Fall of the Archangel

5. The Blocks Fall into Place

Josephine sat at her table in the station. He had got away from her. After the computer terminal exploded, by the time the smoke cleared she found a neat hole in the floor and no sign of the man in the coat. She also failed to gather any information from the main terminal. Whatever he had done, there was no finding out what it was. The commissioner looked at her like she was a lunatic when she explained the story and told her to go easy on the sleeping pills.

'Nobody even knows where the Archangel is kept. Give it a rest will you.'

Stupid moron didn't realise how serious the situation was. And it wasn't like she had any proof. She had no idea what his plan was and was no closer to finding out how the truck, hospital and power plant were related. So in desperation she looked through police records to find any similar incidents.

She had almost given up when an unsolved case caught her eye. The only contraceptives producing factory in the city had been broken into. The culprit was never caught but since factory authorities insisted nothing was damaged the whole case was closed. The culprit was never caught. That sounded a lot like something the man in the coat would do. The only thing was the date was exactly 9 months ago, 31st March 2116. Nowadays contraceptives had very short expiry dates, around 1 day. In order to prevent people from using expired devices, they were produced on a daily basis and people were encouraged to buy them on the day they were intending to use them. Advanced genetic treatment had also allowed babies to be born exactly 9 months after they were conceived and during the night most of the time for some reason involving the time it takes to fertilise the ovum. . The man did say his plan had been in motion for a long time. Exactly how was this related to the other incidents? Before she could do anything a younger officer came into the room.

'Madam, I heard you were investigating the nitrogen truck accident. Well a weird fact just came by. When the Weather Department did its weekly survey of the river they found that the riverbed was torn up,' he said.

'What?'

'Apparently according to the scans some optic fibres were stolen. We couldn't replace them because the river was still frozen.'

So he had stolen optic fibres too. How had he done it with the river frozen? Unless.... He had already stolen them and froze the river to cover it up. But why? The police would have found about the theft eventually. How did freezing the river help?

'What were they for?' she asked him.

'They were a backup line for the Archangel. For some reason he didn't attack the main line.'

'Where did the line lead to?'

'That is classified information, but they did pass directly under many buildings including the Michael Building. I only bring this up because the line which passed through the hospital also passed under the multiple buildings but the only common building they passed under was the Michael building. Odd isn't it?'

Odd indeed. The Michael building was owned by a big business company. It wasn't exactly in the centre of the city so it was odd that two major Archangel optic fibre lines passed under it. Immediately she brought up all information regarding the other incidents. She wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for.

A few minutes later Josephine let out a gasp of shock. The truck carrying the liquid nitrogen was to deliver its load to the Michael building. The building which used the most power from the power plant was the Michael building. And the Mar River passed directly beside the Michael Building. All of the incidents with the exception of the contraceptive factory incident were somehow related to the Michael building. She turned to talk to the officer. In her haste she knocked over the Bible which was kept on her desk in the station. She bent down to pick it up. As she picked it up one phrase caught her eye. The Archangel Michael. Michael was the name of an archangel. In that moment she realised she knew where the Archangel was kept. The incidents were far from random. They were strategically aimed to strike at the Michael Building. She stood up and screamed

'Commissioner!'

At that exact moment the power went out. The whole station was plunged into darkness.as the rest of the police officers panicked and attempted to grasp the reality of the situation, Josephine ran to the top of the police building. All across the city she saw cars coming to a standstill. When she looked further she saw that the buildings that controlled the automated cars had all gone dark. Furthermore all private hospitals had gone dark as well. The only hospital that was still bright was the general hospital. More buildings like the stock exchange, IT offices and basically half the city had gone dark. Only the Michael Building still shone as bright as ever. In that moment her worst fear was confirmed. He knew where the Archangel was too. And he had decided to strike. She ran back down into the station. The inside of the station was complete chaos. She shouted,

'ALL OF YOU, CALM DOWN!'

Everyone in the station froze.

'I know what is happening. All the incidents over the past week are linked. They are all the act of one man. Even this is part of his plan. He intends to destroy the Archangel. We need to stop him.'

The commissioner turned to her

'You know what is happening?'

'Yes sir.'

'Then tell me what you need to stop him. We'll handle the rest of the city.'