Title: Retrospection
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Crossover, Science-Fiction
Summary: "It was information overload—like an impossible perpetual motion machine moving faster and faster."
Rating: T
Characters: David Webb/Jason Bourne, Pamela Landy, others.
Reconnaissance
The rest of the world may as well not exist.
That thought didn't sit well with her—it didn't sit well with her at all.
No, she wasn't going to let the thought drag her down, not if she wanted to survive and get out of this situation intact. She very quickly snapped out of her depression with a very resounding-- No! The rest of the world is still there. Now, get a grip on yourself Pam and work the problem.
Again, she tried to remember what happened before she woke up.
Her last clear memory was being in Washington D.C. She just finished her third day testifying for the Intelligence sub-committee on the need to have accountability in Intelligence gathering, citing Treadstone—later known as Blackbriar—as examples of black ops run amok. The session had gone well, and the responses from the Senators and Intelligence officials present were positive overall. She had no illusions about how long the process would take though, and therefore took her time. The current administration wasn't going to play ball, but with the way the year has been going, she had no doubts the next one would.
Pam had just spoken to her friend and former assistant Tom Cronin that she was on the way to Union Station and would arrive in time for dinner with him and his family.
She was... walking... to the lobby. It was the end of the day... she was going... shit. She brought her hands to her face and shook her head.
The rest of the memory after pocketing her phone is hazy. No, not hazy, she realized, it just wasn't there.
She let out a breath and shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. Her hand felt something solid and small in the left pocket. Pulling it out, it was a key. Son of a...
Pamela ran back inside the house and down to the lock box set into the wall. Amazingly, the key did fit the lock, and inside were indeed keys. Either there's a supreme being watching over me or whoever put that key there is a real wise-ass. Besides the set with the Toyota logo, there were several other sets. Two of the other sets clearly belonged to the SnowCat and snow mobile, but there were others that had nothing to do with the house or the vehicles and were marked with symbols.
Intrigued, she stuffed her jacket pockets with the other keys, closed the lid, then got in the truck and turned on the ignition. The garage door opener was integrated into the rear-view mirror and with the door opened, she started the engine. The answering sound was the muted clatter of a diesel.
After a few false starts—she hadn't driven a manual transmission car in years—she was able to drive the truck up and out of the underground garage and onto the dirt road. Though the road was wide and well maintained, she drove at a slow pace.
Thick forest covered both sides, the road winded and eventually opened up to reveal a fantastic vista of the lake she had seen from her bedroom window The road lead to a boat house and continued beyond into the forest toward the hills.
Similar in décor to the house, the boat house was set right out on the lake. It stood roughly two stories tall, with a third lighthouse-style tower that extended above the roof with a dome. The main floor was roughly forty feet wide by a hundred feet long. At least half the structure extended out over the water.
Next to the house was a concrete boat launching ramp. A large garage door opened into the ground level, which housed a Jet Ski, a motor boat, a sail boat and a small dingy. Set into the walls were various tools, supplies, fishing and safety gear. A stair case led upstairs to a spacious loft-style living room containing a fireplace, a stereo, some comfortable furniture—wood flooring and sheepskin rugs—and a small kitchenette. A full bathroom with a spacious shower were set in a corner. A large set of bay windows faced the water. A winding stair case led up to a small observatory with a telescope and touchscreen computer.
Back in the truck, she turned on the radio and again scanned for any radio transmissions, finding nothing but static. The truck had a GPS navigation system, but was disappointed to find that though it displayed a topographical map of the area, there was nothing displayed beyond a radius of twenty miles and nothing she could do would make it display coordinates.
Never the less, the map was informative. Iconic symbols were used to denote "Home" and "Boat House" on the map. It also marked several hiking trails, some other landmarks, and three more locations: an electricity symbol, a water symbol and what looked like a well with steam rising from it. She pulled out the keys in her pockets—two sets had corresponding symbols. She would check them all.
The next closest stop was less than a mile away: the "water" location.
She arrived at a shed with a single door. There were large pipes that she could see underwater that led underground near the door.
"Water" obviously denoted water supply.
One of the keys on the corresponding ring unlocked the door; which revealed a long staircase that led down. The lighting was hooked up to a motion sensor, and clicked on automatically. Like in the hallway at the house, warm LED lighting lined both bottom corners of the stairway.
The stairway led to another door, which opened into a cavern-like room that housed pipes, pumps, filters and other equipment, all automated by a computer control center at the front of the room.
Unlike the house and boat house, the control system computers consisted of two small form factor PCs with standard wired keyboards, mice and two large widescreen LCD monitors. She sat down at one and checked out the GUI. Both monitors were displaying flow process diagrams, which took up most of the screens. After studying the diagrams, she realized this facility not only supplied water, but also treated waste water—one handling water filtering the other waste treatment.
The keyboards had no Super key. They used some Windows-like desktop that she wasn't familiar with. The main menu button had a cyberpunk-like radiation symbol, clicking on it displayed a list of installed software. She brought up a Terminal window with a prompt:
proc-ctrl1wutil:~$
She recognized the prompt—it belonged to a Unix operating system—and tried a few simple commands.
proc-ctrl1wutil:~$ uptime
9:19:01 up 0 day, 11:19, 2 users, load average: 0.25, 0.11, 0.23
That's odd. Either the equipment was brought online eleven hours ago or this terminal was booted up... --she quickly did the math—at ten o'clock last night? Bedtime?
proc-ctrl1wutil:~$ date
Tue Jan 1 09:20:04 EDT 2000
January 2000? The last date she clearly remembered was Friday, May 23, 2008. Either someone didn't set the clock or deliberately set it to the start of the year. Why would someone not want me to know the exact date? Well, I definitely can't rely on the system clock.
proc-ctrl1wutil:~$ ls
ExamplesbinDesktop
proc-ctrl1wutil:~$ cd /
proc-ctrl1wutil:/$ ls
bin dev initrd lib mnt root sys var
boot etc lost+found opt sbin tmp vmlinuz
cdrom home .old media proc srv usr
proc-ctrl1wutil:/$ uname -r
2.6.22-14-generic
proc-ctrl1wutil:/$
Linux, not Unix she corrected herself; the string of numbers was a version of a Linux kernel. That made sense; freely distributable and untraceable since there's no proprietary license. It's also a very adaptable, stable and secure computing platform.
She wasn't much of a computer user, but she had enough training and knowledge to know her way around. She tried a few more commands.
proc-ctrl1wutil:/$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:10:C6:D0:28:8F
inet addr: Bcast: Mask:
inet6 addr: fe80::210:c6ff:fed0:288f/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:820421 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:750826 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:179064409 (170.7 MB) TX bytes:66903996 (63.8 MB)
Base address:0x8000 Memory:c0240000-c0260000
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr: Mask:
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:245 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:245 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:21664 (21.1 KB) TX bytes:21664 (21.1 KB)
If she remembered networking concepts correctly, was a non-routeable IP address, so either the computer is networked on its own private network, or connected to a router. She noted the IP address and tried pinging a common web site.
proc-ctrl1wutil:/$ ping .com
From icmp_seq=2 Destination Net Unreachable
From icmp_seq=3 Destination Net Unreachable
She stopped the repeating message via a CTRL-C. So, no Internet access. Or maybe no DNS. She tried again, using an IP address.
proc-ctrl1wutil:/$ ping
PING () 56(84) bytes of data.
From icmp_seq=2 Destination Net Unreachable
From icmp_seq=3 Destination Net Unreachable
Okay, no dice. Let's try something else.
proc-ctrl1wutil:/$ cd /usr/bin
proc-ctrl1wutil:/usr/bin$ ls
A long list of program names scrolled down the screen. Some of it she recognized, while others were obviously related to the monitoring and control of the water treatment equipment. She narrowed her search, she was looking for something specific. Ah ha.
There was one last thing she could try that would determine if there was an Internet connection or not. It had been a very long time, but she was sure the system was still active. Even if it wouldn't let her in, it was a sign that she had some link with the outside world.
proc-ctrl1wutil:/usr/bin$ssh
Several minutes passed, then.
ssh: connect to host port 22: Connection timed out
proc-ctrl1wutil:/usr/bin$
No connection. Damn.
Before she left, she took an impromptu tour of the facility. The equipment was surprisingly quiet, state-of-the-art and like everything else she had seen appeared new; definitely not older than a few months. Yet, there was something odd. It wasn't the equipment, or the computers.
She inhaled, and that's when it hit her: smell. A water treatment plant should have some sort of odd or unpleasant smell—or at least she thought so. This plant smelled... new. On the other hand, if this place was constructed only a few months ago and she was the first one to actually live here, then there wouldn't be any waste water to treat. Yet, she filed away that little tidbit into her memory.
It means something.
Her next stop would be the power plant which, according to the computer-driven map, was about ten miles away. Back behind the wheel, she continued on the road deep into the forest, again at a slow pace careful not to risk damaging the truck and necessitating a long walk back. While driving, she sighted what she hoped would be the highest point—a hill top—stopped and got out.
She hiked up to the top. It was a clear day and there were no mountains, and forest and hills stretched beyond in every direction well beyond the horizon with no signs of civilization.
There were no radio towers, watch towers, or water towers. She saw steam/smoke rising from a spot not too far away (the power plant). There were no perimeter fences either, but no other roads. No rivers or streams that she could see either. The lake was likely being feed by an underground spring.
Back in the truck, she kept going, and finally stops at the location; the road ended with thick forest and vegetation that a truck couldn't get through. If she wanted to escape, she'd have to go on foot, and then for god only knows how far and for how long; without a map or knowing her location, that could be fatal.
There were three other buttons on the HomeLink transmitter. The third one opened the main door, beyond was a long ramp that led her underground to a cavernous room. Inside were yet more pipes, pumps and other machinery that apparently generated electricity; a geothermal power plant.
A computer control center, nearly identical in layout to the one at the water facility, was online. Only this one was greater in complexity. Several monitors, switches, gauges and dials lined several control panels set in a semi-circle around her. Fully automated, it had manual backups and redundant systems in case of failure. On the main menu was that odd stylized radiation symbol again. Could it be a corporate logo? It was nothing she had ever seen before. No criminal or terrorist organization, company or government used a symbol like that. Maybe it was part of the operating system.
As with the computers in the water plant, it ran the same operating system and was pre-loaded with the same basic set of software. The command-prompt was virtually identical.
proc-ctrl1putil:~$
Pamela began to figure out the naming scheme. "proc-ctrl1" meant Process Control 1, "putil" meant Power Utility. The IP address scheme was non-routable, and it appeared that each location's IP range started with 1. 10 is probably the house, 20 the boat house, 30 the water treatment plant, and 40 the power plant. What about 1-9? Could they be networked together? This time, she pinged the IP address of the computer at the water treatment facility.
proc-ctrl1putil:~$ ping
PING () 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from : icmp_seq=1 ttl=249 time=23.2 ms
64 bytes from : icmp_seq=2 ttl=249 time=56.4 ms
64 bytes from : icmp_seq=3 ttl=249 time=29.9 ms
64 bytes from : icmp_seq=4 ttl=249 time=64.2 ms
64 bytes from : icmp_seq=5 ttl=249 time=22.7 ms
So they are networked together. Which means there may be some sort of gateway or central hub, maybe back at the house or somewhere else.
She tried a few other addresses, and tried to log into some of them via Telnet or SSH, but was blocked. But it did answer one important question; the facilities and houses were all networked together. Considering the distances between them and the fact that there there were no wireless technology in use, meant they were using Fiber Optic or some kind of telecom-based circuit; which was expensive to do privately. It also reinforced the idea that maybe there is a link to the outside world, but it's blocked by a firewall. If she can find the firewall and bypass it, she might be able to send a call out for help.
But, again, she was getting ahead of herself. She needed to finish checking what was on the map. Her next stop was the "steam" location—which turned out to be conveniently located near the power station. She had a pretty good idea of what it was, but didn't dare make any assumptions until she saw it for herself.
Grabbing a flash light from the truck bed tool box, she soon found a cave opening in the side of another hill. The only sign of man were the man made steps carved into the stone and soft LED lighting as she went through the passage, which twisted and turned and led deeper underground.
Within minutes, she started to feel a rise in the temperature and felt moisture; like a natural sauna. Finally, she arrived at a fairly sized cavern that was barely seven or eight feet high and little larger than a typical living room. The cave floor was dominated by a large underground pool. Steam rose from the naturally heated clear water. A set of waterproof cases were neatly stacked on the ground away from the pool. Inside were towels, sleeping bags, pads and other camping gear.
At this point, she had to laugh. The laughter became uncontrollable, causing her to brace herself against the cave wall with her hand and fight for breath. Oh, this is just too much. This place is the perfect romantic hideaway or vacation spot. The pool definitely looked pretty tempting to the tall blond, who had been torn between anxiety and curiosity since she woke up. This was definitely one of the most unique places she had ever been to in her life.
Unfortunately, the hot spring, geothermal power plant, lack of mountains and fresh water lake only made finding her whereabouts more confusing. This had to be a private plot of land somewhere. There was nowhere she had heard of in the US that was deserted like this with these unique geological resources. Only two or three geographical areas were anywhere near right: the Western United States, Canada, Iceland, and eastern Russia. Of the three, Russia and Canada seemed most likely—in that order.
Even so, it must have taken years and a sizable amount of capital to develop the area; let alone keep it quiet. This only further reinforced the idea that it wasn't the Agency; she would've heard at least a rumor about this place. Or any government for that matter; they had no need for such a place and wouldn't waste their time and money. That only left private individuals and corporations.
Only one private citizen she had any connection to came to mind: Gretkov.
Founder, former owner and CEO of Gretkov Oil and Gas. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gretkov had bought his oil leases with twenty million dollars in stolen CIA seed money courtesy of Ward Abbot. Together, they conspired to take out anyone who got in the way; starting with Vladmir Neski and ending with two of her field agents.
And a young woman named Marie Kreutz. A woman shot by a sniper whose bullet was meant for her boyfriend: David Webb, or Jason Bourne before he finally regained his identity.
If so, it made sense to a degree; the house, the utilities, the road, the equipment—he could easily afford it all. Eastern Russia was vast and largely undeveloped; it would be relatively easy and cheap to find a suitable location. It was the right kind of weather and the right kind of plant life.
Except, if Gretkov was responsible, what would he want with her? They never even met. The only time she ever saw him was from a distance when he was arrested by the FSB in Moscow nearly four years ago.
Between the Agency and his trial, he had plenty of enemies and problems of his own to deal with; it's highly unlikely that he had even heard of her. Besides, the last she heard he was imprisoned in a Labor camp for the next twenty years, and the Russian government was working to bring other charges against him.
Why would he treat her this way? The short answer was: there was no reason to. He had nothing to gain. Hell, he and Ward Abbott stole from the Agency, from her, costing her several good field personnel and innocent lives. If the Russian authorities didn't go after him, the Agency damn well would have.
Besides, everything was marked in English, including the power and water equipment. So much for that theory.
Another suspect eliminated.
Another thing occurred to her; she had no idea how much time had passed between her memories of D.C. and now; she couldn't even be absolutely sure what year it was.
Okay, new theory. It's not Agency or Gretkov, but someone new that I've never met or don't remember meeting. That person or persons for reasons unknown kidnapped me and is holding me here against my will. I was given drugs that induced short term memory loss.
But, that doesn't explain the empty clothes hamper, she pointed out to herself. Why wasn't there a note? If I'm a prisoner, why leave me here alone with all this equipment? Why give me free reign within the area? Why not simply dump me in a bed fully dressed or stark naked in a dark cell, she wondered.
Of course, she had an answer, and it made her shudder. They stripped me bare, dressed me, and provided me with everything I'd need to increase my sense of isolation and disorientation.
No matter how comfortable they tried to make her, she was dependent on whoever brought her here for survival, which meant they have power over her. They effectively stripped her of her independence. That was a pretty clear message in and of itself.
And that really pissed her off. She stalked back out into the open air to the white Toyota pickup.
Even without a detailed map or communications, she was certain that she'd find some way to send out a call for help or escape.
Back at the truck, she paused at the open door and rested her forehead against the top of the door frame. She shrugged off the anger she felt—anger wasn't going to help her—and kept thinking this through.
If there are no roads that lead in and out of the area, then that means everything must have been brought in by a float plane or helicopter. There was no airstrip, but the lake is long enough to handle a water landing—
Pam's eyes suddenly lit up in a jolt of inspiration. The lake. A freshwater lake! A large, long and narrow lake! There was a world atlas in the library. It was a long-shot, but if she could match up the contours of the lake with one on the atlas, she'd know where she was.
She got in and drove back to the house. With the truck left idling, she ran inside and upstairs to the library. She grabbed the world atlas and from a nearby desk some writing pads, tracing paper and pens.
Then, she drove back to the boat house at the lake and settled herself up in the loft and laid out her materials; it was the best place to work since she'd have the actual lake in front of her as a reference point. Before she did, she made a tracing of the lake from the electronic map on the truck's GPS unit.
She started with Russia, finding that the atlas was highly detailed, and got to work. This was what she was good at; analyzing information, finding patterns, finding the truth.
Several times, she forced herself to take a break, had a snack, and went outside to take a closer look at the lake. If she wanted to keep going, she had to pace herself. She definitely couldn't deny it was beautiful. Picture perfect. There was a sandy beach right nearby perfect for laying out in the sun.
Back to work. Back in the loft, she settled back down in front of the tracings, notepads and atlas. That's how she spent her first day.
Russia was a bust. Unless the lake was artificial, there were no matches. She checked Canada, then the U.S., then Iceland, Greenland, even the British Islands and Europe. She struck out again and again. By late afternoon, she had exhausted every landmass she could think of.
Maybe the lake really was artificial.
She should take a walk around the lake, go out in the boat. By then it was getting close to dinner time. So, she gathered her supplies, climbed into the truck, and drove back up to the house.
The fridge had a good white wine; she poured a glass and after looking around the kitchen and fridge, she decided to cook something simple: spaghetti and meat sauce—one of the few things that she could cook quickly and well. A little music—she turned on the radio and choose some Jazz.
As she ate, she reflected on what she found out. Everything was self-contained, automated and expensive. There were no other signs of anyone watching her or inside the house or anywhere else. There were no threats of any kind. That things were new puzzled her. What about that odd spell she had this morning? She mentally shrugged off her questions and by strength of will ate.
For the sake of her sanity, she needed to make some rules for herself.
From now until she finished dinner, cleaned the dishes and put everything away, unless something came up, she wouldn't think about the problem. There was no need to hurry and even if lives were in danger, she resigned herself to the conclusion that there was nothing she could do.
Since it looked like she was going to be stuck here for a while, she'd need to establish a daily routine. The most important person she needed to look after was herself. That meant that she'd get a full eight hours sleep. In the morning, she'd get up, have breakfast, get out and walk. She'd drive out and search those facilities top to bottom. At certain times of the day, she'd stop, take a break and unwind. There was time, and working around the clock could cause her to waste too much time.
Her biggest break was that her basic needs were already taken care of; food, water and shelter. Thanks to the generous supply of reading material, music, and television, not to mention watercraft and hiking trails, there was plenty to keep her mind occupied. The supplies she had would only last for a few months without rationing; which meant someone would have to show up to deliver more supplies.
Unless they did an air supply drop. What about garbage disposal? That was of little concern but...
Tomorrow morning, after breakfast, she'd pack a lunch and go back out to more closely inspect the power and water treatment plants. There was still the main network hub (if it existed), which wasn't marked on the map. They may provide clues or some means to get word out. They were automated facilities, so maybe there's some sort of outside communications to alert someone if there was a problem; she might be able to tap into that somehow.
And of course, when her "host" showed up, she'd be ready.