by Thom Parsons
This time, Owen didn’t try and reply with words. Instead, he just nodded his head, attempting to save his own strength.
“Now. I'm going to run some tests on you, to make sure that the crash didn’t cause any permanent brain damage. You’re going to be here for a while, Mr Archer, so get comfortable. We have a lot of questions we need to ask you.”
Owen understood everything that he was hearing, but at the moment, all he could think about was Annie. Why haven't they told me how she's doing? Why are we not sharing a private room together?
“Annie,” Owen managed to say, speaking just that one word, letting the doctor know that he desperate for an answer.
“Mr Archer… Your wife…” the doctor said slowly, as he sat still at the side of Owen's bed. “I don’t know how to tell you this sir.” He started to shake his head from side to side slowly, before looking Owen dead in the eye. “She didn’t make it.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Date: December 9th 2035
Location: Wilson Place Hospital, New York
There was a rap at the door as someone knocked several times in quick succession, snapping Owen’s consciousness back into the present and out the memory of what had happened a few weeks back. Archer quickly wondered how long he had been stood there daydreaming, and as he looked at the room around him, he saw that Nick and Kate had pretty much set all of the portable PRoGRaM equipment up. He really must have been staring into oblivion for some time.
Whoever it was that was knocking at the door let themselves straight in without waiting for an answer from Owen or his team. Easily in his mid-to-late forties, with a full head of short greying hair and some stubble around the lower half of his face, the man that had entered the room was clearly a doctor of some stature. He dressed smartly, wearing a standard white doctors coat over the top of an admittedly plain shirt and tie, whilst underneath his arm he carried around a huge amount of paperwork.
“Good afternoon,” he announced to everyone as he walked in and closed the door behind him. He looked quickly at each of the three agents that stood before him, and took an even longer time staring at some of the equipment that Nick and Kate had set up in the background of the room. Knowing full-well that he wouldn’t get any answers about the equipment if he were to actually ask about it, he decided to just drop it there and then.
“I’m Doctor Raybould,” he said as he exchanged handshakes with everyone in the room, professionally yet quickly. “I’ll get right to the point and I wont waste your time. I’m afraid you will not be able to talk to Marcus Ortega. Not today. Not anytime soon.”
He spoke deeply, talking mainly to Owen who stood out in front of Nick and Kate. He was obviously a very busy man, and Owen respected that. This man needed to be out there in the hospital, looking after his patients. Not stood in here making small talk with FBI Agents. He was glad that the doctor went straight to the point. Owen wasn’t one for small talk anyway, and never had been. All that he wanted was answers. They were the only thing that he came here for.
“What’s his condition?” Owen asked the doctor, keeping it professional and quick.
“He’s alive. Barely,” Doctor Raybould replied, staring directly into Owen’s eyes as he spoke, putting emphasis on the barely.
“Is he conscious, or able to talk?” Owen enquired, knowing before he asked it that the answer was irrelevant. PRoGRaM would help them speak to Marcus Ortega either way, as long as he was in a stable condition.
“No,” Doctor Raybould replied sternly. “He is in a coma, one that we have induced manually for his own benefit. I cannot give an order that allows him to be woken up. The man has suffered some serious brain injuries, and the best… No. The only way he can recover, is in his own time.”
Doctor Raybould moved his eyes between Owen, Nick and Kate, trying to figure out just what brought them here in the first place.
“However,” Doctor Raybould continued. “Marcus will be brought in here to stay in this private room for the foreseeable future. But Agents, I’m afraid that you’re not going to be able to talk to him for quite some time...”
“Well,” Owen replied. “That isn’t strictly accurate.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Date: December 9th 2035
Location: PRoGRaM
Disorientation, again.
This time, the entire PRoGRaM entry process felt that little bit heavier to Owen compared to any time he could remember recently. Maybe I’m using PRoGRaM too much? He thought to himself, completely unsure of the answer as his mind materialised into his body inside The White Room. As he took control of himself, he felt more loose and out of control than he had done upon entry in a long, long time. Owen fell, falling forward onto his knees, feeling completely out of touch with his body. He actively dropped himself to the ground and sat himself down in an attempt to stabilise himself, but his head was spinning with The White Room going in circles around him. Kate’s experience was exactly the same as his. She too collapsed down to her knees, finally ending up lying on the ground next to him.
“Did that feel heavier to you than last time?” she asked as she lay there staring up at The White Room’s ceiling.
“I don’t think that PRoGRaM was designed to be used so frequently,” Owen replied as he slowly managed to get himself up onto his feet, feeling a lot better now that he had given himself a short rest. “We’re going to have to have a break after this time in PRoGRaM and not come back in for a week or so.”
“Can this thing kill us?” she asked seriously, looking up at him from where she lay on the ground, cutting the conversation straight to the point.
“Honestly?” Owen answered, reaching a hand out to her. “I don’t know.”
Kate left it at that and didn’t approach the matter further. Instead, she reached up and grabbed Owen’s hand as he gently helped her up from the ground. She looked around the room, as if she were looking for something, or someone. “Where’s Marcus?”
“Doesn’t work that simply I’m afraid,” Owen said, shaking his head as he spoke.
“I thought this was originally designed to talk to people in comas?”
“It was,” Owen replied. “But remember, the entire concept of The White Room as a starting point inside PRoGRaM was designed by Nick after PRoGRaM’s creation and beta testing. It only applies to those who are consciously aware that they are entering PRoGRaM.”
“So…?” Kate said, urging him to proceed.
“So,” Owen continued. “Marcus’ mind will take him to a place where he feels safe and comfortable. That could be anywhere in the world. But it’s usually always somewhere that the person in question has been before. Somewhere that they feel comfortable.”
“Okay, I get it,” Kate said, nodding as she answered Owen. “Then how do we find him?”
“We don’t. Nick does. He can find anyone, anywhere, as long as they are inside PRoGRaM.” Owen said as he began to follow his usual routine of pacing slowly around The White Room. “That’s what he’s doing out there now. He’ll be looking for Marcus’ location. Then, he’ll find a suitable exit point for us from which we can leave this White Room and enter the main PRoGRaM world.”
As if right on cue, one of the walls of The White Room flickered slightly, and morphed from its bright white texture into a full colour display, showing a huge world map. A small picture of Marcus Ortega then appeared, superimposed over the top of this map, his face hanging right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Owen and Kate both watched intently as a red line fired out from underneath his headshot, moving in a straight line from the picture of Marcus in the Atlantic Ocean, towards what seemed to be the south of Spain or maybe north Africa.
Both pairs of eyes followed this red line before it came to a stop. At its end point, a red circle appeared. It hung still, just south-west from the coast of Spain, but yet north-west off the coast of Africa. Looks like we’re going into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Owen thought, slightly confused. There must have been something th
at they were missing. Maybe there’s an island there?
“Hmm,” Kate mumbled, replicating the exact same feeling that Owen had. Confusion.
Right on cue, some writing began to materialise over the top of the map, just next to the location that the red circle had stopped at. Nick had heard them on the outside of PRoGRaM, and was out to clarify things for them.
Lanzarote, Canary Islands. Loading world now. Be ready in a few minutes. The message read. Nick was working on getting them to Marcus from the outside. It was Nick who pulled the world map up, who found Marcus, and he was the man that was taking Owen and Kate to him, right now.
“Strange choice,” Kate said, walking over and tapping the wall at where the small red dot had frozen on the map. “Anywhere in the world… He could go anywhere in the world and his mind see’s Lanzarote as a safe and comfortable place?”
“Everyone’s different,” Owen replied, shrugging his shoulders. “That place could hold some sort of deep down emotional connection that he feels drawn to. He doesn’t consciously choose a place. It’s more that Marcus' subconscious draws him to a place,” he explained as he looked over at the map from the opposite side of the room. “Have you ever been there? The Canary Islands?” he asked, lightening the tone whilst he waited for Nick to pin down a location for them to enter.
Loading all the schematics for a place on the other side of the world could take a few minutes. Owen didn’t really want to spend those few minutes pacing around The White Room in silence. He hadn’t had a chance to get to know Kate properly yet, every second that they had been together so far had been hectic. This was his first chance where his mind had even thought about getting to know her on a personal level.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “This may surprise you, but I’ve never been off the American mainland.”
“I see,” Owen answered with a hint of surprise evident in his voice. He felt for the girl. Here he was, with a machine that he could use to explore any place in the world, and he hadn’t even offered her a chance to explore it yet and go to some of the most unique places on Earth.
“When this is all over, is there anywhere you'd like to go and visit? Virtually, I mean," Owen asked.
“Always wanted to go to Paris.”
“Isn’t that a bit cliche?” he retorted.
“You’d think so. But no… I have distant family over there. And I’ve always wanted to visit them.”
Beep. The light above the door leading out of The White Room turned from red to green, indicating that the world beyond was finally ready for them.
“Ready?” Owen asked, glad that he had finally taken at least a little bit of time to get to know Kate.
“Lets go,” she replied, moving forwards and opening the door, eager to see what was on the other side.
A beautifully bright sunlight covered them the moment that they opened and stepped through the door. Together, they stepped out of The White Room and emerged out through the front of a restaurant, out into a bright, colourful, inviting holiday paradise. Looking up into the sky and shielding her eyes with her left hand, Kate saw nothing but blue skies, endless sun, and there wasn't a single cloud in sight. To their right, Owen saw more shops, bars, pubs, restaurants and clubs than he had ever seen in one place before. And I live in New York City…
He would have loved to have seen this place in reality, with the huge rush of tourists and relaxed holiday atmosphere. It had been a long time since he had had a vacation.
“Wow,” both Owen and Kate said almost simultaneously. New York was a great sight, but right here and now? This was almost paradise.
“It’s beautiful,” Owen said as he looked at the world all around him. “I mean, it’s as beautiful as a fake world can get, but I bet it’s even more amazing in reality.”
The two of them walked around the local area, taking in the scenery without being disturbed, even though it was a bit of a ghost town. Nick had held off on turning the realism up in the world, so at the moment there was no-one else around but the two of them. No avatars, no cars. No-one but Owen and Kate.
“Well, If Nick dropped us out of the White Room here, then Marcus has to be nearby,” Owen speculated. “If you were in a coma, and your mind brought you to a place like this, where’s the one place you would be?” he asked Kate, already knowing the answer to his own question.
“The beach,” Kate answered instantly.
“Exactly my thinking.”
Owen turned a corner, and in the distance, down a small alleyway containing even more bars and shops, he spotted the ocean. He led the way and moved down the narrow alley, walking past all of the empty shops and bars until he came out onto what seemed to be a main road. Laying before him, it stretched out endlessly to both his left and right, seeming to run the entire length of the coast. They crossed it together without looking, heading towards their destination.
A few concrete steps lay ahead of them, leading them both down onto the beach. Kate kicked out at the sand beneath her feet, watching in amazement as it reacted exactly as it would in the real world. “I could get used to this,” she said. Both herself and Owen walked along the deserted and beautiful beach, listening to the calming sounds of the steady ocean to their left. They walked and walked, looking out for Marcus.
“Over there,” Kate said to Owen, pointing forward as they walked.
In the far distance down the beach, they could see a man sitting on the sand. His legs out stretched out straight in front of him and his arms reached behind, propping himself up. He was just sat watching the ocean without a care in the world.
Owen and Kate continued walking. It seemed Marcus was happy here, and he wasn’t about to move anywhere else anytime soon. They had all the time that they needed.
“What are you going to say to him?” Kate asked as they walked slowly towards Marcus, who was still out of earshot.
“I don’t know,” admitted Owen with a shake of his head. “I really don’t know. There’s so many questions, but I don’t even know where to start.”
“Just ask him about Annie,” Kate suggested gently. “Ask him about Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes. Ask him why he was about to execute someone at the side of the road on Redford Avenue.”
The two of them approached Marcus in silence, Owen quietly contemplating what he was possibly going to say to the man. They both stopped a few feet from Marcus and waited. He hadn’t even acknowledged their presence. Maybe he doesn't even realise that we're here?
Owen was suddenly worried. Even though they were able to communicate with someone in a coma through PRoGRaM, it wasn’t guaranteed that whoever it was that they were speaking to was going to be a ‘complete’ person, or have the right frame of mind. The person in question could have brain damage which would inhibit their communication abilities. There was nothing that PRoGRaM could do to overcome that. Owen just had to hope that he had made it to Marcus in time.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Marcus said solemnly, his voice cutting Owen’s trail of thought off. Sat peacefully, Marcus didn't break his stare from the endless ocean in front of him as he spoke.
Owen and Kate both looked at each other and recognised the rhetorical question. Neither of them responded to Marcus. Instead, Owen took it upon himself to sit down next to the man and watch the ocean with him. Kate followed his lead, sitting down on the opposite side. Marcus was right though. It was beautiful. Randomly computer generated waves… but still beautiful.
“Hello Marcus,” Owen said after a long period of silence, turning his head to look at the man sitting next to him. He was around the age of fifty, and wore glasses. His features were half American, half Spanish, with, despite his age, short dark hair that was neatly kept.
Marcus leaned forward, bringing his legs in and crossing them before moving his arms from behind him and resting them on his lap. He took his gaze away from the ocean for a second and turned his head to look at his two new visitors that were sat either side of him. He eyed Owen intently before speak
ing to him.
“Hello, Owen.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Date: December 9th 2035
Location: New York, Undetermined Location
The man knew for a fact that there was nobody important around. His tasks were all about timing, and right now was the perfect time for him. Dressed in a black suit and carrying nothing but a small briefcase, he blended in perfectly out on the New York City streets. To anybody paying him even the slightest amount of attention, he was just another businessman, blending in with everybody else. It was the exact look that he was going for.
He couldn’t afford to be remembered.
He walked out from the busy and wet New York City streets and in through the front door of the Laundromat, heading straight up to the counter where a elderly gentleman worked. The suited man flashed his badge quickly and explained that he was from the FBI. He got a nod from the elderly man, who didn’t say a word in responsE. Instead, he just pointed the man in the direction of a door behind his counter. The older gentleman got up off of his seat and lifted up a section of the counter to let his guest in. He knew that suits came and went all day in here. He was on the FBI’s payroll of course, but had absolutely no idea of what he was sitting on top of.
The New York PRoGRaM team’s Analytic Base.
The man in the dark suit walked through the door behind the counter which he immediately closed up behind him, leaving him alone in this new smaller, darker room, lit by only a single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling. In front of him, an old, decaying metal spiral staircase led down into the ground below. He looked up to one of the corners on the roof of the room that he was in, and saw the red light of a camera following him, watching his every move. He wasn’t too worried about all of the cameras that were dotted around this place, he knew for a fact that he could shut them down and erase the data once he got inside the facility.
