Purgatory

Chapter 27

“That recording again?” a familiar voice asked me as I was watching the video from my mission for the second time.  I turned around to see the curious face of Curse, his eyes focused intently on the frame I had paused on.

“Oh, hey, I was just thinking about you,” I said to him as I produced the stick drive he gave me earlier.  “Here.  I looked in it, by the way.  Do you think you can dig up more?”

Curse coolly took the device from me and stuffed it in his pants pocket with a shrug.  “Maybe,” he replied.  “Guardian Atherton is looking for you, though.  He’s in his room.”  He looked about the crowded data lab with a slight frown.  “Can I take your station?”

“Oh…sure,” I said, and rose from the seat slowly.  The feed I was reviewing vanished as I exited the station, and Curse sat down to open the database.

“Thanks,” he said to me with a smile.  “I’ll see you around.”

I nodded to Curse as I left, eyeing him thoughtfully as I walked out the door.  I wondered how difficult it was to find the information he comes across and how much skill it took to keep it under wraps.  He tried to play everything off as nonchalantly as possible, but I could sense he felt a little on edge about it all.  His posture was rigid and tense, and his eyes danced about as he talked as if he could not find something to focus on.

I placed my hand on the door panel of Cole’s room and the door opened a few moments later.  Cole was lying on his bed, and he motioned for me to come in.  His wall panel displayed a couple of files that appeared to be a message feed from the phone of my last mission’s target.  I walked over to read the exchanges the man had with the Rogue gang.

“It took me a while to gain access into his phone,” Cole said to me.  He sounded as tired as he looked, and I realized how inconsiderate my presence was.  I turned to him apologetically with my sudden insight, but his eyes were closed.

“Should I go?” I asked him.

“Nah, I haven’t plugged in yet,” he said to me.  “I’m afraid if I do I’ll fall asleep too quickly.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“I wanted to talk to you, so I didn’t want to fall asleep.”

“Well, I’m here,” I said to him as I opened my arms at my sides.  I let my arms fall in exasperation, and they hit the fabric of my pants with a muted slap.  I heard the familiar beep of his pen likely hidden somewhere at his side, and I turned my back to face the messages on the wall panel.

“That stuff from the stick drive,” Cole began, “well…  Curse is looking into it.  But he’s shown me a lot more than what you’ve seen just today.  You know those Rogues you encountered yesterday?  Curse is working for them.”

“What, are you saying he’s a mole or something?” I asked with concern.

“Yeah,” he replied.  “At first I supported his idea to communicate with them, but I had no idea he was feeding them information to expose Purgatory until today.  We just talked about it, actually.”  The pen beeped as Cole sighed airily.  “I just thought he was going to find a way out.”

“Then why wouldn’t you encourage him to do what I’m doing?” I questioned.

“Because people like him don’t leave Purgatory,” he explained.  “Hackers are here for life because of what they can do.  They let one hacker go once and well, memories started coming back and Purgatory was almost exposed by accident.  A lot of hackers go Rogue here, and I don’t blame them.”

“Well…why is this so bad?  I mean, we don’t really know what will happen to us if Purgatory is exposed, so maybe it’s worth a risk.”

I could hear Cole shift and stir on his bed.  “Maybe, but I think we should make our moves a bit more methodically than what these Rogues are doing.  We need to get everyone out of Purgatory’s grasp before we make a move like that.”