Lucid Waking

Archive for the ‘Mystery’ Category

Guitar Concerto in D Major, mvmt. 1 by Antonio Vivaldi

        Everything was beautiful in Eversummer. The leaves were so rich a green they looked like velvet, the snow sparkled silver, and the magnolia trees bloomed early and their blossoms stayed late. Every tree had a story of the town’s highly attractive residents and were more than happy to give the ripest fruit in the largest quantities. People came and some went, but most stayed where they were finding true love and prosperity in their childhood town. It was young and vibrant: everyone was kind to one another and the animals that coexisted with them. Never was a hearth empty and never a heart too full. The fish in the town practically jumped upon the river bank and no fisher ever took more than his fill. There was never a drought or a flood; the rain came and went when it pleased, but it always came back for the same kindness the people gave it. There was no intolerance, violence, or bigotry. Eversummer had whispers about its name as heaven on earth.
        “And why is it so perfect?” Retha asked, opening her steno notebook quickly and placing her pencil on the page.
        The man laughed. “Why it was blessed by the fae, marm. Everything about it was just the way people wished to live.”
        “But every blessing comes with a curse.”
        “No, they were open-minded about things. For every small misfortune, there followed larger fortune and people here are born with enough sense to count their blessings well. Besides, the man who founded the town was extremely intelligent; he knew how to ask things of the fae.”
        The door opened and the young woman who had agreed to board Retha came in with tea. She smiled and apologized for interrupting. Retha told her it wasn’t a problem and the old man thanked her for the refreshments.
        “If you don’t mind me asking,” the old man said once Retha’s landlady had left, “why exactly do you want to know about this place?”
        “I’m afraid I’m a bit curious about things,” she said. “When people eat more, they get larger. So anyone would expect that with the other towns getting smaller, Eversummer would get larger. But this isn’t the case and I want to know why.”
        “Part of what makes Eversummer perfect is that it isn’t too large or crowded.”
        “I understand the theory. And believe me, this is a beautiful town. But neither of those things explains where all the people have gone. Do you know, Mr. Apricot?”
The man looked abashed. “No one has gone missing. The whole town would know who did!”
        “I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” Retha said taking a sip of her tea. “I’m just a curious person. You have to be to be a journalist.”
        Retha stood up and thanked Mr. Apricot for his time. He told her it was his pleasure, though she knew her answers to his questions were not pleasurable in the least. She went up to her room and opened her log book, making more notes on his answers and stance. Then she recorded hers. Perhaps, she thought, they might be useful if I could see what I said at the beginning of this mess. Well, she added to herself, I hope it won’t be a mess at all.

(Listen to it)

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, mvt. 1 by Philip Glass

        Snow. It drifted lazily from the sky slowing the passage of time indefinitely. The sun remained cold in the white sky and melted none of the thick, wet flakes. Detective Peter Sean arrived at the end of the storm in front of the DuPage Estate. The front way was salted and shoveled, but was concealed by blue and white police cars parked in front. A mass of people was being held back at the door; those in back were craning their necks over others in the front. Peter maneuvered through the crowd and bowed when he got to the door.
         “Come right in, Detective.” One of them moved aside for him.
         The front parlor was filled with loitering policemen who merely showed him towards the staircase before continuing their conversation over coffee, which the maid had prepared. He followed the clicks of cameras’ flashbulbs and crinkle of plastic bags to the study where the Lieutenant of police was stationed with a crew of seven or more scientists and investigators.
         “What happened?” Peter asked.
         The Lieutenant turned to look at him. “A homicide set to look like a suicide. You know.”
         “Quite.”
         The Lieutenant of police was a woman about a head taller than Peter. Her red-brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail out of her face and she was wearing a man’s uniform; too baggy around the shoulders and tight around the bust and hips. She had her arms crossed against her chest, resting her weight on her back foot and biting her lip as she oversaw the work.
         “She was hanging from the chandelier, when the whole thing went down. The crash woke up the house and that’s about when they called the police. Everyone in house confirms the victim as Mme Chantal DuPage, lady of the house.”
         “So what did you find to think it was a homicide?”
         “She has no rope burns around her neck and the doctors that came by said her neck wasn’t broken and her windpipe intact. They said there was no way she would have died from the rope, she wasn’t up there long enough.”
         “Even so, it would have shattered her windpipe.”
         The Lieutenant shrugged. “I just report. You figure it out. And get this: there are no other marks on her body. She wasn’t stabbed or shot. The only thing we found was a couple of bruises.”
         “No one left the house?”
         “Of course not,” she said. “What kind of a system do you think I run? I’m not sloppy!”
         “I’m sorry to have doubted you, Lieutenant.”
         “Are you going to run another questioning?”
         “Depends on what you found?”
         “Nothing really. Everyone had a motive.”
        The servants were all in the house. That was confirmed by M. DuPage. Dinner that night went according to plan: the lord and lady of the house were entertaining several guests including the wealthy Leponts and their son Samuel. The table was set with blue linen with white napkins with the good silver ware and blue china dishes. Several times, their cherished cook had to bustle people out of the kitchen so that she could finish her work with no distractions. Banisters were dusted twice and the candles lit moments before the guests had arrived. While the occasion was mostly to impress the Leponts so that they consented to marry their son to Elise DuPage, the only daughter of the DuPage family, the other guests there talked about politics and gossip that was going around the “common people.” The marriage would mean the well being of their daughter, who otherwise, would end up working in a factory or in the poor house. In an effort to save their family name, the DuPage family was using the influences they could.
        Chantal DuPage was very well connected to her daughter and noticed every blush and shy look Samuel and Elise shared more than anyone else present. The two had been seeing each other long before the marriage was even brought up to M. DuPage. All the previous events had brought Chantal to suggest the marriage to her husband, but she did so extremely discretely and pretended, this night, to take no precedence in the orchestration of the evening. It was a night when the two men of the households would decide for themselves if the marriage would work. None of the other guests suspected a thing and when M. DuPage and M. Lepont talked in the parlor after dinner over coffee, it was a bit of a surprise to the family, though a pleasant one. Samuel was the oldest son, but he was a bit lame from childhood illness and walked with a limp and crutches, if he walked at all. Most of the time, he was in a wheelchair and excluded from regular conversation because of his disability. M. Lepont was afraid he would have trouble marrying him off, despite the fortune connected with the eldest son, but his fears were diminished by the polite invitation of M. DuPage. Still, he wondered how desperate the DuPage family would by to ask for their only daughter to marry his son. He had tried before and failed to marry his oldest son off, it was quite a change for someone to ask and he was a bit wary.
        The conversation ended in indecision, but with high hopes. Mme DuPage went up to her bedroom after the festivities and got ready for bed before joining her husband later in the library to discuss the marriage proposal. The house was still when M. DuPage left the room and returned to the bedroom before a crash sent him back to the library to find his wife tied up in the chandelier, now on the floor.
        “Whether or not he was surprised at this is up to question,” Peter said as he paced the parlor between the household staff and guests. Everyone alive was assembled before him looking a bit nervous and ill. The room was as still as a photograph and Peter had the impression if he dropped a handkerchief on the carpet, it would make a noise.
        “Well,” he said laughing, a little, “I can say with absolute certainty that he was surprised to find his wife like that. After interviewing all of the people involved in that night and carefully matching up stories, I’ve determined who did it.”
        “Please, Detective, we don’t have all day,” the Lieutenant said softly. Even though the room was silent, he knew that he was the only one to truly hear her.
        “Well, the murderer knows how she did it, so I don’t need to recount it to you. Elise, why don’t you come along with our lovely lieutenant of police? No one here wants to hurt you in a struggle.”
Elise nodded her copper head and stepped forward. A shudder wound through the room like a breeze in winter, but Elise remained strong as she held her hands out to be tied up.
        “Why, Elise?” Samuel asked.
        Her eyes glittered with tears. “She knew, Sam. I couldn’t keep it in and I didn’t want her to tell…”
        “Knew?” M. DuPont prompted.
        Elise fixed on her hands without a word
        “Do you mind if I share?” Peter gently asked. When she didn’t answer, he continued, “I had mentioned prior that Elise and Samuel had been seeing each other. But they stopped when Elise found out she was pregnant. It was hard for her to keep in, so she told her mother, as happy as she was at the time, and her servant. Mme DuPont promptly started convincing her husband to go through with the marriage. But apparently our young murderess was scared her mother would tell her father in an effort to convince him to marry them off and poisoned her mother’s tea during desert. Mme DuPont didn’t actually touch the beverage until she was in the library talking with her husband. Once M. DuPont left, she dropped dead and Mlle DuPont, who was hiding in the closet, tied her up in the chandelier, knocked out the footstool from under her, and ran out of the room to her bedroom across the hall. There was the bang and she ran out again to join the rest of the household in the library.”
        Silence met his words as everyone stared dumbstruck at the carpeting. M. Lepont looked furious but he refused to look at M. DuPont, who had slumped down onto the nearest chair and remained looking down.
        “We’d better go,” the lieutenant said, gently leading Elise out the door. Elise gave one fleeting glance to Samuel before she left, making eye contact with no one else before the door slammed shut.
        The room remained precisely the way it was as he was giving his recap of the events the night before. The silence was deafening and the stillness of the room made him think of wax figures.
        “What’s going to happen to the baby?”
        The question came so fast and quiet, Peter lost the speaker in the suddenness of it. “We’ll take care of her. Lieutenant Payne never mistreats her prisoners.”
        Silence.
        “Well then, I’ll leave you all to your preparations for the funeral. I’m sure the trial will be next week, but you’ll have to keep in touch with the lieutenant. Well, you all must be very busy so I will leave you to your work.”
Peter tipped his hat and walked out the door closing it gently behind him as he left. The cars were gone off the driveway and the crowd had dispersed with the police. Poor girl, Peter thought as he got into his black car and drove away from the large DuPage Estate.

Lost Richard -Part 4

        I thought it best to take the path Richard had originally taken. I might have found a clue to his whereabouts anywhere along the route. The forest was thick with brown and gray trees, the different shades of bark making stripes on the landscape. The trees on the outside of the forest were still fairly leafy, as they got more sun, but the trees in the woods were just about naked for winter. Very few people were walking along the path because the sky was gray and rumbling, but I had given myself a few hours of research and knew I had to keep looking for Richard. The leaves crackled under my feet as I strayed on and off the path searching for a bit off color among the trees. There was very little other noise. I peered into the ravines and behind large trees, occasionally looking up into the bare branches, but the only bit of color I saw was a cardinal.
         The sky gave one last rumble before a lightning crack signaled the large drops of rain. I opened the umbrella I was carrying and trudged onward. With the rain, came the usual cold wind and you feel as if there is no way you can stay warm and dry. I never really liked that feeling of a thunderstorm; it’s too hopeless, especially for my current job. If the weather got worse, I promised myself, I would go home. But if I could help it, I would search the forest until I was positive Richard was not there.
         I could see the leafy trees at the edge of the forest when a shape caught my eye. I almost passed it up for a rock, but it was shivering and sobbing softly. I walked over to it and knelt down.
         “What’s wrong?”
         The figure shot up like a rocket, brown eyes wide in surprise. Then the boy calmed down and swallowed hard before standing up. I stood up as well. The boy was about a head taller than me and skinny as a rail. He was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans and soaking wet from lying in the rain. His face and hair were dirty and his jeans had dirt on the knees and the bottom hem. His sneakers were splattered with mud and the leather was scratched. He had a few bruises and blood was caked on his lower lip, but there was no serious injury that I could tell.
         “I got lost in the forest on my way home,” he said.
         “Would you like me to take you back?”
         “Yes, please,” the boy said, mustering a smile. “I’m Allen Williams, by the way.”
         “Sarah Smyth. Where do you live?”
         “Oh, I just need to get out of the forest and then I’ll be fine.”
         “All right.”
         I moved my umbrella so the boy could share it and started back towards the path. I didn’t let my guard down, though. It was strange for someone to by lying on the ground when it was pouring rain. Suddenly it hit me: Richard was a good liar. The rain lessened until it was just a mist by the time we made our way to the well-worn snake of leaves and dirt.
         “So, what were you doing in the forest?” I asked. I was hoping to catch him off guard.
         “Oh… I was trying to find some leaves for a school project.”
         “But didn’t you know it was going to rain?”
         “I thought I could do it before it did. Apparently I was wrong.” He smiled. “What were you doing there?”
         “Just taking a stroll.”
         As we walked a short rhythmic jingle accompanied our steps. The boy put his hand in his jeans pocket and the sound stopped, but he needn’t have, I knew what it was right away. I glanced at the boy’s pocket. It bulged quite a bit on the side I was looking at and the wet jeans hugged a circular object. It rattled very quietly as the boy walked. He shoved his hand into his other pocket to seem congruent, I suppose, but he had to stop just above where the object was.
         We were almost at the edge of the forest and the line of blue sky was a single vertical stripe. My companion seemed a little on edge, as if one spurt of energy and he could get free, but he would also give away his position.
         “What’s in your pocket?” I asked.
         “Oh, just…” his hand felt around the curve while he searched for an answer. He was obviously extremely nervous and if I hadn’t nonchalantly stepped in front of him, he would have taken off like a rocket.
         “May I see it?”
         “Huh? Oh sure, I guess.” He pulled out the bronze compass fit for a ship’s captain. The letters—S, N, W, and E—were illuminated in red and blue. The gold arrow pointed behind them to a number 20 between the S and W. The boy’s hand shook.
        “Heh, didn’t know it was in there,” he laughed nervously.
        “Richard, you need to go home.”
        “What? How’d you know…No Way! I can’t go back!”
        “Your mother is worried sick about you and she hired me to find you. If I have to, I can use force, but I don’t want to and I’m not going to if you’ll just go back home.”
        “She isn’t my mother! She lied to me!”
        “And you lied to me; I’m not getting upset.”
        “But…” he paused. “I’ve always thought of her as a mother and she’s not. Why didn’t she just…why didn’t my real mom want…”
        Richard dropped the compass and visually swallowed back tears. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I didn’t think trying to convince him to come back would be such a good idea at the moment.
        “Why would I want to go back to someone who doesn’t even love me? Why didn’t she just tell me herself? Too afraid how I would react? Wouldn’t it have been better if she had told me instead of waiting until I found out?” He left his train of thought and turned to me. “You don’t have a right to tell me what I should and should not do. You’re not part of the police.”
        “And if I was?”
        I let the question hang in the air. “If we get to town, I can use a pay phone and call the police to get you home.”
        “You wouldn’t do that.”
        “I might. It’s your choice.”
        Richard stared at me in thought for a moment before relaxing his grip. He walked quickly down the path but once he was at the edge of the street, glanced at me, and started to run. There was nothing else to do, but to run after him.
        Besides being a good liar, Richard was also a good runner and he was far ahead of me when I got to the street. It seemed like Richard kept getting farther and farther away as we ran into town. If he hadn’t tripped, I wouldn’t have caught up with him. I was lucky.
        I realized then, when I had his arms pinned behind his back, my mistake. My car was in front of the house while I was here. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking when I did this, as I was sure he wouldn’t come voluntarily, but that didn’t change the fact that it was there, and I was here.
        “I’ll give you one more chance to just come home,” I said. I was bluffing, sure, but it was worth a shot.
He started to cry, but he was doing his best not to let me know. “Just tell me one thing, why would anyone think its better to be left in ignorance?” I let go of one of his arms and he turned to face me.
        “I can’t say, for sure, but she might have just wanted you happy with a mother thinking she was your own than knowing you…well…”
        “Weren’t wanted.” He sighed. “I don’t know where to go; I don’t know who to call mom or where to call home. I don’t know what to do.”
        “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you to your house and your room and you can talk it over with your mother. You need to think and be rational about what you’re going to do next. Maybe you have to just let it sit until you’re out of high school before looking for your mother. What if you wrote her a letter? These are just suggestions, but running away didn’t seem to solve anything. You have to find it inside yourself.”
         “Yeah. Well, thanks.”
         “Don’t mention it.”
         I took him the rest of the way home; Charlotte seemed ecstatic that he was back. Richard smiled half-heartedly and went inside while she ran down the steps to pay and thank me. I told her it wasn’t a problem before walking back to my car. I don’t know why, but I glanced out the window of my car to the house as I put the key in the ignition and saw Richard waving to me from his bedroom window. He didn’t wear a big smile, but it was still there. I suppose he thought it was a necessary gesture because he continued waving as I drove off down the street and out of sight.

Lost Richard -Part 3

        “What do you mean by that?” I asked taking the opportunity that she might have some more information she was willing to tell in spite of her sister, but Catherine didn’t continue when Charlotte coming back in the room. She dropped a cream colored envelope on the table in front of them. The green cursive writing on the envelope might have passed it off for being a wedding invitation, except that the return label was for a company stationed in Quebec. I took out the letter and started to read:

  Dear Ms. Charlotte Winston,
         Thank you for your last letter in regards to Richard’s achievements. I appreciate all the news you have been giving me and I truly miss him, as you can understand. Both his father and I are extremely thankful for what you have done for the family, but we won’t be able to afford a payment this month. We hope you are getting enough money from your profession to get by. We are more than willing to pay double next month. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience.
         Now that the business is out of the way, how are you? I’ve been keeping up with the newspaper almost avidly and I make sure to see you on the cast list. I wish I could have come down and seen you in Macbeth, but, well, work comes first. I hope you understand and I’m sorry. I would have liked to see you again.
         As to your previous question, the formality of the letter is necessary to the disguise of our correspondence. I hate using this language as much as you and the company I work with does not like a thief taking the envelopes. If I’m fired, I will still have to use these confounded envelopes! But I digress; I apologize for the inconvenience. But if it’s any consolation, you are such a wonderful actress.
Please send more of Richard’s work. We love to know about him. We would ask for custody back, but the shock of knowing the truth might be too much. I think it’s better this way; please let me know if you feel otherwise.

     Sincerely,
         Margaret DuQuay

         I wasn’t sure what to do with this new information. It blew all of the other theories out of the water and surfaced new questions. I looked up at Charlotte who took in a shaky breath; Catherine flicked her cigarette out the window and came back to join us.
         “Why were you sending letters to this Mrs. DuQuay about Richard?” I had a theory, but again, I wanted solid fact.
         “I think you better start with Richard’s father,” Catherine said.
         Charlotte sighed. “Margaret, Jack and I were friends in high school. Jacques, really, but everyone called him Jack. He and Margaret would fight a lot, but there was that one Christmas when she and I were out and ran into him. And it started with a fight, but I guess they realized they had a lot in common. I know Margaret had a lot of problems at home and it wasn’t really a surprise to me when she called me up that summer and told me she was pregnant. They love each other, they really, do, and although they wanted the child, they couldn’t keep him.”
         “So they gave you their child?”
         “This was the summer after she graduated from high school. I was two years older than her, so I had already been off to school. Margaret came one day in August after the baby was born and brought him over with the birth certificate, saying that he was named Richard and gave me an address where I could write. So, I somewhat had custody.”
         “But you forget,” Catherine chimed in, “Mom and Dad were furious about you ending up with a son. Especially since you refused to come back home over breaks. And, oops, you end up pregnant without mother hearing about it? Believe me, you could have bathed in the tension.”
         “I didn’t want to take him! I just couldn’t say no to her. Mar was almost a younger sister to me and she needed help. She was just a child. So I finished school and then came back here to live with Ri—”
         “And where’s the part where the only call you got from Mom since was when Dad died. Isn’t that why you came back? You’re also forgetting the five hour yelling match you had when Rich was seven. That’s the first time he ran away. Forgive me for being harsh, dear sister, but you tore this family apart with this drama. You were more interested in a sister who you weren’t even related to than one who started smoking because she lost her father and had no one to comfort her.”
         “I’m sorry to keep bringing up family issues,” I said as my head started to throb, “but I need to know what happened if we’re going to find Richard. What happened after that? Do you know where Margaret is now?”
         “Quebec,” Charlotte said, “Jack went back to his home and he took Mar with him. She works for a perfume industry as a secretary. Jack is part of the tourism industry and works as a French announcer for the changing of the guard.”
         “Rich’ll come back,” Catherine said standing up. “He didn’t bring any money with him and it’s a long walk to Quebec.”
         “Is that what you meant ‘that he hasn’t really left.’”
         Catherine let out a short laugh. “He used to come into the kitchen and steal some food before getting out again. I’ve seen him running from the house once or twice, but he hasn’t come back for at least twenty-four hours.”
         “Why don’t you stop him?” Charlotte screamed.
         “Because he needs to find a way home. He needs to find the truth, he needs to know his parents, he needs to start making decisions on his own. He needs to get away from here. If I make him stay, he’ll keep leaving. If you try and get the truth out of him, he’ll keep lying. Now that he knows what he does, he won’t go back to being the innocent, gullible, little boy. And for god’s sake, he’s fifteen!”
         I cleared my throat and thankfully, it cut down the drama. “I believe whether or not you will let him see his parents is up to you, after he is returned home. However, at fifteen, he is still a minor and leaving him out of the house is considered neglect. For your sake, legally, I will pretend that you never saw him after he left and go on from there. Afterwards, you have to escort him to Quebec if that is what you want. Now, Catherine, do you know any places where he might be?”
         She sighed. “He heads off to the woods northeast from here, through the yards in a straight diagonal. If he turns off before then, I don’t know. But he really likes the woods. He left with his house key and a compass in his pocket. But that’s it. He ran into his room, slammed the door and once Char was in hers, he was out the front. The entire escape took, maybe, a minute.”
         “Well, thank you for your time.”

Lost Richard -Part 2

        “I’ll see what I can do.”
         Which is what lead me on Sunday to the Winston house. It was wedged between two others in the middle of the city and almost hidden by a line of cars. The white paint was peeling off the bricks and the windows were opaque with dirt. Christmas lights were peeking out from under the gutter and a faded welcome mat sunk into the cement porch in front of the door. I walked up to the door and knocked, but the woman who answered the door was not Charlotte.
         “Who are you? What do you want?”
         I flashed my identification. “I just want to check Richard’s room.”
         “There’s nothing to find,” the woman said, but she moved out of the way for me to pass. I followed the contour of the hall to a bright yellow “Do Not Enter” sign.
         “In here,” the woman said pointing to the door. “You’re lucky; Charlotte didn’t have the heart to move anything.”
         It was hard to tell whether or not there had been a struggle in the room. Clothes were all over the floor, bed covers draped off the bed, and schoolbooks overflowed from the desk to the floor. But no furniture was overturned and the window wasn’t open.
         I moved cautiously about the room. It looked like a typical teenager’s abode. I looked through a few papers, but they were all homework or notes home. There were a few unfinished letters to Feagle Publishing Company with stories and scripts, but no other clue of his disappearance. I took one last look around the room for good measure before going back out to the hall.
         “Is Ms. Charlotte Winston here?” I asked a little more formally than I had originally intended.
         “She’s in rehearsal,” the woman said as she moved back down the hall. We reached the living room and the woman sat down in the nearest chair before half-heartedly motioning for me to join her.
         “Are you related to Ms. Winston?” I asked taking a seat on the couch across from her.
         “Her sister,” the woman said pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. She let out a puff of smoke. “I hope you don’t mind if I smoke.”
         “Um, no, I suppose not. What do you know about Richard’s disappearance?”
         “The kid was smart and an excellent liar. As to why he would disappear, your guess is as good as mine.”
         “How do you know he was an excellent liar?”
         She let out a stream of smoke. “There was a time he snuck out of school and took the train downtown to see his father’s grave and when he got back to school he told them he was getting sick in the bathroom, when he blacked out and that’s why he was gone. So they sent him home and he spent the day watching TV and reading.”
         “How do you know this?”
         She shrugged. “Someone had to pick him up.”
         At this point, I reassessed. Whatever story he gave to his disappearance was not necessarily reliable fact. The most obvious reason for his disappearance would be to a publishing company, but I didn’t know what Charlotte’s attitude was towards this endeavor. If she supported him, he wouldn’t have run away. He might have gotten fed up with the dynamics between his aunt and him mother, which was a clear possibility, and being a teenager, decided to run away. None of these reasons seemed like very good ones, but I was working with a teenage kid, not a mastermind.
         Besides there was the larger issue of the gaping hole facing me: why would Richard visit his father’s grave if he didn’t know who his father was?
         “I thought Charlotte didn’t know who the father was.”
         “Is that what she told you?” Charlotte’s sister laughed. “She seems to like that story. Unfortunately she told the kid his father died in a car crash. That’s why he’s not allowed to drive.”
         “What’s the truth?”
         The woman shrugged. “You believe what you want to believe from what people tell you. The truth is irrelevant so long as the facts you know points to an answer.”
         I seldom got frustrated. It was much harder to piece the facts together if your mind is automatically shutting out information. But, especially in cases of missing persons, I’ve had much better cooperation with the people I interview. I think what was really frustrating to me, though, was not that she wasn’t giving me information, but that she was right in her assessment.
         I decided to go on another path that I wasn’t sure was fruitful. But I had to clear my head again. “What do you know about Richard wanting to get published?”
         “He’s a good liar; he makes up good stories. He has a big ego sometimes and he’s got a bit of an irrational streak. I suppose he gets that from my sister.”
         “Do you know of any problems at school that might cause him to run away?”
         “No, he seems pretty satisfied all things considered.”
         “Considering?”
         “It’s his first year of high school.”
         The door opened just then and Charlotte came into the room with a tote bag over her shoulder. She seemed tired and she was obviously displeased after discovering cigarette smoke in the air.
         “Oh,” she exclaimed as she spotted me sitting on the couch. I didn’t think she should have been that surprised. “Did you find him?”
         I shook my head. “I was just here to try and find more leads.”
         Her face clouded. “Oh.”
         She went into the kitchen and put down her bag with a thud on the table before joining her sister and myself in the living room. Charlotte let out a short but loud cough before sitting down and clearing her throat. Her sister leaned over and put her cigarette out in an ashtray on the table.
        “Well what else do you need to know?” Charlotte asked.
         “I was just wondering what you know about any problems he may be having at school. And I spotted some letters in his room about getting some things of his published; what do you know of that?”
         “He loves school and all of his teachers think he’s a joy to have in class. As far as I know, he hasn’t had any problems at school with his friends; he seems to be adapting just fine. As for the publishing contract, well…I thought I made it quite clear that I did not want him to worry about that while he had school work…” she stopped and clasped her hand to her mouth, “you don’t think I was too hard on him, do you? I didn’t think he should have spent his time worrying about writing books when he should have been doing his homework!”
         “No, no, I don’t think you were too hard on him,” I said. “You had a right as his mother to say that. It wasn’t over the top.” But this information did add to my theory of his rebelling to get published. It was improbable, I know, but I didn’t want to dismiss anything without a solid contradiction.
         “For heavens sakes, Char! You told him that way before he ran away; you can’t even pretend to link the two!” her sister said.
         “What happened the night before he left?”
         Charlotte glanced at her sister. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
         Her sister rolled her eyes. “Oh no, sis! Nothing happened out of the ordinary.”
         “Mm-hm,” I said. “What really happened?” I practically prayed someone would break down and share a little bit of the truth.
         “He was going through the mail earlier that day and found a letter addressed to Charlotte,” Catherine said before Charlotte could stop her. Charlotte slapped her sister on her knee, but Catherine just continued. “When he gave her the mail, she whisked it away to her room and he was curious. So he snuck in and read it. She found him and they started fighting, so he left that night through the front door.”
         “He left through the front door?!” Charlotte screeched. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
         “He needed to let off a little steam; he’ll come back.”
         “And has he? It’s been at least three days and he hasn’t come back!”
         “Please,” I said. “May I see that letter?” I guess you could say arguing when I was gathering information was a pet peeve of mine.
         Charlotte glared at her sister, who merely pulled out another cigarette and lit it before smirking back.
         “He’ll be back.”
         “May I see the letter?”
         Charlotte got up from her chair and went down the hall. Catherine got up as well a little while after her sister, but walked over to the dining room and opened a window. She stayed by the open window and blew the smoke outside.
         “He’ll come back,” she said quietly, “because he hasn’t really left.”

Lost Richard -Part 1

        “Every night I used to do the same thing. I would make sure the lights were off, the curtains drawn, the house locked. And I would check to make sure he was all right before I went to bed. Sometimes he would wake up and tell me not to worry. I didn’t want to worry I just…and then, he…”
         She pulled a cotton handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed her eyes for a moment before giving up and sobbing into it. Her muffled wet sniffs and sobs filled the room, sobs like a small child and quite loud, reminding me of a baby squirrel calling out into the early morning for its mother. I never liked the sound of baby squirrels.
         “And then?” I patiently said when her sobs had quieted down. I picked up her teacup from the rim and handed it to her in the hopes that she would pause to take a sip and calm down. Tea always seemed to have that effect for me: it cleared my mind. She looked at me with large, wet, green eyes, but didn’t take the cup.
         “He was gone!”
        It was a Saturday afternoon and after getting a phone call that a woman was at my office in utter hysterics hoping to speak with me, I got into my car and drove over to the office to meet Charlotte Winston, an aspiring young actress who lived in a small townhouse with her son, Richard. She was a delicate woman with large red lips and frizzy blond hair. Her body was long and slender and moved gracefully, even as her shoulders bobbed up and down to her sobs.
         “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” I asked.
         “If I knew do you think I would be coming to you?”
         I took a deep breath and stood up to look out the window at the cars driving by. I took a sip of tea and waited for her to continue. I’m not usually an impatient soul, but I was hoping not to get any work today and since I had come especially, I wanted a little more cooperation. But she was the customer and I had to be patient.
         “No, I don’t know where he went,” she sniffed. “I just went to his room to wake him up for school and he wasn’t there.”
         “Are there any places he liked to visit?”
         She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
         “What does he look like?”
         “He’s tall, has brown hair and brown eyes, fifteen years old, fairly muscular, you know, a regular kid.”
         “May I have a recent picture of him?”
         She fumbled with her purse and pulled out a glossy picture of a lanky youth posing next to a picnic table on a sunny day. It was hard to tell his eye color, but his hair was much darker than his mother’s. I thought it was interesting that he didn’t seem to have a speck of his mother’s physical traits in him. I made a mental note of that in case it was important later.
         “Is there anybody who would want to kidnap your son for any reason at all?” I had to ask.
         She placed her head delicately on her hand and looked up at the ceiling. “No, I don’t think so. My family…well if they even recognize him as part of the family at all, they wouldn’t dare take him from my home. Most of them don’t even look at him. No, there’s no one who would dare do that.”
         “What about the father?”
         “I don’t know his father. I was too drunk to tell a bed from a chair.”
         She looked up at me, her lip pouted out and her eyes widened, as if expecting me to pass some sort of unwanted judgment. I was in no state to bother with that.
         “I’ll see what I can do.”

Train of Thought (Part 2)

           Alex watched the last little boy gallop up the golden stairs with a rock in his heart. The train whistled impatiently and opened her doors to the last car. Throughout the ride, she had seemed more and more intolerant of small cliché slip-ups and he was getting more and more nervous the more cars he visited. She seemed to dislike that he had traveled so far into the game and now that he was almost done, irritably impatient. The last car was dusty except for one seat where a tall adolescent sat with a little girl on his lap. The girl’s breathing was labored and stuffy as she slept cuddled next to the boy’s body. The boy holding her looked no older than sixteen and he gently cradled her back and forth. Noticing Alex, he started to stand up, but Alex stopped him with a short raise of his hand and sat down in the seat adjacent.
           “It was December,” Alex started gazing at the girl, “when Frederik’s sister fell ill.” The lights started to flicker, but Alex ignored them. “Frederik lived alone with his sister in a small cottage next to the church. He was a stubborn boy and insisted that he have his own house. His parents had left them alone at least seven winters ago and Frederik was just getting used to living on their own. The pastor and his wife watched over them, but mostly, they were self-sufficient. So when she became ill, he didn’t know what to do for her and asked the pastor’s wife for help. She ended up taking away his sister into the church leaving Frederik utterly alone.”
           The second boy cocked his head at Alex with a tint of anger. “What sort of story is this?” he asked.
           Alex shook his head. “I’ve to keep going wherever it leads.”
           The boy set his jaw and brushed a bit of hair from the little girl’s face. From the look of her sweaty locks, she had a fever, but was still sleeping soundly. The train started to speed up in warning, but the lights remained constant.
           “In search for a friend, Frederik traveled the lands alone. A few people he met let him stay the night and gave him food, but their kindness seemed plastic and forced. He traveled on until he came to a ladder going up into the boughs of a tree. He couldn’t see any end to the ladder or where he would end up if he climbed it, but upward and onward he went. Eventually he reached the boughs of the tree and sitting among them was a little orange bird. The bird turned to him and started to sing. Frederik felt something tugging at his back, but he ignored it and pulled himself up so that he was sitting on the top rung of the ladder.”
           The train shook and the lights flickered, but Alex continued through the chaos. The little girl had woken up and the young man was rocking her gently back and forth. “The bird hit the final note of its song and in a soundless flap, fluttered upwards. Forced by something he didn’t know, Frederik soared above the clouds his newly formed orange wings beating steadily behind him. The bird led him to a mountaintop that was devoid of snow where an entire village of people with brightly colored wings lived. They came out to greet him from their huts on the peak.”
           The station started to pull into view and Alex’s stomach knotted up. “With the growth of new wings, Frederik forgot his sister and lived contentedly the rest of his days with his new-found friends.”
           The door to the train creaked open and Alex got out. The boy carrying the little girl followed him into the familiar station. The train sped off with an indignant huff and left the three of them in the exact subway station where Alex had started.
           “Didn’t you get my message?” the boy asked sitting down on the bench and cradling the little girl.
           “What are you talking about?”
           The boy sighed and visibly swallowed back tears. “There’s a catch. The girl you first met, Persephone, her sole purpose is to get people to go into the second train. So, she tells them to do a noble cause and go into the first, and the first train takes you in a circle for the second train to pick you up. The game is rigged: everyone wins no matter how creative they are or not. The rules only apply to the last car and if you don’t succeed, you have to stay there.” The boy paused and looked down at the little girl. “She’s cold,” he said and felt her sweaty neck for a pulse. “She’s been sick since we got onto that car.”
           Alex bit his lip. “What’s the next part of the game?”
           “You get into the second train and you’re never seen again.”
           Time seemed to stop as the boy dropped the girl and let her slip off his lap. The thud of her dead body hitting the ground reverberated around the walls and up the stairs, echoing Alex’s sealed fate. Alex sat down next to the boy as he started to cry and held him closer as if sympathy enough could suppress the pained sobs.
           “My sister and I,” the boy said pushing himself upright and rubbing away his tears, “were just walking downtown looking for a present for our mother when we realized that it was getting really late, so we went down to the nearest subway station. Persephone approached me down here and told me that the train was done for the day, but if I went into the first train, I could get home pretty fast. So I do what she says because, by now, my sister is scared stiff. And we met this little boy who explained the rules of the game. By the time we got to the last car, my sister had probably gotten herself sick from crying and the temperature changes. It was freezing in the car and warm outside, so whenever the door opened…” The boy paused and bit his lip to stop crying. “God, it’s almost as if they wanted her to die.” He took a deep breath. “In the last car, there was an elderly man being held at gunpoint by a deranged man. The gunman told me that he figured out the game and that the point of it is to die. The old man just sat there and stared and says in this mechanic voice—I’ll never forget it—he said that the point of the game is to go into the second train where you will just keep going until you hit your destination. And the gunman yelled at the old man asking where the destination is. My sister was hysterical and the train had started going down the track when all of a sudden, the old man grabs the gun from the second man and shoots him screaming that he’s scaring the child. Everything was silent and he dropped the gun and told me to start telling him a story. So I did and when the station pulled up, I stayed on the train. Persephone kept coming back to take me out of the train, but for some reason she couldn’t go into the car. Finally, she told the first train to get a move on. We got around to our beginning destination enough times that I stopped counting at fifty-five. My sister got worse and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know if Persephone stopped getting storytellers for spite, or they never got farther than the second car, but regardless we stayed there. One day she let me out only because I complained about the dead man and she let me carry him to an alley and leave him there. That’s when I left that note in the alleyway for you, because I knew that you could get us out of here.”
           Alex frowned. “How did you know that?”
           The boy smiled. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m that boy who used to travel on your train every morning. Tony took a lot of pictures of me looking out that window. You know, the one you wrote Autumn about.”
           “I didn’t know you knew about that.”
           “I didn’t until I became part of the system,” the boy stood up. “Every time we came to the last station, the doors would open and Persephone would be waiting for me to come out. Often she would talk to me, but one of these times I noticed that there was an underlying voice to the one she was projecting into my head. And when I focused on that voice very well, I could hear what it was saying. I realized that I could hear her thoughts; the real thoughts that she has that she thinks no one can hear. But I can eavesdrop on those conversations she has with other people in their heads, too. I can sort of sense her when she’s near and what she’s thinking. She has no idea I can do that.”
           The second train started rumbling down the track like an impending storm. The boy stood up. “I’m Chris. And I think I can be use to you in part two of her game.”
           Alex sighed and faced the upcoming train. He picked up Chris’ dead sister and placed her neatly on the bench. “I have a feeling I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

The Hitchiker

            Shayna stopped the car in front of the old railroad station and clicked the button in her new car to unlock the doors. Her hitchhiker got out and bowed his head to her.
            “Thank you very much, ma’am,” he said with a slight English accent. He pulled the collar of his navy blue trench coat closer against the new wind. His short leather-brown hair glistened in the moonlight and blew over his face with the sudden gust. She could have sworn his brown eyes glow in the light as he closed the door gently and start walking towards the tracks.
            A train hadn’t gone down those tracks in at least a decade, but Shayna was never one to question or argue when a stranger stood in the pouring rain against the edge of the woods waiting for a passing car. She didn’t ask where he had come from either when he pulled out a train ticket and very politely asked to be taken to the old station from the train number on the card. She sighed and put her handheld pistol back in the glove box before quickly driving away.
            A few miles down the street, she glanced in her rearview mirror at the blaring cop car following her. She stopped on the shoulder of the road and rolled down her windows.
            “Sorry to bother you ma’am,” the police officer said, “but have you seen a man about age twenty wearing a blue trench coat with dark brown hair and brown eyes? He’s been seen about the area.”
            Shayna’s mind went utterly blank. Her thoughts scattered like rabbits when they hear a gunshot and she looked around her, bewildered. Why the hell am I driving right now? she thought before looking back at the cop, pretending that she hadn’t forgotten when he had pulled her over. She shook her head partly to clear away the emptiness that was pressuring the inside of her skull. “No I haven’t seen anyone like that.”
            “We’re just asking that if you do see him not to pick him up.”
            “No problem.”
            “Thank you, ma’am. Have a nice night.”
            Oh that’s right,she thought, as soon as the police car was well on its way, I’m on my way home. She stepped on the accelerator of her new car and sped on the old country road towards her house.

The Caretakers

Originally published April 01, 2006

                “Oh, no!” she gasped. She stared at the bare floor where her seventy-five thousand dollar rug was lying before she went to sleep that night. Now at nine o’clock in the morning, there was nothing there but wood floor and a note conspicuously placed on the spot that it had been. She ran down the stairs and picked up the note before running into the study, hoping no one in the house woke up. She closed the door quickly, locked it and turned on the light that sat dimly in the middle of the worktable. She cautiously opened the piece of paper, breaking the purple, wax seal pressed with a picture of a house in flames. Her hands started to shake and she became pale as she read through the letter: You’re payments are way past due, Celia, and we have given you a final warning. Fortunately, we have discovered the exact amount we needed in your home last night and we will receive this in exchange for the alternative. I hope you don’t cross us again and continue to send the proper amount to The Sender at the bank.  Should you mention this event or letter to anyone, remember what happened to Rachael and don’t underestimate our network. Thank you for your payment, and make sure your payments are not late, again. No substitution will work next time. Sincerely, The Caretakers. Ps. I’m sure your husband would love to hear about that affair you’ve been having for some time, especially since you have the baby coming. But don’t worry; we won’t harm the child.
                A rapid knocking on the door made Celia jump as she hid the letter in her slipper and ran to open the thick polyester curtains. Sunlight burst into the space as she ran across to the other side of the room, switching the light off as she went.
                “Celia, what’s wrong? And what happened to the rug I bought you in China?” her husband asked her through the still closed door. His voice was slightly muffled, but it was still apparent that he was worried about her. Her heart sank as she thought of the future child that most likely wasn’t his, but he would see as his own, anyway.
                She frantically ran to the door, trying to make as little noise as possible and unlocked it. “I’m sorry, love. The rug is getting cleaned right now. I didn’t tell you. It’ll be back next week.” At least, she thought, it will give me a week to find it and replace it with cash.
                “As long as you know where it is,” her husband led her into the room and sat her down, taking the chair across from her. “But, what was all that yelling about?”
                “Oh, just pains. I’m sure this baby will be a soccer player with they way he or she kicks,” she smiled slightly and took her husband’s hand.
                “And why were you locked up in the study?”
                “Oh, you know how vocal I am. I didn’t want to wake you.”
                Her husband smiled at her and stood up. “You should have thought of that before you screamed the first time. But I’m glad everything is all right.”
                She smiled until he left the room when she collapsed and put her head in her hands. She listened for the click of the door upstairs when her husband closed the door of the library to start work. She slowly got up and tiptoed up the stairs to her bedroom and sat down at the vanity. She pulled out pearl necklaces and diamond bracelets frantically and placed them in a cardboard box before getting dressed and going down to the bank. She waited until the desk in the farthest corner was open and stepped up.
                “Yes, may I help you?” An ageless woman sat at the desk with golden brown hair and hazel eyes behind glasses. She smiled a usual plastic smile of a corporate worker having a long day, but there was fire behind her eyes that seemed out of place.
                “I’d like to send this to my caretakers,” she said giving the woman the box. “Next day delivery, if possible.”
                The woman frowned slightly, and placed the box in her desk. Her eyes still seemed to have a mischievous look, but she said in an absolutely serious tone: “That’s going to cost a little extra.”
                “How much?” Celia asked hurriedly pulling her wallet out of her purse.
                “Twenty dollars,” the woman said as she pulled out a blue form from a filing cabinet and started filling out information.
                Celia pulled out a fresh twenty from her pocket and placed it on the desk, quickly leaving the bank. When she got home, she found a note on her pillow.
                Thank you for your next payment. We appreciate the promptness of this installment. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you. Sincerely, The Caretakers.

Betelgeuse VII: Answers

            They took a taxi down to the bus station and waited in long lines to pay their fare. Cindy looked at her watch: five o’clock. Aaron seemed nervous, but whenever she would turn to ask him if he was all right, he would just bite his lip and nod.
            “Are you sure we have to do this?” he said, again.
            She gave him an exasperated look, but paused as she watched him following her blindly down to the terminal. He was staring out the windows and she could see he was giving it all his effort not cry. She stopped at put her arm around his shoulders. “Come on, we’re almost there. If she’s going to be anywhere, she’ll be somewhere around Betelgeuse VII. If not, it’s a good place to start looking.”
            “I just,” he started, but stopped as the signal to start boarding blasted on the intercom. The other passengers pushed them onto the bus; Aaron took a seat to the back of the bus as soon as he could.
            “You just…” she prompted him, but he kept his lips shut and stared out the window for the remainder of the ride. Betelgeuse VII was one of the quieter stations, but dark and dimly filled with neon life. Occasionally a dark hole in the wall would appear as the restrooms, telephones, or an exit transporter. Cindy glanced at her watch as she led Aaron towards the taxi terminal: seven thirty.
            “We’d better go to a hotel for the night. I don’t have much cash with me but I’m sure a small motel should be sufficient. We’ll start looking tomorrow. Any ideas where to start?” She turned around at this question to face a multitude of strangers continuing to walk along their paths towards an exit. She glanced around, trying not to be pulled by the traffic, but couldn’t find Aaron anywhere. “Damn,” she swore quietly and tried pushing herself upstream to a wall. The people ignored her as she scrambled to get to a quiet place to think. After noticing a small black hole labeled women’s bathroom, she snuck into the florescent-lit room and stared into the mirror.
            “What are you doing here?” a girl asked. Her hair was dyed a bright fire engine red and she leaned against the sink to look Cindy in the face as she said this. Her eyes were green and glowed softly.
            Cindy looked at the girl nonchalantly. “Going to pee. What do you expect?” To make her point, she started walking towards the stall, but the girl grabbed her elbow and pulled hard.
            “I like you. You’re not one of those stodgy old adults. You’ve got spunk and class. Hi, I’m Trish.”
            Cindy gave her a half smile. “Megan.”
            Trish gave her half a nod and pulled up beside Cindy. “You should really change your name. It seems so…blah. You need something with more attitude. Hey, you want to see something really cool?” she asked suddenly.
            Cindy laughed. “Sure, why not?”
            “Follow me. But whatever you do, don’t talk.” Trish led Cindy into the far bathroom stall and pulled the toilet from the wall like a chair. Underneath the apparatus was a small ring, which Trish pulled and opened a staircase. She ran down the stairs with expert speed, then turned around and put her finger to her lips before continuing down. Cindy looked about her for something to take with, but could find no pipes; at this point Trish was already out of sight. Cindy followed quickly, trying not to touch anything about her into the pitch black.
            Cindy felt like she was in a broken film and the same scene was playing over and over again. She was still in the dark and she continued for what felt like hours down the staircase. The only measure of time she had was the steady decrease in temperature. Finally, she spotted a light at the bottom of the staircase. As she approached, she realized that two people were talking and as she reached the rim of the circle of light, she could hear what they were saying.
            “Well, what do we do about her? We still haven’t come to a consensus.” Though she couldn’t see him, she could tell that Aaron had made it down here before her and she felt a pang of panic as she realized she was to fend for herself.
            “You sure she’s fooled?” a woman said, though from what Cindy could tell it didn’t sound like Trish.
            “I told you, I gave her the video just like planned. And I told her all that BS you had me memorize. I did my end perfectly,” Aaron said, annoyed.
            “Well that’s a change,” the woman responded.
            “Stop,” a man’s voice said. “She’s here.”
            The light turned dramatically on her and she squinted in the sudden change of light. “Welcome to Hell,” the man said. She was bathed in light and the people who were just talking were in the dark.
            “Well if I’m going to die,” Cindy said, “I might as well get some answers before I do. Some closure if you will.” She could hear safeties being clicked off and her skin started to tingle in panicked anticipation.
            The man laughed. “But if you get away, all my secrets get out.”
            Cindy stared down the light. “I won’t get away. You have the obvious upper hand.”
            The man laughed again. “Fair enough.” She heard him stand up in a creak of metal joints. The light on her dimmed and lights around her faded on. The room was a large cavernous business office with a chair bolted to the floor right at the bottom of the stairs. The only cover she noted were the pillars holding the terminal up. Four doors lined the sides of the room, but it was obvious they were locked and the deadbolts and chains would be a pain to get through if she was under fire. The stairs came in at the lower right corner of the square room right next to the wall. Aaron was leaning against it, his arms folded across his chest. The second woman who was talking was dressed in a skin tight black uniform and had an automatic rifle in her hand farthest from Cindy; the hand closest was robotic and the sleeve of her uniform was ripped off to show the entire mechanical arm proudly. The head of this odd group was not a man as she had supposed, but she noted without surprised that he was not in the best condition either way. He had been stripped of synthetic flesh and was a 700 model. The blue chrome glimmered in the light and Cindy sat down on the steps.
            “Well, you don’t seem surprised.”
            “The only thing I find surprising is the curious absence of the girl who led me down here.”
            “I was hoping for a little more discomfort than that.”
            Cindy smiled. “I’m sorry. I work with people who are crazy. I’m a psychologist.”
            “Oh, so that’s what you do,” Aaron said shifting so he was standing up straight, his arms still across his chest.
            “Shut up, Aaron,” the mechanical man said. “She’s looking for answers and we’re going to give them to her. I’ll start by telling you a little bit about my crew. You’ve already met Aaron, who is just a human orphan we found on Alpha Centauri VI. He was found abandoned and dying in the middle of the base under the main terminal. To my left, is Margarita. She is also is human, but in a tragic police accident lost the left half of her upper body and is half 600 robot. The little doll you met coming her is Patricia. And she is a figment of your imagination. She’s a sprite, I believe. A hologram. You see what you want to see in her and when you don’t want to see her, she’s gone. The girl in the video is Sandra, who had a tragic accident and couldn’t be with us tonight. I’m Maxwell 700 and the last of the 700s to date.”
            Cindy nodded. “Fascinating. So where do I come in. What’s your mission?”
            “You already know my mission. Well, I suppose I should tell you how I lost my skin. It was a riot on Betelgeuse III between robots and humans. The whole base is known for their bigotry against robots. Some fight got started because a robot didn’t get down on its knees or it asked for directions of a human, something stupid to that effect. I got caught in the cross fire and ended up being burned with the other robots who didn’t make it. But I didn’t break down; I was a 700 and they didn’t expect there to be a 700. I fled to Betelgeuse VII since I couldn’t leave the bases without proper identification and built a tunnel under various places in the terminal down to the forgotten basements. I knew there had to be a basement, since the building was standing and in some places go quite high off the ground. I set up the supplementary mafia as a sort of bridge between bigoted people and what society thought of them. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t take this mission any farther than where it is now; the government would be after me for even suggesting such drastic measures for equality. And that’s where you come in. I needed someone to reach the people and tell them that equality was a good idea. There are parts of the human brain that I don’t understand and I believe it’s important to take a nonviolent approach to it if we are going to come out of hiding and make it work. I’m not succeeding in my work and I think it would be vastly more appropriate to be nonviolent than a hypocrite.”
            “Ok. Why the guns and show? You could have just asked me.”
            “No, I couldn’t. I told you, if I let you go, my secret gets out.”
            “And if I didn’t come today? I might have let someone else know about the supplementary mafia before you were ready.”
            “And why would you? It didn’t seem to have any significance then.”
            Cindy paused, stuck in logic. “This just seems wrong,” she said honestly. “Hypnotize me if you want or do something to convince yourself that I won’t tell, but I can’t do it. We’re brainwashing a people for equality and while the cause is something I believe in, I don’t think we can take drastic approaches like this. It’ll be impossible to ‘fix’ everyone anyway. Someone down the line will figure out that they’re being brainwashed and resist. People on this end will die and no one will understand because no one will listen based on the approach to change them. People don’t like change and if they want to change, they should do it on their own. Besides, that’s the only permanent way to guarantee the results you want.”
            The robot shook his head. “I can’t let you go.”
            “Then don’t let me go,” Cindy said defiantly, standing up. “But just reassure me that you see my point. I fully support you and if I can leave, I will take a more active role in helping out robots in government certified and appropriate organizations. You just can’t do it this way. Look at history and see, that brainwashing has never worked before.”
            Margarita walked over to the stairs and started walking up. “She’s got a point,” she said turning around after reaching a few steps behind Cindy’s step. “But this isn’t going according to plan.”
            The 700 laughed. “You think?” he sat down in the chair bolted to the floor and looked Cindy in the eye. A shiver ran up her spine as he continued. “I might as well tell you none of our guns are loaded. And I’m going to have to take you to your word and I need you to do something for me to ensure that you’re not going to spill the beans. Are you up for the challenge.”
            Cindy nodded. “Most assuredly.”
            The robot accepted her answer and called over a member of the guard. The black chrome 500 walked over without so much as a move of recognition to Cindy and bent down as the 700 whispered in its ear, pointing to her on the steps occasionally with a smile.
            “You’re going to wish you didn’t say that,” Margarita whispered behind her.
            “What could he possibly do to me with unloaded guns? He’s got no supplies. The doors over there are locked and we’re in an open room, so he’s got nothing hidden away.”
            “You have no idea,” she said walking past Cindy to lean against the wall at the bottom of the steps. “And I wish I didn’t either.”

To be continued (and concluded)…