by Ian Williams
Reluctantly, he looked into his wife’s eyes and saw how they were pleading silently for him to stay. Losing Graham had devastated them all, and they could not risk losing him too. Everyone knew this, but none of them had the desire to say it out loud.
“Fine,” he said, pulling Ruth closer to him. “At least take Sean with you, Phoenix.”
“I’m up for that,” Sean said, stepping forward.
This suggestion sounded even more idiotic to her. Why would she risk her last surviving brother? She could not help but take exception to his request. Anyway, did he think all women needed a man to look after them? She had managed fine by herself. Rather than question him further on his opinion of women, she decided to leave his ego intact for now. It would make him less likely to accept her decision if she pushed him on it.
“Thanks Sean, but I don’t want you getting involved. Stay here and keep things ticking over, OK?”
Sean nodded. He, thankfully, knew when to push her and when not to. He saw how determined she was to go alone with the man. More than that, he knew why as well. She just could not afford the distraction and worry that went with him going along. The same really applied to Elliot. She worked best alone.
“Time to get you fixed,” she said to Ninety-three.
He hopped off the car, headed around to the front and got in. Without realising it he chose the driver’s seat. At least he knows how to get in, she conceded, he hasn’t forgotten everything then. She was glad to see his enthusiasm. He appeared as eager to find answers as she and the others were.
“Just promise me you’ll both stay out of trouble,” Jane said. “If there’s even the smallest chance that Graham is out there, then someone needs to find out. But you shouldn’t take any risks.”
Hearing Jane speaking about her husband like this brought a lump to Phoenix’s throat. Conversations about him normally had the lifespan of a sneeze, and they rarely lasted after his name had been spoken. The general rule was that if Jane or Alex were in the room then the subject was deemed ‘off limits’. A glimmer of hope, a chance that Graham had survived, had brought with it a change to those rules. Before, Jane had not wanted to even think about it.
“We’ll be fine. If we find out anything I’ll call. I’ll leave a message for you every couple of hours. You’ll have to drive to the communication terminal just outside the city limits to get it. It’ll be linked to Elliot’s biometrics, so just sign in with a handprint. If you don’t hear from us within twelve hours then by all means come looking.”
“Wait, how can you link it to me?” Elliot asked naively.
“I’ve used your biometric records a few times to buy supplies. You have a great credit rating by the way,” she replied with a smirk. Ruth and Jane both giggled, but Elliot again shook his head.
“Whatever. If I’m expected to drive to that poxy terminal then I need the car,” he said with glee.
Crap! she thought. She had forgotten that. “Fine, get in then. But you’re only dropping us off near the city, OK?”
Elliot agreed with an annoying slap on her shoulder as he walked to the driver’s side of the car. “You’re in the back,” he said to Ninety-three, who had sat quietly admiring the inside of the car as they negotiated the terms of their departure.
Ruth pulled Phoenix aside suddenly, gripping her arm a little too tightly. “I’m relying on you to keep him from entering the city with you. Understand?”
Phoenix nodded cautiously. Ruth was a formidable force when it came to her family, and she cast a daunting shadow over anyone that threatened them. It was clear she disliked the plan, but had to agree with it. It did not stop her sending a sense of dread up through Phoenix’s squeezed arm and across her body.
“I promise,” she replied.
“Good.”
Ruth then wandered around to Elliot’s side of the car and kissed him goodbye.
There was no argument about who would drive, Phoenix gave him that honour without question. If it made him feel better about the plan, then she did not mind. Even if she knew exactly what he was probably thinking of doing along the way. However many times he would try and talk her into changing her mind, she would not allow him to join them.
When she entered the car she had to wait while Ruth and Elliot said goodbye repeatedly – she was clearly trying to remind him of what he would be leaving behind if he got into trouble. After one last round of kisses and a final hug, they were finally off. Elliot took it slow at first until they reached the main road, then he put his foot down.
Ninety-three sat in the back seat and was revelling in the view as it began to move past at speed. Phoenix watched him in her side mirror. The way he tried to see everything at once was comical, yet profoundly disturbing too. Any memories he may have had of his life were possibly lost forever. It meant that he was in effect seeing things for the first time, just like a newborn child. She could hardly imagine what that must be like for an adult mind to cope with. More importantly, she never wanted to find out for herself.
If her plan worked then the information and relevant memories would be released once more. Then Ninety-three would really have to answer some serious questions. First of all, who exactly he was. But if everything he had ever known was now in fact lost, then any chance of finding Graham would go the same way too.
The thought made her shiver.
She sat back and let the rest of their journey pass her by without thinking too hard about anything in particular. The time to think a few moves ahead would soon be upon her. It was how she had lived her years within the city. With everyone out to make a living and no-one caring who they screwed to do so, she knew she would need her wits about her again. This time more than usual too, as the security system would likely flag-up her presence within the city immediately.
Chapter 5
Mind over matters
An old, wooden table appeared at knee height in front of Graham, who sat patiently waiting for more to follow. Scanning all around quickly placed the scene for him. He was in his and Elliot’s old pub; their favourite pub until it had gone the way of most others and shut down. Across the table from him sat his best friend. While to his left and right were a pair of fellow gamblers, each suspiciously eyeing him as he searched the room.
Shit, it’s my turn to deal, he realised.
“Sorry guys, I forgot where I was for a second there. Here we go,” he said, sliding the cards across the table.
A crowd had built up at the other end of the bar. Between heads he caught a glimpse of the large holographic video of live football playing out for the already semi-drunken spectators. As he and his companions sat betting their money away in the hopes of a perfect hand, the others in the bar continued to cheer and roar at the match. When a goal was scored the room instantly separated like a train had passed right through the middle; those whose team had scored jumped and clapped on one side of the room, while all others stood rigid with faces of stone. Graham always found this funny. He did not care for football, he preferred much more boring sports such as Formula One and Snooker, and Poker too.
“Anyone have a two?” Elliot asked with a chuckle.
“Go fish….” Graham began his reply, but quickly trailed off as a feeling of Déjà vu came over him unexpectedly.
What was he doing? It was happening again.
“Funny,” the man to Graham’s left said. “Can we get back to some poker now?”
Graham called to his daughter, as he threw his cards upon the table. “Alex, where are you? Come out here right now, young lady.” None of his gambling friends paid any attention to his decision not to continue. The memory simply did not allow for such a deviation.
Upon his request a path opened out between the crowd of sports enthusiasts in the way, and a small figure wandered through. It was Alex again. He was strangely relieved this time. The anger he felt toward her earlier for interrupting his memories had gone. Hopelessness at not seeing her reassuring face had set in soon after she had vanished instead. Somethi
ng he had little intention of feeling again.
“This is an odd place. Who are these people? What are they doing?” She turned back to the holo-display to watch some more of the ongoing match.
“Never mind that. You need to tell me how you got here.”
Behind him Elliot wheezed heavily with laughter. The joke was one he instantly realised he should have told. The scene played on whether he joined in or not.
“I don’t even know where here is?” she replied.
“No, I mean, how did you get into these memories? You’re only two years old at this point. I remember because you puked all over me when I got back, like you’d stored it up just for me.”
Alex looked at him with a puzzled expression. He was getting the distinct feeling that none of what he said made any sense at all. She could not have remembered it, she had been too young. But then his Alex would have found what he said tremendously funny. Add in a story about bogeys and he would have had an entire stand-up routine tailored just for her.
“You’re not really Alex, are you?”
She laughed. “Yes I am, Daddy. I’m not Elliot, look.” Suddenly her image morphed into Elliot, her voice too. After that she began to change into others he once knew, listing each as she took their form. After Elliot, she switched to Jane, then Ruth, Anthony, Sean, Stephen and even his elderly mother and father. Everyone he ever knew appeared in front of him for a second before vanishing again. In the end she settled back on Alex.
“Stop doing this to me!” he shouted. “Tell me what’s going on, now. No more games.”
“I’m sorry, I was just having fun.”
“Well it’s not funny. Tell me who you are, really?”
Alex looked up at him with her frizzy hair all out of place as usual, her eyes wide and Bambi-like. She was hesitant to answer, he could not even guess why.
“Please, just tell me. I can’t keep going around in circles like this anymore.”
“Well,” she began, still to decide how to answer appropriately. She spoke while looking at her feet. “We aren’t like the rest of them. You are, well, different. I’m struggling to find the words to explain. We aren’t the same as the others in this place.”
“Just say it then,” he said, fearful of the coming response.
“There is a word you have used to describe them in the past. You once called them Sentients. Yes, that’s what they are. Except they aren’t the same as the one you’ve already met.”
“Luke,” he said, the name arriving unannounced on his tongue.
He stepped back into the small gambling table and rested against it. The others no longer acknowledged his presence, they simply carried on swapping their cards around and fiddling with their poker chips. His shock was not shared with the others, but his interference had knocked a pile of cards to the floor.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?”
Only after gathering himself together again could he process the information. Despite her insistence on ignoring his question, if Alex was actually a Sentient, then what did that make him? Where the hell am I, he thought. Nothing around him felt right anymore. Regardless of his familiarity with the place, he felt overwhelmingly lost.
“This can’t be happening. Am I even alive?”
“I can’t answer that for you, Daddy.”
“Don’t you dare call me that! You’re not my baby girl.”
He could not have helped his despair rise any higher even if he tried. Something held just below the surface had welled up and was trying to find any way out it could. A repressed feeling of loss and hurt burst out of him like a choking fit. He grasped his arms tightly and rocked back and forth. Why was this happening to him? He failed to even remember how he got there. Yet there was something else to his outburst of emotion, something a deep and hidden part of him understood. Something terrible had happened that he no longer remembered.
“Please,” Alex said, looking around herself with concern.
When she approached and placed a hand on his arm, he retracted as if her fingers were laced with acid. She was not his daughter, she was something evil pretending to be. The way he felt about her could only be altered once the being controlling her was exorcised altogether.
“It’s OK, Daddy, I know someone in this place that can help you understand this world. He once faced a similar situation as us, but he has learnt to become more like the others in order to survive. In fact you appear to have a few memories of him already. He likes to be referred to by his human name, Stephen.”
The moment she finished speaking he could feel himself fighting yet another sensation, that of intense confusion. Was this another joke at his expense? Stephen was not a Sentient, he was a human. Through the fog came a recollection that contradicted Alex’s comment completely. He could see a broken old man shuffling around Sanctuary; another soul also lost amid familiar surroundings.
“How can that be possible?” he said through a loud sniff.
“I think it would be better for him to explain.”
* * *
12pm, Thursday: 36 hours until Switchover
Conrad stood in the centre of a virtual world made up of the gruesome images from that morning’s murder scene. All around him, as had been the case in the warehouse, were the uncovered bodies, each staring up to the heavens. Their open eyes sent chills up and down his body. He cursed himself for not making sure he and Joe had closed their eyes before taking the scan. For as long as the case remained open, he would have to avoid their deathly looks.
Hanging from the ceiling above him was a small sphere with lenses aiming in all directions. The tiny projector had re-created the scene in every detail, down to the nanoscale. Every bump and scrape in the floor was present for him to gaze upon while in deep thought. Even though he knew the walls of the police station’s evidence room were only a few metres away, the deformed and warped images projected on them made the space appear the same size as the warehouse. If he walked to the side he would almost immediately destabilise the illusion.
To move about the virtual scene he had a small control in his right hand. With the tiny joystick in the middle he could move in whichever direction he wanted, just by pushing it the relevant direction. The same applied when he needed to look closer at something in particular. He had yet to decide to do this and instead was taking a quiet moment to make things clear in his own mind. When ready, he wanted to check the square imprints on the latest victims one more time, to make sure they all matched.
His chosen moment of contemplation ended when someone entered the evidence room unannounced. He guessed it had to be his partner, Joe. No-one else would be stupid enough. The last person to invade his quiet time without a damn good reason had received a telling off almost instantly. Although not by Conrad. Having such a close working relationship with Joe meant they both knew when someone was being a nuisance to the other.
“Joe, that you?” he said, peering through the virtual walls that surrounded him.
Like a ghost stepping through a solid structure, Joe appeared out of nowhere and stopped in the centre of the room. He rolled his eyes when he saw that Conrad was once again checking the evidence.
“You really think you’ll get something new from staring at it all for hours? Here.”
Conrad kept his arms crossed and resting against his stomach as he twisted around. He was delighted to see a large plastic cup with steam rising out of a small hole in the lid being handed to him. The only thing that could make his day pass more easily was coffee with a splash of milk and two sugars – well that and perhaps a biscuit or two as well. He took the cup and gave a look to Joe that said it all.
“You’re welcome,” Joe replied. The look alone had been enough. “You get any sleep since this morning?”
“A couple of minutes, here and there. You?”
“I crashed at my brother’s place down the road. Why don’t you get an hour or so more, I’ll cover this while you’re gone? It’s only just gone midday.”
Midday, alread
y?! Conrad thought. “I’m fine, thanks.” After a sip he could have savoured all day, he brought his tired mind back to the case still hovering in front of them. “So,” he said between another hot gulp, “any update on our Jane and John Does?”
“Yep,” Joe said as he joined in the chorus of sips and satisfied exhalations.
“Excellent. Did they start with our new subject?”
“Face scan and finger prints match a guy on record, but he’s not been picked up by the network in months. If he was in the city all that time then he’d either ditched his personal wrist computer or he was possibly locked up somewhere.”
While moving the holographic overlay toward the mysteriously different victim, Conrad could not help but make a comment. “One of these things is not like the others.”
“I beg your pardon?” Joe said.
“Oh, never mind. So what’s the guy’s name?”
“Hang on, let me bring the info up for you.”
“Sure,” Conrad said as he handed the small control over to his partner.
With a mixture of button presses, gesture control flicks and finger pinches, Joe eventually brought up a hovering dashboard above each of the bodies. The one nearest to them was their mystery victim.
Conrad began to read the relatively detailed history scrolling up the display. The man’s name was Oliver Bennington and his record was filled with minor transgressions, the usual collection for a troubled teen: Drunk And Disorderly, Breach Of The Peace, even a few reports of Drug Possession. Certainly there was nothing that would have put him in the centre of a multiple murder case. Yet it was clear he had not been killed randomly. He was involved in some way that did not include a brutal, and seemingly without reason, operation.
“Perhaps he was a member of our killer-cult?” Conrad said, just voicing the idea.
“That would explain why he was treated differently. He could have messed something up…”
“And been punished, I was thinking the same thing. Can’t be sure without more evidence though.”
