Minions (37 page)

“The Research Interface?”

Glen nodded.  “At the time I saw the merit in his
suggestion, and while I had my suspicions, I tended to focus on the upside.”

“So what did he do?”

“You know, different people, different readers more
specifically, responded differently.  I discovered that Derrell was doing the
rounds of hospices.  It seemed he was befriending masses of terminally ill
patients, encouraging them to become LastGaspStore members no less.

“The guy was the embodiment of what I wanted for
LastGasp’.  I’d found the ‘Charlie’ for my chocolate factory.”

“So what was the problem?”

“I called it an ideological misclose at the time, but I
don’t know what I’d call it now.  The problem was that we basically wanted the
same thing, except that we wanted to achieve it differently. 

“So why aren’t you trapped now?”

“I’m probably just as trapped as before but with
acceptance comes comfort.  Now I’m just more comfortable with what I’ve
created, and you can thank your friend Malcolm for that.”

“Why?”

“I know I explained that Derrell represented a ‘changing
of the guard’, but I don’t think I explained that this was more literal than
cliché.  My readers are effectively my guards, and before Derrell, their
commitment was to the task at hand, to guard and protect LastGaspStore.  But
those who followed had their own agendas.”

“Is that why they were killed?”  Devlin risked the cheap
shot as he re-scanned the list. 

Glen didn’t bite.  “You know, Sampson Burbino had the same
concerns as you.  He joined me towards the end of Derrell’s time.”

“The Detective mentioned that he thinks that Malcolm is
actually this Burbino guy.”

“Quite,” said Glen.  “For a time after Derrell, there was
only Carson, Sam and myself.  It was hot on the heels of Derrell’s departure
and I was decidedly wary, but we settled into a rhythm and things went well.”

“Sam’s not on my list.”

“Sam’s not on any list and that was intentional.  I knew I
was on a winner with him.  Some personal issues had forced him into isolation
from when he was young, so he was denied a lot of corrupting influences, but of
course he didn’t live his entire life in a bubble, so he wasn’t a saint by any
means. 

“I still remember when I interrupted Carson and Sam
discussing the future of LastGaspStore.  It didn’t occur to me at the time
because they weren’t looking to breach my system, or otherwise bring it down. 
The status quo worked for me.”

“So what did they want?”

“I know you’ve got your concerns about my protocols, all
readers do, but Carson and Sam went even better.  The fact is that there’s
always someone worthy of attention, the issue lies in what’s done thereafter. 
Most want to punish someone, and I accept that.  Readers are only human, and I
wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You know.  The reason why I recruited Carson is that I
understood the need for a woman’s empathy at LastGaspStore.  I don’t like to
generalise, but I figured that women would be better at this, and a lack of
testosterone would reduce the potential for a liability like many of those who
preceded her.  Again, I say that different people have responded differently to
the stresses of being a reader.  Some change, some don’t.

“Carson and Sam both made an effort to pull me to their
side.  Ordinarily readers have a nasty habit of feigning dumbfounded silence,
but they both felt confident enough to argue their case.  Carson suggested that
the protocols were crap because they didn’t see bad people go down.  Sam, in a
sense, agreed.”

“So what was the problem?” 

“Semantics arguably.  Sam wanted the good to be protected,
at whatever cost, personally, and to LastGasp’.  Carson was less interested in
protecting the good so long as those worthy go punished.

“It’s all about the greater good, Devlin.  It’s always
about the greater good.”

“So what happened to Carson?”

“Carson lost sight of the greater good.  Anything else
that I could tell you about her wouldn’t help.”

“Wouldn’t help you, or me?”

“Wouldn’t help anyone,” Glens face softened.  “I’ll tell
you something about me, and I tell you this only because I think that you might
understand this better than the others.”

Devlin heard this and sub-consciously felt a little odd,
as if he had achieved something the others had not.  He wondered if this meant
that he was any more, or less, at risk than he was previously.

“David and the others felt that their role was one of
community service, and there’s some element of truth in this.”

“And what about Sam?”

“Sam moved on.  We had a parting of ways, of sorts.  We
both understood how LastGaspStore was corruptible, and unlike others, we both
weren’t prepared to see it further corrupted.”

“So why would Malcolm, Sam, change his name?  If he’s
hiding from you and you know his new identity ...”

“He’s not hiding from me.  If I ever wanted to, I guess I
could track him down, but that’s beside the point.  I don’t want to find him,
just as I don’t really want him found.”

“Why, if you’re friends?”

“We
are
friends, but ideologically opposed and now
distant.  When last we spoke, he accused me of being just as bad as some of the
people that we read about every day, and I’m not just talking about LastGaspStore
messages here either.  If I knew someone was at risk or at harm and I do
nothing, am I guilty?  Perhaps.

“It was then that we parted.  If the Police and others
could be so content to sit on information and do nothing, then I didn’t want to
facilitate any further corruption.”

“So what did Sam, Malcolm, want?”

“Malcolm wanted to use the guilty.”

“How can you use guilt?”

Glen scratched his head and sat forward in his seat. 
“What would you do if you met or even discovered the person who outed you?”

“Not only is he already dead …”

”So you maintain, and thanks to you,” Glen interrupted. 
“But humour me.”

Devlin thought about the confident way that Glen had
raised the point and the doubt that it left in him was emptying.  “Are you
saying that he’s not the one who outed me?”

“How should I know?  My point is that you clearly aren’t
certain, even in hindsight.  And look at what happened.”

Devlin raised his eyebrows and made to defend himself from
the accusation, but Glen held up his hand as if to retract the comment. 
“Whether you had cause or not is irrelevant.  He’s dead, you’re not and when
the media loses interest you’ll be able to continue with your life.”

“But if he’s innocent then …”

“He’s still dead.  What you are grappling with is the
question of whether or not he deserved it.

“Until now you’ve defended yourself with passion that you
did what you did for the right reasons.  In so doing you killed a family man
over what amounted to a personal grudge.  Now tell me what you’d do if you
learnt, without question, that he was
not
the one who made the
accusations.”

“I’d …”  Devlin couldn’t even begin to frame a response. 
The thought ate away at him.  He remembered that when his nightmare began, he
was naïvely confident that the world, or at least a jury, would see the
provocation that led to the whole incident.

“You don’t really need to tell me, but consider this. 
What if you learned, before or after, that the world was better off without
him.  Wife beater, rapist, serial killer, income tax evader.  It doesn’t
matter.  How would that change how you feel now?”

“I’d sleep better.”

“What if only you knew the truth?”

“I’d live with it.”

“So you’d live out your life knowing that what you did
served a greater purpose, regardless of whether anyone else knew?”

Devlin finally gathered where this was heading.  “The
greater good?”

Glen nodded.  “I’ll bet you’re itching to use the Research
Interface at this point.  It won’t change anything of course.”

“But I have to know.”

“Just make sure that you can handle each of the
possibilities.  That he’s
not
the one, that he
is
the one and
you’re now public enemy number one for what amounts to a community service, and
that he is the one but not the monster that you’d hoped.”

“I can handle it.”

“Alright then,” Glen offered.  “Because others couldn’t.”

                                                                                                                                                        
Chapter - 80.
               
 

Devlin pushed himself away from the keyboard until the
wheels of his chair stopped at the wall.  He remained fixated on the screen,
but he wasn’t able to read anything but the largest type from that range.  It
didn’t matter.  He was finished.

“Was it worth it?” Glen asked sincerely.

“Probably not.”

“You see Devlin, in the wrong hands, all the remorse or
anger in the world won’t change anything.  But in the right hands, there is
opportunity. 

“You’ve got two, at least two, choices here.  You could
keep on with your anger at the world, but that won’t get you anywhere.  The
world doesn’t care, and neither do I.  I see enough regret every day, as have
you.  Missed opportunities, lost moments.  Regret and loss is everywhere and I
don’t want to see you waste your life on something that will be old news before
the dust settles on your grave or you make your first parole review.

“Or you could get on with your life.  Move on.  That’s why
I recruited you.”

“So your employing me is … what exactly?”

“Just like I’ve said, I just don’t want you to head down a
dead end path.”

Devlin was incredulous.  “Bullshit!  Look me in the eyes
and tell me that this is all to protect my interests.”

“I sincerely do have your best interests at heart, but I won’t
look you in the eyes.  It’s not you, it’s me.  I do it, or more correctly
don’t
do it with anyone.”

“So why’s that?”

“Years of conditioning!” Glen struggled a smile.  “Others too
have confronted me on the subject.  They’d argue that they could never tell if
I was telling them the truth unless I looked them in the face.  ‘
The truth
is in your eyes
’, they’d say.”

“I tend to share that opinion.” 

“The fact is that I don’t look at people because I don’t
want to know whether they are telling me the truth.”

For arguably the first time, Devlin understood something
of what Glen was saying.  “So if you’re looking out for me, why didn’t you look
out for David and the others?”

“You have to understand that until Derrell, my readers were
there for me, but after Derrell and Sam, I changed my focus.”  Disappointment
was obvious on Glen’s face.  “I’ve felt for each and every one of those who
died because I wanted to help them.  I figured that exposed to other people’s
secrets, they might learn something and save themselves. 

“Most recently, David, perhaps found it too confronting to
have his bias for forgiveness challenged.  Maybe he could tolerate it
particularly on account of his professional past, but not when immersed in
guilt all day, every day.  Whether that guilt was his or someone else’s is no
longer important.

“And Ikel.  I thought I could change him by showing him
how he and others like him have affected people.  The problem with him was that
he was so fickle that he was oblivious to my efforts and came to see LastGaspStore
as a cash-cow and a means to meet bereaved women.  Before you ask, I’m not
above sadness that he died, but you saw the way he drove.  It was just a matter
of time.  Perhaps the LastGaspStore message that he received from his uncle
gave way to some great epiphany. 

“So why then would Whitely feel the need to warn me?”

“Whitely’s heart’s in the right place.  I trust that you
know of his history, his shared history with your friend the Detective.  You
might know that he was arguably the least corruptible of my readers and I was
appreciative for that.  I thought I could drag him from his shell and get his
mind off revenge.  In that sense I was partially successful; Whitely’s still
alive and out of jail.”

“And Malcolm?”

Glen took a look at his watch after first shaking his
wrist and holding it to his ear.  “Can I ask you to hold that thought, your
question, for a few hours.”

“Fine,” Devlin reluctantly accepted the request with a
sigh. 

Glen stood and stretched his arms high such that his palms
approached the ceiling.  He gave Devlin a heart-felt but gentle pat on the
shoulder.  “Relax.  You’ll understand more before too long.”

Devlin shrugged as if accepting the suggestion, but with
reservation.  He tried for an answer to a different but he presumed related
question.  “So why tolerate the Police here at all?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Why allow Police on staff in the first place?”

“For so long as they are trying to get in, then I know
that LastGaspStore is secure.  When they stop trying, then theoretically I
should be worried.”

“I think you’ve been breached.”

“I doubt that.”

“Don’t you think that it is amazingly co-incidental that
Malcolm would meet Angie, and that Malcolm would tell her about me.”

“It’s not co-incidental, but not important, just the
same.”

                                                                                                                                                        
Chapter - 81.
               
 

Tania woke in unfamiliar surroundings but in a familiar
place.  It was daylight, early morning judging by the lack of any traffic hum,
and her memory of the preceding night was patchy. 

She knew the drill.  She first allowed her body to check
for any significant injuries before she even moved, and only after she was
satisfied that nothing was broken did she make any effort to roll off her
stomach onto her back.  As soon as she moved her legs she felt the constriction
at her knees, her underwear for sure, and she knew the rest instantly.  She
began her ordered injury assessment, first face, then limb by limb.  She
anticipated the pains and damage, but still checked them off in a mental ‘top
to toe’ checklist just the same.  Her hair was sure to be a mess, even as short
as it was, but at least it didn’t smell.  Her face felt like orange peel, even
after scratching off a little gravel, but at least there was no bruising and no
grazes, so nothing that wouldn’t be fixed with a long shower and adequate
hydration, water not alcohol.  Her jaw was stiff, but that would pass, as would
the taste of rubber.  She still had most of her clothes, though she wouldn’t be
considered presentable in any forum.  Getting home and changed, dressed, would
be a priority, but not before checking the rest of her body.  Sore breasts? 
Check.  Sore, sticky, wet loins?  Double check.  Sore ass?  You betcha.  She
hoped she still had some haemorrhoid cream at home.