The woman will sit, an expression of perplexity on her face.
“Do you think it can be done?” the man will ask.
The woman will look at her hands. “I’ll need a late model printer and a state-of-the-art fastener press. And of course, rare materials, given the weight you’re asking for. All stuff that costs at least a hundred thousand Eurodollars, maybe a hundred and fifty.”
“Of course,” the man will confirm. “These expenses are separate, so give me the total quotation. So, you accept the assignment?”
The woman will shake her head, puzzled. “I don’t know, we’ll do some tests. Of course, such an episode means a great advertisement for my production, and my image can benefit, but it could also suffer from a possible failure. It’s a challenge, I don’t deny it, but it’s a feat on the edge of the impossible.”
“That’s why, I repeat, I’m here.”
The woman will approach sinuously, and with one finger will lift the chin of the man sitting open-legged on the floor.
“As you all know,” the director will continue, “we have an ongoing recovery procedure. I’m sorry, but I think you’re going to have to skip lunch. James, do you want to give us a picture of the situation?”
“Certainly,” Daft will say, “I would say skip the description of the scene at the attack site. You all know that one by now, and you’ve already received reports and images recorded by our team in the field. At the same time, you have already received the file of the only survivor, John L. Whiley.” The man will look towards the blond. “I would like to see the holographic recordings of the phone calls with Whiley.”
“Of course, Mr. Daft.”
The blond man will manipulate the space in front of him and project the recording of the first conversation into the holographic space at the back of the room.
“Mrs. Levis, do you mind closing the curtains?” the director will ask the woman sitting next to him.
The woman will get up, go to the large window at the end of the hall, and look for a moment into the park below, in front of the large shopping center a few hundred meters away, then talk into an electronic device on the wall. A second line of external glass will tilt, leaving the room in dim light. The scene of the first call will appear recorded from multiple angles, and at the bottom of the room will appear both the hologram of the woman answering the call, and that of the man in the cabin.
“Which cabin is he calling from?” the stout, elegantly dressed man will ask.
“We don’t know yet. From a public place, he’ll say later, Mr. Goedhart,” the muscular man will answer.
The two holograms will speak in the silence of the hall.
“I couldn’t stand there with my feet in blood,” Daft will comment at the end of the three recordings. “These are Whiley’s exact words on the first call. What is the meaning of this sentence? He looks distraught.”
“Well, it must not have been a great day for him,” the woman with blonde hair will comment.
“From a communicator in a bar,” Daft himself will continue. “That’s his first response to our request for indication of his position, in the second call.”
“Mr. Palmer,” the Japanese will say, smiling amiably at him. “I am a woman, and as such I am sensitive to flattery. However, there would still be a problem.”
“And it would be?” the man will ask, looking at her full lips, perfectly outlined by the pencil.
The woman will return his gaze. “The distance. The movement. At that distance, the wind, the environmental factors, have a devastating effect on the result. We need to provide for an additional compartment. And a connection to a satellite management program,” the woman will think aloud. “Hardware is no use otherwise. It takes someone to calculate the modified trajectories in real time. I need a designer. The best.”
“I’ll have it.”
The woman will turn on her heels, crossing the room and sitting gracefully in the armchair.
“And eventually I’ll be able to have my equipment?”
The man will look at the woman, then the girl behind her, always as serious and alert as a watchdog.
The man will smile. “So, it seems to me that you have no more excuses now. Do we want to move on to the business part?” he will ask, extending his handcuffed hands.
Commissioner Cervetti will enter the CEO’s office at the NOCS headquarters in Rome, Central Directorate of Prevention Police. The man with curly, grizzled hair and a strong jaw will be looking at a text in his hologram projector.
“Cervetti, sit down. If what you tell me is true, it’s a big mess. Is there any chance that Chief Inspector Santilli is wrong, in your opinion?”
The Commissioner will look at him before responding. He’ll look like a man used to deciding, maybe a few pounds in excess due to his age.
“Remote. We both know he’s an experienced man, and his team is close-knit and reliable. He wouldn’t have called me if he had reasonable doubts.”
“But when our operator asks later where he is, he replies generically: In a bar, I already told you. So it was such a bad day that he doesn’t remember where he is?” Daft will ask, looking at the thin woman at the head of the table.
“Who is the Richard he talks about in the second call?” the director will ask.
“Richard Proctor,” the blond man will respond, opening another screen and making a third hologram appear, a man with a beard and long hair, decidedly overweight. “Whiley’s best friend, it turns out. They’ve known each other since their doctoral studies, two different branches. Proctor is a social research methodologist. In my second conversation with Whiley, if you notice, he tells me that he went out to get a book for his friend, and that they were to see each other today. Proctor was also recruited by us, but he works in another section.”
“Is he one of your boys, Meredith?” the director will ask the thin blonde woman.
“I know him by sight. We’ve recruited dozens of young people over all these years, you know, I can’t remember everyone.”
“I want to talk to him. We need to understand what kind of personality this Whiley has, what he thinks. Maybe he’s the last one who spoke to him. Find me this Proctor,” the director will conclude, addressing the man in his fifties to his left, who is wearing an old-fashioned green jacket.
The man will get up, leaving the room.
“Then when, still in the second call, our operator asks him how long ago the event happened, he gets confused. First he says an hour, then half an hour,” Daft will continue.
“Come on, what the hell? He’s a man used to dealing with books, not guns,” the thin woman will interrupt.
“In the third call,” the dark-haired man will continue, without taking note of the observation, “you will have noticed that I try to find out where he is, and again he says only that he is in a bar. Not only that, but he also doesn’t explain why he didn’t take his personal display with him.”
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to come to hasty conclusions. We have a man of books, a man in charge of information control, not an operative,” the thin woman will say.
The CEO will nod, as if displeased with the answer.
“Then, it’s a problem. The turn that the case took goes beyond the normal control for terrorist activities that we are entitled to, and that the Chief Commissioner has assigned to you,” the man will continue, joining his fingertips in front of his face. “We have a trail to follow, but it’s an internal trail, apparently. I need high-level authorizations to let you continue your investigation, Commissioner.”
“We have a duty to understand who’s behind this.”
“Yes. Sure. However...” the CEO will reiterate, getting up from the armchair and looking out the window towards the street, much lower. “I was obliged to inform the Chief Commissioner of the development of the investigation, and to advise him to request a joint high-level meeting, before the scheduled Interforze committee meets in two days’ time. And then, we know that several governments ar
e working on the case with their respective services. The threat to the pontiff, at this moment, in which he is making offers of reconciliation between the opposing cultures and against extremism, is seen with great concern in many parts. And if the information comes out that we have a mole right among us, as some speculate...” The CEO will take a break after the speech.
“A joint meeting at a high level. How high?” Cervetti will ask.
“The Chief Commissioner listened to my advice and called the chief of staff of the Minister of the Interior. We’re summoned tomorrow night, to the palace,” the CEO will reply looking out the window. “You come too, Commissioner.”
The woman will observe the man sitting on the floor in front of her, in her apartment in Onna Son.
“So, if you agree to create this work of art for me, your compensation will be two million Eurodollars, plus one hundred and fifty thousand materials, and let’s say a software component for a few tens of thousands of euros. The costs of software development are obviously borne by the client, so I pay them,” the blond will finish, running a hand through his hair.
“It does not even appear from his card that he is armed or authorized to use weapons.” The woman will point to the hologram. “It’s normal for him to be confused and give contradictory answers. What happened this morning would break anyone’s nerve. I think you’re being a little too hard on him, James.”
The dark-haired man will nod to the blond, who will open another screen.
“We checked. A girl from the library confirms that she saw him, but we’re verifying the times when he was out, on which, as we know, there is only his confused testimony, since someone has deleted the recordings. As you say, he’s not licensed to use firearms. Our man evidently is so confused that he doesn’t really remember many things. Not even to tell us that he took Professor Borman’s gun, regularly registered in his name as a former air force major on permanent leave. As you can see in the pictures, Borman died in the bathroom. And yet, someone who knew where Borman was holding the weapon, in a compartment of his room. Someone who knew him well took the opportunity to pick it up and deprogram it. To do so, he must have inserted the weapon into Borman’s hand.” The man will turn to the blonde woman. “Perhaps you will have an interesting theory as to why the gun’s serial data passed through Whiley’s personal display archive this morning.”
In the room, those present will look at the projection of the historical weapon series data, which the blond man will show by opening another sheet in front of them, comparing them with the connection data of Whiley’s personal display archive, available today.
“I don’t like it,” the director will say. “Let’s bring our man back. We have a few things to ask him.”
The meeting room door will open, and the man in the green jacket will return to his seat next to the director.
“Richard Proctor didn’t answer. His personal display and communicator are at home. In the house, a maid answered. She said that he went out rather in a hurry after talking to his wife. His wife, when questioned, told us that he went to the department and will be back for dinner.”
A murmur will travel through the meeting room.
The Japanese woman reclining on the leather armchair will keep her expression enigmatic.
“Which brings us, my dear lady,” the man on the floor will continue, “to, yes, let’s say two million plus ten percent for expenses. So, in total, two million and two hundred thousand Eurodollars. I’m going to advance a million now. The rest on delivery. Will it fly?”
The woman will barely move an eyebrow.
“Well, then let’s say I need a sequence and a confidential bank account.”
The woman will look at him carefully, as if to evaluate him, get up, and write the information with her fingers on an open panel in the holographic space, then walk up to the bar. The man will move sheets in holographic space, opening two virtual panels, then order the transfer of the number from one encrypted account to another. After about a quarter of an hour, he will close the panel.
“Well, now we just have to wait, my dear. According to my calculations, considering the requests and needs for password checks and verification of security and identity protocols, it will take a while. Let’s say two to three hours.”
The woman will pour a drink from the bar, opening a holographic panel from a compartment inside the cabinet.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Palmer,” the woman will say, pouring ice into the glass. “There is no hurry. Chiyeko, will you do me the courtesy of taking our guest tied and blindfolded to the iron statue in the entrance? In the meantime, I’ll rest a little while we wait to see if what he says is true. Watch over him well and wake me up in three hours.”
The girl grabs the man by the shirt and pulls him without much regard, pointing the knife at his throat. She will drag the handcuffed man near a clothes rack, from which she will pull out a long women’s belt, with which she will form a noose. Then, she will force him with a gesture to put his head in the noose, making him kneel, and tying an end to a heavy iron statue, depicting an ancient warrior monk. The last thing Palmer will see is an image of the woman dressed in black silk slipping off her sandals and lying on the couch, before a black hood is dropped over his head.
The Director will address the brunette woman on his left, who will take notes on her display. “Send someone to his department right away, and as soon as they find this Proctor, put him in communication directly with me.”
“You said he’s speaking from a bar. Since he will contact us soon, how long does it take to track him down?” the stout man at the head of the table will inquire, staring at the manager and squinting his little gray eyes.
“We did a search of the area,” the blond man will answer, opening another sheet with the three-dimensional map of downtown Chicago, on which will appear, above the table of the hall, many blue dots. “If his information is true, and if he has moved on foot, then within the period of time declared by him he may have moved about three kilometers away from the area of the attack. Out of caution, we have estimated five kilometers and checked all public places with connection with holographic communicators. So, we did an inventory and checked the type of seats corresponding to the type of cabin Whiley used. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty common type of cabin. We know that the total number of cabins similar to the one used in our recordings is used in a total of exactly 282 public establishments in that area.”
“282!” the gray-eyed man will repeat.
“Yes, sir.”
“And how long does it take to trace the exact location of the call?”
“With this information, having thus reduced the field, we just need to monitor all the connection centers identified on the map and keep him in communication for an estimated time around seventy seconds,” the blond man will reply.
“And at that point, how much does it take for one of our units to get there?” the stout man will ask, brushing a hand over his gray hair.
“As you can see, we’re holding an in-orbit control station focused on the area, so...” the blond man will move the three-dimensional figures over the area of the floating map rotating on the meeting table.
Hours later.
Palmer’s legs will be sore when he feels the girl’s sturdy hands take off his hood, again seeing the light from the tea room. The woman in the evening dress will smile at him.
“My dear, it seems we have a deal,” the woman will say, nodding to the girl, who, sticking the knife in the noose with a couple of decisive cuts, will sever the rope. “I’ve just seen a nice figure on my account. Thank you.”
The girl will help the man get up, replacing the knife in a sheath attached to her forearm under the suit.
“Prudence, as you know, is a must in our craft. However, how can we be forgiven?” the woman will ask in a honeyed voice.
“Well,” the man will say, massaging his neck, “by taking these off and telling me where the bathroom is.”
“The handcuffs soon. T
he bathroom is down the hall, behind that door.”
When Palmer returns to the hall, it will be empty. He will hear Zen music coming from behind a sliding door. He will open it, pulling with both hands, still locked in handcuffs. The woman will be lying on the bed, still dressed. The girl, however, will be in her underwear, without a bra. The room will be richly decorated, full of precious objects, a large round bed in the center, on the ceiling a ring of soft blue lights.
“And these?” Palmer will ask, pointing to the handcuffs.
“Oh, in a moment, honey. You’ll see, you’ll have more fun. Why don’t you say hello to our new client, Chiyeko?” the woman will say, joining the words with gestures.
The girl will approach the man in the threshold and pull him in. Even without shoes, she is a few inches taller than him, and about twenty taller than the woman. She will unbutton his pants, and looking him in the eye, without smiling, she will grab the man’s member, beginning to open and close the palm of her hand.
“That’s just her way of saying it was nothing personal, Mr. Palmer,” the woman will comment, raising her palm in the air.
“... With a pair of flying cars stationed in the area for data collection and a unit on the road, electric or hydrogen-powered with magnetic suspension for the intervention...” concludes the blond man, “... no more than twelve minutes, sir.”
“Sir, with all due respect,” the thin woman will intervene, addressing the CEO, “it seems to me that we’re taking excessive precautions. At the end of the day, it’s Whiley who contacted us, sounding the alarm and asking to come back. Why would he do that if he had anything else in mind?”
“And we will bring him back, Meredith,” the director will reply, getting up from the table. “But at the moment we have six corpses to cover, a plausible story to give to the police, a crime scene without traces and with the security recordings deleted. The only evidence is the fingerprints of a man on the run, the only survivor, who is in unauthorized possession of his murdered leader’s weapon. The situation requires prudence, I think.”
Futura: Parallel Universes. Book 1 Page 12
