neural.coder 0x21 — The Machine
Geoff is captured by Pete MacHinery, one last time.
Duncan MacNeill—the mild-mannered cafe owner, and baker of the most amazing scones—appeared above the counter with a shotgun in hand. With absolute-zero hesitation, he emptied a shell into the back of the nearest Obligatto soldier, the blast knocking them to the floor. They let out a cut-off scream. Duncan swung his gun to the second invader, who span round to face the immediate threat.
“Drop it son!” Duncan shouted, “or you get the second barrel.”
The solider did not obey, and let rip with a spray of automatic fire in Duncan’s direction. He was already diving for cover a split second before they pulled the trigger. The glass counter shattered. A plate of perfect scones exploded, followed by a Victoria sponge, and a gooey chocolate fudge cake. Geoff watched in amazement, cowering behind his table. Duncan slid out from the behind the end of the counter, sliding across the floor on his back, shot gun raised. He fired the second barrel, hitting the soldier in the shoulder, spinning them to the floor.
“Grab your shit, and get out the back,” Duncan shouted to Geoff.
Geoff grabbed his laptop and phone, stuffing them quickly into a rucksack, “But my bike’s out the front?”
“No time son, run. Find the Lobster Pot pub and ask for Pete the Goat, tell him I sent you.”
The door swung in, two more gas-masked, black-clad soldiers stormed in, guns raised.
“No one’s going anywhere,” Geoff knew the voice right away. “You there, don’t even think about reloading that ridiculous antique of yours, put it down slowly and hands up.” He held the barrel of his gun on Duncan, gesturing to the floor with it, he turned to the second soldier and ordered, “Secure Stalinsky!”
One of the two downed soldiers was picking themselves off the floor. The other was lying in a pool of blood, left arm limp at the side, shoulder a bloody mess; groaning softly, and fading in and out of consciousness.
Geoff stood, frozen in place as the soldier cuffed him with giant plastic cable ties, just like a week ago in the flat. Only Jenn wasn’t about to drive a truck through the front window this time, he could be sure of that. Once he was cuffed, Geoff was shoved down into his chair.
Duncan had placed his empty shotgun on the floor, his hands were raised above his head, his fingers twitching.
“Petitioner secured, sir!” the trooper said.
He still had his weapon trained on Duncan, watching him intensely. He clicked the radio on his chest.
“Lomas, how’s the weather?”
A voice crackled from the radio, “Storm’s getting evil now sir, we don’t need to be here on this dock any longer. I need to get out of the storm area or tie down somewhere.”
He turned and spoke to the soldier who had cuffed Geoff, “Help Kelly get Walsh to the bird. Get fluids in him. Kelly check yourself for backface trauma and spall, swap out the plates, we need to get Walsh to a secure clinic A.S.A.P. I’ll resolve these two.”
“Yes sir.” They slung their guns on their backs and lifted their injured companion to his feet. Propped between them both, they walked him out of the cafe. Leaving just the commander.
He clicked on the radio again, “Lomas, Walsh is injured, needs surgery. Kelly and Rawlins are bringing him to you. Get in the air and get safe. I can hold things here while I wait for the van. I’m not risking Stalinsky and his toys on a flight in weather like this.”
“Yes sir, confirmed,” the voice on the radio responded.
“You won’t hear from me again, I’ll report in to London once I’ve done a secure debrief here,” he said, clicking off the radio.
He ripped off his gas mask revealing a face Geoff knew well, the man who had ordered Andy’s death, the man who had captured him at the church, the man who as far as he cared was responsible for Jenn’s death as well.
He turned to Duncan, lowering his weapon, and spoke, “Well hello Duncan old friend, I was not expecting to see you.”
“Nor me you, Pete. Sorry about your guy’s shoulder.”
“Never mind, he’ll live. I’ve bought you an hour, I owe you that much. Now, please tell me what’s so important I risk my whole job? ‘WRONG FLAG, CLEAR THE DECKS, PARLAY’ you said?”
Geoff sat, hands still cuffed behind him, shaking his head and looking from one to the other, “Would someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“Meet my old colleague and once friend Pete MacHinery,” Duncan said.
“I know who he is, I don’t need to know his bloody name,” Geoff shouted, getting to his feet and stumbling forwards, catching his balance—he was still bound, “he’s the fucker that killed Andy, probably Jenn as well for all I know.”
“Ms. Alban is dead,” MacHinery said?
“What they didn’t tell you?” Geoff said, “They used her as part of the coverup of your fucked up teleport attempt. We saw on the news!” he was shouting now, “You’re a gang of religious sicko murdering thugs.”
“Why don’t we all calm down and take a seat,” Duncan said, “and have cup of coffee, maybe a nice scone and let’s have a chat about it all.”
“You seriously just want me to talk to this evil bastard?” Geoff screamed.
“And I, need to hear a good reason why I don’t take in the dangerous terrorist here,” MacHinery shot back at Geoff.
“Geoff a terrorist?” Duncan laughed, crunching his way over broken glass to the coffee machine, “He’s no more a terrorist than he is an alcoholic lorry driver.”
“Lorry driver?” MacHinery said.
“Ha, they’ve told you nothing then!” Geoff sneered, “You’re just a pawn like the rest of us.”
“I’ve been off comms and busy tracking you,” he said, “seems I always find you one way or another. Now, you’d be on that helicopter if Duncan here hadn’t just called in a favour. Which he needs to explain!”
Geoff had a thought, had they found him so easily because they had tweaking based tracking up and running? “How did you find me,” he asked, “using the ideas you stole from me, I bet?”
“No, we just scanned for CCTV of someone on a motorbike without a helmet, we’d worked out those two old women still had theirs, it was a safe bet. We tracked you across Scotland to here, I just asked around.”
“So you work for these Obligatto people?” Duncan said, “Geoff, please sit down, you too Pete.”
Geoff stood, he wasn’t going to sit if this MacHinery bloke was still standing. MacHinery nodded at Duncan and sat down. Geoff waited a stubborn second or two, then sat himself.
Duncan said, “Couldn’t just go full civvie Pete? I heard you’d joined some contractor group. This Obligatto lot do not sound like the good kind. Geoff’s told me about all sorts.”
“They wanted someone with experience outside their organisation. Their training has fallen behind modern methods. I’m pretty sure they’re planning to sack me.”
“But torturing kids, Pete? Executing people? Is that all true,” Duncan said.
“I’m not forgetting you killed Andy,” Geoff said, teeth pressed together.
“I was following orders,” Pete said, “we were told we were dealing with a pair of highly dangerous and armed terrorist hackers, and that you were the valuable target. Your friend was tagged as surplus to requirements. I triple checked with my superior…” He trailed off, and his eyes sank to the floor. “To be honest with both of you, I wasn’t comfortable with that afterwards.”
“Not fucking comfortable… you killed my best friend! He was like a brother to me, and I’ll never see him again. What even happened to his body!”
“Clean up crew would have gone in,” Pete said quietly.
“And who was that Hannah woman who’d wined and dined us? She was very nosy,” Geoff said, “did she give the order?”
“No, that was the Watchtower—as we call her. Lucia Sinclair. She’s Obligatto born and bred, true believer.”
“So who ordered the kill, and who killed Jenn.”
“They’d have tortured her.”
“They?” Duncan said, “Not ‘we’, Pete? You’re part of the same team, aren’t you.”
“No, not me, her. Imelda Marsh,” Pete said, “I don’t think she likes me. I certainly don’t like her. She’ll do anything to further the Obligatto. Freezing cold she can be. I’ve lost good people due to her bad decisions. Some people I brought in with me, others that might have been raised Obligatto, but they are still good people, even if their loyalties lie with this cult I seem to have signed on with. They weren’t like this at first.”
Duncan looked at them both, turning his head from one to the other.
“What do they want with Geoff here? He’s a lovely bloke as far as I can tell, not a terrorist.”
“It’s his ideas and talent they want, they believe all talent is god given, all ideas stem from one source and that it’s their job to make sure talent and knowledge is applied where they want it applied. They have this arrogant saying, ‘the current flows where we will’”
“The conspiracy theorists are right then,” Geoff said, “they will be happy, even if some of them take it as more proof they were right about the shape of the earth.”
“What are you on about?” Pete and Duncan said in unison.
“Never mind…pet peeve,” Geoff said. “Sometimes I get distracted, Jenn used to point it out. You know, she was just a nineteen-year-old child, she didn’t deserve the things you did to her.”
“Nineteen!” Pete said, “She was in her 60s.”
“Long story,” Geoff said.
Duncan shook his head, “Enough of this, I want to know why they fear Geoff here so much?”
“It’s the things he did with his bank and the lottery that set it all off, impossible things that scared the crap out of them,” Pete said.
“So your day-dreaming crap about teleporting and messing with some underlying nature of reality was all true?” Duncan said.
“Yes.”
“I thought you were a fantasist. I could see you were in some kind of trouble, but figured you were making up laughable cover stories. You needed help so I didn’t pry.”
“No, it’s all true,” Geoff said.
“Indeed it is,” said Pete.
Duncan raised both eyebrows.
Geoff went on to explain in broad detail all that had happened in the past week. Even a shortened version took some twenty minutes to tell.
I will admit I was drawn to read this from the image. And I was happily drawn in by the written work. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Pity about the scones.