The Hidden Web

9. Hatching a Plan

Richard was shattered, it had been a non-stop evening on his feet, he pretty much collapsed onto the green sofa in the staff room. Suddenly he remembered the tablet, he bolted up and checked behind the noticeboard, the tablet screen was on and had an envelope symbol displayed. Richard tapped it and it animated a letter coming out of it, the letter then unfolded and text appeared "Your invite to Operation Afino - Go to spaceport 4 on Thursday 28th at 19:30 Hrs."

It was last orders and Rebecca and Terry and spent the night chatting away, they had almost forgotten what brought them here. Richard came out with the same troubled look they had entered the pub with. "Here's your charger, thanks again." "You okay?" Terry asked. Richard burst like a dam, out came these words which he had no control over "I found a tablet near my daughter's house last night and that's what I needed the charger for" "I left it to charge and when I came back it had a cryptic message and I don't know what it means or what to do with it."

The words trickled up and he felt himself return to normal. There was a beat of silence then Terry found himself talking "The other day I found these glasses at the hospital, where you can see a casino through the lens and it displays 0 Minutes in the left corner..." He looked up at Rebecca and stopped himself.

Another beat of silence then Rebecca found herself talking "Well Terry, I found that our department might have a different name - Government Life Debt Unit.. maybe the countdown in the corner was his life debt" Rebecca's eyes lit up "I can ask to look at the evidence from that case Terry. It will take a few days but it might give us something to go on."

"Or...."and Terry tried not to look at Rebecca "I might have them in my house" Rebecca looked stunned "I'm sorry, I was so confused with what I saw and I found myself changing the glasses" Richard could feel the tension "I'm confused as well Terry, none of this makes sense." Rebecca finally spoke "I went into the office and stole some files...I understand Terry, I just didn't except you to do anything like that, nor for me to do what I did, this mystery is driving us all to do things we wouldn't normally do." The three of them looked at each other, "So what now?" Richard asked.

Zack was making maximum use of cruise control, he needed to make sure the fuel lasted all the way home. As it slowly crept down, he could feel the fear growing, he switched to gliding mode for the last few hours to eke every morsel of fuel. As the landing area appeared on the horizon, the fuel was down to 0.7%. He steered toward the circular building, as he approached nearer, the wind was getting stronger and he was fighting with the steering to get it level. He went to switch the engine back on but it chocked out.

"We can meet here tomorrow night at closing time, 'll bring the files, you bring the glasses Terry, you bring the tablet Richard and were collate all the information we have" Rebecca declared. Suddenly a massive boom echoed around the town, all three of them ran out the pub to see a plume of smoke in the distance. It was as high as the tallest skyscraper "Something happened near the docks" Rebecca's phone pinged with a message "Code 99 – Docks" then Terry phone did the same "Code 99 – Attend work immediately." "We've got to go, were keep you updated" Rebecca said as calmly as she could.