.11
"All purposes served by a small well can at once be served by a great reservoir of water."
- B.G., 2.46
The Counselor's anciently framed eyes scanned the cosmic void beyond the windows of her office with anticipatory excitement, bouncing between each and every starlit pinhole that embroidered it's endless blanket. Present along with her was Dr. Werren, who was sitting silently on a reddish, nubuck leather couch in the back of the room.
"Hmm."
Unbeknownst to Werren, it had been nearly two hours since the Counselor had received Director Mattock's low-keyed call. She was confident in Mattock that he had followed her orders to temporarily intercept all communications in and out of his jurisdiction, which most likely accounted for why nothing had come to her attention by now, but it was surprising that she had not yet heard any news of unauthorized activity.
What was going on? Had Isaac gotten out safely?
Of course none of her associates, including Werren, knew of her secret involvement in helping to facilitate Isaac's escape. Despite having called for him she had said nothing since his arrival, and he could tell by her quiet, pensive visage that something very important was on her mind.
"Counselor, you have a visitor."
The digitally synthesized voice of her personal holographic assistant drew her attention away from the window, and a second later she heard the buzzer of her office door. When she checked to see who it was, she rolled her eyes upon recognition of the Overseer's piggish, wrinkled old face peering into the holomonitor, bent into an expression of rage. The buzzer was immediately followed by the pounding of his fist upon the door, and understanding he was upset the Counselor twisted her lip and sighed deeply. Then, erasing it all with an emotionless mask of pure professionalism, she sat down at her desk and remotely opened the door. She addressed him nonchalantly as he strode furiously into the room.
"Overseer. Nice to see you. I didn't know you could move so quickly."
Ignoring her false pleasantries he marched directly up to her desk and began shouting at her, banging a fist upon the table.
"What the hell is going on, Counselor?"
He paused to await her response, but the odd, taunting smile gracing the old woman's lips irked him. He couldn't hold his tongue for more than a few seconds before he screamed at her again.
"What was Isaac Clarke doing back in Engineering?! I didn't know he had been released... you told me you had everything under control!"
The Counselor just stared at him, hardly moved by his display. She had been precipitating this kind of reaction out of him, although she was still in the mode of pretending she knew nothing about it.
"I don't understand, what's going on?"
The Overseer's eyes widened, glistening angrily in the dim light of her office.
"Madam... I have just been informed that Clarke has stolen a ship and escaped!"
Upon hearing this, Dr. Werren looked up in total shock. Remaining true to her act, the Counselor feigned an equally astonished expression.
"Escaped?... How did this happen?"
The Overseer clenched his teeth, practically spitting at her.
"You tell ME, Counselor... I left you in charge!"
She kept up her convincing facade, even as the Overseer eyed her with vulturous intent.
"We... I thought it would do him some good... that it would make him more cooperative with us if he were given some... token amount of freedom."
At this, the Overseer exploded.
"Token amount of freedom? What kind of shit is this?! We have diplomatic immunity over him... he's not a citizen, he is our property! What would have possessed you to release him, for Christ's sake?!"
Werren's brows formed a thick, solid line of copper wire over his eyes as the Overseer's statement sparked a disturbing realization in his mind.
Diplomatic immunity?... That's not what the Counselor had told him.
Afraid to interrupt, he kept silent while his superiors argued with one another.
"Well, Adrian Mattock will be brought in for questioning, Sir. He was entrusted with keeping Isaac contained. He'll be the one who has to answer to this."
"Mattock? You mean the Engineering Director? What does he have to do with this? Clarke is your responsibility, not his! You're not going to throw anyone into the fire over your oversight!"
"Sir, I assure you that I will have this taken care of. Have I ever let you down?"
Her words gave no comfort to the Overseer, who had by now despairingly dropped his face into his hand.
"No... What have you done? It's... it's going to be the Colony all over again. Perhaps even on a larger scale..."
He finally looked up, the first sign of genuine fear infiltrating his countenance.
"Oh, my god... what if he makes it to Earth?"
Now, the Counselor saw a way to reassure him. While she could never reveal to him the extent of her involvement in this situation, she knew she had plenty of room to hide behind the assumptions of their scientific research.
"He's not going to Earth. I'm very certain of that."
The Overseer looked up at her, dubiously.
"What? How do you know? How can you be so sure?"
"It's not the logical choice."
The Overseer bent an eyebrow at her, intrigued by her sense of confidence.
"Logical choice?"
The Counselor leaned forward, folding her hands upon her desk.
"He won't be going to Earth, because that is not where the Red Marker is."
"So, you think he is going to Aegis7, then?"
She nodded.
"Absolutely. The research doesn't lie, Sir. They all gravitate back to the Marker. Especially one as connected as Isaac."
Mystified by the Counselor's flawless conviction, the Overseer's anger and frustration began to fade.
"But, I don't understand... How could he make it all the way back to Aegis7? What would happen if he does reach it? What does this mean?"
A wicked smile began to stretch across her face.
"It means that we just may be able to fulfill our obligation to the Church after all. The government may have fallen short in retrieving the Marker, but where they failed, I believe Isaac will succeed."
The Overseer shook his head in disbelief.
"Retrieve the Marker?... you mean... use Clarke to get it?"
The Counselor swiveled around in her chair and turned her gaze to the stars outside her office window.
"We've always needed a key, someone already connected to the Marker in order to understand it. He can be our key, Sir. Just, think about it."
Thinking deeply over her suggestion, the Overseer failed to respond for a moment. When he finally did, he stumbled.
"I... I don't believe this."
The Overseer was too stunned to continue. For certain reasons he had put so much of his trust in the Counselor over the course of many years, but he knew that her headstrong ways often prompted her to act independently of his desire and defy his position above her. She was reckless, she had the verve to break every rule along the way, and her mysterious knowledge of things beyond him often left him wondering just how much his trust in her had blinded him to the reality of their relationship. But above it all, the Overseer knew that he was at her mercy; she simply had too much knowledge about the Marker Project that he and everyone else did not. Insecure as he was, he ultimately agreed that there was genuine purpose to her otherwise seemingly mad reasoning.
He finally looked up at her, and shook his head sternly.
"You have 24 hours to put a game plan together. Deal appropriately with Mattock. I want some real answers on how you plan to fix this. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to inform EarthGov... they will have to do what is necessary in order to put an end to Clarke. And if it comes to that, Madam... you and your whole fucking project will join him in that fate."
Before she had the chance to acknowledge him, the Overseer turned around red faced, and stormed out of the Counselor's office. The door quietly slid shut behind him, and without a word the Counselor immediately opened one of the drawers of her desk and pulled out a small stack of papers. Still present and having observed the whole scene, Werren said nothing to her, but instead watched silently as she picked up a pen and began feverishly scribbling across the topmost page in the stack. After observing her behave in this fashion for several minutes, Werren finally stood to his feet and slowly started to approach her desk.
"You knew about this."
The Counselor ignored him, her pace along the page never slowing.
"You knew what was going to happen. That's why you approved the appeal... Why you even allowed it to be considered in the first place."
Werren approached her side, peering curiously over her shoulder in an attempt to see what she was writing.
"You knew exactly what Clarke intended to do. You wanted him to. I should have known."
The Counselor finally ceased her fervent scribbling, and looked up at him.
"Alex, my greatest obligation lies with the Church, as does yours. Whatever I must do to see to it that those ends are met, I cannot ignore. If it means a few distractions here and there, a few sacrifices made to keep everything flowing smoothly, so be it."
Werren blinked.
"This whole time, you've lied to me, to the Council. Even to the Overseer. Why? What are you looking to gain in all of this?"
She glared sharply at him.
"I expect you to know your place, Alex. There's more to it than you realize."
Werren sighed, seeking to choose his next words very carefully.
"Look... you know I am inclined to agree with you... I understand the future that this Marker holds for all of us. I can see your motivation. But this is going too far. This isn't divine work we're talking about here, this is unrestrained greed and obsession over an alien artifact that we have no control over... no real understanding of it! And now, you've allowed some lunatic who is capable of triggering it to get access to it!"
The Counselor frowned sourly at Werren's admonishing words.
"You may not understand it. But there are those that do."
"Who is that? You, or that crazy infectant you've just appointed as your 'key'?"
She drew her face tight, but said nothing as Werren shook his head and continued.
"Who knows what Isaac will do with the Red Marker once he gets his hands on it? Do you really think he's going to just, hand it over to us? That is, if it doesn't end up destroying all of us?"
The Counselor glanced down in a vaporous moment of consideration.
"... You just let me deal with that. I know how to handle him."
Dr. Werren, who had up to this point had the greatest confidence in the Counselor's work despite disagreements in the past, was finding it harder to continue supporting her. He began to think about the past several years he and his staff had devoted to Isaac's case, and none of it had ever inspired him to anticipate a outcome like this. It seemed to him that the Counselor's oddly clandestine behavior was becoming more and more duplicitous to everyone on all sides.
"I don't understand... If it was your intention to see this happen, then what was the point of the memory reduction procedures? It makes no sense... All of our work has been been for absolutely nothing."
She finally countered him, her voice rising with vigor.
"We can't have Isaac bringing any outside... attachments with him. It wasn't in vain, but to ensure he arrives there with a clean mental slate."
Werren scratched his head, not entirely certain he accepted her explanation.
"I'm not so sure that's the case, Madam."
Planting her fist upon the table, the Counselor shook her head.
"It all boils down to a very simple choice for you - either you're on board, or you aren't. What's your decision?"
Upon his dead silence in response, she smiled.
"You have nothing to fear, Alex. Our salvation, our Ascension is at hand. Altman Be Praised."
The Counselor then looked back down at her paper, and began writing on it again. Taking this to be her closing response Werren understood their conversation to be over,and he prepared to leave. Just before doing so, he took a brief moment to glance again over the Counselor's shoulder at her papers, and finally saw what she was so anxiously engaged in.
The paper was filled with numerous scribblings that he thought perhaps were shorthand notes based on the discussion, but the closer he looked, he began to recognize the forms of familiar cryptic, indecipherable runes. They were archaic and circular in design, written in the same language that he had seen so many times before - written all over the walls of the Marker test subjects' cells, scrawled in their own blood, urine and feces.
The Marker's messages, filling every inch of blank space on the page.
Werren's eyes widened, and he exited the room without making a sound.
