Decoding the Past Changes the Future
Saturday, Morning
"Chief O'Brien, there is not enough debris to even tell if there was a body."
~~~~~~~
What happened to Meridian?
On Friday night, after eating a bit Meridian felt off. She turned up the stereo.
Fuck, how much worse could one day get?! Something is wrong. Screw it, I'm packing a bag and I'm out of here. I'll buy a disposable cell and call Connor when I'm away from here. I'm not playing victim.
Remembering the old dumbwaiter, she grabbed a bag and quickly packed. She heard a knock at the door. She climbed in the dumbwaiter with her bags, hurried and slammed the door closed. The dumbwaiter flew way too fast down the chute. She hit bottom hard enough to make her lose her breath. No time to lick her wounds. She had to go. She slipped out the back of the garage and down the alley.
Then she saw the blast.
Luckily, she had reinforced her walls to ensure only her floor would be destroyed if something happened.
Who was the person at the door? Was it someone to kill her or worse someone she knew? What if it was Connor or Marcus?
Watching the concussion of the blast hit her top floor she almost cried. She didn't have time to cry.
Meridian rented a cheap hotel room on Friday night with one of other fake identities. The visions came all night long in her sleep.
~~~~~~~
Meridian was having the same dream she'd had since she was a child. The flashes of images were incoherent. A man and woman so happily married. The woman and the man looked familiar but she didn't know from where. The next image was the same woman but pregnant with the man. She had always told herself they were the images of what she had hoped to have but there was more to it than that. The images were the reason she pushed so hard to stay with Ken until he cheated.
Then the bad images filtered through… three visions of death…three funerals…three little girls holding each other crying. She couldn't make out the faces of the girls since they were huddled together.
This time the vision was longer and different. A vision of her staring at an image of herself then the image changed, it was the same face and eyes but with hair the color of cinnamon. She put her hand out to hold hands with the image. They grabbed hands like children; two women holding hands. The image with the cinnamon hair smiled and turned away from her to look at another image. Once again, it was the same face and eyes but with fiery crimson hair. They grabbed each others' hands and smiled; three women with the same face and eyes holding hands like children playing a game of red rover. The three images made a circle holding hands each staring at each other and smiling.
Were these images different facets of her personality; the compartmentalized views of her life?
The 2
nd
woman looked at the 3
rd
woman and said, "My name is Alexandria." The 3
rd
woman looked at the first one and said, "My name is Trinity." The 2
nd
and 3
rd
women looked back at her saying in unison, "Your name is Meridian." The 2
nd
woman said, "Come to Seattle and find me. You cannot go forward without knowing the past." She then saw a vision of a mansion and an address.
~~~~~~~
When Meridian woke the next morning, she went over what she remembered of her childhood in her head. The first image she had was running and crying. There were blurred memories of living with nuns after that. They had called her Jane Smith. She saw herself in the mirror as a child. She remembered being punished continually by the nuns. She had overheard the conversation the night before she was taken to the orphanage. "The child is possessed an abomination and we cannot keep her here." Another woman spoke and said, "Take her to the orphanage tomorrow."
The time at the orphanage was horrible with the numerous foster parents they tried to place her with. The foster parents always returned her since they were scared of her visions. She suffered years of abuse at numerous homes. She finally ran away at the age of 16 and worked to support herself.
At the age of 22, she was working as a waitress when she saw a vision of the man she was waiting on being killed. She told the man and he laughed at her. Later he had laughed and joked with his superiors about the "vision" the mere waitress had told him about.
He was killed two weeks later. His supervisor tracked her down with the thought she had set up his friend. She woke up in a freezing room with no windows. The days seemed to lose meaning during the interrogation. Minutes merged into hours. The small room smelled of the room was of blood which reminded her of rust and iron. She was chained to a steel chair that was bolted to the floor; surrounded by bright lights. The man was not like other men, she sensed it immediately. He seemed older and smelled different than most men though he did not look a day over 30. Once again, she felt as if she was being persecuted for her visions.
On the second day of the interrogation, she felt the officer was doing something that was pushing into her mind. It made her head hurt. He hit her continually; after the nuns, she had learned to block the pain of abuse. He kept telling her to let him see into her head but she did not know how. She couldn't understand what he wanted.
Her fear transmuted into anger and hate. On the fourth day, something had snapped in her brain like a rubber band snapping. In a fit of rage, she screamed in his face. Her blue eyes turned to a dangerous color of gray reminiscent of devastating hurricane. She glared at him like a wild animal focused on its prey; hands clenched into fists so tight crimson blood dripped from her hands. He fell to his knees grasping his head. He flew across the floor and into the wall without anyone touching him. He was dragged out of the room screaming. Blood was dripping through his hands that were tightly clutching his ears and crimson blood flowed from his eyes.
Her fate was discussed among the superiors; unknown to her, their hope was to scare her into working for them. She was given the option to work with the government or be dissected.
Like that was a choice!
She chose to work for them and was known as the Ice Queen. That's when she had met Connor. He was different like the original officer, but she felt he was safe. Connor had always protected her.
Meridian stashed her extra baggage in a storage facility. She then went to the airport and took the first plane to Seattle.
~~~~~~~
Connor looked at everyone on Saturday morning and broke the news about not having a confirmation. "Marcus, can we talk privately in your office?"
Marcus led Connor into his office and closed the door. Something was nagging Marcus, a feeling Connor was holding something back. "You have something to tell me. Don't forget my position and where your loyalty belongs."
"Marcus, I want you to understand I would never betray Meridian's trust. I have loyalty to both of you. Please don't misconstrue my lack of sharing everything to this point as a form of disrespect or lack of loyalty. I realize that my actions could be construed as withholding information, among other things, but it has never been my intent. I would never betray you."
"I've been a bit torn about sharing everything I know. After working for you, many years back, I'm sure I can trust you and highly respect you."
"Connor, stop kissing my ass and get around to telling me what you've been withholding."
"Her past, Meridian was originally Jane Smith. The government only knew that she was given to an orphanage after a nun found her as a child. She was in and out of foster homes but continually was returned to the orphanage. She ran away from an orphanage at 16. She supported herself after that. From what I remember hearing, she had a premonition of a customer being killed and she told him. He was a government agent. He told his superior and coworkers laughing about it. He died two weeks later. The superior officer had thought she had set his friend up. He interrogated her for days until she snapped and something happened to him. Rumors went around as to what happened in the room. They would never let me see the tape. I know they are only rumors but what I heard was of her eyes changing colors, her screaming, and him being thrown against a wall with bleeding ears and eyes. The rumors were that he went insane."
"The government gave her the option of being trained as an agent or dissected. So she was trained and became my partner. She never shared anything else with me. I don't think she knows."
Marcus said, "Understand, under any other circumstance I would have you killed. If it were anyone else I would. Don't ever withhold information from me again. Don't mistake understand and compassion for weakness."
"I never would." They went back into the other room to check with Logan and Drake. "Does anyone have any new information?"
Drake was the first one to speak. "I've been able to find some information on Cyrus. I thought I recognized the name. He was dragged in front of the International Vampire Counsel with charges of killing vampires to gain their powers not too long ago. His technique was not perfected and the vampires he attacked just died but they couldn't link the murders to him."
Marcus thought for a minute. "I remember now. I urged we keep him under surveillance and I was outvoted. That would explain the list but has he perfected it is the question."
Logan was recalling the details of the trial. "I remember that he was pretty damn close. The vote to ignore it was idiotic. Now we have to deal with him."
"Did the list that was stolen have special talents of the senior staff listed?" Drake asked with a raised eyebrow.
"We don't know since we don't have the usb drive to confirm everything that was stolen. I think it's our best theory at the moment. He went off the grid after the trial; tracking him is our first order of business." Marcus said.
