Chapter 14
Been spending most our lives living in the Gangsta's Paradise
Been spending most our lives living in the Gangsta's Paradise
Keep spending most our lives living in the Gangsta's Paradise
Keep spending most our lives living in the Gangsta's Paradise
- Coolio (Gangsta's Paradise)
=/\=
HD got back from his mission first. "Carmen, uh, can I talk to you?" he asked via Communicator.
"Of course."
He came over to her office. "I wrote my report. I just wanna reiterate what's in it."
"I haven't read it yet, but, uh, go ahead anyway," she said.
"The music missions are useless. I mean, they gotta be done; they gotta be fixed, just like anything else. But I don't think the Perfectionists give a damn about what happens with music and musicians."
"Do you believe that you're being set aside for some reason or another?"
"I don't think so – I don't kid myself that they think I'm some huge temporal talent, except in music. What I mean is …."
"If I understand you, Mister Avery, what you mean is that you're no super-agent. And that's all right. You're not expected to be. But you're right; they seem to be splitting you off. Do you suppose that both of the side missions could've been accomplished by one person?" she asked.
"You mean me?"
"Or it could be anyone with experience, say, Sheilagh or Tom."
"Hmm," he thought for a second. "Yes. Frankly, I don't think we even need as many time ships as we've got. We, uh, we seem to be getting one main mission and one or two diversions."
"I suspect that that's right. So that actually tells me something fairly valuable," she said, "they may or may not have people here. I don't love that prospect, but I have to acknowledge that it's a possibility. But, the fact that there are never more than maybe two side missions tells me – they don't have more than three temporal operatives who aren't working here as moles."
"So their staff is small."
"Well, their traveling staff is. I imagine that's convenient, and helps them to keep their secrets," she stated.
"Who do you think is in here as a mole?" he asked.
"I'm unsure."
=/\=
Carmen was unsure, but that didn't stop her from speculating. Once HD had left her office, she opened up a file she kept for just such purposes. It was called Possibilities.
"Hmm, now, let's see. When I last looked," she said to herself, "Kevin, Rick and I were all off the hook. Levi and Von were the most likely suspects, at least insofar as the damage to the three time ships was concerned. Boris was half and half. Marisol was not outside the realm of possibility. As for the others, I couldn't tell." She sighed.
"Since then, I have seen HD becoming more helpful, but I cannot say whether that exonerates him or not. I would like to think that Tom, Sheilagh and Polly are innocent, but I am trying not to let my positive feelings for them sway me one way or the other."
She thought about that, and also about things in general. "You are working too hard, Calavicci."
The face that looked back at her from the clean window's reflection was showing some new lines. She would rather be sitting on a stool in the Tethys Tavern, downing a few and giving some likely Trill the eye. But that was not going to happen, not for the nonce.
She looked at her flashing PADD. HD's report was in. She opened it up and began to read it.
=/\=
"I can't say that I want those children to die," Polly said, "but you've gotta understand my sense of self-preservation."
"Well, to be sure," Marisol acknowledged, "Sheilagh?"
"There are going to be thousands, if not millions, of people who'll be adversely affected by anything we do," she said, "or if we sit idly by and do nothing. I mean, if you want perfection, don't look at us humans. We're more or less incapable of it."
"That is such an odd choice of words," Marisol said, "Perfection. Maybe it's an inaccurate word. Perhaps the correct one is improvement."
"I don't doubt that all sorts of things could be bettered," Sheilagh said, "but what can any of us do about it, really? We've all seen how these changes, inevitably, seem to screw us up in all sorts of fun ways. I don't honestly think we can do any better."
"So you'd just give up?" Marisol asked.
"What's all this to you, anyway, Marisol?" Polly asked. "Rounding 2700."
=/\=
Otra stood next to the burning shuttle. She tried Anthony's Communicator but it didn't seem to be working at all. Her own only seemed to generate more static. On an impulse, she tried one more channel. "Otra to Cavendish. Levi, are you there?"
=/\=
Nichols and McVeigh got into the Ryder truck and drove it away from the motel. "Now what?" Dan asked.
"They should be rigging it," Tom explained. "At least, that's what happened in the original history. They went to a lake and put it all together. It's the fourteenth – they're here until the sixteenth. Then they take both trucks to the Nichols home, and the Ryder truck gets put there. Then they go to Oklahoma City to drop off their pick up. I'm thinking it's that one, over there," Tom gestured.
"And?" Rick asked.
"And then they get back to the Nichols home, well, I'm not sure how," Tom said.
"Taxicab, maybe," Dan offered.
"Possibly, but I looked at a map and it looks to be rather far. A cab probably would have been far too expensive. Then on the morning of the nineteenth, McVeigh drives the Ryder to the Murrah Building, parks it and sets it off remotely. Then he gets into the pickup and drives it out of town, but he gets pulled over for driving without license plates. Nichols watches footage of the bombing on television and turns himself in," Tom stated from memory.
"But in the new reality, the Ryder truck never gets to Oklahoma City. And the pickup just seems to disappear from existence – there's no record of it at all after the sixteenth, and it never seems to have gotten to Oklahoma City, either. The Ryder stays on the Nichols property – and the authorities even want to bring him in for questioning, as the Ryder truck rental place eventually sues to get their property back – but Nichols is nowhere to be found. It's like he disappeared as well. Marife Nichols is questioned but she's exonerated," Rick said.
"So the divergence happens on the sixteenth," Tom said, "we need to be in Oklahoma City on the sixteenth, I am thinking."
"Maybe we should ask them for a ride," Dan said.
=/\=
"I am just curious. It presents quite the moral conundrum," Marisol said, "You hold the fate of some twentysomething children in the palms of your hands. And you have the opportunity to save them."
"Or, you have the opportunity to either play God, or not," Sheilagh said, a bit annoyed that the questioning was persisting, "I got enough issues in my life without pretending to be a deity. Can we talk about something else?"
=/\=
"Carmen, can I talk to you?" it was Kevin.
"Of course. Do come in," she said, "gardening now, I see."
"Oh, that. It's what was used to nick all three dark matter collector lines."
"I see. Who has access to those shears?"
"Anyone," he said, "hell, I found 'em during the ceremony, just lyin' around. I imagine Von uses 'em more than anyone, but that doesn't mean he did the deed."
"What do they say?" she asked, "Motive, means and opportunity – and the shears are the means."
"Von had the opportunity, but so did Levi. Probably also Deirdre or, really, any of the travelers," Kevin pointed out.
"As for motive, the Perfectionists have their own lovely motives, all wrapped up in their Manifesto file. And Von, he might also have a profit motive," she pointed out.
"Curiouser and curiouser."
=/\=
Power and the money, money and the power
Minute after minute, hour after hour
Everybody's runnin', but half of them ain't lookin
What's goin on in the kitchen, but I don't know what's cookin
They say I got to learn, but nobody's here to teach me,
If they can't understand it, how can they reach me?
I guess they can't; I guess they won't
I guess they front; that's why I know my life is outta luck, fool!
- Coolio (Gangsta's Paradise)