Chapter 62: Investigation
The next morning, Rednik bordered the train. He travelled to the large region of Carrington, where he switched to the mountain route. This train was considerably slower because of the terrain.
After many hours of travelling, he changed trains in Tarrus. This train had limited access because it travelled to Jeed. Rednik showed his permission pass from the Head Enforcer. He had no problems boarding the train. It was almost empty. The journey to Jeed was short and took less than an hour.
When he arrived in Jeed, he found the station to be heavily guarded. He did not have a problem getting past the guards. Next, he headed to the temporary accommodation allocated for visiting enforcers.
The next day, Rednik met with the Jeed Commander of the Enforcers. He received a very frosty reception. The Jeed commander did not feel Rednik’s help was necessary. He also did not fully respect him because of the bad handling of events in Adoy and because he had only been a commander for one month.
Rednik insisted he be given access to all the files of all the assessments that had been made in the past few months. The temporary versions of the files were transferred to his computer. This gave him three days to read them.
He went back to his accommodation to view them in private. He was surprised that so many assessments had been made in the past few months. He was even more surprised to find most of these had been done in the past two weeks. He flicked through them to see if anything stood out to him.
He discovered that these were not new assessments but reassessments of residents of Jeed who had previously passed. This time around, they had all failed. Mikayla and Jennifer had conducted most of these reassessments.
Rednik knew that Mikayla was the specialist who went crazy and killed Dr. Crane and herself. He had not heard anything about Jennifer. Before the bulk of the reassessments, Rednik found Darius’ assessment. Initially, Mikayla passed him. However, a few hours later, Jennifer updated his assessment to pending. He read the reports and listened to several recordings. It appeared he only had contact with Mikayla. It was strange that Jennifer could halt the decision without even meeting Darius.
There was no information in the file that stated Darius’ current whereabouts. Rednik looked through some of the earlier files. It appeared Mikayla was passing everyone until after she assessed Darius.
Among the recent batch of reassessments, Rednik found two new assessments. One was Gilly. She was failed almost immediately. The other was Demarcus, but his file was incomplete.
‘Could this Demarcus be the Demarcus from Adoy?’ pondered Rednik.
The file did not contain a photograph. This assessment appeared to begin just before the fire. It appeared that something relating to this assessment triggered Mikayla. Rednik decided he needed to question Jennifer.
Rednik went to the makeshift Ripe Regional Headquarters. He asked for Jennifer. The staff told him they did not have a ‘Jennifer’ working for them. Rednik asked about the ‘Jennifer’, who signed off on the assessments. The staff did not know who that could be.
Rednik was about to leave when a more senior employee called out to him. ‘I know who Jennifer is,’ claimed the senior employee.
The senior employee led Rednik to a room. He turned on a computer. He clicked an icon on the screen. The word Jennifer appeared.
‘Jennifer is not a “someone”. Jennifer is our newly developed artificial intelligence program,’ said the senior employee.
‘A computer program assessing rehabilitation cases?’ asked Rednik.
‘That was the assignment before Dr. Crane died,’ replied the senior employee. ‘I believe he had much more ambitious plans.’
‘Like what?’ asked Rednik.
‘Like assessing all of us all of the time,’ replied the senior employee.
‘What is Jennifer’s current assignment?’ asked Rednik.
‘I don’t believe she has one,’ replied the senior employee. ‘Only Dr. Crane could program her.’
‘So that’s it?’ asked Rednik.
‘I suppose,’ replied the senior employee.
‘Since Jennifer can’t help me, would you be able to tell me what happens to those who fail the assessment?’ asked Rednik.
‘They are classified as “gone cases”,’ said the senior employee. ‘They are taken from the region, but we don’t know where.’
‘What if the assessment is incomplete?’ asked Rednik.
‘They remain here until the assessment is complete,’ replied the senior employee.
‘Thank you,’ said Rednik.
Rednik turned to leave the room. As he was leaving, the camera in the room scanned his face. It flickered for a few seconds before returning to normal.
Demarcus, Polly, and Darius had run into a problem. Their vehicle had been programmed not to leave the Southern Agriculture Zone. The furthest they could reach was the tall grass verge.
‘Okay, now what?’ asked Polly, who was feeling frustrated.
‘Now we cross the wasteland again,’ said Demarcus.
‘No, not again,’ said Polly. ‘We almost died last time.’
‘This time will be different,’ said Demarcus. ‘We have Darius.’
‘Yeah, an extra mouth to feed,’ said Polly.
‘No, a hulk,’ responded Demarcus. ‘Show us your strength, Darius.’
Darius stood, looking confused.
‘Great,’ said Polly as she shook her head.
Demarcus pretended to lift the end of the buggy in an attempt to get Darius to copy him. After ten minutes of trying, it looked like Darius understood. He grabbed the front of the buggy and flipped it upside down.
‘Look, that’s what I call power lifting,’ said Demarcus.
‘Wonderful,’ said Polly sarcastically.
Demarcus had a plan. He and Darius went to work stripping the vehicle. Darius ripped out the engine and any of the heavy mechanical parts. He also ripped off parts of the frame and structure of the vehicle. Demarcus dealt with the more intricate things.
After several hours of work, the buggy was reduced to a motorless cart.
‘This is light,’ said Demarcus. ‘Even I can pull it a little bit.’
Darius pulled the cart through the tall grass to the edge of the wastelands. Demarcus and Polly began collecting as many fruits as possible to add to their supplies. Soon, the cart was full.
‘This will be enough food and water to last us to Adoy,’ said Demarcus.
‘I’m impressed,’ said Polly. 'I clearly underestimated the two of you.'
Darius pulled the cart into the wastelands, and Demarcus and Polly walked alongside it.
Rednik had now moved on to looking at surveillance videos from the burned Ripe Headquarters. Most of it was available as it was stored on an external server.
After almost two days of skimming through videos, Rednik found a video with Demarcus in it. Mikayla was interviewing him. After the fire began, Demarcus disappeared into the crowd of escaping employees. It appeared he had escaped the building. Rednik checked videos from cameras at the exit point. While the building was burning, a camera picked up a buggy leaving. Rednik was not sure if Demarcus was in that buggy. In regards to Darius, Rednik could not find any recordings of him from that day.
Rednik went to ‘Rent-a-Buggy’ to inquire about the buggy that was caught on camera leaving during the fire. The ‘Rent-a-Buggy’ employee told him that the buggy had not been returned yet. Rednik asked if the buggy could be tracked. The employee told Rednik that all the buggies carried tracking devices.
The employee checked the computer to find the location of the buggy. It was at the edge of the Southern Agriculture Zone. Rednik asked the employee if the buggy could enter the wastelands. The employee told him that the power would cut out before they could leave.
Rednik guessed Demarcus was hiding there until the train line was repaired, and then he would go to the nearest region to return home. Rednik went to the Enforcer Headquarters to borrow a vehicle. As a commander, he had no problem ordering an enforcer to provide him with one. Rednik got in the vehicle and headed off to the edge of the Southern Agriculture Zone to look for Demarcus.
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