Manipulator by Thom Parsons Read Free Book Online Page B

their actions.”
    Owen and Victoria both sat in silence, starring at each other.
    “Mr Archer. What kind of person are you?” Victoria asked, breaking the tension that hung in the atmosphere.
    “You ask what kind of person I am? Well, if my job is anything to go by, and the way that everyone in my team looks up to me, only for me to lead them astray, then there’s only one kind of person that you can call me, isn’t there?” Owen said, almost spitting the words out as he said them.
    “And that is?”
    “A manipulator.”

PART TWO: ANNIE ARCHER

    “There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.”
    Napoleon Bonaparte

Chapter Ten

    Date: December 9th 2035
    Location: Unknown

    I’m here again. Being fired through random events in my life by my own subconscious. I’ve been here so many times that I know I'm dreaming before anything even happens.
    The feeling that surges through me tells me where I am.
    Dreaming.
    Dreaming again.
    That stupid, recurring dream. I know how it goes, but I’m powerless to control myself. I'm powerless to wake up. Here I am, forced to sit and watch the action play out in front of me, like a soul trapped in a possessed body. Like a puppet with someone else pulling the strings.
    I’m floating, surrounded by darkness and emptiness. My own eyes are forced shut by some unknown force controlling me. But even without my sight, I can feel the world around me coming to life. The immediate and incredible sound of metal scraping against metal forces itself into my ears. I begin to wake, expecting to find myself surrounded by machinery capable of making such noises.
    But no.
    The noise stops, and I open my eyes. Instead, I find myself inside a building in a small, peaceful office room. The source of the noise? Nowhere to be seen.
    I’m sat behind a desk looking at a man I’ve never seen before in my life. “Welcome to Special Projects," the man tells me. “Welcome to the world of PRoGRaM.”
    But in the blink of an eye, it’s gone. It’s all gone. The chair I was sitting in has turned into a wooden bench. The scenery all around me… changed.  
    I’m no longer inside, but instead I’m sat in the middle of a graveyard. I look over my shoulder to see a church nearby, its bell ringing, calling out. Calling to me.
    “It’s time Owen," a female voice nearby calls out to me. I stand up, but I can’t look at her. I’m too lost in my own sadness to make eye contact, to see this woman's face. I walk a long, lonely road across the graveyard, towards a huge crowd of people standing out in the middle of the grassy area. The woman, the one who spoke to me only moments before is nowhere to be seen. There’s just me, walking alone in the blazing sun towards my destination.
    “In the midst of life we are in death,” a deep voice calls out in the distance, coming from the centre of the huge crowd of people ahead of me. I make it to the edge of the group, but nobody seems to notice me. Nobody pays me any attention as I walk around the large group of people, trying to find a slot which I can squeeze through. I just want to see what’s happening… In the end, I find a space and push my way through to the front to see just what it is that’s happening here.
    “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” the man leading the recital calls out as he throws some dirt down onto a coffin. I look up, scanning the faces in the crowd, and lo and behold there I am. I see myself standing on the opposite side of the circle, looking down onto the coffin, saying goodbye.
    Goodbye Annie.
    A flash of lighting, a change of scene. Once again, the world dissolves from one reality and into another. Everything I was looking at moments before is gone, including the sun, only to be replaced by the moon.
    It’s dark here now, wherever the hell 'here' is, and the rain is throwing itself down, soaking me through. I’m standing in the middle of a crossroads, seemingly in the middle of the city, with four endless roads