“I’m not going there wearing jeans and a tee-shirt,” Logan
protested.
“Yes, you are,” Random insisted. “I checked the place out
and that is what they wear.”
“Not on the top floor. Not in the Executive offices. And not
in that time period.” Logan looked through the wardrobe for something more
appropriate to the task. Her face fell when she discovered that it was exactly
what someone doing her cover job would be wearing. The white tee shirt was
oversized. The rolled-up legs of the pale blue jeans ended above her ankles.
She wore bobby socks and saddle shoes. But she drew the line at wearing the
kerchief on her head.
Random needed Logan to keep watch outside. There were no
surveillance cameras to tap into and the risk of leaving behind something as
high tech as a monitor pod was just too dangerous. Especially during that time
period. Random didn’t trust humans like she used to. At times, she regretted
having saved them from oblivion.
Logan tied back her long black hair. Although the offices
would be empty, there would be security guards patrolling. Her job was to watch
for them. It was as much trust as Librus was willing to place in her – a menial
job until she certified as glitch free. She rolled the bucket and mop out of
the utility closet and went about mopping the floor.
Random searched through the files in the outer office. She
didn’t need to take them, she just needed to see them. The file she was looking
for wasn’t there. She entered the inner office and sat at the desk to search
through the drawers. Again, with no luck, she strolled around the office
looking for where someone could have hidden the file. Inside a closet, she
found an iron box safe.
Standing outside the outer office door, Logan paused to
admire the gold paint on the frost glass. She traced each letter with her left
index finger until interrupted by a hand on her shoulder. “Miss,” the guard
said, “you’re working late tonight, aren’t you?”
“It couldn’t be helped,” she replied. “My husband was late
getting home from work and I needed to feed him his supper before I left.”
“Well, a man’s gotta eat after a hard day’s work. My missus
won’t let me out of the house without a good meal under the belt. You be
careful on the way home. The roads are getting slick.” He tipped his cap and
sauntered off to check the rest of the office doors before heading down the
stairs.
Logan sighed. “Great,” she thought, “I could have blown the
mission. Good thing that Random was in the inner office. I need to regain my
focus.”
Inside the inner office, Random was busy unlocking the old safe.
After a few random attempts, she was able to work out the combination and open
the box. Inside were some banded wads of cash and a few notebooks and ledgers. She
thumbed through the notebooks and ledgers before examining the few folders
inside the safe. The blue courier envelope that she was looking for wasn’t
there.
Logan rolled the mop and bucket back to the closet. She
poured the dirty water into the sink before rolling the bucket against the wall
and hanging up the mop. As she turned to leave, she noticed a blue envelope
tucked under a box on a top storage shelf. She pulled the envelope out of its
hiding place and examined the outside. The contents of the blue envelope came
from a hospital. The addressee was her father – Peyton Arsenal.
Random found Logan sitting on the floor inside the Utility
closet with the x-rays and medical documents spread out around her. Librus had
warned her not to let Logan near the envelope. Logan hadn’t died in the car
crash, but now she was worried about – she couldn’t remember. Random helped
Logan gather up the documents and put them back in the envelope. “I’m a copy,”
Logan asked, “aren’t I?”
“Yes,” Random replied, “we all are. In my previous
existence, I was a cat. Your run of the mill stray kitten, adopted by a little
girl, who died in a building collapse. The little girl was fine. Me, not so
much.” She pulled Logan up off the floor. “Now that we have the envelope, we
need to get out of here.”
Two Librus agents walked down the hallway to Room 617. Their
crisp while coatdresses adorned with nurse’s pins. On their heads were the caps
to match. White stockings covered their legs down to their comfortable white
nurse’s shoes. Over their faces, they wore white surgical masks.
Inside Room 617, a woman lay in a coma surrounded by
equipment that monitored her heartbeat and brainwaves. The apparatus the helped
her breathe covered half of her face while the pump whooshed air into her lungs.
A central line pushed fluids and nutrients into her. Logan stared at the
remains of her former self, still alive beneath all that medical equipment.
Random removed a small spidery gadget from her pocket and
fitted it against the sleeper’s forehead. She pulled out a black rectangle from
another pocket and plugged in the wire tail from the spider and began the
process of digitizing the sleeper’s mind. Behind her, Logan started to glitch. She
wobbled and sat abruptly in a nearby chair.
“What’s wrong?” Random asked.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Logan replied, burying her face in
her hands. “I did this to myself. I was so angry at my father. I wasn’t paying
attention.” She paused. “No, that’s a lie. I drove off the road. There was no
truck, no storm, I made that up to hide the truth from myself. I created the virus.”
“What has changed?” Random took Logan’s chin in her hand and
turned her face upward.
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want that other me, the real
me, the original me to want to die. I want her to fight and have a life past
this point. She doesn’t have to know about me. It can be a dream, a nightmare,
something she made up. Is that possible?” Logan walked over to her other self
and stared for a few minutes with her arms crossed. Then she bent down and
whispered into her ear. “You are stronger than you know.” Grasping and gently
squeezing her left hand, she said, “It’s time for you to live the rest of your
life.”
After Random and Logan slipped forward in time, the sleeper
opened her eyes. The two agents were still wearing their white nurse’s uniforms
when they appeared in the room sixty years in the future. The old woman in the
bed put down the book that she was reading and remarked, “Oh, you’ve come
back!” She patted the bed. “Please have a seat.” She cleared her throat and
coughed. “I’m not dead yet, but the doctors say it’s only a matter of time. I
suppose you’ve come to save me again. Well, don’t bother. I’ve had a good
life.” She coughed again. “The chemo has been rough, but it’s not enough. I’ve
asked them to stop the treatment.”
Logan sat down on the bed and smiled at the old woman.
“We’re here to save you, but not the way you think.” She pulled the spider set
from her pocket. “This will allow us to make a recording of everything you’ve
learned, of who you are. It rests on your forehead. And this little black box
records everything.”
“And then what do you with it?”
“We save it.” Logan hoped that the answer would suffice. But
she had always been curious about things.
“Like a book in a library? Only one that can talk and tell
stories, yes?”
“Exactly,” Logan replied.
“Well, then let’s get this over with.”
No comments:
Post a Comment