Manipulator (14 page)

“Do you remember where it is?” Kate asked urgently, jumping into the conversation for the first time.

“Of course my dear. I’ll never forget that place.”

“Marcus,” Owen said, looking directly at him, his tone deadly serious. “I need you to take us there.”

Chapter Twenty Six

Date: December 15th 2035 (Present Day)

Location: Unknown

There was a gleaming look in Victoria’s eyes and a subtle smile on her face. Owen figured that she was beginning to put together the pieces of the story that he had told her so far. She broke her silence and spoke. “I remember that earlier, you told me that you met the creator of PRoGRaM. I see what you mean now. Marcus was the creator?”

“One of them,” Owen answered.

She nodded slowly. “And the others?”

“You’ll find out who the others are in time,” he said. “We’re getting there, but do me a favour? Don't jump to conclusions and think you know the answers in advance, because trust me, you don’t.”

Victoria gave him a hard look before she averted her eyes and glanced down at the table, making some notes on her pad before continuing the conversation. “Where did Marcus take you?”

“The birthplace of PRoGRaM. Their headquarters. The place where the original PRoGRaM conception team worked and perfected the technology.”

“How did he take you there?” Victoria asked.

“It’s going to sound stupid, but he pointed it out on a map.”

Victoria frowned at him, unsure of what to ask next. She didn’t quite understand, and Owen could see that just by looking at her. He chipped in and explained. “Even though we have the technology to go anywhere in the world. We still need to know where it is we’re going.”

This time around, she understood where he was coming from. “And you just walked out of The White Room and into PRoGRaM’s HQ? Just like that?”

“Just like
that
,” Owen repeated, clicking his fingers as he spoke. “This first time round, it took us a long time for Nick to find the building and an entrance point, because Marcus was the only one who knew where this place was.”

“This first time, you say?” Victoria said, intrigued by his choice of words.

“We had to go back there a few times. You’ll see.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Date: December 9th 2035

Location: PRoGRaM

Marcus, followed closely by Owen and Kate, walked out of The White Room as a group and stepped into the entrance hall of the PRoGRaM Conception Team’s Headquarters. The place was mesmerising and absolutely grand in scale. It was an old building, a huge mansion from the 17
^th
Century. A flight of stairs on either side of the hall led up towards the upper level. The ceiling, far, far, above them had a small circular stained-glass window smack bang in the centre of it, letting different coloured shades of light seep through. Mahogany furniture packed out the entrance hall, giving a real old-age feel to their surroundings.

Owen walked slowly forwards, taking in the atmosphere, his footsteps echoing off of the marble floor which he walked over. He could almost smell the furniture too, the aroma of old wood around them. It was almost the only difference between the real world and the PRoGRaM world. Suffice to say, he was impressed.

“I enhanced the design of this place,” Marcus said. “It was one of the first things that I set out to do after my team got the basic version of PRoGRaM up and running. I needed to test my skills out and see how real I could make things. This was my first project. To reconstruct an accurate, life-like headquarters.”

“This is the most detailed room I’ve been in within PRoGRaM,” Owen said in amazement as he continued to walk about the room and touch some of the furniture. “It’s a whole new level of real.”

“It’s incredible,” Kate agreed, sounding as awestruck as Owen did.

“This way.” Marcus ushered them forward, using whatever piece of memory that he was still clinging onto to guide them through the enormous mansion. Together they moved down a corridor, walking endlessly towards the opposite end of the house. Just like the main entrance hall, the corridors were packed out with furniture, paintings and incredibly lifelike decor; It had everything that they would of expected in a house of this magnitude. Marcus turned a corridor and came to a door at the end. Cautiously, he reached out and pushed it open, stepping forwards into a large living room area. Dotted around were several leather sofas, and attached to the wall in front of them was a huge fireplace. Marcus found a nearby solo leather chair and sat himself down. Owen and Kate did the same, dropping themselves down together into a large three seater sofa nearby to where Marcus was sat.

“This room,” Marcus said slowly, tapping the arm of the sofa with his finger. “This room is important.” He was searching himself for the answers, desperate to help Owen and his team in any way he could. If only he could access the right piece of his mind…

Owen leaned forward from his chair. He was sitting on edge, eager to get the answers that he came here for. “Take all the time you need,” he said. On that note, Marcus leaned back into his single leather chair and closed his eyes.

“Ah ah ha!” a voice erupted into the thin air around them. Owen and Kate both jumped at the sound of it. “It’s been too long my old friend!” It was Marcus’ voice, yet at the same time… it wasn’t. He was still sat in his chair with his eyes closed.

Owen suddenly realised what was happening.

Marcus is projecting a past memory around us!

But it wasn't happening in a conventional way. The man was only projecting the audio. He was only forcing out the voices that he had heard from whichever time he was thinking about. Owen sat back into his chair, his ears pricked up and alert. He watched Marcus intently as the man continued projecting his memory. Hopefully, some answers to the questions he never thought he’d be asking would come out of all of this.

“… How have you been?”

“… Of course, I never turn a drink down!”

There were huge gaps in between the sentences that Marcus was speaking. It was as if he was talking to other people, but their voices just weren’t there.

“… So, lets get down to business. What’s going on Ethan?”

Ethan!

There it was. Owen and Kate both turned to look at each other. One of the other names on Owen’s list! Finally, a connection between Marcus and the others, a promising development in this entire mess.

But, what struck Owen as odd in all of this, was the fact that Marcus was only projecting one side of the conversation.
This isn’t normal.
Every time before this in which Owen had known someone to project their memory, they
always
got both sides of the conversation. Having Marcus only relay his side of it wasn’t right at all.

Could it be attributed to the fact that he's in a coma?
The thought crossed Owen’s mind, but he shook it away.
Maybe. But this is too suspicious
. It was too much of a coincidence that they couldn’t get the information that they came here for. It was just like…
No. It can’t be true.

Somebody had been in this memory before.

It all made perfect sense to Owen. Somebody had tried to erase these specific parts of Marcus' memory before now. That made the circumstances on which Marcus was put into the hospital even more suspicious. There was something more going on here than met the eye.

And Owen was caught right in the middle of it.

“We’re only hearing Marcus,” Kate said with a slight hint of disappointment in her voice, yet solidifying the thought that was running through Owen’s head.

“We’re only hearing
his
side of this conversation,” Owen clarified, speaking the words back to her slowly. “He’s here talking to others. I’m willing to bet that he’s talking to Alex Morgan as well as Ethan Darkes in this memory.”

He left his conspiracy theories to one side whilst he and Kate sat and listened to the rest of Marcus’ audio based memory playing out around them.

“… You can’t be serious!” his projecting voice continued, sounding out around them.

“… You continued your research?”

“… Amazing! Have you tested this as such yet?”

“… Neither can I. This was always going to be the next logical step. Imagine the possibilities!”

There was a break in the memory. Marcus, who had been sat back in his chair letting this play out now leaned forward, eyes open, with a concerned, frightened look on his face. “I can’t remember any of this conversation,” he said to both Owen and Kate, sounding utterly terrified, but his tone quickly changed as the anger began to seep in. “Somebody has been messing around in my head.”

And there he had it. Owen had suspected it, but now he was damn sure. The anger in Marcus’ voice convinced him.

“It could be that the car crash has damaged some of your brain’s memory centre?” Kate answered, trying to come to a logical conclusion, exploring other possibilities by talking out loud.

“Maybe,” Owen replied. “Is that it? Is that the memory about Annie? It doesn’t seem like much,” he said, sounding massively disappointed.

“Wait,” Marcus said urgently. His eyes were focused, the man was thinking hard. “My head is itching,” he said. “I think there’s more.”

Again, he leaned back into his solo leather chair and closed his eyes.

“
We need to call the boss,” his audio alter-ego said out loud into thin air. It was more of a concerned tone now compared to how he had been talking earlier. There was a short lull in the audio playing out around them after he spoke. Owen assumed that somebody else in the memory was on a phone call to some sort of boss.

The boss? Of course they have a boss. Marcus, and presumably Alex and Ethan must have been working for someone.

But who?

Marcus must have been sitting and waiting to hear the results of the phone call in this audio memory. Less than a minute later, his voice chipped back in, giving Owen more fragments of a conversation.

“… Are we to implement phase two?”

“… You heard the boss.”

And just like that, it was over. Silence filled the air around them. The conversation that they had come here for was over.

“That’s it,” Marcus spoke quietly. “There’s nothing more.”

“That doesn’t seem like much at all,” Kate said. “I’m sorry Owen.”

Archer stood up, feeling a little fed up of sitting still in one place for too long. He rubbed the stubble under his chin as he spoke, knowing that he needed to clean himself up. “That’s because we’re not hearing the full conversation," he said to Kate. "We’re going to need the other pieces.”

“So we need to find them? Alex and Ethan?” Kate asked from her seated position in the leather three-seater sofa. Her voice was half stating the truth, and half questioning herself at the same time.

“Yes,” Owen said, nodding his head determinedly. “More urgently now than before. We need to find the two of them and find out what they were talking about here. Maybe then we can figure out what’s going on. Maybe then we can find out what really happened to Annie.”

Owen stood still, deep in thought as Marcus eyed him up.

“Who’s your boss, Marcus?” Kate asked, almost maliciously.

“I don't remember,” Marcus replied quietly as he shook his head at her. He seemed genuinely sincere. The man sat before her was all out of answers.

Kate nodded, already expecting the answer that she received. “What I don't understand so far,” she said. “Is what has all of this actually got to do with Annie Archer?”

“It has everything to do with it,” Marcus replied, deeply calculating his words before he spoke them. It was as if he was trying to word it in the best possible way. He caught Owen's attention, who's eyes glared at the man, waiting to hear just what he had to say. “Owen,” Marcus started as he looked over at Owen. “I want to apologise, I need to clear my conscience. I never wanted any of th-”

A gunshot rang out from behind them suddenly and unexpectedly. Owen and Kate both jumped out of shock as soon as the noise materialised.

Owen moved quickly and instinctively ran over at Kate, diving at her and dragging her to the ground, worried that more shots were about to be fired. But the second that they both hit the ground he knew that it was pointless. Only one shot had rang out, and that one bullet had hit its intended target. He looked up from the ground just in time to see Marcus fall to the floor lifelessly.

Whoever fired that shot had done so with precision.

Owen quickly jumped up to his feet, his head snapping around trying to see where the gunshot had come from. Out in the corridor from which they had entered this common room, Owen spotted a dark figure running away, trying to escape after they had completed what they had come here to do.

Owen boiled up into a fit of anger, pulled out his gun, and ran full pelt after the figure dressed all in black. He needed to get to whoever it was before they could leave PRoGRaM. The dark figure in front of him had just taken his only valid lead in finding out what had happened to Annie, and Owen sure as hell wasn’t going to let them get away.