By William Lindsay and Keiran O'Sullivan
100206.16
Immediately following His Girl Friday
-=An Undisclosed Drinking Establishment: Earth=-
Will paused; momentarily considering Liis’ response to the woman he’d accepted as his assistant.
"Don' be too hard on her, Mrs. O'Sullivan." Will tilted the mug to his lips and then swallowed slowly. "She's given the best years of her life to the agency."
"Haven't we all." Liis droned.
Will laughed softly. "Good to see that married life hasn't done an'a'thin' to lighten that black cloud over yer head, Zanh Liis. After all, what would the universe be without it."
"This is all wonderful, all this chatty catchin' up over a pint, Will, but I'd really like to know by now what the hell is goin' on." Keiran's patience for banter was at an end. His eyes kept drifting toward the door. "You wanted us here. We're here. So if you'd be good enough to tell us just why we're here..." Keiran stayed standing just over Liis' shoulder, arms folded as he readied himself for whatever it was Will might have to say.
After a moment, Keiran’s own appreciation for the seriousness of this situation helped instill something similar in Will and that was soon reflected in his face. His demeanour underwent a clear change for the darker as he lowered his glass then brought a file up from the seat beside him and handed it up to O’Sullivan.
“Fair enough. After the explosions not much was left for an investigation,” Will explained as Keiran opened the file and placed it on the table between Liis and himself so they could both see, though the dry data it included had little meaning at the moment. “The devices seemed ta have been designed specifically ta break down at the molecular level upon their detonation leaving no trace for any sort of analysis.”
“A dead end?” Keiran asked still watching the door. He was feeling a little impatient though he knew from experience that Will was unlikely to be briefing him on anything unless it had led him to something worthwhile.
“Looked like that at first. Then I started to ask meself if someone might not have taken a scan or two prior to its detonation.”
“The computer would have detected it if anyone had made a scan inside the building,” Liis observed, knowing that even with the damage to the computer core if this had happened someone would have still known about it and should have reported it to Will.
“I realised that after I tried lookin' around.” Will explained, his eyes moving back and forth between the sitting Liis and the standing Keiran. “Then it occurred to me that the computer would not have detected someone monitorin’ outside the building. Turns out there’s a Geological Society in San Francisco that’s set up ta detect and record any terrestrial instability ‘round the city. It’s supposed to be on the lookout for tremors in the Earth but ‘tis so sensitive that even the shockwave from a small explosion can start it recording.”
“I take it that’s what we’re lookin’ at here?” Keiran concluded as he lifted up and studied the sheet of paper on top of those in the file which had a diagram of the wave and various figures you’d likely have to be trained to find meaning with. Beneath it was another similar such sheet of paper which Keiran thought must just have been a copy.
“It is. Normally it’d be confidential but I managed ta get in contact with one of their members. She got me the file and talked me through it.” Will smiled slightly as if thinking back over a good memory and neither Liis nor Keiran needed or wanted to think too long to conclude just how Will may have gotten this she to help him.
“Turns out these shockwaves indicated a very small for focused source, like a weapon that’d fit easily in the palm of yer hand but with a very high energy yield,” Will explained, clearly having something in mind.
“Like a photon resonance charge?” Liis asked with concern as she put the pieces together if he said it was, though the expression on Will’s face answered the question even before she’d spoken it.
“Exactly like, and at the moment we’re the only ones who’re making them,” Will answered, each of them knowing that the we here referred to TI. “Fer the next month I chased up inventories to find the eventual fate of all the PRCs we’d constructed. Turns out it’s bloody hard ta either prove or disprove when someone claims to have used a weapon that disappears and leaves no trace that it’d been. I was about ready to give up on the effort when I finally found one of 'em.”
“Who’d taken it out?” Liis asked, already considering just what she might like to do to that particular person given the fact all of them here as well as members of her crew had been there at the time.
“No one.” Will answered, though it could barely have been called an answer, and Keiran felt what patience he’d had evaporating.
“What are ya sayin’, William?” He grumbled in a tone that unsubtly hinted Will better quickly get to the point of why he and his wife had been dragged down to this hellhole when Will could very easily have told them what he didn’t know in his office. Keiran did not trust the feel of this place and he’d taught Will well enough that he shouldn’t either.
“Am sayin' that it was still in TI.” Will replied with frustration though certainly not directed at Keiran. “Am sayin' that it was part of a new batch and was the one arbitrarily chosen for testing and that its shockwave pattern matched exactly with the explosion. It matched in a way that no two shockwave patterns from different weapons ever do.”
There was a brief pause as Keiran put the pieces together in his mind. Then when it clicked what Will was suggesting he understood just why the man had been so concerned and his face reflected that even though he simply couldn’t believe it. “Yer not suggestin’…” He protested and Will quickly cut him off.
“I’m more than suggestin’. Now I know that at some point before its detonation that someone was supposed to take this weapon back, that that was how it ended up in the computer core. They then erased any record of the jump. They hid it from every sensor and compass. They must surely have somehow gotten to Polaris.” Will stopped himself and felt a slight surge of anger as he ran over in his mind in just everything that would have needed to have been done to make something like this simply disappear. “No one man has that power. They’d need someone high up in almost every bloody division.”
Liis and Keiran’s both felt their blood running that bit colder as the realisation sunk in of just how much power these people had. It was potentially the power to affect the lives of everyone in the galaxy by tweaking or outright butchering history on their whim; free from the imposition of temporal ethics and the watchful eyes of the rest of the galaxy. It was power Keiran was sure no one but God should have and Liis didn’t think anyone should.
It was power that TI was supposed to be set up in such a way as to prevent anyone from ever having.
“Goddamn it Jonas.” Liis swore bitterly to herself as she realised there was only one way this situation could have been created. She knew that corruption on this scale was a poisonous weed that could only ever work its way down from the top. Then even when you could cut the starting point away the rest of the land was already infested as the corruption was spread so densely it couldn’t possibly be removed without burning it all away and risking scorching the entire land.
“’tis worse than just that.” Will regretfully added something he’d realised soon after he’d made this discovery. “To erase all the traces of a jump like this requires coordination and leadership. Oh, I don’t doubt Vox was and may again be the one in charge just like I don’t doubt he’s made sure as Hell we’ll never prove a damn thing against him. All the same, there’s someone else out there now running the show while he’s gone. Someone smart who cares enough about staying free that they’d kill without a thought ta achieve it. Someone that we need ta stop now, while we still have a shot at doin' it.”
Neither Liis nor Keiran were about to argue with him on that point. They both knew all too well from both experience and reason that when Jonas Vox was back any investigation that wasn’t already completed and official would never become either.
“D’ya have any idea who?” Keiran asked, finally deciding to take the seat next to Liis because he felt he could be waiting here awhile now.
“Thought I did.” Will answered in a tone that suggested it was no longer the case. “There’s a Commander Andrew Jamieson. Aside from meself only he and one other have authority and access to have made the necessary modifications to the distortion sensors. The other person was a replacement after the paradox, meanin' Jamieson was the only one we know was there both times we know for sure the timeline’s been changed outside of official channels.”
“Then what went wrong?” Liis asked though she knew from her own experiences with Keiran that there were many ways the first and obvious suspect could turn out to be the wrong one.
“Jamieson confessed, ”Will said simply, with a hint of frustration and Keiran raised an eyebrow leading Will to explain. “He did it too bloody quickly. I lied about havin’ found some anomalies in the distortion log and he confessed it all. Whoever’s in charge would’a been smart enough ta know that it could only be a bluff. So when Jamieson said he wasn’t pullin’ the strings I believed him.”
“Clearly he didn’a say who was.” Keiran observed.
“He claims he didn’t know.” Will acknowledged. “I’m not sure if I should believe him but it doesn’t matter either way. He’s not giving the name up to me. After a few gentle reminders about the benefit of staying in my good books, he has however given me some names and a list of activities. It’s incomplete and they’re mostly low ranking but, especially if they talk, it should be enough to do some serious damage." Will's unsatisfied tone indicated that he didn't just want to do some 'serious damage' to hurt the corruption; he wanted to kill it. "I’m still sure that he knows more than he’s sayin’ though. I think it’ll be worth you two havin' a chat with him.”
"I'd be happy to have a chat with him." Liis snarled through clenched jaws. She was itching for a fight after the frustration of recent events, and she knew she'd like nothing better than a slimy, deserving target toward which to direct all of that pent up aggression. "I would love to have a chat with him."
Keiran now gave her a concerned half frown and tilted his head toward her, eyes flashing to Will. "No. This one's likely ta enjoy it a little too much right now. I'd best be havin’ the first go, right?"
Liis and Will exchanged a look that needed neither explanation nor elaboration.
"Right." Keiran concluded, clapping his hands together. "It's settled. Now can we please get the hell outta here?"
Will picked up his mug and cavalierly swigged from it again. "Don' worry yer pretty little head, O'Sullivan. I picked this place fer a reason, ya know. None of the local clientele will come within a hundred metres of anyone in 'fleet uniform, tha's why I'm wearin' meh Sunday best." He took another sip and sighed contently. "Been deserted the entire time 've been here, well," his hand flopped forward in a lazy gesture toward the exit. "Except for that barkeep with personal hygiene issues."
"You mean empty except for the two guys out there with the bartender with issues." Liis' eyes flashed concern now, and she and Keiran exchanged a worried glance as Will finished his beer in one go, nearly choking on the last bit as he processed what she'd said.
"No," he said slowly, "I meant empty."
"Then we've got a problem." Keiran's voice dropped, though everything in him told him it was an exercise in futility at this point. Anyone who was intent on hearing what had been said here would have equipment that enabled it without their ever having to be in the room.
Liis' hand slowly lowered down, reaching for the knife in her boot.
She cursed internally as she realized she'd left it on the Sera. They were expected to beam in to Temporal without any weapons on them and had beamed straight here afterward without a thought. That meant that unless he'd broken protocol-- something that her law-abiding husband was loathed ever to do-- he was also currently unarmed.
"Tell me-" Liis was about to beg Will to say he'd brought phasers to spare when there was a noise, a rustling at the door.
"Get behind me!" Keiran instructed Liis, as Will jumped up out of his seat, drawing a previously holstered hand phaser.
"Have I ever?" Liis blurted at the ridiculousness of the idea as she rose and began rapidly scanning around for something, anything, she could use with which to defend them all. She quickly discovered there was nothing here that could constitute any sort of useable weapon.
Even knowing he’d pay for it later Keiran pulled Liis back into the booth to relative safety as Will leapt forward in front of the two others and the door flew open.
The two men were indeed armed and with his one single shot Will rapidly fired upon them only to discover his weapon suddenly wasn’t working.
In desperation Will dove to the side as a single and unnervingly nearby phaser beam barely missed searing into his shoulder.
-----
Captain William Lindsay
Interim Director
Temporal Investigations
and
-=/\=- Keiran O'Sullivan
Security Liaison to The Alchemy Project
and
Former Temporal Investigations Agent
Captain William Lindsay
Interim Director
Temporal Investigations
and
-=/\=- Keiran O'Sullivan
Security Liaison to The Alchemy Project
and
Former Temporal Investigations Agent