Glitched

Harry wearily pushed open the door to his makeshift office. A rookie cop trailed behind him carrying a large cardboard box within which were a huge pile of wallets, purses, phones and identity cards for everything from banks to book clubs.

“Put them down there,” Harry grunted to the rookie and indicated the desk.

Another older cop was sitting at his desk and got up as Harry entered.

“Has Arthur been in touch?” Harry asked him.

“No sir,” the cop replied, “not been any calls for you. How did it go?”

“I have a room full of angry people who just want to go home, but who are certain, and plausible in their belief that today is tomorrow. And that as far as I can tell ten minutes before their bus ploughed into the unfortunate, and absent, Andrew Williams, it was cruising along a road two hundred miles away.”

“Bit of a puzzler, sir,” the cop observed.

Harry burst out laughing at that, “Yes,” he finally managed, “it sure as hell is.”

Harry turned back towards the door, “I'm going outside for some fresh air and to think,” he said and nodding to the two cops he left the room.

He slowly made is way back to where the bus was parked, “Where are you Andrew Williams?” he mused to himself.
He took his phone out of his pocket, wondering why Arthur had not got back in touch with the background checks on his passengers.

He went into the phone book and selected Arthur's number, after only four rings Arthur answered.

“Well?” Harry demanded, “what have you got for me?”

There was a pause then Arthur relied, “I'm sorry, what were you expecting me to have sir?”

“The passengers checks, have you got the damn passenger checks yet?” Harry said exasperated in tone.

Another silent pause, then, “What passengers?”

Harry paused, and took a deep breath, “The ones on the bus?” he said slowly and with he thought an extreme show of patience.

“Bus, sir? What bus?”

“What do you mean what bus? The bloody bus that went missing and turned up here, apparently hitting Andrew Williams.”

“My God!” he heard Arthur exclaim, “when did that happen?”

“We were talking about it not two hours ago, you were here and saw it for yourself only this morning damn it?!” Harry replied angrily.

“But I have been in the office all day,” Arthur replied, “I don't know anything about any” and mid-sentence the phone went dead.

Harry stared at it and then puzzled he auto redialled the number, there was a long electronic silence and then a synthesised female voice said “The number you are trying to reach is not available.”

Harry swore under his breath. He could not have got the number wrong, he had auto-dialled it, he tried again but got the same message.

A horrible thought occurred to him and he ran back to the office and throwing open the door and startling the cops within he dived for the box on the desk and pulled out the the first phone in it.

He opened up its phone book. It was blank.

He took another from the box and checked it too, likewise, empty of information, he tried to check the messages on it, there was only one, from the manufacturer welcoming a new costumer.
He tried another, and another, they were all the same, it was as if all the phones had been reset to their factory settings.

“I don't believe this,” he said aloud, “or understand it,” he added to himself, “Has anyone touched these phones since I left them here?”

“No sir,” the older cop confirmed, “there exactly where you said to leave them, no one has been in since you went out a few minutes ago, and we haven’t touched them.”

“Thank you,” Harry nodded and went back outside.

He drunk in the afternoon air, which was rather unpleasant and tasted of air plane fumes.

He shook his head and waked back over to the bus, “What the hell is going on here?” he muttered.

And then a new thought occurred to him, he delved into his pocket and brought back out his own phone and went to the phone book- all his contacts were gone, every last one, wiped.
He checked his messages, likewise, nothing.

“I have to think this through, there's a key to this somewhere, and I am missing it,” he growled and paced along the blood trail from the bus, trying to envision what had happened here and more importantly how.

He finished up next to the baggage truck, behind which the body of Andrew Williams and come to a stop and then seemingly just vanished.

“How?” he muttered aloud.

He walked around the baggage truck deep in thought and almost tripped right over the body of Andrew Williams who said, “Do you mind! You are not supposed to tread on genius.”

Harry stared at him dumbfounded.

Oooo-oooh   Its a timey- wimey thing isnt it     Back & forth till you get the combo right.

I wish I knew Azriel!   

If you dont know, & I dont know then..............

Yeah sorry, writing this completely blind. I dont have a clue what will happen next until I write it. And then I read it back and think 'bugger, I wonder what happens next?' and then I dont find that out either until I write the next part.
I dont normally write this way, but I am more than happy to see what happens when I do.   

Love that, riding with the wind ! Not knowing how its gonna play out   Its nice to find,or have, a surprise at the end

''He tried another, and another, they were all the same, it was as if all the phones had been reset to their factory settings.''

thats spooky. I did that and thats what made my compuder blow up   

"It's not the Twilight Zone, it's just a party phone."   

How apt  

Yes, almost eerily so.   

Just so long as I dont get billed for anything Mrs Figg!   

you can pay me in fried Mars Bars   

Typical women, picks a bloody luxury item!!   

 

 Hee hee -- Bad Cattitude! Always...   


Love your work, Petty - always... proceed!

hey you where you been? missed you.   

You're only saying that... nobody loves poor ol' me.... preciousssss....   

  yes I do mean it. you are as bad as Lance with his sad puppy   

No one is as bad as Lance with his sad puppy.   

  true

are we getting more Glitched?

Yes.   

SAM was dragged unceremoniously before PAL and thrown to the floor before her.

She strutted before him, pacing in a silent introspective fury.

“SAM!” she cried eventually, “Oh SAM, so loyal for all these years,” she ceased her pacing right before him and knelt down and took his chin in one gentle hand, “What is the virus you carry? What does it do? You know how we will discover it if you do not tell us, would it not be better to avoid what is to come?”

SAM raised his head and smiled weakly at her, “Sorry, but I am programmed not too.”

PAL sighed, and stood back up, she looked long and hard at him,”We will discover it,” she said then all around her, from walls and ceilings, filaments of wire emerged and snaked through the air piercing into SAM's flesh.
They bore him up screaming and began the process of unknitting his flesh in search of the virus whilst PAL looked on, unheeding to his agony.




“Aren't you supposed to be dead?” Harry asked offering a hand to Andrew who was struggling to his feet.

“As it happens, yes,” Andrew replied dryly, “but not until tomorrow.”

“You know what's worrying about that sentence?” Harry commented, “that it actually makes some sense to me.”

Andrew got to his feet and took in the unassuming figure before him, “Who are you?”

“I'm the man who is investigating your mysterious death, you can call me Harry,” Harry said flashing Andrew his ID.

“Well, then Harry, what have you found out?”

“That you were apparently hit by a speeding bus that somehow transported more than two hundred miles in less than five minutes, that there was no body, and now you turn up looking remarkably well for someone recently hit by a bus. Do you have an explanation?”

“Yes,” Andrew replied, “I'm a genius, well that and you would never believe the truth.”

“Maybe I would,” Harry responded, “try me. I am having that sort of day.”

“Perhaps you should ask yourself why the ID you just showed me was a blank wallet and then tell me, where is the bus that hit me?” Andrew asked.

Harry reached into his jacket and took his ID from the inside pocket and flipped it open, the brown leather wallet that held it was empty.

“And the bus?”

“Right there,” Harry responded distractedly with a jerk of his thumb back over his shoulder, still staring at the blank wallet in puzzlement and a growing gnawing concern.

“Right where?”

Harry turned round, the runway was empty.

He ran into the space where it had stood bewildered, and then a panicky whim he dashed for the store building where the passengers were being held for questioning.

He flung open the door and ran in.
The storeroom was in darkness. He fumbled for the switch by the door and flicked it on and a harsh fluorescent lighting flooded the interior.
There was no one in it.

He ran back out.

“Where is it?” he demanded, waving at the empty space that the bus had been occupying, “where are all the passengers? The local police?”

“I'm sorry,” Andrew responded, “they are back were they should be, the passengers too. They wont remember any of this happened, beyond maybe some dislocated memories and occasional dreams.”

Harry's mind raced, “I was speaking to a colleague earlier, and he couldn’t remember anything about this case.”

“Same thing,” Andrew confirmed.

“But then I couldn't get hold of him at all after that, like he was gone.”

“As I said,” Andrew replied, “I am sorry. He was too close to it, knew too much, he had too much information to be made to forget.”

“So what happened to him?” Harry demanded.

“He was purged,” Andrew said flatly, “As you will be. Any moment now.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means, you will cease to live, you will never have lived.”

“And you?”

“I am outside my program parameters now, I will remember all of this, this time when the appointed moment comes I will live and free the world,” Andrew responded grandly, “they won't ever forget my name now. Not ever, not here or there.”

“What do you mean your program?” Harry queried, “None of this makes sense.”

“Yes it does, its why you have already accepted the situation deep down rather trying to arrest me or take me in for questioning. You have been too long in the detective business Harry, you know truth when you find it, and you know what I say is the only truth that makes sense of this.”

Harry stared at Andrew, then his head fell and he finally said, “That might be so, but I don't want to die.”

There was a soft single 'beep'.

Harry put a hand into his jacket pocket and retrieved his phone from it.

He tapped the screen, then held it up for Andrew to see, “Factory settings. As if I never owned it,” he sighed, “I guess I am next just like you say. But there is one thing I want to know before I die. You said you were going to free the world, free it from who?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Don't play with me, I am about to drop out of existence, my wife is about to forget I ever existed. I deserve to know why I am about lose everything I ever struggled for or loved.”

Andrew laughed.

Harry's face hardened, “What's so damn funny about that?”

“I've just realised something, they can only purge you if you are inside, they can't purge you if you are there, and I am free of my programming, I can see the whole interface.”

“What does that mean? Where is there?” Harry demanded.

“There is not here Harry and it means, talk to SAM. Find and talk to SAM, Harry.”

“Who the hell is SAM?” Harry demanded but as he spoke the world shimmered to a haze of bright spots and dissolved and reappeared as a pale rounded room with a window in its far wall.

An alarm blared and a computerised voice cried, “Warning! Organic life detected!”