Chapter 17

Read from the start here: Chapter One

There was no denying that today had already been a difficult day full of surprises, but he didn’t expect to find himself so soon facing yet another situation which threatened to blow up in his face, metaphorically speaking of course. The latest bewilderment came at the return of someone important to him.

Since he’d laid eyes upon her just a few minutes ago, Fredo knew she was not the same woman that had left this morning. The problem was though, he hadn’t realised it straight away, and he felt like kicking himself for it. In fact, if it wasn’t for their relationship being a complete and utter secret, he probably would have gone in for the kiss right there and then. The woman looked identical to Susan. It wasn’t just a passing resemblance either, he was sure even her own mother would have been fooled to begin with too, of this he was sure.

Now though, sitting across the desk from her in Susan’s office, with the only sound coming from the steady hum of the conditioned air being pumped into the underground room, he inconspicuously studied this stranger while she settled in to the desk chair that only an hour ago had been filled by his girlfriend. He'd decided he would think of her as 'faux Susan', at least until he discovered her real name.

After the initial surprise of seeing her by the elevator, he immediately and compassionately queried her recent whereabouts. This was followed by an odd, stilted conversation as faux Susan tried to play along, though it was immediately clear that whoever they were they had no clue about The Trust. Instead, she believed she was at some company called Hermato Engineering, and Fredo made a mental note to look up this company later on. As a result of the deceit being attempted here, he hadn’t been sure whether to call for security and have her arrested, or to play dumb and try to investigate this situation himself first. He chose to proceed with the latter. For now.

During the conversation, thoughts flooded back into his mind from many years ago. He’d heard many tales, as every child had, of mysterious beings known as chameleons. It was explained that these were essentially Magii with the ability to harness magical energy to alter their appearance, down to the most minor details, to become other people at their whim. But, like all whispered stories spread on the playground, this was all speculation and imagination taking flight between excitable youngsters.

Fredo though was an investigative soul by nature, and in his teen years he had done his own research into this phenomenon. Dreams of being able to turn this power from a dream into something real was the ultimate fantasy for him, and even the slightest possibility was enough to excite him. However, nothing other than a few peculiar crimes, all seemingly impossible without an accomplice with such power, could offer any viable evidence of their existence, and so his hope faded away into nothing. And yet, seeing this faux Susan…

“Well if there’s nothing else, I suppose I’d best be getting on with things.” Faux Susan blurted out, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had slowly brewed in the room. It was peculiar to him that she spoke with such a similar pitch to Susan, but there was a marginally different accent forming the words. If he had to guess, he would have assumed that this Susan lived on the west side of Calcon as opposed to centrally like the real one. Only a subtle change, most probably wouldn’t notice, but having spent years in the real Susan’s presence, he found it rather jarring and as obvious as a big scar across her face.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to help with the rest of these?” Fredo gestured to the pile of reports on the desk. He actually had a list of his own tasks that needed doing and didn’t need extra homework. He was merely offering as a way to keep her cover intact for a little while longer.

“Can I let you know later, Fredo?”

Saying his name unnerved him. He’d offered it to her voluntarily in the natural course of conversation by the elevator, but it still felt wrong somehow.

“Of course.” He replied, smiling.

The faux Susan stared into his eyes, her lips curling into a subtle grin. He suddenly found himself wondering if she felt an attraction to him like the real Susan did. Was she even female?

‘Stop it. Chameleons don’t really exist’ Fredo told himself. The last thing he needed now was to start believing in fairy tales again.

“Well if you need me, just call me over. You know where I am.” On his way out he decided he would make an obvious show of walking to his desk, which was visible from this office, in the hope that she could legitimately beckon him if needed. Though it would probably be best to keep her hidden…

“Thank you.”

“OK then. Guess I’ll catch up with you later.”

Fredo stood up, left the office and closed the door behind him, and like he’d planned, made an exaggerated display of sitting back down at his desk, looking over to the impostor and smiling again. She looked back and offered a smile of her own, but it wasn’t genuine. Even from this distance he could see that.

‘Fuck!’ He exclaimed internally, hidden behind his calm facade. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

Before he’d even had an opportunity to flick his screen on and process his next move, he caught movement in the corner of his eye that worried him. Delilah, her perfectly preened white hair acting like a beacon, had risen from her desk and was moving in the direction of their boss’s office.

Up until now, Fredo was confident that nobody had cottoned on to faux Susan’s existence, as he’d whisked her straight to the office where she currently sat without being stopped by any of his colleagues. But, before he worked out what the hell this spy or infiltrator or chameleon (‘Don’t be stupid’) really wanted, he needed to limit their information flow and Delilah might inadvertently let something important slip if the two started talking.

Fredo leapt up from his chair, but a little too quickly, as a few pairs of eyes from proximate desks distractedly swivelled round towards him. Ignoring them, he straightened his shirt alongside a trademark smirk and strode, this time at a calmer pace, towards Delilah. He successfully intercepted her at a spot about six feet from Susan’s door.

“Dee, can I grab a word with you?” His accompanying smile was awash with anxiety but he didn’t care. He was in panic mode.

Delilah on the other hand did not appear flummoxed. Instead of replying, she only nodded at Fredo, one arm cradling a tablet device, and started walking towards the office kitchen which his arm now gestured towards.

Nobody else was present inside the spacious kitchen area as the two stepped through the doorway. It was still too early for lunch, he supposed.

“We need to talk.” He snapped, losing the smile as soon as the door clicked shut behind him. Delilah suddenly seemed on edge too.

“About what?”

“You know what.”

Her eyes flitted upwards briefly before responding.

“I have no wish to discuss that here-”

“It’s something else.” Fredo looked out of the porthole window nestled into the doors frame and kept his eyes peeled for signs of anyone approaching. Delilah put the tablet onto the counter and crossed her arms defiantly. Her voice lowered to a whisper.

“It’s not safe to talk here.”

“It can’t wait.”

“Is it really so important that you'd risk being discovered?”

Fredo stepped back from the door and faced Delilah directly, gently gripping her by her shoulders and staring intensely into her eyes.

“That doesn't matter any more. I think… I believe whatever he’s planning, it’s going down today.”

Delilah stood back, not from fear but disbelief. She furrowed her eyebrows.

“With all of this going on? Are you insane?”

“Ignoring the fact that this Rogan stuff could be the perfect cover for whatever he’s doing, I feel like… Look, I haven’t put all the pieces together yet, but something about this just feels unsettling.”

Delilah’s eyes softened. She didn’t reply. Fredo continued.

“Why else is all this crazy, unexplained stuff happening at the same time? Doesn't that feel odd to you? That’s why we need to act now.” He said confidently, resuming looking out of the window once again. “I'm going to start letting the others know, but I need a bit of time.”

“You know I trust you. So, if you're sure about this, then let me help.”

“No, I need you to take care of something else. It's equally as important.”

Fredo's eyes looked over at Susan's office. He couldn't see inside from this angle but he knew faux Susan was inside.

“I need you to investigate the woman inside Susan's office.”

“Susan?”

“It's not her.”

“I saw her just now.”

When he turned again to face her, he saw genuine concern on Delilah's face.

“You saw somebody who looks identical to her but they are not the same person we've been working for for years. That's as much as I know, and that's exactly why I need you to investigate her, keep her from causing any trouble for the next few hours. Find out everything you can about who she is and what her motives are. If you find yourself in trouble, bail on the plan and deny all knowledge. If anything happens to me, I need you to carry on in my absence.”

Without even looking back at her, Fredo left the kitchen behind and walked back into the office, where the tart stench of cold coffee overwhelmed him. Had it really been only an hour ago since that happened? It felt like much longer.

Instead of heading back to his desk Fredo walked straight towards the office entrance, doing his best to act casually. As he passed Susan’s office, he caught her imitator looking somewhat daunted at the desk. His suspicions about her suddenly increased, and now he felt a pang of guilt for letting her into the building without even questioning it.

Soon he reached the familiar maze of corridors on the 10th floor and immediately started making his way towards his destination. A mental list of tasks and actions had already formed in his head and he knew he would have very little time to manoeuvre once he began them. So it was that by the time he saw the door he wanted in front of him, he'd already felt like he'd wasted too much of it. Something about the place was different though.

“Hello.” Came a voice from behind him.

Fredo spun around, trying to see who had surprised him. They'd either been incredibly clever or he had not been paying enough attention on his way here, and he kicked himself admitting it was almost certainly the latter.

“Sir?” The words spilled out upon seeing his follower, along with the two heavily built figures stood behind him.

“I think we need to talk.” The deep voice was deadly calm but equally chilling. “I think in here will do.”

The two large men, dressed in dark suits, flanked him on both sides, giving him nowhere to escape. His plan was foiled before it'd even begun. They roughly seized him by the arms and dragged him into the room he was about to enter anyway, shortly followed by Dougal Crutch. The door shut behind them all and Fredo's heart sank, knowing that for him it was certainly all over.

Chapter 16

Read from the start here: Chapter One

The pain seeped into her dreams.

At one point she was trying to outrun somebody or something, but her feet were sluggish and unresponsive. The unknown pursuer was quickly making up the distance between them. However, a stab of pain in her sinuses, like a headache but a hundred times worse, started to take over her subconscious thought until she was no longer visualising anything except a large ball of pure white hot energy which seemed to burn her. It was this that caused her to slip back into the physical realm with a jolt.

Susan had rolled off the surface she was laying on and landed on the floor face first, causing her to hit her forehead on the solid ground. Forcing herself to turn to her side so she could attend to it, she suddenly realised that she felt different. Opening her eyes, it suddenly made sense. Instead of the difficult conditions of the outside, she was now inside a room, barely furnished and rather primitive. Her suit had been removed and she had been dressed in some kind of overalls.

“What the hell?” She couldn’t help blurt out upon taking all of it in.

She sat up, briefly surprised again at the pain she discovered behind her eyes, before observing her new surroundings properly. Three walls were simply bare stone with no windows, but the fourth had a door with a small hatch towards the top. She had been lying on the only piece of furniture in the room, a rickety metal-framed bed with a large panel of wood serving as the mattress. Behind it she saw a bucket, her mind repulsed by what she was probably expected to do with it.

Her last real memory, the jump, had been a suicide attempt. She certainly didn’t expect to survive, and considering the height of the drop she’d taken, her condition was remarkably substantial. She ran her arms all over various parts of her body to check for injuries, or perhaps treatment, but found nothing immediately obvious except the stabbing shoots of the migraine or whatever it was.

Carefully she stood up, worried in case she had feeble bones or tore something, but once on her feet she realised she was fine apart from a sore back, likely caused by the most uncomfortable bed she’d ever seen. Susan calmly walked over to the door. There was no handle on this side, but she tried poking the latch. It didn’t budge. Susan sighed.

What was going on? Somehow she’d escaped certain death and now was imprisoned in a completely mystery location.

Maybe this was all a test, that was her first thought. Crutch could have given her this task to test her loyalty to the mission, to The Trust, and everything since the Sending had been a simulation. Unlikely, but not impossible. She’d been inside a suit the entire time, and it could have been programmed with some sort of ultra realistic simulation in which she saw everything as completely real. That could even mean that Selena was still all right and Rashad wasn’t really a traitor…

There was no way that was true though. If it had been, she wouldn’t currently be in a prison cell, she would instead have woken up in a hospital, a scientific lab or something like that. Besides, she knew that everything she had been through was as real as the cold stone floor she stood upon barefoot. There was no technology in the world that was that powerful, and she would know if there was thanks to her position.

The other possibility was that she had misremembered exactly what happened when she arrived in Kadira. Her brain was clearly distressed as she’d never experienced such a bad headache before, but she still felt that she could trust her own memory.

And so the only other likely possibility was that she had genuinely made the leap off the cliff edge, as she was sure she did, and something or maybe just complete luck had spared her from serious harm. Somebody had found her when she was out cold, probably one of Rogan’s men, and imprisoned her. It didn’t feel warm enough in here to be in the base she was supposed to infiltrate, but as she had been briefed before the mission, there was very limited intelligence for inside the building and so she had no way of telling.

Somewhere, a distinct sound of footsteps could be heard clicking on the concrete-like floor outside her room, and getting closer. Susan backed away from the door, not knowing what to do. If they came in, how would, or rather should, she approach the situation? Her training was difficult to recall as it was many years ago and she was not a field agent, and the pain caused chaos in her head, making it difficult to focus.

The footsteps grew louder and stopped, just as she hoped they wouldn’t, just outside her door. The latch was unbolted, and a pair of eyes appeared on the other side. They were blue, but belonged to an older man, somebody she didn’t recognise.

“Prisoner is awake.” Came the voice. “Seems stable. Alert number one.”

Susan stared at the eyes and they stared back. For a good few seconds of silence, neither of them diverted their gaze.

“Are you hungry?” Asked Blue Eyes.

Susan wasn’t sure if this was genuine concern by the man or an exploratory question, but she did feel like she hadn’t eaten for weeks. A gentle nod was all she offered him in response.

“Then a meal will be provided.” Blue Eyes then waved his arm to a man next to him, or at least that seemed to be what happened as she couldn’t see his body, only his face. Then footsteps made off in the same direction.

“If you’re thirsty, there is water in that bucket.”

Susan felt somewhat relieved.

Blue Eyes looked down for a second and seemed to sigh a little. Suddenly, before she had a chance to think about this, the footsteps could be heard coming back and shortly afterwards Blue Eyes left his hatch, and in his place suddenly appeared a loaf of bread and a bowl of broth. Susan didn’t take any steps to get them though.

“I understand it’s normal to be sceptical in this situation, of accepting food from a stranger, but rest assured if there was any danger of us trying to harm you, we’d have done it by now.”

There was no way she was going to eat that stuff she decided, especially not in front of this stranger. She wasn’t some performing creature at a circus.

“Fine, we’ll leave” Said Blue Eyes as if reading her thoughts. “But I’m not leaving you in your room with the hatch open.”

She sensed interestingly how he chose not to use the word prison or cell.

“Have it your way.”

The hatch instantly lifted shut with a slam, which sent the bowl of broth crashing to the floor, smashing the ceramic into a hundred pieces or more and hurling splotches of the clear liquid all around the room.

Susan sighed and dropped to the floor, her back and head both giving her cause for concern, and trying to plan her next move or how to get herself out of this ‘room’.

She had nothing.