Three
Walking out of the bedroom presented Isa with a sight that caused a small involuntary chuckle to escape her lips. Thankfully her host was so engrossed with his current activity that he didn’t notice the small chortle at his expense.
James was sitting at his crescent shaped dining table and laughing quite ridiculously. The target of his mirth was the video playing on the glass wall separating his kitchen from the hundred or so feet of open air outside. Last night she noticed the lack of a television in his home, but there were other – more pressing, details that caused her to forget all that nonsense. The comedy was of a cartoon cat and mouse chasing each other with rudimentary weapons. It was projected onto the now blackened glass outer wall of his home, and it added a little more evidence to the case that James Bruce may actually still be human.
He was eating a large breakfast that looked to consist mostly of bacon, eggs and cheese with large wheat rolls in a basket to the side. He must have noticed her movement because he looked her way and motioned for her to join him.
Isa noticed that he had already dressed for the day and started to feel out of place wearing panties and an old high school football half-shirt she found in one of his clothes drawers. It was her determination to not look foolish that made her quickly discard the idea of turning around and getting dressed in her slinky cocktail dress from the previous night. Besides, he called her over to him. He must have liked what he saw.
“Good morning again”, he said after she had crossed the expanse of his living room area.
“Yep, I do make mornings good, don’t I?” She asked playfully as he stood to pull her seat out.
He broke out in a genuine deep laugh and added; “not quite as well as you make the nights.”
“Anyway” He continued, trying to compose himself while he spanned the length of the table with his left hand. “I didn’t know exactly what you liked for breakfast, but there are lots of things here that should come close to satisfying your little insatiable appetite.”
“Awww, you know exactly what to say to a girl, and the enigmatic James Bruce cooks too?” She teased.
“Haha no”, he replied in a manner that suggested that the question needed no answer. “Marcy brings in the food. I honestly have no real idea who actually cooks this stuff. Now that you mention it, I’m going to have to find out who has been feeding me.”
“Marcy, is she your live-in nanny?” She asked before contemplating silently; meh, might as well do a little cop work – can’t hurt.
“Marcy lives here and helps with Ally, but she’s our friend!” His reply was curt as he sat back down to indicate the conversation was over.
Justin’s mystery of the killer nanny would have to wait then. She had no real expectation that he would actually divulge any information, but it never hurts to ask. Well, except when it does.
His genuine goofy smile was now gone and his usual overly cocky grin had already replaced it. Isa was beginning to understand the facial gesture for what it was; a defensive mechanism.
“James, why do you have women’s toiletries in your bathroom?” She asked to break the silence. “It seems odd to me, well not quite as odd as other things, but I’ve never seen that before.”
“Did you use them? Well, that’s why they’re there.” His response, as usual, was concise and laden with logic that he didn’t seem interested in debating.
“Do you have so many women in your life that you need that sort of preparation?”
She asked the question, but she wouldn’t be getting an answer. In fact, he had stopped paying attention to her completely in favor of placing his focus on the refrigerator. Isa saw it too; a small red light was blinking over there. Investigation sense kicked in and she sprang up from her chair. Walking towards the light she noticed that it was actually the dotted portion of the ‘i’ in the appliance brand name. It was weird because it would flash red, but when not on – it looked exactly the way it should; black and featureless.
“It’s ok Flynn, you can speak.” She heard James say from behind her. She looked down at the thin black material that was covering only strategic portions of her body, and some of those only partially, and felt an instant and piercing fear.
“James… Who is Flynn?” She asked the question with a soft voice and without moving from her newly adopted defensive posture.
“Flynn is my assistant.” He said after a fleeting moment of uncomfortable silence. Shaking away some concentration, he finally noticed her body language and actually laughed out loud at the situation.
“Don’t worry your pretty head; he’s not interested in little Isa’s.” His response came between laughs.
Still not ready to let her guard down, Isa asked; “is he gay? It’s because I’m a girl?”
“It’s because you’re organic!” The answer tickled him further and he took a couple of minutes to finally continue; “I like little organic gals a whole lot, but Flynn? Not so much”.
“Sir, if you’re quite done?” The voice had a reverberating effect that penetrated every inch of the apartment including her body. She didn’t know if she heard it or felt it, but she definitely understood every word.
“Wait!” Isa begged. “Where is he? What the fuck is going on?”
“Flynn is everywhere, sweetheart.” James had calmed his laughing outburst completely and looked to be completely on point.
“James, I still don’t understand what’s going on.” She knew her voice was beginning to betray her outward calm, but he was her only contact within his crazy world.
“Mr Bruce, this matter is actually quite urgent. If I may proce–”, the voice began.
“-Hang on, old man, give me a couple of minutes. Surely your news can wait that long.” Isa had seen his face this way before. When he stalled her from beating the wretch in the cage within an inch of her life, he had been giving Cuba the exact same calming and nurturing face.
“But sir!” The voice was exasperated.
“Flynn! A couple of minutes!” James retorted with an eye roll.
“Very well, sir.” Isa was sort of piecing together that Flynn was not a person, but a machine that could simulate real human rejection and defeat was something she only knew to exist in fantasy.
“Thank you.” James looked at and through her with his penetrating, calming gaze.
“Isa, I have spent the last six years building an artificial intelligence strong enough to see my ideas to production. Technology doesn’t grow in the way you think it grows. There isn’t much new and innovative technology being produced nowadays, even from my own labs. The things preventing us from evolving our tech are resource, processing and manufacturing limitations.”
He hadn’t moved from his chair, but he held himself in an open and calm stance. He was speaking about something he loved, and she knew him well enough to see his real smile creeping from the edges of the wicked granite facade he showed the world.
“I built Flynn to handle calculations and acquire data; petabytes upon petabytes of data. A byproduct of his computing power is that he makes a damn fine assistant. So, go ahead old man. What’s so important?”
“Sir, it appears that Mr Weathers has been abducted from his hospital room in the night. The government agency to which our beautiful Miss Gonzales reports does not know where he is. They are quite frantic over his abduction. Oh, and Miss Gonzales has a telephone call incoming.”
What? Isa asked herself? “What does he mean I have a telephone call in-?” Her question was interrupted when the black clutch she had left on the kitchen counter last night started ringing the tone she had assigned to Marcus Adam in her personal mobile phone. She ran over to the counter in time and answered the rock and roll blaring phone with “hello”.
“Where are you?” Marcus sounded in no mood for small talk.
“I’m at a friend’s house. You told me to get some rest, remember?” She answered.
“I know what I told you. We have a problem with Timothy Weathers. Stand by for orders, and keep this phone available!” He hung up without saying another word.
“He sounds super pissed”, she heard herself say aloud. Then absorbing the gravity of her situation she walked back over to where James was sitting and drew the small holdout pistol she kept in her purse.
Standing there with her perfectly toned and exposed body highlighted by the morning light, she trained the sight of her small weapon on the man whose long and luxurious cock had only recently vacated her willing loins.
“James, you need to speak, and you need to speak now! How did he… that… whatever the fuck it is, know that Weathers had been taken?”
James Bruce looked up at her and for the first time she could remember, he was not smiling.
*****
“Okay, start over.” Marcus ordered. For three days now, every morning brought new and exciting misery to his life. It was as if some force of nature was trying to make each day stranger than the last. The men sitting across from him in metal folding chairs were telling him a story that couldn’t be true, these types of things just didn’t happen in the real world.
“Well sir, like I said before.” The National Guard sergeant certainly wasn’t as inept as he currently sounded. His stammering and tense posture was typical for a person who had just experienced a tense and stressful situation.
“Me and Levi were just guardin’ the door like you told us when my dad walked up from the hallway.” He continued.
“Shut up fool! I told you it were my gran’pa that walked up the hall. I saw him plain as I see you right now!” His partner, apparently Levi, interjected. Marcus could see that Levi actually kicked the first speaker’s chair hard enough to move him slightly.
“But, it was only one person?” Marcus asked.
“Yes!” They said in unison.
“Cap, my dad’s been dead goin’ on ten years now.” The sergeant said morbidly.
“Yeah, my gran’pa died last year after the cancer ate his bones all up.” Levi added.
“So someone walked up to you. Granted it was either your dad,” Marcus pointed to the sergeant, “or your grandfather.” He pointed to Levi, then continued; “what did you do when he wouldn’t stop?”
“Well, at first I were really happy that my gran’pa were still ‘live, but then I got suspicious ‘cause he a’supposed to be dead an’ all. I saw for myself when they put him in the ground up in Natchitoches.” Levi stammered out his hometown and appeared shell shocked, but Marcus rolled his index finger in the air to get him to continue.
“Barney here were yelling out stuff like ‘Da, what you doin’ here, you’re dead! You go back to bein’ dead!’, and I couldn’t say an’athing on ‘count I were scared plum shitless. Then when the fella’ got about twenty feet or so away, I saw that ‘tweren’t really my gran’pa after all. It were just some fella’ wearin’ a mask, but around his head were a cloud that looked like my gran’pa’s head.
“Yeah Cap’, I saw the same thing. It wasn’t my dad at all, but before we could stop him, or her. He wasn’t too big, coulda’ been a chick too don’t ya think Levi?” Barney asked.
“Yep, now that you sayin’ so, ‘suppose he coulda’ been a she,” Levi answered.
“How did this mysterious person get passed you?” Marcus could sense himself beginning to break under the stress of hanging onto his patience.
“That’s the thing, Cap’.” Mercifully it was Barney who began the next narrative.
“We were both a bit confused, and who wouldn’t be after such a thing? We were about to raise our rifles at the guy, but a small robot fell out of the ceiling and just started to hover next to his head. It looked like someone glued two cereal bowls together where you eat from, painted it gold and showed it how ta’ fly!”
“Then, after we were lookin’ at it a few seconds; it opened itself in the middle. We saw the small barrels and tried to jump away, but I guess we were too slow. We woke up in one of the hospital rooms with the Police around us, but we weren’t hurt at all. They called you, and you came to talk to us.” Barney finished.
“Last thin’ we saw were that crazy thing’s gun barrels, cap’.” Levi looked seriously freaked out.
“Okay men, thank you for your service and your honest answers.” Marcus looked them over and then to the older man sitting next to them at the conference room table. He was their CO and had told Marcus his name when they got there, but he was having a hard time remembering such details as of late.
“Let them go home and rest a few days”, he started. “This is a confidential case and not a word of this leaves this room. Am I understood?”
“Yessir!” All three said at once.
He looked at the CO and added; “you may put on their service records I’ve found their actions and bravery to be of the highest possible order of service to the DEA and place them in queue for actual medals stating such”.
“Thank ya, Sir!” Barney said.
“Don’t thank me”, Marcus finished for him. “Thank the person who decided to let you live to tell this story. I’m only putting you in line for medals to hide this clusterfuck in plain sight.”
A few seconds passed and when the three National Guardsmen didn’t get up to leave; Marcus looked up and over his glasses and said “you were dismissed ten seconds ago”.
Marcus took off the cursed reminders of his approach to middle age and placed them on the table while the confused men scampered noisily out of the hospital’s second floor conference room. “What do you think?” He closed his eyes, rubbed his temples, and waited for the person sitting on his right to answer.
“I think you need some sleep.” She said, probably a little too honestly.
“Becca, let’s not do this.” He replied without opening his eyes. “Do you think they were lying?”
“I think they’re convinced they saw what their stories were.” She spoke as if she were just as confused as the Guardsmen. “What about surveillance?”
“The same exact interference we had at the Weather’s house.” This statement prompted him to massage his temples again. “It’s bugging me that whoever did this wanted us to know about this tech.”
“So, you believe what they’re saying, then?”
“Had I not witnessed with my own eyes something similar, I would summarily dismiss their testimonies as nonsense and have them screened for drug use.” Marcus had his eyes open now, but moved his massaging hand to the bridge of his nose. “There is no way Weathers could have produced a weapon as fast as he seemed to. I’ve replayed the event in my mind over and over again. I can never place a time where the weapon was removed from a hiding spot. His hands didn’t move at all; they literally teleported from under his blanket to wielding a handgun.”
“And, you can’t find the gun?” She asked, knowing full well the question was absolutely unnecessary.
“No one can find a murder weapon.” He replied without any hint of offense from her jab. “The thing they say they saw. They called it a robot, but as he spoke, I imagined more of a probe. You know something you would find in a Sci-Fi movie? I think that might be a path worth taking.”
“The round they pulled out of Mo…” He paused to let an unseen strike of anguish pass, and then continued. “…well, it was tiny. Smaller than a .22 caliber pistol, but it must have been carrying a ton of velocity because our goggles are supposed to be able to resist up to a .22 caliber at range.”
“We’re scouring the hospital’s surveillance.” She said, “we’ll find something, but another matter needs to be discussed.”
“Monica Weathers?” The wife was fast becoming her own little painful fire in conflagration he was calling a mind.
“Well, two matters, then. It’s getting harder and harder to hold off that lawyer of hers.” She began. “I swear that fat bastard has filed every petition known to modern law, and probably a few that were unknown until now.”
“It’s too dangerous for her to be in range of whoever is pulling these strings.” He followed.
“I understand that and agree, but we can’t keep her in jail either.” She told him.
“Are you ordering me to release her?” Rebecca Corrigan was his superior.
“Not yet, but I will tomorrow. You need to find a way to make her safe without holding her in a cell.” She was being firm but not mean, not wholly unlike her approach to their failed marriage.
“Okay.” He relented. “But, there is someone I need to pay a visit to. Can you hold things off until I can talk to him?”
“You’re talking about our friend Mr Bruce?” The way her eyes drifted at the mention of his name made his stomach crawl. “I’ll keep her safe long enough for you to speak to him, and I think we may have good enough evidence to convince a judge that we need to defuse that arrogant lawyer once and for all.”
“Thanks, but I have a bad feeling that James Bruce is far from our friend.” Marcus said through the hollow dread forming in the back of his mind.
“Don’t judge people, Marcus. It doesn’t become you.” She responded.
“Not you too Becca, what’s with this guy that makes him so damned special?” Marcus was frustrated with himself. Mainly for letting this chaos manifest to start with, but he didn’t care at the moment. Becca made a nice punching bag for him to vent.
“You mean besides his wealth growing exponentially every second? Or, that he’s supernaturally gorgeous?” Becca was sparring with Marcus in a way that made her titter. “No, it’s not that. Marcus, the man does what he loves and he does it without needing the approval of anyone. When he first spoke to me, he honestly had no care in the world if he was being offensive. He has his logic, and until you can refute him, it will stand. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks.”
“When did stubborn turn into sexy?” Marcus asked.
“It’s not stubborn when you’re right, Marcus.” She replied while reaching into her leather attaché for a legal size manila folder filled with forensic data and imaging. “Speaking of right and wrong, I have some interesting results from Isa’s humorous drama.”
“Humorous would not be the word I would use to describe my best friend’s funeral!” He replied, almost violently.
“Settle down there, love.” Her smile was anything but endearing. She flipped down a picture of a blonde woman who looked to be in her early forties, but still pretty in a crazed lunatic kind of way. “Pamela Corinth. The DNA swab Isa got from her, which was absolutely brilliant by the way, marked her as a full sibling with Mo. Marcus, if you don’t give her some comp time or something, I will. She deserves it.”
“Wait, what?” He staggered to ask.
“Give her a commendation or some time off or something.” Becca replied, baiting the hook for him to explode on.
“Damnit Becca!” Marcus just stopped and took a few moments to breathe. He renewed the massaging of his temples for a few seconds and asked; “so she’s Mo’s sister?”
“From what the DNA markers show… yes.” She said while producing another sheet showing overlapping colored lines. “The transmitters that were planted on her clothing stopped transmitting almost as soon as she got into her vehicle, but the one Isa forced her to swallow continued to broadcast until she made it back to Chicago where, presumably, it eventually found itself a nice home in the city sewage.”
“Then there’s this.” She pulled another document from her bag; an investor’s report from a company called VoliCorp. “This Pamela is the Chief Operations Officer at a corporation named VoliCorp Global. They specialize in high tech devices, but most notably, they have recently released investor statements about their advancements in nanotechnology. Without details of course, only enough information to bait their technically stupid investors into pumping more money into their research.”
“Why is nanotech noteworthy?” Marcus asked before thinking it through.
“Think about it dear, what did our hapless Guardsmen say they saw? A cloud around someone’s head resembling their dead family members.” She answered too quickly for him to backtrack on his foolish question.
“We need to go back to cop basics again, then.” Marcus noticed he felt more invigoration at actually having something to investigate. “I’ll have a team find out what Pamela Corinth stood to gain by Mo’s death and go from there. There’s one gap that troubles me, though. If Corinth did have the motive, why would she bust out her apparent patsy?”
“This case is getting larger by the minute and we’re only looking at it in small pieces.” She replied. “We need to get more information and see it from a distance. Don’t forget the evidence we have on Weathers. Those pictures definitely aren’t a cloud that looked like him. They are him.”
“…and the dope …and the confessions.” He added to her thoughts. “I need a raise after this!”
“Honey, once Washington actually starts reading my reports, we may feel lucky to actually have jobs after this.” She told him with a blank and emotionless face.
Marcus didn’t reply. He simply got his things and walked out without another word. Something made him wish he had seen her wicked grin when she said that.
*****
“Calm down, Isa.” James was not frantic. Isa guessed he probably never stressed himself to the point of mistakes, but he was certainly mad. His face held the type of controlled anger that smart people knew to avoid at all costs. Unfortunately she didn’t count herself in that lot at that moment.
“I’m not your enemy!” She could see his patience was waning, but he never moved to try and restrain her. He simply sat there in his non threatening pose looking back up at her.
“I’ve already told you that Flynn is everywhere. He is the most intelligent non-human mind ever created.”
“Oh, he’s everywhere, but just so happened to be listening for that particular information?” Isa was at that critical point in the conversation where she knew she may be losing, but would not surrender.
“Yes exactly, he listens for all information. Right now he’s having conversations in Vegas, New York and Hong Kong simultaneously as he talks to us. You need to think more outside our own innate handicaps at information gathering.” He was stalling, that much she could determine, but it was her who was faced with the problem. She had pulled out her pistol and thought she had him at bay, but the rounds were small and he was big. She knew her only real hope of disabling him was with a direct shot to one of his eyes.
There would be two things that Isa would come to realize within the next few heartbeats, though. The first was the painful realization of just how monumentally stupid drawing her weapon had been when she hadn’t the foggiest idea about what she hoped to accomplish. Her second lesson came in the form of a blur.
That was when she understood that he was never the threat.
Isa felt the third presence before she actually saw anything. A tiny atmospheric change was the only indication of the lithe figure stepping around from behind her. Superhuman speed followed when the newcomer presented Isa her back and rhythmically twisted her frame between the weapon and its intended target. During her turn she blindly pulled the chambering slide mechanism off of the holdout pistol with her left hand. A feat that was clearly astonishing considering she was still carrying clothing in her right hand as she handed Isa the pieces of her weapon back. A look of giddy amusement was on her thin, regal face as she set the clothing down on the counter and stood next to James.
Okay, so she’s actually real, Isa thought. She moved fast, but her moves were traceable. She reminded Isa of playing a game as a child where someone would hold a dollar bill between her fingers and if she could grab it as it was dropped, she could keep it. The only problem with that game was that it took longer for the brain to process the information and react than for gravity to move the bill out of reach, but she still had the memory of it actually moving. She was caught standing stupidly without the ability to react in the same way, but watching the fluidity of this person’s movements only reinforced the unnatural way Mo had be killed. Yes, she couldn’t move in time to prevent being disarmed, but she was able to remember seeing the little snake strike.
“Miss Gonzales, how nice to meet you; my name is Marcella.” The newcomer began. “You make meeting new people fun, I must admit. I brought you up some clothes from the guest room. James thought you might want something to wear that didn’t make you look like you had slept in your evening wear.”
She was unmistakably gorgeous with a face that seemed to be made of honey colored ceramic, and from what Isa could tell she wasn’t modest in the least. She was only wearing a thin white camisole that hid her small breasts only partially, and thin, loose fitting silk boxers that, mercifully, were much more opaque. Just as the question rose in her mind about the relationship she shared with James; across her porcelain face, she flashed Isa a look of primal hunger before sitting next to him for her own breakfast.
James never took his eyes off of her and she could feel the anxiety in the room starting to build. Thankfully, right before she said something stupid, he broke the silence. “You should eat something. Getting dressed will probably make you feel less vulnerable.”
“You’re going to need to do better than that, James. I still don’t believe you!” She was still mad. Mad because she got seduced, mad because she liked it and mad because she still wanted him even more. She looked at the clothing she’d been given and decided that maybe he was right about the feeling vulnerable part, though.
“Sweetheart, I don’t understand how that monstrosity works either.” Marcy said through a mouth of bacon. “I just understand that it does work and it can read any data out there, encrypted or not.”
Isa still wasn’t convinced, but she knew deep down that she would not be able to understand his innocence in the matter even when it was being explained to her. She was going to have to move her thoughts away from assuming he was doing something wrong because she didn’t understand him. Shrugging away the storm in her mind, she grabbed the clothing from the table and slipped the denim shorts over her exposed lace. Last night she would have been shocked that he had clothing that fit her perfectly, but this morning she found that she almost expected it. Unconcerned about who saw her, she then took off the half shirt she was wearing and found her way into the pink tank-top, then marveled to herself at how smooth and comfortable it felt.
“Now will you eat?” He asked.
“James, I don’t know who or what you are, but I know I can’t change anything by stupidly drawing a weapon because I’m scared… I’m sorry; I had a rookie moment because I didn’t understand what was happening.” She almost couldn’t believe she was hearing herself apologize, but the rumble in her stomach reminded her of how much energy it takes to be flushed with adrenaline. Fully conceding defeat, she sat next to him and began working on a fried egg.
“Isa, between last night and this morning, I’ve had the most fun I’ve had in months.” Somehow his grin had found its way back to his face and Isa had to smile herself when she saw it. “Don’t worry, beautiful. I’ll replace your weapon for you. That one couldn’t have been a standard issue, and I know you were just scared. I take Flynn for granted and foolishly forget how overwhelming to one’s sensibilities he can be the first time he speaks to them. So, I’m sorry for my haste ridden decision to allow him to speak before consulting you, but his information was urgent.”
“We’ll get to that in a little while, but is Ally still watching her TV show?” His question was directed to someone he expected people to think was only a nanny.
“Yeah, I let her eat her breakfast in the theater because you…” she broke her statement to look Isa up and down with a smile. “…had a guest.”
“Ally… you there?” James pressed an icon in a cluster of controls on the dining room table that absolutely were not there just a couple of seconds earlier.
“Hey Daddy!” A chirpy voice responded, and despite her current funk, Isa found she had to smile.
“Good morning love, what are you watching?” James Bruce was an entirely different person when talking to his daughter. Age and stress meant nothing to his glowing, almost youthful looking face.
“I’m just watching cartoons, Daddy. Scarlett wants me to ask you to come downstairs and watch them too.” His smile broadened to proportions that didn’t seem possible when he heard her question.
“Ladies, if you will pardon me for about half an hour; I have business in my theater room. Marcy, can you entertain our guest for a little while?” He was looking at Isa and she gathered that the statement was phrased as a question for courtesy’s sake alone.
“Flynn?”
“Sir?”
“Be quiet!”
“As you wish.”
*****
Monica was sitting on the folding dorm room style sofa that someone had brought her and thumbing through a magazine that specializes in celebrity gossip with very little interest. She had new guards now, and they were letting her have the run of the small wing of four containment cells without locking her into one. She was being treated well, she had to grudgingly admit. She was brought meals from an assortment of upscale downtown restaurants and she never lacked for good drinks or over the counter medicines. It was like summer camp in federal custody.
Unfortunately though, other than the two or three calls she received from Alisha each day, she was still very disconnected from the outside world. She could only physically speak to her lawyer, Scott, but since he never has any real news for her, not to mention that she really doesn’t like him anyway, she never accepts his visits.
Her phone calls from Ally are always monitored by her guards and they will disconnect the call if anyone but her little girl starts talking to her after James initiates it. They are the highlights to her boring hum-drum life, and she fully expects by now that her engineering career is now over with her current firm, or former firm, however one wants to look at it.
Sighing, she dropped the ridiculous magazine into her lap and inclined her head back to ponder her future for the thousandth time, but before she could get caught too deeply in her introspective; she was interrupted by the sound of her nearest guard shuffling to answer the headset at the small desk.
“Okay, yes ma’am!” The girl finally answered. She put it back on its receiver and turned to Monica. “Mrs Weathers, you need to get dressed for an appointment with Ms Corrigan.”
“Who is Ms Corrigan?” Monica asked.
“She’s in charge around here. She said to make sure you’re dressed and to bring you upstairs immediately. Your lawyer is already up there.” The girl, Samera, answered. Monica had no reason to hate her new guards; in fact, Samera was a remarkably pleasant change of pace from the little walking pile of hate and anger that was Isa Gonzales.
“I’m as dressed as I’m going to get.” Monica said with more than a little trepidation. This was the first activity she had received in the days since she was brought here, but she definitely knew that meeting any supervisor could not be very good news.
“Well let’s go then.” Samera started, but then her face went callow as she drew the handcuffs from under the desk. “I’m sorry, but you have to wear these at least in front of you.”
“It’s okay Sam.” Monica assured her as she put her wrists together and offered them. “One day I will wake up from this horrible dream.”
Monica was glad at least to be going to a different place. She was beginning to get stir crazy where she was and the act of walking to a newer place, even if it were worse than here, lent her a small amount of invigoration. She walked in the middle of her two National Guard escorts through two more suites of cells identical to the one they were holding her in until they reached a white utilitarian elevator door surrounded by white walls in a short corridor.
Once inside the elevator, Monica started to feel her paralyzing fear again. Her heart was pounding and she couldn’t convince herself that they weren’t taking her to prison permanently this time. The elevator doors suddenly opened to the sight of Scott Leblanc holding his signature briefcase and the woman she saw walking in before James that day. Scott was trying to hand her paperwork and beginning to argue, but she simply ignored him and pointed to a door directly to her right.
This hallway was white as well, and had square tiles covering the floor all the way down. There were multiple grey doors to either side of her and if Monica were forced to describe the scene, she would have to use a college dorm hallway as a reference.
Samera gestured for Scott to enter the room, and then bumped Monica to get her to follow him. Inside, the room followed the same theme as the hallway with bright white walls and grey flooring. One wall housed what was obviously a two way mirror and there were cameras in each corner. In the middle of the maddeningly white room was a small square table with two chairs on one side and a single chair on the opposite side.
They were asked to sit as her escorts took defensive positions on the sides of the table not occupied by chairs. Before Monica could ask what was going on, four black clad figures armed with black assault rifles marched into the room and stood in each of its corners holding their weapons low but ready.
“This is absolutely uncalled for!” Scott seemed livid at the idea of the armed guards. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Shut up!” The well dressed woman said as she entered the room. She had her arms filled with letter sized envelopes and other paperwork.
“Excuse me? What did you say to me? Do you know who I am?” Monica started to get the distinct impression that her lawyer needed to do exactly what he was being told.
“I told you to shut up, and I don’t care who you are. You will be quiet or you will wake up in Cuba tomorrow.” She said as she dropped her load onto the table with the least amount of spillage possible. The woman’s over-annunciation of the ‘will’ in her previous sentence drove the point across to Monica.
“I won’t b-”
“Scott! Please just be quiet!” Monica eagerly interrupted him.
“You be quiet Monica, I’m the lawyer here!” He screamed back at her then turned his pudgy face back towards their current host. “Everything you’re doing here is completely ille-” Scott was suddenly interrupted by a hollow and slick sound. His face spun rapidly towards Monica and she realized that she had just earned another horrible life long memory when she saw his glazed eyes dilate to unnatural proportions. His dumb facial expression was trying to convey some unknown question and he actually managed to grunt an incomprehensible syllable or two before gravity won the day and pulled his plump head towards the table.
There was a sound that reminded Monica of dropping a melon onto ceramic tile when his head violently slammed onto the table’s hard surface. The black clad soldier standing over Scott’s limp form still had the stock of his assault rifle lifted in an offensive position when Monica selected that particular instant as a good time to release the scream that was choking her. The man simply smiled and returned to his corner.
“You know what, I warned him. Hell you warned him!” Rebecca Corrigan said as she stood up and walked to the other side of the table. “Now he’s made a mess in my nice clean interview room.”
Monica just sat in absolute horror as the other woman hiked her skirt high enough to show the bottom of her white panties. She then put one of her black business flats on Scott’s plump shoulder and shoved him to the floor, chair and all, in a noisy heap.
“H… he’s bleeding!” Monica squeaked.
“Yeah, you kind of bleed when you’re hit with the stock of a rifle that hard.” Becca said as she fixed her skirt. She sat back in her chair and pulled a napkin from one of her bags to wipe her shoe.
“Don’t worry, if he lives – he’ll be fine!”