Chapter three – Sam and Dean who?
Peter was back at his tea tray in the municipal building on the second floor. The white plastic clock mocked Peter moving purposely slower as it dragged it cumbersome black hands agonisingly round its face. Marlowe came over to his desk as the days sporting situation was unusually lacking given their local teams inability to reach round two of the baseball playoffs.
"You look a might perkier son is you feeling better since I last saw doing your impression of a dead person?" Marlowe's bedside manner centred on the female underwear count after a hard night and not his fellow man's health.
"Yes Mr Winchester, I'm alright just got a touch of flu I guess?" Peter's deft inability for untruth made his cheeks flush crimson red, underlining his health status rather than a flat out lie being crafted. Marlowe having completed his tender moment for that year went back to his desk feeling better for it.
Peter got back to his work making sure he'd never be balled out again by his uncle and editor, double checking his work which took the clock to show 20 minutes he began to review the case and given his friends discomfort. Peter seldom gave in to speculation or indulgencies which didn't involve a dice of 20 sides, unless it was a film by David Lynch, until that day, the one that followed last night.
He took out two pieces of paper of transcripts in the hopes to catch a beat on his meeting with Zach after work. He read archive print about Pete Armin – 'Mr Armin without concern for his own safety rammed the ford pickup from the tracks removing the obvious danger from the 17:30 commuter train bound for Roswell. Mr Pete Armin of Taos risked life and limb for strangers not to mention writing off his prized Porsche GT1 Strassenversion, valued at 1.2 million dollars. The reclusive Mr Armin was not available for comment regarding his heroism. He carries the thanks and deepest prayers of the passengers travelling on the train unaware of what could have happened had he not been willing to risk his life and car for their safety. This reporter is glad of unsung heroes like Pete Armin.
Peter could not help but be touched by the actions of Pete Armin and felt a stream of guilt at his and Zach's actions in light of the article. Peter had disobeyed the order of a follow up story for the sake of his own gut feeling that seemed to be serving him well.
The clock relented as Peter saw the time he spent the previous hours longing for – end of working daytime. Having thrown a triple check look across his desk he leapt up with alacrity for a swift exit to make Wally West proud –when. "Peter can I speak freely?" asked his editor on the unusual trip to Peter's tea tray come desk. Peter never got any visitors to his area that didn't involve him leaving the building for errands he sat down in that moment to consider Archie's presence.
"Please sir, yes of course – I've done the crossword and all spell checking is complete I even….." Peter was halted with Archie's shaking head and outstretched palm, again. "No kid, not that I want to tell you some good news for a change, It's no secret you're the first in and last one out of this place; and the manner in which you've made yourself at home." Archie alluded to his make shift office. "Well I'm just saying it's not gone unnoticed and I'd very much like to offer you position of junior fact checker…."
Archie unusually had no time to complete his sentence – "YES! I accept sir with pleasure." Peter's day now in other worlds of greatness made his exit that much more rapid from the municipal building in Taos. Peter left the office not observing any such ceremonies in times when he perhaps should. He left Archie bemused stood with a half shook hand wondering if he'd just done the right thing for the youngster or repelled him through the out door. "That boy is a mystery to me" he said returning back to his office and more familiar territory.
Peter had no sooner left the high street than he stood in front of Zach's side entrance, blue door with covered glass panels. He rapped his delight indicating the need to meet his friend. "Come in quickly now sit and wait." Barked a more neurotic, Led Zepplin - tee shirted fellow investigator.
"I've been on egg shells all day Zach, what do you have for me, sorry I mean us." Peter knew his mood needed to shift downward to meet Zach's then up again to a worried scurrying friend hoping to soothe his obvious woes. "Now slow down and take this!" Peter thrust his inhaler into Zach's troubled hands – "No, I don't take this" whimpered Zach. "Don't cross me on this, you need some oxygen in you, your bluer than Muddy Waters." Peter's quiff took effect on Zach's mood around the same time as his inhaler. Zach flopped back in his chair as the alveoli branches of his lungs thanked him for their ability to exchange oxygen to the rest of his acidic body. "Thanks Peter I needed that, it's been a huge day!" Said a lighter, redder Zach.
"So I've been watching clocks since lunch and I have no gadgets as per orders, so tell me what it is!?" Peter found containing himself pointless after capping himself for the past 4 hours. "Phew that is good stuff Peter; hit the spot right, well I have news here let's begin." Zach's complexion no longer resembled that of a flesh eating dead thing, or Canadian got into his stride.
"Okay I ran the programme I created last night and found this." Zach held two sheets for Peter – one read in bold 'we are now swimming in dangerous waters my friend and need to consider elevating to defcon 3!' complete with punctuation. While the second, was downloaded pornography. "What the!?" Peter said pointing at the latter in horror.
Zach's hands held the documents either side of his ears to see Peter's reaction better, upon him viewing his findings. He was surprised to see Peter's visceral reaction then looking he realised his folly and coughed loudly while scavenging around for the right, appropriate documents. "Fuck yes, that's not mine." He said showing the new, intended document. "See! Look at the link it's all here Peter, this is huge." Zach's previously blued cheeks now glowing a bright rampant red.
Peter's face now showing the intended surprise upon viewing a non-pornographic document blurted out. "Is this….is, this I think it is, I mean did you…is this?" Peter power to speak left him momentarily while his limbic system took a reboot. Zach smiled seeing the shock at Peters viewing his document he'd spent the night and day working on – not the porn one.
Zach let Peter sit while he furthered the incident board as it grew to show a deeper more consuming story. "Now from the top is Pete Amid and we linked him to Facebook via the counselling group, well this is what I've found today. It seems the Facebook group is more involved than I originally suspected, sorry us!" Zach was better at controlling his passion than Peter. "So beyond this I find these other names, Ms Lain, Mr Roberts, Mrs Rollins, Mr Harris (as mentioned), Ms Pillinger and finally Ms Davis. There exists but two common denominator's between them all." He held Peter captive as his audience while he delivered his opus to Peter. "They all have also experienced unfathomable good fortune in the areas of Ms Lain (market futures), Mr Roberts (French rugby union), Mrs Rollins (Russian presidential elections), Mr Harris (as mentioned), Ms Pillinger (invented a blue pill for Pfizer, by mistake) and finally Ms Davis (Japans earthquake shares). All of these people made incredible gambles on utterly obscure events the likes of which even experts in those fields could not! In short, the events to which I'm eluding are beyond even my meagre efforts to calculate."
Peter took time to catch Zach's vast intellect up and absorb the story. "Okay and wow! So these are all incredible and improbable longshots linking into one basic denominator – the Taos counselling group of loss!?" Peter caught up pretty fast. "Erm, yes, you're actually right." Zach caught off-guard at his audience's ability to keep up. "So Zach, is it possible to design a formulae of probability for all these Facebookers know each other?" Zach now looking like a fully-fledged human leapt at Peters request with glee, though not that gay singing show.
"Yes! In fact here it is" said Zach checking he'd picked up the right sheet for show and tell. Zach had a whole series of yellow, red and blue tacks holding documents cross referenced neatly on the make shift whiteboard. "Okay so yellow are the people from yesterday grown from 2 to 12, the red represents both Facebook and counselling friends. Then the blue denote the….shall we say day lady luck smiled on them." Zach hadn't punctuated his views, waiting for his fervid diligence Peter. "Then here's the rub Peter which my programme linked into them all via the trend algorithm I wrote."
"So within one week of friending Pete Amid and each other on Facebook, they all embarked upon the ventures that left them all financially secure. The puzzling thing my programme still cannot workout is up until the friending on Facebook; not one of these people had any background or seemingly prior knowledge such as Mr Harris's $200,000 flutter on a European soccer match!" Zach seemed irritated. "Jesus, that's huge…but there still remains an explanation to all of this, albeit very compelling link." Peter didn't enjoy dousing Zach's fire.
Zach began the trembling thing just like in the park earlier. "That's not all Peter, now while my programme ran variable checking for probability in the respective ventures; it all came back to the same variable in this. Pete Amid, but here's where it got real for me and I need to warn you that what I'm about to show you can get us into some high level crap!" Zach now back to his physiological state earlier.
"Okay I understand, but is it what I think…..does it tie all this together?" Peter's cerebral processing now working in unison with Zach's PC. Zach drew Peter closer waving his hands inward – "Banking details, highlighted in black and coded in purple. I coded them twice for cross reference, as the means I employed to obtain this information is very naughty!" He confirmed Peters understanding of his planning and layout of the board. "So what I'm saying is this – the key and anchor for the whole scheme are represented in black and purple, for the two colours mean nothing to anyone other than…." Peter interrupted – "The dwarf knights of Baldove, that's quite brilliant Zach you really have some kind of brain in there." Peter awarded Zach's clever use of dungeons and dragons to code their findings should they fall into the hands of the authorities.
"Thank you Peter, it's merely a way to safeguard us against problems. Now here is what it all means, within one week of friends they all embarked upon….as discussed. Although compelling not enough, but one week after reaping the rewards, they all withdrew exactly 10% of their acquired wealth from their accounts." Zach now ashen cheeked. "Then it can be traced back to the exact amounts to the penny, deposits of said amounts into Pete Amids offshore account!" Zach flopped down under the weight of realisation that the adventure he was involved in, was real and his level 32 wizardry wasn't going to help him there.
The two intrepid investigators now struck with exhaustion sat pondering the colour coded incident board, as if spellbound by a word of chaos, from a 30th-level magical cleric. Zach's basement room had a three storey house sat on top of it, but in that moment it felt like the Chrysler building. The two boys knew they were sitting at the start of something epic.
After the two wolfed down much needed fuel, they began to organize a plan for execution. "Okay we have the facts and in keeping with an impending life sentence, I've destroyed any means to identify the hacking." Zach began to grow in confidence after their friendship withstood it's first, biggest test of lawlessness. "So now all things point to Mr Amid, there still is no crime beyond an ability to see the future with incredible accuracy, or finally mass hypnosis through Facebook or the group." Peter took control of the facts. "So the question we must tackle, is what next, what do we want to achieve here?" Zach nodded his approval at Peter's deft questions and focus.
"How do they do it? the better question is, how do we get entry to the group?" Peter had no time to finish his question. Zach, ,not for the first time that evening held up two sheets of paper (checking first). "Dah-da, two registered forms for the Taos town hall community group of 'coping with loss'." The two friends evening came to a fantastic end as they sat down and chatted over strategy they'd need to adopt at the group to remain under cover.