Tale of The Broken Sword

Chapter Twelve : Warren Clyde

22nd September, AD 2056

Advanced Research and Development Commission Headquarters,

Downtown District, Detroit

I hadn’t slept well. It’s been two times I’d woken up, lathered in sweat. Twice, that dream has haunted me again and again. Each time, I was convinced it going to happen again. That dream. I still couldn’t believe why it happened to me in the first place. I had the same dream again and I heard Janice’s explanation, but part of me still hopes for another explanation that would stave off all the mysteries.

Entering into the hall of the Research Department, I strode through the marble flooring alone. Window after enormous window framed the buildings lush manicured lawns as I continued down the corridor. The sun still lingered at the edge of the horizon. Looking down at the dilapidated apartments across the luxurious avenue, I knew I was lucky enough to stay where I did, on the outskirts of the city.

Executives and skilled workers or even in some cases, successful unskilled ones lived in the posh villas along the Greenville Avenue. The rest of the population, who doesn’t work for private corporations or not in the highest of the corporate ladder, were made to live in the government-approved living quarters. I’ve seen the living quarters before –400 square feet per family and small, nimble apartments for lone workers.

Ahead of me lay another lengthy hallway, similarly identical to the where I’d I came from. I walked towards the Physics Testing Laboratory, where someone who’d asked Janice to inform me to see him in a moment. I stared at my watch as I walked through the huge hallway. It’s half an hour before the first meeting briefing in the Conference Room, so I had some time to browse through all the gadgets and equipments the department used for its research.

I reached at the laboratory just moments later. Thank God I had studied the map of the building the day before; otherwise getting lost here is not of my favourite list of spending my time wisely. I knocked the glass door of the lab; still no response came from within.

“Kelson?” A voice came from behind me. I turned around and saw a young man in his lab coat. It must be him. I shifted my view to his name tag. Clyde, Warren. The golden word engraved into the black tag emblazoned with the emblem of the ARDC.

“My name is Warren Clyde, but you can call me Warren.” He said.

“Yeah,” I shrugged.

“Come on in,” He approached the glass door and punched the code into the panel. A quick hiss of air sounded before the door opened by itself sliding into the wall alongside of it. “Make yourself at home.”

“This is your office place?” I asked.

“Yeah, whenever we had some new technology not known to us brought in to the country, Detroit’s the only place where we can reverse-engineer it and make it into like, you know, new stuff.”

“But isn’t the nation is upholding its closed-door policy?”

“Yeah, that’s why Australia is our only ally, and rest is well, doubtful ones. And these new technologies, was brought in illegally to the nation, not in the view of the United States of course, but the whole world. Making them sure that our government seemed to be unaware of it.” He placed his hand across the silvery machinery. “It’s a whole new system of espionage and black ops.”

Inside the room, I passed through rows of computers and bookshelves. Most of it contained books regarding about science and technology. Judging by its old and rusty looks, it doesn’t seemed to be the ones published in the current ’56 edition.

“Those are all the scientific books salvaged from the Library of Congress back in Washington D.C.” He interrupted. “It was a shame that most of them got burned during the Bombings. Because of it, all of our national research has been halted for a while. I guess it’s the same thing on the other nations.”