Manipulator (9 page)

He was going to find out.

Chapter Fifteen

Date: December 9th 2035

Location: New York PRoGRaM Analytic Base

“Owen… I… I had no idea,” Kate said, struggling to get her words out. Her hand half covering her mouth and her eyes were emotionally filled, shocked by what Owen had just explained to her.

He glanced down at his watch, trying to avoid talking about the subject for longer than he had to. It was just after half nine. He’d called Nick and Kate earlier that morning, asking them both to get into the office as soon as possible. Neither of them disappointed him, but that meant that now he had to explain to Kate what had happened to Annie two weeks earlier.

“I would have mentioned it sooner,” Owen said, feeling completely out of place as they spoke. “But… It’s not exactly something that crops up in everyday conversation. You already had a lot on your mind with PRoGRaM, and…”

Nick raised his head above his workstation nearby, looking over to Kate and Owen. “Well, the bad news is that we cannot trace where this original message or the video attachment came from,” he called out bluntly. “Also, there seems to be no way to make the video any clearer than how it was delivered to the server. So… we’re not going to get a clear visual ID on who it is that's recorded and delivered this message anytime soon.”

Owen and Kate cut their conversation short, much to Owen’s delight. He felt awkward talking to people about Annie. Together, they both walked over to Nick’s workstation. They had watched the video multiple times now, trying to make sense of what they were seeing and hearing.
Was this some sort of hoax? Or is it real? Was Annie’s death really a murder and not an accident?
The questions fired rapidly through Owen's head faster than he could think up any logical answers. The possibility was there of course, but to Owen, it seemed highly unlikely.
Who would want to hurt Annie?
He thought. She never did anything to hurt anybody. As far as Owen was aware, she didn’t currently have, and never did have any enemies. She was a computer engineer for Christ’s sake.

“However,” Nick said. “I’m no video wizard, I’ll admit that. But I do know a few people who might be able to work on this sort of thing.”

Owen appreciated his honesty, but wasn’t sure about the thought of bringing in an outside party to look at the video. “See if you can find anything out, make some phone calls. But be discreet about it, okay?” he asked, getting a nod in return.

“Lets look at the facts,” Owen called out loud to no-one in particular. “We received this video message this morning on the secure work account, with a very clear message aimed at me in particular. It’s heavily encrypted and has come from a secure source. It’s completely untraceable, which solidifies my conclusion that this was a professional job. The fact that it has even made it through onto our work server is impressive, only authorised people can do this,” Owen said, more for the benefit of Kate than Nick, as she wasn't exactly up to speed on how a lot of this team's processes worked.

“This is clearly something of high importance,” he continued. “Somebody went to a lot of effort to make sure that this video would be seen by us… However, there’s just one thing which I don't understand about all of this.” Owen felt all eyes on him. “Annie’s death was an accident. I’ve accepted that. It doesn’t make sense that we’ve received this information stating otherwise.“

“Sorry for speaking bluntly,” Nick said. “But should we run with the assumption that maybe this
was
a targeted attack? Maybe someone, God forbid, was
actually
out to cause your car crash all along?”

He was clearly, yet uncomfortably thinking outside of the box already. It was why Nick was a part of this team. His logical thinking and ability to look at any situation differently was second to none.

“I’d like to say yes,” Owen responded cautiously, not put off in any way by Nick’s brazen statement. “But I was there Nick, and I know it was an accident.”
How could I forget?
He thought solemnly, as the group sat in silence for a few seconds.

“However,” Owen continued, his voice perking up slightly. “This is definitely worth following up. There’s a lot of information that’s been sent to us in this video,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Too much information to just play it off as some kind of elaborate hoax. Although saying that, I’m going to remain skeptical about this until proven otherwise. Luckily for us, we’ve got a clear calendar for a while. I’m still waiting to hear back on how we should proceed with Eli. So until then, I want a bit of an un-official investigation done on this.”

“Kate,” Owen announced, spinning himself in his chair to face her so that he could talk to her directly. “I want you to call your boss at the Bureau and see if you can get us some sort of sanctioning to carry out an investigation. Play it down a bit, don’t mention the personal connection. Mention that this job means that we’ll be able to keep you on here for a little while longer to continue training. It will give them a reason to say yes.”

“No problem,” she responded, standing up and heading off to complete her assigned task immediately. Owen had asked her to do this because it was all politics. He knew that it was going to be frowned upon, looking into something like this. Something personal to one of the members of the team. If he went and told the FBI’s Special Projects Division about it, they’d probably bring in one of the other six teams to deal with the situation.

“We’ll start running preliminary investigations now, while we wait for the official sanctioning on this,” Owen said to Nick, carrying on with his briefing whilst Kate completed her task in the background. “See what you can pull up on those three names… Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes. Start locally, see what you can find, then branch out. See how many people pop up across all the databases with those names. Then look for links, run some algorithms, see if you can find a connection between any three of them.”

“On it,” he said, turning away and getting on with it.

Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes.

Chapter Sixteen

Date: December 9th 2035

Location: New York PRoGRaM Analytic Base

It wasn’t hard for them to find some privacy. In fact, it was relatively easy, purely due to the fact that the other two people that were dotted around the PRoGRaM Analytic Base were too busy doing their own thing to notice them. Reaching into the inside of their jacket pocket, they took out their second cellphone which nobody else on the team knew existed.
 

Punching some numbers into the phone, they called their contact on the outside. After a few seconds of ringing, somebody on the other end of the phone picked up. But they didn’t say anything. They waited for the caller to make the first move.

“You won’t believe the development that I’ve just witnessed,” they said in a hushed tone as to not alert anybody else in the base to their phone call.

“I’m listening,” said a dark and serious male voice on the other end of the line.

The caller looked around inconspicuously, double checking that nobody was nearby and that nobody was listening to what they were saying. “Owen has just received a video message telling him about three people who went after his wife. Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and… Ethan Darkes.”

“You’re joking,” the voice said intently back to them, their tone of voice no longer emotionless.

“I wish I were.”

“Amazing,” the man on the other end of the phone said, perking up. “Who sent it?” They had started out sounding dark and suspicious to the caller, but now they were curious and intrigued by the current developments.

“We don't know,” they whispered sincerely. “It’s all scrambled.”

“I see. Keep me informed. I will let the boss know of these… developments. I knew there was a good reason that we made you a part of that team. But don't forget the real reason you're there. Remember what you're a part of that team for, and don't let me down.”

And on that note, without a goodbye, the man on the other end of the phone hung up.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Chapter Seventeen

Date: December 9th 2035

Location: New York PRoGRaM Analytic Base

The office was abuzz with activity, with everyone working hard on their assigned tasks. Due to it being fairly personal to one of the team members, you could feel their enthusiasm. Owen made himself feel useful by trying to put together a list of people that could have possibly known all that information about him that was stated on the video. He was still concerned that it was sent by someone who knew him personally. But that was a very short list, as he wasn’t exactly one to socialise well with others. He never had been, and he knew that he never really would be. He didn’t feel the need to go out and meet new people. The ones that were in his life at the moment were good enough for him.

“Owen?" Kate called out from nearby. He turned his head to look at her. “The investigation has now been recognised by the New York FBI branch as official. As soon as I mentioned that you’d keep me on over here a bit longer with training on PRoGRaM, my supervisor seemed very eager to comply.”

“Good to hear,” Owen said. He could feel everything coming together nicely, just like being on a real, professional job. “Please inform them that we will give them updates once every twenty four hours."

“Will do,” she said, scurrying off again, eager to please.

“Nick?” Owen shouted out, causing the man to lift his head above the computer screens that he was currently hidden behind. “Boot up PRoGRaM, I’m going to need to go in.”

“No problem,” he responded, tapping furiously away at his keyboard in front of him. “I’ve still come up with no connections on any of those names by the way. The system is still running them through, I’ll let you know if anything crops up.”

“Good job Nick.”

“I’ll need ten minutes to get the software running and connect to the main PRoGRaM server,” Nick replied, dodging Owen’s compliment.

The actual PRoGRaM server wasn’t actually based in their HQ, but rather in an unknown location somewhere top secret. Not even Owen or Nick knew where that location was. Owen doubted that even his boss, Richard Sterling, the leader of the Special Projects Division of the FBI knew. It was crazy to think that the entire PRoGRaM world was just sitting there on one super powered, hidden machine. Each of the seven PRoGRaM teams scattered across the United States all had to connect to the same server, and therefore, were a part of the same PRoGRaM world as Owen was.

Was it possible that any two different teams could meet in the PRoGRaM world? Sure it was, but the chances of that ever happening were slim to none.

“Where do you want to go?” Nick asked.

“Back to the scene of the accident. Down at Redford Avenue,” Owen replied solemnly whilst climbing into the PRoGRaM Chair. “If there’s something odd going on here, I want to find it by doing a complete memory check.” He turned to Kate, who was now waiting for further instructions, feeling a bit lost in herself by being the new girl at the office. “Kate, I need you in here with me to look at all of this objectively, as you have no personal connection to what happened. You may be able to see something happening in my memory that I didn’t notice at the time.”

“Of course,” she replied, happy to please and show them what she was capable of. She jumped eagerly into the chair nearby.

“I want you to go in with the Manipulator headset,” Owen explained to her. "I’ll wear the Target headset, so please… don’t kill me.” He looked over and saw a smile on her face.

“Are you both ready?” Nick asked as he walked around their PRoGRaM chairs, connecting up the varying headsets that they were wearing to the main system. He also kicked to life a few computer terminals to watch over Owen and Kate's vital signs whilst they weren't a part of this real world. Together, they acknowledged their readiness to Nick, who then went about the final stage of getting both of them into PRoGRaM’s digital world.

He walked over to his computer system and grabbed a shiny metal briefcase from underneath his desk. Carefully, he brought it over and set it down on the table at the side of Kate’s PRoGRaM chair. Flipping it open and reaching inside, Nick pulled out a small syringe that had a tiny amount of red liquid inside.

“See you on the other side,” he said as he injected the red liquid into Kate’s upper arm.

Nick grabbed another syringe out of the briefcase and walked over to Owen, looking over his shoulder to check on Kate’s vital signs before he continued. Everything seemed perfectly fine with her, so he turned his head around to look at Owen.

“Good luck in there,” he said as he pricked the top of Owen’s arm with the syringe, injecting the red fluid into his bloodstream. Unconsciousness was about to slip away from him, but before it did, only one thought was running through Owen Archer’s head.

Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes.

Chapter Eighteen

Date: December 9th 2035

Location: PRoGRaM

It’s just like that stupid recurring dream.
Owen thought to himself as he stood in the middle of his own memory. Here he was, standing on the corner of Redford Avenue, back in the memory of the night where everything changed. Both he and Kate stood on the sidewalk as Owen's memory slowly projected out around them, recreating the scene of the night that Annie died. The rain was hammering down, yet despite this digital world not being real, Owen and Kate felt every single drop.