hand into a fist.

  “You must find these three,” the voice said urgently, still barely understandable. “They, and only they, can tell you the truth about everything.” Owen noticed that there was more noise in the background of the video now. There was something building up, harder and louder than what he had heard earlier. It was obviously making whoever it was that was recording the video feel massively on edge. You could hear the sharpness in their voice, they were trying to get the information out as fast as possible.

  “They can tell you the truth about Annie,” the voice continued, referring back to the three names that had just been given to Owen. “That’s because they had everything to do with it. Fight for the truth.” The static, scrambled voice stopped, and the entire video cut to darkness and dropped into silence. Three words appeared on the dark display in front of him.

  *END OF TRANSMISSION*

  Owen read the words on the screen as the video cut off. He couldn’t find the words in himself after watching it. He just sat there in the silence trying to think about what it was that he had just seen. He didn’t mess with the computer, he just let himself sit in silence and throw the possibilities around in his head. Annie's death was no accident. Surely that can’t be true. Owen thought about it deeply. I was there when she died, unless...

  He clicked, and watched the video again. And again. And again. Until the words were imprinted in his brain. Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes. You must find these three.

  Owen came to the conclusion that whoever sent the video, whoever it was that was doing the talking must be someone who either knew him now or knew him recently, purely due to the fact that they knew so much information about him. It wasn’t just the simple stuff either, like his name and date of birth. That information was accessible to anyone who knew how to look hard enough. Owen was thinking about the little details, the really personal things, like the fact that whoever it was that was talking seemed to know so much about how Annie died. The only people who knew about that were people who knew me personally.

  He needed to think. Maybe, just maybe, Annie's death was in fact, no accident. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until this point, but now, it was all he could think about. Was it pre-planned? Owen struggled to even think about the possibilities of this. But he knew one thing for sure.

  He was going to find out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Date: December 9th 2035

  Location: New York PRoGRaM Analytic Base

  “Owen… I… I had no idea,” Kate said, struggling to get her words out. Her hand half covering her mouth and her eyes were emotionally filled, shocked by what Owen had just explained to her.

  He glanced down at his watch, trying to avoid talking about t
he subject for longer than he had to. It was just after half nine. He’d called Nick and Kate earlier that morning, asking them both to get into the office as soon as possible. Neither of them disappointed him, but that meant that now he had to explain to Kate what had happened to Annie two weeks earlier.

  “I would have mentioned it sooner,” Owen said, feeling completely out of place as they spoke. “But… It’s not exactly something that crops up in everyday conversation. You already had a lot on your mind with PRoGRaM, and…”

  Nick raised his head above his workstation nearby, looking over to Kate and Owen. “Well, the bad news is that we cannot trace where this original message or the video attachment came from,” he called out bluntly. “Also, there seems to be no way to make the video any clearer than how it was delivered to the server. So… we’re not going to get a clear visual ID on who it is that's recorded and delivered this message anytime soon.”

  Owen and Kate cut their conversation short, much to Owen’s delight. He felt awkward talking to people about Annie. Together, they both walked over to Nick’s workstation. They had watched the video multiple times now, trying to make sense of what they were seeing and hearing. Was this some sort of hoax? Or is it real? Was Annie’s death really a murder and not an accident? The questions fired rapidly through Owen's head faster than he could think up any logical answers. The possibility was there of course, but to Owen, it seemed highly unlikely. Who would want to hurt Annie? He thought. She never did anything to hurt anybody. As far as Owen was aware, she didn’t currently have, and never did have any enemies. She was a computer engineer for Christ’s sake.

  “However,” Nick said. “I’m no video wizard, I’ll admit that. But I do know a few people who might be able to work on this sort of thing.”