Flight of Fancy

Steven Keffler was not looking forward to this meeting, not at all. The time had finally come and his bosses were sending over their emissaries to speak on their behalf. In all these years of knowing how things actually work and who the true rulers of the world were, Keffler had never met them. They dealt with him only through emissaries. However, he dared not question their power and influence. Their eyes were everywhere. He guessed that it wasn’t just about money, their power must lie somewhere else as well. One thing was certain, though – he was afraid of them. To be more precise, he was afraid of the repercussions his failings might bring on. There were certainly plenty of those recently.

Keffler went out of his office, ignoring the greetings of all the employees who worked in the building. He had been notified that the emissaries were waiting in the conference room on the top floor.

I mustn’t keep them waiting.

Even though they were just emissaries, they still wielded tremendous power and answered only to their bosses, the puppet masters nobody has managed to see thus far. His superiors would be listening in on the conversation anyway and would contribute their input through earphones in the emissaries’ ears.

He went into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. He had to punch in a code and a machine scanned his fingertip. There were only a few people allowed on the top floor. He was one of them and the emissaries were also among the chosen ones.

The elevator bounced up the floors and got him to the top floor in what seemed like light speed.

A bit too quickly. I could use a bit more time to get myself ready.

He soon realised you couldn’t get ready for these things. There were always surprises and the more you prepared, the worse it usually was.

Better to go in and improvise. I know what I’m doing.

As he walked into the conference room, three men were sitting in chairs at the end of the table. They were wearing suits and sunglasses, they were all white men with brown hair. The masters obviously preferred their minions to be clones.

“Hello, gentlemen,” said Keffler as relaxed as he could. “How are you doing today?”

There was no reply, nor did Keffler expect one. He merely wanted to hear the sound of his own voice, to break the tension in his own body. It worked – to a degree.

“Let’s get down to business Mr. Keffler,” said one of the “clones”.

“Alright,” conceded Keffler. “As you wish.”

The same man continued: “You told us of energy sources cropping up around the world, which you supposed could be weapons or some alternative energy source, which could provide people with free energy. Now, as we can’t have either of those in the arms of the wrong people, you were told to investigate.”

The man stopped talking and motioned Keffler to sit down. Keffler did and got ready for his report. “Well, gentlemen, I sent my groups out all over the world. On the moment of arrival to their destination, no devices of any sort could be detected – anywhere. This was, of course, a great nuisance and mystery, so we pushed our agents to search properties and houses in order to find any hidden devices capable of giving out such energy output. Again, we had no success. However, our teams did manage to ascertain who the likeliest culprits were and we managed to secure their imprisonment.”

Keffler looked at the emissaries, who were listening to what was being said into their earphones.

“Continue,” said one of them.

Keffler went on, sweat now starting to appear on his brow. “Once we put the culprits in jail, we waited a while to question them, as is the usual procedure, to make them more susceptible to interrogation techniques. Every prisoner was secure, they were all under camera surveillance, some were even physically guarded.”

Keffler paused and looked at the emissary. They gave him no signal of any sort. He would have to go on. “Despite all of this, every single prisoner escaped, or somehow disappeared without a trace. We have had no word about their whereabouts or their capture. We have conducted searches in all cases and came up with nothing. So, as it stands now, we have no device and no culprits – all mysteriously vanished without a trace.”

The emissaries were listening to their earphones again and in a few seconds their gazes turned towards Keffler.

“You do realise that this constitutes as gross incompetence,” said their spokesman. “Why did we even put you in this position if you can’t handle a simple task like this?”

The emissary waited a while, then commanded: “Speak!”

Keffler felt sweat pour all over his body. He needed to compose himself and quickly. They were all looking at him, but he needed to calm down. He took a deep breath and started: “As far as I’m concerned, both I and my teams did everything we could, we did everything by the book and we were extremely quick. There seems no logical explanation for what happened. It’s almost as if some forces beyond our control played a part…”

“What do you mean by ‘forces beyond our control’?” interrupted the emissary spokesman.

“Well, I don’t know exactly,” replied Keffler. “In all my years working for various agencies, I’ve come across unexplained phenomena. Most of it was attributed to aliens.”

Keffler waited for the emissaries to reply. “So you believe that some alien force interfered?”

“Either that or there’s very good magician on the loose,” answered Keffler. He was sorry he tried to joke with the emissaries. This was no time for jokes and he was sure neither the emissaries or their masters appreciated jokes in any case.

The emissaries listened to their earphones a bit longer, then turned toward Keffler.

“Your superiors are very intrigued by your suggestion,” said the spokesman. “They would like to meet you face to face to discuss the possibilities with you.”

Keffler wasn’t sure what to say, but he managed to reply: “Yes, absolutely, whenever and wherever they like.”

“We will be in touch,” said the emissary. Then the three of them stood up and walked out of the room.

Keffler was left with a ringing in his ears and a completely drenched body. He thought he had managed himself well throughout the meeting, but now his strength was failing him. Also, the idea of meeting his bosses was echoing in his brain.

Should I be happy or scared?

He thought about it. Definitely scared.

He sat back down in one of the chairs, otherwise he felt like he might collapse onto the floor.