CHAPTER 28
Locke watched Hiss climb the machine. He compared it to a short dog trying to jump onto a tall couch. Somehow, Hiss scaled the vehicle until he was on top.
With a grunt, Locke picked through the pieces at his feet. Reasoning that pieces close to each other belonged together, he went about his work. He laid a few out to see if any parts fit, waiting for a picture to emerge.
He noticed right away the lack of barcodes on the parts. This was almost as unusual as them being there in the first place. Locke tried to remember when the bar-coding system started. Five years after the OWG formed? Seven years after? That made these pieces just about fifty years old.
One by one, he dragged the bigger pieces together. The largest part was the size of a washing machine. The smallest the size of a plate. It couldn’t have been like the sixteen-wheeled truck. No wheels among the pieces. No axles, gears, or glass either.
After a half hour of picking out important-looking parts, Locke sat on one of the bigger pieces to rest. He felt the cold steel radiate through his three layers of clothing.
The picture he pieced together didn’t look like anything he’d seen before. In fact, as he assessed what he accomplished so far, he learned much more about the subjects who tore this apart than anything about the object. Whoever dismantled this showed up much more prepared than he and Hiss. The subject--more likely a group--used torches, saws, pliers, and a whole host of other tools in their efforts, separating everything with care.
No ripping or tearing was evident. No dents from banging or pounding. No mangled metal. And, even though every metal piece showed rust to the point of being burnt orange, each seemed to retain its original form.
Inspecting the parts at his feet, his eyes diverted to the footprints he made stepping over them.
Footprints . . . again.
He added another fact to his list: the mysterious visitors’ footprints had long since been swept away. Locke’s and Hiss’ footprints were the only ones in the snow. And not even an OWG Weathermale could predict how long it would take footprints to disappear out there.
A week? Two weeks? A month?
Locke let his thoughts stray to where the investigation led them. An empty warehouse in Dale City. A site surrounded by a fence near Cornville. A dock in Snow City. The warehouses in both Dale City and Gambling City. And now this place.
No connection between them. No connection this experienced detective could see anyway.
A half hour passed, and he’d forgotten all about Hiss. Locke gazed at the vehicle. His partner was no longer on top. Probably examining the other side of it. Maybe inside the driver’s compartment. Locke kicked a curved piece at his feet.
Of course, if Hiss had returned to the helicopter to warm up . . .
After thirty seconds and no sign of Hiss, his suspicions arose and lifted him to his feet. He’d be delighted to catch Hiss neglecting his work.
Locke had a few steps behind him when he felt a weird sensation from his mid-section. Stopping, he put both of his gloved hands to his stomach. His phone. It vibrated when it rang.
With his gloves on, his hands didn’t fit into the pockets. Somebody watching from far away might have thought Locke was trying to tickle himself. He shook his hands and body in an effort to get into those pockets. In a few seconds, the phone stopped vibrating.
As an absolute last resort, he removed his gloves. Fishing out the phone, he pressed the green button to see who called. His bare fingers, although out in the air for mere seconds, already began to feel the effects of the low double-digit temperatures.
The screen showed his living quarters’ phone number.
Uh oh. Locke gazed up to the sky. A tinge of dread made him forget all about his cold fingers. Had someone found out about the pregnancy?
The phone beeped, indicating she left a message.
Surely Jade wouldn’t leave a message about it. He hoped she didn’t forget the OWG was always listening. Hitting the buttons so hard his fingernails hurt, he dialed the voicemail.
In a few seconds, he heard Jade’s voice. “I think it’s a graph.” Five words. The phone asked him if he wished to save the message, repeat it or delete it, telling him to press the “3” if he wanted to listen again.
His heart rate eased when he heard the words. No mention of her pregnancy. Good. The OWG recording devices wouldn’t be rolling.
He pressed the “3” to repeat the message. “I think it’s a graph.”
He thought about it for a second, then pressed the “3” again.
“I think it’s a graph.”
He heard the words, but didn’t understand.
Had she dialed the wrong number? Maybe she intended the message for a co-worker. She often sent reports to different OWG officials and much of it had to do with graphing OWG transportation usage.
Still, he took a few cold breaths, remembering their last conversations. To his recollection, none were connected to graphs.
Locke pursed his chapped lips, debating whether he should return her call. He could always wait until he flew home. There was no rush. The call was most likely a mistake anyway. A misdial.
Though he tried, he couldn’t deny his curious nature. Even if the message was a mistake, he’d love to hear her voice. But, if she meant to call Locke, then . . .
“Heck with it.” Locke dialed the number.
“Hello,” Jade answered.
“Hey, did you call me?” Locke shielded the phone’s receiver from the wind.
“Michael? Where are you?”
“You know I can’t tell you that. Got your message, but I’m not sure what you meant.”
“It sounds like you’re standing in a tornado. I can barely hear you.”
“Doing the best I can here. You said something about a graph?”Locke almost interrupted her in his haste to get to the point.
“That thing. What did you call it? The upside down U thing.”
At the same moment, Locke felt a presence. He spied two shadows stretched over the icy ground. His own and . . . Hiss’.
Locke didn’t wheel around. He remained cool but his toes curled inside his boots. “Okay, Jade. The OWG allows me to love you too. Bye.”
As Locke hit the red button on the phone, he heard Jade say, “What?”
“Whoa! Govicide Agent Hiss, you scared me.” Locke faked a jump at seeing his partner standing a few feet from him.
“Who were you talking to?” Hiss pointed to the phone still in Locke’s very cold right hand.
“It was Jade. She misses me. Can you believe we get reception out here?” He stared past Hiss, avoiding eye contact.
“You did not give her our location, did you?”
“Of course not.”
Hiss leaned his head back, the bridge of his nose aligning perfectly with his eyes. Locke could peer right up his nostrils. “What did you find here?”
A small sigh of relief escaped Locke, it coming out as a tiny puff of mist. Hiss hadn’t crept up on him by accident. He saw Locke pull out his phone and got curious. A few days ago it would’ve meant nothing. But now, with Locke’s trip to Homicide and his drive afterward, this might have added to Hiss’ suspicions.
He took a second to collect his thoughts. How could the Symbol be a graph? His pondering would have to wait.
“Well, uh, not much.” Locke turned off the phone, unwilling to take the chance Jade would call back. He slid it into his pocket, and pulled his gloves onto his numbed fingers. “Whoever was here came prepared. They used tools. Torches. Ratchets. They knew what they were going to do before they got here.”
“Seems like you have, what? Two percent arranged?”
“I’m only guessing. And you?” Locke asked.
“Not much. That thing has been parked here for a long time. The inside is full of nothing but snow. Everything is torn out.”
“I noticed you jumped up in the back.” Locke pointed to where Hiss climbed aboard.
“Yes, I did. I believe the vehicle was built to carry something.”
“Maybe this.” Locke kicked a part at his feet.
“I had the same idea.”
The wind whipped between the two of them.
“Do you want to try to put more of this together?” Locke asked.
Hiss ignored the question. “Oh yeah, found this.” Hiss tossed a WPS on the ground. “It was in the cab under the steering wheel. Found some cash frozen in the snow by the driver’s side door, too.”
Locke bent over and picked up the WPS. “How old is it?”
“I scanned it. About a year and a month,” Hiss answered. “Batteries in those never last this long.” Hiss turned the WPS over in Locke’s gloved hand. “But the battery has been changed. You can tell by the backing.”
The broken seal on the battery compartment revealed it had been opened.
“Huh. What do you think? Why would someone change it?” Locke handed it back.
“That is exactly why I am not going to go a step further in arranging any of these parts. This was a waste of our time.” Hiss stuck the WPS in his pocket and waddled toward the helicopter.
“You mean we came the whole way out here for nothing?” Locke yelled at his retreating partner.
Hiss stopped and spun around. “Where are we?” He yelled back. “In the middle of nowhere. The OWG barely has any presence out here. What better place to send a couple of Govicide Agents for no reason? Whoever is behind this knows if a WPS goes off we are going to follow it.”
A waste of time? Locke thought not. Somebody took the time to disassemble all this. That required planning. Travel time. Tools. Fighting the cold, wind, and snow. That was a lot to go through just to fool Govicide.
Maybe someone wanted them to believe they were on the wrong path when, in fact, this site was in line with all the others.
Two more steps and Hiss swung around the vehicle, out of sight. Locke figured he’d better follow. He examined the debris one more time, hoping to make sense of it all in a few quick seconds.
He regretted not having time of his own to study the vehicle. He’d have liked the chance to climb in and around like Hiss. To admire the engineering. To sit in the driver’s seat of a machine that large even if it didn’t work anymore.
Moreover, he wanted to discover the vehicle’s purpose. The OWG never built a vehicle without a purpose. There were no vehicles whose only purpose was to navigate the wilderness or anywhere outside the cities. And the OWG, at least to Locke’s knowledge, certainly didn’t build sixteen-wheeled vehicles whose only use was to traverse the tundra where no one lived.
The OWG’s mission in building vehicles concentrated on public transportation and the delivery of Goods and Services. Buses, trains, delivery trucks. All the automobiles Govicide used the OWG manufactured a long time ago before their production was un-mandated. It wasn’t cost beneficial for subjects to drive their own vehicles, when all the time and energy put into manufacturing could be better served providing more Goods and Services. Given the choice between a car and medicine, subjects would always pick the latter. So, the OWG stopped making vehicles, and the Masses weren’t allowed to pursue making them on their own. Within five years of the mandate, the OWG eliminated and recycled all automobiles except Govicide’s.
But, the OWG promised all subjects would drive automobiles again. Soon.
Locke rounded the front of the vehicle, balancing himself with a glove-covered hand. The helicopter idled in front of him. The pilot waited inside, reading something. Hiss had almost reached it and didn’t seem to notice whether Locke kept up or not.
On a lark, Locke diverted to the driver’s side door of the mystery vehicle. Climbing the ladder, he gazed inside. The window on the door had been blown out. Glass shards littered the interior.
The interior was sparse and utilitarian. There were rows of buttons and switches on the dash and beside the driver’s seat. The seat couldn’t be called a seat now. Only a shell remained, with the metal frame and springs exposed. Whatever material covered the frame was long gone.
He tried to read the gauges. They were in a language or measurement he had never seen. He jiggled the handle of the door and tried to open it, wanting a closer look, but a sound came from behind him. A low whine started and rose in volume. The helicopter.
Locke turned to see Hiss in the copter waving his arms, urging Locke to hurry. He threw a glance at the instrument panel one more time, wondering why the gauges were not in the OWG language or measurement system. He leaped to the ground and raced across the snow.
Locke threw his body into his seat, slamming the door behind him.
“What were you doing?” The wrinkles on Hiss’ forehead undulated from straight lines to a series of “w’s.”
“I wanted to take a peek inside.” Locke answered between breaths. “You don’t see something like that every day. Did you see those gauges? The writing didn’t seem . . . ”
Hiss interrupted. “They were probably faded from years of sitting out there.” Hiss gave him a “just trust me” look. “Part of the letters and numbers were missing. I saw it myself.”
The letters Locke saw on those gauges couldn’t have been OWG at one time. There were dots over some of them. Others looked backward.
“I don’t think so. Regardless, that thing . . . ” Locke glanced at the rusted heap. “ . . . isn’t something the OWG would make, is it?”
“Of course it is, Govicide Agent Locke. Just because vehicles like that are not built now does not mean they were not built at some time. Probably got banned when the Masses wanted more Goods and Services.”
“But those letters. No way they were OWG letters,” Locke argued.
“You know,” Hiss pointed, shaking his right hand, “I seem to remember reading somewhere that the OWG language used to have more letters until the Language Department cut it to twenty six.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” Locke laughed, but swallowed it when he saw Hiss’ face. The Agent was serious.
“I speak the truth, Govicide Agent Locke. They probably taught it before your time. No need to teach it now since there is nothing that old around anymore. Well, except for that machine.” Hiss jutted his chin at the vehicle.
OWG News, OWG music, OWG books, et cetera ceased being relevant after a certain period of time. The time period depended on the Exalted Ruler in charge. OWG Music composed by the OWG Musicians was here this year then deleted a year later. However, information on how the OWG got control of the chaos of the World would always be taught and never forgotten.
There were more than twenty-six letters in the original OWG alphabet? It sounded like a lie, but Locke knew the OWG Education Czar always tried to make the language easier for its students. Shortening the alphabet could do that.
The helicopter took off, gaining altitude, rising to fifty, then one hundred feet. Then the pilot steered toward the debris beneath. Creeping forward at an altitude of two hundred feet, the parts lay below. Locke pushed his head against the glass so he could peer straight down.
But his attention diverted to something else. The helicopter had passed over the far edge of the debris field when he thought he saw a mark in the snow. It was on the far side of the field, opposite the vehicle.
He sat upright in his seat to get a better view. He couldn’t tell if what he saw was a large crack in the tundra formed by natural means, or subject made. It looked like an indentation.
They flew closer but rose in the air at the same time, at over 400 feet. Locke wanted the pilot to remain at this altitude but he wasn’t sure if what he saw was remarkable. He waited until the helicopter hovered over the form.
In five seconds, it reached a point where Locke got his best view. He wasn’t surprised.
The Symbol.
Three hundred feet long and at least two hundred feet wide, carved into the ice on the opposite side of the debris.
He smiled, feeling everything was right in the OWG. He missed the Symbol in the snow when they landed because he slept the whole way. He wished he’d stayed awake. If only he’d seen it before they landed, he would’ve been able to see it close up.
Standing on the ground--even in the middle, Locke doubted he would’ve noticed the depression. He wouldn’t have been able to tell what it was by just seeing a small part. Someone had dug trenches to create it.
Locke tapped Hiss on the arm, pointing to the Symbol getting farther away. “Look. Look.”
“What?”
“Do you see it?”
Hiss squinted in the direction of the Symbol but his blank facial expression told Locke he saw nothing. “See what?”
“The upside down U.”Locke touched the side window with his finger.
“What are you pointing at?”
“The upside down U in the snow.”
“I see something down there. You mean the indentation in the ground?”
“Yeah. It’s subjectmade! It’s--”
Hiss interrupted. “Subjectmade? Govicide Agent Locke, that is a simple indentation in the ground. The tundra is hundreds of feet thick. It was probably caused by a deep crack.”
Locke shook his head. “I’m telling you. Whoever was out here made it.”
The Symbol had nearly disappeared from view. The helicopter picked up speed and altitude.Soon the entire scene on the tundra vanished: parts, vehicles, Symbol, everything.
“I think the cold has gotten to your brain, Govicide Agent Locke.” Hiss slid back to his side.
Locke wanted the pilot to turn around, but Hiss wouldn’t allow it. And the pilot would listen to Hiss due to seniority. The raucous sound of the rotors filled Locke’s ears. He hunched over, elbows on knees. He felt desperate for Hiss to see the Symbol. But he had to do it in a natural way so it wouldn’t lead back to the envelope.
The Symbol . . .
With Hiss sneaking up on him during the phone call and everything that transpired since, Locke had forgotten what Jade said.
The Symbol was a graph?
No. Hamilton said the Symbol had a meaning. Something that everyone who was like Hamilton could see and think the same thing.
How would a graph do that? A graph was just a mathematical representation of a given set of units. X and Y. Sine and Cosine. Ninety Degrees. One hundred eighty degrees. Three hundred sixty degrees.
Locke shook his head. Mathematical symbols didn’t excite or motivate subjects.
No, Jade was wrong. She deserved some credit, though. The idea was better than anything he’d thought of yet.