Mélange - PART 9

Walking back inside, he tossed the package on a nearby table and helped Angie finish unloading the van. Once that was finished, and Angie went into the kitchen to make them some tea, Rollie’s attention shifted back to the envelope. He went to where the package lay, sat down, and just held it in hands. He wondered what it contained. He suspected he wouldn’t like it. Grimly, he cut through the tape and pulled out the contents. Pictures, quite a few pictures. He glanced at the top few. They were relatively innocently. They showed Angie and a man he didn’t recognize eating dinner. Then, the setting changed to a nightclub. After those, it showed the two people entering Angie’s apartment building. Then images started deteriorating. They showed the two inside Angie’s bedroom. He couldn’t look at these, quickly putting them on the bottom of the stack.

He kept flipping through the pictures. It was some of the most offensive material he had even seen; worse than any B-grade monster movie. Rollie was repulsed. His stomach lurched when he saw the last few. The others had nothing on these pictures. The images were worse than anything from Spike and Mike’s. They were disgusting and horrific images. They contained evidence of rage and violence. Obviously it was the work of someone who was very disturbed and very dangerous.

The thought that someone hated her enough to do this. Logically, he knew it wasn’t her. That would be impossible. But…now he had some idea of what Angie went through when she looked at him. Knowing it wasn’t that person doing those things when it looked like them was hard to comprehend. It was all so confusing.

Angie silently walked up to where he was sitting, and sat two cups on the table. She looked over and saw the images in his hand. Immediately, her stomach churned and she could feel the bile rising in her throat. Who would do something like that? She made a slight choking sound. Rollie spun around and saw Angie pale. Rollie spat out a string of curses that would have impressed even the most foul of mouths. Angie didn’t even blink at his language.

It was obviously an attempt to create a rift between them. The sender must have gathered some good information about them, as they hadn’t told many they were a couple, yet. They wanted to savor their relationship for a little while before they told the world. They knew they would get quite a ribbing from their friends, they just weren’t ready to deal with that yet. Everyone would know soon enough, after all, they weren’t ashamed of their relationship. And, such information spreads fast in the movie business.

Rollie recalled the scanner and printer he saw in Annie’s apartment. That combination would be capable of producing something like this. He reached for the phone, to notify Mira and Francis of the latest development. With his fingers poised over the keypad, he noticed Angie reach for the stack of pictures,

Angie’s initial impulse was to rip the pictures into tiny pieces but she knew she couldn’t do that. The police would need them for evidence is Annie was ever caught and tried. She threw them down on the table, and staked over to the living area, seething over this additional intrusion in her life.

***

Later that day, on the movie set, Angie and Rollie were extremely tired. The police kept them up quite, questioning them about the photos. It seemed like the officers had just left, when it was time to go work. Weary, Angie stood by the Ambler, wishing they would roll cameras already. She forced herself to remain alert. There was only one scene left to film that day, and it was one of the movie’s key sequences. It was also very special effects intensive. Both Rollie and Angie thought the scene was overdone but, what the director wants, he gets, as long as he pays for it. If she made a mistake and they had to re-shoot, it would just make her day that much longer. At long last, the director called for places. She looked down at the screen. A small icon briefly flashed in the lower right corner. She just assumed her eyes were deceiving her. The ambler shouldn’t do that.

"Action," called the director.

She set the first effect into action. Everything was normal. Then, the icon flashed again. Puzzled, she kept a keen eye on the filming, so she could keep the effects in synch with the action, while she delved into the system controls to investing the origin of this. Stunned, she couldn’t believe what she saw. Someone had hacked into the system and was trying to reprogram the controls. It had to be Annie. Immediately, Angie took the automated system off-line, and decided to run the effects manually. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, this would be pushing her computer skills and reflects. Angie nimbly operated the touchpad. Her fingers flew, her face was the picture of concentration. She managed to keep things going. The first set of gunshots went off without a hitch, and the car explosion went perfectly. She even got the smoke released on cue. By this time, sweat was forming on her brow. She had to concentrate on fighting Annie and running the effects. With little difficulty, Angie triggered the lasers. Frantically, she looked around for Rollie. She could use his help to keep things going. She located him on the other side of the set, absorbed in his own activities. She considered calling him over the headset, but others were listening in, and she didn’t want to make her problem known. The last thing she wanted to do was panic everyone.

The final big effect in the scene involved the main character to jump over a tall fence, complete with sharp, pointy finials and make his escape. This involved using a remote controlled winch to make the character airborne. Angie could see the actor finish hooking all the cables to his flying harness. She looked down, and noticed Annie was trying to manipulate the winch control program. At that point, Angie cut the power, she couldn’t risk someone else getting hurt.

"Cut!" The director shouted, angrily. He was annoyed because the scene took a while to set up. Now, they’ll have to waste an hour to reset. And he’d have to juggle the schedule because they were running late. Plus, in the back of his mind, he was afraid this would be a repeat of what happened on the set of Blood Money. He knew Angie was cleared of the murder charge but he also knew that Tyler F/X was in tight with the cops.

The director yelled at Rollie, "What happened?" Rollie, in turn, looked to Angie for answers. She didn’t want to mention what really happened in front of everything so she quickly made up some excuse; one that made sense to everyone but Rollie. He knew better. Rollie didn’t belief her but didn’t want to get into an argument about it. She’d have a reason for lying, he hoped. He was a little worried that lying to him was beginning to be a bad habit.

"We’ll talk later, Angela." Then he walked off, hurrying to catch up to the director, hoping to placate him.

"Reset. We’ll try this again in the morning," called the AD, resigned to re-arranging the schedule to finish filming on time.

***

Now that filming had wrapped for the day, Rollie and Angie were putting away some of their stuff. Rollie demanded an explanation of what went wrong.

"What happened?"

"I don’t know. Somehow, someone got into our system and was messing with it." She told him her suspicions. "I think it was Annie. I mean, they would change something, as fast as I fixed it, something else would go wrong. Then, she started in on the winch controls. To be safe, I had to shut the system off. I’ll fix it tonight so it’s ready for tomorrow."

***

Later, at the loft, Angie was busy running diagnostics on the computer system. She wanted to know exactly what Annie did to the system. Coming up behind her, Rollie placed a cup of tea in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. Immediately, he felt her tense ever so slightly. Most wouldn’t have even noticed but her was so in tune with her, he could detect slight variation. Reluctant to break the contact between them, he kissed her on the top of her silky blonde hair, and slid around so he rested against her desk. Absently, she picked up the tea and took a sip.

"So, what have you learned?"

"Not much. She seems to have installed some sort of application that would have stopped the effects from going off as planned. But as far as I can tell, it’s pretty harmless. It would have been embarrassing to us but that’s about it. I’ll know more when I finish this test."

"How could she get into the system? I mean, you’re one of the best."

"We had the same teacher. She learned the same tricks I did."

"Need any help?"

"From you? I don’t think so. I’d like to get this finished tonight."

He sniffed dramatically, "Fine, fine. I know when I’m not wanted," he said, pretending Angie’s comments had hurt her feelings. She just smiled at him and re-focused her mind on the task at hand. Rollie left her alone to finish her work, and returned to the organized chaos of his own workstation.

He sat back and, unobtrusively, took a good hard look at his partner. He could see pale purple crescents under her eyes. Her eyes lacked their usual sparkle and vitality. She was thinner too, too thin. Her clothes hung loosely on her. He knew it was a physical manifestation of everything that has been going on in their lives the past few weeks. He knew he looked more ragged than a year ago. Suddenly, she jumped up, and yelled "Rollie! Come ‘ere. Look at this. It’s a message that was left in the system."

"Oh, man. She’s gonna do something. We have got to stop her, Rol."

***

They tried reaching Mira or Francis but neither were at the station, nor where they answering their cell phones. In desperation, they left a message to meet them at Annie’s apartment.

Outside, the sky had turned, dark, ominous and menacing. Clouds had formed in the east, blocking most of the moon’s rays leaving the lights in the city as the only illumination. The night air was filled with charged particles, giving the impression a malevolent presence floated around them. It was like the environment knew something was wrong.

They took Rollie’s sleek, red sports car, as it was more maneuverable than the van. It could go faster too. They ran yellow lights, and drove well over the speed limit. Under Rollie’s capable hands, and his stunt driving background, he could do this safely. In the passenger seat, Angie clenched her fists so tight, her knuckles turned white. All the while, she was silently urging Rollie to drive faster.

They slid to a stop in front of the building, parking in a restricted zone. They didn’t care; this was more important than some parking regulations. Angie was out the door even before Rollie brought the car to a complete stop. Rollie hurried after her. Luck was with them, as they reached the door as someone was leaving, and the doorman was no where in site.

In the lobby, Angie frantically pushed the elevator call button. She was too impatient to wait and headed for the stairwell. She sprinted up the stairs to the fourth floor, with Rollie right on her heels.

Just at they round the corner to Angel's apartment, they saw the door swing shut. There was a slim figure wearing jeans and a green T-shirt running away from them. Instantly, they start running after. The sound of another door closing told them Annie had entered the other stairwell. They maintained their pursuit of her. On the fourth floor landing, they paused. They could hear footsteps but couldn’t determine which direction they were coming from. Up? Or Down?

"Which way?" Rapidly, they looked up then down, then up again. Both looked around, hoping to find some clue, which would reveal which way Annie went. Out of the corner of his eye, Rollie noticed a slight movement above them.

"Up, she’s gone up, " he said, excitedly and charged up the stairs. It seemed like the stairs kept going higher and higher. They had lost count of how many flights they climbed. The last floor number they saw read seventeen. Finally, they ran out of stairs as they encountered a solid metal door. Rollie burst through it first, wanting to protect Angie from what was on the other side. He was just about to cross the threshold when the world vanished.