It Doesn’t Always Pay To Be Cautious
For Christian and Jemima it was one thing to know the logic of the situation was dictating that they really had to trust each other and that they had no good reason to not trust Helix. It was another thing altogether to believe in the correctness of that logic – especially the second part. Neither of them did.
Once they’d made up their minds that Jemima should speak to Helix, they’d made a start on putting the plan into practice. Calling from Christian’s office, Jemima had had to get past an initially defensive secretary but as soon as she’d identified herself she’d been put straight through. Without thinking about it she’d simply told him she wanted to see him right away. He’d agreed without any questions and that had been the end of the conversation.
It was as Christian had been showing Jemima out that her doubts had clicked in again. ‘What was it the secretary said … Mr Helix is waiting for a very important call. What could that be about.‘ Christian had raised his eyebrows but he’d tried to smile at their own fears. It was when she’d said she wasn’t aware of any particularly significant clients availing themselves of the Egg ‘n’ Sperm’s services at the moment that his own irrationality had got the better of him. They’d decided to run another, more extensive check on Helix’s confessions.
The most recent ones were all boring. It was clear that he’d worked out the unlikelihood of anyone reading them. Some of them amounted to gibberish, a couple were quite comic. They delved further and further back into the archives but the effort yielded nothing that appeared to have the remotest bearing on the present.
“Just how far shall we go back?” Jemima, tiring of staring at the screen, actually asked the question but they were both beginning to feel foolish.
“Yep. You’re right. There’s nothing to be gained by carrying on with this. You’d better just get on and go and see him. At this rate he’ll wonder why you haven’t shown up.” Christian straightened his back with a groan.
Once again Jemima started to leave. Christian stood up with her. Just as he did so the lights went out.
“What the…” Jemima’s fears of the last night flooded back.
“It’s OK. It’s only the lighting. Just stay still. There’s an emergency back-up.” Christian was trying to sound calm but there was a catch in his voice. He felt a bit foolish for telling a Technician about the emergency back-up power.
They both waited, not moving. What seemed like an age passed. There was a momentary flicker but it only lasted long enough for them to catch sight of each other staring wide-eyed at nothing.
“Christian?”
“Yes.”
“The emergency should kick-in by now.”
Before he could reply there was another flicker, then another. On the fourth attempt the lights finally stayed on. Terminals and monitors jumped back into life.
They both slumped down heavily. Jemima stood back up again immediately. “What was that all about?” Her mood was shifting from fear to something approaching anger. “Christian, for fuck’s sake this is daft. We must do something!”
“When was the last time we had an outage like that?”
“I don’t know. Years ago. And then we had warnings that it may happen. There’s never been an unscheduled cut like that. Never.”
“Right. Leave Helix for now and go and see what you can find out about what’s happened. You shouldn’t have any problem. You’re a Technician.”
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Jemima left without hesitation. Christian pondered just what he should be doing. All the spiels about stress management he’d dished out to clients for years came flooding back. He’d often suspected they were a bit glib but he’d always hoped that was just because he was so familiar with them. He was dismayed to find the advice felt downright hollow when push came to shove.
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