Liz Hanning looked at Harley with her limpid doe like eyes. She was so attracted to him, but she knew that she couldn't act upon it. He was a hard man driven by obsession. Photography was his one and only love, and it would always be so. It would never work, because between them both would always remain his camera. Silent. All seeing. Black.
She thought about her most recent sec check. It had been so... torrid. Her hands trembled as she held the cans of the E-Meter. She had been caught earlier idly staring off into space, and writing his name in flowy cursive all over the course materials. The dot over the "i" in each "Orion: had been a perfect little heart. Her crime was failure to KSW. Her punishment, immediate.
"Have you ever spied on Anonymous?" the question hung pregnant in the air like a suspended weight.
"Yes." she answered, making firm eye contact with her interrogator and holding it.
David had been the one to catch her. David Meyer was a hard man too, but in a different way. He looked at her with moderate disdain. Outside, in the distance, a car honked softly.
"Have you ever spied for Anonymous?"
"No." She answered firmly. On the E-meter's analog display, the needle did not twitch.
"Have you ever been spied on by Anonymous?" The question caught her by surprise. This time, the needle moved ever so slightly. The tiny movement would have been missed by a lesser auditor, but not by David Meyer, regional president of the CoS. His eyes narrowed as he took in the motion, cataloging exactly what it meant.
"I... wouldn't know. I don't think so." Liz finally answered. David glared at her. There was a reason that he was taking this particular sec check so seriously, and she knew it.
"Am I a fox?" The question was asked in rapid fire staccato.
"No!" she said, gripping the cans tightly.
"Are you a Fawkes?" he demanded unrelenting.
"No!" her heart was trembling, but it was all Scientologist.
"Is Harley Orion a fox?"
"Yes, I.. what? no!" The needle had jumped. He had her, and she knew it.
Liz looked at him defiantly, her hands continuing to grip the cans. Her nails pressed against their smooth metal contact points.
"Do you love him?"
"Yes. Yes I do." she said firmly.
"Do you love me?"
"I..."
At that moment, the door burst open. Harley Orion stood in the frame. His bronze cabled muscles straining. His camera, ever present, was at his eye. It pointed directly at David.
"Thank you, Meyer." he said briskly. "I think that tells us everything we need to know. I believe this matter falls under the jurisdiction of the OSA now."
David's tone dropped to positive two; antagonism. Amazingly, his love for Hubbard never waned, and he stood his ground unflinching.
"Yes sir." was all he curtly said. At that moment, his tone reached 1.1; covert hostility.
"Very good. Now, KSW my good man! KSW! As for you young lady. Have you never not not spied on not Scientology with Anonymous?"
"Oh yes, Harley" she said, answering a completely different question as an elaborate fantasy involving the Freewinds played out in her reactive mind.
"A clear admission of guilt if I ever heard one." he said, taking her wrist in a vise like grip. "Follow me into the basement. We'll continue your sex check, that is, sec check." She followed him like a puppy. The door closed on David Meyer, and the latch fell in place with a distinctly audible click.
The room was silent. The e-meter needle wafted slowly back and forth as David packed the unit away and turned it off. "You may have won this time, OSA man..." he said quietly to himself. The once silent room was now filled with the lightest of singing. "never gonna give you up..." it took all of his power to choke back the tears and the rage "never gonna let you down..." he winced as the emotions swelled within him. This was all Anonymous' fault. He would find them and personally flay the flesh from their bones. "never gonna run around... and... desert... you." he collapsed into the auditor's chair, sobbing.
Home 
