They had
arrived the next evening, about an hour before sunset. Deborah was tired, but felt a renewal of
strength when they set their first steps in the city proper. Here, they would find her mother, and she
wanted nothing more to begin the search right away. L’lorne, however, had a different idea, and
insisted they begin the search in the morning instead of so late in the
day. Her arguments did not fall on deaf
ears, as every time she mentioned sleep, Deborah felt the miles wear on her
once again.
---------
Questions
1. What kind of person is Lcorn Llorne? What does she look like (in your mind)?
2. What kind of person is the Deborah Ignigus? What does she look like (in your mind)?
3. Does the setting seem fitting? Would you like to know more?
It was
still too early for sleep, though, and even after getting a motel room just
inside the city limits, there was still much to do. A shower, for one, to clean the miles off
Deborah's body, was the first goal of the evening. L’lorne could only groan at the pile of
clothing left in the bathroom while Deborah wrapped herself tightly in a motel
bathrobe that somehow appeared from nowhere.
"This
won't do," L’lorne announced, holding the tattered shirt and pants Deborah
had worn for something now leaning on a month.
"We need to get you some new clothes; these have all but had
it."
Deborah
nodded in agreement, the blouse was torn, the slacks frayed and both were
covered in dirt and dust. "Well,
they're hand me downs," she said.
"Couldn't afford new stuff, well, ever, so I made do with what the
other girls in the building could give up."
"Well,
put them back on for now," L’lorne tossed the clothes back on the
bed. "We're going shopping."
The stores
of the capital were some of the best in the world, and L’lorne took pains to go
into only the best. The first look at
the woman in the simple street clothes and the girl in the tattered remains of
a street rat's life didn't grant any encouragement to the staff, and the
manger, an older woman, intercepted them near the door and explained very
carefully that there were better places to shop. "Places you can afford."
Deborah
cringed at the polite insult and moved close to L’lorne, readying to ask her to
leave, but L’lorne had no intention of doing so. She grabbed the nearest blouse from the rack
and looked at it carefully. "This
is very nice," she said as she lifted the sleeve and ran her fingers
through the material. The woman tried to
protest the action, but was beaten down with L’lorne's eyes. "But not what we're looking for. Where do you keep the good stuff?"
"As I
said," the woman began her protest once again only to have a credit card
pressed up against her nose.
"If
you wish me to continue shopping here," L’lorne said with a nasty level of
menace. "I suggest you not finish
that sentence."
It took a
moment for the woman to recover from the rebuff, and another for her to
actually look at the card. Her eyes went
wide and her face white. "Oh dear,
I'm so sorry ma'am. Right this way
ma'am."
They weaved
back through the racks of clothing to where, as L’lorne requested, the good
stuff was kept. "What did it
say?" Deborah said quietly.
" Sirkowski,
you remember him don’t you?" L’lorne smiled. "These people only respond to names,
generally, money, specifically. I think
after all the trouble he caused you, buying you a new wardrobe is the least he
can do, don’t you?.” Deborah
nodded. “Oh, don’t mention anything
about the price, it’ll spoil it.”
Soon, the
woman was busy scuttling around them, picking up various blouses and slacks
from different racks and bubbling on about springs and winters and matching
colors. A pile in hand, the troop moved
back towards the dressing rooms.
"Better
let me have that coat, okay?"
Deborah
removed the coat and carefully folded it into L’lorne's arms, and then
disappeared into the dressing room. She
reemerged a few moments later in the first outfit, which the woman praised but L’lorne
panned. Deborah could only agree with L’lorne's
statement, and returned to the dressing room.
As she
changed, she could just hear L’lorne mention something about the coat to the
woman, who seemed not pleased at all about the comment. When Deborah exited the room again, the woman
was gone and L’lorne clapped quietly at the look. "What did you say to her?" Deborah
said as she came over and lightly examined the coat L’lorne was still holding.
"I was
just wondering if there was something that would go well with your coat. I figure if you're going to wear it
regardless, might as well make it go with everything else."
"Oh." The coat looked odd, but not really. Cleaner maybe? The material looked almost new. Deborah shook her head. Impossible, it was her coat, she could see
that. The lights were having an
effect. The woman returned with another
pile of clothing and shooed her into the dressing room.
Back out
again, this time in something that looked, just on the hangers, great. Deborah stood in front of the mirror and
marveled at the look she had suddenly stumbled across. She looked good, damn good. L’lorne moved forward and placed the coat over
her shoulders. Now, she looked even
better. The clothes even made the coat
look better, like it was brand new. Even
the woman seemed impressed and asked about fit and if they needed shoes.
"I
like it," Deborah finally said after a quick shoe fitting.
"Good,"
L’lorne smiled. "She'll be wearing
out, no problems of course?"
"Of
course not ma'am," the woman replied.
"What of the old clothes?"
"Donate
them," Deborah found herself saying.
"Only fair."
"See
to it." They left, making only one
other stop at a local salon to finish the look with a slightly better hair
style.
---------
Her new
clothes didn't itch, something that she had grown accustomed to on the few
occasions when she was afforded new clothes.
The lack of itch bothered her so much she actually began to itch, just
for it to feel normal again.
"The
Central Data Processing Center," L’lorne said facing the building but
speaking to Deborah. "Built more
than a decade ago, it remains the state of the art in computer, communication
and networking technology. Behind these
walls, 100 trillion files are received, processed, stored and/or transmitted to
every part of the world. Every agency of
government, from local to federal, uses the information in this building to
assist in law enforcement, financial transactions, government dispatches and
even simple letters. Truly, the CDPC is
the greatest achievement of the modern age."
"Wow,"
Deborah said, staring up at the white, marble walls of the CDPC. "Your database had all that?"
"No." L’lorne flipped up a pamphlet. "I got it at the motel. This place is pretty impressive, if you don't
know any better."
"That
Delphi thing is that much better?"
"Infinitely."
Deborah
could only manage a light grunt.
Whatever Delphi was, L’lorne seemed to view it as the greatest thing
ever, or close to it. "Well anyway,
is this where we'll find mama?"
"What
do you think?"
"I
think we're looking in the wrong place."
"Really?"
Deborah
grunted again. "Well, for one
thing, they keep information in this building, not people. For another," and for this she had to
pause to get it right. "You said
that whoever took her made the government look like pa poors, and this is run
by the government, so. . ."
"The
word is pauper," L’lorne corrected.
"Though your version is much closer to the spirit of the word. And you're right, she won't be in here, but
it will tell us where she is, then we can go get her."
Another
grunt. "Wouldn't it be easier to go
after those guys than going in there," she pointed at the building.
"Well,
no, not at all." L’lorne scanned
the horizon for a moment then stopped.
"Let's, for the moment, say we did go after those guys, where do we
look?"
"I
don't know."
"Nor
do I, but I would guess it would probably be that building over there,"
she pointed towards a small brown two story building just down the street. "What do you think?"
She studied
it a moment, taking in the view very carefully.
"I think you're making stuff up."
"Possibly,"
L’lorne replied. "Let me try to
explain it to you. This secret agency
has two major parts. At the top are the
guys controlling things, issuing orders, and generally being rich and
powerful. At the bottom, are the agents
and thugs, like those guys in the white suits you saw take your mother. Now, how do you figure the two parts talk to
each other?"
"With
their mouths."
"Nope,
they don't talk to each other." L’lorne
walked along the steps of the CDPC towards the brown building. "In fact, the guys on the bottom have no
clue who the guys on the top are, and vice versa. It's important that they don't know, keeps
them isolated and protected."
"Keeps
who protected?"
"Everyone,
don't want people stumbling upon your group and exposing its actions after
all. Instead to communicate, they use a
small office, that one. Inside, I'd say
there are three people, an administrator, a secretary, and a clerk. They receive messages from one of the big
guys, probably mailed in from somewhere, then mail the message back out to the
appropriate persons at the bottom."
"And
vice versa," Deborah added.
"So wouldn't it be better to go there anyway, find out who issued
the orders to take my mother and. . ."
"It
wouldn't help, they wouldn't know where your mother is, they've never been
told. At best, they know their mission
was accomplished, and that they can move on with the next phase. The point is, the guys in that office also
don't know, so bothering the agency itself is kind of pointless."
"But
if we find the guys on the bottom. . ."
"Out
of possibly thousands? It would take
forever. Anyway, it doesn't matter,
because they told the CDPC."
The girl
shook her head, the newly clipped hair still leaking a few shards of hair to
the ground. "Wait, why would they
tell them, when they didn't even tell their own bosses?"
"To
hide the fact that they did anything at all."
"Okay,
I'm confused now."
L’lorne
chuckled lightly. "100 trillion
files, more every day. Lost in the
crowd, invisible."
"Just
like when the girls pull back from the street," Deborah said, the meaning
of L’lorne was saying finally starting to come through. "But still, why would they need to hide
it, nobody cares anyway."
"Bureaucrats
always care, especially if you use their systems to move people around, which
they probably did. Wherever they sent
your mother, she probably was sent on a government transport to a government
facility under government guard. No
one's going to care if some random person is being shipped around, as long as
all the forms are filled out."
"So
why not just make something up?"
"That's
beyond their abilities to do easily.
Easier to use the real name, intimidate a few people into not continuing
their search, and that's it. She
disappears into the system."
"You
make it sound so easy."
"It
is," L’lorne said with a smile.
"That's why they did it that way.
Simple is the best way to do something, fewest things can go wrong that
way." She walked back over to
Deborah and placed her hand on her shoulder.
"Now we need to do the simple thing, and go into the building, and
find out where your mother was sent."
Deborah
looked to the building, then back at L’lorne.
"Right, let's do that."
They started up the steps when Deborah stopped. "Wait," she said. "We can't."
"Oh?"
"Well,
I'm a little girl, for one, for another, you're, uh, not with the government,
right?"
"That's
right."
A silent
sigh of relief. "So why would they
even let us look? That one cop wouldn't
even let me help when he took the case."
"Good
point." L’lorne reached behind her
back, again, and removed, from somewhere, a small black wallet. "Here, just show it to them when they
ask."
"What
is it?" Deborah opened it up and
saw a very bright and shiny badge, along with a coded identification card.
"Something
I was working on while you were sleeping," L’lorne folded her own out so
Deborah could see it. "Now, are you
ready?"
"I
guess," she shrugged. "Still
don't know how they're going to miss the fact that I'm 12."
"Oh,
don't worry so much," L’lorne said.
"Everything will be fine, you'll see."
---------
Questions
1. What kind of person is Lcorn Llorne? What does she look like (in your mind)?
2. What kind of person is the Deborah Ignigus? What does she look like (in your mind)?
3. Does the setting seem fitting? Would you like to know more?
No comments:
Post a Comment