Here’s part three of While(True):! The next post will complete the story!
Long term storage
After the meeting concluded, the group dissolved back to their offices, terminals, or into their smaller teams for further discussion. Rajiv hovered near the support column next to the stairs leading up toward Alfred’s office.
“You’re not in trouble, Rajiv.”
Rajiv looked up, into Alfred’s eyes, searching for the truth. He seemed to accept Alfred’s words.
“Why did you want to talk to me?”
Rajiv had been with the simulation lab longer than most. He had made the move from Colorado to Virginia fifteen years prior. Alfred recalled Rajiv’s work and contributions over the years before and since the move. He was suddenly struck by the realization that Rajiv was one of the few people still at the lab who had worked directly with Fatima. Alfred condensed this information in his mind as he gestured for Rajiv to walk with him. They approached the stairwell together.
“I happened to look in your direction as Vlad was speaking about Fatima.” Alfred said evenly, watching as each word connected with Rajiv. “You looked dismayed, almost like you wanted to scream at Vlad. I just wanted to check in with you.”
Rajiv nearly threw himself up the stairs as his foot failed to make contact with the next step. He recovered ungracefully, leaning over to place a hand on the stairs in front of him, but, to his credit, not falling completely. As he reclaimed his balance on the stairs, hovering his hand over the handrail in case he encountered further difficulties, he spoke in halted segments.
“I’m. Concerned,” he said with emphasis.
They stopped on the middle platform between flights of stairs. Rajiv continued speaking, choosing his words carefully, as if to avoid something central.
“I’m concerned,” he repeated, “about Vlad. And now, for Nat and Renee. And for you. Maybe for all of us.”
Alfred looked into Rajiv’s eyes. He saw a depth of fear that made him shiver under his lab coat.
“That sounds ominous. Are we about to walk into a lion’s den?” Alfred suggested, hoping the fear he saw was unfounded.
Rajiv considered speaking but stopped short for a moment.
“That, or something worse,” he said without meeting Alfred’s eyes. “I would rather discuss this in private, if you don’t mind.”
Alfred felt his fear from the morning creep up his spine, taking shelter in the base of his brain stem as if ready to push his lizard brain to its limits at the first sign of weakness. He gestured for Rajiv to take the lead.
“I’ll follow you then.”
Rajiv sprinted up the stairs, using his long legs to launch himself two steps at a time. Alfred followed at a significantly slower pace, only taking one stair at a time.
When they arrived in Alfred’s office, Rajiv sucked in the freshness of the air. He seemed to pause for a moment to appreciate the gentle floral smell of the room.
Alfred was slightly winded from the trek up the stairs. He privately shunned his lack of athleticism by comparison to Rajiv. Rajiv was two years older, but he didn’t seem to carry any baggage of reaching middle age. Alfred had struggled for years to shrink the spare tire he carried around his middle. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, taking in a large breath before moving through his office to sit behind his desk. Rajiv sat on the sofa’s arm, facing the desk.
Alfred recalled, uncomfortably, the fear he’d seen in Rajiv’s eyes. He didn’t want to confront any more fears today, he realized. He felt drained, suddenly. Rajiv shifted his weight slightly.
“What’s the concern, Rajiv?”
Rajiv’s tone matched the lethargy Alfred now felt. “Right,” he began, as if remembering himself why he had walked into the room, “I’m concerned that Vlad may have found the same thing that drove Fatima out of the lab.” Rajiv stuttered on the last few words, clearly not wanting to discuss Fatima’s fate after retiring.
“I’m not sure I follow,” Alfred said reluctantly. “What’s the relation to Fatima retiring? She never complained to me about being driven out of the lab.”
Alfred watched Rajiv’s face closely. Surprise and anger flashed across it for a moment before Rajiv wrestled control of his emotions. Rajiv spoke in a tone that betrayed the emotions still roiling across his face, “I take it you didn’t keep up with her after she left the lab?”
Alfred found himself horrified as Rajiv’s words slapped him across the face. He recognized the mechanisms his brain was constructing to provide rationalizations against Rajiv’s attack. He was busy with the newly opened lab. He was traveling between Colorado and Virginia on a weekly basis. His wife had miscarried a few months earlier, likely, he felt, due to the stress of him being gone five out of seven days. He allowed the rationalizations and dozens more to pass over him, considered them briefly, then rejected them all. He would sit with this discomfort and use it to grow, he thought.
Just as he began to speak, to acknowledge aloud that he had failed as a friend, a conversation replayed in his mind. He remembered how distraught by Fatima’s request for early retirement he’d been. He recalled reaching out to his longtime friend and mentor, Joane. He had been comforted, at the time, by her words regarding the loss of a colleague. It wasn’t until later, when that loss was fully realized, that Joane’s words took on a sinister quality. They had never discussed that conversation again. The guilt for both, he assumed, had been too great.
“You are correct.” Alfred said with defeat. He put up a finger, silencing Rajiv, and continued. “I now recognize that was one of my greatest failures. I hope you can forgive me for the harm I failed to prevent.”
Rajiv appeared to understand implicitly that Alfred was protecting his professionalism and wanted to move beyond the worry that Fatima’s death may have been preventable.
“Fatima used to talk about echoes a lot. She would experience deja vu frequently. It consumed her near the end of her tenure here, I think. She refused to discuss it with me. She would only say, ‘Just another echo, Rajiv!’ before folding once more into herself. I’m worried that whatever it was that she stumbled onto fourteen years ago might be the same thing that Vlad wants to show you today.”
“Has Vlad begun discussing echoes to your knowledge?”
“Oh, no, or, well, not to my knowledge, no. But Vlad doesn’t really interact with many others on the team. Least of all me.”
Alfred nodded in agreement; Vlad was a bit of a loner. He seemed on edge most of the time. Alfred remembered the note he had made during the interview with Vlad years ago, “scared that the other shoe was about to drop.”
“Okay, how about we follow up tomorrow? I don’t think Vlad would cycle endlessly in isolation, and he’s clearly throwing up a flag. If he starts mumbling about echoes, I promise I’ll bring him out of it.”
Alfred met Rajiv’s eyes and held them as he finished speaking. He needed Rajiv to understand that he wouldn’t allow another team member to suffer like Fatima had.
Rajiv leaned forward, doubling over, allowing his head to fall into his hands. He spoke through his fingers.
“I don’t know if I can wait until tomorrow. Can we meet this afternoon? With how fast Fatima decayed in front of us…”
Rajiv didn’t continue the sentence. Alfred knew how it would end. Fatima’s suicide had decimated the team for months after they found out. Alfred didn’t know that Rajiv had been the one to call 911 upon arriving at her condo. He didn’t know Rajiv had had a key to her condo either. That he’d discovered her, unresponsive in bed with an empty bottle of pills and a note that said, “I have to break out, if I can.” Rajiv didn’t burden Alfred with those details. Instead, he moved on.
“Can we meet this afternoon? You can fill Joane in tomorrow, but I would like to be included on the periphery, if I can.”
“Of course, I’ll send out the meeting invite for us at the same time I send one for Joane. Okay?”
Rajiv bobbed in affirmation, “Thank you.”
Rajiv moved to the door, mumbling to himself. He opened the door and stepped over the threshold. He turned around, making eye contact with Alfred again as the door closed.
Alfred returned to his desk, opened his webmail account and sent out two meeting invites. One for Rajiv, scheduled for 4 hours from now. And the other for Joane first thing tomorrow morning. Joane responded ‘Accepted’ immediately. Her response contained a custom reply, “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
Alfred smiled to himself. He locked his computer, grabbed his legal pad for note taking and strode down the corridor to Vlad’s office. He saw Natalie and Renee were already working on the math problem that Vlad had set out for them. They had already written a partial equation off the edge of the whiteboard, onto the painted wall. He made a mental note to have the custodian come by to clean that up later.
Another part in the books! Thanks again for continuing to read While(True):! The next post will include the ending to this story, I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.