The Birth Mark - NaNoWriMo 2013

Six

© 2013 Laura Crean

Chaser was awoken by the beeping of his vid as it shuffled an incoming call into his calls waiting queue.  He opened one blurry eye and noted the time on the display – 10am, and remembered he had a vid conference with a Grief Councillor thanks to the interference of the Central Government run emotion monitor in the travel tube.  He pushed the ‘accept call’ button and to his surprise a rather beautiful young woman’s face rose out of the holographic emitter.  He sat up quickly and tried to tidy his bed hair whilst stammering “Oh you’re human!”

    “Thank you for noticing.”  The beautiful young councillor said smiling.  “If you need a little more time Mr Pennington we can schedule another appointment – I will quite understand considering the circumstances.”

    “No!  No!  It’s OK – I was just expecting a programmed hologram that was all.  If I had realised you were going to be a real life health professional I would have tidied myself up a bit.”

    “That’s quite OK Mr Pennington, really, it is quite natural for you to be lethargic and crave sleep.”

    “Call me Chaser – and I am not lethargic and craving sleep.  I just had a shock and overslept that’s all.”

The Councillor smiled and her whole face seemed to light up.

    “Mm…I believe that is what I said.”  She laughed, “In so many words.”  She cleared her throat and took out her vid and a vid pencil and wrote something on the pad.  Chaser leant forward to look closer at the holographic image.

    “What are you writing about me?”  He asked. 

    “Nothing for you to worry about Mr eh Chaser, did you say?  I thought your name was Charles Pennington!” 

    “Well my friends call me Chaser – you see I was adopted and my birth Mother wrote in a note that my name was actually Chaser Switch.” 

There was a rather awkward silence as the beautiful Councillor wrote this down on her vid screen and then she placed her vid down beside her.

    “A rather…eh unusual name wouldn’t you say?  It doesn’t really sound like a name more like an instruction.  Chaser became alert.

    “What do you mean?”

“Well Chaser Switch – it sounds like – chase - a - switch – doesn’t it?  Very strange!”  Chaser was stunned he hadn’t noticed this before.

    “Yes!  Yes I suppose it is a little strange.  Anyway I am quite well you know.  I really don’t need a grief councillor.  I had a shock.  The man that died was like a father to me and he looked after me and was a dear friend as well as the family butler even before my parents died.” 

The councillor’s eyes grew wide at this new piece of information. 

    “I see you have lost a lot of people in your life.  Do you have any family now that you are as close to as this father figure you just lost?”  Chaser shook his head.

    “No!  He was my family and any extended family I had, I never knew before my parents’ death and none of them ever cared to keep in contact after.  I lost contact with them and they all moved on  so…”

    “So you’re quite alone then Chaser?”  He nodded; a small tear escaped and trickled down his cheek, not unnoticed by the councillor.  “I see!  Well it must be very hard for you then to lose, eh Mr Philips was it?” 

Chaser was quick to realise he hadn’t told her Philips’ name,

    “I didn’t tell you his name!”  He said suspiciously.

    “I’m good at my job Chaser.  The emotion monitor automatically gives us all the info it has about you.  The monitor in the Travel tube and in the Seniors Degenerative Memory Unit accessed the relevant information and witnesses to question about your…episode.”

    “Oh!  How efficient!”  She smiled

    “Yes!  Yes it is!”

    “So you are not unlike a Detective then?”  She seemed to like that comparison and smiled,

    “I suppose you could say so yes!”

    “What is your name Councillor?  Or do I just call you Councillor?”  She laughed pleasantly and it seemed to cheer him up to hear her laugh.

    “I’m sorry I should have said earlier in the conversation.  My name is Charlotte but my friends call me Charlie.  Now shall we continue with the session?  You have been very deeply affected by Mr Philips’ death – quite natural as he was like a parent and dear friend to you.  You must learn to express your feelings of grief and work through each stage so that you can move on in an emotionally healthy way.”

Chaser felt better when the session was over and was happy to schedule in a weekly meeting with the very beautiful Charlie.  She left him feeling uplifted and ready to face the day.  He showered and dressed and then tried to access his work vid to see what case files had been uploaded for Monday – but he was surprised to find he was locked out and registered as on a leave of absence until Wednesday.  Oh the efficiency of the intrusive emotion monitors.  He thought glibly.  Then he turned his vid over, pushed his secret button, and sat down with a bowl of soup and crusty bread determined to get to the bottom of Philips’ Murder.  He retraced his search entries to find case #3202 but it wasn’t anywhere to be found - there was absolutely no sign of a case #3202.  There was #3201 and #3203 but no #3202.  What the hell is going on?  He mumbled under his breath.

Suddenly his vid screen went fuzzy and a message came through the holographic transmitter – it said – incoming blocked communication – this message is untraceable by Central Government!  Chaser dropped the vid onto the table, narrowly missing the soup and then a man he had never seen before in his life but who looked strangely familiar rose out of the transmitter and hovered in front of him bizarrely with his body seemingly rising out of the vid and table.

    “Agent Pennington I presume?”