Chapter 8
Swing Shift
Andrea drove to her office building, unaware that she had been tailed every mile that they left the school, all the way to series of office buildings downtown where she worked as a warehouse sales representative.
In all, her job was remarkably simple, all she had to do was go in, track all packages coming into and out of the warehouse. Then update listings with what was packaged and placed onto which distribution truck and provide an updated route to maximize the efficiency of each driver. Such tasks normally took two people, but due to recent cutbacks Andrea had to do it by herself.
Of course, Andrea couldn’t be paid more to do the job of two people, which was how she worked out with her boss that not only could she leave for a lunch break to pick up her daughter, but that her daughter could come and sit with her so long as she was quiet and respectful.
At first Andrea was concerned, first with how her co-workers would take to having her daughter present, but then the second and most important issue was how she would be able to maintain her work efficiency while her daughter was present.
Oddly enough, the second issue never came to be a thing, for it was almost as if Misha was her good luck charm. In fact, many of the representatives often felt she was the good luck charm, as alerts would be noted quickly. Dispatches could be made to send individual packages that somehow always got left off of a delivery truck, and routes were often re-optimized while enroute, a feature that Andrea didn’t know was possible, until it happened one night.
“Hi Andrea,” Walter, the floor foreman and true boss of the depot said to Andrea as she made her way off of the elevators. Then looking down, he saw Misha and a bright smile came to his face, “and a special hello to you Ms. Misha.”
Curtsey.
“Greetings to you as well.” Misha said in her overly formal way that neither seemed like she was carrying on airs nor seemed to be disingenuous, rather it always came across as she was very cultured and experienced with the ways of the world.
“No helmet again?” Walter asked.
“No, I no longer need one.” Misha replied.
“Oh.” Walter said, and a faint look of sadness crossed his face, before he turned to Andrea and said, “they grow up so quickly.”
“Too quickly.” Andrea replied with a nod.
What they didn’t know was that at this very moment several things were happening all at once. First, was that a luxury white sedan pulled into the depot’s parking lot. The luxury sedan was a clear contrast to all the other vehicles present, and one would think that the vehicle either belonged to the owner of the company, which knowing the company there was no way that such a dignified person would be out here. Or the second most likely scenario was that someone got lost and pulled off into the parking lot to regain their bearings before heading off again.
Instead, this was a third category, where someone that clearly wanted to stand out by owning a luxury vehicle now drew attention to themselves while doing seemingly clandestine operations.
As always, all new vehicles pulling in were video recorded and monitored. Then checked for an RF tag, that if found somewhere in the vehicle, the monitoring would stop and turn away. This time the systems did not turn away, but rather kept recording, indicating that no RF tag was identified with an initial search.
However, the search apparently did not go unnoticed. Unlike 99% of the world, the being in this luxury vehicle not only felt the scans for an RF tag but was apparently able to realize the exact source of the disturbance.
The car pulled into a spot, then turned off the engine and lights, then waited.
All the while the surveillance cameras kept recording the incident, and were about to set off an alert for time to the warehouse system, when the owner of the vehicle got out. The woman was a well dressed businesswoman who looked closer to twenty-five than the actual age printed on her driver’s license, which was more than double that.
One would expect the woman to have had surgery performed to look so young, despite having such and advanced age. To which, the woman, one Dr. Grier a tenured staff at the local university would let you think just that.
While the reason for her youthful appearance was something far more benign and profound.
Focusing on the cameras that were continually scanning her with bursts of electrical frequencies, she found the source and then with a pure focus of will, sent off her own burst.
Sparkle.
The cameras, before being completely fried from the action managed to catch Dr. Grier’s eyes glowing a bright white before the recording was completely destroyed as multiple components within automated recording systems shut down.
***
Beep, beep.
An emergency alert went off, just as Andrea was slowly making her way back to her desk.
“Oh no.” Andrea said, as she quickly logged back into the system and began trying to bring up the reason for the alert. The minute she did, she was met with a message that caused a pit to form within her stomach.
Main Monitoring Unit Deactivated.
“Ugghhh.” Andrea said, as she began going through the simple steps to try to resolve the issue, unfortunately nothing worked.
Another system check indicated that multiple fuses had been triggered.
With that Andrea grit her teeth as she began going through the processes to restart and reboot the system. This would of course purge the last two minutes of data but would be worth it if they got the system back up.
“What’s wrong?” Misha asked, coming over to stand beside her mother.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Oh it is the system. We have multiple fuses that have burst as it looks like we got a sudden surge of power somehow.” Andrea admitted.
Nodding.
Misha nodded in understanding. Seeing the head nod, Andrea paused, having rarely seen her daughter do such an act. Normally she only did so when she was clearly thinking about something else. Yet, what could she be thinking about right now?
The gesture caught her so off guard that she looked at her daughter and could almost swear that there was a faint glow coming from behind her daughter’s bright green eyes.
Beep, beep, boop.
Whoom.
As Andrea stared at Misha, she missed the moment when her commands to restart the system had been accepted. They must have, as the system was suddenly back up and running.
Turning back to the screen, Andrea began performing a quick diagnostic and was relieved to find that the system was not only back up, but the stored data was still saved. Then before she could get too relieved, she noticed a new alert coming up.
Intruder Alert.
Clicking on the alert caused a live video feed of the anomaly that set off the alert coming to life. In this case it was a luxury car that was slowly driving through the parking lot.
A chill ran down Andrea’s spine as she witnessed the car clearly going through the parking lot while the driver looked from side to side, her head swiveling in her seat as she looked for a specific vehicle.
“You should report that.” Misha said, her voice coldly logical.
Hearing the words, Andrea blinked once, before realizing that was exactly what to do. Normally this would be a private investigator, or maybe a distrustful spouse who came to work looking to make sure the spouse in question was at work. Despite the reason, these infractions still needed to be noted and recorded.
“Right.” Andrea said, hitting the lockdown button and alerting the security staff to the vehicle.
Click.
The lockdown button was simple, as it would close the gates, and make it so the vehicle would have to stop by a security checkpoint before they could leave. As a precaution local law enforcement would also be called to be on standby if anything dangerous happened.
“What is she doing?” Andrea found herself wondering out loud.
By this point Walter came in to the room to see why Andrea had hit the lockdown button.
“Is it Ms. Jones again?” Walter asked, coming in and wondering if it was the wife of one of the workers who often came in to check on her husband. While Andrea didn’t want to pry, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Mr. Jones had likely been caught cheating once before and now his wife did routine checkups on him.
“No, it is a new luxury white sedan.” Andrea said, almost thinking she could make out the make, but then realizing that the model being shown was apparently so futuristic and expensive that the standard decals and symbols were nearly impossible to notice.
“Really, let me see.” Walter said, coming close and taking a look at the vehicle in question.
Wolf whistle.
“That is one fine car.” Walter stated, then cocking his head slightly to the side he added, “the driver isn’t too hard on the eyes either.”
“Walter, there are kids here.” Andrea said playfully, as she wondered why this random rich woman would go through their parking lot of all places.
Then finally the driver seemed to find something they wanted as they noticed a particular vehicle and sped up. Then coming to a complete stop right behind the car in question, they pulled up their phone and began taking pictures of the vehicle from behind.
“What is she doing?” Andrea asked.
Misha looked like she was about to say something, when Walter was the first to make the connection.
“Isn’t that your car?” Walter asked.
Hearing that, Andrea quickly zoomed in, and found the angle and vantage point that showed the exact vehicle that the lady was taking a picture of, and as Walter had noted it was clearly Andrea’s car.
“What is she doing?” Andrea asked. “Also, who is she?”
This is when Misha decided to speak up.
“That is Dr. Grier, she gave a presentation today and offered for us to take a field trip to her university in two weeks.” Misha said, rummaging through her bookbag and finding the permission slip.
“Dr. Grier?” Andrea asked, her voice incredulous, as she looked at the woman on the screen and while she did see some relationship between the therapist, this one was far older and had a completely different aura about her.
“Not our Dr. Grier, but I believe she is related.” Misha said calmly.
“Okay, since we have found out who she is, can anyone tell me why she is here?” Walter asked, clearly confused.
At that Andrea just shrugged her shoulders, though she couldn’t help but remember that feeling of dread she felt earlier coming back to haunt her. A premonition that she apparently didn’t take to heart at the time. Something that she greatly resented right now.
***
(Police Station)
Deputy Grimes blinked twice, sitting in investigation room A, looking over at what was an empty seat. Idly he wondered what had brought him here. No one came to the interrogation rooms alone, at least not without a particular purpose, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember why he had come here.
Looking at the desk before him, there was his coffee mug that had long gone cold, and what appeared to be his cuffs splayed out neatly on the metal table.
“What?” He muttered to himself as he saw the cuffs on the table and quickly grabbed them, and then checked the serial number. Of course, the string of digits came to him, letting him know that these were in fact the set of cuffs that were assigned to him. Yet, there was a question that came to his mind, namely, why were they there, on the table and not in his holster.
Shaking his head, he put away his hand cuffs, then grabbed his coffee mug and left. He gave one last look around, the room, trying to see if he came in there for some reason.
For the life of him, he could not remember what he came in there for. Nor could he remember going in there at all.
Looking around the room he saw his current note pad, opened up and clean of any notes, just as it had been at the start of the day. Yet, there was something off.
Honestly it took him a moment to realize what it was, namely the pages that were normally peeled off at the tear line had been seemingly ripped out. This was odd as it was a point of pride to have his note book in good form and measure. The number one way he accomplished this was by gently peeling off each page of his notes, only after he typed them into his computer. This way he could keep up with being in the field, while also making sure to note each and every case that came up.
Now, rather than the crisp cut offs, he noticed the straggling lines of a page that had been quickly yanked off. Seeing that, he pulled the loose threads out, as that would drive him crazy the next time he used this notepad. And it was his notepad, he checked, even seeing signs of his writing indented on the next page down. While no ink had spread, it didn’t need to as each page had his signature case marking and signature. Something he had picked up in the academy, that way if he ever died during a case, those who found his note pad could at least identify him and what case he was working on. Yet, seeing the notes on the underside of the paper caused him to question his sanity once more, as the words and writing seemed to belong to a case that he had never worked on.
What was odder still was that the case number was one he distinctly couldn’t recall ever working on.
Realizing something was amiss, he went to his desk, and after searching in his top drawer for a few minutes finally found the piece of charcoal that he had been looking for.
Then with a deft hand he began dragging the wide piece of charcoal over his last page of his notepad. This technique had come in handy on more than one occasion when he had inadvertently marked the wrong name or key pieces of information in his case notes. That he would then have to go back and verify. This charcoal marker had been a life safer for the first few years of his career, which is why he kept one even now.
This time the charcoal revealed not so much what he wrote on the page above with his heavy-handed writing, something that only happened when he was able to write against a metal desk, like the one in the interrogation room. But it also revealed a new case number.
After fully covering the page with charcoal, Deputy Grimes saw notes written in his handwriting to a case he couldn’t remember, involving people he spoke to that he suddenly could not recall.
Case: 1048213-04-11
Deputy Grimes
MS: Claims she was not profiling but could not account for reason she took photographs of employee’s car.
PN: Suspect making odd eye contact and appears to be trying to use seduction.
MS: Claims to work for the university and if we open her briefcase we will see that she is innocent.
PN: We have consent at 18:49 to open briefcase without a warrant.
Then the message just ended.
Everything was in his handwriting and everything was in his shorthand. Clearly, he had taken a few pages of notes by this point as the lines of paper had noted. The code MS was shorthand for his noting the Main Suspect, and this was where he would quote or try to quote the suspect as accurately as possible. The term PN was his own Personal Notes to himself so he could recall different key events while typing up the report.
Yet, something was clearly wrong. Then realizing the note about the time and then the date, the 04 was for the fourth and the 11 was for November, but that was tomorrow, right?
Then looking at his watch, he saw that today was in fact the fourth of November, and the time was, well it was 20:24 meaning the time he had given to look into the briefcase had been close to two hours ago.
Fear welled up in him, as he tried to understand exactly what he had been subjected to during his missing almost two hours of time.
Leaving the room, he began moving, but felt the world shift from under him. It was clear that he had been somehow drugged, at least that was the first response that came to his mind as he realized this was not going well.
Staggering, he made his way down the hall to the room with the black screen. There he saw Lieutenant Williams passed out on the desk, as if she too had been knocked out by something.
“Lieutenant, wake up.” Grimes said, then after a second he gently shook the Lieutenant, not wanting to illicit an inappropriate touching case, but needing her to awaken to see if she was suffering any lingering effects.
“What? What happened?” Lieutenant Williams asked, her voice groggy and then suddenly she came to life as she realized where she was and most importantly what she had been doing. Looking around she too looked flustered. “Why are you here now?”
“Lieutenant, tell me, what time do you think it is right now?” Deputy Grimes asked, trying to see if she too had the last few hours of time also missing from her mind as well.
“It’s Friday, right?”
Shaking his head, Grimes answered, “no it is Saturday the forth. Also, can you check out this case number?” Grimes said, holding up the charcoal page that showed in white the text that had been written on the page above it.
“What?” The Lieutenant asked, then logging into the computer, realized that there was a glaring problem. “Huh?”
“What is it?”
“The computers, they are down.” Lieutenant Williams said, as she desperately tried to figure out what was wrong with her systems.