Free Manipulator by Thom Parsons Page A

was there when she died, unless...
    He clicked, and watched the video again. And again. And again. Until the words were imprinted in his brain. Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes. You must find these three.
    Owen came to the conclusion that whoever sent the video, whoever it was that was doing the talking must be someone who either knew him now or knew him recently, purely due to the fact that they knew so much information about him. It wasn’t just the simple stuff either, like his name and date of birth. That information was accessible to anyone who knew how to look hard enough. Owen was thinking about the little details, the really personal things, like the fact that whoever it was that was talking seemed to know so much about how Annie died. The only people who knew about that were people who knew me personally.
    He needed to think. Maybe, just maybe, Annie's death was in fact, no accident. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until this point, but now, it was all he could think about. Was it pre-planned? Owen struggled to even think about the possibilities of this. But he knew one thing for sure.
    He was going to find out.

Chapter Fifteen

    Date: December 9th 2035
    Location: New York PRoGRaM Analytic Base

    “Owen… I… I had no idea,” Kate said, struggling to get her words out. Her hand half covering her mouth and her eyes were emotionally filled, shocked by what Owen had just explained to her.
    He glanced down at his watch, trying to avoid talking about the subject for longer than he had to. It was just after half nine. He’d called Nick and Kate earlier that morning, asking them both to get into the office as soon as possible. Neither of them disappointed him, but that meant that now he had to explain to Kate what had happened to Annie two weeks earlier.
    “I would have mentioned it sooner,” Owen said, feeling completely out of place as they spoke. “But… It’s not exactly something that crops up in everyday conversation. You already had a lot on your mind with PRoGRaM, and…”
    Nick raised his head above his workstation nearby, looking over to Kate and Owen. “Well, the bad news is that we cannot trace where this original message or the video attachment came from,” he called out bluntly. “Also, there seems to be no way to make the video any clearer than how it was delivered to the server. So… we’re not going to get a clear visual ID on who it is that's recorded and delivered this message anytime soon.”
    Owen and Kate cut their conversation short, much to Owen’s delight. He felt awkward talking to people about Annie. Together, they both walked over to Nick’s workstation. They had watched the video multiple times now, trying to make sense of what they were seeing and hearing. Was this some sort of hoax? Or is it real? Was Annie’s death really a murder and not an accident? The questions fired rapidly through Owen's head faster than he could think up any logical answers. The possibility was there of course, but to Owen, it seemed highly unlikely. Who would want to hurt Annie? He thought. She never did anything to hurt anybody. As far as Owen was aware, she didn’t currently have, and never did have any enemies. She was a computer engineer for Christ’s sake.
    “However,” Nick said. “I’m no video wizard, I’ll admit that. But I do know a few people who might be able to work on this sort of thing.”
    Owen appreciated his honesty, but wasn’t sure about the thought of bringing in an outside party to look at the video. “See if you can find anything out, make some phone calls. But be discreet about it, okay?” he asked, getting a nod in return.
    “Lets look at the facts,” Owen called out loud to no-one in particular. “We received this video message this morning on the secure work account, with a very clear message aimed at me in particular. It’s heavily encrypted and has come from a secure source. It’s completely untraceable, which solidifies my