Devolution

Chief Inspector Adrian Jacobssen woke slowly from a deep sleep which was the result, he suspected, of a combination of jet lag and the half marathon he had run the previous night in Kings Cross. He lay there on the bed for a while considering his situation. On the one hand he had good information from Dr Smisco who was unfortunately dead. On the other, he now had three missing teenagers. McNalty had left a message for him at the hotel so when he returned from Kings Cross, he called his friend despite his extreme weariness. Apparently, Veena Singh, 3-11-15 and their friend Joshua had left Mumbai with disturbing alacrity following a trip into Malad West CBD where Joshua had met with a representative of the International Carrier Force. McNalty had them followed and when he discovered the trio were on their way to Australia, he had thought it too much of a coincidence so he contacted Jacobssen. There had to be a connection.

Smisco had said that certain people within the government, Newtonians in particular, had conspired to finance the construction of biological weapons, and planned to secretly force everyone in the population to ingest Newtonian morphing drugs, presumably through the water supply. There was also the illegal and immoral practice of using children as guinea pigs. Smisco inferred that senators Singh and 15 were killed because they opposed this plan, and were intending to expose the conspiracy. Reading between the lines, Jacobssen also felt sure that the doctor was alluding to one man in particular who was the demon behind the wheel of this conspiracy. Now the children of the murdered senators were in Australia on an ICF mission. There just had to be a connection.

Jacobssen believed the information Dr. Smisco had given him was genuine even though he had no other substantiating evidence-not yet anyway. Joshua might be carrying information to the conspirators, or even to those opposing them and if either of those were true, he was certainly in danger. Apart from that was the fact that the information was probably the evidence he needed in the investigation of the unsolved murders of Senators 15 and Singh, and it had to be delivered into the hands of the authorities in Mumbai. Not knowing for sure whether he was on the right track or not but determined to find Joshua, Veena and 3, Jacobssen scrambled out of bed and proceeded to the bathroom to take a shower. As he did so he cast his mind back to his arrival at the hotel the previous day.

The Park Hyatt was a palace on Sydney Harbour, nestled under the Harbour Bridge on the southern foreshore; its lights shone and played on the water on which envious passers-by traveled in ferries and private cruisers. As the taxi rolled up to the entrance and stopped, the door was opened for Adrian.

‘Welcome to the Park Hyatt,’ said the cyborg porter.

The driver popped the boot but remained firmly entrenched behind the wheel as the porter removed Adrian’s luggage. Adrian paid the driver and thanked him before getting out, and walking straight in through the revolving glass door, leaving his belongings in the capable hands of the cyborg.

The revolving doors scored a minor hit with Jacobssen as they conjured memories of his last trip to Australia: his honeymoon. Best leave those memories where they lay and simply admire the doors as another one of Sydney’s charmingly old fashioned reminders of the glorious past-a grander, more gentile and luxurious period in the city’s history.

Adrian mechanically went through the process of checking in, including retinal scan and a swipe of the wrist before he proceeded to the elevator led by another cyborg porter. The doors closed and Adrian watched the numbers light up on the numerical tree above the control panel. The porter stepped out through the doors as they opened.

‘Please follow me, sir.’

The grand old lady had not changed a bit; still stylish and elegant. Salubrious and opulent were words which came to mind and would surely be an overstatement of beauty anywhere else. Here they fit perfectly.

A curtain of loneliness closed on Jacobssen suddenly.

As he usually did on overseas trips, Adrian traveled and worked alone. All the years he worked the force as a junior officer having to work with a partner, and even as a senior officer still having to work with and supervise rookies and know-it-all newcomers really served to prove one thing to him; that he preferred to work alone. It was a privilege of his rank to operate solo.

It was also a curse of his position that his private life was now a lonely affair too. He had never had the desire to find another partner. He had given everything he had as a man to Monica. It worried Adrian that the older he got the more time he spent reflecting on the past, and the wonderful times as a young man with a career on the rise and a effervescent wife to support and love him. His best days were gone but he must not allow himself to wallow in sentimentality. He had a job to do. This could be, maybe, he told himself, should be my last hurrah.

Back to business, Jacobssen refocused his thoughts and chided himself for selecting the Park Hyatt when he knew it would stir such potent memories. Now his most urgent task was to find Joshua and his traveling companions and then somehow convince them to give up this insane mission they were on and return to Mumbai with him. Adrian understood their motivation; all three had lost a family member because of the conspiracy and they obviously felt that not only were they helping the cause by doing this but also that at the end of it all, they may be able to get some answers for themselves. The question why was the cruelest of all questions. If there were reasons for the deaths of Senators Singh and 15 and also Joshua’s cousin Jeremiah then Adrian could hardly begrudge them finding out but they had chosen an incredibly dangerous way of obtaining the information.

It was risky enough for an experienced law enforcement officer like himself but for three teenagers, it virtually amounted to a suicide mission. He could only hope they were all right and would listen to reason when he finally caught up with them. Now they had landed in Darwin, he would have to call the authorities there to find out where they went next.

Hot water stung his skin as it opened his pores and washed away the sweat. In the steam Adrian lathered his body and rinsed the soap off before stepping out of the shower recess and standing in front of the mirror. He wiped the fog off at face level and leaned in for a closer look. His hair grayed at the edges and lines around his eyes and at the sides of his mouth all told their stories of advancing time and the experiences which paved the way to the present. Although still in good physical condition, Adrian’s face told of the strain of the last few years and the light from his eyes burned a little less brightly these days.

As he lifted the shaver to his cheek, Adrian thought he heard a noise outside the bathroom, so he froze and listened. Nothing, but best check it out. Although he was the only person now with authorized access to this room; the staff had override codes in the event of emergencies. There was no emergency here but still Adrian felt sure he had not imagined the noise. Did it sound like the door closing? The doors are silent running. Yet it sounded like a door closing, he was sure of it.

With no sign of anyone being in or having been in his room, he checked the door, which was still locked, and returned to the bathroom to finish shaving.

Closing the bathroom door, he noticed a slight yellowish tinge in the now dissipating steam. Was that too imagination? Adrian had only taken one stroke of the shaver down his cheek when an odor crept into his nostrils and caused him to sneeze twice. He dropped the shaver in the sink and opened the bathroom door again. The steam had thickened and spread throughout his room. How could that be? The shower had been off for ten minutes at least now. He could no longer see properly but didn’t know whether that was because of the poisonous steam itself being so thick or that it was directly affecting his sight. Adrian fell to his knees, disabled by a pulsing dizziness. He crawled to the door and tried to open it. The emergency button was just out of reach on the control pad but with a desperate lunge he hit it twice before sliding back to the floor.

The burning fire in his throat made it impossible to speak and who would hear his cry for help anyway? He was suffocating as the toxic steam filled his lungs and caused them to constrict. Summoning all his energy, Adrian staggered to his feet and stumbled back to the bathroom coughing and gagging continuously. He grabbed his coat off the hook on the back of the door and although falling again to the floor, disoriented as his head was spinning wildly, he managed to extract his CMP. Half crawling and half walking, he somehow made it back to the door of his room.

Instinct alone kept him going for the few seconds he needed to adjust the setting on the CMP. It was never set higher than one in normal circumstances as that level of force was sufficient to do the job it was designed to do; move people out of the way by temporarily upsetting their balance. He reasoned the highest setting of three ought to be enough to bust open the door.

Jacobssen couldn’t see anything now but knew he was facing the door, and his training allowed him to make the adjustments without needing to see. Trying to raise himself at least on to his knees caused him to vomit and collapse flat on the floor. His arm was stretched out in front of him pointing at the door, and he had just enough strength to push the activate button on his CMP.

The door blew out into the hall with a whoosh and there were gasps from outside his room, cries of surprise, calls for help but these were the last sounds Chief Inspector Adrian Jacobssen heard before he passed into unconsciousness. His very last thought was ‘Ginger Beer’.