Happy New Year everyone! Sorry I took so long to get back, I even considered waiting another two weeks and see if I could finish the story but the term Snowballs Chance in Hell came to mind.
Chapter 76
Strange Revelations
April and the small group with her, made their way into the Security Office to see Talon's recording, but convincing the officers on duty to permit the showing of evidence took a little arguing and several calls to superiors; none of whom were very happy.
"So you're telling me the people wishing to see the recording include Barron and Descott?" the Security Head's voice came from his officer's communicator.
"Yes sir; along with April Dias, Victor Kit..."
"I don't care who else is there" the Security Head barked. "If the leader of the Mars Citizens Council and the Head of the Deep Council Investigation want to review what we've got, just log it and show it to them; understood?"
"Understood sir" the officer replied.
Looking rather embarrassed, he pocketed his communicator and turned to Marshal Barron.
"Sorry about that sir but we don't yet have all the proper Security Office procedures worked out yet."
"We understand Officer but if we could please get on with it?"
"Certainly; if you would all like to come this way."
The young man led them into a briefing room and asked everyone to take a seat. He then accessed the appropriate file on a computer at the head of the room, and the video recording soon began to play on a large screen.
"Oh... uh..." Victor winced as the gruesome image continued.
Even though April and Ruth had already seen it several times before, experiencing the video blown up on a five meter screen was more confronting that they had expected. April even found herself looking away during the first part of the playback and only started to really pay attention when it approached the end point of her copy.
"Here we go" April noted "This is as far as we've seen so whatever it is must be coming up soon."
Everyone leaned further forward in their seats and stared intently at the screen. The image had already moved away from couches and coffee table where the bodies lay and was slowly moving around the right side of the room. April looked desperately for anything out of the ordinary but as the playback panned left passed the small kitchen bench top to the other side of the room, the only obvious thing was that Leonard had not yet cleaned up after breakfast. Eventually the sound of running people approaching could be heard in the background and the recording was shut off.
"We arrived in the room a few seconds later" the young officer noted "and that was when Talon left to take Mrs. Dias to the Medical Suite."
"I don't know about any of you, but I didn't see anything to suggest the Security Investigators conclusions were incorrect" Gretel Descott huffed.
"I don't understand" April wondered "Then why would Talon..."
Without letting her finish her thought, Victor Kittredge got up from his chair and strode to the front of the room.
"I think April has a good point" he stated "If there was nothing to see, then why would Talon Descott go to the trouble of getting his communicator to April late last night?"
"He did say I needed to download it as quickly as I could" April noted.
"Ah yes!" Ruth exclaimed "Maybe we should check to see if Jarred has found anything."
Before anyone could ask her what she was talking about, Ruth had pulled out her own communicator and called her husband.
"Hello?" he answered.
"I've got you on speaker here Honey; did you find anything interesting in Talon's communicator."
"We sure did" Saffron Dias called out excitedly.
"I hope you don't mind April but since Saffy was staying home today, I let her help me work on this thing."
"As long as you didn't let her see the recording" April noted.
"Oh it's definitely not in the communicator's memory anymore" Jarred stated "We found a tiny control chip attached to the back of the main circuit board hidden under the memory chip. My guess is someone was able to remotely access the communicator and wipe it."
There was a moment of stunned silence in the room as the gravity of Jarred's revelation sunk in, but it was soon broken by the sound of an excited young girl.
"We did good; didn't we Mom?"
"You did very good Saffy" she replied "I'm very proud of you and you shall have another double dessert tonight."
"Another?" Sierra wondered "What great deed did she do to get the last one?"
"Well... um..." April just couldn't find the right words.
"She punched my son in the face" Gretel Descott had no trouble finding the right words at all.
"Sorry I asked" Sierra smirked, clearly showing that she wasn't.
"I don't know about any of you, but I'm still bothered by all of this" Victor stated "It may just be a waste of time but I won't be satisfied until we can get Talon Descott back here and question him."
"Do you really want to keep going with this?" Marshal sighed.
"Oh just get them to turn the transport around and let's get this done with once and for all" Gretel huffed and stormed out.
Gretel's apparent co-operation stunned April and she hurried off after her foe.
"Before you go Gretel..." April called.
"What is it now?" the frustrated woman spun on her heel.
"Um... I was surprised to hear you're okay with Talon coming back for questioning."
"I'm not happy about it, but I know you'll never let this go until you've exhausted every last pathetic clue and suspicion in your tiny mind."
April let the insult go in order to check on something she felt was important.
"Gretel... was it you who sent him off to Base Two in the first place?"
This question threw Talon's mother into slight daze as she wondered why April would ask such a thing.
"No; but when the Head of Security told me Talon ad been reassigned there, I was very pleased. I thought it would be wonderful to have him well away from you're disruptive influence."
"Listen closely Gretel" April spoke quietly "I still suspect that you are a member of the Deep Council, but I'm also beginning to think the group is fracturing from inside."
"Is that how you're justifying your baseless murder theory?" Gretel sighed.
"Just be careful who you tell about Talon coming back" April warned "Something just doesn't feel right."
Gretel Descott pondered April's words before going back to see Marshal Baron once more; if April was right, then it would be better if no one knew what they were doing.
Reed Branson reached over to his bedside table to retrieve his watch; the luminous face informed him the time was 2:14 am.
"Good enough" he whispered to himself as he rose up and swung his legs around to the floor.
He was still surprised to have his own room in the small habitat he shared with two other guards. Considering the living conditions on the other side of the checkpoint, he would have been satisfied just to be in a smaller dorm room with a more comfortable bed. Reed was confident turning on the rooms light would not alert anyone, but he still dressed himself in the dark just to be on the safe side. When he was ready, Reed carefully opened his bedroom door and moved silently over to the main door with his shoes still in his hands. Once he had made it outside, he slipped them on and quickly tied the laces.
The lights in the corridor had been switched to night mode and gave only a small fraction of the illumination they would normally emit, but this suited Reeds purpose perfectly as he moved stealthily along from shadow to shadow. On his journey he looked inside room after room only to find the inside was pitch black until twenty minutes later, he opened a door leading to an amazing place.
When he first saw the trees and shrubs, Reed thought he had stepped outside but it soon became obvious that the stars overhead were merely projections on the high curved ceiling. The light in the massive room was a near perfect emulation of that provided by a full moon except for the six shadows he saw on the ground near every tree and pole around him. Reed moved slowly and quietly along the path and marvelled at the beauty, apparent even in the artificial moonlight. A feeling of distrust in what he was seeing arose, so he left the path and approached one of the nearby trees. After running his fingers over the trunk and lower branches he came to the conclusion that it was indeed a real tree, growing in real soil next to a lawn of real grass.
"Doesn't he realise that if he wants to have Peacocks running around the place, he's gonna have to expect them to call out occasionally? Peacocks are well known to be very loud birds."
The unexpected ornithological information came from two men wandering up the path towards the door. Reed stepped back into the trees shadow and waited for the men to pass by.
"Oh he doesn't mind them calling out, but not so late and not outside his bedroom window" the second man added.
"I just hate being ordered to round them up in the middle of the night and lock them in their cages, just to have him let them out again the next morning" the first lamented.
"Speaking of cages, we'd better check and make sure the Professor is still safely locked up in his."
Reed's ears pricked up at the mention of the Professor and so keeping his head low, he slipped out from behind the tree and followed the pair of peacock wranglers back to the exit. Fortunately the corridors were still empty aside from the two men who chatted with each other so freely, they probably would not have noticed if Reed had been walking along right behind them. After passing several doors, they eventually came to the one they sought, which they opened using a pass card.
"Dammit" Reed hissed to himself, realising he would be locked out when the door was shut.
The man who had just used the card held the door open for his colleague before stepping in himself. As soon as they were out of sight, Reed hurried out of the shadows and ran at the door while still trying to remain quiet. Fully aware of the pain to come, he thrust his hand in-between the door and its frame a split second before they met. It was not easy to remain silent as his fingers were crushed but Reed did his best to channel his agony into facial contortions rather than audible noise.
Slipping inside, the first things Reed noticed were the similarities between this massive room and the last one he'd been in. There were the stars, the trees and the paths, but then there were the differences because inside this room, there were buildings. Stone cottages lined the paved streets forming a small village that could only be described as quaint. This was the last thing Reed had expected to find but before he had the chance to totally wrap his head around what he was seeing, he noticed the men he followed turning a corner fifty odd meters to his right.
Treading softly, Reed gave chase once more till he reached the same corner, where he ducked down behind the brick pillar of a wrought iron fence. Peering to the left, he observed the men as they opened the third gate in the street, which gave an ear piercing squeak. Keeping low, he continued to follow until he was close enough to see them check the front door.
"Still secure" one noted before turning back.
Realising the two men would soon pass by him, Reed looked around franticly for somewhere he could hide. Just behind him was the gate leading to the front garden of the second house but chances were high it would make just as much noise as the third gate. Knowing his timing would have to be near to perfect, Reed stepped back and placed his hand on the gate handle, pushing it slowly down. He could just see the tops of the men's heads as they walked back down the path and when they reached out to open their gate, he pushed on his.
If they had been paying proper attention, they could have easily noticed the stereoscopic squeal as the gates opened and closed almost simultaneously.
"Now we know he's not sneaking around outside again, I say its coffee time."
"For you it's always coffee time" the second man noted.
Reed waited patiently until he heard the outer door slam shut, before he made his way back into the street and to the house next door. He had expected to find the front door locked, but he had not expected the padlocked iron gate that clearly was not originally part of the door frame.
"Ah Professor... you ol' troublemaker" Reed smiled.
It was a foregone conclusion that any other entrance would also be barred, so Reed walked down the side of the house to peruse the windows. Given his advanced age, the guards correctly assumed Linton Adisa would not be attempting to use the high set windows as a method of entrance and exit, but that would not stop the captain of the One and All having a go at it.
Climbing up would not be a problem as the sill was only shoulder high, but opening the window would present some problems. Breaking the glass may be the best course of action but Reed knew he had to do it in a way that could be explained away later. Several methods presented themselves to him in the form of a garden gnome, three potted plants and wind chime hanging from a two meter high, three legged metal pole.
"Why would there be a wind chime when there is no wind in here?" Reed asked himself.
As if to purposely make him appear to be a fool, the delicate sound of the chimes tinkled in the night.
"Mrowr."
Reed looked down to see a rather large cat had just rubbed its face on the base of the pole, causing it to wobble slightly.
"Look what you've done you naughty kitty" Reed grinned as he purposely tipped the pole towards the house.
The startled cat jumped up and ran off in fear as the top of the pole shattered the lower pane of glass.
"You're in trouble now puss" Reed noted as he reached in to unlock the window and slide it up.
As he pulled himself up onto the sill, a light came on in the passage upstairs and a nervous voice called out.
"Who's there? I'm warning you... I've got a gun."
"You haven't got gun" Reed disputed "Not only would you not be allowed to have one, but I doubt you'd know how to use it if you did."
"Captain Branson... is... is that you?"
"In the flesh" Reed answered "Or I should say, in the dark."
"My dear Captain how did you get in here?" Professor Adisa asked as he hurried down the stairs.
"I got a job as one of the guards here" he replied "We're gonna try and get you and Henry out."
"Easier said than done I'm afraid but I'm not in any hurry to leave yet; I'm finding out all kinds of things. Is there any way you could get a message outside?"
"We've got a few plans in place" Reed answered.
"When you say we... who do you mean?"
"The townsfolk who turned you over now know you're not EFA and it was a mistake to bring you here."
"Oh have I got things to tell you about the EFA" Linton shook his head "I need to get this information back to Sarah."
"I'll see about getting it to Jack Sumner and he'll do his best to deliver it."
"Good" the Professor nodded before putting on a bad French accent "Now listen very carefully; I will say zis only once."
I haven't quite caught up yet but I'm getting there (4 chapters done), so I'll try to get back to the once a week schedule again. Working on the climactic ending makes me wonder, will I be praised or lynched when people see it? Hmmm... we shall see.