Sparks of Chaos (19 page)

“Ah, that was unexpected, what was the second discrepancy?”

“That one is the real puzzle. There was what we classified as irregularities, they were found in the second blood sample.”

“What do you mean by irregularities?

“We are not entirely sure ourselves, we’ve never seen anything like it before. There were inorganic compounds in the blood sample.”

“Do you mean the sample was contaminated?” Franz asked.

“No, that’s just it; the irregularity was part of the blood itself. It was as if something had altered the blood and DNA somehow and then degraded and damaged the sample itself. We are going to send the sample to the National Institute in Berlin; it is beyond our capabilities here at our lab. You’ve got quite a mystery on your hands here.” Dieter handed him the report and returned to his crime lab.

Franz had little time to absorb this new information on his high profile case before Professor Hauptmann arrived at the station. He told the staff to take them to the interview room and prepared himself. Before entering he spoke to the short medical assistant who had accompanied the Professor. “How is Professor Hauptmann feeling today?”

“You will have to be patient with him, his lucidity comes and goes but it has been getting worse, he often slips back into the past. Try not to upset him, when he gets confused it causes him to become agitated and much of what he says will not make much sense I’m afraid. I am not sure what you hope to accomplish with this.”

“He is a potential witness in the disappearance of his secretary; of course we need to talk with him.” As they walked in, he saw a frail old man sitting behind a table. “Hello Professor, I am Inspector Keitler and I have some questions for you regarding the disappearance of your secretary Fraulein Freund. When was the last time you saw her?”

The old man croaked out with a raspy voice, “Birgit was angry, she didn’t like the box.”

“When did you see her?”

Ignoring or not hearing the question he said, “The shiny box made her mad. Peter made her mad. She fell down.”

“Who is Peter?”

“I told him not to go and the soldiers shot him, I didn’t mean to tell them, I am sorry.” He started to cry now.

“You’re going to have to stop now, you’re upsetting him,” the medical assistant said, anxiously stoking his wispy brown beard.

“Not quite yet.” He opened a beige folder and removed a picture of Birgit and placed it in front of the Professor.

“Birgit,” he said, “Peter put her in the small shiny box.”

“What happened to her Professor?”

“She fell down; he put her in the little box. She was a tiny doll you know; he put the tiny doll in the little coffin.” He was still crying.

That got Franz’s attention. Who put her in the coffin?”

“Peter did it. I told him I was sorry, why did he have to come back, why? The box was very shiny.”

This was making no sense, a mishmash of facts and nonsense. Franz took out a picture of Michael Wagner taken from the security footage and placed it on the table next to that of Birgit. “Do you know this boy?”

“Peter, I told him I was sorry and he put the doll in the box. Where is mommy, why won’t she forgive me?” Now he really was crying full strength.

“I must insist Inspector that is enough; you will have to stop now as he can’t take any more of this.”

“Alright you can take him now but we may need to speak with him again.”

The assistant glared angrily at him and hustled the Professor out of the room as quickly as possible. Like a plate of three day old leftovers, he was trying to digest this stew of crazy answers for some information he could actually use. Mattius entered and sat down next to him at the table.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you but we have new important clues. A garbage man found a bag with a bloody coat in it inside a bin at a park outside of town. I compared it with the security video and I’m afraid we missed something. In the video of Michael entering the building, he was wearing a grey hooded jacket, while when leaving he is no longer wearing it. We believe it is the same bloody jacket we just found.” He laid out several photos showing what he was talking about.

“Get that jacket down to Dieter in the lab to see if we have a match on the blood. Send someone over to the Professor’s office to do a more thorough examination, then we have to find this boy.”

Chapter 32

He was getting sick of sitting here like he was some kind of a criminal. There was a whole new world to explore and he was ordered to stay inside, it wasn’t fair. Tedford was on his way to see him finally; apparently Rex was finally beginning to relent on his anger. It was about time, he was getting bored with no one to talk to, not even his robot buddy.

Chase had not enjoyed being verbally abused by Rex but had endured it on Tedford’s instructions. He had to admit it; Tedford was right about how to handle the situation. That was the first time he had met Rex and he hoped he wouldn’t be seeing him again anytime soon. He still didn’t know if Birgit was going to be alright, no one would tell him what was going on. He needed to see her and explain what had happened. The accident wasn’t really his fault after all; she and Rex bore their own share for all of this too. Whether she would see it that way or forgive him was another matter.

If you had to be under house arrest, this was the house to do it in. It was like being sent to your room as punishment when you are a child but your room had a TV, video games and toys. At least now he had some time to better explore his high rise home. This place was freaking awesome.  It was huge, there were so many rooms and he hadn’t even looked in them all yet.

Luckily he had found one room which he really liked. The walls, floor and ceiling were all made of an off white matte material, that wasn’t quite tile and wasn’t quite metal. He wasn’t sure what it was, not that it was such a surprise here. Everything was rounded, the corners, the points where the walls met the ceiling and the floor, where there was usually right angles it just sort of blended together, like the inside of a squarish egg.

He actually said out loud, “What is this?” His voice triggered a display which read, welcome to the Entertainment and Gaming Room, followed by a menu of choices. Now this was more like it, why hadn’t they told him about this room in the first place? Since it apparently was voice controlled he said “Games” and then chose one at random from the list that appeared on the wall.

Having chosen Space Battle, the walls began to show a detailed three dimensional background of deep black space. The floor began to move and a blob grew and formed into something like a seat, whereupon a voice boomed out, “Please sit down.” The ceiling and floor filled in with colorful scenery completing the immersion into the gaming experience. It reminded him of the virtual reality he had seen in sci-fi movies. He could still tell he was in a room playing a game but the effects were miles beyond anything he had ever heard of or experienced in real life.

After a brief tutorial, he was off and playing the game and it was several hours of pure escape from his current situation. Like most teen-aged boys he really enjoyed video games and these were a blast. He was glad he had gone exploring and found this. The battle with alien space planes was interrupted with a flashing light, a return of the room to its original white form and a voice announcing the arrival of Tedford. He didn’t really wish to stop playing yet but he figured he was in enough trouble already and chose to return to his room and receive Tedford.

Seeing the annoyed look on Chase’s face Tedford said “Cheer up, I have come to take you out of here for a while. You have been released to go out again. I told you that if you played it smart, it would eventually blow over.”

“Thank goodness, it’s about time, I was going a little crazy stuck in here until I found the game room, you should have told me about it.”

 “Sometimes it is best for you to discover things on your own rather than being spoon fed like a child. Are you ready to go?”

“Before we go I would like to know how Birgit is, will she be alright, I am very concerned about her.”

“I am glad to inform you that she has fully recovered, she is fine. She has been placed in her own place as well.”

“Great, I need to see her.”

“I am not sure that is such a good idea, maybe it would be best to wait awhile.”

“You don’t understand, I have to see her, I have to explain things to her.”

“There is plenty of time for that later.” Seeing the forlorn look of pleading, Tedford relented and said, “Okay, I will see what I can do for you, for now let’s go.”

 They rode The Snake to the center of the city, the center of the island, the heart of Surga. They emerged two blocks away from an extremely large, tall and strange tower. He could see the tower from his home but seeing it this close was completely different. The tower had four strands of different colors wrapping around the exterior. Gold, silver, copper and crystal strands started in each corner and then wrapped themselves around towards its needle shaped top. It was a bold striking sight with its vibrantly shining colors gleaming brightly in the sunshine.

They walked to a covered patio formed by the start of the silver strand. It was there, a dark purple and white tablecloth covered a small round table set with two places. “I thought you didn’t eat food,” Chase asked.

“This is not for me; your friend is going to be joining us shortly as requested.”

“Birgit, Birgit is coming to lunch here, now?”

“That’s what you asked for, was it not?”

“Yes, I am grateful that you set this up, thank you Tedford.”

“Another piece of advice for you, play it cool and do not push too hard and give it some time.”

Chase sat down and awaited her arrival. It was not long before she walked out of the same door he just came through himself. Walking beside her was a shorter and thinner version of Tedford, a BLI he had never seen before. Though he was dressed in the same dark suit that Tedford wore he had a slightly more dapper appearance with a small green flower in his lapel. She too, stared at the tower looming ahead of her. When Birgit saw Chase sitting at the table, she walked over coolly and sat down across from him and waited for him to speak first.

“Wow, Birgit it is so great to see you and to know that you’re okay.”

“Hello,” she replied with a curt nod of her head and then began cutting into a single large buffalo ravioli that had been placed in front of her by a Tasker.    

He ate quietly for a moment, unsure of how to proceed now. She certainly looked a lot better than the last time he saw her covered in blood and dying. She looked even prettier than he remembered. He finished his last bite and walked over to her. Birgit stood and faced him, reached her hand back and slapped him across the face with all her might. Maybe it was her newfound, biobots enforced strength or her long simmering anger, or a mixture of both but her slap sent him reeling and he fell backwards trying to break his fall.

“What was that for?” he asked, stunned, confused and hurt. While he wasn’t sure how she would respond to him, he had not expected that.

“You bastard, how could you do that to me? I thought you liked me and all the while you were only using me to have access to Professor Hauptmann. I hate you.”

“You don’t understand at all, I did like you, I do like you and I only did that because I had to.”

“You killed me,” she screamed. She actually felt a physical pain radiating from Chase. It was as if she could feel his pain but that was crazy. The more he got upset the more she could even feel his anxiety as if it was her own. This was the second time that she felt this particular pang and she found it disconcerting.

“It was an accident and I saved your life and brought you here too.” He stood up rubbing his face, which still stung from her slap. “I am asking you to forgive me.”

“Forgive you; I never want to see you again Michael or Chase or whatever your name is. I wouldn’t be with you if you were the last man on Earth.”

“That is going to be rather awkward as we are both immortal and there are only three people on the island and we’re two of them.”

Looking confused at Cheswick and Tedford she said, “What are you talking about?”

“Ah they haven’t shared that little bit of information with you yet. There are many things you don’t know.”

“Well I have Rex, and he is more of a man then you will ever be.” The pain was ebbing but the anxiety she felt coming from Chase was increasing. Why was this happening to her?

“He isn’t who you think he is either, he’s an old man did you know that?”

“He told me that himself and I don’t care.” Turning to Cheswick she said “Let’s go, I told you this was a bad idea.” She had to get out of here, the feeling she was receiving was upsetting her. She was both angry at him and feeling some empathy for him from his pain, it was very confusing.

“Wait, come back,” he said to her back as they walked away.

Chapter 33

Prettybone Island lay well over one hundred miles from Surga and was part of the island nation of Ravitura. The nation had fewer than a hundred thousand citizens spread out over a vast area filled with over two hundred small and sparsely populated islands. Over fifty percent of the people lived in the capital on the main island Ravituri. Prettybone was the southernmost island in the Ravitura chain and rather isolated from the rest.

It was a nice sized island, larger than Surga and heavily wooded. There were exactly one hundred and thirteen inhabitants whose ancestors had eked out a meager living on it for hundreds of years. They lived a very simple life disconnected from most of the world’s modern society. Surviving mostly on the fish they caught and the small animals they hunted on the island. They did of course sell some of their fish for basic necessities but most of their interaction with the outside world was with a few neighboring islands. The lure of the modern world and an easier life had begun to entice several of the younger members of the island to migrate to the capital city.

Those that remained were mostly older, had lived on Prettybone their entire lives and had no desire to leave. That was the dilemma that faced Armstrong. He wanted, no, needed their island and he needed them not to be on it. The question was how he could accomplish it. No, the real question was which way he wanted to choose to accomplish it. He was certain it could be done; he had only to select which path he wanted to take.