Manipulator (37 page)

"Yes, and unfortunately for you and all of your staff, you cannot disobey. I have a binding contract here in front of me that proves everything I've just said, made two years ago with the leaders of the United States Government."

Nobody ever told me about this. They never told any of us here about this. But… I can completely believe what I'm being told. Those pieces of shit bureaucrats in the government were willing to accept anything to get their hands on Veridian's technology…

"And if I don't want to comply?"

"There is no way around this, Mr Sterling. It is a part of the contract that we worked out with the United States Government. Submitting you and your staff to memory erasure is mandatory. If you disobey then we have full authority to send Veridian Agents to apprehend you and
everybody
who resists. The FBI was
always
using this technology as a trial. Now, the trial is over and we at Veridian are taking back control. Do not make this difficult for yourself Richard."

He could feel the anger coarse through him as he listened to the robotic voice of his boss through the phone. One word came to mind.
Betrayal.
Betrayed by the United States Government. Betrayed by the very people he worked for. It hit him hard. He was always just a puppet and he never realised it. He was always being controlled by the ones above him.

He was being manipulated.

"Well. I tell you what," Sterling said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. "You and your company can fuck right off."

"I was afraid that you would say that Mr. Sterling."

Beep. Beep.

Chapter Seventy Five

Date: December 13th 2035

Location: PRoGRaM

Minutes passed in silence. Owen didn’t want to talk to Ethan, he didn’t even want to listen to the man. Instead, Owen just paced around the room in silence, gun in hand, waiting for Ethan to make a move. But the man seemed beaten. Ethan just sat there in the middle of the room. He had finally given in and given Owen exactly what he wanted. It seemed too easy, but maybe Ethan wasn’t the type to fight a losing battle. The man knew he had lost.

One of the walls in front of Owen changed. It morphed from its current fancy decor into a plain white wall. Black letters forming words appeared on it, dead in the centre. Nick was sending them a message into the world.

We rebooted PRoGRaM from scratch.
The first message said. It scrambled to white after a few seconds, giving Owen just enough time to read it.

Audio synchronisation complete. Streaming in… 3… 2… 1…

The messages in huge black font disappeared and the wall that had been changed to white only moments before began to revert to its original state. The air around them changed, and the voices started to come through.
This is it.
Owen thought.
This is where it all ends, where I reach exactly what I set out to do.

“Ah ah ha! It’s been too long my old friend!” the happy, booming voice of Marcus Ortega burst out, kicking off the conversation.

“Marcus!” Ethan replied, also sounding cheerful to see the man in return. “Come on in, everyone else has just arrived.”

A short silence hung in the air. Owen kept his eyes on Ethan in the middle of the room, and his ears on the conversation projecting all around them. Ethan didn't even make a move. He just lay there on the floor staring up at the ceiling. A beaten man.
Or is it all just a show?

“It’s good to see you all again,” Ethan presumably said to a crowd of people. Owen figured that they had all just met in the common room in which he was now standing.

“How have you been?” Marcus asked. Owen couldn’t tell who he was speaking to as he was only hearing and not seeing the memory, but the question was about to answer itself for the first time since Owen and his team had started this journey.

“I am good thank you,” Ethan replied, filling in the first real gap in the conversation. “I trust that all is well with you? Shall I pour us all a drink?”

“Of course, I never turn a drink down!” Marcus boasted. It was mostly a two way conversation so far, but Owen figured that could have been down to Marcus being the last one to arrive to this meeting. Ethan and Alex must have already had their own introductions.

“Drinks for everyone else?” Ethan asked.

There was a silence after the question.
This isn’t good.
Thought Owen, suddenly thinking about Nick’s theory on a potential fourth person.

“
And me,” Alex Morgan said. It was his first input into the conversation
. Oh no.
Owen thought, his face visibly shocked.
Nick was right. There’s a fourth person involved. How else can one person ask a question, there be a gap, and another person answer with ‘And me.’ … This isn't over yet.

Alex finished his sentence, speaking enthusiastically, “It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen this place. Doesn’t seem to have changed too much!"

“So,” Marcus said, satisfied that introductions were complete. “Lets get down to business. What’s going on Ethan?”

“Gentleman, I’ve figured it out. Phase Two,” he replied.

“
Impossible,” Alex called out.

“You can’t be serious!” Marcus said, following up on what Alex had said. “You continued your research?”

“I did," Ethan answered proudly. "It’s been such a long time coming, but I believe I’ve made it possible.”

“Amazing!” Marcus replied with a genuine tone of surprise showing in his voice. “Have you tested this as such yet?”

There was no reply from Ethan. Another missing piece that showed once again, Owen and his team had been missing someone all along.
Who the hell is number four?

The silence passed quickly though, as the voice of Ethan Darkes kicked back in to respond to what seemed like some disagreement from the missing fourth party. “You were the only one to voice that opinion yes, but it cannot be the defining factor in determining the progress of science. As for the testing Marcus, I have done partial testing and the results are very promising. With all of your help here I believe we can iron out the kinks and make phase two a reality.”

Silence followed. Someone else was here, clearly showing disapproval to whatever it was that ‘Phase Two’ was. There was more going on here than what could be heard, and Owen
really
needed to know what it was.
Why wasn't this fourth person named in the video?

“Science isn’t about the ‘Why’, It’s about ‘Why not’,” Ethan shouted out, raising his voice for the first time in the conversation. Further silence hung in the air.
My God. Are we really missing this much conversation?

“I’m sorry,” Alex chipped in, sounding genuinely upset. It was only his second sentence of the night, he really wasn’t one for talking. “I can’t turn this opportunity down.”

“Neither can I,” Marcus said, sympathising with Alex and Ethan. “This was always going to be the next logical step. Imagine the possibilities!”

Silence.

“But we’re going to need your help!” Ethan called out.

Silence.
More?!
 

“You do not have a choice! You will be a part of this one way or the other!” Ethan shouted, the anger really showing in his voice now.

There’s so much missing. I really thought this was it. There’s a fourth person, thats for sure. Someone who opposed Marcus, Alex and Ethan. Someone who crossed them. These men are dangerous. The people they work for are dangerous. If the fourth person didn’t agree with them, whoever was controlling this group could easily have had them killed.

And then a possibility hit him.

Oh my God. Annie is the fourth person.

“This isn’t going the way I planned it.” Ethan said in the memory that was projecting out around them. Owen almost missed it entirely due to being way too caught up in his own thoughts.

“We need to call the boss,” Marcus replied. There was a short silence that followed. Owen couldn’t hear it specifically, but he knew that Ethan must have been grabbing a mobile phone at this point in the memory.

“It’s me,” Ethan said to an invisible force. Owen wasn’t worried about what was said on the other side of the phone call. He had Ethan’s side of it and that was enough for him to more or less figure out what was going on.

“… We have a problem."

"… Yes? But it’s not been tested yet."

"… I understand."

"…on Annie? Okay.”

A short silence passed.
I guess that this is the end of the phone call.

“They hung up,” Ethan seemingly said to everyone in the room.

“Are we to implement phase two?” Marcus asked, attempting to guess the outcome of what Ethan had been told over the phone.

“Yes,” Ethan replied to him. “Yes we are.” A short silence passed between them before he questioned himself. “Why can’t we just kill him?"

Relief washed over Owen.
Ethan had said 'him'. Annie couldn’t have been the fourth person in that room! It was somebody male! But he had mentioned her by name when he was on the phone. He was involved somehow.
Owen had never been so relieved to be wrong about Annie.

“You heard the boss,” Marcus said to Ethan.

“It’s not our decision to make,” Ethan replied, slowly. He was reassuring himself of the fact that it was not him that made the decision.
Maybe the man isn’t as ruthless as he’d have us believe after all.
Owen thought.

“The boss made the call," Ethan finished. "Not us.”

“Why Annie though? Why does it have to be her?” Alex said, speaking for the first time in a long time.

Why Annie though?
Owen said to himself in his head. The line still sent chills up his spine, and made him shiver slightly. Out of everything that he was hearing, that one line was the most terrifying.
What did these people do?

“
I don’t know,” Ethan said, still talking slowly and calculatingly. “But we know what we have to do next…”

And on that note, the memories came to a stop.

Owen knew it was far from over.

Chapter Seventy Six

Date: December 13th 2035

Location: Owen's Apartment, New York

“What is that?” Nick asked slowly as Eli carefully jumped down from the top of Owen’s kitchen worktop, holding a small electronic device in his hand.

“It’s… a camera,” Eli responded, sounding just as shocked as Nick was. He brought the small electronic unit up to eye level and closely examined it. “Someone else has bugged Owen apartment.”

"Oh shit," Nick replied, seeing the implications of having a camera watch their every move. "Someone's been watching us."

"For a long time as well, because this camera's been here a while. It's got a thin layer of dust on it," Eli said, knowing that he was probably making the situation worse.

"Maybe Owen did it?" Nick asked, trying to come to a logical conclusion, before realising in himself that he was wrong. "No," he said quickly, correcting himself. "He would have told us. Or he would have checked them out after we came from the bar and realised that there was someone inside the apartment."

The two of them stood there in silence in the middle of Owen's kitchen, unsure of what to say to one another. “Why?” Nick said quietly and slowly, asking the question to himself more than Eli.

“We need to search this entire apartment,” Eli stated.

Without even waiting for Nick, he quickly moved with a sense of urgency out of the kitchen and towards Owen's living room. Nick followed, jogging into the front room to catch up with Eli.

“I’ll take the living room,” Eli said as his eyes scoured the huge living space before him. He didn't even look at Nick as he spoke, he was too busy trying to figure out where more of these micro-cameras could be hidden. “There’s bound to be another one of these around here somewhere.”

“Okay,” Nick responded, quickly casting his eyes over to where Owen and Ethan lay. He saw that their vital signs were looking good.
One less thing to worry about.
“I’ll work through the bedrooms and the office room at the back of the apartment.”

Now that they knew what they were looking for, the micro-cameras were really easy to find. Eli and Nick found at least one in every room, including the bathroom. Someone, somewhere had been watching every single thing that Owen had been doing.
Why?

Whoever it was had also heard every single word that had been said in this apartment. Every single plan that they had made had been watched and heard.
No wonder someone out there knew every single one of our moves before we made it. Kate, combined with all these camera's dotted around, was giving someone full access to Owen's life.

"Can you track the signal back on these?" Nick asked Eli as they reconvened in the front room. Camera's weren't exactly his area of expertise. He was hoping for a good outcome in their situation, a glimmer of hope that could give them some clue as to what was going on and where the cameras had come from.

"No," Eli said apologetically with a shake of his head. "It looks like somebody has shut them down remotely. Whoever's watching these knows that we have Ethan. And they know that we've found their micro-cameras."