Anachron - 11

Somewhere in Fort Worth

Davis didn't waste any time.  He did some digging from the privacy of his car as he drove circles around Fort Worth, stalling his return to the IRS building.   He called Lauren and Alex back.  Davis was quick to tell Lauren that, for once, she was wrong.  Hills was implicated in the escape of Bradley Cane, however someone tipped him off that his arrest warrant was being issued and Hills fled.  The fact that someone warned Hills was proof enough for Davis that Weiss was covering for him.  Nobody else besides himself, Lauren, or Alex could have warned Hills.  Weiss was protecting him.

Davis committed himself to Lauren and Alex over the phone.  He told them that they should head to the IRS building as soon as possible because Mitchell was being delivered within the next two hours.  Davis offered to try to keep the basement clear for the women to do their work, but they would have to be quick about it.  He didn't know how long he could keep Weiss from noticing that Mitchell's body had been delivered to the IRS building.

Lauren and Alex grabbed a cab and headed to the IRS building.  They didn't have much of a plan to sneak in.  They attempted to gain access through the door that Weiss had used to escape from the sub-basement after he murdered the Anachron Team.  The door was locked.  They went back to the entrance and tried to come up with a way to create a distraction that would draw the security guards attention.  As they schemed, a van pulled up and two men got out and wheeled out a gurney with a coffin sized box from the back of the truck.  Mitchell had arrived and so had their distraction.

The women slipped inside the building as the retrevial team checked in with security.  They swiped their IRS access badge to open an exit stairway and fortunately the card still worked.  When they reached the sub-basement they were off in a dark remote corner.  Any movement would set off the sensors so they waited.  The retrieval team arrived within moments, the women listened.  Off in the middle of the floor the elevator opened and the two men wheeled the gurney out.  Nobody greeted them.  The men were confused about what to do.  They decided to just leave the gurney out in the open and returned to the elevator.

With Mitchell delivered and seemingly nobody else in the sub-basement Lauren and Alex made their way to the Anachron room.  The mobile pod that was the Anachron room was covered over in plastic tarps, and Mitchell was parked right nearby.  The women moved the tarps away from the entrance, went in, and turned on the lights.  The room smelled like sterilizer and all of the bodies that had been in there just hours ago were gone.  Blood had been washed from walls and floor, only the bullet holes remained as evidence of the carnage that had taken place in the space.

Lauren and Alex wasted no time setting up and loading Mitchell into the Anachron.  Alex took Silvia's old seat and Lauren laid down next to Mitchell.

Anachron Sequence: Mitchell

Mitchell was driving his personal truck along the interstate behind General Hills.  Mitchell found the whole situation a little strange but he wasn't about to question his superior about where they were headed or why he had to take his truck separately.

They approached a large causeway bridge and Hills began braking.  The two vehicles stopped in the middle of the bridge and Hills got out.  Mitchell watched for a moment to see what Hills was up to.  Hills was walking across the road towards a large break in the guard rail on the opposite side. From the looks of it something big had smashed through the railing.  Mitchell got out and followed after.  There were skid marks all over the road and one set lead right up to the break in the guard rail. Mitchell approached the gaping hole in the guardrail and looked down the ravine to see what Hills was looking at.  Mitchell didn't see anything down there in the darkness of the river below.  That was when somebody spoke from behind them.

 "Who's this?" asked the voice.  Both Hills and Mitchell whipped around.  It was dark but Hills obviously recognized the man because he coolly responded, "This is the man who helped you escape."

Mitchell's stomach dropped, and as he turned to question Hills about what he had said, Hills cracked him over the head with the butt of his handgun and Mitchell collapsed to the pavement.  When Mitchell regained consciousness he was propped up against what was left of the smashed guardrail and Hills was talking with Cane a few feet away.  Mitchell had a splitting headache and his thoughts came slowly at first.  How had Cane gotten here and why was Hills talking with him?  Had Hills attacked him?

Everything became clear all to quickly.  Hills was chastising Cane over losing the prisoner transport truck.  So they were working together Mitchell concluded.  Hills got over Cane's mistake fast.  Hills told Cane that he was to take Mitchell's truck instead.  Hills gave Cane a duffel bag to change his clothes.  As Cane changed, Hills laid out their plans.

Cane was to drive to Fort Worth, and get to a van that was waiting for him with a jamming device inside.  Cane had to activate the jammer before he proceeded.  Hills said that the jammer needed to be active within range of the President.

Wait, what?  The President though Mitchell.

Hills handed Cane a backpack and continued with the plan.  Inside the bag were explosives.  From Cane's reaction, the bomb was way more powerful than he had been expecting.  Hills laughed at Cane's reaction.

"You didn't think that you were going to live through this did you?"  Hills said, "This is a closed loop operation, there is a timer that will detonate the bomb shortly after the President begins his speech.  You must arrive in time or your efforts will be wasted.  Oh, and just in case you happen to change your mind, I've just activated a tracker we installed on you.  If you are separated from that bag by any more than 10 feet the bomb will also explode.  Just kill the President; like we agreed, and there will be no evidence left behind."

Mitchell couldn't believe what he was hearing.  That sinking feeling in his stomach started to overtake the pounding in his head.  Hills turned his attention to Mitchell next.  He pulled Mitchell to his feet and manuvered him so that his back was to the hole in the guardrail.  "Wrong place at the wrong time, I'm sorry I have to do this." Hills said.  Then he pulled the trigger.  The bullet ripped through Mitchell's chest and he fell into the water below.  The fall knocked the wind out of him but it didn't kill him.  The river eventually took his life, but only after 6 long minutes of pain and struggle.

In the sub-basement during the Anachron Sequence:

Approximately 8 minutes into Lauren's Anachron run Alex heard an unsettling and familiar sound.  The elevator to the sub-basement was moving and it was headed down.  Alex had only seconds to prepare herself.  The doors opened and Weiss stepped off the elevator.  He was looking right at Alex.  With Lauren loaded in to the Anachron she was on her own.

Weiss walked calmly to the Anachron room and opened the door.  Alex checked her gun but instead drew the stolen FBI cellphone.  Just as Weiss shut the door behind him Alex activated a voice recording app on the phone to record her confrontation with Weiss.  Weiss saw her with the phone out and inferred what she was doing, but he did nothing to stop her.  Alex expected Weiss to attack her or twist her words to support the fiction that Weiss had created to frame the Anachron Team as the master-minds behind the assassination.  Instead he looked around the room as if he were taking it in for the first time.  Once he was settled he asked her "Is this it?  I mean, expected there to be more of you."

Alex didn't know how to respond.  Seeing her hesitate Weiss moved on with his questioning.  He asked her if Lauren was hooked up to Mitchell right then.  Alex told him that she was.  Weiss asked if she could hear their conversation.  Alex lied and said that Lauren could hear even though she was completely oblivious, she didn't want to admit that she was all alone with Weiss.

The conversation that followed was cordial.  In fact the politeness and naivety of Weiss' questions where so out of character for him given the circumstances that Alex was more unnerved than if he had come in guns blazing.

As the conversation went on it seemed as though Weiss kept playing dumb.  Alex wondered if he was putting on a show for the voice recorder, trying to use the recording to his advantage instead of Alex's.  Finally Alex called him out on his game.  She told him that whatever he was planning that Lauren and her weren't going to allow themselves to be framed.  She told him that they would make sure that he took full responsibility for his actions.

Weiss was shocked.  If he was acting, he was doing a hell of a job.  Weiss became defensive.  He kept up his facade as he told Alex that he had no idea what she was talking about.  Alex laid it out for him.  She told him that he would be found guilty of helping Cane and Hills based on the evidence her and Lauren were going to present.  Weiss finally snapped.  "So your going to frame me for this crime now?" Weiss replied absolutely flabbergasted.  "I can see now that coming down here was a mistake; I can't let you get away with this" he said, and with that he pulled his gun from his holster and pointed it at Alex.

Alex wanted a confession out of Weiss not another frontal attack.  She reacted immediately and leaped out of her seat and knocked Weiss to the floor, his gun skittered across the floor.  He could have fired but he didn't, Alex was fast, but not that fast.  Alex stood over Weiss, her heart pounding, when all of the sudden it wasn't Weiss who was laying on the floor at her feet; it was Davis.

It took Alex a moment to understand what was happening.  It had been Davis all along.  The weird questions, his genuine shock at being accused of helping Cane, it all made sense.  The Anachron was still playing tricks with her mind, blending reality with glimpses of the past and perhaps even dredging up some hidden fears she keep locked away in the far recesses of her psyche.

Alex helped Davis up and apologized profusely.  She tried to explain that her confusion stemmed from a side effect from using the Anachron to many times in too short a period recently.  Incredibly he seemed to forgive her even though he couldn't understand why she had essentially hallucinated during an entire conversation.  Just as Davis began to accept her repeated apologizes Lauren returned from her Anachron sequence.  Alex brought Lauren up to speed, admitting to Davis that she had lied about Lauren being able to hear their conversation.  Lauren gave her account of Mitchell's final moments, and the three of them began to formulate their next move.

Weiss had to be brought down and the Anachron Team needed to receive the credit they were due for bringing to light the actual truth of the situation.  In order to do that they were going to need to connect Weiss to the van with the jamming device.  Weiss had to have been the one to plant the van and jammer.  The fact that he used the same jamming device to block out the evidence of his attack on the Anachron Team supported the case that Weiss had planted the jammer for Cane to use in the first place.  If they could pin Weiss to the van or the jammer, he would at a minimum be responsible for killing Jeremy, Silvia, and Dr. Saren.  It wouldn't be hard to link him back to Cane and Hills either since all of the events were linked to one another.

However there was still one problem.  The 'closed loop,' as Hills described it, left no room for any physical evidence with which to incriminate Weiss.  Somehow they were going to have to get Weiss to slip up and incriminate himself, and when he did, they needed to document it.  Nobody liked it, but the reality of their situation was that they were going to have to physically confront Weiss to get the evidence they needed.

Anachron - 10

In the IRS Building

Alex and Lauren climbed the stairs to escape the danger in the sub-basement.  They had two options: flee the building, regroup and strategize or hide right under Weiss's nose, stay in the building, and regroup immediately. By the time they reached the lobby floor they decided that they had best take their chances inside the building, not knowing if and when they would even be able to get back in.

They devised a plan to confiscate a FBI agent's cell phone and use it to contact Davis since he was the closest thing to an ally they could think of.  The plan was risky though, who knew if Davis would trust them?  Maybe he would just turn them over to Weiss, but maybe he might help.  After all, Davis had seen the video of Hills helping Cane escape.  He had to believe they were the good guys.  Right?

Time was of the essence.  Weiss was going to realize that they had escaped and come up out of the sub-basement even more determined to hunt them down.  They had to get up to the 14 floor where the FBI team was setup.  Up the stairs they went only to find that the doors to exit stair were locked.  The doors required an access card, even Lauren's new knowledge of lock picking couldn't open the door.

Exhausted, they arrived back on the lobby floor, but they weren't ready to give up just yet.  They snuck out of the exit and made their way across the lobby and into an IRS break room.  To their horror their faces were all over the news broadcast on the televisions on the wall.  It looked as though Weiss wasn't just trying to quiet them, he was framing them for the crime that he himself had taken part in.

Alex quickly intimidated a young IRS worker to give her her access card, and to keep quiet and lay low.  Alex and Lauren went back to the lobby and grabbed the first elevator that they could board alone.  They swiped the access card, punched the button, and rode 14 nail biting floors up, hoping the whole ride that the elevator didn't stop to pick up any other passengers.

They arrived on the 14th floor without incident and quickly slipped into the womens bathroom behind two FBI agents.  Alex took a stall while Lauren stepped up to sinks and slipped her hand into one of the agent's purses on the counter top and stole her phone without anyone seeing.  Once they had the phone they made their way back to the elevator and left the IRS building as quickly as they could.

Alex had an old school friend, Kate, who lived in the Fort Worth area that they could visit and perhaps get some money and shelter from.  They hailed a cab and set off to Kate's address.  Luckily Kate was home, she paid the cab fare for Lauren and Alex and let them in.  Kate started to ask questions and Alex struggled to explain her predicament.  Kate was apprehensive to help them, but she knew Alex growing up, and so she trusted her enough not to become to suspicious.  Kate gave Alex and Lauren some space and alone they dialed Davis' number.

The call was simple. Alex talked and Davis gave no response beyond "go ahead" whenever Alex paused or asked a question.  Davis was either playing it cool or he was being unhelpful. Finally Alex invited him to meet them in a park just down the street from Kate's address.  Davis responded by saying "thanks for the tip" and then he hung up.

Before Alex and Lauren went to wait at the park for Davis they decided to turn on the TV and find out exactly what lies Weiss had spread about them.  Kate came in to watch too.  It turned out that Weiss had spun the situation to make it appear as though the Anachron Team planned the escape of Bradley Cane.  The Anachron Team was being hailed as a secret division of the FBI that went rouge and began tinkering with cadavers, and performing unsanctioned scientific experimentation.

Kate didn't like what she saw on the TV.  Alex tried to explain what had really happened but it all sounded more like a crazy sci-fi movie plot than a recounting of the actual events of the past few days.  Kate couldn't stomach it and for her own safety she asked that they leave her home.  Lauren and Alex realized that Kate's reaction was probably typical of the average American upon hearing the accusations on the TV.  The Anachron Program was the stuff of books and movies, and it was easier to paint them as rouge FBI agents who murdered the President than it was to see them as crusaders of truth.  If Lauren and Alex couldn't make Kate understand, how were they going to get the country to believe them?

Disappointed they left and headed to the park.  Davis didn't keep them waiting very long.  He came alone, which Lauren and Alex took as a vote of confidence.  Lauren and Alex did their best to be apologetic for throwing Davis under the bus in front of Weiss over the surveillance tape in Wichita.  Davis kept and open mind to what they said but offered up some counterpoints to their version of the truth.  In the end Lauren explained that Weiss and Hills were working together and that if they could use Mitchell's body that they could finally have a clear understanding of how everything was linked between Wichita and Fort Worth.

Davis offered to release Mitchell's body if Lauren and Alex were willing to break back into the IRS building and use the Anachron one last time.  Davis wasn't ready to fully ally himself with them yet but he was warming up to the idea of it.  Just before Davis left Lauren planted one last seed in Davis' mind.  She told him that as proof of Weiss' and Hills' alliance that Hills' name wouldn't be named  in connection with the President's Death. She told him to watch and see, somehow Weiss would make sure that Hills got away with murder.

That final seed began to blossom as Davis drove back to the IRS building.  If Lauren was right and Weiss let Hills off the hook, the only person besides Lauren and Alex who saw the surveillance tape and would know of Hills' guilt, was him.  Davis didn't like the idea heading back to the IRS building to work on a fake investigation headed by a murderer.  He decided to proceed cautiously and do some investigating on his own.