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03:59 Monday 15 March 2077
Michelle slid out from under the covers and rubbed her eyes.
“It seems like I’ve only had a couple of hours sleep.”
Danielle was in the doorway, holding two steaming mugs of coffee.
“You have. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when we finally got to bed.”
“It’s your fault. You know what happens when we start binge-watching Netflix. Are you going to wake Martin or shall I?”
“Let’s give him another twenty minutes.”
The two women set about preparing for the day’s work. They grabbed a quick shower, brushed their teeth, and quickly put on some make-up. They showered together not for any erotic reason but for practical purposes, wanting to cut down on the time needed to make themselves presentable. Even if they had been tempted to have some fun together, the vision of the previous night’s crime scene was still fresh in their minds; the memories of those mutilated children would not wash away easily.
Martin was still asleep on the couch when Michelle nudged him awake.
“Come on sleepyhead. Time to get up. We’ve got work to do.”
Martin only needed about five minutes, seven at the most, to get ready. The women had never known anyone get ready so quickly; in fact, they had their doubts that he had showered properly. But now wasn’t the time to worry about that; as long as he didn’t smell, that would have to do.
Half an hour later, they were in the briefing room with a dozen other field agents. These were the crème de la crème, the elite of One Life. Everybody knew how important it was to locate and capture the brothers.
Zafar entered the room and everybody stood up. He gestured that they should sit down again. He cleared his throat.
“Thank you for coming in so early. It’s really appreciated. I’m sure that you all understand the gravity of the situation. We thought that we’d neutralised the threat of Marcus when we transferred his soul to one of two embryos carried by Janine Hillary. We thought that we’d identified a way to prevent Recarns being born in that condition. We were wrong. We had a breather from Marcus for seven years, that’s all.”
The world had indeed had a brief respite from Marcus but it had still had to contend with the Illuminati and its ONP governments. Ethan was no angel, he was just apparently the lesser of two evils. The people were still oppressed and subject to draconian social policies. A few countries had attempted to overthrow their ONP governments but their revolts had been crushed just as a child would crush an ant beneath his foot. Ethan had liked what Marcus had done in creating the Defender force and expanded it, taking the most obedient and loyal troops from around the globe, to create a large, highly mobile force that could be airlifted into any trouble spot at a moment’s notice. The sight of a fleet of military Sky Runners filling the skies was often enough to quell a revolt without even a single shot being fired. These Defenders had a fearsome and totally deserved reputation, and to oppose them often resulted in the massacre of the dissidents. Not content with killing those who opposed the ONP governments, these Defenders would then seek out and kill the families of those that had dared to stand up against their oppressors. They were free to do almost anything they wanted.
Zafar continued.
“I know that you’re not going to like what I have to say next. I didn’t like the idea of it myself when I was told, so I apologise in advance for what I’m about to tell you.”
The gathered agents murmured amongst themselves wondering what on Earth they were about to be told.
“The fact of the matter is – we’re handing over the main part of the search to the ONP.”
There was no murmuring but, instead, a lot of raised voices.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“What are we doing, letting the Illuminati run things?”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Zafar raised his hands to bring the meeting under control.
“Ok, everybody. I haven’t finished.”
A hush fell over the group, a hush that now felt more like a sulk.
“We’re not going to be out of the loop. You’ll be liaising with their commanders. I want you to take advantage of the situation and note anything that you see, hear, or think you see or hear that could be useful to us. They’re still the enemy. We won’t be trusting them. I’m damned sure that they won’t trust us. But we’ve been told to work with them, and work with them we will.”
A voice from the back of the room chimed in.
“We’ve worked with them before too. There’s a precedent.”
“Yes, Danielle. We have. We would only work with them if it’s absolutely necessary. They have more resources than we do. If we embarked upon a full scale search we would be stretched and possibly weakened, making us more vulnerable to ONP attack. They can set up a manhunt without even flinching. Details of your assignments are being sent to your Personal Comms Receivers as we speak.”
Michelle checked her PCR. Nothing. Obviously, others had received their orders but she had received nothing. As the rest of the agents left the room, she stayed behind and approached Zafar.
“I didn’t get anything. I mean, I have no orders.”
“I know. I want you to come with me.”
Michelle was curious. Why had she been kept out of the search? She’d been heavily involved the last time that One Life got involved with Recarns. Why was she not involved this time?
Zafar knocked on the door of an adjoining room, as a matter of politeness, and opened the door, beckoning her to go in. She did so and Zafar followed her. All the surveillance devices in the room had not only been switched off but disconnected. At a table in the middle of the room sat a man in a bright yellow prison uniform. His ankles were shackled and he wore Dyna-Cuffs.
Michelle could see that the prisoner was a slim man, obviously in good physical condition, with whitish-grey shoulder length hair. He had a well-groomed beard and a matching moustache. He was, she estimated, in his early to mid-sixties and was clearly an important prisoner. That much was obvious by the fact that he was being held in a high security interrogation room. Perhaps he was a high ranking Illuminati officer. She had no real idea.
But the security observation equipment was turned off; that was against protocol. What were they going to do to this man that they couldn’t allow it to be filmed? The prisoner smiled at Michelle, a strange reaction from a man who was just about to be interrogated. Was it confidence or bravado? Zafar gestured towards one of the two chairs that were positioned on the other side of the table, facing the prisoner, Michelle sat down and Zafar sat alongside her on the other chair. Nobody was saying anything; it was all very strange. The prisoner turned his kindly gaze to Zafar.
“I think we can take these things off now, don’t you Zaff?”
Zaff? Michelle couldn’t believe her ears. Not only had the prisoner initiated the conversation, but he had called Zafar ‘Zaff’. Michelle had done her fair share of interrogating and it wasn’t unusual for the subject to be arrogant, uncooperative, and often downright rude, but she had never heard anyone call Zafar by anything but his full name. She would never dream of calling him Zaff unless he himself told her it was ok. Zafar’s chair made a scraping noise as he stood up and pointed his PCR at the shackles that restrained the prisoner’s ankles.
“Of course. I’m just not used to seeing you in prison uniform.”
The shackles released, he pointed the PCR at the Dyna-Cuffs which expanded and slid off the prisoner’s wrists. The prisoner shook his wrists a few times to help his blood circulation to adjust to its new freedom.
“And I hope you don’t have to see me like this too often too.”
Now the prisoner had complete freedom of movement, Michelle became especially alert. She and Zafar were vulnerable now and she had no idea of the prisoner’s capabilities. Zafar watched her stand up, her legs pushing the chair backwards, her hand hovering over the holster that housed her pulse gun. He decided that he’d better come clean.
“Michelle, I’d like to introduce you to Douglas.”
“Douglas?”
“Douglas is...Douglas is the Businessman.”
To say that Michelle was shocked was an understatement. She’d never met the Businessman and certainly had never expected to meet him – if she ever did meet him – under such circumstances. Her father, Maurice, had met him eight years previously but had said very little about the meeting and absolutely nothing about who the Businessman was or what he was like.
“But why was he...”
Michelle pointed at Douglas.
“Why were you restrained and in a prison uniform?”
Douglas smiled again.
“I’m a man of mystery, Michelle. Mostly for security but a little bit for the fun of it. If I’d just turned up here with my security detail, plain as day, for all to see, that mystery would have disappeared – not to mention that I’d have been at personal risk. My secrecy is both an offensive and defensive weapon. If nobody knows who or where I am, then I can get on with my job of overseeing One Life unmolested by friend or foe.”
He held out his now free right hand to Michelle and she shook it, beginning to feel a lot more relaxed than she had a few minutes earlier.
“Please sit down, Michelle.”
Michelle hadn’t even realised that she was still standing; she was trying not to be in awe of the man before her but she was still trying to deal with the fact that the Businessman was there, in the flesh, in the same room as her.
“Shall I explain why we’re allowing Ethan to lead the search for Liam, Connor, and their accomplices?”
“Please do.”
“Michelle. No doubt you were shocked at my revelation that Ethan will be in charge of the manhunt. It sounds crazy. I know it does. But there’s a very good reason for it.”
Michelle said nothing but thought that there better had be. The Illuminati was the enemy and, even though she had worked for a splinter group before, she didn’t much care for the idea of doing so again.
“It’s a classic case of a diversion tactic really. What we’re doing really is giving Ethan something to do, something to occupy his mind, whilst we get on with our own business. It’s in Ethan’s own interests to neutralise the threat of Liam and Connor to his position as Pindar. Whilst he’s busy doing that, we can get on with our real task.”
This sounded ominous. Michelle wondered what the ‘real’ task could be. Douglas could almost hear her brain working.
“We need to stop the rogue soul that was Marcus and is now the Recarn Liam. That much is obvious. But it needs to be a permanent solution. The Recarn problem in itself is one that affects us all. There can be no half-measures
“What’s the difference between a Recarn and a normal person? Memory. Regular people remember only the lives that they are currently leading. We know that we’re all reincarnated – nothing’s going to change that – but we don’t remember previous lives. Recarns remember their past lives and, as we’ve seen to our cost, there are many who use this ability to no good purpose, the most extreme example being the soul that was Marcus Gallagher and is now, Liam Hillary. We realise that merely killing this rogue Recarn isn’t going to make any worthwhile difference. It gets rid of the problem for a few years and then he comes back like a bad smell. Except that this particular bad smell is fatally toxic.
“But now we believe we have found a solution. A true solution. One that is undergoing intense and rigorous clinical testing; we can’t risk it causing harm to non-Recarns. There will be no mishaps with this solution. We can’t afford to get it wrong again. This will be a final solution, the solution that will finally end the Recarn problem, once and for all. The sanctity of life will return. We can’t undo the truth that is reincarnation but we can prevent people from remembering past lives and using those memories for personal gain.”
Ten minutes later Michelle left the room. Her mind was buzzing. She had had so many questions but hadn’t asked even one of them.