Manipulator (18 page)

But it's too late.

Opposite me, on the other sidewalk is something which I hadn’t noticed before. There's a man standing there, wearing all dark clothes. From where I am standing, I cannot see his face. He has a man next to him, with a black bag over his head. He’s down on his knee’s with his hands tied up behind his back. This dark figure looming above him is pointing a gun at the back of the bound man’s head.

Suddenly, a huge white van materialises out onto the road just behind of me at the crossroads, mere meters away from the drivers side of Annie’s car. I know what this part of the dream is. I just wish I didn’t have to see it. Especially not here. I don't want to remember her like this.

Her head moves in slow motion, looking in the direction of the huge van as she realises it’s too late. I watch her face change in slow motion, and just as it’s about to hit… that screeching noise that woke me. The sound of metal upon metal. It’s not a workshop full of machinery.

Beep.

It’s the noise of the impact in slow motion.

Beep. Beep.

Make it stop. Make it stop.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep

MAKE THE NOISE STOP.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Owen shot to life, jumping up in his bed, covered in a cold sweat, hearing his phone ringing and buzzing nearby. He didn’t make a move for it immediately. He just sat there, breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath before having the energy to reach over for it.

“Archer,” he said answering the phone, trying to sound as normal as possible. He was trying not to give away the fact that he was completely flustered.

“Owen,” a familiar voice said to him, instantly calming him down. “It’s Nick. I’m here.”

“Hold on,” Owen said, hanging up the phone as he got up out of bed and looked over at the clock nearby. It was just after nine in the morning. It was time to get to work. Time to get into the memories of the next person on his list.

Alex Morgan

Chapter Thirty Five

Date: December 15th 2035 (Present Day)

Location: Unknown

“Did you order Nick to continue work on your personal mission?” Victoria asked, deciding that it was time to throw in a few questions over Owen’s story. He needed to be reminded who was in control here.

“Order him?” Owen questioned her back, confused.

“That’s right,” she said emotionlessly. “I’m trying to appropriate blame to your actions here. I need to know whether or not it was Nick’s conscious choice to help you, or if you ordered him into doing so.”

“Well. The answer is neither of those,” Owen said calmly.

“Then why don’t you tell me what the answer is?” she asked, raising a nearby glass of water to her lips.

“He’s my friend. He
wanted
to help me.”

Victoria sighed as she put the glass back down on the table. “Why didn’t you shut it down Mr Archer? You could have stopped him getting involved in all of this right there and then. Why didn’t you?”
 

“Because I wanted answers. And he wanted to help. That’s what friends do.”

Victoria nodded at his answer. Owen was comfortable calling Nick his friend rather than his colleague. These two guys were closer than the FBI realised. “You realise that by providing this statement, that you are indemnifying Nick’s actions?” she asked him as she twirled her pen between two fingers, trying to catch Owen out with her difficult questions. She was trying to get him to throw his friend to the sharks.

“He wouldn’t have it any other way,” Owen said, smiling as he spoke, surprising Victoria.

“And Kate?”

“She volunteered to help me as well,” he answered, trying to suppress the anger in his tone.
I wish I had seen through her from the start.

“I see. You don’t have to speak up for her you know. She can do that for herself. We have a lot of questions that we need to ask her. Just as soon as we find her.”

Chapter Thirty Six

Date: December 10th 2035

Location: Owen’s Apartment, New York

“You’re still not sleeping are you?” Nick asked, the concern evident in his voice as Owen let him into his apartment. He watched Owen mope over towards the kitchen whilst he made himself comfortable on one of the sofas nearby.

“Not since the accident," Owen admitted loudly from the kitchen so that Nick could hear him, completely unashamed of the way he was. “Not properly anyway. Still suffering from those nightmares.”

“Ever thought about seeing someone about them?” Nick asked. Owen gave him a funny look from across the open spaced common room between them. “Someone professional I mean,” he clarified.

“Not really,” Owen replied. “The dreams… they come and go. Some nights, they’re all I see. Other nights they don’t bother me at all. I guess my head’s still working itself out. In time they’ll just go away, I hope. It's only been a few weeks since Annie’s death.”

Owen grabbed a mug out of a cupboard nearby and began to make some coffee. “So. Tell me then?” he said to Nick as he waited on his coffee machine. “Where’s Alex?”

Nick waited a few seconds and didn’t answer, causing Owen to look over to him from the kitchen. It was one of those moments where you hesitate before delivering the bad news, and Nick wanted to look Owen in the eye when he told him. “He’s in the PRoGRaM Prison System…”

Owen stood quietly for a few seconds, leaning on the kitchen counter before responding, thinking about the information that Nick had just told him.

“Shit.”

“I know,” Nick said, feeling Owen’s frustration. “From what I could find out, he’s a part of a trial into the system. I dug up Alex’s file and read through it before we got cut off from the FBI. Apparently, the man is certifiably insane and is only inside the Prison System for his own protection.”

Owen nodded at this new information as he walked back into the common room with a hot cup of coffee in his hand, realising that he hadn’t even offered Nick a cup. “I’ve only heard bits of information about the Prison System that they implemented based in PRoGRaM. What do you know about it? Is it accessible from our world which we boot into?” Owen asked, trying to come up with possibilities and plans on how he could possibly get to Alex.

“There’s no access from our PRoGRaM world,” Nick explained. “The PRoGRaM Prison System is on a completely separate server to the main PRoGRaM world. We can’t just jump into that Prison directly, or even
access
it," he said.

“But there’s a way in?”

“There’s always a way in,” Nick replied confidently, nodding his head. “We just have to find it. Why?” he changed his tone, directing the questions back at Owen. “What are you thinking?”

Owen took a sip of his coffee in an attempt to wake himself up a bit. “Well, Marcus had memories locked deep inside of the old PRoGRaM headquarters, right?” he asked. Nick nodded, seeing exactly where Owen’s trail of thought was going. “So, I’m willing to bet that Alex has too,” he continued. “I want to get Alex out of the PRoGRaM Prison System and take him to the PRoGRaM headquarters.”

Nick let out a long, deep sigh as he thought about the ramifications. “It’s not impossible,” he conceded. “But that’s no easy thing to do. In fact, it’s impossible now that we no longer have a PRoGRaM device.”

“Actually. I thought about that last night and came up with an idea,” Owen replied. “I’ve got someone coming over shortly. Someone who is going to get us a PRoGRaM device so that we can carry on with this investigation.”

Right there and then, there were a few knocks in succession at the door to his apartment.
Right on time.

“Hold onto that thought, Nick, because I think they’re here,” Owen said as he stood up, coffee still in hand. “Let me just get the door. It should be Kate.”

“Kate’s getting us a PRoGRaM device?” Nick asked, slightly confused by what was happening.

“To some extent," Owen finished saying as he reached the front door to his apartment. He looked through the peephole to confirm who it was, and then opened the door to let them in.

“Hey,” Owen said to Kate as he opened the door and turned to walk back into the front room.

“Kate’s not exactly getting us a PRoGRaM device,” Owen said to Nick, who was sat on the sofa with his head turned around to look towards the entrance. Owen turned and pointed at the man following Kate into the apartment, before finishing speaking. “But he is.”

In behind Kate, walked Eli Roth.

Chapter Thirty Seven

Date: December 15th 2035 (Present Day)

Location: Unknown

“How the hell did you get Eli out?” Victoria asked, surprised by the turn that Owen’s story had taken.

“Remember that paperwork I said that I had to file about our mission with Eli?” Owen responded. “The mission where we found out that Eli had a PRoGRaM device?”

“Yes,” Victoria answered, flipping backwards through her notebook a few pages. “I noted it down earlier on.”

“Well. I didn’t have time to file it,” he admitted.

“So I can add that to your list of errors so far?”

“If it makes you feel better,” Owen said, shrugging his shoulders. It really didn’t matter to him. “It’s not going to cause any more damage than anything else that I’ve done now, is it?”

Victoria gave him an awkward look. She had no idea how to answer him professionally, so instead, decided to dodge the question. “Back to how you got Eli out please.”

“Right, okay,” Owen said, thinking back to what had happened. “So, because I didn’t file the paperwork, The NYPD Precinct nearby didn’t exactly know what they were holding Eli for, and the FBI had no record of it either. This means, by law, they would have had to release him after a certain timeframe.”

Victoria nodded, perfectly clear with the NYPD’s protocol. “48 hours,” she confirmed.

“Exactly,” Owen said. “So I had Kate follow him after his release.”

Victoria’s eyes widened, surprised by such a brass tactic. “And then?”

“Once we found out where he was holed up, Kate went and confronted him. Pretended that we were incredibly impressed by his talents. Pretended to offer him a consultancy job working with our PRoGRaM team. Our only condition was that we have our technicians look over his PRoGRaM device.”

“And he didn’t remember Kate from your previous encounter?” Victoria asked.

Owen shook his head. “Neuroleptic Tracer,” he said, trying to probe Victoria’s memory into what they had talked about earlier.

“Ah yes,” she responded, suddenly remembering their previous discussion. She flicked through her notepad once more before finding what she was looking for, and started tapping it with her pen whilst reading the notes that she had written down. “Neuroleptic Tracer.”

She looked back up at Owen after taking in her notes. “So none of his memories from your previous encounter with him formed correctly?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, it’s impressive that Kate managed to convince him to come with her.”

“I know,” Owen said, agreeing with Victoria. “She’s a surprisingly good liar.”

Chapter Thirty Eight

Date: December 10th 2035

Location: Owen’s Apartment, New York

Nick stood up quickly, surprised at the turn of events unfolding before him. “What’s going on?” he asked quietly, grabbing Owen and pulling him to one side out of earshot of both Kate and Eli. “What’s
he
doing here?”

“Eli’s on our side,” Owen responded quietly as he held both his hands up towards Nick in a calming motion. “We're going to need his help.”

Owen turned away, leaving Nick to think about what he’d just said before walking up to greet Eli properly. Dressed in just a plain green t-shirt covered by a black hoody, Eli looked severely out of place compared to Owen and his team, but the energy that came from his presence outshone the way that he looked. Owen reached out his hand with a smile but strangely, Eli didn’t take it.

“Hello Mr. Archer,” he said coldly.
There is no way that Eli should know who I am!
Owen thought quickly, conflicting questions racing through his head.
The Neuroleptic Tracer… It should have prevented him from forming any new memories!
The power in the room had shifted right into Eli’s lap.
 

Eli watched the expression change in Owen’s face. “Your technology doesn’t work on me,” he said, answering in advance of Owen's incoming questions. “I have an antibody to your neuroleptic tracers running through my bloodstream. You can’t stop me forming new memories. I remember
everything
.”

Owen felt dumbstruck. He was at a complete loss for words, his surprised look was difficult to hide. The atmosphere in the room was tense in light of this new information. Archer had no idea what to do next.

Eli turned his head slightly to look over at Kate. “I’m sorry for deceiving you,” he said calmly. “I was… confused when your team didn’t come back for me. Confused as to why you left me in those NYPD cells. I noticed you tailing me after they let me out, but I figured that you were hoping that I was going to lead you somewhere."