Chapter 13: Intelligence

Once again, here I am, lying near incapacitated on my bed. My body ached and my head felt like a brick, yesterday’s concussion mixing well with today’s oxygen deprivation. All the memories of submarine constructions and subterranean computers seemed fuzzy. If I could drive right now, I reckon I would go straight home. There was nothing to be done here, I should just walk away.

There was a knock at the door, Tyler walked in. His posture was destroyed, fatigue hanging off of him.

‘I’ve got the bug.’ He said, holding up the mp3 player.

‘Have you checked it?’ I asked, not bothering to sit up. He lowered himself onto the bed, offering the player for me to take.

‘I was wondering if you could go through it faster on your computer.’ With I groan I reached for my laptop.

As it was booting up I glanced at Chloe. She was lying on her bed, I couldn’t see if her eyes were closed. She was probably listening to us.

‘Is it okay that Chloe is here?’ I asked. Dylan shrugged.

‘The only problems I can see are if Chloe really is on Felix’s side.’

‘I’m not.’ Chloe affirmed, without moving. Tyler couldn’t hide a smile. I guess she was listening.

‘Great!’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong with having an ally.’ He patted the bed beside him, ‘Care to join?’

‘Let me know if you find anything.’ She didn’t move.

I copied the mp3 file onto my computer and opened it up so that the signal was represented graphically. Thirteen hours of audio greeted me. I managed to shorten it to three by isolating the time where a decent signal was visible. The first hour or so mainly consisted of questioning what could have happened to Tyler, though that seemed to end rather quickly, Jaclyn being the main power behind that conversation. It quickly turned to her next plan against Mary, all of which had seemed to come to fruition.

‘Hey guy’s’ I started. Chloe was immediately beside us. That was Forrest’s voice.

I just stared at the computer, stunned. What had I just heard? It seemed to have just washed over me. I knew it was important, my brain just refused to process it. I was snapped out of my trance by Chloe leaping up from next to me. She strode towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Tyler asked.

‘To get Forrest, I thought that would be obvious.’ Chloe said.

‘So are you going to punch him, or have you done that enough for today?’ Tyler asked.

‘Look, he has his memories, he is actively working against our group, I sure as hell can’t let him off for that.’ She stood square, expecting to be challenged.

‘From what we know, Forrest is now working with the head counsellor, as well as with Kari and Felix.’ Tyler stated. ‘If we attack him openly, he will no doubt be backed up by those two at the least.’

‘Then we just have to get him alone,’ She replied.

‘And beat him until he tells us what we want to hear,’ Tyler concluded.

‘Yeah, because that’s all I can do right?’ She yelled. ‘Whilst you both just sit around doing nothing.’

‘We can’t treat Forrest like a complete enemy yet.’ I said. ‘He appears to have only just got his memories back. ‘

‘And the first thing he does is chums up with our enemies. Which you seem to be okay with.’ This time her intensity was directed directly at me. It was a force.

‘We can’t risk an immediate confrontation. We need to think about this, plunging into the unknown is just dangerous. We don’t know what the counsellor is planning.’ Tyler said. Chloe just stood there, shifting her gaze between us. After a moment of silence she resigned, dropping heavily onto a bed.

‘So what’s your plan then?’ she asked.

‘We can’t do this by ourselves. We have all realised that the head councillor has incredible influence over this place, being able to observe us no matter where we are, and can intercept our plans at any point.’ Tyler explained.

‘So we can’t do anything without him stopping us,’ Chloe said, exasperated.

‘That’s not what I said. He can stop us, but he doesn’t,’ Tyler continued. ‘I think he is viewing this whole situation as a game or test or something. He doesn’t want to stop us; at best he just wants to control us.’

‘When we were caught last night he let me escape, only keeping Tyler,’ I added.

‘What happened last night anyway?’ Chloe asked. ‘All I know is that it left you trashed’ she nodded at Tyler.

‘We got caught sneaking into the building.’ I replied

‘You broke in?’

‘They have a supercomputer underground, Dylan managed to get through an electric lock and everything, it was pretty cool.’

‘And what did the HC do to you?’ Tyler paused.

‘Not much. Just a night without sleep mainly.’ He was obviously lying. I had spent the night without sleep and his condition was clearly much worse.

‘And you ended up half dead from that? You really are weak.’ Chloe was of similar opinion. ‘What really happened?’

‘All I did was sit in a room all night. It wasn’t at all restful, but that pep pill they gave me worked the treat, maybe the big plan of this camp is to make everyone addicts.’

Whilst Tyler was speaking, Maria had walked into the room. All our attention was immediately on her. At least it wasn’t Forrest. She made a beeline to her bed. I caught Tyler’s eye.

‘What should we do?’ I asked. Tyler shrugged.

‘She looks pretty stressed,’ he said.

‘She needs to know about Forrest,’ Chloe said.

‘If we tell her now, she may go on a rampage. I can’t hold both of you back.’ He replied.

‘I think we should at least ask her,’ I said.

‘fine ask her, but tread carefully.’

‘Mary.’ Chloe asked. Maria didn’t respond, her head buried in her pillow. ‘Mary, we have something important to tell you.’

‘I don’t care.’ She yelled, before dropping back into her pillow.

‘I think you’d want to know.’ I said. She mumbled something, not getting up again. Tyler was smiling.

‘I did warn you. We can deal with her tomorrow, at the moment we need to focus on other things,’ he said.

‘We can’t just leave her,’ Chloe shouted.

‘If she doesn’t want to listen then we’ll be wasting our time, she’s quite a stubborn and self centred. I think at the moment we need to focus on the camp as a whole,’ he said.

‘She’s a member of our group; she needs to come before the camp,’ Chloe snapped. I didn’t know she was so devoted to our group.

‘Forrest is a member of your group, yet you wanted to kill him.’

‘He’s a traitor.’ Chloe said, getting annoyed.

Any way,’ Tyler began. ‘My plan at this point is to try and organise the rest of the camp. As the number of people working with us increases, it will be harder for the HC to observe us, as well as harder for Forrest and Co. to act’ he explained.

‘And how will you do that?’ Chloe asked.

‘By showing them that something weird is happening.’ Tyler replied.

‘Uh... isn’t that obvious?’ Chloe said.

‘Well, we have proof. Sharable proof. Dylan if you please.’

‘Uh..’ I quickly opened all the relevant files. ‘The main one is this list which is similar to the one I found on the first day.’ I gestured to the screen which had thenames of probably everyone at camp. Felix, Forrest and Kari all had ticks, as well as a small amount of other people. Tyler, Chloe and me, as well as Maria, all had question marks. The majority had crosses. These people included Jaclyn.

‘What do the marks mean?’ Chloe asked.

‘Well I guess tick is for evil, question mark for good, and cross for just plain annoying,’ Tyler responded.

‘and what are you going to do with it?’ Chloe asked.

‘Post copies of it round the camp of course,’ Tyler answered. ‘That way we may be able to stir up some curiosity. Plus if there is anyone like us, they will most likely post their own findings, thus establishing a form of communication. Unfortunately we will need to find a way of printing this off. Again, Dylan.’ Tyler gestured to me.

‘Uh...I guess we could hijack the camp printer if someone is willing to sneak into the admin building to get it,’ I said.

‘And there we have it.’ Tyler lent back satisfied, awaiting a response.

‘That’s your plan?’ Chloe asked, unimpressed.

‘It’ll work, I’m sure,’ Tyler assured. ‘But at the moment we have a guest.’ I looked up from my computer and sure Forrest standing in the door. People kept sneaking up on us. We definitely had to find a better spot to plan.

‘Hello Forrest, you took a while,’ Tyler asked. ‘Playing with Kari?’

‘The enemy more like it. Stabbing us in the back!’ Chloe barked.

‘I need to speak with Mary.’ He spoke quickly.

‘She’s sleeping at the moment,’ Tyler said. ‘Had a rough day, the whole thing with Jaclyn and all. You know of it’

‘Jaclyn, but she’s just an idiot,’ he said. ‘I need to speak to her.’ He moved toward Maria, Chloe intercepted.

‘She’s sleeping, don’t you get that?’ Chloe stated strongly.

‘And we all know how hard it is to wake her up.’ Tyler reinforced.

I had the laptop in my hand, the document set up to print. I looked around at the others.

Forrest was at Maria’s side, trying to rouse her. Chloe’s eyes met mine,

‘What do we do?’ she mouthed. I looked at Tyler. He gestured at the door.

‘W..Well, I’ve got to get something from the receptionist.’ I said.

‘He’s got a bit of a headache from this afternoon so he needs some aspirin,’ Tyler explained. ‘I’ll go with him.’

‘What?’ Chloe said.

‘Stay here would you,’ Tyler said, heading towards the door. I hastily followed after.

It was a relief to step into the outdoor air. I had been stuck in the stuffy cabin for ages. Plus dealing with Forrest just seemed too hard. I was sure Chloe would be able to dealwith him.I had a hope that it wouldn’t involve violence. Tyler walked quickly towards the admin building. He stopped however once he was a distance from the cabin.

‘I’m heading for the right building right?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘The window we came in before. I think there may be a printer in there.’

‘Righto,’ he replied, continuing on.

Like the previous night, the window was unlocked and the room deserted. Completely suspicious. The Head councillor probably knew we were here. But what else could we do. Without second thought we went in.

I quickly scanned the room for a printer. There was one. I quickly turned it on before looking for its model number while it warmed up. Finding it, I sat down with my laptop and established a link with the desktop next to me.

‘I guess I’m not needed then,’ Tyler remarked. I glanced up at him for a second before continuing to establish communication with the printer.

‘You could keep a look out I guess. This may take a minute or so,’ I said, finally turning the screen brightness down so as not to attract anyone with the immense glow. Tyler moved to the door.

It was about a minute before the printer clicked, beeped and sputtered to life. Not a machine designed for stealth.

‘How many should I print?’ I asked.

‘Four should do,’ he replied. The list took up 3 pages, so that would be 12 pages. I wonder how well stocked the printer was. With a click, the order was sent. More noise.

.. ..

‘It would be good if you could print these as well,’ Tyler said, handing me his phone holding the photos of the super computer. ....

‘What, couldn’t you have given me these earlier?’ I asked, frustrated.....

‘Is it too late?’ I exhaled, trying to calm my nerves before setting up a magnificently insecure Bluetooth connection. This was more stress then it was worth. ....

‘What do you know about virtual reality?’ Tyler asked, whilst I was trying to prepare the photos to print. It appeared at least someone had time to think.

‘Not much,’ I said, the printer deciding that it had run out of paper. 8 pages printed. Brilliant, 2 whole copies. Good enough. I cancelled the print order and returned the incomplete copy to the paper tray before returning to the laptop to try and fit the photos on a single page. Tyler stood at the door watching.

‘Do you know how it works?’ he asked.

‘It varies. You can have a plane cockpit set up to simulate flying or a headset and body suit to directly supply your body with the feeling of existing in an alternate reality,’ I replied. Printing.

‘Is it possible to have virtual reality without any setup? Like a virtual room or something?’ I folded my laptop and stood ready near the printer.

‘I would think it’s impossible.’ I said, grabbing the printouts and heading for the window. I didn’t stop until I was far away from the admin building. I slumped against a dorm as my body calmed down from its adrenaline rush. Tyler was quickly beside me.

‘Now we just have to post those around the camp and then we can call it a night,’ Tyler said, gesturing to the papers I clutched tightly.

‘Why are you so concerned about VR?’ I asked.

‘I think that’s what that big computer may be for.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I think I experienced it.’ I quickly sat up. ‘Though I was only in a room,’ he added trailing off.

‘What did you see?’ I asked.

‘Nothing much. It was just like walking around camp. Though I don’t think I left the room.’ He stood up. ‘Come on, let’s put up our intelligence, I really need some sleep.’ He reached out his hand and helped me up. Fatigue was definitely setting in. I followed after him, though not too close. It felt like he was withholding information. If I couldn’t trust him who could I trust?