The Sassquatch's Lair

He did not have much hopes about his own security. His foremost thought, was that he would have to find out about Kathleen. Was she here? And if she was, was she considered dead? All kind of half baked scenarios were coming to his mind, to try to resolve this conflict. He was lost in this jumble of ideas, when a discreet knock was heard at the door. Richard’s mind did not acknowledge this until the knock was repeated. He said quietly: “Come in.”

The door opened slowly, just enough for a head covered in a mop of tangled sandy blond hair to appear in the opening. A shy voice asked: “I hope that I am not disturbing you, Mr. Thanatos asked me to help you with anything that you need.”

“Please, do come in. I have a lot of questions, that needs answers.”

With this the door opened further and a mousy looking young woman walked into the room. She carefully closed the door behind herself, and seated herself uncomfortably on a straight back chair. With a bashful smile she asked him: “What can I do to help you?”

Feeling a bit more confident than usual, in face of the shyness of his interlocutor, Richard asked: “First, you can tel me your name.”

“It is Sonya.”

“Good, this is a first step. Do you know what will happen to me?”

“I do not have any idea, but I am sure that the research committee will make the best decision for all involved.”

“That doesn’t sound too reassuring, but it will have to do for now. Do you know if my friend, Kathleen McNamara, is here?” Richard mentally crossed his fingers awaiting the answer.

“Yes, she is currently in debriefing, prior to her assignment to deprogramming.”

A surge of relief entered into Richard’s heart. “Does that mean that she was…, his one of the test subjects?” The relief was of short duration.

“She was one of the test subject. She did not survive the transfer from earth.”

“But you said that she was in debriefing, how could this be so if she is dead?”

“There is no such thing as dead around here, when one of the test subject returns here, after completing their larval phase, they are automatically debriefed prior to their return to earth to start a new cycle. I don’t think that they can survive the transfer.”

Richard leaned forward from his couch. “Can I meet her? I would like to talk to her again.”

Sonya smiled, it lit up her face. “I don’t thing it is permissible, but I will try to arrange it. I have some friends in the debriefing staff.”

She quickly stood up, having lost some of her shyness. She walked to a large armoire, standing against the back wall of the room, and opened its doors. In it stood a computer terminal. She turned back to Richard.

“I think that you are familiar with this. We use technology that is compatible with your period so that the subjects coming through here are not disoriented too much. You can log in with this name and password.” She handed Richard a piece of paper.

“You will be able to find a lot of answers to your questions, in here. I will now try to arrange a meeting with your friend. I will see you later.”

She quietly left the room before Richard had the time to thank her. He dragged a chair in front of the terminal, and booted it. He logged in the system and was surprised that they were using a standard operating system, and some commercial applications from earth. He quickly found his way through the system and delved into the history of this project.

Richard was awed by the scope of the operation, they had roughly two hundredth of one percent of the earth’s population as subjects, about one million souls. Of these, at any time, about ninety percent were on earth. Leaving around one hundred thousand people being processed for debriefing and deprogramming. During this period lasting from six months to a year, these people “lived” in the continuum bubble. At any time, a population the size of a small town was resident.

Richard was so engrossed by his findings, that he did not hear the door open. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. He looked at the owner, and tears of joy welled in his eyes. Kathleen was standing beside him. They looked at each other for a long time. No words needed to be exchanged to explain their common feelings. After what seem to be an eternity, they fell into each others arms and kissed with a passion that brought comfort to their soul. None of the shyness that normally controlled their behavior remained. They knew that they mutually desired each others, and finally acknowledged it.

After a long time they reluctantly separated. Through the joy of their meeting, Richard could discern some pain in her eyes. He brought her to the couch and they both sat down with their arms around each other. Richard brushed an errand strand of hair from her face. “Lets talk about it…”

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From 7/2006: The Day I Fooled Death

The Sass

Consciousness slowly came back to Richard. He was stretched on a gurney and a worried looking nurse was taking his pulse. When she noticed that he was awakening, her face broke out in a wide grin. In a sympathetic voice, she said: “There you are, you had us worried when you arrived unexpectedly. You are lucky to have survived an unscheduled transfer.”

Richard was puzzled by what she had said. He could not think of anything more brilliant then to say: “Where am I?”.

“You are in the recovery room near Mr. Thanatos’s office. Where else did you think you would be, after your death?”

“But…, I am not dead….”

“That is only a technicality, once you are here you are considered dead. The fact that you are not, displeased Mr. Thanatos very much. He has standards to maintain and you have broken his perfect record. He will want to meet you as soon as you are recovered enough.”

Not knowing what else to say, Richard answered: “I think that I am feeling as fine as I will ever do for that meeting.” He slowly sat on the edge of the gurney, while letting out a long sigh.

The nurse flashed him a wide smile, and said: “Don’t worry Mr. Thanatos is an understanding man. If you willingly submit to have your mind selectively erased, he will forgive you.”

With that the nurse winked at him and started toward the door. As she reached it, she turned suddenly and said: “Mr. Thanatos’s assistant will come to fetch you in a moment. Bye….” She opened the door and briskly walked out.

Richard tried to figure out where he was, but his mind did not seem work properly. Adding to the confusion was the fear brought on by the words of the nurse. He definitively did not want to have his mind worked on in any way. While he was ruminating, a young, severe looking man dressed in a business suit, walked in the room. He gave Richard a disdainful look. In a haughty, high pitched, voice he said: “Mr. Thanatos will see you now. Please follow me.”

As Richard stood up, the young man did not seem to appreciate his rumpled look. He turned from him with a scornful snort, and led him out of the room. Richard walked out into a plush carpeted corridor. He was lead to a nearby, darkly polished oak door. The young man knocked once and walked in. Richard hesitantly followed. The richly but severely decorated, paneled room, housed an imposing desk of darkly stained ash. Behind that desk sat a jovial looking man with a round face and eyes full of mirth. His balding head was ringed by a halo of bristly grey hair. When he noticed that Richard had entered the room he stood up and extended his hand in greeting. Richard saw that he stood less than 5 feet tall. As the man was looking at him with piercing eyes, Richard took the offered hand and was surprised by its crushing grip. When he finally let go, the man pointed to the chair facing his desk. He said: “Please have a seat, we have a lot to discuss”, turning toward his assistant, his eyes lost some of their joy, he continued “You can leave now, Mr. Gregg. I can handle this myself.” His eyes did not leave the young man as he departed in a huff. When his eyes returned to Richard they softened a bit.

Richard was surprised by the warm welcome, it did not match the dread that filled his mind. He had a feeling that under this warm exterior, his mind was ice cold. The man’s attention was riveted on Richard. A long silence stretched into eternity, as Richard felt all of his life and soul exposed to the man’s piercing gaze. A frown creased Mr. Thanatos’s forehead. He looked directly into Richard’s eyes and asked: “Do you know that you are not dead, and not supposed to be here?”

“Ergh…”

“What do you have to answer about this?”

“Ergh…”

Richard’s mind had a difficulty grasping the concept of “Here” and the fact that he was supposed to be dead to be there. Sense this difficulty with his interlocutor, Mr. Thanatos asked rhetorically: “You do not have a clue where you are?”

“Ergh…”

“Let me explain…” He sighed deeply. “…Eons ago, when my predecessors found out that intelligent life was about to evolve on this planet, we decided to study the dynamics of this evolution. We captured a large sample of the local population, and genetically engineered them so that their life energy would become static at the end of their earthly life cycle. As you well know, earthly life is but the first stage of your species life cycle, after its completion there is a long maturing process of your life energy that will eventually lead to a new highly intelligent species on another plane of reality.” Noticing the befuddled look on Richard’s face, he inquired: “You do know about this, do you?”

“Ergh…”

“O my dear man, I had no idea. This must be quite a shock to you. Do you want me to go on?”

Richard shook his head in an effort to garner his thoughts. This was almost too much for him to absorb but his programmer’s mind needed the information once it was open to new concepts. He struggled to say: “Please do so, I need to know more.”

With a look of concern Mr Thanatos continued :”Do not be afraid to interrupt if you need further enlightenment.” He paused for a few seconds, to be sure that Richard was following him, then continued. “Your species is within a few centuries of reaching a new phase of evolution. We are very happy to see its progress. As I had said earlier we created genetically engineered specimens of your race so that we can study them at the transition phase of their life cycle. A stable area of the space-time continuum was created for this purpose.

As you might well imagine, it requires an incredible amount of energy to maintain such a bubble in the continuum. Also, this bubble has to be of a finite size and be able to accommodate only a specific number of individuals, plus the research and support personal. Since we are dealing with a limited number of test subjects, and that we have no wish to acquire new ones at this late a stage in your evolution, we send the test subjects back to earth after a rigorous debriefing and a period of deprogramming. They start a new life unbeknownst to their new parents. In this way, we have been able to maintain our test facility to its optimum size. Any variation of this size, no matter how small, could create havoc with its stability. Which in turn could form a rip in the bubble that could destroy our subject of study, the Earth.” He pause for a sobering moment.

“This brings us to your presence here. You are not a test subject, and by definition should not be able to be present in this bubble. The other problem is that you are still alive in your larval form, and we cannot bring ourselves to eliminate you. This would be against our code of ethics. We do not know if your life energy would be able to escape from the confines of the bubble.

Do not let this bother you, the research committee will have a meeting later on today to discuss your case. In any way we will meet again tomorrow. In the mean time, if you have any questions, I will assign to you a research assistant to answer all that we can. Have a nice day.”

With this, Mr. Thanatos stood up and shook his hand. Before he had time to form a reply in his mind, Richard was ushered out of the office by the efficient Mr. Gregg. He had not noticed his return, because he was so engrossed by Mr. Thanatos’s monologue.

Richard was escorted through a labyrinth of corridors, to a nicely appointed room. He let himself fall onto a comfort¬able couch, as his mind considered the implications of what he had heard.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

From 7/2006: The Day I Fooled Death

The Sass

Richard had barely slept that night. He had a feeling of impeding doom that haunted his every thoughts. As he arrived at the office, Ralph barely recognized him. He had reason not to, because Richard looked as if he had slept in his clothes, his eyes were red and swollen from lack of sleep, worry lines circled them, his hair was uncombed and his face unshaven. Ralph, with concern in his voice, asked: “Are you all right, Mister Dexter? You are looking ill this morning.” Richard looked up at the young man. He willed a smile to his face and replied: “Don’t worry Ralph, I only had a bad night. I am not used to my new responsibilities. I will get used to them eventually. As Miss Kathleen come in this morning? Is she in her office?”

The young man looked at Richard with a startled look in his face. He jabbered: “But…. You don’t know…?”

“I don’t know about what?”

“About… Miss Kathleen. She has gone on holidays for at least a month… I had thought that you knew… She left this envelope to Phil last night. It is addressed to you.” He handed Richard a small white envelope and continued. “I am sorry Mr. Dexter…”

Richard did not wait for the young man to finish his sentence, to leave. He dragged his feet toward the wing housing his cubicle. He was half way over when he realized that he no longer had a cubicle. He reluctantly changed his course. He unlocked his door and walked in the office. Everything was as he had left it last night. He threw the letter on his desk and let himself fall in his chair. He looked at the letter for a long time, afraid to open it. Finally he garnered some courage and proceeded.

“Dear Richard

I managed to talk to Dad, last night, with the help of Ken. I tried to reach you at home but your phone was off the hook. I am sorry that you were not there. We discussed the long term prospects for the firm. I am not sure if I am the right person to guide the company at this moment. I have a lot of things to think about, the company, my future, also, possibly, our future you and I. I will need a few weeks just to clear my mind and think this over. After that, I will send for you to plan for the future. In the mean time Ken will take care of the day to day business of the company. He was nice enough to agree to it.

I will see you soon.

Love

Kathleen”

Richard was dumbfounded by the immensity of it all. Not only was Price now running the show, but Kathleen was gone. He did not find any comfort in the prospect of a future with her, because he now suspected foul play. He barely controlled his impulse to storm to Price’s office, demanding an explanation. He needed to find out more about this “Thanatos” project. He could find no better way than to hack into the computer system of the advance research department.

He turned his chair and rolled to his workstation. He was surprised that someone had tempered with his system. The prompt on the screen was not blinking in the same directory as he had left it last night. Paranoia settled in his Richard’s mind. Thinking that his workstation was monitored he stormed off to Ben’s office. He walked in without first knocking. His friend did not look surprised to see him barge into his office. Ben said. “I was wondering when you would show up. I found out some interesting things about you friend Price. I am now worried about Kathleen’s disappearance. I have tried to reach you all night.”

“How come I’m always the last one to know about these things. I seem to be living in a different universe than anybody else. What’s the news.”

“Last night Amanda told me that there was a large explosion in one of Price’s labs. There was a large commotion and she is sure that she saw Kathleen going in the lab before it happened. When she inquired about it this morning, she learned that Kathleen had left for an extended period and the lab did not show any signs of the explosion. She was sure to have seen glimpses of destroyed instruments last night. When she pressed Price about that, this morning, he reluctantly showed her his lab. It was as if nothing had really happened in the lab since the last time she had been there.

Also there has been snoopers on the computer network. They are trying to clamp down on the hacking. There were areas that I used to get into easily but now I have no access to them. What do you think about this?”

Richard shook his head. He replied: “It only confirm my suspicions. I think that Kathleen was eliminated by Price and I will try to find how it was done. Can I used your workstation? I think that mine is bugged by Price.

“Go ahead…. I hope you don’t mind if I watch?”

Richard did not answer as he sat in front of the keyboard. He quickly go out of the graphic shell and back to the command prompt. He did not log-in by his name. He was afraid that it would be flagged by the network snoopers. He did not want to use one of his alternate names in case that they were also known. He looked at Ben with a wry smile on his face. He said dryly: “Can I use one of your alternate names to login? I don’t want to alert the snoopers by using one of mines.”

Ben seemed upset by this statement, he replied in an injured tone: “Why do you think that I have illegal access to the system? I never would do such a thing.”

“Come on, you know as well as I do that you have at least 4 or 5 alternate identities on the system. Just the same as I have.”

“OK you got me. Try logging-in as BeniHana with the password 9854267y98pu.”

Richard logged-in as Ben watched over his shoulder. For two hours he tried unsuccessfully to find any information about the “Thanatos” project. Everywhere that he looked files had been purged. Areas of interest where off limit even to his persistent hacking. Richard had made a career in breaking down systems security. For the first time he was unsuccessful. He was growing more stymied by the minute. After another frustrating hour he managed to get through the back door of the advance research project system, using a telecom link to a maintenance system. He was at last getting some results. At that moment the telecom link came down. As much as he tried, he was not able to reestablish it. The advance research complex was cut off from the rest of the world. Richard banged his fist in hanger, on the keyboard.

He turned toward Ben, who had been admiring his work, and asked: “Do you think that Amanda can get me into the complex? I need to work on one of their workstations to get some answers.”

Ben shrugged. He answered: “I’ll call her right now and see.”

He got on the phone and arranged for Richard to meet her that evening at the complex. With the help of the night guard, he would be able to get in.

Richard spent the rest of the day in his office trying to get some work done, without getting much results. As the time of the meeting grew nearer, he could not keep from pacing behind his desk. Before leaving his office he walked into the private bathroom adjoining it. He could barely recognize the man that was staring back at him in the mirror. He looked even worse than he had in the morning. He did not even attempt to make himself look more presentable. He could not care less.

He met with Amanda at the entrance of the underground passageway that linked all the buildings in the sprawling complex. The stunning brunette was seated on a small electric cart. She looked worried when she saw his bedraggled appearance. He drew a thin smile and said: “Don’t worry I look even worse inside.” He took the empty seat beside her. She drove the cart silently back to the advance research facilities. When they arrived and took the elevator to the lobby and its guard station. Richard was surprised to see that Ralph was sitting at the main desk. He looked from his paper and winked at Richard. He said: “Don’t worry, Sir, I am replacing the regular guard. He suddenly fell ill.” He winked again saying that. Without asking for anything he continued. “I can see that your passes and authorizations are valid. Please be on your way.” He opened the gate preventing them to access the building.

As Richard passed by, the young man shook his hand. He left in his cupped hand a small electronic keycard with the security logo embossed on it. He murmured: “Good luck…”.

Amanda pulled on his sleeve to make him hurry up. She dragged him to a small office, in which stood a functioning workstation. She showed him the keyboard and said: “This station has already been logged-in with the highest security clearance. Use it at your discretion. When you are done, please ask Ralph to let you out to the basement. My cart will still be there, here are the keys.” She handed him a small key at the end of a short piece of rope. She continued, “Good luck, I hope that you will find what you are looking for.” She left locking the door behind herself with her own keycard.

Richard quickly started to work on the console. From this station, he had no troubles to access the information that he wanted. What he found out was devastating!!!

In the past few years, while they were trying to extract energy from the interstitial space in a controlled manner, Price’s crew had contacted an entity that inhabited that area of space-time. Price had found a way to exploit that being’s feeling of boredom, in helping him to gain control of the company.

Richard kept reading file after file for the better part of the night. He was almost sure, by now, that Kathleen was trapped in that interstitial space and he was looking for a way to get her back. He was so tired that his eyes had difficulty to focus on the CRT. He rubbed them, trying to make the fatigue go away. This only increase the sting to an intolerable level. His discomfort prompted him for action. After he logged-out of the system he use the security keycard to open the door of the small office. He peered furtively into the corridor. It was devoid of any activity. He exited the office and locked the door behind himself. He tried to remember where Price’s main lab was located. He only had been there once, on a guided visit of the complex.

He went to the end of the hall and tried to orient himself. He walked one way, then changed his mind and walked the other way. He arrived in front of a pair of large glass doors. Stenciled in flowing script was the name of Kenneth Price. He hoped that his security card would unlock the doors. He inserted the small plastic card into the lock and heard a muffled click.

He sneaked in the lab and looked around. Behind a partition a vast expanse of machinery stood idling in the penumbra. He tried to make sense from the consoles that operated the equipment. A low hum emanated from the machine. He sat at what looked like the main console. Richard was afraid to touch any of the controls. As if sensing his presence, the hum slightly increased in frequency. A few seconds later the lights came on in the lab. The sudden brightness startled Richard so much that he froze on the chair. He slowly turned toward some increased activity at he far end of the lab. His tired eyes had difficulty focusing on the face of Kenneth Price, who was standing behind a glass screen, with a wide grin on his face. Fear paralyzed Richard. He was about to bolt for the door when a bright arc of blinding light enveloped him. His senses were so overwhelmed by the light that his mind blanked out, and darkness enwrapped his mind.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

From 7/2006: The Day I Fooled Death

The Sass