The Company Man (8) Part 2

Nic hadn’t had time to react, before he was bundled through the door. He stumbled onto his knees and looked up to see three people, two women and a man, speaking in hushed tones around a small circular table in the corner of a dark and hazy office. The air was thick and acrid. Silence descended as Nic fell through the door and they all looked up. A broad-shouldered woman with a long gaunt face and matted brown hair extinguished her hand-rolled cigarette and stood up.

        ‘You’re late,’ she said, as she exhaled her final draw. She approached Nic confidently with her hands behind her back, looking him up and down as he rose from the ground. Her voice was deep and authoritative. ‘So, this is the famous Lieutenant, is it? He don’t look like much.’

        ‘I could say the same.’ Nic retorted, slightly offended. He saw that her face was stained with black smudges and her uniform was ripped and worn. The other woman looked in similar dire straits, but the man was fresh faced and wearing an immaculate, white orderly’s uniform.

        ‘Well, some of us have been building a revolution, Lieutenant,’ she snapped back. What’ve you been doing? I mean, aside from blowing our cover?’

        ‘I… I…,’ Nic stammered, before Bagon interrupted.

‘I was as fast as I could be.’ He said, quickly changing the subject. He pushed past Nic and grabbed a beige Lieutenant’s uniform, which had been carefully folded and placed on the table, and thrust it into Nic’s chest. ‘Get dressed,’ he ordered and looked back at the woman. ‘We’ve no bloody time for this, Mika’ he said mournfully.

        ‘No thanks to that lunatic, Odessa,’ she snorted, ‘what was she thinking, Bagon? Exposing us like that. And all for this.’ She nodded derisively back to Nic, who was busy pulling on his trousers.

        ‘We needed someone who could get us close to him, Mika.’ Bagon nodded upwards. ‘Lieutenant Nic ‘ere give us the perfect chance. And when he falls, we’ll need Officers to ‘elp deprogram the masses…’

        ‘But we weren’t ready, Bagon,’ the second woman interrupted, her voice was softer than Mika’s, and filled with sorrow, ‘and now there are fewer than a hundred of us.’ She shook her head in desperation. ‘For four years, we’ve been slowly building our numbers, yet in a day they slew entire divisions, loyal to us or not. The Troopers rolled through any unit suspected of the slightest deviation, and they purged the lot. What’s left of us has retreated to the mines. We’ll put our backs to the rock and make our last stand there.’ She paused. ‘If this fool’s errand doesn’t end us all right now.’

        ‘A fool’s errand indeed!’ Mika hissed, ‘are we supposed to put all our hope in him’ She looked at Nic with daggers. ‘Just yesterday he was upstairs in the fat bureaucrat’s office spilling his guts to anyone who’d listen, all for the glory of the Company.’ She spat on the floor in disgust.

        ‘But he’s finally seen, hasn’t he, Bagon?’ The white robed man piped up from the table, ‘Odessa said he would probably have to give us up, if she couldn’t break his programming in time.’

        ‘He’s seen it all,’ Bagon enthused, ‘Odessa’s plan worked perfectly. An’ after the Doc tried to turn ‘is brain to mush, I don’t fink ‘e’ll be up for ‘eadin’ back any time time soon.’ Bagon let out a brief chuckle. ‘What do you say, Lieutenant?’ He looked at Nic earnestly.

        As Nic buttoned up his freshly starched shirt, he looked around the table at the two unfamiliar faces and the hostile figure of Mika, who was now standing with her back to him in the corner and muttering to herself, apparently too disgusted to even look at him. His mind was racing.  Something within him yearned for Odessa.  Their last connection had been so intimate that he felt as if he had known her his whole life. Bagon was staring hopefully into his eyes and the other two just sat there, their faces swollen with a look of defeat.

        ‘Who the hell are you guys?’ He asked. ‘And what plan?’

        ‘Ha!’ Bagon slapped him on the back, and bared his teeth in that all too familiar grin. ‘That’s Mika in the corner, don’t mind her, she don’t trust no-one. This fella in the white coat is Honza, and that’s Delfin. We were the first to meet Odessa.’ He grinned. ‘It’s been a blinkin’ long road, but we’re almost there…’

        ‘And the plan, Bagon?’ Nic interjected, ‘what is it?’ 

        ‘Well, Odessa realised, after she first joined with you, that it’d take too flamin’ long to break the programmin’ without the serum? And…’

        ‘The what?’ Nic interrupted, already confused.

        ‘The serum. The Doc must’ve given it ya. It relaxes your mind, and allows them to fill your ‘ead with whatever mumbo jumbo they fancy. A bleedin’ ‘andy tool, if you ask me.’

         ‘I remember,’ Nic mused. ‘It was almost euphoric. A stark contrast to the torture…’

         ‘It was the final step to breaking your will,’ Honza interrupted, ‘to relieve you of your pain and imprint the Company values of brotherhood, and backbreaking labour, as the answer to all your doubts and worries.’

        ‘So, what happened?’ Nic asked. ‘How am I here?’

        ‘Odessa’s body may be encased in energy,’ Honza explained, ‘but her mental implants are still active. She can exist in the sub-conscious realm, neither here nor there, as it were. During your previous telepathic episodes with her, she planted a seed. When you lost consciousness, she was able to hijack your reconditioning and project her own memories. What did you see?’ His tone became curious.

        ‘I saw the Grand Visigoth raze her home planet.’

        ‘Anything else?’ He prodded.

        ‘The Grand Visigoth’s face became the face of the General. I saw that the people of the great free city of Hallogen have been living a lie for a hundred years.’

        ‘Hmph.’ Mika guffawed and rolled her eyes sarcastically. ‘And now judgement day is upon us Lieutenant,’ she condescended, ‘the tunnel will be finished in less than a month, and we’ll be left to rot. When the ore is gone from the core, our planet’s magnetic field will destabilise, and we will have handed over our lives and home, as a blind paean to a megalomaniacal zealot.’

        ‘It ain’t over yet, Mika,’ Bagon chimed, ‘we still got one card left to play.’

        ‘So you’ve said, Bagon,’ she sneered, ‘we have this pathetic Officer, this Company man, in whose hands we must place our fate.’ She turned away and spat on the floor again.

        Presently, Nic remembered that fateful day on the hill when Odessa had given her prophecy of impending doom. ‘I’ve seen the shield surrounding our city,’ he blurted. ‘And the electromagnetic storms raging beyond it. I know what’s at stake here…’ 

        ‘You’ve seen the storms?’ Delfin interjected, as she sat bolt upright in her chair, a fresh wave of panic stretched over her pale white face.

        ‘How severe were they, Lieutenant?’ Honza asked abrubtly. ‘Were they truly raging, as you said?’ His tone was urgent.

        ‘Who gives a damn what he’s seen!’ Mika yelled. ‘Our numbers are a tenth of what they…’

        ‘Oh shut up, Mika,’ Honza blurted, his wiry frame and calm demeanour belied his authority now. ‘Let the man speak. Don’t forget, Mika, not one of us have laid eyes on this phenomenon. We have only Odessa’s word. I, for one, am very curious what he has to say.’

        Mika backed down and huffed as she sat at the table and crossed her arms. Her eyes never wavered from Nic’s.

        ‘Before she allowed herself to be captured,’ Nic began, ‘she flew us both to the top of the Southern hill and showed me. I saw the soft red glow of the shield glistening in the sky and violent lightening strikes crashing into the earth beyond it. They covered the horizon in seeming perpetual motion. One, then another, then another, spewing dust into the air that seemed to blend with the clouds in the sky. The red hue of the shield made it look quite beautiful, actually. It reminded me of the old oil paintings we saw in the school conditioning sessions.

        ‘Fascinating.’ Honza muttered.

        ‘The future of our planet will be decided today.’ Delfin said solemnly. 

        Even Mika began to thaw. ‘So, today really is judgement day.’ She said with a sigh as she shook her head.

        ‘Judgement day?’ Nic looked at Honza.

        ‘Your personal audience, Lieutenant,’ he answered. ‘Odessa was adamant the Grand Visigoth would never let her out of his sight when he captured her, so we need you to get up to the top floor, free her, and get out of the way, so she can finally end his reign of terror.’

        ‘Oh just get up there and free her!’ Nic was incredulous. ‘What if the Grand Visigoth’s already figured all this out? He’s been two steps ahead, every step of the way.’

        ‘It’s a possibility I’m afraid, but we have no choice.’ Honza said solemnly. 

        ‘And how exactly am I supposed to free her?’ Nic asked, despondent. 

        ‘She gave us this.’ Honza handed Nic a small metal disc, one centimetre in diameter. ‘It contains a device that will emit an electromagnetic pulse,’ he explained. ‘You must activate it and somehow insert it into the energy shield that encases Odessa. The pulse should deactivate the shield and release her.’

        ‘Our fate is in your hands, Lieutenant,’ Delfin added desperately. ‘A plan four years in the making. If you fail, we all die.’ 

        ‘So, no pressure, then.’ Nic’s heart was almost beating out of his chest. ‘Do I have any backup?’ He asked meekly. 

        ‘We got it all figured out, pal,’ Bagon slapped him on the back and he jerked forward and almost fell to his knees again. ‘Honza ‘ere will escort you up to the hundred and eightieth floor, hand over your bleedin’ folder and await your audience. Given that you were never expected to survive the reconditioning, we’re gambling that he’ll be very curious to see you.’

        ‘Gambling!’ You’ve got to be kidding, Bagon?’

        ‘The rest of us will make our ways to the tunnel.’ He ignored him. ‘We have drillpods we’ve kitted out to put on a bit of show.

        ‘What do you mean?’ Nic asked nervously. ‘What the hell kind of a plan is this?’

        ‘The General has announced there will be a grand display of victory this evening,’ Honza explained, ‘where he will announce the capture and execution of our lady. The masses are already forming at the podium in anticipation of the announcement. Most people have no idea about the insurgency, but there have been so many purges and so much upheaval that now they have to answer it publicly.’

        ‘It’s happening now!’ Nic exclaimed, and he felt his knees begin to tremble as if his adrenalin had finally run out.

        ‘It’s scheduled two hours from now,’ Honza added matter-of-factly, ‘we’d really better get moving.’

        Nic’s head was swimming. His guilt and fear compounded an overwhelming sense of impending doom. He started to feel light-headed and felt his knees begin to buckle. He dropped to the floor and vomited. 

        Mika let out an ironic laugh. ‘Ha! Humanity’s last hope, my friends. Why don’t you bring that sick up there too, maybe the Grand Visigoth will be scared of the smell!’