Chapter 19

Read from the start here: Chapter One

Pandara figured that she wasn't very good at chess before the incident. This was because like a white maned knight on a chess board, Delilah had so far managed to be Pandara's perfect opponent; tactically predicting and blocking all of her own moves, leaving her utterly frustrated and at a loss.

By appearance the woman seemed like a pleasant enough individual; she smiled with genuine warmth on occasion and she had done nothing but offer her assistance since she'd come into the office, but as Pandara was not supposed to be here, this harmless stranger was causing her nothing but problems by simply not leaving her alone. Something about this woman triggered anxiety within Pandara; it felt quite clear to both women that a strange situation was occurring, but neither of them seemed determined to confront it. It was as if Delilah was actively avoiding calling out Pandara on what was going on.

In the short time she did have alone in the office, she'd been able to work out from the various reports strewn in front of her that this organisation monitored people around Calcon, but perhaps even further afield as well. Potentially on a mass scale if the detail she was seeing was to be believed. Large areas around the city and surrounding lands were mentioned above detailed descriptions of unusual activity, all of which had triggered a warning to the people who were watching over these locations. The thought did occur to her about her position in the company, whether she was in a position of any power over this mass surveillance, but she hadn't thought up a way, subtle or otherwise, of discovering the answer to that.

And so, she continued to deduce, if this really were some secret human tracking company, she had gotten herself inside the very heart of it without so much as a batted eyelid or any suspicion amongst her many colleagues, meaning that she must belong here. The workplace outside of her corner office didn't seem too large, holding about fifty people spread about almost sporadically behind desks ,like mollusks on the bottom of a boat hull. Yet none of them eyed her up like she suspected a stranger amongst them would, especially in such a security conscious company.

Another curiosity was her ID card. She badly wanted to access the online network in order to look up more detail about Hermano Engineering but so far she hadn't been able to log onto her computer, thanks to its password protection. She hadn't even hazarded a guess as to what the access code was, as she knew barely anything about her life, and didn't even want to attempt to use her ex husbands name. The thought of it still pissed her off. Instead, whenever Delilah had looked over, Pandara simply pretended as if she was able to use it by swiping on the screen like she'd seen people outside her office doing, with the occasional typing motion on her keyboard. Delilah certainly observed this closely more than once, and Pandara swore she glimpsed amusement in her eyes, but she wasn't sure.

Pandara had even politely but firmly asked Delilah if she could get her a coffee to allow her some breathing room to figure some more stuff out, but she'd made up some excuse about the coffee machine being out of order, and instead told her she'd much rather stay here to be on hand in case she needed help. Pandara insisted she would be absolutely fine, but Delilah wouldn't budge, so instead she sat on the chair on the other side of the desk on her very own tablet device doing something that wasn't legible from where Pandara sat, and despite being sure she was the one in charge here, she still felt unable to order this kindly-ish woman outside.

And then there was 'Susan'. According to her identity card , which she now regretted discarding at the hospital, her full name read Pandara Freid, and that's the same first name her husband had called her too. Nowhere was Susan written down in her purse and belongings. So why had she been greeted using this new moniker and why did everybody around her seem to feel this was her name? Considering the nature of work here, she realised it could be a codename, something necessary to keep all employees here vigilant and unable to trace each other outside of work. Or perhaps it was a personal thing, and she had good reason to lie about her real identity, whether that was the inside one or the outside. This was a puzzle that she'd been trying to solve since she'd heard it but she was no closer now to finding out than when she started.

All the while, time was ticking along and the odd Mexican 'sitoff' continued unabated. Sitting here playing house in this morally questionable headquarters was no longer an option, so Pandara decided that she needed to get out of here. Simply getting up and leaving was the most obvious option, but something about this weird scenario left her worried about doing that. She figured it should be used as a last resort in case she agitated it beyond repair and got herself in trouble. Navigating her way back to the lift wouldn't be an issue, but she recalled that there were no buttons to call for it, so she'd need to find out how it operated before she could make a break for it.

“Susan?” Piped Delilah all of a sudden, causing Pandara to break her concentration. If there had been anyone else in the room, she probably wouldn't have replied.

“Yes?”

“I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to ask you something.”

“I'm rather busy right now.” Pandara lied, punching a few more letters with the keyboard and making that familiar clacking sound as she did.

“I don't mean to intrude, but it's been bothering me for a while.”

Pandara looked up. The shift in conversation was unsettling.

“It's about Rogan...”

All the saliva in Pandara's mouth seemed to vanish in an instant. A buoy like memory quickly surfaced from the deep reservoir of her subconscious.

A lush, colourful rear garden sprung up in front of her, with three or four adults a few feet away talking at an indistinguishable volume. She was sat down alone, noticing the brilliance of the stars in the night sky. At the very edges of her awareness, a sound, like something being torn apart mixed with a vacuums suction, distracted her. As she looked around for its source, a bright purple light began to glow from a few gardens away, seemingly matching up to the source of the unusual noise. Pandara remembered standing up, quickly shifting her gaze between the adults to the glowing oddity. She froze in her spot, unsure of what to do, while things started happening in quick succession; a firework went off from behind the trees followed by a number of visible, colourful explosions in the sky which kept everybody's focus off the nearby activity. Then the screams started, and it was too late to warn people by that point. Suddenly she remembered being inside the house, the adults still conversing unaware outside. A creature emerged from the direction of the noise, looking like it had been forged from various nightmarish concotions, and took out one of the adults. Then, just as soon as the memory had flooded her consciousness, it vanished.

She wanted to gasp, and was sure she'd physically done just that, but as she found Delilah back in front of her continuing to talk unimpeded and showing no sign of a disturbance, Pandara thought it must have been imagined. She quashed down all her own impulses to react to what she'd just experienced and tried to maintain a poker face as the woman finished what she was saying.

“...but I think it's far more important to work out the reasons and circumstances behind how he came back so we don't let it happen again, and potentially put this technology or whatever it may be out of action for good. I feel bad for bringing it up, but you're the only one I can really talk to about it. Sometimes in this place it can be hard to tell who's really on your side.”

Pandara tried to fill in the gap of this chat but couldn't do it. She had no clue what had been said the last few moments, so she tried to come up with the most generic response possible.

“What are you getting at exactly?”

A pause at first, with a slight cock eyed expression from Delilah. “That you're loyal to Crutch.”

Pandara remembered the name from earlier on as being her superior in this company. Though why was this lady questioning her loyalty to her boss?

“Of course, isn't everybody?”

Delilah's eyes flitted briefly over to the glass windows on the front wall but came straight back. However, in that briefest of moments, her warmth dissipated and an iciness had replaced it. It was in her eyes, their shine had gone. Pandara suddenly felt very threatened.

“That's all I needed to know.”

Delilah stood up and Pandara's immediate reaction was to push herself back in her seat giving her space to move if needed. The fair haired woman didn't approach her as she'd expected, instead she strode over to the windows next to the door and swiped down on the small touchpad located on the wall. This clouded up the glass so that nobody could see in or out.

'Oh no.'

Pandara pushed the chair down behind her and adopted a defensive stance, moving around the desk to keep the sturdy wooden object between her and the potential attacker. She knew people in this world used magical energy, but right now she had no idea if or how she could activate it herself. The woman in front of her didn't know that though.

“I'm not going to attack you,” Were Delilah's first words as she turned back around, raising up her arms in a non threatening gesture. “But I know you're not Susan and I simply need to find out exactly what your motive is before we proceed.”

“Motive?” Pandara shouted, confused. “I haven't got a motive, I don't think I'm even supposed to be here.”

“Then please tell me why you are.”

Pandara felt the beginnings of her adrenaline subsiding as her hands began to shake.

“Because I thought I worked here. I saw the entrance outside appear out of thin air, and I guessed that was because I had access to this place. Right now, the only information I have about who I am is that I was shot at this morning and I have a coward of an ex husband who lied to me. That's it!”

Delilah looked more bemused than ever. Pandara kept her hands in front of her.

“Why don't you remember anything else?”

“I don't know. I don't want to cause any trouble, I just want to get out of here.”

At that precise moment, a brief, shrill sound filled the room, indicating an incoming message on Susan's phone.

“Susan, this is Crutch. Please report to my office right away.”

Silence followed shortly afterwards. Delilah seemed to be working something out internally while Pandara looked on in utter confusion. Delilah spoke up.

“So you don't know Crutch and have never met him before?”

“I don't even know what he looks like.”

“Then you need to get out of here.”

“You'll let me? What about the stuff I know?”

Pandara cursed herself for saying this, but the words spilled out of her before she realised what she was saying.

“I can't explain why, but I think you are safer outside of this place. Don't meet this man Crutch whatever you do. If anybody tries to stop you on your way out, just make excuses, throw your implied authority around and do all you can to escape. Just don't make a scene.”

Delilah moved around to the back of the desk to where Pandara stood and started rooting around its drawers, on the hunt for something. After a few seconds of looking, she slumped down, her head bowed and looking defeated, before quickly and defiantly pushing her hands down on the desk, seemingly invigorated.

“I want you to take this.”

Delilah reached into her pocket and pulled out her own personal phone, handing it over to Pandara.

“If I need to contact you, I'll use this number. If you answer it, use my name, Delilah, and answer any queries other than mine by telling them you'll ring them back later as you're currently busy. Do you understand?”

Pandara nodded her head, baffled but a little relieved.

“You should go now.”

“But what about...”

“The lift? It's voice activated. Just state clearly what you want it to do, in your case just say 'Exit' when you're outside it and it'll come. I imagine that if the system let you inside without any difficulty, then it shouldn't have any problem letting you out.”

“Thank you, I guess.”

Delilah nodded and moved to the door to open it. As Pandara walked past her and stepped into the bright lights of the office, she took one last look at her new accomplice. The truth was she still had no idea whether this woman was leading her into a trap, or if she was genuinely trying to help. The woman definitely worked here, so why was she insistent on trying to assist a complete stranger get out of what was obviously a highly secure organisation?

The door closed behind her, and immediately a pungent whiff of cold coffee mixed with the tang of cleaning liquids filled her nostrils. Colleagues from various parts of the room had now started looking her way, either to suss her out or because they were distracted by her sudden exit. For a moment, she wondered if the office she'd was soundproofed before she realised this didn't matter in the slightest as there was no time to dwell on such stupid things any more.

As she moved towards the only way out of the vast room, she caught the movement of an employee, homing in on her like a missile.

“Susan! One minute.”

The owner of the voice was a spectacled man with a clumsily knotted tie and overly preened hair. His whole demeanour seemed very apprehensive it was quite clear that he was nervous over what he was about to say.

“Crutch has requested that-”

“Don't worry, I'm heading to his office right this second.” The words spilled out of her without so much as a thought, and she sealed the deal with a patronising smile as bosses were wont to do. It seemed that without her own identity, it was far too easy to assume somebody else's. The man didn't even reply and slunk back towards his desk without further comment. Pandara moved onwards, leaving a ripple of murmurs in her wake.

Before she left the office, she threw one brief glance back Delilah's way. From inside the room, standing behind the windows which now clear once more, she gave a gentle nod in acknowledgement. Then she was gone.

The walk back to the lift entrance didn't take her long but she definitely felt her legs weakening, mostly thanks to the intensity of the current situation. She was absolutely certain she was being watched by cameras unseen as she wound her way around corners and past many, many closed doors. Were there really this many rooms before? It seemed that they'd somehow added more in or they'd multiplied during the past hour. She couldn't even hear anything behind them, but she was sure this was on purpose.

Soon enough, she found herself walking into the slightly larger open space that fronted the lift entrance. In front of her was a blank wall, just like she'd seen earlier on, not even a symbol or mark anywhere to suggest this was the way out. That she had found this unsettling upon first noticing it said volumes about the company, something which the past few minutes hadn't eased her mind about. She took a deep breath and spoke very clearly.

“Exit, please.”

A buzzing hum barely louder than a whisper could just about be heard from somewhere above her, and within a few seconds she found herself facing the set of metallic doors which had cleverly morphed from behind the wall. 'Probably using some of that magical energy stuff.' She said to herself. Much to Pandara's relief ,the doors opened to reveal an empty room and so she hastily stepped inside and turned around. Then her jaw dropped.

Ahead of her, looking determinedly aggressive and armoured to the high heavens were a group of soldiers, marching down the corridor directly in front of her.Pandara panicked.

Feeling justifiably threatened for the second time in five minutes, all she could do was to back herself as far into the tiny room as possible and hope for the best as the group of men, with a distinguished, older yet unarmoured man at the back of the group trailing behind, advanced on her position. He was far away but he could still hear his voice as he ordered his troops one simple command.

“Stop her! No magic!”

Pandara looked upwards, trying to find some sort of emergency panic button for a situation like this, but just like before the room was devoid completely of any interactive features, leaving her stranded for options. The only choice she had was to hope the doors closed in a timely fashion, but she decided she just couldn't leave it to fate; she had to do something.

The advancing group were about fifteen seconds from reaching her and it didn't seem like they would be willing to compromise. Pandara looked around, desperate to find something, anything that would get the doors closed but each wall was as smooth and featureless as the rest of the building. Suddenly she remembered what Delilah had said; “The lift? It's voice activated.”

It was crazy and an absolute long shot, but it was all she had. She drew in a deep, and in a loud and clear voice to counter the commotion from mere metres away, she shouted.

“CLOSE THE DOORS!”

A split second later, and to her elation, the doors started to slide towards one another, closing off the eager mob from her tiny sanctuary and leaving her in safety, but she only felt herself able to unclench once she felt the familiar rumbling of the lift moving quickly through the shaft. It might have bought her seconds of freedom, or it might have bought her minutes, but for the time being Pandara lifted her arm and wiped the beads of sweat that had formed on her brow. Whatever was coming next, all she hoped for was that her legs would hold out for it.