“Higgins,” Rembrandt said hesitantly, “can I get the address of Billy Colbert please…”
He glanced at Quinn, who was looking back with pursed lips.
“Name not found in current county,” Higgins stated, emotionless. “Search elsewhere?”
“No, no. Uh… can I get the address of William Colbert?”
“William Jefferson Colbert resides at: Four. Hundred. Nine. West Sixth Street. Confirm GPS Navigation.”
“Uh, yes.”
And so, Higgins directed them to the house. Remy was a bit stressed with how slow Higgins was to tell him when to turn, but the streets were quiet enough for it not to be an issue, since it was the early hours of a Friday morning.
Finally, they pulled up, and climbed out of the squad car into the crisp night air.
“How do you think he’ll take us showing up at one in the morning?” Quinn said, scratching his head.
Remy shook his head. “Don’t know, but if he’s got Maggie we can’t wait til the sun’s up.”
Quinn gave him a pensive look. “Yeah. But, you don’t think he does have her, do you?”
Rembrandt folded his arms. “There’s barely a chance he knew we were stayin’ at the motel, you know? And it was awful convenient that Colin didn’t see who hit him.”
“You think Maggie would be capable of hitting Colin in the head like that?”
Remy could tell he wasn’t talking about her physical capability. But this Maggie didn’t know Colin from a bar of soap, and the Maggie they knew had changed a lot since their first encounter when she’d held them at gunpoint.
“The Maggie we first met? Sure.”
Quinn looked thoughtful. “Hmm. I guess you’re right.”
The pair headed for the door. It was a nicer house than Maggie’s, and Remy figured it must have been the home Billy and Maggie were living in as a married couple.
He got the better house, but he still won’t leave her alone. Slimeball.
He glanced around as Quinn pressed the doorbell button, followed by a couple of knocks.
Moments passed. Rembrandt was about to try knocking harder, when a noise behind the door stopped him.
The door swung open, and Billy looked at them through confused, groggy eyes. It seemed clear he’d just awoken from sleep.
“Who the hell are you?” he grumbled.
Remy exchanged a glance with Quinn.
“We’re here on behalf of Maggie,” Remy said, suddenly unsure of what they were even supposed to say right now.
“Oh god, I did something stupid when I was drunk, didn’t I?” Billy said, palm on his forehead. He looked from one man to the other. “It musta been bad, but bad enough for her to sick some goons on me in the middle of the night?”
“We’re not goons…” Quinn said, indignant.
“Look man, we need to ask you some questions,” Rembrandt said finally, and gestured towards the squad car in the hopes of making the two of them seem less random.
“You’re cops?” Billy said, eyeing their plain clothes.
“I’m Detective Mallory, and this is my colleague Detective Brown,” Quinn said, improvising, and making nervous eye contact with Rembrandt.
“We, uh, didn’t have time to put on suits,” Remy said, feeling his cheeks burn.
“You know the longer you wait to find a missing person, the lower the chances of finding them alive,” Quinn said.
“Whoa, whoa,” Billy said, holding up his hands. “Who’s missing?”
“Maggie’s missing,” Rembrandt said, trying his best to sound threatening. “And you were tryin’ to bust her door in just last night.”
Billy was sweating now. “Man, I don’t even remember doing that. I was wasted. I swear I haven’t seen her since.”
“What else don’t you remember, I wonder?” Quinn said, raising his eyebrows.
“Look, I swear. If something happened to Maggie, I’d wanna catch whoever did it too. I’ll even let you in my house to search without a warrant. I didn’t do squat. You’ll find nothing but empty whiskey bottles.”
Remy and Quinn exchanged a glance, and pushed past Billy to conduct this consensual search.
“I’m serious,” Billy said, “I wouldn’t do something like this, swear to God. I still love that bitch.”
“Yeah, sure sounds like you care a lot,” said Remy flatly, rolling his eyes, and turning on the ceiling lights of the living room as Quinn started inspecting.
* * *
Sam didn’t know how long he’d been typing at this point, but he knew his hands were aching like they used to get when he’d been practising his piano for hours as a kid.
Al was looking completely bored, and half asleep. He was sitting on a chair he’d hauled into the Imaging Chamber, and he had the finished pages slung over his shoulder. It was hard to tell how far Sam was into the transcription; the pile on the floor was certainly smaller than it had been at the start, but it was still thick. He didn’t want to think about how much longer this would take. Quinn would need to help him check it for mistakes, which would mean going through every line over again. At least his photographic memory would make it easy for him to spot discrepancies, he figured. Then again, there were so many lines that were near identical, and he was getting quite fatigued.
He rubbed his eyes for a moment, before continuing his work.
Behind him, he heard feet shuffling. A quick glance told him Colin was up and about.
“Hi there,” he said, pausing his typing, and turning to meet Colin’s eye. “How are you feeling now?”
“Better,” he said with a tilt of his head that suggested he was still assessing. He fingered the bandage around his head. “This thing is tight.”
Sam stood. “Want me to loosen it for you?”
Colin nodded, and Sam gestured for him to sit on one of the stools beside him. He did so, facing towards Al, who was yawning.
“What are you lookin’ at, kid?” Al said with a glare, as if Colin could see him.
Then, Sam jumped as Colin answered: “N-nothing…”
Al and Sam looked at each other, startled, then to Colin.
“You can see me?” Al stiffened, suddenly looking quite vulnerable. The paper rustled as he shifted in his seat.
Sam stood, moving to Colin’s side, and watched Colin squinting at Al.
“A little…” Colin said, and rubbed his eyes. “You’re like a… a ghost. Are you Al?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Sam said, marvelling.
Colin reached out to Al, and passed his hand through him. “So I’m not seeing things, you’re really there?”
“He is,” Sam confirmed, and stroked his chin. “Usually he can only be seen by animals, very young children, and people with some mental disorders that have rewired their brains.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen an apparition like this,” Colin said thoughtfully, and looked up at Sam. “Does that mean I have a mental disorder?”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist. But you do have a concussion…”
Al urgently tapped on his handlink. After a couple of chirps from Ziggy, he looked up at Sam.
“Ziggy says the head trauma may have caused his neurons to temporarily rearrange. Either that or, it knocked something loose that was already there.”
Sam remembered what he was doing, and moved to loosen the bandage.
As he did, Colin grunted.
“Oh, did I hurt you?”
“No… it’s just, he’s gone. When you loosened it… he went away.”
Sam met Al’s eye with surprise. He tightened the bandage again.
“Ouch. Yeah, I see him again. Tighten it more.”
Sam pulled the bandage as tight as he could, and Colin winced.
“Oh, it’s like the more painful it is, the better I can see him,” he said. “Uh… can you just put it back to how it was before?”
Sam obliged. “Are you sure you don’t want it loosened more? If it hurts, I–”
“No, I still want to see him. It didn’t hurt so much.”
Sam nodded. “Well, I guess you two can have a chat while I work.”
Al thought for a moment. “Hey, how ’bout I get Maggie in here? I promised her I’d let her see you anyway.”
Colin grinned. “You can do that?”
“You bet your skinny butt I can,” he said, and tapped on the handlink.
He talked into it: “Gooshie, would you escort our guest in here for me?”
* * *
Maggie was fast asleep when a short man with rancid breath tapped on her shoulder. Alarmed, she scrambled into a defensive position.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the man said with an apprehensive stutter. “Admiral Calavicci asked me to come get you… so you can see your friend.”
Maggie lowered her guard at this.
“Right now?”
The man nodded, his eyes apologetic. “He says you’ll see when you get there. I don’t know anything about it, but please… come.”
Maggie nodded. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Uh, call me Gooshie. I’m just the programmer.”
He pressed a button on a wrist device, and the door opened.
“Programmer? Don’t tell me you made Ziggy.”
“I had a part in it, yes,” he said, looking proud of himself. This made Maggie rethink the snarky comment she had lined up.
“Well, she sure is… something,” was all she could bring herself to say.
“Yes, she sure is,” Gooshie said wistfully, as he escorted her towards the Imaging Chamber.
As she walked through the corridors, she passed a few strangers who were all staring at her. Some were watching her to see if she made a break for it, but others were looking at her with interest.
It struck her that she had no clue what time of day it was.
“What time is it?”
“’Bout eight at night,” Gooshie said.
“Jeez, doesn’t anyone here have lives outside this place?”
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “But the time of day where Sam is could be any time, so a lot of us just kind of spend most of our time here, in case we’re needed.”
Maggie was reminded of Quinn, who’d admitted fairly recently to feeling restless during vacation time. Maggie just nodded in response to Gooshie’s explanation; she wasn’t in a position to judge, since her boredom in the Waiting Room was making her absolutely stir-crazy.
The Imaging Chamber door slid open with a mechanical whoosh, and Maggie stepped inside. Al was sitting in the white abyss, on a chair, seemingly buried in computer paper. It made her giggle to see the strange sight, and he turned around with a raised eyebrow. She could see he was quite tired.
“Good, you’re here,” he said, and held out his hand. She excitedly grabbed it, and watched the scene flicker into view. The same kitchen she’d visited before, with Sam tapping at a keyboard, and Colin, a bandage on his head… making eye contact with her.
“Maggie!” He said, with a big smile. Maggie glanced down at Al.
“I thought you said they couldn’t see me?”
“Seems I can after this knock to the cranium,” Colin said, pointing at the back of his head. His gaze shifted back and forth between her and Al, and he made a pointing motion. “I can see you a lot more clearly than him…”
“Really?” Sam said, though he was still engaged in his typing. Maggie wondered how he could have a split attention like that.
Al tapped at his handheld device, and Maggie watched as it flickered with colourful lights and made a whirring sound.
Al spoke slowly as he parsed the words: “Ziggy says the… matching quantum energy attached to you two means that Maggie will naturally be more… too…”
He knocked on the top of the gadget. “Tuned in to your brain waves. I don’t get it, but that’s why she’s the supercomputer and I’m the handsome mug with a cigar.”
“It’s great to see you, Colin,” Maggie said. “Just wish I could give you a hug.”
“Probably wouldn’t be the best for my headache,” Colin said, giving her a pained smile, “but the feeling’s mutual.”
Al’s device gave a chirp, and he sighed. “Gonna have to let go, Ziggy says the power drain’s too high.”
Maggie groaned. “This is such a tease!”
Al let her hand drop, and the world faded from view. She crossed her arms.
She noticed Al was listening intently to something, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“What?! That’s impossible!” he said, incredulous.
“What is it?” asked Maggie. Al looked up at her, eyes wide.
“He says he still sees you.”