Rewired: Project Insula

Chapter 4

Meera stared blankly at the worn down concrete wall in front of her, her eyes swollen and red. She was staring but not looking. Her mind trailing off into the nothingness that often-followed sorrow and despair.

It had been 5 hours since she saw her friend and three others, brutally killed and torn apart in front of her, and now she was imprisoned in a small dark room, normally kept free for suspects. It was completely silent, and if it wasn't for the occasional sniffle from Meera's running nose, she probably would have begun going insane around now.

Meera was sat at a long metal table, her hands down by her lap, grabbing at each other in a frenzied pattern. Too her right was a long spotless mirror and in front of her a large metal door with a black tinted window running down the length of it. The three tubular lightbulbs stood above shining bright downwards and reflecting up on the table's surface. Meera had noticed a constant flickering at first, but as her tears began to dry and her eyes adjust to the room, the flickering stopped.

Now she was just sat with no more thoughts or emotion, just the action of sniffling through her nose and the infrequent blinking of her eyelids.

Following a sniffle and a crack of a thumb, the metal door began ticking. After a few seconds, in entered a man Meera had never seen before. He walked in and closed the door behind him before sitting down at the table opposite her.

He sat without saying anything nor looking at Meera, and removed a bag from his shoulders and placed it in front of them on the table. His gaze finally met Meera, but hers did not meet his. She was still staring, but not looking, at the worn down concrete wall.

The man put his hands together like he was going to blow through a blade of grass and swallowed.

“I am sorry that you were placed in here like a criminal Meera.” The man said shaking his head. He was extremely well spoken, and his voice sounded sweet and soft, invulnerable to the echo that the small room caused.

“I told them to place you somewhere comfortable and wait for my arrival. I will be having words with your superiors.” He continued with a sternness in his voice.

His hands lowered to his lap and he let out a deep sigh.

Meera slowly turned her head towards the man and got to see him for the first time. He looked young, maybe 18 or 19, he had remarkably small eyes, and seemed to have a natural grin plastered across his face. His tie lived around 3 inches south of his undone top shirt button, and he wore an old tan suit jacket that hung over his slim shoulders.

“Meera, my name is Daniel Green. Before I explain who I am, I want to try and ensure that I don't want to cause any other trauma or negative emotion towards you. I am not here to question you or accuse you, I am here to help you.” He said calmly and in a way, that was remarkably reassuring.

“And when I say ‘help’, I mean to actually help.” He continued using inverted commas with his fingers.

Even though Meera was absolutely broken inside right now, his words slowly soothed her, and made her come back to Earth from the pit less void she had been in. When she arrived back, she began crying again, reliving the awful things that happened in front of her at the Hospital.

Meera cried for around 10 minutes, before turning her cries into sobs of sharp inhales and long exhales. The man was completely silent throughout this outburst.

When Meera began to calm down again, the man spoke again.

“My name is Daniel Green, and I am here today to answer any questions at all you have right now. I know all too well the power of venting after a tragedy, especially to someone who has most of the correct answers.” He said.

Meera swallowed back as much of her sobbing as she could and rubbed her eyes. She looked up at Daniel and tried to muster up a sentence, but couldn't.

“Don't worry Meera, it's not important that you talk to me yet. What's important is that you begin to feel better. This is something that cannot be rushed so don't force yourself to do anything. Would you like some Green Tea? You are probably dehydrated from all of the crying.”

The word ‘dehydration’ sent a sharp pain through Meera's head, almost as though it reminded her body of its current state. She nodded her head slowly, keeping her water filled eyes fixated on Daniel's face.

“See, a lot of people say that tea makes dehydration worse. I say rubbish. This will make you feel much better, without a doubt.”

Daniel reached into his bag and pulled out a stainless-steel vacuum flask, and two cups. He poured the tea into a cup and slid it over to Meera, he then poured the tea into another cup and took a sip.

“It's at a drinkable temperature.” He said smiling.

Meera stared into the cup and trailed off for a few seconds, before picking it up and shakily raising it to her mouth. She took a big gulp and swallowed.

“I would have offered you some bottled water, however I wouldn't want to drink something plain and cold when I was upset. Green Tea, I have found works in just about any situation.” He said proudly.

Meera held the cup in her hands and smiled. “It's good” she said huskily.

She felt awful for smiling. How could she smile after what she had just seen? The smile quickly left her face and she began staring off again, this time towards the floor.

Daniel moved his head to meet Meera's gaze. “You don't need to feel so self-conscious” he said.

Meera looked straight again, looking back at Daniel.

“You are absolutely entitled to smile after a tragedy. It shows great strength.”

“How can I smile? After.. after everything that happened?” Her voice began croaking with grief.

Daniel frowned.

“I… I could have stopped it all from happening” she continued, her voice breaking more and more.

“Meera, what happened, happened. You owe nothing to this sorrow, so stop honouring it.” Daniel was becoming slightly sterner, but his voice still helped Meera calm down with every well pronounced and softly spoken syllable.

“When you smiled, did your love for Rhys diminish? Or did you simply see a glimmer of blue sky beyond the darkness?” He continued.

At the mention of Rhys's name, Meera's eyes filled up again with water, but she bit down on her bottom lip to compose herself.

“Sorry. I know it must pain to hear his name.”

“Yeah, it does.” Meera said, taking another sip of her tea.

“What happened?” she said suddenly, placing her cup back on the table and her hands in her lap. “How did this man do what he did? Why did he?”. Her voice was now slightly clearer, but quiet, as if she was across the room from Daniel and not sat in front of him.

Daniel looked down at the table and inhaled deeply.

“I don't know for sure yet.” Daniel sounded wounded by these words.

“I can tell you that this is not a normal attack, not that you didn't already know that, but I can absolutely confirm that.”

Meera closed her eyes and nodded.

“I work similarly as you, as a detective.” He continued. “My work is conducted under a private agency called Barrier, and we work to investigate worldwide attacks that may be linked with each other. You work with cases that may be linked together in a certain place, we operate with linked cases that span across the world.”

“So this has happened before?”

“It has. In South America 4 times, Germany twice and here in England just once.”

Meera's eyes widened.

“How do you know they are related?” She asked shocked.

Daniel removed a tablet from his bag and placed it in the middle of the table.

“The attacks began 2 months ago in Argentina.” He said, opening an Argentinian news article, translated to English.

“The attacker was a homeless lady called Lluvia Milano. She killed 9 people in a clothing shop, before being shot 12 times in the chest, 4 times in the face and once into her head. The last shot to the head killed her.”

Meera suddenly thought back to the man at the Hospital staring at her with half his face blown off. It gave her chills from the top of her head down to her buttocks.

“I won't waste any more of your time with this, however I will tell you this. All cases after this, involved a homeless person, disgustingly brutal killings and near invincibility on the attacker's part.”

Daniel put the tablet back into his bag, and placed the bag on the floor. “Meera, the man that attacked you.” Daniel paused.

“His name was Thomas Jack, he has been homeless living on the streets of London for 14 years.”

Although she had never heard that name before, hearing it made her feel sick to her stomach. She closed her eyes and gulped down an awful feeling in her throat. She quickly took a sip of tea to compose herself again.

“A new drug? A political movement?” Meera asked quickly, as to take her mind off the sick feeling.

She thought it would be the latter, online movements often caused terror attacks, and homeless people would be a good target for something like that.

Daniel shrugged and sat back in his chair, converting his posture to a more relaxed style.

“The attacks could definitely be spurred on by a political ideology yes, however it's the post mortems that have stumped me on making any progress.”

Daniel leaned forward and filled his cup with more tea, and then gestured towards Meera. She shook her head almost impatiently, waiting for him to continue.

“There are absolutely no traces of any type of drug that could alter the human body in this way. 1 of the attackers who killed 19 people in Germany, you may have heard something on the news, his heart was destroyed 20 minutes before he was killed, and he carried on mauling people like an animal.”

The sick feeling reappeared in Meera's stomach ferociously. She clenched a fist and put it over her mouth.

“Sorry, are you squeamish?” Daniel asked concerned.

“No, it's not that. Just seems so… unrealistic, right?” She said moments after swallowing another sickly lump.

“Well it's happening… That's for sure.” Daniel replied before falling to silence.

The conversation reached a natural pause. Meera had stopped sniffling and sobbing, and seemed to be slightly more level headed now. Daniel was right, he had helped her somehow. But what could he want from her? He wasn't the one asking the questions, she was, and he had made it clear that he didn't want to ask her any questions.

“Meera.” Daniel said, breaking the silence and disrupting Meera's thoughts.

“I need someone to help me on this case.” He continued bluntly.

Meera glanced into Daniel's eyes and sensed a hint of vulnerability. This made her uneasy.

“It's impossible to find a partner to work this case with me, because nobody believes in me or the case. Like you said it's too unrealistic.” He began to trail off.

“You were there Meera, you saw it first-hand. And I can just about say with absolute certainty that as a young aspiring detective, you would like nothing more than to find out what did this. What caused this trauma to your mind, and what was it that…” He paused and bit his bottom lip to stop the flow of words.

“Say it.” Meera said through her teeth.

“That killed Rhys.” Daniel said sympathetically.

Meera had to put her thumb and finger on the sides of her eyes to process what was happening.

“What about the other witnesses?” She asked. She knew the answer to this, it was clear that because she was a detective who was motivated to work on big cases, she would be the perfect candidate. She believed in the case of course, she saw how the man ripped apart Rhys like a paper bag with her own eyes. And did she want to find out why it happened? Of course, but it felt wrong for her to want that.

“I think you know why I want you Meera, I explained it pretty well.” He said, seeing directly through her question.

He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small business card.

“I don't expect you to make a decision today, tomorrow or even this week. Sleep on it, take your time, and make sure you recover.” He said handing her the black card.

On it read

BARRIER

Lead Detective – Daniel Green

Touch to call

Always available

Meera took the card and looked at him. “Thanks Daniel. Thanks for your help.” She said appreciatively.

“I spoke to your boss too. Inspector Triller is it? He wants you to take the next two weeks off.

"

"He knows of my proposal.” He stood up and picked his bag off the floor.

“He doesn't agree, due to your personal attachment to the case, but he understands.” He swung the bag over his shoulder.

“He's a good man Meera, he likes you a lot.”

Daniel walked over to the door leading out of the room.

“I like you a lot too. Think about what I said.”

He opened the door letting in the artificial yellow of the station corridor and turned his head back over to Meera.

“I'm sorry for what happened. I'll be available to talk whenever you need too.” Daniel turned back away from Meera, and walked off into the light.

Silent tears ran down Meera's cheeks as she found herself alone again. Triller appeared at the open door and stood there with a gloomy expression. “Come on young lady, let's get you home.”