CHAPTER 32
He waited, but it was tough. Locke paced his room, circling the table what seemed like a hundred times. He flipped on the OWG News. The main story was rising world temperatures. Sacrifices would be needed. Goods and Services would be reduced in response.
The clock passed 1am. Then 2am. Locke fell asleep in his chair. He awoke startled fifteen minutes later. No message yet.
He trudged to the bathroom, splashing cold water in his face. He settled back in his chair. Once again, it got too comfortable. He strode to his window. It overlooked the roof of another building. He examined the air conditioning units. They’d been manufactured in Red Star City by subjects half his age.
Worry nipped at him. What if no message got delivered?
Then, he’d be up all night. And the fatigue would show on his face and in his demeanor the next day. Hiss would wonder why he hadn’t slept. And then Hiss would be suspicious.
Maybe this was a waste of time.
At 2:45am, he made a deal: He’d stay awake fifteen more minutes. Then he’d go to bed.
In five minutes, his anxiousness that the Messenger wouldn’t deliver evaporated.
A shadow blocked the light from under the door. Every one of Locke’s muscles contracted. Should he rush the door? Creep over?
This moment of indecision cost him. While he decided what to do, an enveloped slithered into the room.
This got him moving. The shadow darted away. He jumped up and sprinted to the door, but had trouble opening it, pulling the handle before taking a split second to turn it.
He jumped into the hallway, swiveling to where the shadow dispersed.
Nothing.
The hallway was about sixty feet long with a stairwell at each end. Locke heard movement on the nearest one. He dashed to it and looked down between the railings. Footsteps pitter-pattered below but he couldn’t see who was there.
Locke flew down the stairs two at a time, sleepiness far behind him. In seconds, he landed on the fourth floor.
At the third floor landing, he paused to listen. No more sounds on the stairs. He opened the stairwell door to check the hallway. No one.
“Dang it.” Locke pounded his fist against the railing.
He took the rest of the stairs like the others. On the bottom floor, the door opened into a hallway leading to the lobby. Locke jogged to the end of it. He saw or heard no one.
Peeking around the corner into the lobby, he noticed the night clerk sat at her counter, writing on a piece of paper.
Locke stepped out from the corner. “Anyone come through here just a few seconds ago?”
The clerk dropped her pen, bringing her left hand to her face. “No. No, Govicide Agent. No one has come through here in about an hour,” the clerk answered, bending to pick up her pen. Her hand shook as she placed it on the counter.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure, Govicide Agent.”
Locke took another step into the lobby. He noticed the video surveillance cameras. “Those work?”
“Oh, no, Govicide Agent. To use them would mean that we use too much energy. Energy that could go . . . ”
“Yes, yes. I’ve heard it all before. Is there another way out of this hotel?”
“Of course, Govicide Agent. There are entrances and exits on all sides of the building.” The female pointed to her left then to her right.
Locke remembered Snow City. “Do they have alarms if they’re opened?”
“Sometimes they work. Sometimes they do not.”
“And none have gone off tonight?”
“No, Govicide Agent.” The clerk shook her head.
Could the Messenger be still in the building? Good luck trying to figure that one out. Even if he searched room to room, how would he recognize the Messenger when he saw him? He wouldn’t be wearing a shirt saying, I am the Messenger.
Locke’s prey could’ve scampered down one of the halls on the other floors, descended another stairwell, and been out an exit door by now. And in that case, a search of the hotel from top to bottom would wind up being fruitless.
Locke put his hands on his hips, hanging his head. How had he been outsmarted? He’d stayed up and still the subject evaded him.
Forcing a smile to reassure the clerk everything was fine, Locke stomped down the hall. He climbed the stairs, keeping an eye on the halls of the other floors. No one.
The door to his room hadn’t closed when he left. It had tried to shut but it didn’t have enough momentum to close. The bolt rested against the jamb. He opened it with his hip, grabbed the envelope and secured the door behind him.
“So, what do you have to tell me tonight?”
Same ink color. Same handwriting. Same Symbol.
Hello Govicide Agent Locke, where there’s nothing, something will be.
Another riddle.
This Messenger refused to give him something he could go on.
But, he had neither the time nor the energy to mull over the message. It was time to get four hours of sleep. Four hours that surely wouldn’t be enough to refresh him.
Stripping off his clothes, Locke grabbed the covers on his bed. And froze.
Another envelope leaned against the pillows.
While he was in the lobby, the Messenger must’ve returned to Locke’s room and left another note.
This proved one thing: The Messenger was the writer.
He didn’t have to rip the envelope open because it wasn’t sealed. The Symbol was on the front, but not as neat as the others. The writing was more of a scrawl. But the handwriting was the same.
Hello Govicide Agent Locke, I’m used to getting away. You’re not used to chasing.
“No riddle this time,” Locke said out loud. He placed the message on the table.
If the Messenger carried a bag with envelopes and paper, he should be easy to pick out. But where to start? He wasn’t sure who was in the hotel on this night but the building couldn’t be more than half full.
If he got the hotel to empty out, he might be able to figure out the Messenger’s identity.
No. He was too smart for that. Even if he stayed in the hotel, this little chase probably spooked him. He’d be gone. Locke dismissed looking at the registry, along with evacuating the hotel room by room. The Messenger had too much time to slip out.
And how would Locke explain it all to Hiss? That would be the toughest part of all. Once again, the conversation would lead directly to the first message in Dale City. Exactly where the conversation couldn’t be allowed to go.
Locke decided to do nothing. Catching the Messenger in the act was the only way it would have worked. Anything else took too much time and subjectpower. And caused too many questions.
He did sense the irony. Here he was. In a hotel. In the middle of nowhere. Gambling City was some seven thousand miles away. And the writer of the letters had been a few feet outside his door and Locke couldn’t catch him. The Messenger might be on this same floor--a few rooms away--and Locke couldn’t prove it.
Locke lay on the bed without removing the covers. He closed his eyes. His last thought before falling off to sleep was how bizarre it would be if he got another note the next morning.
That thought still spun in his head four hours later when he woke to his alarm.His first action was to check the floor.
Nothing there.
But the new day gave him a new perspective.
Hamilton’s comrade—the Messenger--could have waited for Locke in the room and attacked him when he returned. Perhaps Locke might’ve been the fifteenth Agent this group had killed in a little over two years. Yet, he decided to leave a note and escape with no violence.
What did that say about him? What did that say about their group?
Hamilton proved they could be dangerous. Yet, when given the chance to get rid of an Agent who tried to capture him, the Messenger didn’t take the opportunity. Instead, he chose to leave a harmless message with a straightforward statement, and disappear.
Locke pondered this in the shower. He imagined coming back from the brief chase and being strangled from behind since he’d had his defenses down upon his return to the room. In thirty seconds, his life would’ve been over.
He would be more aware of his surroundings from now on.
The steam began to rise in the shower. Locke peered out through a crack in the curtain to see the mirror. The bathroom was getting as clouded as his mind.
Why hadn’t the Messenger killed him? Locke had shown the desire to capture him. Locke had stayed awake for the expressed purpose of doing so. He’d pursued him down the hall and steps, and to the lobby.
And still the Messenger didn’t feel the need to kill Locke.
He twisted around in the shower to allow the rapidly cooling water to hit the other side of his body.
Maybe Hamilton was their only murderer.
The Messenger was the Messenger. The subjects who printed the cash were just cash printers. The subjects who helped Hamilton and the Messenger from place to place were just transportation subjects. The subjects who were on the tundra outside of Snow City and in the tech facility were just tech subjects. They were simply subjects doing their work.
A civilization like the OWG.
Except they were trying to destroy the OWG.
But, were they?
It had been two years since Hamilton’s first murder and the OWG was still here, working like always. The System hadn’t been attacked. Hamilton was in jail. The cash was a problem, but what were these Offenders doing with it?
And, besides Hamilton’s murders of the Agents, no damage had been done.
As the now cold water woke Locke, he estimated that if these subjects were Free Enterprisers, they were the most harmless ones he could imagine.
Free Enterprisers, according to OWG lore, were ruthless, violent in everything they did. Not caring if subjects got Goods and Services or not. Allowing subjects to starve and live out in the elements.
But, these subjects didn’t seem to be like that at all.
Cash was out there, but not in any subject’s hands. No complaints from subjects about not getting any Goods and Services in the areas where the cash was found. No subjects turning in other subjects for getting around OWG mandates in those areas either.
So, who exactly were these Free Enterprisers?
Maybe they weren’t Free Enterprisers at all.
Moreover, where could this civilization be? The OWG was everywhere.
Locke finished his shower and met Hiss downstairs. The old Agent said little. It seemed this trip across the World from city to city, site to site, was having an effect on him. Locke noted there was less arguing and tension between the two of them since the Red Star City dock. He wanted to mark this up as them getting used to each other’s tendencies and habits. But Locke also realized he hadn’t done anything suspicious since the Snow City incident, either. He guessed if Hiss caught him doing something unusual again the tension would return.
Their trip by helicopter took them into the mountains around Pak City. They traveled over nothing but mountainous terrain. It maneuvered up and down, side to side. Locke felt some queasiness coming on from all the movement, and warned Hiss he might be sick. Hiss told him to concentrate on the horizon and not on every mountain they passed.
It worked. Although the sickness didn’t vanish, following the Agent’s advice made it start to dissipate.
Their destination was another cave. An OWG Environmental Protectionist, while surveying the area for signs of World Warming, found the cash on a dirt road several hundred feet below the cave. Hiss believed the wind blew the cash to this location. Locke disagreed, believing the cash was on the road because it was loaded there.
While Hiss canvassed the area for additional cash and clues, Locke did his own searching. Hiss spent his time inside the cave. Locke stayed outside, trying to find the Symbol.
Locke didn’t see one. No rocks moved into the Symbol configuration. No carvings in any of the pine trees around the cave. No scrawling on the rocks just outside the cave. No Symbols etched into the dirt beside the road or on the way up to the cave.
In an hour, the two Agents met at the helicopter with Hiss still on the phone with someone. Locke hoped he’d see the Symbol somewhere on the mountainside. He continued to watch until the forested peak was out of sight.
If it was there, he missed it.
Hiss hung up and thrust the phone into his pocket. A long sigh from him signaled to Locke that the call wasn’t good.
“Govicide Agent Hiss, is there something wrong?” Locke asked.
“No,” Hiss answered, staring straight ahead.
Locke studied Hiss body language from the tips of his shiny black shoes to the top of his almost hairless head. Something was going on but Locke didn’t get the idea it had anything to do with Pak City or any other city. It bothered Locke a bit but it didn’t rise to the level of worry. If Hiss found out about Jade’s pregnancy somehow, or the other information Locke knew, Hiss wouldn’t have give him the one word answer. The topic bothering Hiss must be something else.
The helicopter landed and the limo whisked them to their awaiting SST. There would be no second night in Pak City. Their next destination was Francoville, quite a distance away on the far West side of the Third Continent.
Hiss took his former seat at the front of the SST. He hadn’t sat in front since their trip from Dale City.
Locke tried to relax, and the flight attendants did their best in assisting his effort. They brought dinner consisting once again of food Locke heard about but never tried. This included crab legs, OWG fries, and cheesecake. It was his favorite meal yet, though he got a bit messy cracking the crab legs open.
Because of the length of the flight, entertainment was offered. The in-flight film choices consisted of OWG classics such as The Seven Govicide Agents, Govicide Confidential, Govicide Beauty, and The Dark Agent. Locke had seen them before, since they were all required viewing as a teenager. The OWG hadn’t produced any films in recent years. Providing more Goods and Services got in the way, but there was talk the cameras might start rolling again soon.
Of these films, The Dark Agent was Locke’s favorite, telling the story of an Agent fighting against a crazy Free Enterpriser who tried turning Big Apple City into anarchy. This Free Enterpriser painted his face white and red to conceal his identity. In the end, The Dark Agent captured the Free Enterpriser, hanging him upside down from a building, all the Free Enterpriser’s cash falling out of his pockets.
But, Locke didn’t enjoy the film as much as before. For the first time, he found himself sympathizing with the Free Enterpriser. He agreed with what the Dark Agent did, but there was something about the film this time. Maybe because he was an Agent now, and the film didn’t portray Govicide life in the correct way. Or maybe because Big Apple City in the film looked attractive and alive with the Masses driving automobiles, riding in SST’s, eating exotic foods, and living to at least eighty years old.
The film ended and Locke stared out his window. His view was to the south. The SST flew to the north of the area where Jade said OWG Transportation had so many problems. Rail sensors going out. SST’s having navigation issues. SST’s disappearing from radar.
In the seventh grade, OWG Educators taught that this area was the last to fall under the rule of the OWG. The OWG used weapons--Locke didn’t know what kind since they were banned afterwards--to gain control. However, the lasting effects left the entire area uninhabitable.
Over the years, SST’s gave it a wide berth. Trains traveled on the outskirts of this restricted area. Any closer and crews suffered death in a short time. The OWG deemed the three million square miles unlivable for hundreds of years.
He listened to the engines purr. Steady. Smooth. Straight. This SST didn’t seem to have any navigation problems at all being so close to the area. Far off to the southwest were the Pyramids Hamilton mentioned.
The clear night gave him an unobstructed view of the moon. The peaceful sight made him sleepy. As he drifted off gazing down at this deserted area, his last coherent thought was: Did he see lights?