Æquinoctium Ch. 01

Thom, that git! For a do-gooding philanthropist he wasn't too concerned about protecting the identities of his sources.

"You took that seriously?!"

"We take threads against our nation very seriously."

Denise rested her forehead on her arms in resignation, long tresses spread over the table top.

"Look..." she lifted her head, "it was a joke. A hoax."

"We are not stupid, Ms Carlisle--"

"You may want to get a second opinion on this."

"We know there isn't an element called Tristanium..."

With a sigh of relief Denise straightened up as far as her restrains allowed.

"...which leaves us faced with the conclusion that Tristanium is an artificial substance, designed by the Axis Powers as a last-ditch effort to turn the outcome of the war."

"Ugh...!"

She allowed her head to fall back down on her arms.

<~>

"Why do you hate our democracy so much?"

"I dooon't..." Denise groaned, at the end of her rope.

In a seemingly random sequence he had asked countless questions, presumably in an attempt to catch her off-guard. At what Irish harbour elusive U 723 really had arrived. How she felt about her plans having been thwarted by a vigilant citizen (Thom again, obviously promoted from accessory to national hero). Why she hated democracy so much.

"We know you are a sleeper under deep cover."

"You blokes really talk like that?!"

"Considerable sums have been transferred from credit cards issued to your name."

"It's called shopping."

For the tenth time in what might be five hours the interpreter opened his file.

"So tell me, Ms Carlisle - if this is your real name - ..."

Denise rolled her eyes.

"... do you shop for weapons of mass destructions often?"

He pulled a print-out from the stack of papers before him.

"Because our system red-flagged a device codenamed 'rascal rocket' showing up on your credit card bill."

Denise's face performed another drastic change in colour, yet this time towards the crimson end of the spectrum.

"Purchased on 27th October of last year," Suit-Man recited, "together with a copy of How to break up without breaking down, three pints of Häagen-Dazs ice cream and a set of rechargeable batteries."

No sooner had he finished that it dawned on him where that rascal was meant to aim its warhead at.

"I-ehm..."

He cleared his throat.

"I'll have that double-checked by our analysts."

"That's private!"

"Think of it as privacy 2.0."

Despite all distress that came with her current situation Denise felt her Gaelic temperament surfacing again.

"Okay, that's it. I've had it with you muppets! You kidnapped me in broad daylight, you are keeping me detained without a warrant, denying me a lawyer and subjecting me to sleep deprivation!"

"I do not believe that keeping you awake till..." he checked his watch, "... a quarter past midnight counts as sleep deprivation."

"I have a very sensitive body clock!"

"Mind your voice, Ms Carlisle, we are far from being done."

He held up a large black-and-white shot of a cargo ship. Certain that this intel was better researched than the last, the interpreter continued.

"Thirty hours ago the Siobhán berthed in Rotterdam, coming straight from Cork. Inconsistencies in her manifest as well as the more than coincidental timing give reason to believe that she had a certain payload aboard."

"Let me get that straight: Something not being aboard some random Irish vessel in the biggest port of Europe proves the existence of something else that has been made up to begin with?"

This was a prime example were facts were made to fit the assumption. Following this logic, an anti-elephant spray for your fridge works because there're no elephants in your fridge.

"We can play this game for another couple of hours. But we both know what you were up to."

"Making myself interesting during a date. You have no proofs to the contrary."

"I get my proofs, Ms Carlisle. I always get my proofs. You do realise that if you are not starting to cooperate very soon, we are entitled to employ stronger methods on you?"

Allowing his threat to linger between them, he shoved the photograph back into the folder and rose.

"When I return you better have opened your mind, or I make sure you'll disappear to some secret prison in a hell-hole country not even Google Maps has ever heard of."

<~>

Her cell sported the same breathtaking view as the interrogation room: Concrete, bathed in gentle neon light. Lying on the narrow bed, a sleepless Denise was pondering her options, trying to come up with something before her hosts decided that this was a ticking bomb scenario. She had long since given up on the hope that a lawyer would find their way into this "black site" or "alternative location" or whatever the politically correct term was these days.

Denise performed a jump as the door lock snapped open. Okay, that's it. They were coming to get her now. And there wouldn't be any politically correct term for what would happen next.

Nothing happened next. The door just stayed where it was, unlocked and ajar. Denise fully rose and made some careful steps towards it. There was no door handle on the inside, so after some more moments of courage-gathering, she pried it open with all fingers. The corridor behind the door was empty. Denise had been hooded again when being thrown into the cell, but could remember to have been dragged in from the left. Question was: Was this the direction she wanted to go in now? The answer arrived in form of another door snapping open, at the corridor's right end.

"Okaaay..."

The corridor ended in some kind of intersection which offered several possibilities. Denise froze as she finally noticed one of the CCTV cameras securing the area. But the absence of any guards performing pain compliance stuff on her in this very moment gave reason to believe the invisible key master knew what they were doing.

Again an electro-mechanic sound told Denise where to turn to. Door no. 3 opened to a semi-dark storage room of some sort. Rows of racks reached up to the ceiling, each of their compartments fitted with its own hatch. Denise wasn't too surprised anymore as one popped open in a ghostly manner. She was rather delighted, though, to find her clothes, shoes and handbag inside.

The hint was unmistakable, and it was very welcome. Within seconds Denise had freed herself from the loose orange top. She was stopped by a muffled chime from the pile of her belongings. The chiming continued as Denise looked insecurely at her bag. She rummaged through it, only to discover her mobile phone to be actually lying on her folded suit, encased in plastic. Those spooks must have bagged it after pulling out any data worthwhile. More strangely, it seemed to be still turned off. After another second of pointless hesitation she answered the call with a wipe across the dark display.

"Can you hear me, Ms Carlisle?"

"Who are you? What's going on? Are you the one opening all the doors?"

"A simple yes or no will do."

"Yes, I can hear you. Evidently."

"Your mobile came with a hands-free kit. Use it," the male voice advised.

Raiding the depths of her Gucci handbag once more, she re-discovered her ear piece and put it in.

"Okay, I've got my hands free."

"Grand. Are you dressed yet?"

Her ethereal conversation partner showed bad timing with his question, as Denise had just wriggled out of those dreadful orange trousers moments earlier - and therefore was in the buff.

"Uhm... yes."

"I will guide you out of the complex, but you have to follow my every order to the dot."

Denise hurried into her own attire.

"Not that I have any choice."

"No. Now go to the room's far wall, between those racks, and start running towards the door on my mark."

She lowered her brows.

"Why?"

"Humour me."

Exhaling, she tip-tapped to the end of the room and faced the door.

"Run."

"Uhm--"

"Move it!"

Denise set off towards the closed door as fast as she could manage in her heels. Did the mysterious voice want her to knock herself out? Closer and closer the door came, five metres, four, three then, and still Denise didn't dared slow down. Two metres, and the door began to swing open. Even if she'd had the presence of mind to stop, her legs were on autopilot now. Denise was by no means a heavy girl, but 55 kilogrammes remained 55 kilogrammes, and the impact was enough to slam the door back full force into the face of the guard attempting to enter the storage room. In perfect trajectory he was pushed back into the intersection and smashed onto the floor, unconscious.

"Good girl."

Denise staggered out, holding the shoulder she had hit the door with.

"Was that me?!"

"Better you than him."

"Well..." she stepped towards the prostrated body, "kinda makes sense."

"Hide him in the storage room."

Denise grabbed the guard's legs and pulled, exhausting what little grip her court shoes were providing on the linoleum floor. The picture of her dragging a tree trunk across a frozen lake came to her mind.

"I shouldn't have wimped out on that crossfit class...!"

"C'mon, put your back into it."

A panting Denise finally managed to stow the knocked-out man between the racks. Her gaze fell upon the 9 mm sidearm.

"Shall I take his pistol?"

"Do you know how to use it?"

"I've watched John Wick 2 the other day..."

"So you are able to switch gracefully between Weaver stance and C.A.R. method?"

"Uuuhmmm..."

"Just leave it."

Denise uttered an indignant sound and slipped off her shoes. They hadn't been actually helpful during her high-acceleration sprint, and even less so during the towing.

"Where to?" she asked, closing the storage room door from the outside. A clonk told her that her benefactor had locked it remotely.

"Through the corridor to your left."

She complied.

"Left again, around the corner..."

"Ouch!"

"... careful, glass door."

Rubbing her smarting nose, she noticed a sweep card thingy.

"I'll take care of it," the voice announced, as if knowing her thought.

True to his word the glass door buzzed open. He repeated his party piece again on yet another door, this one a sturdy metal construction. Behind it the structure radically changed its appearance. Had the surfaces been grey-white to the disturbing point of asylum-sterile till here, the predominant elements were now yellowish bricks and rusty steel beams. Naked light bulbs dangled from the low ceiling in regular intervals, by far not all of them working.

"What the--?! Are you luring me deeper towards some dungeon?!"

"Some octaves lower, please. Have I ever misguided you in all the half an hour we've known each other?"

"Known, my arse," she murmured under her breath and renewed her grip on her shoes in a way she could use the already murderous heels as weapons. She wasn't much of a fighter, but the first guy trying to drag her back would get it. After an ascending staircase this latest corridor ended in front of - who had thought? - another door. Though metal again, this one offered a normal handle and was unlocked. Denise took a deep breath and pulled it open. In clear surprise she stepped out onto a steel gallery of some sort, overlooking an abandoned factory hall. More bricks and rust between high windows with most of their square glass tiles smashed in. Below her the fundaments of long-dismantled machinery. Above her dangling chains. Although sinister in their own right, they didn't look as if they'd ever been used to hoist up anything else than inanimate objects.

"The scenic route, Ms Carlisle: across the platform and down the ladder."

Whilst crossing the gallery Denise arrived at the conclusion that she had been detained in something like a safe house, hidden in an old industrial area. Through the broken windows she could see the city's skyline against the early morning sky.

At the foot of the ladder an open fire escape let her out into the cool night. She crossed a pair of railway tracks blocked by desolate goods wagons, squealing as the ballast bit into her bare soles.

"Once you are behind the next building, I have no eyes on you anymore. But I can follow your progress via your phone's signal."

She carefully circumnavigated an array of burnt-out barrels.

"Is there a kind of, you know, extraction point?"

"Why of course, Ms Carlisle, one extraction point coming up. 400 metres due north a car is hidden for you to reach a rendezvous location."

She moaned, yet soldiered on, past walls decorated with flamboyant tags and graffiti. What little she could decrypt made Denise wonder how many gang bangs she had missed out on. Truth be told, she would have looked less out of place in the orange scrubs than she was looking in her high end office outfit. The sky to her right was now clearly brightening, but the paths between the decaying warehouses and industrial buildings remained mostly in the dark. Here and there a forgotten sodium lamp threw in a cone of orange light.

"I've got activity near the exfil spot," her guide informed her. "Hope you don't mind a bit of improvising."

Denise involuntary hunched behind a boiler carcass.

"What activity? Good activity or bad activity?"

"See those steam pipes to the north-east? Try to reach them."

The large overground pipes marked the border to a newer part of the area. Not that it was much busier, but the plain buildings followed a more non-post-apocalyptic approach: self-service storage, a car wash, a recycling firm. Panting heavily by now, Denise reached the artificial landmark and crossed over at a near expansion loop. She followed the recycling firm's fence in an attempt to get as much distance between her and the "activity" as possible. Moral support in this endeavour came from the still bodiless voice in her ear piece.

"Faster, Ms Carlisle. You are not moving very quickly, young lass like you. Whatever happened to cardio?"

"Whatever happened to my omega 3 cinnamon power smoothie?!"

Behind the recycling compound the area opened up to a car park. It was poorly attended, mostly by company vehicles and rides of an assumed night shift.

"You need to find a car with an internet connection."

Denise crossed the square, poorly taking cover wherever possible.

"And how would one recognise such a conveyance?" she complained. For being the "extractee" plus innocent in the first place, she had to do quite a lot of grunt work.

"Look for something posh."

A contemporary Mercedes-Benz saloon some rows away appeared promising. She flit towards it, but did not dare touch anything lest she trigger the alarm system.

"Will a Merc do?"

"Let's find out; if you were so kind as to read me the number plate."

She phoned it in and waited. For half a minute nothing happened, then all of a sudden the Benz came to life. The door locks snapped open, the engine started with a pretentious vroom and the tarmac in front flared up as the headlights auto-adjusted themselves. Denise jumped back with a startled yelp.

"Stop making squeaky noises. Get in."

<~>

Her seemingly omnipotent guardian directed Denise through the city's more treacherous boroughs for some time. To make sure nobody was following her, she reckoned. A greyish dawn had conquered most of the sky as she finally rolled to a stop underneath a motorway flyover. A nondescript white van parked near one of the pillars, and leaning against it was a slender man. Denise categorised him as the "smart-casual" type of guy. Gina would have categorised him as "generally doable".

"Ms Carlisle, I presume," he greeted her in a known voice as she got out of the car, whose engine had stopped running as ghostly as it had come to life. Her phone connection had ended some moments ago, too. Actually, her whole phone had fallen dead again.

"Please tell me you are here to help me!" Denise sighed as she limped towards him.

"Absolutely." He, too, came closer. "Those government henchmen miss basic skills in treating a lady rightly, as you were so sadly forced to witness."

He slowed down almost to a stop and scrutinised her.

"Why are you holding your shoes?"

"I can't run in them."

"I believe that. Why didn't you just leave them behind?"

Denise looked at him as though he had escaped from the loony bin.

"Leave them 'behind'? I have you know: These are limited edition Louboutins."

It took him a second to file that information.

"Very well."

He went past her and glanced through the open driver's door.

"And this is your Gucci handbag?"

"Yes."

He retrieved it from the passenger seat and hooked it on of her shoes' heels. With his other hand he produced a small cylindrical gadget from his jacket.

"Nice whip."

He threw the cylinder in and returned to Denise to walk her to his van. Behind them a hissing sound swelled up inside the cabin. She turned around and saw the car's whole inside illuminated by erratic white light. Thick steam or smoke avalanched out of the driver's entrance. A wall of heat washed over her.

"Neat device to melt down evidence," he anticipated her question. "In a couple of minutes the sand underneath the car will have turned into glass."

Denise flinched as the first tyre burst. He gave her a hand as she awkwardly waddled onwards.

"I've stepped into something on those railway tracks."

He let her to the open tail gates.

"Probably just a heroin needle."

The voice-owner helped her sit down on the rear bumper. Denise put her shoes and bag aside.

"What was that place?"

"A 'halfway house', halfway to a proper extrajudicial detention facility, that is. Can also be utilised for in-depth interrogation."

Denise could not help but swallow. Hearing those fears confirmed by a third party made them all the more distressing.

"Nobody knew where I was. I wasn't even granted a lawyer."

"That's how this kind of detention works..."

"And they assaulted me with a taser."

He nodded sympathetically whilst fishing something from his other pocket.

"Yeah, that's a shitty thing to do."

Denise felt him pressing the pocket-something against her side, but only managed to emit a guttural noise as a blast of electricity surged through her system for the second time within twenty-four hours.