Devolution

There was no other writing on the walls or glass doors of 1103 besides the numbers. Joshua walked up three steps and entered through the automatic sliding door. The large foyer was empty so his footsteps sounded heavy and loud on the white tiled floor. Reaching the elevator he again found there was nothing written on the directory. Joshua pressed the up button, and at once was promptly asked to lean forward for a retinal scan.

‘Thank you for your cooperation,’ said the pleasant female voice. ‘Please enter, you are expected.’

The stainless steel elevator door perfectly reflected his image before it opened to reveal a small elevator carpeted in gray. Joshua stepped in and turned to face the door. Had he never experienced it before he would have found the heavy silence unbearable but now he found it reassuring. It was peaceful. This process was a comfortable habit now. Different places, different faces but the same procedure: quick and painless. Were they adding information to the disc each time or downloading? He didn’t know. Didn’t need to know. Didn’t want to know.

In no time at all the speeding elevator gently stopped and the stainless steel doors opened to release Joshua into yet another deserted foyer.

‘Take the third door on the right, please,’ said the voice.

As he walked quickly and silently along the carpeted hall be began to unbutton his coat and took a couple of deep breaths. At the door, he was going to knock but it opened before he could.

‘Come in and sit down, please.’

Wondering why when he had usually seen a real person by now, this time he hadn’t, Joshua found the only chair warm and comfortable when he sat in it. A door slid open to his left and a man strode through to stand beside him. He was followed by another man carrying a palm sized notebook computer.

Two men? This is unusual, thought Joshua. It’s a simple procedure requiring only one person. What’s the other man here for?

The first man produced a badge from his pocket and showed it to Joshua. ’My name is Agent Tyrell. I’m with the AFP.

Joshua leaped up out of his seat but the agent pushed him back down. ‘Don’t leave us yet, Joshua.’

They shouldn’t know my name, thought Joshua. No one else has said my name. Maybe they have all known it but nobody has used it before.

‘What do you want?’ he asked them.

‘Information,’ said the agent as he reached out and patted the slight bump under the skin on Joshua’s arm. ‘Information.’

Joshua realized at that moment he had been misdirected, given wrong information. This was not a scheduled meeting. This was a trap. He forced himself to remain calm.

‘Okay, that’s what I do. I carry information and you people hook me up to your computer for five minutes and then I go.’

‘So what’s the problem, Joshua?’

Looking from one agent to the other and back again, Joshua told himself to relax, and he prayed for strength. ‘It doesn’t usually happen like this.’

‘Like what?’ The ignorance seemed real but Joshua wouldn’t buy it.

‘I don’t know the people and they don’t know me and we don’t have conversations like this.’

The first agent looked at the second and smiled. The smile was frightfully familiar although the man was not the same as the one on the bus. Maybe it was a part of AFP training to develop a reptilian smile: cold and heartless. One that spoke cunning and malicious intent rather than the normal purpose of a smile.

‘Look’ said Joshua. ‘Just hook me up and let me go. I’m kind of in a hurry.’

‘I’m sure Veena will understand.’

Joshua didn’t see that one coming although he should have.

‘Are you going to hurt her?’

‘Why? Your other friend Ted is fine as well. You can see them both when you have finished helping us.’

Same guys that were on the bus in the desert. What exactly did they want from Joshua? They said information but surely they knew he had no means of surrendering any data freely, even if he wanted to, he didn’t know how to access it.

‘I don’t work for you.’

‘You don’t know who you work for or what you are doing, boy. You are in way over your head.’

Agent one edged closer to Joshua and added menace to his tone. ‘We are going to rescue you before you drown. We are going to resuscitate you and pump the deadly water out of your lungs. You can have your life back and go home with your friends and forget all about this nasty business about carrying information. Forget us. Forget the ICF. Forget it all. I’m sure there are a thousand other things you would rather be doing than risking your life for…’ Knowing glances passed between agents one and two before one spoke again. ‘…for something that has absolutely nothing to do with you.’

Joshua considered the officers calmly. Apparently they were not on his side, but it was also clear they weren’t able to access the information he carried. Otherwise they would have done so already. They didn’t need his consent. It was an ambush but one that seemed to hinge on Joshua’s cooperation.

‘You don’t know the access codes for the disc, do you?’

‘We will in a moment when you tell us.’

‘And if I don’t tell you?’ Joshua was already wishing he could suck the words back inside his mouth before they even reached the ears of his captors. Why was he aggravating them? Talking tough? Why?

‘Didn’t you get the part when I told you we had your friends?’

Joshua decided to back off. He had plenty of cause during this mission to regret getting involved. Many times he had berated himself for his foolishness. This was one of those times.

‘I understand, I’m sorry.’

‘So give us the codes and we will remove the disc and you can go.’

Joshua raised his eyebrows. ‘Just like that?’

The agent nodded.

‘I don’t know what’s on the disc and I don’t have the access codes. Like I said whenever I meet, the procedure is carried out in silence. It takes five minutes. I am told nothing, and I tell them nothing.’

Surprisingly, agent one did not look disappointed or angry at the news. When agent two handed him a micro disc, he said to Joshua, ‘You will wear this tracker and we will follow you to the final destination and get the codes and what we need then.’

‘Why don’t you just follow me?’

‘We don’t won’t to be seen following you,’ replied agent one. ‘Or even seen with you.’

‘And my friends?’

‘Will remain safe with us until we get what we want.’

‘Why should I trust you?’

The smile appeared like a stain on the agents face, ‘We work for the government.’

Joshua allowed the insertion of the disc into his thigh which was done with a local anesthetic so there was no pain. Agent one placed a strip of surgical tape across the wound.

‘The tape will dissolve in two to three hours. You can go now. We’ll be watching you Joshua.’

Rebuttoning his sleeve, Joshua nodded at agent one, glanced at agent two and left the room without a word.

Finding Martin Place with no trouble at all, Veena decided to get something to eat. She had no idea how long she would have to wait for Joshua. Sitting on a vacant bench she searched the pristine plaza, admiring its design. A pleasing to the eye blend of form and function, a balance between the natural and the man made. Looking up from George St., the plaza stretched over four blocks with the Mitchell State Library at its crown.

Clear water cascaded over wide black marble steps in a striking central water feature positioned between Pitt and Castlereigh Streets. On either side of it, people appeared and disappeared as they ascended and descended the escalators which led to and from the underground Martin Place rail station. Watching busy people spilling from train stations and public buildings and shops, made Veena feel lonely. She knew no one and no one knew her, and worse, much worse than that was the knowledge that nobody knew where she was. Nobody.

Joshua told her to wait so he at least knew she was at Martin Place. She worried for him now, momentarily relieved of her own feelings. Despite his continual assertions to the contrary, Veena had always felt that Joshua was in deep dark water and sinking quickly. She couldn’t help but wish that she and Ted had tried harder to dissuade Joshua from becoming involved. If anything happened to him, she would blame herself. Allowing images of his smiling face, a face from happier times, she remembered Joshua, and the way he made her feel. The confidence and security he inspired in her was not something he did consciously and Veena knew he had the same effect on everyone. Even people who did not particularly like him or agree with his views, respected him and drew on his strength.

Veena stood up suddenly as if to shake those romantic notions from her mind. There was no reciprocation of the feelings she had for Joshua, and any time she thought there may have been, she was always forced to remind herself of his disingenuousness, and the truth of the situation that he considered her as a friend only. No more than that, and he had said this on occasions, she was to him a sister. That was a special relationship but not the kind of special relationship Veena wanted for them. If only Ted’s feelings for her could somehow be transferred to Joshua, that would make everything much simpler.

She began to walk towards Pitt Street, slowly at first then more quickly. Talking to herself, telling herself to snap out of it, to stop torturing herself.

Wrapped up in her own world yet again, she was completely unaware of the two men who cruised up beside her and took one of her arms each.

‘Hey,’ she shouted, trying to shake them off. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘You’d be best advised to calm down and come with us, Veena.’

Jerking her arms from side to side again, attempting to wrench herself free from the grip of the man on her right. ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Who are you and how do you know me?’

All innocence and light at first, Veena had not realized she had been taken into custody. The officers were very polite and used comforting tones as they reassured her that she was not in trouble but it had something to do with Joshua and no, he wasn’t hurt or in trouble either. She should have been suspicious but realized she had probably been lulled into a false security by Joshua’s reassurances about Sydney being the safest city in the world. What were the words he had used, crime free, that’s right.

’Okay, she said. ‘But let go of me, all right?’

The two officers released her simultaneously so she walked a little faster, thinking to maybe run from them. Why? Why she asked herself. Something made her suspicious, something wasn’t right. She walked still faster, thinking on the run. No uniforms, that’s okay, she thought. No badges, no ID… no way. Bursting into a sprint, a second too late, they pounced on her.

The man latched on to Veena’s arm again and squeezed it tightly.

‘Arrhh! Get off me. You’re hurting me. Let go!’

‘This is taking too long. We’re attracting attention,’ said one of the men.

‘What do you want me to do about it,’ said the other to his partner’s comment.

‘I want you to shut her up and subdue her.’

‘Seems to me that’s what I’m doing here. Unlike your good self. Standing there and having a whine about how hard it is.’

‘What are you talking to me like that for?’

If Veena had of been a dispassionate observer she might have been amused by the hurt tone of the man’s voice, but she was freaking out. Breathlessly frightened. As the argument between her two assailants developed, they each in turn released their grip on her arms and soon she was free. She ran.

‘Hey!’ shouted one guy.

‘Look what you did, you goose.’

‘Come on,’ said the first suddenly coming to his senses and remembering what they were here for. ‘Get her!’

Veena bolted straight for the black marble waterfall and splashed up its steps. One of the men sloshed his way in through her wake, the other hurtled up the terrace, stepping on someone’s sandwich, and reaching the top of the water feature at the same time as Veena. Again she was in the arms of danger. Soaking wet, having fallen on the second slippery step, the other guy eventually reached them and latched on to Veena’s other arm.

‘Back to where we started,’ he said, a little out of breath.

‘Except for you being sopping wet.’

This time their grip held firm despite wild thrashing by Veena, and they bundled her over to the roadside where an ATV pulled up next to them with its rear door already open. Pushed hard, Veena tumbled in and banged her head against the wheel arch. Tears welled up in her eyes but she refused to weep. A spot of blood appeared on her lip where she bit it to keep from crying out.

Both men clambered in after her, and one of them caught a foot to the side of the head for his trouble. Veena always fought back.

‘Bloody well do something about her will you. I’m getting busted up here.’

‘Poor baby,’ said the dry man smiling.

The wet man drew an electrogun from his coat pocket and pointed it at Veena. She didn’t move or make a sound.

‘Why didn’t you use that out there? It would have saved us a lot of trouble.’

‘Boss said not to use it in public view.’

‘Why? So we wouldn’t attract too much attention? Fair enough, I think there were probably only a couple of hundred witnesses to what we just did.’

‘Smart arse. Why don’t you give you mouth a rest.’ Then to Veena he said, ‘I don’t want to have to use this.’

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘To see your boyfriend.’

Both men noted the light in her eyes and nodded knowingly to each other. Veena stared at the floor of the ATV. ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ she said weakly.

Two stony faced AFP officers arrived at the road side just as the van’s door slammed shut and it pulled away. ‘Shit!’ said one to the other without looking at him. ‘We missed her. Now we’re in trouble.’