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Andre Russell had backed himself into a corner without even realising it. He’d sacked his old team and recruited another, thinking that it was just old school thinking that was preventing them from finding the solution to the rising heat levels. Since the start of February the new team had worked tirelessly, trying a dizzying array of different measures. But none of the refurbs, debugging, realignments, reprogramming, diagnostics, deep cleans or shut downs had worked. And deep down he knew that nothing they had done was any different than what the original team would have done. He’d sacked them for nothing. It was a pity that it had taken his second team walking out to make him realise this.
There was no one else left in his department, so it didn’t really make sense to stay on his own. He’d bought his work home tonight and was poring over it in the study in the hope of finding something they had missed. There was a glass of scotch at his elbow, hardly touched and rather warm, the colour of rusty water. Initially there had been three ice cubes in it but they had melted within minutes of being taken out of the freezer – a grim reminder, as if he needed one, of just how screwed up the dome’s environomics were.
His head was pounding from all the thinking. He felt like crud. In the darkened room he pored over the figures for the last eighteen months. It was something he’d gotten into the habit of doing every day and each day he hoped there would be some kind of improvement. But there never was. Wind speed, precipitation, cloud cover, sunlight and temperature, they were all out of sync with what might be expected for the time of year. The programs were set for each season. They had been for two thousand one hundred and forty three years. There was not supposed to be much variation. He was mulling it over, thinking about what might have triggered the change when suddenly he heard a scream.
“Daddy!”
He took the stairs two at a time, his work forgotten and bumped into his wife Tara coming from their room. She looked like she’d just woken up.
“Go back to bed. I’ll see to her,” he said, trying not to look too concerned about their daughter’s frightened whimpers.
She seemed about to argue but Tara was beyond tired. She nodded instead and shuffled back to bed, hair sticking up in all directions. Night shift at the local protein farm was grinding her down. He told her they didn’t need the money, not with his wage coming in from the Environomics centre but she insisted. Making a contribution was important to her. She valued her independence. He closed the door behind her and made his way to their daughter Kaylee’s room ignoring the piles of dirty laundry he had to dodge along the way.
“What is it honey? Are you too hot?” he said scooping her up jauntily. He sat down with her on the cupcake pink bedding and gently wiped away her tears. She nodded.
“Well there’s no need to be upset because you’re too hot now is there?”
She removed her thumb from her mouth so she could speak.
“Yes but there was a man. He scared me.”
Andre’s heart skipped a beat.
“A man?”
“Yes a man. He came out of that corner, over there.”
She pointed to where her rocking horse sat and snuggled into him for safety. In the rose pink glow of her La La Lucinda doll lamp, Andre thought he could see the horse rocking to and fro ever so slightly. Maybe it was the fans they had running at full blast or maybe it wasn’t. He went to put her down again so he could investigate, but she wouldn’t have it, not even when he assured her it was just a dream.
“Do you want me to call Mummy so she can sleep beside you tonight?”
“No. I want you. The man was big and I’m scared he might hurt Mummy.”
Andre smiled at this. Obviously she had faith that her Daddy could keep her safe no matter how big or scary the bogeyman.
He settled down next to her and switched on the fan again deciding that his work must wait until morning. The air wafted over them, picking up wisps of her silvery blonde hair. Soon her breathing slowed and her eyes began to droop at the corners. They seemed about to close completely but she opened them again searching for the reassurance of familiar form and voice.
“Daddy what’s a source?”
“You mean like ketchup?”
She shook her head and he realised she must mean the other word.
He thought for a moment, trying to come up with an understandable explanation for an extremely tired five year old girl.
“It’s where something comes from. The source of the cool air you feel is from this fan – see?”
She nodded and sucked her thumb some more.
“Why do you ask?”
“That’s what the dark man said, the one that came out from the corner.”
Andre’s heart lurched for a second time.
“Did he now? Is that all he said?”
She looked thoughtful as her tired little brain tried to recall the exact sequence of what she thought had occurred.
“No. He said ‘tell your father to look for the source on the outside.’ I don’t think he was very well.”
She started to get upset again.
“Hey, hey…come on. I’m here. Nothing can hurt you while I’m here.”
She gulped and wiped her eyes on his shirt front.
“You don’t think he’ll come back do you?”
“No I don’t. People rarely dream the same thing twice.”
She gave him a strange look.
“But it wasn’t a dream. It was real. And I’m scared of him.”
“I know. That’s why I’m staying here tonight.”
“And tomorrow night? And the next night?”
“We shall see. Now go to sleep.”
****************************
Although their schedules were tight they’d somehow found time to make love for the past two hours. He looked at her lying there, hair flowing over the soft white pillow, her eyes bright with excitement and felt a deep seated ache in his chest. She rolled over and draped a well toned leg across him, her pert breasts pressed against him. There was something on her mind so he resisted burying his head in their welcoming softness and prepared himself to listen instead.
“What does your wife say about it Andre?”
“Tara?”
He said it as though she were a neighbour from across the street, not the woman he had vowed to spend his life with. Zoey’s eyes remained serene. They were a deep blue sea from which he’d struggled to escape from the moment he met her. It had not been a terribly long struggle. He’d surrendered after just a few weeks and they’d been grabbing whatever moments they could ever since. Zoey was not the jealous type. A part of him wished she was. Then he would know it was more than just a fling. In truth he wanted more. He wanted it all.
“Yes, Tara,” she replied.
“Well I haven’t actually had chance to tell her yet. She’s been working a lot lately.”
“I see.”
Just like that the intimacy faded. He felt like a client in her clinic. He wondered if she ran psych evaluations on him just as she did with everyone else who walked through her door. It was an unpleasant thought, but he had a feeling it was probably true.
“Well if you want my professional opinion you should probably report the incident to your local GP who will refer you and Kaylee to someone like me but more specialised who will be able to ascertain whether or not she requires medication or worse case scenario a mind reset.”
He looked at her in horror, shocked that he’d been stupid enough to confide in her.
“Don’t look so scared,” she giggled, rubbing her nose against his. “I’m not a monster.”
He smiled weakly, truly wanting to believe that nothing bad would come from his lapse in judgement.
“I wouldn’t worry Andre. Kids have bad dreams all the time. If it happens again that’s different. Just keep an eye on her. It might be a good idea to make sure she gets a few early nights too.”
“I guess so.”
She kissed him softly on the lips, her eyes sliding over his in a way that said ‘I’m not done with you yet.’ She knew exactly what to say and do to make him putty in her hands – or rather rock hard in her hands, which was exactly what he was right at that moment.
*******************************
Brandon Palmer could hardly believe his old boss had shopped him, and for helping his daughter too. They must have turned the thumb screws he reckoned, because Jim Sheldern didn’t have a treacherous bone in his body. He was as honest as the day is long. Brandon looked at the officer that the others had called Crane and decided that he was probably the one who’d roughed Jim up – he’d seen his black eye as they had passed each other out in the corridor. He was big and brawny and he didn’t look like the type of person you could probably say no to very often and come away unscathed. There were scars on his fists and as he closed the door his eyes gleamed like they were made of mercury. No sir, he didn’t intend getting on the wrong side of Mr Crane. Not if he could help it.
“So, tell us everything you know about Adela Sheldern,” he said, placing his huge bulk opposite him.
Brandon thought briefly about trying to bargain but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He would tell them what he knew but he wouldn’t accept the benefit of it.
“I know very little,” he told them, linking both hands in front of him. “I only ever met her once. But from what I saw that day I can understand why you’re interested in her.”
Her interest piqued, Anita joined them at the table. “Go on…”
“Well for a start, she didn’t break into the General Register Offices like her father probably told you.”
He squirmed a bit so they held the silence and waited like eels for him to spill his guts. He started to cough.
“Can I get a drop of water?”
Anita nodded. Crane got up and came back a short time later, glass in hand, his muscles working in his bristle covered jaw. He set it on the table with a bang, sloshing it down the sides.
“Thanks.”
Brandon took several mouthfuls and fought to marshal his erratic thoughts. He could spend all day dodging the inevitable but the outcome was always going to be the same he believed. They would get what they wanted whether he complied or not. They had ways and means of extracting information.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this. And you’re probably going to think I’m crazy. But Adela literally just appeared in the office as if from nowhere that day. She can move through walls.”
He leaned forward eyes popping as he remembered her materialising in the end cubicle of the birth records room. It was the scariest thing he had ever seen or heard. At first he’d thought she was a ghost.
“No one moves through walls. She must have broken in.”
Brandon shook his head.
“I tell you she just appeared. Right in front of me too. There was a strange sound – a sort of hissing.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well she couldn’t see me but I could see her. A cupboard happened to be in the way. When I summoned up the courage to peer round it again I recognised her from the family photos I’d seen on Mr Sheldern’s desk back when I used to work for him. He was always kind to me so when I got to thinking about what would happen when the authorities discovered the footage of her just appearing like that and I suppose I felt bad for her and her family. So I shot her with my taser and called her father explaining that I’d caught her breaking in. He and her brother Carl took her home and I erased the security tapes.”
“Why didn’t you tell them that she had just appeared? Why did you lie?”
“I don’t know. I guess it was fear – fear of being disbelieved and labelled one of them.”
He looked up his eyes couched in shadows, half expecting to be dragged away.
“Go home,” Anita said dismissively. “We’ll be in touch if we need you.”
Crane opened the door. Right on the threshold Brandon hesitated, not quite believing he was free to leave.
“Go!” she snapped at him.
He hurried out not even stopping to sign the visitors register at the front desk. Once he’d gone Crane asked if she believed him.
“Well he’s either nuts or one scary story teller.”
“I’m thinking the latter.”
“Perhaps.
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