Brainwashed
Chapter Three — The Archway Case
The flashing lights hurt her eyes.
She tried to look away, but the lights seemed to be everywhere. Blue and reds, with bursts of white, a tiny Fourth of July exploding in front of her face. The whites were the worst of all, stabbing at her through clenched eyelids, poking at her brain as a voice urged her to relax. How could she relax? This was anything but relaxing.
“Just relax,” it said. “Just take a deep breath and relax.”
“It’ll be okay. Relax. Deep breaths. Get your heart rate back to normal.” The EMT finished with his bandages and began to pack up. “It’s nothing serious, Detective. You should be fine in a day or two. No scars on that pretty face, I promise.”
She scowled at him, then relented. It wasn’t his fault she’d been jumped.
Eddie laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You keep looking at those squad car lights, Detective Fallon. They’re real. We’re real. You’re safe now.”
She forced a smile towards the handsome sergeant. He was the kind of man who was born to wear the uniform, smart and sweet and professional to the max. The fact that he filled it out oh-so-nicely certainly helped matters. “Eddie...” Her voice was shaky and uneven. “Do you need me to ID any of the suspects? I can… ow, shit, that hurts… I can help with the evidence collection, too. Just point me in the right direction.”
“Um...” Eddie looked from side to side, as if checking for spies. He leaned in. “Dana, I don’t... I know no one wants to be the one to say this, so I will. We didn’t find anything. Or anybody. The place was empty. Totally deserted.”
“You didn’t find anything?” She scrambled to her feet. “The fuck! How could there be nothing? The place was full of evidence, Eddie! I swear to God! There’s no way they didn’t leave something behind!” She lashed out with her foot, connecting with the side of the ambulance with a dull metallic thud. “God damn it!”
“Hey!” The EMT glared at her.
She threw up her hands and stormed away. Eddie trailed her at a safe distance.
“Motherfucking... there were papers... there was equipment! No, Eddie, please! There’s no way they could have moved it all in a few hours. No way!”
“Sorry, Fallon. The only thing we found in that warehouse was you.”
Mark snored.
It was cute most of the time, but tonight he was battling a slight head cold, and his snores were of the sawing-lumber variety—loud and full of a humming bass that seemed to shake the entire room. She didn’t mind. It helped to keep her awake, to give her an excuse to keep plugging away at whatever faint trail she’d started to stake out. A trail that started, and possibly ended, with Svetlana Konstantinov.
Rudy’s theory was solid. The girl’s social media posts told the same story over and over again, that of a party girl who enjoyed the value of a good time over the value of whatever she was supposed to be studying in school. Dana’s eyes narrowed with each uploaded photo. They went back years; the earliest entries were from high school.
But her gut wouldn’t let things go. Not at the precinct, and not here in front of her laptop, scrolling through Svetlana’s spring break photos. Why would a girl so dependent on social media exposure go radio silent for three weeks? Only to reappear, not with some story about being held captive and making a daring escape, not with an exciting adventure she could sell to her friends and followers, but with… amnesia?
Three weeks. If someone had her that long, they could…
“Mnnnnn.” The snoring behind her turned into a low groan. “Come back to bed, babe.” She turned to find Mark peering at her through the darkness, his face a mixture of sleep and disapproval. “C’mon. They don’t pay you enough to work nights.”
“In a couple of minutes,” she whispered, blowing him a kiss. “I just wanted to check up on a hunch.”
“I’m gonna hunch you,” he mumbled, before setting back into bed. In a few moments he was snoring again.
Three weeks…
Archway was a building, a business, a senseless act of violence, a buzzword in the city tabloids. It was also a whisper Dana had heard many times from criminals and conspiracy nuts in the months before the warehouse ambush made it easy for her superiors to make her, and Archway, go away. Until it was impossible to ignore. After that, they ignored only Dana.
She clicked on the Archway folder before she could convince herself not to. It filled the entire screen, but she had to scroll down to find the file she was looking for. Behind her, Mark tossed and turned. “Nicole Burman,” she mouthed, careful not to make any noise. Mark was too good of a man, too good of a fuck, to lose over this.
They were both young. They were both very attractive. Neither was politically active. One had money and the other lived in Long Island City. One loved the spotlight and the other avoided it. Both were reported missing. Both eventually turned up. One was gone for three days, the other for three weeks.
And of course, one vaporized an entire office while the other woke up safe and sound in her own bed.
She yawned. It was late, and cold. The little radiator under the window did little to keep out the drafts. The only warmth came from her bed, and her boyfriend. She could slip into both of them like a butterfly returning to its cocoon. Her finger hovered over the power button as she looked at Svetlana Konstantinov’s happy, carefree face.
They knew we wouldn’t believe her. They’re counting on it. They want us to forget about her. But why?
Her gut offered a grim answer.
What if they weren’t done with her yet?
Three in the morning. Mark was out cold. Even his snores had gone to sleep. Dana curled her toes in a futile effort to coax some warmth into her bare feet. Her slippers were under the desk, but she needed to keep her eyes on the screen.
Archway’s security records weren’t supposed to be accessible to anyone, much less to a detective from Missing Persons, but Dana knew her way around computer systems and the secrets they held. She sped through days of footage in a matter of minutes, eyes searching for a familiar face. A dumb hunch, maybe, but a hunch all the same. The night stuff was largely useless, anyway, so that left twenty days at eight or nine hours a day, so maybe two hundred hours of footage to go through, sped up—she did the math in her head as figures whizzed across the screen—it would only take a night or two at the computer before she-
Wait. WAIT. Holy shit, is that... was that? No, I’m not THAT lucky.
Her fingers trembled as she clicked on the ‘rewind’ arrow.
“New pose.”
“Yes, master.” The blonde obediently shifted her body into position. Her right hand was curled under some imaginary object—he let her come up with the poses, so it was anyone’s guess as to what she was supposed to be holding—and her left was planted against her shapely hips. She appeared to be contemplating poor Yorick’s skull, and after giving it some thought, he decided that was the look she was going for this time.
Then Carrie appeared, and he forgot all about Cora’s Hamlet.
“I’m ready for you, master,” said Carrie, running her hands up and down her toned body. Her skin was pink and flush with desire. ”Please let me obey my commands, master.”
“What is your purpose, slave?” He smiled. The idea that he could put those five words together and say them to anyone, much less to a beautiful model standing naked in his bedroom, never failed to amaze him. And yet, here he was. He knew the answer to the question, of course. He’d written it himself.
“My purpose is to obey,” she responded. He watched as her hazel eyes glazed over. The phrase was both mantra and trigger, designed to push her deeper into trance each time. Her hands fell to her sides as she whispered it again and again. “My purpose is to obey. My purpose is to obey. My purpose is to obey.”
He lifted her limp hands and pulled her back towards the programming chair. “That’s right, sugar. Much as I want to fuck you right now, you’re gonna need another round in the chair first.”
“My purpose is to obey,” she said, eyes fluttering as he placed the visor over them.
“And you will. Forever. Now lie back and relax.”
The visor was a new addition to the process. It worked great, and it looked great on the girls. There was something about the way it seemed to swallow Carrie’s angelic face, the way it emphasized her lips as they slowly began to repeat the words that were now floating in front of her empty eyes.
His erection pressed painfully against his jeans. As much as he wanted to wait until Carrie’s next round was over, his dick clearly had other ideas. He thought about calling Cora over, fucking her right there on the floor while her big sister was being enslaved just inches from her mindless, cum-streaked face. The thought made him wince, and he quickly stripped down to his boxers. “Cora,” he called out, “could you please come in here?”
“Yes, master.” Oh God, this is too much, this is too much, I’m the king of the fucking world right now! He was just about to take her from behind when he heard his phone buzz. The burner phone. The Russian’s phone.
He kept his eyes fixed on Cora’s ass, imagining what he could do with it, hoping those thoughts would be enough to keep the Russian from spoiling the moment. Leave it to him to ruin a goddamn orgy, that fuck.
“I’m busy.” It was all he planned on saying. The rest would probably be all about getting yelled at. Experience taught him that hanging up on people like the Russian unexpectedly, without permission, was a very bad idea. Instead, he picked at his nose, watched Cora’s sweet ass, and waited.
“Busy fucking around, maybe.” The Russian was angry. He was always angry. “I told you before to stop playing with the merchandise, Edward.”
“I have to test drive them. You’d know that if you knew anything about how this all works. Come on by and we’ll all have a foursome.”
“I am not amused. You’re supposed to be doing a job, Edward. Finish it or I will find someone else who can.”
He waited until the line went dead. “Not fucking likely,” he said as soon as it was safe, tossing the phone onto a nearby table for good measure. He grabbed Cora with both hands, eager to get back to ‘work.’
Behind them, Carrie continued her new mantra.
She rolled over and reluctantly opened her eyes. Her phone was half-buried under the sheets, glowing softly in the dark. She frowned, and prepared to roll back over.
It’s another one of those people. Goddamn it.
It could be mom. I have to call her back. I can’t just ignore her. She’ll freak.
“Murr.” She swept the phone into her hand and answered. “Look, if you’re from that website, I don’t want to talk to—”
“The woods are lovely.”
Dark, and deep. ”Dark, and deep.“
“You have promises to keep.”
“I have... I do? I don’t...”
“Dark and deep. You have promises to keep. I’m going to tell you what they are. Listen and obey. You have promises to keep.”
“Yes. I’m listening. Miles to go, before I sleep.”
“Right there. Right. There. That’s obviously Svetlana, Rudy. Standing right in front of the Archway building and getting filmed by that guy.” For once, she was the detective slamming hands on desks. “I knew it! Look, right there! See what she’s doing?”
Rudy shrugged. He tapped his fingers against the sides of his head. “Posing for Vogue? Jesus, Dana, is this your first day in town? Models and photographers are everywhere. I watched one of them block a line of tour buses in front of the Met last weekend. Man, you should have seen those little old ladies from Iowa mouth off!“
“I’m serious, Rudy. Look what she’s doing. Look at that thing in her hand.” She poked at the screen. “That’s some kind of detonator. See? It’s like she’s doing a practice run. She’s connected to all of this, Rudy! We have to bring her back in for questioning.”
“Detective...”
“No, Rudy, I mean it for real this time! This is going to break everything wide open! This is what I’ve been telling you about!”
“DANA!”
Rudy had a voice that could make anyone—except his mother, maybe—cower and submit. Dana was no exception. She fell silent, but it was more than that. She seemed to fall under him, like a defeated knight kneeling before his new king. She wanted to keep fighting, to explain how someone had brainwashed Svetlana and was probably still controlling the grad student from a distance, but her own mouth betrayed her and refused to move. Rudy stood in front of her. He was only two inches taller, but those two inches now felt like two miles.
“Not everything can be about Archway, okay? You need to... look at me, Dana. Look at me. You need to stop. You need to let it go, okay? Because otherwise it’s going to burn you out. I like you. I want to work with you. You do good work. Just... do it in Missing Persons, not here. Not this.”
She pushed hard, and wrestled the controls of her mouth away from the traitor inside of her. “I was this close, Ramirez. This close! If that asshole hadn’t... if I’d had time to call for backup, if I’d been smart and gone back outside... I had them. I could have stopped all of this before it even began!”
“Look, I know you’re still mad about what happened. I would be too, okay? But these attacks aren’t your job anymore. They’re not your responsibility. Let the boys downtown take care of it and move on with your life!”
“Would you get on with yours, though? Put yourself in my shoes, Ramirez. Be the pretty young detective who gets jumped and knocked out and tied up, be the ‘oh she’s just a helpless girl’ who has to deal with the snickers and the glares... to feel all of the old cops staring at her, the ones who think she ought to be typing out their reports and cleaning the break room sink. And then get kicked off the case because—”
“Dana...”
“Would you just be just mad, Detective? No, you’d be furious. You’d be fucking furious! Nobody listens to you! Nobody believes you! And then you get transferred to Missing Persons and you bust your ass tracking down every last little detail like it’s the Lindbergh Baby, because you’ve got something to prove now. Got it?”
He stepped back and folded his arms. He studied her for a minute, letting the tension deflate before slowly continuing. “Yeah, I got it. Just... don’t let them see it get to you. Take it from this pair of Puerto Rican shoes, from the guy the old cops think should be cleaning out the toilets.”
“Yeah, but…”
He stared into her eyes. His face was kind and gentle, and very unlike the hardass she’d come to know and respect. He looked genuinely concerned. “Don’t let them get to you, Dana. Your sanity is worth more than all the Lindbergh Babies in the world.”
“What is history? It’s just a story. It changes depending on who’s telling it.”
Lindsay winced as the front door slammed shut. She reached for the remote and paused the TV. “Welcome back, Svet.” She struggled to come up with a follow-up sentence. What do you say in a time like this? She decided to try for humor. Svetta loved jokes. “I kinda miss you being gone, it was nice and quiet around here.”
She heard only silence in return. Feeling guilty, she peered over the edge of the couch. Her roommate was in the kitchen, mumbling something to herself. “Hey Svet, I’m sorry. That was rude. Wanna come watch Outlander with me?“
The blonde said nothing. She brushed aside a pile of Lindsay’s paperwork and set her Kate Spade on the counter, rummaging inside it like a bear pawing through an unattended backpack. A stack of paystubs cascaded to the floor.
Lindsay opened her mouth, then thought the better of it. If the two cops weren’t bluffing, then Svetta was facing some serious shit. False reporting, for starters. Maybe more. Compared to that, the mess in the kitchen could wait. She turned and burrowed into the couch, digging under the blankets and fumbling for the TV remote. “Svet,” she said, “there’s food in the fridge if you want anything. I got cereal and milk, too.“
She hit play. On screen, Brianna unfroze, and continued her scene. “Like Paulies, like Bonnie Prince Charles, like my parents, like my own. History can’t be trusted.”
The crackling noise sounded, at first, like popcorn, and she wondered if Svetta was about to settle in next to her with a shared bowl. But the pops, and the acrid smell that accompanied them, seemed less and less like popcorn and more and more like some kind of electrical short. She sat up, looking back toward the kitchen, half expecting to see Svetta sticking a fork into the toaster. “Hey roomie, what are you doing?”
The blonde stood directly behind the couch, as still as a statue, staring straight ahead. Her eyes were cold and empty. She opened her mouth, and words oozed out of it. “Miles to go, before I sleep.” Her lips came together and formed a flat line, devoid of emotion.
“I... I can turn down the TV if you want to sleep.” Lindsay glanced down at the blankets. “I can watch the captions and put it on—”
She heard the crackle again, louder this time, buzzing like an angry fire inches from her body. That sounds like a Taser, she thought, before her mind finally put two and two together and realized that oh shit! it really was a Taser, and that her roommate was about to press it against her shoulder. Then her entire body seemed to light up, as if someone had filled her with wires and plugged her into the wall. “Urk,” she groaned, as she rolled off the couch and onto the floor with a heavy thud.
Svetlana dropped the Taser and looked down at her unconscious roommate. “I have kept my promise.”
Dana circled the block twice before going in. To everyone else, she was just a smartly-dressed (if slightly lost) young woman making her way down Second Avenue on a sunny weekend afternoon. In her own mind, she was the confident (if slightly lost) detective about to bring things to a boiling head. She set her eyes on the colorful, oversized sign above the street corner and marched to it. A smiling white mug, with white steam for hair, wide eyes and a happy smile plastered on its porcelain face. Frank’s was a fixture in the neighborhood. Signs for ‘Internet,’ ‘Wi-Fi,’ and finally ‘HI-SPEED WIFI’ marked the cafe’s journey into the 21st century.
Her target sat alone at the far end of the outdoor patio. Dana was quick, and silent. The girl never saw her until it was too late to escape. Instead of running, Svetlana looked up at her with sad eyes. She looked utterly defeated. Dana switched gears mid-stride, choosing to go with ‘good cop’ instead of ‘bad cop.’
“Nice day, Svetlana. Thought I’d go for a walk. What are you up to?”
The young woman rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have anything better to do on your weekends, Detective?”
“Don’t you?”
“Whatever.” Svetta gave the chair across from her a shove with her foot, and motioned for Dana to sit. “Have a seat. Have a cup. The fuck does it matter? Everyone already thinks that’s all I do with my life. Fuck around and drink coffee and fuck random guys I just met.”
“Hey.” Dana rested her hand on Svetta’s. The blonde began to pull away, then relented, and Dana gave it a gentle squeeze. “Why did you confess, Svetta? Why did you say that you made it all up?”
“Because no one would believe me.” Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “Because Lindsay went back to them and told them that she ran into me while I was missing and that I told her that I was doing fine. Because maybe I got drunk and high and off my meds and I’m just too embarrassed to admit it. Or maybe I’m going fucking crazy. I just want to put it all behind me, Detective. They said that if I confessed I’d get off with probation.”
“Svetta, I believe you.” Dana said, giving another squeeze. “And I trust you. That’s a start. I’m a cop and I trust you, so that’s two things. And I know what it’s like to be alone in a place where no one takes you seriously.”
Svetta took a long sip before slowly returning her mug to the table. They both enjoyed the brief silence. “But why,” she said, tendrils of steam slipping through her fingers as she rested a hand over the mug. “Why do you believe me? I don’t even believe me. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Lindsay told me everything. She said she lied to you at first to protect me and then I told her not to, and now...”
“Call it a gut feeling. Gut feeling that I’ve been following for months, even when it got me tied up in a chair like some kind of horror movie. Even when... hey, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Dana tapped the girl’s hand. “Svetta?”
“A chair.” The blonde’s face was whiter than the smiling coffee mug above their heads. “A chair? You were tied up in a chair?”
“Svetta, what is it?”
“A chair,” she said, as the color slowly flowed back into her skin. “A chair! I can remember a chair! I was in a chair, too! They had me tied up in a chair!”
Dana leaned forward. “Where? Where were you in a chair?”
“I... I don’t remember. But there was a movie playing. Some kind of home video. And this voice in the background.” She leaned back, a look of wonder on her face. “I was in a chair. Like in this big empty room. So big that I couldn’t see the walls or anything. I remember that. I can remember that!”
On the surface, Dana was smiling. Inside, she was not. She was well aware of how exposed they were at this moment, sitting outside on a street in the busiest city in the country. Literally hundreds of people, if not more, could be watching them at this very moment. If the people behind this were as sophisticated as she assumed, they would probably be able to listen to them as well. Suddenly feeling very nervous, she quickly scanned the cafe and the street. Nothing seemed out of place.
“This isn’t a good place to talk about this, Svetta. If I’m right, something big is going to happen. Maybe it’s already happening. I’m going to have to ask… I mean, I want to take you back to the precinct. You’ll be safer there.”
You don’t know if that’s true, Dana. That little shrub of doubt, a seed planted in the aftermath of the warehouse, now fully grown and blooming. You can’t protect her. You couldn’t protect yourself.
I have to believe it. What else is there?
“Okay, Detective Fallon. I trust you.” Svetta’s smile, however weak, was enough to chase the voices out of Dana’s head. The blonde brushed aside her mug and reached into her bag. “I just have to text my mom. She wants me to text her every single time I’m in a new place, or she’ll freak.”
“Svetta, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”
But it was too late. Svetta had her phone in hand, running a delicate finger along the screen as she opened her text app. “See? It looks like she’s already sent me... a... a...”
Dana felt her blood run cold. She reached for Svetta, who ignored her, choosing instead to clutch her phone with both hands. Her eyes, still slightly puffy from the tears, seemed to stare right through the screen. “Miles to go, before I sleep,” she muttered, rising from the table. “I have promises to keep.”
“What are you doing? Wait, Svetta!”
buzz buzz buzz buzz
It was her own phone, choosing the worst possible time to interrupt her. In a panic, she looked down at it, then at Svetta, who was now two steps away and moving, slowly, towards the street. “Goddamn it Ramirez, not now!” She reached for the off button and gasped.
“What will you remember?”
“I will remember nothing.”
“Very good. The woods are lovely.”
“Dark and deep.”
“You have promises to keep, Dana.”
“Yes. Miles to go, before I sleep.”
“You will remember nothing.”
“I will remember nothing.”
“The woods are lovely.”
“Dark, and deep.”
“Is she under?”
“She’s as deep as we can get her tonight. I’ll wipe her memories, but no guarantees. If I had another couple of hours…”
“Clean out. You have exactly one hour. Make sure she’s programmed to do what I need her to do.”
She was floating above New York, lost in the clouds, drifting with the winds. The voices were back, comforting and calming, whispering sweet things directly into her mind. Svetta was gone. Forgotten. She had promises to keep. Svetta was not one of them. The voices coaxed her from her lofty perch, taking her down, down, deeper, dark and deep to street level, where she found herself back in her own body. A body that had promises to keep.
“Miles to go, before I sleep.” She pushed back from the table, ignoring the mess she was making, and pulled her purse over her shoulder. “Miles to go, before I sleep.”