Manipulator

by Thom Parsons

"Yes," Ethan said slowly, the cogs in his head obviously spinning. "A part of Owen's history... Like how he became a member of the New York PRoGRaM Analytic Team."

  "Nothing too exciting or outlandish though," Marcus clarified for everyone. "We need it to be realistic. But anyway, enough of that for now. Tell me Ethan. Has everything so far really stuck in Owen's mind? There are really no gaps in his memory?"

  "No gaps at all," Ethan said proudly. "Now it's just a matter of seeing how far we can push him."

  "How are we even going to know if any of these new memories we're about to put in stick there?" Alex asked. "It’s not like we can plant them in now, and keep him in the hospital, is it? The timeline of events just won't add up! Owen will spot it straight away."

  "We just send him home," Ethan answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

  "But Annie will be there," Alex stated, pointing out the flaw in Ethan's statement.

  "About that…" Ethan answered slowly, dragging out his words. He was thinking about the phone call that he just had with his boss, minutes before entering this digital PRoGRaM world. He was thinking about what he had been told. Something that he hadn't felt the need to share with Marcus and Alex until now.

  Nobody knows where Annie is.

  Chapter Ninety Five

  Date: December 13th 2035

  Location: Staten Island, New York

  “We never physically did anything to your wife you know," Ethan called out, speaking up from the chair that he was tied down to. Nobody had noticed him wake up from his unconscious slumber. "You were the target all along, Owen.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?" Owen asked. "Why not before?”

  Ethan shrugged his shoulders before speaking. “The experiment's over now. You were an outstanding success. An amazing trial run. If it wasn't for your own… interference, then you would have never known any different. You’d have always believed that Annie was dead.”

  “Then where is she?” Owen grunted slowly and angrily at Ethan. “What did you do with her? I killed you once Ethan, but that was in the PRoGRaM world. Don't make me kill you in this one as well.”

  “Now you see, that’s the thing,” Ethan replied slowly and cautiously, frowning to himself as he did so.

  “What is?” Owen replied, taken aback by Ethan’s odd response. Nick and Eli stood quietly nearby, happy to let Owen lead in this conversation. This fight was personal, and it wouldn't be right to get involved. It was between Owen and Ethan alone.

  “We didn’t do anything with Annie.”

  Owen didn't expect the answer that came out of Ethan's mouth. He struggled to find a question, and so stuck to a simple response. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean exactly what I said Owen," he replied, speaking honestly as Archer stared him down, looking closely for any signs of deception. "We didn’t do anything to Annie. None of us even went near her. Our instructions from Veridian were simple. We were ordered by the boss to execute a memory implant on you. We were instructed to create a scenario in which you and Annie were in a car crash, and that there was an accident in which she died. The whole point of this was simple. We needed to see if you would believe the fake memory.”

  Why Annie though? Why does it have to be her? Owen heard the voice of Alex Morgan say.

  It's not as malicious as it sounds after all. Archer thought. Marcus, Alex and Ethan… They were never physically going after Annie, were they? It was always about me. Although, how could I have ever known that?!

  It was all starting to make sense.

  “But what about when I left the hospital?” Owen countered.

  “What hospital?” Ethan laughed back at him manically. “There was never any hospital, Owen. You were inside PRoGRaM all along, and you didn’t even know it.”

  “Surely you must have known that once your experiment was over, I was going to go home and that Annie was going to be there?” Owen asked. He almost understood everything, he had almost pieced it all together…

  “Of course, but that wasn't a part of the experiment. We were simply asked to implant a memory in that head of yours and see if it would hold. That’s why you were kept in what you believed was a private hospital room. That’s why you were asked so many questions about what had happened."

  "You were testing my memory…" Owen realised, speaking up over Ethan.

  "Exactly," Ethan continued. "It was to see if there were any gaps in your fake memories. And there were none. It was perfect. As far as we were concerned, the experiment was an outstanding success, and so we set out to seamlessly integrate you back into the real world. Just so you know Owen, your real memories don't begin until the 1st December, a few days after the fake funeral memory that we put in there."

  "When I woke up in that alleyway after a night of drinking?" Owen asked, suddenly realising why that date was so relevant. It was that morning that he had woken up in the gutter, seemingly passed out from a huge night of drinking to forget. Ethan had used his own tactic against him, playing him perfectly.

  "So, imagine our surprise when the boss informed us that Annie was in fact… gone, and that nobody knew where she was. Yet, there you were, back in your own home, still believing the lies we put in your head.”

  “But if you didn’t do anything to her…” Owen said slowly, his brain registering everything that was happening. "Then she never really died, and then, that means…”

  Archer's voice trailed off without even finishing his sentence. He stared out the window nearby as something that he'd said one month ago struck him right between the eyes, planting itself right in the middle of his trail of thought.

  Annie, remember what we talked about? This is that time. Get out now, don’t contact me after this, it’s not safe anymore. I’ll come to you as soon as I can. One month. I love you.

  “She’s not dead,” Owen said to himself as he realised the truth. “She’s not dead.”

  Chapter Ninety Six

  Date: December 15th 2035 (Present Day)

  Location: Unknown

  “Memory creation,” Owen stated, almost bringing his interview with Victoria to a close.

  “That was phase two?" she asked. "Memory creation?”

  “That’s what it was about all along,” Owen said.

  “That explain those dreams you have,” Victoria replied with a little bit of excitement showing in her voice.

  “Exactly. That’s because those memories didn’t belong in my head. Because they weren’t real. My brain didn’t know how to process them and didn’t know how to store them. That’s why I saw the crash night after night.”

  “It also explains who Marcus Ortega was about to execute on the side of the road,” she stated, putting the final pieces of the puzzle together. Her eyes were wide as she saw the connection between everything all at once.

  “That was me,” Owen said. “The real me that was inside PRoGRaM. Marcus was there to pull the trigger once the false memory was in place, just so that it would stick.”

  “All of this? Everything that happened? Was a test? To see if the memories would hold?” Victoria asked, confused as to why someone would go to such lengths to trial something like that.

  “Almost everything that happened.” Owen spoke slowly in response, trying to emphasis the point.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Ethan wasn’t lying about Annie,” he answered. “They didn’t do anything to her. As far as Ethan was concerned, the test was only to see if the memories would stay in place in my head.”

  “Then what happened to her?” Victoria asked. It was the only question left that needed an answer.

  “Now that,” Owen said, slapping his hand on the table to hammer home his point before then going on to point at Victoria. “That is the million dollar question.”

  Silence reigned in the air. Owen stopped pointing and put his hand back down into his lap, resting it on top of his other hand. Everything that Victoria had asked all along had led up to this point. Everything led up to this on
e question.

  Where is Annie Archer?

  “You didn’t make it to Redford Avenue, did you?” Victoria asked, already knowing the answer to the question. Owen didn’t answer. Instead, he shook his head slowly. No.

  “You know,” Owen said, suddenly changing his tone. “You've done well.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, surprised at the sudden change in subject.

  “Disguising this,” he answered pointing a finger at the ceiling without breaking eye contact as if the answer was obvious. Victoria said nothing in return. She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t thought of how she should respond in this situation. “I know what’s happening here you know,” Owen stated. “This isn’t an interrogation, is it?”

  The tables were turning. Owen was in control now. Victoria said nothing as she stared back at him. Eventually, she started to shake her head from side to side with a wide smile on her face. It was the first crack in her tough persona that she had displayed throughout the entire interrogation. “I know where I am Victoria,” Owen said, finally figuring it out. “I’m inside PRoGRaM.”

  PART SEVEN: VICTORIA

  “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

  Winston Churchill

  Chapter Ninety Seven

  Date: December 13th 2035

  Location: Staten Island, New York

  She’s not dead.

  The room fell silent.

  Everyone tried to process the words that they were hearing. She's not dead.

  “I sent her away," Owen said to himself, speaking at just the right volume for everybody else in the room to hear him. "I called her and I told her to hide. I told her to get out. I told her that something was going wrong.”

  This is that time. Get out now.

  “Oh my God,” Owen continued to say as he quickly stood up and began pacing around the room. “It’s all coming back to me. I understand it all now…"

  He began stroking his chin and the rough stubble around his neck as he concluded his thoughts. "The fake memory which those bastards implanted of the car crash. The fact that Annie’s not here. My vivid and disturbing dreams." Owen walked over to where Nick was sitting and spoke excitedly. "It all makes sense!" he said enthusiastically. "We were just looking at everything from the wrong perspective!”

  Nick stood up and stepped tentatively away from the desk. Owen dropped himself into Nick's seat as Eli walked over, eager to see what the man was up to.

  “Here I was, thinking that this video message was regarding someone murdering my wife. Telling me that her crash wasn't an accident. But we were looking at it all wrong," Owen said as he eagerly opened up the refurbished video file on the computer. The one that started this entire mess.

  "Watch it now," Owen said, "but bare in mind that when I recorded this, I knew that Annie was fine. I’d just phoned her and told her to go into hiding. I'd told her to get out and get down to our secondary apartment at Redford Avenue.”

  Owen pressed play.

  “Your name is Owen Archer. You were born on February 27th, in the year 2000. By the time you are watching this, you will be 35 years old. Don’t be surprised, I can guarantee you that this is real. Today, is your wedding anniversary, and Annie is not with you. But she should be, and there are people to blame for that. First of all, a very important address that you need to know. 45 Redford Avenue. That address will mean everything to you, and only you know why. I will keep this short, because I don’t have much time. There are three people responsible for Annie not being there. Their names are Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes. You must find these three. They, and only they, can tell you the truth about everything. They can tell you the truth about Annie. That’s because they had everything to do with it. Fight for the truth.”

  *END OF TRANSMISSION*

  “Now, when you look at it knowing all the facts, its message is clear. I was never telling myself to get revenge. I was simply telling my future self where Annie is. We’ve known all along. It’s right there in the video!” Owen shouted out as he pointed at the screen. “45 Redford Avenue!”

  “But that’s where she died in the implanted memory,” Nick interjected quickly, confused by what he was hearing.

  “Yes, but she didn’t die did she?” Owen shouted back. “It was all fake! Fake memories put into my head. They must have somehow combined with the real memories of where she was!”

  “I never did iron out the problems I talked about that night at the meeting,” Ethan said quietly in the background. “You were the first real test, Owen. Anything could have happened in that head of yours. It stands a chance that your real memories combined with the fake memories we put in your head.”

  “I was never trying to tell myself where she died,” Owen said, completely ignoring Ethan’s comments. “I was trying to tell myself where she is.”

  She's not dead.

  I was trying to tell myself where she is.

  His words and thoughts sank in. “That’s where she is.”

  Without even thinking about it, Owen knew his next move. “45 Redford Avenue," he mumbled to himself as he grabbed his winter coat from nearby. "She has to be there. She has to be…”

  “Let me come with you!” Nick called out as Owen moved towards the front door.

  “No, I need you here," he shouted back as he headed out. "I need to do this by myself. I’ll call when I have the answers.”

  And on that note, Owen left.

  This is the end.

  Chapter Ninety Eight

  Date: December 13th 2035

  Location: Staten Island, New York

  "I've been waiting for this moment Ethan," Eli said seriously and with obviously malicious intent. He pulled up a chair next to Ethan and turned it around. Slowly he began manoeuvring himself down onto it whilst continuing to talk. "I've been waiting for us to be alone. You have something that I need."

  "Oh, is that so? And what exactly could that be?" Ethan answered back with a smile on his face, speaking sarcastically as he and Eli locked eyes with each other.

  "Answers," Eli replied simply. "I want to know who you work for."

  Ethan laughed to himself for a little while before settling down. "Don't you listen Eli? I don't know who I work for!"

  "Veridian," Eli stated calmly, trying to get the conversational ball rolling.

  "Yes," Ethan answered slowly, mocking his captor. "But do you know how many people that company employs? Thousands and thousands! Do you know how many divisions that Veridian has? Hundreds. Now, do you know how many secret Veridian research and development divisions there are?"

  Eli tried to respond, but Ethan was speaking so fast that he couldn't get a word in edgeways. "No!" he spat out, continuing his rant. "Because neither do I. Finding one person in amongst all those people and divisions at Veridian is impossible, and you know it."

  "Then you're going to get me in there," Eli said, refusing to take no for an answer. "Someone ordered a hit on me. Someone made all of this personal. As long as I'm breathing, I'll hunt them down."

  "You know that I'll never do that," Ethan said menacingly without breaking eye contact. There was a silent stare-down as both Eli and his captive held each other's gaze, causing the tension to spike up massively in just a matter of seconds.

  Quickly and unexpectedly, Ethan's arms somehow slipped out of the restraints that were supposed to be keeping him tied down. He quickly jumped up to his feet and landed a solid punch right into the base of Eli's chin with his right hand.

  It was more the shock of the attack than the force of the punch that caused Eli to fall backwards out of his chair and onto the wooden flooring behind him. That serves you right for sitting the wrong way around on that chair you arrogant prick. Ethan thought.

  He may have been caught off-guard, but Eli didn't hang around. With a small distance between himself and Ethan, he instinctively reached for the weapon that he hand tucked into the back of his wai
stband.

  But unfortunately, he wasn't quite quick enough.

  Just as soon as he pulled the gun out, Ethan was right on top of him. In a show of hidden strength, Ethan kicked Eli directly and powerfully in the stomach. It winded and paralysed him just long enough for Ethan to take advantage of the situation. He lurched forwards and reached down, snapping the gun out of Eli's hand.

  He was down but not out, and Eli sure as hell wasn't going to give up without a fight. Springing up from the floor, he pounded at Ethan, uppercutting the man's jaw with a forceful blow, throwing the two men into a collision course of punches left, right and centre.

  But Ethan had the upper hand, and had done from the start. Getting that first, dangerous punch in had given him a huge advantage. Ethan grabbed Eli by the hair with his free hand and spun him around, turning him into a human shield. Quickly, Ethan pressed the gun to the side of Eli's head, instantly bringing his struggle to a halt. Eli felt the cold metal of the barrel resting against his temple. A stark contrast to the warm, yet heavy breath of Ethan down his neck.

  “Did you really think that you could hold me captive for this long?” Ethan whispered into his ear. Eli heard quick footsteps coming his way. Nick. There was no doubt that Ethan heard it too. Someone was running towards the room that the two of them occupied.

  "Eli?!" Nick shouted urgently as he ran into the room, holding a gun firmly with both of his hands. He had heard the commotion and come running, but was a few seconds too late to do anything.

  Without warning, Ethan quickly moved the gun away from Eli's temple and fired two shots straight into Nick’s chest. He had spotted the weapon in the man's hand, causing him to react quickly and efficiently, without second thought for the consequences.

  Nick staggered backwards in shock and fell to the ground, a huge crashing noise ringing out as he landed awkwardly on the wooden floor below.