Alli (8 page)

“Plus your traffic accident,” Michelle offered. “You could have been number three.”

“That was no accident, kiddo- I was being waved off; warned away from something, and my guess is I was being warned away from the Call Center. There’s something disturbing going on in there, and I’d sure like to find out what it is.”

Chapter Sixteen

Work. Why am I doing this?
Randy asked himself as he pushed hanger after hanger across the rod in his closet.
What does a private investigator wear to work nowadays?
He settled on a dark-grey suit and black tie.
He’ll probably have me wearing some rent-a-cop uniform with a silly baseball cap or something, anyway.
At least the hour drive to Middleburg was an easy one. All the rush hour traffic was heading in the opposite direction, into the city.

When Randy pulled into FrazTek’s parking lot, he was surprised to see it was nearly full. Most of the vehicles were new, high-end models.
I guess security work pays pretty well,
he thought to himself,
at least at FrazTek it does
. He found a space and went inside.

Carl was on his office phone as Randy arrived, so the secretary ushered him into a nearby vacant office. There was a mountain of forms and paperwork to be completed before being assigned any kind of meaningful work, and it took the better part of the morning to finish it. Besides the normal employment forms, there were background check consent forms, fingerprints and applications to several local, state and federal offices that needed to be filled out and submitted.
Does anyone actually read this stuff?
He wondered to himself
. I thought this paperwork nightmare was behind me.
He kept reminding himself why he was going through this again.

Around noon, Carl stuck his head into the office where Randy was working. “Hey slacker, let’s go grab some lunch.”

The nearby Red Fox Inn and Tavern that Carl chose was more like a private hunting lodge than a restaurant. The Oak tables, handcrafted furnishings, stone fireplaces, hand-hewn ceiling beams and thick fieldstone walls created a relaxing dining environment. Of course, all of the wait staff knew Carl and treated him like a celebrity. The lunch conversation centered on work.

“I thought we should discuss your new duties,” Carl began. “Your experience and work history would put you right back behind a desk, but I have a feeling you are thinking of something different than being a desk jockey.”

“You know how much I like being cooped up,” Randy said, sarcastically. “Seriously, I was thinking of something outside that required some investigative skill. I am a trained observer, you know. But I was thinking of something more exciting than a boring stakeout, watching some cheating husband at some flea-bag motel.”

“I have a Head Investigator opening at our branch in Peachtree City, Georgia, but it would require that you move there.”

“Actually, I think I’d like to stay in the District area, if you have something around here.”

“I suppose there’s always some politician’s wife hiring us to watch some other politician’s wife, but I thought with your experience and credentials, a management position might suit you better. And the pay would be better, too.”

“I appreciate that,” Randy said, “but I would rather stay in the area. I have some ties locally that might prove useful.”

“You’re not still chasing after your mystery girl, are you, bud? You know, Michelle Miller might suit you better, and I have a feeling she has a little something going for you. She speaks fondly of you, you know.”

“Trying to fix me up with your ex, huh? You must still be paying her alimony or something. Why Michelle?”

“No reason, bud. Just saying. But your fixation with this Alli girl is starting to border on obsessive. If she wants to see you, she’ll call. I’m trying to look out for what’s best for you, that’s all. I’ll assign you a case, and we’ll see how you do, how’s that sound? Your paperwork should be through the proper channels in a week or two. In the meantime, there’s plenty of work around the office. I had your ID/swipe card made, with a duplicate of my clearance. You have full access.”

The next couple of weeks passed by quickly, and Randy’s once constant thoughts about Alli were coming less frequently, as work at FrazTek and the daily routine took her place in his mind.

At least that was the case until he came across a FrazTek payroll envelope in the outgoing mail, addressed to the Call Center.

Chapter Seventeen

Senator McGinty was moving uncharacteristically fast down the Capitol hallway toward Senator Williams’ office, when his aide finally caught up with him.

“Senator, your floor vote on the bill is less than twenty minutes away. Do you have time for this?”

McGinty brushed away his questioner and continued down the hallway without a word. He knew damn well what time it was. What really gnawed at Senator McGinty, besides the waistband of his trousers, was the fact that he was being forced to make this appearance in the first place. Williams was one of only a handful of Senators who actually read what they voted on. But like the others, Williams would vote whichever way got him the most in return, and McGinty was in a position to get him virtually anything he wanted.

At Williams’ office, he strode past the secretary without comment. He was not accustomed to waiting for anyone, least of all a junior senator from North Dakota. As he squeezed through the inner office doorway, Senator Williams stood to greet the powerful McGinty.

“Williams,” he began, “what’s it going to take to get this done?”

“I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you, Senator McGinty, but the moral and ethical issues that are at the heart of my opposition will not allow...”

“Dispense with the damned stump speech, you idiot, I am not one of your constituents. This bill is imperative to this country’s future, and I need your support. I am prepared to make it worth your while. Are you with us or are you against us? If against, need I remind you of the conditions surrounding the exit of this office’s previous occupant?”

The young Senator looked around his office for a moment and swallowed hard. He knew what Senator McGinty was capable of. He also knew his constituents stood to gain greatly from the favor of the elder statesman.

“I... I’m with you, sir. And I’m sorry for you having to come all this way to gain my...”

McGinty was already squeezing back through the door and out of the office.

The Junior Senator didn’t bother sitting back down. He collected his papers and headed toward the chamber floor. For the most part, Williams supported the bill that Senator McGinty was pushing. But those two words,
two words,
sent a shudder through the junior Senator’s body. The bill in question was a run-of-the-mill appropriations measure, but hidden within its 1,423 page bulk was a measure spelling out the boundaries for human organ tissue experimentation. The two words that were hidden in the bill, that Williams thought might have explosive consequences were:
commercial use
.

Chapter Eighteen

The Call Center payroll letter changes everything,
Randy thought. He came to the conclusion that Carl was not telling him everything he knew about the Call Center. He decided to leave Michelle out of his plan, since what he was planning was arguably illegal. Randy’s observations at the Call Center had already given him the shift change schedule, and he was planning to pay them a visit that evening. Randy was depending on his swipe card’s full access clearance to get him upstairs. If it didn’t, he would have some explaining to do.

The shifts at the call center were staggered, with a third of the staff changing every three hours. Randy decided that a midnight entry might stand the best chance of success. Randy wore the traditional black suit he had observed others wearing and his swipe card easily passed him and his weapon through security.

****

The alarm on Carl’s smart phone woke him out of a restless sleep. He reached over to the nightstand and glanced at the screen.

“So tonight’s the night, eh, old friend?” He said to himself. Carl climbed out of bed, slipped into some clothes and headed for Washington.

****

Randy exited the third floor elevators and looked immediately for a restroom. He knew the restroom would be a good place to wait until the shift change foot traffic abated. Then he would look for a way to the upper floors.

Thirty minutes later, he left the restroom and exited away from the lower floor elevators. His steps were purposeful, and he used his CIA training to confidently move down what seemed to be an endless, well-lit hallway. He came to an unmarked door with a card swipe, so he tried his card. The door unlatched immediately. Inside, he found himself in a stairwell, so he proceeded upward.

As he neared the eighth floor, he decided to have a look around.
Strange,
he thought.
You need a card swipe to get into the stairwell, and to get out.
He swiped his card and exited onto the eighth floor.

Randy was not prepared for what he saw. The entire floor was devoid of any kind of office or partition whatsoever. There was a narrow area around the perimeter of the floor, a space of about five feet. Each outside window had its own compartment in this space. Inside each compartment was a vignette of a typical office, including a desk, chair, tables, even small pictures and documents on each desk. It was set up to look like a typical office from the outside. The lights in these rooms were turned off, for the most part. Randy speculated that the compartments were constructed to simulate what a typical office would look like if viewed from the outside, and the lights would automatically turn off and on to simulate normal activity.

The majority of the eighth floor, the entire city block, was a single room, filled with computer equipment. Each computer station consisted of a six-foot tall smooth black cube, with a small desk and monitor cut into one side, and an attached chair. The only light in the massive room was coming from the dozens of multi-colored LEDs on a panel directly to the left of each computer monitor. The combination of thousands of these dimly glowing lights cast a haunting glow on the open-girder ceiling. Randy estimated there must have been a thousand of these computer units on this level alone! The floor consisted of open black rubberized grating, with multi-colored wires and tubing visible underneath. Near the top left-hand corner of each cube was etched a name and a ten digit number. “Dora, Dorothy, Drew, Dusty,” Randy’s voice echoed as he read them out loud. “Must be the girls’ names who run these units.”

The approaching sound of padded footsteps made Randy twirl around toward the sound.

“You could say that,” Randy heard a familiar voice say. Carl Frazier rounded the corner and came into view.

“What’s this all about, Carl?” Randy asked. “Is your new career just following me around? What exactly are these things?”

“I could ask you what you are doing here,” Carl began, “but I already know the answer. I would guess you are still in search of your mystery phone girl.”

“I think it’s obvious that you know more about that than you have led me to believe,” Randy responded. “So help a brother out here. Tell me what I’m looking at.” Randy leaned one hand out against one of the cubes.

“Careful what you’re touching there, bud,” Carl warned, jumping toward his friend’s leaning arm. “Take a look over here.” Carl sat at one of the terminals and punched in a few instructions. One of the large panels on the outside of the cube slid upward to reveal the inner workings of the cube. There was a warm, white light that filled the inside.

“This is Dolly.”

Randy’s mind refused to believe what he was seeing. There are really no words to describe the conflict, turmoil, betrayal and confusion that Randy was feeling at that very moment.

Inside the cube, Randy was looking at what appeared to be a peacefully sleeping girl, probably in her early twenties. She seemed to be perfectly healthy, except the fact that only her head and shoulders were visible above a mass of tubes, wires and sensors that made up her upper torso area. Her eyes were concealed with some kind of a visor or electronic virtual reality screen.

“She’s asleep, so I wouldn’t make any loud noises,” Carl cautioned. “I’m afraid you have been talking to one of these computer units, Randy. Your dream girl doesn’t exist.”

“Holy shit, Carl...” Randy slumped up against Dolly and slid down to sit on the floor.
What the hell kind of place is this?
He was thinking.
I must be in the God-damned Twilight Zone.

Carl continued- “All of the girls in these units are dead, Randy. They came to Ameriplaxi as bodies donated to science. They were, however, carefully transitioned from life to death when they died. Great measures were taken to lower their core temperatures and to preserve the functionality of their brains. Ameriplaxi developed a process to preserve and control the upper and lower cortex functions, and these units nourish and monitor these human remains in the name of science.”

“The name of science?” Randy shot back. “That’s crazy! Your Ameri-porky-whatever company has figured out how to use workers without paying them, man! It sounds and looks like some pseudo-science slavery bullshit to me.”