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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: WIPO | AUTHOR: JW GOETHE |
DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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“Who are thou, then?”
“Part of that Power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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“Ebenezer! Elias! Open the door!”
With a startled jerk and a yelp of pain, Ebenezer rolls himself off of the couch. Half-leaning against the wall for support, he hobbles his way towards the door, bellowing, “Elias! Dex! Elias!” There's movement upstairs, the floorboards creak with it.
“Shout up what she looks like,” Elias says as he passes from his bedroom to his examining room.
Ebenezer grasps the door's handle and wrenches it open. Quick as he can, he lurches out of the way so that Zolotisty can bear Dex inside. She's bloodsoaked, and her is face mangled, unrecognizable. With a terrible cringe, he calls toward the stairs, “Al-almost-almost dead!”
Elias, never one to chide people for their vagueries, leans around a doorway to gaze down the stairs. He thins his lips. “Hurry now, Zolo,” he says gently, and disappears around the corner. Hefting Dex more securely, Z looks at Ebenezer for a moment before maneuvering past him and up the stairs. She's pale, huge-eyed, and her expression is locked into a sluggishness that's contrary to the speed of her step – like something half-preserved and taken too early from a jar of formaldehyde.
Sick and half-blind, Ebenezer stares up the stairs after Zolotisty. His spectacles and monocle have been left behind on Elias' coffee-table. Behind him, the front door sways on his hinges and when he turns to shut it, he finds the threshold already occupied. Haccadine's expression is dark as he pushes past into the hallway. “Z. Dex. Where are they?” His voice is half at a shout, louder than it needs to be.
He twists and points up the staircase. “Mn.”
“Alive?”
“Hope so.” He turns to limp back towards the living room for his spectacles.
Haccadine nods slowly and looks around, hands flexing by his sides. “Nothing else we can do, then.”
“I'm g-going-I'm going up to help,” Eben says over his shoulder.
He grunts vague acknowledgement and follows Ebenezer into the living room, pausing for a moment with his forearm against the doorframe. His head swims, filled with a throbbing ache that beats in time with his pulse, the grenade's echo shrieking in his ears. Dex is out, he reminds himself, but it's small comfort. Even if the hunters were dead, the Network agent all but confirmed his suspicions.
Upstairs, Elias instructs Zolotisty to lay Dex on the examining table. Blood is still seeping from her side, blacking her shirt, her jacket, and Z's belly. “What happened?”
“I don't know. We – I lost her.”
“Do you have any idea of how long she's been bleeding?” he asks, indicating her torso, and Z shakes her head. “Was she conscious when you found her? At all responsive?” Another headshake. “Do you know what she was stabbed with? How long the blade might have been?” Z hesitates and Elias purses his lips and turns to disinfect his hands. “Cut her clothes off, please, Zolo, then come wash your hands and put on gloves. Scissors in the drawer next to you.”
“There was no Improbability,” Z says, small-voiced and sick for all the things she doesn't know.
Elias looks at her, then raises his voice, “Ebenezer! Haccadine? I'll want extra hands, please.”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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In contrast to the frantic scene on their screens – the tension heightened by fast-chop cuts to Z's electric-shocked ears, Elias' efficient hands, and Haccadine's distracted glances toward the windows – the calm precision with which the camera operators work seems like exaggerated slow motion.
“Cooper, cut to Gannet in three,” Ogilvy commands as Ebenezer fetches swabs and bandages from a cupboard. Idris appears in the medical tent just outside AceHigh. A friend of mine was gravely injured in the jungle. Blue mohican, Joker by the name of Spandex. We were separated, and I'm worried she might have suffered some lasting harm. I don't suppose you know which tent she went to?
Nah, man, that bitch too good for us – she get patched by the old dude what useda run the Lucky Dip.
“Incoming. Back to Elias as soon as Idris turns away. Status, Simpert?”
Simpert's screen hasn't moved from Spandex's torso. “Donno. Breathing.”
“Oh dear. Looks serious,” Terry tuts.
“Babs, shut it!” Monroe complains, swiping his arm in the air at her. “Com'on my girl, hang on.” He's pale and leaning as close into Simpert as he can without getting in his way.
“Monroe, take over, but don't you dare move that feed,” Ogilvy orders without glancing over. “If she dies, we want that last breath. Simpert, looks like Zolotisty's moving – switch to this other station, I want you on her.”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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Zolotisty turns in place, then abruptly goes hurrying from the operating room. Her heels drum staccato on the staircase. Elias doesn't look after her; his attention is focused wholly on Spandex, on potential hemorrhages – retroperitoneal, cranial. “Press and hold here, please, Ebenezer,” he says and Eben complies, grim-faced and dutiful.
Downstairs, Z bolts into the kitchen, collects a bowl from the cupboards, then thuds back to the sidetable for gloves and hats just beside the door. She scrapes Horse, all the writhing pieces of him, into the bowl, shakes a few of the nippier splinters loose from her hand, and snaps a look over her shoulder as Haccadine lurches into view in the upstairs hall. “Get back in the room!” she barks, making a gun out of her hand. She waves it at him. “Don't let anyone in.” He catches enough to understand her meaning and frowns, turning back towards the room.
“Watch yourself,” he calls down to her.
Z sprints back into the kitchen. Looking around, she panics and stuffs the bowl in the fridge – it's as good as safe place as any. She rips her surgical gloves off and casts them onto the floor. Taking a breath, she hesitates, straining her ears for the grinning punk rock city murmur tattoo of Dex's leit-motif. She tries to think of early this morning, tangled up with her by the waterfall in her room, and finds she can't remember anything about it – not the feel, not the feeling – except that neither of them slept. That they were both snappish, cranky. She wonders if it'll be like that if Dex dies while she's gone, whether she'll just remember the small, stupid things. Outside, the sound's getting closer. She moves, coming up short in the center of AceHigh's square. Again, she turns in place with her ears spaded then jogs north to deke through an alleyway.
The Outpost is relatively deserted. It's still early in the day and the weather is gloomy, overcast with dripping eaves. She can hear Idris, all the scrape and pinch and wrench of fingernails being pulled from their beds of him, all the stockpot simmer and boil of him, all the gentle flap of dropcloths over shapeless forms of him. She can hear footsteps. A puddle splashes unexpectedly nearby and she slows to a stop, knotting her fingers deep into the Improbability around her. She can't see him.
The footsteps cease abruptly, leaving the alley silent but for the steady drip of water onto cobblestones and her own breathing. Her ears flick out of time with each other, straining first this way then that for the slightest sound of movement. Nothing. He's gone. A tense, breath-caught moment passes. Then, gentle as a feather, she feels a tickling of metal at her throat and Idris' face dissolves out of the air in front of her, close enough that she can taste his iron-heavy breath. She twists her wrist and the ground wrenches beneath them with a terrible groan. It cascades into a cleft and drops them both some two dozen feet. The buildings lining the alleyway shake as they're bunched suddenly backward. They drop slate from their rooftops and bits of brick and mortar from their walls; the Outpost itself shudders and reverberates with the sudden force and movement of the earth.
Idris flicks the knife with a snarl as the ground drops away. The blade flashes black past Z's eyes and cuts a shallow furrow across the bridge of her nose. His descent is slowed at the last minute and he lunges forwards the second his feet touch the ground, aiming a wide slash at Z's belly. There's very little room to move or stand; the ground slants sharply around them. She has no footing nor retreat as she feints backward, then moves to the square, dusty with a gash in her stomach. She cocks her head, looks around, then scrabbles upward.
Kicking off with both feet, Idris propels himself from the crevasse, alighting gently on a nearby rooftop. He scours the buildings and streets below for any sign of her and spits, clearing his mouth of dust. “Don't want to play anymore?” he calls, passing the knife idly from hand to hand. “That's alright. I bet I know where I can find someone who will.”
Overhead, Zolotisty has a fair view of the part in his hair, his shoulders, the dull wink of Dex's blade in his hand. She sprints, circles him, and positions herself on the peak of the roof behind him before dropping down to tackle him from behind. The pair of them pitch forward, angling down towards the lip of the splintered street. Idris struggles and twists, whipping the blade around and slicing into one of Z's ears. He tries to buoy himself up in the last instant before crashing to the ground, but her weight drives them both down. They slam into the edge of the crevasse. Idris bears the brunt of the initial impact through his side and shoulder, then they rebound downward with Z leading. She scrabbles and kicks to push him away as they fall, loosing more chunks of earth around them. They both strike their heads and their bodies against the sides of the crevasse as it narrows, then come to a rough halt, tangled together.
Idris's shoulder and arm burn with pain, blossoming out from fractures and filling the whole right side of his body with a delicious agony. He raises his head from the soil, sending a fresh throb tingling through his ribs, and looks down the length of his body to Z. They're leg-to-leg, locked with their heads at opposite directions. Panting, Zolotisty squirms after a moment, getting her arms under herself to tug her legs free. There's an awkward falter and lurch in the movement as she bears weight on her hands, though it smooths as she pulls her feet under herself.
He pushes up with his good arm, half-rising from the ground. His breath whistles through his teeth, sending trickles of blood out from the corner of his mouth. “Is that it?”
Looking at him, Z wrists her own mouth clean, then straightens to kick him in the throat. As she raises her leg, his arm snaps out, chopping the blade up into the sole of her foot. She yawps and wills herself forward instead of reeling over backward, falling for him indiscriminately with claws and fangs – only now it's not Idris she's lunging for, but an illusion of Dex, her face bloodied and raw and filled with fear. “Z, no!”
Zolotisty doesn't falter but for a flash of horror over her face. Her teeth sink deep into Idris' neck, piercing muscle, rupturing veins and arteries. Blood floods her mouth. Her ears are filled with Dex's scream, high-pitched and desperate, until it trails off and dies with a wet rattle. She recoils, spitting, and sits up on Idris' chest. He still looks like Spandex. Her pant is close to a sob. She trembles as she scrambles backward, dislodging the knife from her foot. Shaking, she snatches for it – it's Dex's, afterall – and moves again to the center of AceHigh's square.
She sits there for a moment, feeling stunned and stupid and guilty, covered with dirt and blood. A pair of Jokers strolling beneath umbrellas pause to study her then carry on their way. Zolotisty looks at the knife, snuffs, swallows, and falls twice when she moves to clamber to her feet.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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“Jesus Christ,” Simpert says finally as Z goes limping back toward the Lucky Dip. It's the first thing he's said through the entire confrontation. He leans back in his chair, stunned.
“Was it good for you?” Gannet says over his shoulder with an uncharacteristic grin. “It was good for me. Bit short, but what can you do.” He looks back to his screen. Another Joker, this one in hoopskirts, leans over the ugly gash in the alleyway. She looks down at Idris through her pince-nez glasses, tucks her parasol into the crook of her arm, and claps politely. An altogether extraordinary show, madam, she says to his crumpled, battered form. Wholly unanticipated. May I escort you to the medical tent? There's no reply. She gathers her skirts anyway, lifting her parasol again to sail daintily into the crevasse.
“You'd think a fight to the death between two big-time Jokers would've had a bit more flash and glam,” Terry puts in, disappointed. She drums her neon talons on the desktop. “It was all knives and teeth. Bor-ing.”
Her creative vision insulted, Ogilvy's almost tempted to respond, to explain how 'glam' is entirely not what she's after, but instead she snaps her fingers at Cooper. “Get security up here to escort Mrs Babcock back to her booth.”
“Now let's not be hasty,” Terry pipes up. “I'm sure you must know what you're doing, Ms Ogilvy. Everyone's got their own taste, you know. And if I keep my opinion to myself, hmn? Would that do?” Shall I kiss your arse while I'm at it, Your Majesty?
It's Cooper who responds as he takes his hand from the phone receiver. “You're just obviously not our target audience, ma'am,” and he lets his gaze drape the length of her before returning to his work.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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There's a puddle the size of a small lake surrounding the front steps onto the porch of the Dip. Zolotisty stares dully at it, balanced on one foot and her toes. After some consideration, she scoots forward a bare inch or two and falls across the puddle onto the steps, catching herself heavily on her forearms. Wriggling onto the porch, she sits and turns around. There were two of them. The other might be coming. Her foot and ear and belly are still oozing bright red and she can flex her thumbs, but one claw is missing on her right hand, two on the left. She studies her fingers, whuffs blood from her nostrils, and scans the square. She feels lightheaded.
Inside, Haccadine checks his gun for the hundredth time. His gaze moves constantly between Dex, the windows and the door, fully expecting the two Jokers to show up at any moment. Put a grenade through one of the panes, perhaps, and come storming through the door; or, more likely, just pop in and out like they did last time, snatch Dex from under their noses again. Nothing he can do about the second. But being stuck in here, rats in a cage…
“I'm going downstairs,” he says over his shoulder. “Just for a second. Keep lookout, call if you see anythin'.”
“Mmhm,” Elias says, then, “And right here, please,” to Ebenezer.
Haccadine steps out onto the landing, shuts the door behind him and listens. A grandfather clock ticks peacefully downstairs. He descends the staircase slowly, gun swinging down the length of the hallway and back again. Turning into the living room confirms it empty, as is the kitchen. Paranoia building, he moves to the back door and edges it open, checking this way and that. Nothing. No calls from upstairs. He checks the clock as he passes; ten past the hour. Fingers itching, he reaches for the handle of the front door and swings it open, gun raised.
Z's already turned to look toward him. She snuffs again, then looks back to the square. He lowers the weapon, taking in her various wounds.
“You look like shit. Find him?”
“S'dead. What's Elias say about Dex.” She dreads the answer – she can hardly hear Dex, and it's not through a trick of Improbability that the sound of her is so slow, so soft.
“Hasn't said anything. He's still working.”
She grunts, wondering if that's a nice way of eliding the truth.
“You should do somethin' about those cuts.
“When Dex is safe.”
“At least put a bandage around the worst of it. You'll be no use if you're bled half to death and the other one shows up.”
“Get me a bandage then.”
He shoots a quick glance up and down the street and then turns back inside. She can hear his tread on the stairs, the low murmur of voices upstairs. Before too long he returns, dropping a thick roll of bandage and some gauze into her lap.
“Thanks.” Squirming from her t-shirt, she winds the bandage awkwardly around her belly, tucks in the edges, then stuffs the shirt under her foot. “You get hit?” she asks after a moment, looking up at him.
“Graze. Nothin' serious. Hearin's mostly back.”
“Why was it gone.”
“Grenade.” She nods. “I got a handful of shots in. Don't know how many hit. Not taking any chances, though.”
Another nod, and Z looks back to the square.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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It's another hour and a half before Zolotisty's brought inside. Elias comes downstairs to take stock of her, then goes back up to collect more sutures than he thought he'd need. Simpert toggles his cameras between Dex, laid out on the examining table like some just-deceased princess of Egypt, and Zolotisty, bone-white from bloodloss. He turns in his chair, pulls his headset down to his shoulders, opens his mouth to say something, and finds Lacey looking at him. She tics her eyebrows upward slightly, as if to say, 'you seem surprised.'
Did you fix her, Z's voice says faintly in Simpert's headset. It puts him in the mind of a kid with a broken toy.
I did what I could, Elias says.
What's that mean. Hostility now, just a shard of it.
It means we'll have to accept whatever happens, Zolo.
Simpert pulls his headset off and throws it onto his desk. “M'going for a walk,” he mutters. “Can I get anything for anyone while I'm up?”
No one says a thing.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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Zolotisty stubbornly claws off of the couch the second Elias has finished with her stitches and splints and bandages. “M'going upstairs,” she says, wobbling. Haccadine helps her to the foot of the staircase then takes a heavy seat on the bottom step. He sets his gun in his lap and watches the front door as Z worms her way up to the second floor on knees and elbows.
Elias sighs deeply before gesturing Ebenezer into the kitchen. They put a kettle on, and after a minute or two, Eben breaks the silence between them to ask, “Hopeful?”
Elias tilts his head gently to one side. “If the injuries we attended to are the only injuries to worry about, then yes.” He presses his palms into the small of his back to work out a crick. “Unfortunately, there's a great deal to worry about. Bruising and bleeding in the brain, damage to her spine. Tremendous blood loss. Maybe a puncture in her torso that we didn't catch. She's fortunate, at least, to have avoided serious respiratory distress so far.” He pulls mugs down from a cupboard and rummages in a drawer for his tea ball. “This all assumes human physiology. I don't know what impact the low Improbability might have had on her – or how long she was in such an environment. Milk and sugar?”
Leaning heavily with his hands on the kitchen table, Ebenezer gives a grim nod to accept sugar and milk. It's not how he usually takes his tea, but it'd be unwise to pour black tea into his churning stomach. “Do-d-do-do you think it's hopeful?”
Elias mms meditatively and says nothing else.
Eben scowls back at him, as if it's Elias' fault. Several moments of silence pass. With a faint smile, Elias finally suggests, “We should all have something to eat.”
Ebenezer makes a short grunting-noise of agreement and eases halfway down to a chair before deciding he'd really rather not sit. “How long will it t-take, if she's going to-g-going to die?”
The kettle whines. Elias turns for it, pouring the water into a chipped teapot. He replaces the lid and says after a moment, “An hour, a week, a month. Thirty minutes. Who knows. If she doesn't succumb to shock or coma now, we could easily lose her to a blood clot or something else later.”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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“Brought your knifes back,” Zolotisty says to Spandex, laying it on her thigh before she gently grips an unbandaged section of Dex's arm. She's cool to the touch and her breath is shallow– small puffs as if she's only exhaling. A camera's motor buzzes gently in the silence of the room and Z looks up toward it as it turns to focus on her. She sees herself reflected in miniature in its lens and looks away, down at the wheels of the examining table.
“Tea, Zolo?” Elias calls from downstairs. “You should eat something.”
“Yeh,” she replies. Then, “Can you all come up here.”
It's a few minutes before they've all filed up – Ebenezer's almost as bad on the stairs as she is. Z storks on one foot beside Dex, watching them as they come in. Haccadine is stony-faced, tight-lipped. Ebenezer's tea is vibrating gently in its cup. Z gestures them closer, taking hold of Haccadine's sleeve when he's within arm's length. Fast understanding sparks in Elias' eyes. He turns away to gather a supply bag, making them wait, then sets a hand on Haccadine's shoulder before reaching to steady Eben's elbow.
Z pulls and a swell of sudden vertigo nearly forces her to drop them in some slanted sideways place between the Dip and Yaksi.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 |
AUTHORITY: NETWORK | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION
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DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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Emerging from the breakroom with a handful of fairy bread, Simpert wolfs a bite from one piece and sends nonpareils pittering to the floor as Stasi Godard goes striding past him, heels clicking ominously on the floor. He pinches his tongue between his molars as he swallows and looks after her.
“Ooh, the dragon's left her cave,” another camera operator says with a smirk as she edges out beside him. “She looked angry, too.”
“Mmn,” Simpert replies. He frowns, brushing more nonpareils from his shirt. It's unusual to see Godard in the corridors, much less on this floor.
In the editing suite, Terry is feverishly, fruitlessly switching between cameras. “Where did they go.” She knows she won't find anything. They're gone. Her voice is a hair away from cracking into a scream. “Where did that whorebitch mongrel take them? Where did they go?”
Lacey doesn't toggle her cameras. The relentless chakts of Terry's switches tell her everything she needs to know about the futility of it. She leans back in her chair, feeling a bit numb, then looks toward Cooper. “Do you think they'll come back anytime soon?”
The door slams open and Cooper swivels his chair to it, relieved that Simpert can answer the question for him, and Cooper, the most unflappable personality in the room second only to Ogilvy, almost springs a hair-ribbon when Stasi Godard steps into the room.
Everyone turns, following his gaze to her. Terry ceases her tantrum, though she can't quit her trembling. Even though he's never met her in person, Monroe recognizes her from the headshot in her bi-weekly e-messages; he stands automatically.
“Good afternoon, ma'am,” Ogilvy speaks before any of the others can. “What a pleasant surprise! Did we have a meeting?” ” Her face falls in faux-shock– she knows damn well there was no meeting. As Godard takes stock of the room, Ogilvy tries to get a look at what's on the lone sheet of paper in her hand, but is unable to make out anything but digital print.
Cooper reaches for the master feed switch, currently live on a feed of the empty examining room in the Dip. He can almost feel Ogilvy twisting his fingers on the dial to queue up some activity from earlier, but recalling his words of advice for Spandex to take 'em all down earlier, he decides to responds to Lacey's question instead. “Could be days, Catherine. Depends if Spandex is dead or not.”
Godard's gaze falls from the screens, identical to those she was just viewing in her office, to the singular empty chair in the room. “Shall I wait for Matthew Simpert, or does someone want to go find him?”
“Terry, would you be so kind?” Ogilvy's attempt at courteous authority isn't nearly as convincing as her superior's.
Uncharacteristically quiet and compliant, Terry vacates her chair and exits the suite. While she's gone they all sit silent, still, uncomfortable. The door creeps open again several minutes later and both Terry and Simpert slip in. Simpert fumbles through an awkward apology before taking his seat.
“We're closing this down immediately,” Godard says, wasting no time. “Security is on its way up to escort you home. You'll be contacted by a Human Resources representative to arrange a meeting with a team from the Compliance Commission. There are a lot of questions to be answered, including why you have all continued with this quite elaborate ruse regarding missing contestant footage when your camera installation request for the dwelling at 21, 7 was fulfilled months ago.” She lifts the paper; proof. “Gather your things.”