Recalling Destiny

by Michael Blinkhoff

She exited and tried to get her bearings when she realised she’d just run past two people that must have been waiting by her door. Her heart threatened to jump out of her chest as she noticed them, and by the look on the faces of the two black clad men, they were just as surprised as she was.

  Mystified, she looked back at them and they both started to raise their arms in unison towards her, as if trying to calm her. She stepped back and wondered what they were trying to do.

  Men in black fatigues.

  She remembered seeing the same black clad men back at Peter’s apartment, in hallway as they left. She hadn’t paid any heed to them back then, but here now were the same people. Are they following me?

  A hand laid itself on her shoulder and she reacted swiftly, twisting in her stance and rolling out of the grip. She instantly turned and fled, running across the carpark to the motel exit as fast as she could.

  She came to the exit, urgently trying to remember where she’d seen the 7-11 before they’d checked in. Before she could make any decision though, she bundled into another person in the carpark, also dressed in black fatigues.

  Catlin didn’t have time to stop her momentum, so crashed right into the awaiting man with a fright. She stole a quick look into his eyes as they tumbled together and felt the fear take the breath from her chest. She screamed, scrambled back to her feet and ran again, her panic spurring her on.

  “Catlin, wait!” came the call as she bolted.

  She’d lost her orientation and cursed herself for not paying more attention when they’d arrived earlier. But Cat knew she’d be safer with people around and ran towards the bright lights at the end of the street, hoping that it’d be where she could find the 7-11 and Peter. And if not, at least somebody there who could help her.

  She ran as fast as she could, spurred on by the sounds of the three men now chasing her. The men in pursuit tried calling out for her to stop but she ignored their pleas and charged forward.

  “Catlin, please stop.” they called from behind her. “Please Catlin, we’re trying to save you.”

  She ignored their pleas and pushed on towards the lights and through the main street, eventually seeing the 7-11 and charging for the bright neon lights with relief. Seeing safety in front of her afforded a second to think about the men behind in pursuit, but she realised the pleas from behind had stopped, as had the sounds of their boots pounding the pavement in pursuit.

  They gave up?

  Slightly relieved her pursuers must have abandoned their chase, Catlin slowed to a jog, her heart and lungs now begging her to slow down, adrenaline levels now slowing.

  Think I got away from them.

  Quickly she reached the carpark entrance to the 7-11 and saw a man standing by a car smoking a cigarette, she immediately called out to him for help.

  “Please.” she breathed heavily, “Mister.” she sucked in large, deep breaths. “Please help me, someone’s trying to get me, help, please, help!”

  But the look on the man’s face was so calm and calculating it alarmed Catlin as she came rushing forward towards him, still at a trot. She tried at the last minute to slow herself so she could avoid him, but the man got up off the car and starting coming forward into her path. The set to his eyes warning Catlin he was no ally.

  But she was too slow to react and the man rushed forward, grabbing her from the side and wrestling her around him. The man expertly using her momentum to swing her in an arc that flung her towards the parked car he had just been sitting on.

  Coupled with the force she’d already gathered, Catlin was slammed, shoulder first, into the side of the car door with a loud smack. Instantly having the wind knocked from her lungs, she struggled to breathe and rolled around on the ground clutching her injured shoulder.

  Catlin gasped desperately for air as she looked up wistfully at the store, searching around for someone to help and wondering where Peter was. She screamed out as loud as she could and started seeing more dark shapes appearing in the carpark.

  “Please help me!” she pleaded with the gathering crowd as she lay struggling on the pavement.

  But none of them paid her screams any heed, they were all reacting as if what she was doing was completely normal. Then she heard sirens wail and a series of police vehicles with their red and blue lights come screeching into the car park. Catlin had no idea where they’d come from, but she figured the crowd were all in on it, she’d been setup and everyone around was there to capture her.

  The man who’d stopped her, with his cigarette still in his mouth, gathered her up from the ground and bundled her straight into one of the police vans that had just pulled up beside them. Catlin didn’t resist straight away, as she was still trying to figure out what was going on.

  Besides the fact that she wondered where Pete was, she couldn’t help but speculate on who the three men in black fatigues were, for they were nowhere to be seen in amongst the throng of police.

  Were they police?

  Once she saw the van door open and captivity awaiting her, something went off inside her head. The adrenaline levels spiked and she switched back on, survival mode activated. She realised the man had not bound her hands, so just before he closed the van door she rounded on him viciously.

  Her left arm swung round and clawed him in the face, his cigarette flew back into his face and scorched him painfully. The man cried out in agony and lost his grip on the door to the van, falling backwards slightly. Catlin used the moment and rushed him with both her hands, claws at the ready.

  She felt the skin gather under her fingernails as she tore at his face, and the man shrieked again in pain. He fell to the ground under her assault, covering his face in order to protect himself from her onslaught.

  He landed heavily on the pavement with Catlin astride him, she rolled off him quickly, turned and bounded for the doors of the 7-11 store without another thought.

  Quickly other officers realised she’d gotten free and chased her as she bolted towards the entrance of the store, demanding she stop. Catlin, her adrenaline pumping, didn’t stop though, she ploughed on towards the entrance, determined to reach it.

  As she came up to the entrance of the store, the electric doors didn’t respond as she’d thought they would. Normally automatic doors would open as you came within reach of the sensor, but these glass doors did not open for her, they’d been locked deliberately.

  Catlin was unable to stop her momentum, she smashed right through the glass sliding doors in her panicked run, exploding the glass into millions of shards as she cascaded through.

  She crashed to the floor in a swarm of bright lights and broken glass. With her wits still about her she took in the surroundings as she rolled to a stop, swearing she saw Pete. It was hard to tell as her vision was a blurry, but she could’ve sworn she saw him hiding behind the magazine section.

  She tried to get to her feet, looking up at the magazine section as she did so, but slid back to the floor and slammed her head on the ground. Dazed, she looked down at herself and wondered why she wasn’t bleeding profusely, glass had embedded itself all over her body.

  She quickly plucked a few shards from her arms and tossed them to the side as she stood back up, but still didn’t notice any blood come gushing out. Strange she thought, but not the first time she had seen that before.

  She looked up, back to the magazine section and saw him, plain as Jane, just standing there. He was looking straight at her, except the look on his face was a strange one, she’d seen the face once before in Africa.

  Her heart sank as she remembered where she’d last seen it, but before she had time to think on it further, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he dropped out of view, as if his legs had given way beneath him.

  Without time to focus and gather herself on what just happened to him, officers swarmed all over her, screaming various commands in shouted tones. They were coming at her
from both inside and outside the store, she was surrounded.

  The futility of her situation started to set in when she realised that even the plain clothes people in the store were coming after her, nobody here was going to help her, she was severely outnumbered.

  She was cornered and had no chance of escaping, it seemed everyone around her was there to capture her.

  Come to get poor old Catlin have you all?

  She stood defiantly and called out a challenge to them, then got tackled from behind. A plain clothes officer slammed into her, giving his comrades enough time to launch from the front. She wriggled around on the floor with him, in the glass. But was soon joined by a literal army of officers, who, working together, managed to subdue her.

  She was caught.

  - -

  Destiny

  The control room floor of Destiny had gone silent, despite the commotion occurring up on the main screen. It was normally a buzzing operations room with people communicating, mouse buttons clicking and keyboards tapping away, but now was reduced to an atmosphere similar to that of a crowd at a cinema.

  Both upstairs and downstairs sections of the Destiny facility had prepared for the event that was now taking place, all they could do was standby and watch as the operations team took control and tried to capture their high value target.

  Ma’am, who normally paced the floor, had taken a chair and sat staring at the screen relaying images via CCTV, local electrical devices and the operations team’s camera’s.

  It was so quiet in the small operations room that the sound of a mouse being double clicked pulsated audibly in the room. Ma’am turned, frustrated, to see whom it belonged to, furious someone had upset her viewing experience. Marion at Station Eight seemed to sense the stare but didn’t look up as she was seemingly engaged in her work. Ma’am huffed and turned back around to the main screen.

  Their main target was now sitting stationary at a motel. Ma’am had ordered the ops team in, who now moved into a position to recover her. The target’s friend had left the motel room following an argument, leaving her alone in the room. Once he’d left, Ma’am called the order to execute and now everyone sat waiting for the operations team to carry out her orders.

  They were finally in a position to capture the target. Get in, get the girl and get out. Before anyone noticed they were there.

  “Ma’am?” Marion at Station Eight called out in the silent room.

  “Not now Eight!” she replied annoyingly.

  “I’m sensing some unusual activity,” came the reply in a hushed voice. “You better come have a look at this.”

  “We’re about to launch!” she replied, frustrated. Ma’am tried to ignore it but her mind couldn’t focus properly, so with an audible sigh she got up off her chair and slowly paced backwards in the direction of Station Eight, not taking her eyes off the main screen.

  “What is it?”

  “The boyfriend.” Marion replied, eyes set on her screen.

  “What about him?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure?

  “His thread changed.”

  “How?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Marion worked furiously through the thread lines on her computer screen, advancing, checking, rolling back and switching views. She was the expert at monitoring the threads and picking up on the information. She was so fast even Ma’am had trouble keeping up with her movements now that her attention was diverted away from the main screen.

  “Follow the pigmentation,” Ma’am instructed. “The colour.”

  “Already done that, its shifting though. His thread is changing.”

  “Changing to what?”

  “Back to the original thread destination, before we changed it.”

  “What? Is that even possible?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “What the hell, I thought we controlled destiny?”

  “Well regardless, it’s happening right now.”

  “Well that would mean back to his betrayal, the original destiny planned.”

  “That’s why I called you over, but I can’t find it exactly.”

  “Well scoot over here and ...”

  “Shut it!”

  “Well I’m just trying to help.”

  “Who’s the expert here?”

  “Well, yes, ok but ...” Ma’am stood confused. “We’ve never changed a thread before and then had it change back to its original state …”

  “That’s why I flagged it in the first place. Still I can’t find the source.”

  “Did someone else change it?”

  “I don’t know. I certainly didn’t.”

  “Is it even possible?”

  “You mean is it possible someone else’s controlling his thread, that someone else is controlling this?”

  “Well is it?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, but …”

  “But if we can change something, then …”

  “You don’t think that Suni …”

  “No. There’s no way.”

  “Well I can’t figure out how the thread changed and it doesn’t look like the original anyway. Yet, the result appears to be the same.”

  “That’s freaky.”

  “How so?”

  “Destiny seemed to work itself out, despite our interference.”

  “Hmmm, we’re playing God down here Lucinda, so there’s no telling what the repercussions of what we’re doing are.”

  “What changed anyway?”

  “Hmmm, hold on I’ll look closer.”

  Ma’am turned quickly to check the main screen, doing a double take as she saw the target on the phone. “Who’s she talking to?” she called out loudly in the room.

  No response from the floor.

  “Hey, listen up slackers! Who is she talking to?” She worried, annoyed that her attention had been diverted momentarily and something was happening.

  Suddenly the room starting buzzing again, people sensed something was wrong and jumped back onto their consoles in response.

  “Ma’am, call has been disconnected!” an operator called out.

  “Damn, who was it?” she fretted. “What were they talking about?”

  On screen the girl put the phone down, picked it up and dialled again.

  “Get me that phone, now!” Ma’am roared.

  “Disconnected again Ma’am.”

  “Who the hell?”

  The target hung up the phone only for it to ring again, instantly.

  “Acquiring.” came a shout from an operator.

  But before anyone could respond the target had slammed the phone back down, gotten up and fled the room, Ma’am reacted quickly, “Ops!”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Target is on the move, you need to act now!”

  But it was too late, the target had avoided them and exited the motel room before they were ready. Ma’am searched desperately on the screen to find an image of where she’d disappeared to.

  “Lucinda!” Marion stood up, screaming above the now buzzing control room.

  “What! What is it?” She baulked at the mention of her name.

  “I found the thread link, Peter Friendly, he and Thomas … we have Government troops here, whoa!” Marion stopped herself as she caught sight at what was taking place on the main screen, which she hadn’t paid any attention to until now. The target had fled the motel room, getting past the two Ops men stationed there and had collided with another unit near the exit.

  Immediate panic set in at the installation as all their plans fell apart on screen in front of them, this for the second time. Nobody noticed during the event, but Samuel, normally a recluse in his office, had come out and was quietly observing all the activity from the mezzanine
balcony, albeit with a guard by his side.

  “Pursuit, Ops! Your target is on the run!” Ma’am called out.

  “Shit. Damn bitch!” came a reply over their comms.

  “Ops?”

  “In pursuit Ma’am,” a unit called out panting. On screen he could be seen getting back to his feet giving chase to their fleeing target.

  “Ma’am?” Marion called out.

  “What?” she turned angrily.

  “... advise retreat of all units ASAP!” Marion called out.

  “What?” she answered, more confused this time. “What are you …”

  “I said advise all unit’s retreat, NOW!” her voice raised even louder.

  The tone was enough to convince her not to question Marion and the order was relayed instantly, “All units retreat. Abandon chase and hold position. I repeat Ops, all units disengage target immediately.”

  A series of replies from the Ops team confirming the order came through on her headset, the three units pulled back.

  Ma’am moved back over to Station Eight hastily to ascertain the reason for Marion’s outburst. “What is it?”

  “I figured it out, he’s gone bad Lucinda.” she said looking at Ma’am, with a little sorrow in her eyes. “And the link, I found that too.”

  “Who?”

  Marion had found the particulars of the alert she’d raised previously and displayed them on screen for Ma’am to see. Ma’am stared at it for a moment and started to seethe with anger, “Peter goddam Friendly!” she grunted through gritted teeth. “And bloody Thomas as well.”

  “I’m sorry Lucinda …”

  “Why didn’t this get picked up before?”

  “Excuse me?” Marion objected, “The thread changed on its own accord, I don’t control it. Matter of fact, I’m starting to think we can’t control anything.”

  “Why didn’t you figure this out before, it’s your job isn’t it.”

  “Hey, you wanna do it, be my guest.” she pushed back from her desk, putting her hands in the air in a gesture of resignation.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Ma’am scolded, but was interrupted by the commotion on the main screen.