THE SLIDE PART 2

Chapter 21 | Wound-Up, Wound-Down, present & past

A Fantasy / Mystery-Thriller / Drama

“Do you know who you are?” the older white-haired man with wrinkled olive skin looked down into the brown eyes of the young man of twenty-four swathed in sand stained whitish cloth reminiscent of Bedouin garb.

“Oui,” said the young man.

The Writ, Maneuvering, and An Investigation

Ra officially filed the writ under an obscure and arcane principle in the military code of justice. Governor Truffaut, the Judge and Ra met for six hours to discuss the writ and what should be done. After the deliberation, both sides felt they had higher ground in the matter.

Two forensic teams were brought in to determine the cause of the explosion by order of the writ. One was a three-person civilian team from Paris and the other was an eight-person team of an elite military division. Both teams ascertained that the explosive device buried in the castle wall was many hundreds of years old and that the alleged fire from Farha’s mouth could not have set off the explosion. The civilian team reported that there was inconclusive evidence that the explosive materials had been deliberately exploded and may have been accidental. The military team said a deeper investigation was warranted.

Ra had initiated another part of his plan. Two lawyers from the Union of the East and West Confederacies Human Rights division arrived and headed Farha’s defense team. One of the two lawyers was an expert in military laws and codes, while the other was famous for many successful cases under a Human Rights bailiwick.

Three of the Scarlet Service

“It appears we lost that round,” Spy-Clerk A said.

“I disagree. Now we can use Ra to our advantage and push for a confession,” Spy-Clerk Zed said puffed-up with himself.

“We shall see,” Spy-Clerk Q said. “Besides, if she cannot remember, what is there to confess?”

“Ra has opened a door for her to remember,” Spy-Clerk Zed said.

“Yes,” Spy-Clerk A ventured tentatively. “Oh yes, this is a righteous path of thinking. Interrogation!”

“He is having one of his infamous gut-feelings,” Zed said to Q.

Six Months After the Death of Sophie — The Past

Tem and Farha were focused on the new scans from the satellite. Both of them built a device that Nikos had described only once to Farha. It was built from a holographic device that Farha had found at the observation post where she, Sofia, and Tee had been setting up cameras and telescopes. By tweaking the raw feeds, they stole bits of the spectrographic data and reconstructed them on a 3-D table to get glimpses into the Slide.

By the end of the work session almost twenty-four hours later and they locked the copied scans in the safe and brought the originals with them. Lieutenant Elise Dubinaire was waiting for them. Without many words, they followed her to the entrance to the fort to a line of three E-cars. She opened the door to the limousine.

“Come in, come in,” it was Marie Bissett, now promoted to Adjunct General. They exchanged pleasantries and some gossip. Gossip: General Bayard had been placed under arrest and was awaiting a court martial. He escaped — but his escape was a vanishing act that could not be explained.

Tem and Farha were bursting with excitement about the enhanced results of new data from within the Slide.

“I would keep that to yourselves for as long as possible,” Bissett said.

“Why?” Farha asked.

She wrote on a small scrap of paper and showed it to Tem and Farha. It read: “SS”. Tem nodded.

“What? What?”

“I will explain later,” Tem said as Marie ate the note.

“I have results from the investigation in Paris. These two sheets are my synopsis of what the police believed happened. Please destroy the sheets when you’re done. Good luck.”

The next day in the lab, they talked in sporadic mathematical code about what the report concluded about Sophie’s death.

It confirmed what Farha had thought, that Sophie’s death was not suicide, nor was it accidental. The actors that had done the deal were obscured, as if they never existed: ghosts.

Interrogation — Wearing Her Down, Present Time

A civilian team was brought in to join the military team in questioning Farha. Still, there were secret interrogations within the methods of the civilian team. In addition, two SS operatives interrogated her ruthlessly in the dead of night and at the edge of dreamtime.

After three weeks of relentless questioning and interrogation, Farha collapsed from exhaustion and the inquiry was postponed for two weeks and the interrogations put on hold.

Q, A, and Zed of the Scarlet Service believed they were closer to their goals of exposing the truth they wanted to hear, while Ra fell into doubt.

Ra dreamed deeply, but when it came time to step through a portal into the dreamtime, he found himself stuck and unable to cross. Upon awakening, he sobbed openly. He felt deeply frustrated, rent open with grief and stabbed by the forces of envy from without.

In meditation, he identified the feelings he had felt as a boy in the great salt flats at the edge of the shallow sea of Indu. Three miles out into the Sea of Indu where the depths increased to eleven feet, he encountered him. It was the spirit of a black and white dolphin. The ancient spirit of this dolphin swallowed the boy and swam into the depths of that sea. The deeper the creature plunged, the more stuck with frustration and grief the boy felt. When the creature reached the bottom of nine miles deep, the spirit of the being exploded and created a space for the boy within a lavender colored atmosphere.

I am Orca, the dolphin said, And, you are Ra.

Ra was immediately transported into dreamtime, where he saw Farha on the border of ordinary dreams and dreamtime.

Ra stood next to her in his own dreamtime and asked aloud inside her dream, “Do you know you are dreaming?”

Farha exhaled, feeling immense relief and said, “I do now.”

Dreamtime opened for her and she stepped in. “I have something to tell you, Ra.”

Yes. I am here for you. Ra’s thought filled her with a soft embrace.

“I killed him. I killed Uncle Tem,” she said.

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