Maybe I am not going nuts, Kate thought to herself as she was led, blindfolded, through the complex that she learnt was called Two Ridge Mountain, smack in the desert, a nice little hideaway. No guesses for why it was called that.
At this point, she was not even sure what country she was in.
Anger and frustration pelted through her for being treated this way, especially after her confinement in a cell like a common criminal. No one had said a word to her which was worse. As she trudged along a corridor of sorts, a feeling of déjà vu swept over her. She sensed enormous power opening up in her mind–something she had never experienced, at least not in her waking moments. Maybe this was brought about by a feeling of self-preservation; perhaps her destiny was moving quickly. Too quickly.
Her escorts led her into what felt like a small room, which made her feel giddy, and she realized it was the sensation of moving very fast downward. It was only an elevator, a bloody quick one, too. Then the most startling thing happened.
Kate felt herself rise above her body and floated in the air. She could look down and see herself and two armed guards in a small, submarine grey box. Everything was clear and in living color. She looked at her captors, she saw everything. One of the guards was twenty-two and recruited out of military training school. His mother and father were so proud of his achievements. They wanted him married to the girl next door. Geez, is he for real?
She looked at the other guard and saw he was older. At thirty, he was hiding the fact he had slight myopia and had made up for that handicap by memorizing the eye tests that doctors give their patients. He also held a temper that got worse when assisted by some top shelf refreshments.
The elevator doors opened, and Kate was bustled out. The “floating body” sensation had only taken a second, yet she had seen the two guards’ lives, inside and out, their births, growing up, schooling, family, health, secrets, marriage, children, and growing old. But the “sensation” stopped before she could see their inevitable fate; death!
With her blindfold removed, she was seated in a room with the same boring submarine grey surrounding her. God, what an uninspiring place, she thought. There was a glass panel facing her on one wall. Obviously, a two-way mirror, just like the cop shows on TV.
She was kept waiting at least twenty minutes. Psychological pressure to break her, she reckoned. Just as she was using her mind to think up some redecorating ideas to color the walls, the door opened and a tall, serious looking man walked in. He was not in any uniform, just a plain grey suit, pale blue tie. He fit in with his surroundings. Kate tried to “read” him as she did the two guards, but found she could not.
CIC Paul Pilcher stared at Kate. He was accompanied by two armed guards in a uniform she had seen before, in her dreams. On the guards’ upper arms were black and red patches with O.B.F. on them.
Fuck ’em!
Without a word, the man in the suit sat opposite Kate, never taking his eyes off her. He held the same manila folder he had in his debriefing room, looked at it, placed it on the table in front of him, opened it, and looked at the writing. Kate noticed they had her photo, copied from her driver’s license. Pilcher closed the file. He sat back in his chair and said, “God, why is it you can’t have a smoke at a time when you want one?”
Kate said nothing. What kind of line was that? Trying to be friendly to her. Well, fuck him. She was back to normal Kate again. I am so owed an explanation for this treatment. She was tempted to have an outburst, but she thought, no, she would be better off to close her mouth, give them a dime. God, would she be tortured? Who knows? These guys appeared to be above the law.
“Katherine Louise Willard,” Pilcher began, reciting from memory. “Age forty, divorced, you are musically talented. It seems you have a few other talents.”
He let that last remark trail off and studied her reaction.
“Okay, let’s start from the top,” he said. “We received an interesting phone call.”
“What’s your name?” Kate interrupted, surprising herself.
Pilcher raised his eyebrows slightly. When he was a Colonel in Desert Storm, his men, let alone prisoners, were not allowed to speak until spoken to and did not question him. But this situation was different. He cleared his throat. Why did his mind suddenly remember Desert Storm?
“Pilcher, Commander in Chief, Paul Pilcher.”
“That wasn’t that hard, was it,” Kate smirked. “So, this is…what? Military, Air Force, or what?”
Pilcher stared at her for a second.
“Let me be completely candid with you, Ms. Willard.”
She shot him a look of anger, “I prefer Kate.”
“Okay, Kate it is.” Paul took a deep breath realizing small talk would not work. “I want to know who gave you this information about…” He pretended to rummage through the paper in the manila folder. “…the rock and the Locums.”
“Aha!” Kate said. “Locums plural?”
Paul looked at her not at first realizing his error.
“I said this Locum situation, idiot,” Kate snarled, ready for a fight no matter how trivial.
“Do you know what the Locum are?” Paul shot back curtly.
“Why, Mr. Commander in Chief,” Kate said in a mock sweetie pie voice. “By now you yobbos would’ve cleaned out all my PC records and examined every word. And you’ll note my records are a perfect account of day to day even minute by minute events that go on in this secret hotel you have here.”
Paul Pilcher considered himself an intelligent and patient man, who did not rise up to his CIC position by entering a contest. He was hand-picked by the overseer of the Secret United Earth Powers to head Divisions and run the OBF program. Now he was dealing with something that made him feel out of his depth, which was not often. Every morning, to stop the stress attacks, he would mentally recite, “One can handle any given situation if one dedicates their mind to it.” This was not one of those situations.
To save face, as every word, movement and gesture were being recorded and scrutinized, he cleared his throat again and said, “I want to hear it from your own mouth.”
“The Locum is a race that was created many thousands of years ago in an area of a distant galaxy millions of light years from Earth. They were an unsuccessful result of an experiment in a laboratory where cloning of organic and inorganic matter was being tried. They have the ability to gather vast amounts of technology through absorption via physical contact and now have evolved to the point where their numbers are enormous. They have managed to resemble so many different forms of life they cannot be ignored or be termed as robots in the true sense of the word. They are highly evolved and unpredictable, so therefore, extremely dangerous.”
Kate leant forward with a sigh and looked unconcerned at the two-way mirror. “That gives you a brief outline, but you can refer to my notes in my PC.”
Up yours, Pilcher!
She ran her fingers through her dark hair and decided to play with him. “I actually would be worrying more about these Trimadians knocking on your door.”
Paul stared at her, not knowing how to get his brain into gear. The last bit of information rang in his ears.
“Why do you say this, what do you know about the Trimadians?”
“Just as much as you do, Mr. Paul C.I.C. Pilcher, nasty bunch they sound eh!”
Pilcher was at a loss, a wall of anger rose, with her smartass attitude. “So what do you suggest we do, Ms. Wil‑Kate?”
“Do you remember that statement your friend Sataal made on Ahmadeus?” Kate said. “You would have read it in your team’s report.”
Paul felt a small streak of dread shoot through his stomach.
Kate continued deprecatingly, “It is only a matter of time before Graffa is in their path. He has given you guys a real education. He is one wise dude.”
Paul felt a sweat break out on his forehead and glanced at the two-way mirror. He needed to get back in control, keep it relevant and made a decision. “So you
are saying you have a way of spying in on our transmissions.” His nostrils flared accusingly. “I suppose you think this is a game. You do not know half of what is going on, Kate.”
Kate hesitated, in actual fact she knew less than that, and did not have a clue what she was talking about. She had taken a few things she had noted down on her PC and used her imagination, and it was turning into a battle of wills. All she wanted was to find some answers and get out of this hole.
Kate looked at her hands and sighed resolutely. “I don’t mean to spy. Look, at first I really didn’t want to have anything to do with this business, but here I am and I need some answers.” She paused, feelings of loneliness and vulnerability took over, and it took every effort to not start blubbering. No, not in front of a man, no way.
“I honestly don’t know what is happening. Or if I am Kate Willard anymore. One minute I am trying to piece strange visions and dreams together. Next thing, I seem to have some type of, err clarity on the situation. In fact, I think with all the visions I’m seeing and all this stuff that is happening to me, I feel like some force is taking me over at times. Sometimes I’m here. At other times I feel like I’m in another time, and sometimes I don’t even know if it’s me.” She giggled at the absurdity, and felt embarrassed. She looked at Paul who was silently waiting for her to keep talking.
“By the way, when do I get to meet the others?”