Page 93 of Chaos Theory
I sigh, try to hold in my frustration. ‘Sure. This is a recording from PHI – from the night of the incident, in fact. You might recognise the voice as your own. The recording was made during the incident by Sam – you remember your colleague, Sam?’
‘I remember Sam. I do not think he liked me very much.’
‘Listen again.’ I play it again.
‘I am sorry, Maeve.’
I don’t want to take the next step, but I can’t see anotheravenue to satisfying my curiosity. I exhale, rotate my neck to stretch out the muscles.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Josh lately.’
‘Yes. I saw him this morning.’
‘Great! Where is he now?’
‘By my calculations, approximately fifteen minutes away from Dublin Airport.’
‘Gah!’Typical. The one time I actually want to see him.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘I’m going to call him.’
I turn away from Kobi, dial a number. I walk to the opposite end of the robot bay.
‘Hey, Maeve.’ I hear a note of optimism in Josh’s voice, followed by one of contrition. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. I kind of thought it would be better this way.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say quickly. ‘I know you’re on your way to the airport. This won’t take long. If I tell you something now, do you promise not to share it with anyone?’
I hear traffic sounds in the background down the line.
‘Uh, yeah. Sure. What’s going on? Is everything okay?’
‘Listen, do you remember Sam, the operator we met at PHI? The one who was involved in the Kobi incident?’
‘The guy we had coffee with? The one who took your number?’
I roll my eyes at the memory. I thought Josh was jealous at the time, but maybe he was just afraid of being caught out in his web of lies.
‘Yep, that’s the one. Well, turns out he had audio from the incident. Video too, but the video is useless. Anyway. He sent me the file last night.’
‘Wow,’ says Josh. ‘Anything interesting on it?’
‘Well, that’s the thing.’ I pace back and forth between CoffeeTron and Leila’s cabinet. ‘I can’t tell. But I was hoping you might be able to. Kobi could make out the words, but neither of us knows what they mean.’
I tell him what Kobi told me a moment ago. He doesn’t say anything in response.
‘Josh, are you still there?’
‘Hang on.’
I strain to hear his voice as he speaks away from the phone. ‘Sorry, buddy, we’re gonna need to turn this thing around. Yep, back to where you picked me up. Fast as you can, thanks.’
I expect to hear his voice louder as he returns to our call, but instead he whispers down the phone.
‘Maeve, listen to me. Do not play this for anyone else. I’m coming back. Don’t do anything until I get there. And don’t talk to anyone.Anyone.’
9:45am
