The call came at three in the morning.
Rolling over, ticked off because now he would never get back to sleep, Richard (never Dick) grabbed the phone receiver.
“’Lo?”
“Mr. Fasol?”
And that was all it took: someone calling at three in the morning and pronouncing his name correctly, Fah-Sole. Richard knew the man on the phone, or the man knew him, and tradition dictated that a three a.m. call could not be a good call.
“Speaking. What can I do for you Mr.…?”
“It’s Mr. Hasslin, Mr. Fasol. From The Siebenkas Group?”
“Sure, sure, Mr. Hasslin. What can I do for you at,” Richard glanced at the bedside clock, “three twelve in the morning?”
“Well Mr. Fasol, frankly, I have a bit of bad news concerning ah…, concerning a mutual friend.”
Richard could sense that this was not going to end well. He had only met Hasslin twice but he knew the man to be precise in what he presented to the public. Now, even over the phone connection, Richard imagined he could almost see the sweat beading on Hasslin’s brow; could almost taste the trepidation that seemed to be coming off the man and through the phone.
“Listen, Mr. Hasslin. I understand the need for discretion but it’s three in the morning. I really need for you to get to the point because I have an important meet…”
“Your property has escaped, Mr. Fasol.”
Richard, not expecting this, not expecting this at all, bolted upright on the bed. No, this was definitely not going to be a good call.
“Mr. Hasslin, if this is some kind of joke…”
(Oh God, please say this is a joke)
“I assure you, Mr. Fasol, it is no joke. We, ah, seem to have had a security breach at our facility and your, um, property, as I said, has escaped. Along with the property of two others.”
“But you told me, hell, you showed me all of the security measures in that building! You stated yourself that the building was, and I quote, “A veritable Alcatraz.” Now you tell me that you have three…three…things running around…!”
“Actually Mr. Fasol, we have a total of five. The other two owners had copies made; in case there were any, ah, unforeseen eventualities.”
“Unforeseen eventualities? From what you’ve told me these things could be capable of, are capable of, I’d say that you have a wee bit more than some unforeseen eventualities! This is utterly unacceptable, Mr. Hasslin! The problems that this could cause for me, not to mention the other two clients, who I’m sure are prominent citizens of this community…This is unacceptable.”
And then realization struck.
“Mr. Hasslin, weren’t the tracking devices implanted? You said that every one gets a tracking device.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Fasol. You see that is why I am calling. We have teams en-route to your address, and also to the addresses of our other two clients, but the, ah, units, seem to have taken the tracking devices out.”
“What? Wait, just wait! You mean to tell me that you have these things, these murderous things running around and you don’t know where the hell they are?! How did this happen? How could your employees let this happen?”
“Mr. Fasol, no one let this happen. From what we can gather through our security feeds the units, um, knew how to disable the security to their cages. I have seen the tapes and it appears to me as if the units knew the codes to the cage locks.”
This can’t be happening, Richard thought to himself. How could something with no memory – no anything – know a code that only two people, Hasslin and himself, knew? Richard detected a slight hint of pride in Hasslin’s voice and he quickly put two and two together, or so he thought.
“You let them out, didn’t you Hasslin? You let them out and now you want more money to shut them down or, or take them out or whatever it is you do to stop them. How do I even know you’re telling the truth? Huh? You could be standing in your office right now watching those things run around in their cages. You could be lying, just to blackmail me because you know I can’t tell the authorities about this!”
“No, Mr. Fasol. I’m not lying. And I don’t need your money. As I explained before, the units let themselves out; and I think I know how. As you’ll no doubt remember, I told you that everyone, every man and woman that comes into this facility, is videotaped. Well, Mr. Fasol, I went back and looked at your visits. It’s remarkable really, the mannerisms, the gestures, all there. Anyway, watching the videotape of your unit I noticed how it typed in your code. And then I watched the tape of you setting your code; on your second visit…?”
“Get to the point Hasslin!”
“Well, Mr. Fasol. Your unit knew your code because you knew the code.”
“What? You’re saying this thing is telepathic?”
“No, Mr. Fasol. What I’m saying is exactly what I said. Your unit knew your code because you knew your code; because we took a sample from you after you set your code in the keypad. Everything you did in the videotape: Walking to the keypad, listening to my instructions on setting your code; even when you pressed in the wrong number…”
“Three…”
“Right. Even when you pressed in the number three but you wanted six and had to start over. On the tape your unit goes through the same sequence of events.”
“I’m still not following you, Hasslin.”
“I can’t make it any clearer Mr. Fasol: your unit has a memory of you performing the action of setting the code. Your unit knew the code because your cells knew the code. Probably just a few – perhaps they were brain cells or cells from your hand or finger or from wherever – just a few of those cells were in the sample that we withdrew from you. Those cells had the memory of your code and when we used them to produce your unit, your unit then had the memory of the code. It’s really quite remarkable, as I said.”
“Yeah, I’m all a-twitter over here Hasslin. But wait, why now?”
“I don’t under…?”
“Why now? Why did it take all this time for the thing to break out if it always had the memory?”
“As near as we can understand it, your unit had to wait until it was the age you were at the time of your visit in order to have access to the memory. Up until your unit reached that point, the memory had never happened, so it couldn’t access it.”
“So, you’re saying it’s my age, it’s thirty-seven now?”
“Of course it’s not actually thirty-seven no, but it has the body of a thirty-seven year old.”
“And you don’t know where it is? What about the team you sent out after it?”
“At this time no, we do not know where your unit is Mr. Fasol, but our team is standing by in a perimeter at your property.”
“They’re here to protect me?”
“Ah…yes, Mr. Fasol.
“And if you don’t have any more questions, I really need to get back to coordinating our efforts here at the facility. It’s been a long day and it will probably only get longer.”
“Um, no. No more questions. Can I reach you somewhere?”
“You can always call the facility Mr. Fasol. Whomever answers the phone will be able to get in touch with me. What is it? Excuse me a moment Mr. Fasol.”
Apparently Hasslin needed to speak with someone because the next things that Richard heard were muffled, barely audible. There was a slight rustling over the phone and he could faintly hear Hasslin say something that sounded like “scramble around.” There was a muffled response and Richard heard Hasslin say, as he moved the receiver back toward his mouth, “Yes, every one.”
“What was that?”
“Hmm? Oh, an assistant needed to know something. Mr. Fasol, you can rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to get this situation under control. Believe me, the anonymity of our clients and providing a valuable service is of utmost concern to us. We will get this taken care of.”
“I wish I had your confidence Mr. Hasslin, but I suppose I’ll need to take you at your word. You’ll let me know when everything is under control?”
“You will be the first to know, Mr. Fasol. Rest easy tonight.”
Richard hung up the phone in a daze. This was still too big to wrap his mind around. How in the hell could this be happening? And Hasslin said that there was a team outside…
Walking over to the window, Richard moved aside the curtain and peered out. If they were out there they were doing a good job of keeping out of sight.
Glancing at the clock, three twenty-one, Richard decided that what he needed was a drink. A stiff one. “Gin and tonic, hold the tonic” he managed to croak out and then followed it up with a cackling laugh that he couldn’t stop, although he tried. Using the security panel beside his bedroom door Richard entered the code that would disarm the alarm system and left his bedroom.
He had reached the kitchen and had his hand poised to flip the light switch when there was a quiet knock on the front door. He paused, not quite sure that he had heard it but then it came again, louder: Shave and a haircut, two bits.
“One of the “team” probably looking to use the john,” he mumbled to himself as he walked to the door.
He disengaged the lock, turned the knob, opened the door and found himself looking back at…himself?
He was dressed in a dark blue sport coat, khaki pants and brown wing tip oxfords and Richard thought to himself “I have that outfit.”
The unit staring back at Richard said “Yes, yes I do,” as if it were reading Richard’s mind.
Richard only had the time to say two things: “What? How?” before the unit raised its right arm, aimed a semi-automatic pistol with an attached silencer at Richard’s left eye and pulled the trigger.
Once Richard’s body hit the floor the unit stood over it, again aimed the pistol – this time at Richard’s chest – and pulled the trigger twice more.
The shots, each marginally louder than the one before it, were still barely audible to the first team member who stepped around the corner of the house and walked up the front steps toward the unit, weapon drawn.
The team member stopped beside the unit, glanced inside the house at Richard’s body and spoke, “Go make your call, Mr. Fasol.”
Richard’s unit nodded, walked toward a hall table and picked up a cordless handset laying there. It punched in 61846 and waited while the phone buzzed in its ear.
“Hasslin.”
“It is done.”
“Hammer Down?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Fasol. We will be contacting you.”
Mr. Fasol turned and walked to the front door as two of the team members lifted Richard’s body and carried it outside.
As he closed the door after them he was thinking he might like to be known as “Dick” from now on.
