…

X is for — Xanthic.  It’s the password, and to guess it, you have to know it’s yellow.  The one person who knew the code was murdered

…

I stood in front of the vault door, recently installed, that, when opened, led to what we called ‘Aladdin’s cave’.

It was, in reality, just that; the gateway to a new technology that was going to change the world, the brainchild of Augustus Beatony.

We were not exactly sure what that brainchild was, except that it was going to be the next evolution in artificial intelligence, and the company, or more to the point, the consortium of public and private enterprise entities, investment of nearly a trillion dollars had diligently paid for.

The launch would be in three days, where everyone would learn what it was.

My guess, after spending the last five years handling the accounts, with almost as much secrecy surrounding them as the project itself, was that it was a computer, but not just any computer.

Many had speculated, some said they knew but wouldn’t tell, but the truth was, no one was sure.  And Augustus Beatony was nowhere to be found to ask.

This development, discovered last evening when a delegation of reporters had arrived at the hall where Augustus was going to tantalise them, and us, with some non-specific details of what to expect, and found he had failed to arrive.

A search was instituted, people going to his residence, this university office, his work office, even his mistress’s residence, but no one had seen him.

The last anyone had was me.  Two days ago, outside this very door, he had a special password that he was not going to share with anyone.

Including me, his most trusted friend.

Apparently, I like everyone else, could not be trusted.

And rather alarmingly, he stated that he was the only one who knew the password.

No one else.  No one.

Aloysius Magreve, the man the government had appointed to oversee their interests in the project, and probably the only other person in the universe capable of understanding the technology, was standing next to me.

He had just expended a lot of energy and anger at the situation.  I was not the prime target this time. It was Major General Fitzwilliam, head of the security detail, who was on the end of this tirade.

“How hard can it be to keep an eye on one man, given the resources at your disposal?”

It was a common misconception that the Major General had a whole army to throw at the problem.  The truth was he did not.  He was limited to six men and two women in rotation.

Augustus, on the other hand, was the Houdini of subjects being guarded, was as slippery as an eel, and was known to shake his bodyguards as easily as a bartender made cocktails

It’s not my analogy.

Major General Fitzwilliam was out looking for him.  Well, not the Major General himself, but his men and women.  They all thought the other was watching him.  Yes, Augustus was very good at pitting them against each other.

“What does it matter,” I said. ” He will be back to open the door, and then the games will commence.”

“Games?”

“Figure of speech.  He will tell us how it works.”

“You know what it is?”

“No.  But we will find out soon enough.”

“You seem quite blasé about a one trillion dollar funded and unseen project that could turn out to be a glorified Atari console.”

The fact that Augustus had likened his project to just such an item was worrying in the extreme.  And having heard Augustus refer to it as the world’s most expensive Atari console? I was more than a little worried that I’d given him too much attitude.

“He will turn up, don’t you worry.  The man had one other fault: he loves the limelight.”

I barely made it back to my office before my cell phone rang.  Major General Fitzwilliam.

“We’ve found him.  I’m texting you the address.”

When I received it a minute later, I typed the address into the maps app and zoomed in on the location.  An industrial estate on the edge of town.

Another quick search found that it had once been a thriving place with all manner of business, as well as a shopping mall, but a fire some years back turned the whole area into a ghost town.

Some said it was haunted, and others said it was where the drug addicts and homeless ended up, with a drug-related death at least once a week.

Our offices, the warehouse used to be there, but we moved five years ago when this new project started.

It was a twenty-minute drive, and I was the last one there.  Fitzwilliam had brought a platoon of troops, and they were being deployed.  What for, I was not sure, but it seemed to me they were prepping for action.

Magreve was standing beside the command truck.

“What on earth is going on?” I asked.

“Betoney’s cell came back on, and is in that building.”

He pointed to the one that had a faded sign on the wall above the door, our company name.  What was he doing in our old building?

Two soldiers stood cautiously on either side of an open door, weapons ready.  Five more were finishing kitting up.

“What are they doing?”

“Infra-red scan says there are three people inside.  They’re going in armed and ready.

“Has someone told them they’re not to shoot him?”

“Don’t panic.  The Major General has got this.”

The leader raised a hand, and when it stopped, the two men at the door went in.  The other five followed.  I just hoped they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.

Seven minutes.

For seven minutes, there was nothing, and then the sound of Magreve’s communicator made a noise.

“Magreve, you there?”  The commander of the team wasn’t the best at communication with civilians.

“I am.”

“You need to see this.”

“Is it bad?”

Silence then, “Get in here.”

I followed Magreve inside, where we were met by one of the soldiers, who had obviously come back to take us.

We went down several passageways towards the back of the building, the smell of waterlogged carpet, and something else.  Death.

We came out into a large room, which had been a breakout area where tables and chairs had been stacked against the wall, and then in the middle of the open space, a single chair.

In it was Aloysius.

Dead.

He had died a very painful and horrific death, one that was very recent.

“We think the perpetrators are still here,” the officer whispered, “and the body is still warm.”

My God.  Aloysius was dead.  Just the true notion sent a chill down my spine.  And the obvious question was on the tip of my tongue.  “Why?”

“Because whoever kidnapped him wanted the secret technology. This is the result when a person refuses to give away his secret.”

I hadn’t realised I’d spoken the question out loud.

“Has he been…?”

“Tortured.  Yes.  And my guess is that he didn’t tell them anything.”

“It’s a bit late to be asking any questions or finding out what happened from him.  If they got what they wanted…”

“He was kidnapped, brought here, a bit poetic, by some people who wanted to get their hands on the tech.  Heart attack, by the look of it, and unexpected by the interrogators.”

“You can tell that how?”

“I recognise the work.”

I didn’t ask him to elaborate.  I was a numbers man, not versed in the machinations of espionage.

A shot rang out very near to us, and then, shouting, followed by a volley of shots, one of the bullets clanged into a metal wall not far from us.

Both Magreve and I ducked.  The officer headed towards the shooting.

This went on for several minutes until silence returned.  Not long after that, major General Fitzwilliam returned.

“We have two suspects.  It is time to clear the scene and bring in the investigators.  This is a bad business, very bad indeed.”

That’s when Magreve and I were escorted out of the building, just as the first police and ambulance personnel arrived.

He was right.  It was indeed a bad business.  Questions were going to be asked, including the one trillion dollar question.  How were we going to find out what Augustus Beatony did with the money?

If, in fact, he had not given up the password, and he was the only one with it, and the vault was set to self-destruction if it was opened any other way than with the password, we may never know.

And I knew who was going to get the blame.

Back at the office, a meeting was convened to discuss the situation. The situation was clear to me: Beatony was dead, no one had come near the vault, so he hadn’t given it up.

That meant that there was no one alive who could open the vault, so we would have to break in and hope the self-destruct didn’t work

But, knowing Beatony as I did, it would have been the first thing he made sure to work.

So…

We were up the proverbial Creek. My overtures to various people he had worked with brought up nothing new and verified that everyone hated him equally.

It was the shortest meeting for the project we had.  Mangreve was given the job of approaching the vault builders to see if they had kept a back door.  It was a possibility but unlikely.

My suggestion was, failing everything, I was going to wait and see if the door opened itself.  It was the mother of all Hail Marys, but knowing Beatony as I did, nothing could be ignored.

For the man who thought of everything, he must have devised a day to make his work visible, even in the event of his death.

An hour before the appointed time of the reveal, Beatoney had set up nearly three months before, I sat outside the vault.

In my imagination, the night before, I’d worked through any number of possible scenarios, all of which seemed impossible because he was dead.  A dead man can not get up and do stuff.

Then I went through all of the possibilities of what it might be, trying to discard the expensive Atari console type computer and then factor in all of the materials that I’d purchased.

I’d done that once before, trying to work out what it might be, but it wasn’t until the very end that I discovered he had two suppliers, both unknown to each other.

It was just another method of keeping his project results secret.

A half hour later, I was joined by Magreave and the Major General.  They had been told I was hanging around the vault door, so they thought they should be there too.  All the while, several technicians were studying the blueprints, the manual, the alarm schematics, looking for a way in.

At the appointed time, nothing happened.

Perhaps I’d been wrong about him.  Or maybe…

From within, there were a few weird sounds that, if I were to hazard a guess, the door going through an unlocking process.

Five minutes later, the sound of the warning almost drowned out all other responses, an action designed to make people aware of the vault door opening.  Getting hit by a hundred tons of metal door was going to hurt.

We stood back beyond the arc and watched the door slowly open.  When it had, and the smoke had cleared, another door opened, and then…

…Beatony walked out and stopped, several paces from us.

I think, to a man, we were all just simply gobsmacked, and definitely speechless.

“Great to meet the three of you, finally.  I am Augustus Beatony version two.  A fully functional, lifelike Android that is faster, stronger, smarter, and able to live, work, and function indefinitely in any circumstances.”

“You do realise Augustus Beatony version one is dead.”  I finally found my voice after getting over the initial shock of seeing a perfect replica of Augustus.

He had made a lifelike robot of himself. I’m not sure it was worth the trillion dollars.

“Yes.  Unfortunately, but he knew his time was limited and had prepared for it.  It’s why I’m here, now, to complete his work.”

“Are you not his work?”

“A small part of it. I have all the knowledge that went into building me so that we can make more and finally start exploring space.  Humans can’t survive. We can.”

“So the project…”  The Major General found his voice, too.

“Was to build the people and the spaceships to travel into the outer reaches of the galaxy.  I have it all in my head.”  The robot tapped his head.  “Now take me to the briefing, and I will tell everybody how this is going to work.”

“Isn’t there a convention where robots are not supposed to be human-like?”  Magreave had finally got over his astonishment.

“And you know the backers didn’t agree with that stipulation.  We don’t have time for semantics.  The briefing.”

I looked at Magreave and the Major General.

Both shrugged, Magreave saying, “Lifelike Robotics and artificial intelligence.  Why am I not surprised?”

“Because this was what they wanted all along,” the Mahor General added.  “Super soldiers.”

He turned to Augustus Beatony version two.  “We can’t switch you off, can we?”

“Nor destroy me.  Not without very serious consequences.  Shall we go?”

He warned me, and I realised the truth in that moment.  Three days before his disappearance, he said that if anything happened to him, there would be consequences.  “You’re in charge now, Magreave.  My involvement ended when he stepped out of the vault.  May God have mercy on all our souls.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

…

W is for – Where it all began

…

The view from inside the small room was of four off white walls, a stained ceiling with a small camera and blinking red light in one corner, and the green metal door with a hatch and small closed window.

I was lucky to have a bunk with a thin vinyl cover to lie on so I could spend the time alternating between staring at the roof, the door, and the walls.  Time now to contemplate my fate, a fate no one was sharing with me, at least not yet.

There were two thoughts uppermost in my mind right then.

The first, that cryptic phone call from an anonymous caller, no number displayed, no clue who it was, other than it was female, though these days even that could be manufactured, saying, “They’re coming for you.  Run.”

That was it.  Nothing about who was coming or why.  My life up to that point had been probably the most boring on the planet.  Janet had made that perfectly clear three years before when she left.  And took every cent of our life savings, and sold everything else.

Everything.

So, having nothing, being that boring person, who on earth would want to come for me?

The second, the only question I was asked by the interrogator, and middle-aged, well-dressed man who had secret service written into his DNA, after my ‘arrest’ and the silence from all those involved, following the recitation of my so-called rights to the seat in the interrogation room.

I watched him come into the room, glance up at the blinking red light, probably a feature in every room in that complex, then sit down.

He glared at me in his most intimidating manner, which almost made me laugh, then asked, in a voice that sounded like the result of a fifty-cigarette-a-day habit, “Where is it?”

Of course, the only answer to that question was, “Where is what?”

Another minute of intimidating looks, he shook his head, stood, and left the room.  Three minutes later, two big men came in and escorted me to my current residence, one ‘helping’ me through the door with a hefty shove.

So, I had two pieces of information relating to my fate.  One, I had obviously, to someone at least, done something worthy of needing to escape, and having not heeded the warning, done something worthy of being arrested, imprisoned, and interrogated.

Something that no one was willing to share with me.

That meant I had to go over everything that had happened, at least since Janet left, because before that, I doubt the life of a lowly untended university tutor whose subject was eighteenth-century social history would interest anyone other than a Jane Austen enthusiast.

Perhaps the first day of the rest of my life was when I decided to go to see the pyramids in Egypt.  That wasn’t a reason or anything significant in itself. It was just one of those things that happened on the spur of the moment.

It had been the usual scenario, I thought Janet, the love of my life, had suggested dinner, over which she was going to tell me some great news.

Being the eternal optimist, I thought she was going to formalise our relationship, but instead she said she had been offered a job in the United States, more money, more responsibility, and what’s more there was room for me.

It sounded like an afterthought, and as much as it sounded great, it wasn’t.  She packed, gave me the option, I declined, and she left.

Relationship over.

Two days later, I was on a plane heading for Egypt, oddly enough, anything but heartbroken.  It was like Janet never existed.

But…

I was staring at the slowly rotating fan regurgitating the already hot air in the room, and every movement made me feel hotter and more languid.

It was the fourth day of a five-day tour, with a group of twelve ancient Egyptian enthusiasts, on a lesser-known and cheaper tour.  Cheap meant no air conditioning and enough time to regret not putting more thought into who I selected.

I’d seen as much of the pyramids as anyone could want, realising the reality was not quite on display in the tour brochures, and the heat, dust, and crowds were the final straw.

I had the airline page up on my cell phone and in the middle of checking the flights and costs involved in changing the dates, when there was a knock on the door.

Not being a five-star hotel, perhaps stretching the three-star self-rating, and the only other time was a concierge delivering a carafe of iced cold water and a glass that had seen better days.

Perhaps one of the hotel’s benefits was ice-cold water every four days.  I dragged myself off the bed and over to the door.  It didn’t have one of those spy viewers in the door, so it could be kidnappers, not unheard of, and one of the warnings given to us by the guide on day one

By that point, being kidnapped might have been a welcome distraction.

It was, unfortunately, an American girl, Mary Anne.  I say unfortunately, because we had all had the benefit of her mother’s opinions, often loud and brash, and who took particular delight in humiliating her daughter.

Like a scene out of an Agatha Christie murder mystery film, one of the other tourists said, failing to realise we all fit that description. All we lacked was the murder, though several had expressed their desire to murder Mrs Murgatroyd.

She smiled wanly, a prelude to an impossible request.  “Mother is ill today and won’t be going.  May I come with you? I do not wish to find my way to the office by myself.”

I should have noticed the less apprehensive expression.  I had to say the request surprised me, and she had been cultivating a friendship of sorts with another single male passenger who was more her type.

“I was seriously considering staying in the hotel myself.  I’ve seen enough pyramids, sand, and people, and the thought of going to the museum would only be to take in the air-conditioning.”

“Oh.”

She seemed disappointed, though I was surprised that anyone would be, but that might have had more to do with Janet’s rather abrupt departure, and if viewed very bluntly, abandonment.

“But in this case, I think I can make an exception.  It’s the last day, and it would be a tragedy not to take in the last of the sights.”

“I don’t want to be an imposition.”

“Don’t take any notice of my disposition.  It hasn’t been a great few weeks, and I’m not handling it very well.  Just give me a few minutes to get ready, and I’ll see you down in the restaurant.”

That imaginary fan was still rotating in my mind, and those thoughts of Mary Anne had resurfaced, not because they were memorable, but because they were a catalyst for getting me out of the sea of self-pity I’d been unconsciously sinking into at the time.

She was the sort of girl no one would notice, not exactly a plain Jane but the sort who didn’t put herself out there, dressed unglamorous and didn’t follow fashion or makeup trends, not like Janet.

In fact, she was a polar opposite.

Perhaps that’s why she came back now.  Once I dug deeper into those memories, I could see that she was, under that carefully constructed exterior for the rest of the world to see, she was very beautiful.

I’d not thought about that at the time, and now it was only because I was looking for answers.  Surely, she was not part of the current predicament because our interactions were fleeting and insignificant.  Perhaps, like any man, I was momentarily flattered by the attention of a woman.

Beyond that trip to Egypt, there had been little excitement in my life, just the usual stream of students looking to bolster their grades and the occasional cross-examination by a budding author who wanted background for their eighteenth-century romance novel.

There were no other romantic attachments, several dates set up by a dating app and those were monumental failures, leading to a somewhat half-considered study into becoming a monk at a remote monastery, and vacations at obscure and remote seaside towns out of season, where I was lucky to meet anyone else.

And yet I obviously had, whether consciously or otherwise, or was so forgettable that I could not remember them.

All this driving into the past had given me a headache, and I tried to get some rest.  It was clear I was not going to be leaving my cell or the facility anytime soon.

Someone once told me there was little difference between a dream and a nightmare, only the outcome was different.  You could wake up happy or scared half to death.

Others said that one or the other could be the result of a past experience, whether conscious or not, something that happened to you that you were unaware of at the time, or spooking a premonition of what might happen in the future.

On rare occasions, it might be the resort of a desire, like getting to be with the woman of your dreams, that was quite often totally unavailable.

I wish that were the case.

It was not.  I woke, now screaming, but covered in sweat and yet cold as ice, absolutely terrified.

I was lying on a gurney in a very brightly lit room with two figures, dressed completely in green, faces covered by surgical masks and goggles, one of whom was standing over me, asking over and over, “Where is it?”

And it was very, very real.

Not a premonition, I had a feeling it had happened recently, and I could not remember anything about it.

It was then I realised what my mind had conveniently shovelled into the ‘I don’t want yo remember that experience’ basket.  Three weeks ago, after going out for a drink with work colleagues, I woke up two days later in a hotelbroom, by myself, with no memory of anything that had happened, and when I asked my colleagues they simply said I’d had too much to drink, and one had helped me back to the hotel where I said od booked a room.

Why was I remembering this now?

Why hadn’t I thought more about it at the time?

Who was the colleague who helped me?

Suddenly, it felt like the walls in that small room were closing in on me.  Then I could see someone was in the room, dressed in green, and I began to panic.

I could just hear a voice in the background or perhaps just above me.

“Hurry.  He’s going into cardiac arrest.”

I think that’s where I lost consciousness.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025