The Way Things Seem

by Mackey Chandler

  The woman was making negating gestures and explaining further, but the woman for the airline wasn’t buying any of it and had her face set hard. Up against a stone wall the older lady announced they would take a different flight and stomped off out of the waiting area. She didn’t look back or gesture to her companion, who had to follow or be left behind. She gathered her skirts and rushed to catch up, carefully looking at neither David nor the gate agent.

  The woman in the Canadian Airlines uniform looked at David and made a gesture flipping her palms out in front of her as if to say, “What is one to do?” Then David noticed the male agent was standing still holding a hard wired phone with a concerned look on his face. It was only a half minute or so until a cart pulled up with pair of the local police working security and engaged in a conversation with both agents. The lead cop only glanced at David when the woman agent made a gesture at him in the course of explaining what happened.

  “The older cop who didn’t carry a slung weapon like his assistant came over to David and inquired of him in English. “Excuse me sir. You are American, is that correct?”

  “Yes, but I’m quite comfortable using French,” David offered.

  “Very well,” the policeman said, switching, “do you know either of the ladies who just left?

  “No, I’m not even sure where they might be from by their dress and appearance. I just came from Djibouti. They don’t seem to be dressed the way the locals dressed there. I did glance at them, but didn’t stare or make any facial gestures or anything to provoke them. If I did something to put the older woman in such instant dislike of me I’m unaware of it. I apologize for any difficulty I created.”

  Not at all,” the policeman said,” shaking his head, “rather I’d say you were the party treated rudely. It seems to have been a matter of superstition on the part of the older lady, which the airline agents say her companion didn’t share at all. That alone tells me it was her problem since her companion was trying to persuade her not to create a scene according the gate agents. I’d dismiss it from mind if I were you. I hope you have a good flight without any further unpleasantness.”

  “Thank you,” David said, but the fellow was turning away already as he said it, finished. When the left they followed on after the women, David noticed. He wondered if they would speak to them too? If David had changed in appearance, not just from the walking and changed diet, but in his own false colors such as he was seeing now, Uncle hadn’t mentioned it. Even looking in the mirror at both the clothing store and here using the restroom he hadn’t noticed anything. Did a common mirror not reflect those new hues like it did the normal ones? That was another experiment he’d have to do. It wasn’t something he’d have thought to ask Uncle, and it might be something of which Uncle was so long aware that it wouldn’t occur to him to mention it.

  The rest of the boarding went without incident. Nobody even looked at him strangely.

  Chapter 15

  The view from the airplane was dark and without much detail, but there was enough there to tell his new vision wasn’t impaired by being in the Faraday cage of an aluminum fuselage. There were the windows, but when he leaned back and closed his eyes his new senses gave him an unimpeded view like he’d enjoyed under the night sky with Uncle.

  The exhaust from the engines was full of the sparkling indicators of heat and the cabin was full of indications of electrical activity behind the trim in the cabin walls and even in the seatback in front of him. It was busy, but David speculated it wasn’t as irritating to him as Uncle, because he knew what was creating it. Like a lot of the traffic signs along the highway it was something he was already learning to filter out of his awareness.

  When David deplaned he was among the first at customs because he had no luggage to claim, just a cheap store suit bag and a shopping bag with handles. His declaration was simplicity itself. He had the receipt for the clothing he was wearing and carrying and his shoes. All of it came to less than four thousand dollars. The first indication he had a problem was when the customs agent looked at his pass port and his face did a transformation similar to that he’d witnessed on the Middle Eastern lady in Paris. His eyes didn’t just narrow they changed hue around then and he got a similar false color at the temples. The tiny bag of Wizard’s Jewel he thought would be no problem suddenly seemed a huge weight in his pocket.

  “Empty all your pockets in the tray,” the agent instructed David, jabbing his finger at the tray emphatically. He had a tattoo on the back of his hand which surprised David. He thought such visible ink would disqualify him for the position. The man turned and told one of the other customs agents behind him. “Get a helper gloved up and get ready to do a secondary exam with me,” he said, with just a little too much enthusiasm. David was shocked at his hostility.

  Turning back to David who hadn’t moved to empty his pockets the man asked, “How is it you arrive with just these recently bought clothes and no other luggage? Didn’t you have luggage when you went to Djibouti? What happened to it?” He positively glowered.

  “The friends with whom I was visiting got word there was a political disturbance brewing and advised me not to take the time to reclaim my few possessions, but to go straight to the airport and leave, because it might soon be unsafe for foreigners. I’ve seen on the news that Djibouti has had a news black-out with telephone and internet service cut. Given that, I think their advice was excellent. I’m glad to have gotten away safely from what might have been a dangerous situation.”

  The man suddenly glanced at the empty try and seemed to notice David wasn’t complying with his instructions to empty his pockets. His brow furrowed deeper and he started to open his mouth and lift a hand to point at the empty tray. David resolved he wasn’t going to lose control of his wallet or other documents and certainly not yield his sample of Wizard’s Jewel or submit to a cavity search that seemed to be the fellow’s intent from his words.

  The agent had a radio in a stout belt holster with a microphone clipped on his collar. David could see the slight glow of electrical energy from it. He understood the construction of it and could tell where the Lithium-ion battery was in the device. He willed the surrounding thermal energy to converge on the battery. It took less than a second before the delicate membranes isolating the reactive metal were breached and the radio burst into a ball of white hot flame at the man’s hip.

  The man tried to rip it out of the leather box in which it was fastened but had to pull his hands back from the intense heat. He turned around three times, reacting without clear thought, as if he could get away from the ball of fire on his hip. Two of the other agents took him to the floor and went to work trying to undo his belt to get it off him. There was a great deal of confused yelling and cursing and the billowing smoke started to make sorting it out even more confusing.

  One of the agents standing back came forward and yelled at the three travelers standing across the counter from them. “Clear the area!” he demanded with an emphatic wave of his hand. Then he too dove in to help the others. David didn’t have to be told twice. He scooped up his passport and papers laying there, leaving his suit bag and other things. The man to David’s left his abandoned his open suitcase and hurried ahead of David into the public area. The next traveler behind David seemed frozen in horror unable to obey, but neither of them were any concern of David’s. He forced himself to walk at a normal pace. He lost his companion from the customs inspection at the first seats they came to. The man turned aside and sat there in shock, probably just realizing he’d left his bag behind and wondering what to do about it. David didn’t spare a glance at him and just kept calmly walking.

  He didn’t really start to feel secure until he was outside. Rather than take a cab or car service he noted which of three hotel shuttle buses seemed fullest, got aboard and turned his phone off. It was early morning and the streets were busy, but nowhere near the clogged mess he knew they would be in another hour. He picked his bus well, because one more person got aboard and the
driver pulled away. When he got to the hotel he entered the building and went in the bar. He sat in booth and waited a few moments. Before anyone could come serve him he got up, went in the restroom and after using it left the hotel. Rather than have the doorman call a cab he walked to the next intersection, turned the corner and kept walking, making turns at random.

  When David was about six blocks away and in front of some commercial buildings that were less likely to have good surveillance cameras than a retail business he booted his phone up and called a car. He paid cash, turned his phone back off, and rode to a bank where he went in and withdrew more on his card than he could get at a machine. The cab then took him to Kew Gardens station and he took the commuter train with a transfer to New Jersey. If somebody was really intent on it they could track him between all the public and private cameras and his phone, but it would take a huge effort. Surveillance was David’s business and he could easily make it difficult to track him real-time. He didn’t care if someone reconstructed his movements in a month. He didn’t see the need to actually disappear, that would be difficult. Even with the knowledge he had it would be both expensive and illegal. He hoped things never got to the point he’d need to attempt that.

  There was a Walmart in walking distance of the second station in New Jersey. It was visible from the station so he got off. He bought a phone and sat and set it up with false accounts while he had a little lunch at a sandwich shop in the store. He set his old phone back to the factory defaults erasing everything and dropped it in a trash barrel. There was a FedEx shop closer to the next rail station than this one. He bought padded mailers and a small paper pad, writing a note to his secretary and one to his father’s attorney Crenshaw. He instructed his secretary to put the envelope with the enclosed botanical specimens in their shared safe and advised Crenshaw he’d completed his father’s quest and would be along in a week or two to share the story and claim the enclosed sample of succulent which was part of the story.

  It was only after he had both small plastic bags out of his possession that David felt safe. The customs agent had frightened him badly. He’d felt a malevolence radiating from the man at a level he’d never experienced before. He was having a hard time crediting his new talents for that, because he was still training himself in using them for social situations. But the strong perception was there anyway. He knew his plant wasn’t a drug in the way the law defined it. But he was sure if they had seen dried plant material in a little baggie he’d have had a very hard time getting released and proving his innocence. He had little confidence their lab would even return a proper report. From what he’d been reading they often found what they were expected to find. As a diligent contractor that offended him.

  Why he’d been tagged for extra attention when he’d passed through customs and security many times before with no problem was a very good question. It could have just been a random event, but it was very hard to persuade himself of that. If he had trouble now because of how Uncle’s training changed his appearance, that suggested the customs agent could tell and disapproved, just like the stranger on the sidewalk and the older lady at the airport in Paris. He hadn’t anticipated this sort of trouble and Uncle hadn’t warned him of it. But then Uncle didn’t travel abroad.

  At least now, if they regretted waving him and the other passengers through and tracked them down, he wouldn’t have the Jewel Weed on him. There was no believable way they could connect him to the exploding radio battery. Their own video would show he wasn’t near it even if they identified him from it. Even if he confessed to doing it they wouldn’t believe it and think him crazy when he told them how he did it. At this point, if they arrested him in connection with the customs disturbance David was confident he had the funds to make bail and fund a strong defense.

  He called for a rental car to come pick him up, sitting outside the FedEx office on a decorative planter. Still… he was paranoid enough to turn his new phone off. If they were looking for him locally it was far too early to connect him to this phone by the rental pick-up, in theory.

  If anyone was looking for David he imagined they would expect him to return to Atlanta because of his business. He was in no rush to do so and wanted to speak with Crenshaw before going back and deciding what he’d do with his business. His firm’s importance to him had changed significantly. Now he was concerned with using its technical expertise and facilities to support an investigation of the things Uncle showed him. Growing the business bigger had gone down a notch in importance since it was entirely big enough to support his research in that area. The company was positioned solidly enough that he was sure his subordinates couldn’t destroy it in a couple months. His desire to be secure financially would also hinge more on his father’s bequest now if he received it.

  Of course his brother and other relatives might contest that, despite his father’s plain warning that he was prepared to allow such a contest to destroy the worth of his estate. David wasn’t counting on that as a done deal yet by any means. Since walking with Uncle he’d picked up a lot of his attitude about time. David simply wasn’t in as big a rush to do anything as he would have been before. Rather than hurry back south to Atlanta to resume control of his company, he’d take a few days to drive the rural scenic routes west into Pennsylvania and wait to see if he was a wanted man.

  He’d follow the news carefully for any indication he was wanted. Perhaps in a week call Crenshaw and see if he was available to interview him and recover the plant. He’d contact a horticulturist, perhaps someone at the university or an agent of the agricultural service and arrange to see if the plant could be identified and propagated. Succulents were supposed to be hardy and resistant to drought. Perhaps a segment would stay viable and able to take root if exposed to moisture again.

  When the rental car pulled up David waved at the driver and walked over. He’d put the car on his card and that would be the last time he use it for awhile so it was useless to track him. He paid the higher price for out of state use, intimating he might go as far as Georgia. When he left the agency he pulled over at a nearby parking lot and used his knowledge of electronics to make sure the car wasn’t streaming his location. He had those skills before, but now they were augmented by the ability to see any hidden or inexplicable wiring activated when the car was running.

  A stop at a local discount store got him a tourist’s guide for Pennsylvania and a tablet with GPS to hang on the dash. He also got a few pair of cheap slacks, jeans and long sleeved shirts. He wasn’t quite ready to dress down to the t-shirt level. A soft bag to put them in was cheaper without a sports team logo. That amused him. He’d have paid extra for plain. David quickly downloaded an onboard map and driving program to the tablet. A phablet technically as it could make calls. He was actually looking forward to an extra little vacation. He’d never been around Pennsylvania. It had to have some pretty and interesting areas.

  He was west of Scranton and you had to zoom the tablet in tight before anything showed a town name. The road was following a calm river with a few boats and kayakers on it. An old fashioned motel came into sight on his right with a large sign by the edge of the road saying UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. Since there was a crew replacing the roof along one side of the L shaped building and the lawn was neatly mowed with flowers growing along the edge instead of weeds David decided to give it a try. The tourist guide didn’t list it at all, but unless it was a big historic hotel or famous lodge they didn’t list anything but the big chains.

  On the side with the roof work in progress one of the doors was open and when he stopped a man came to the door with a paint roller in hand and examined David carefully. He must have passed inspection, because he went back in. There was a child’s play wagon outside the office with gardening hand tools, gloves, and a cardboard box with pulled weeds. The woman was roughly the same age as the man he’d seen, somewhere in their early thirties. He suspected these were the new owners. He went to the office at the corner of the L, past an ice machine and butt collect
or with a No Smoking sign.

  “Just myself for one night,” David told her. “I think I’m running pretty close to my limit on my card so I’d like to pay you cash. In advance of course,” he hastened to add.

  “Sign in please,” the woman asked pointing at a keyboard and screen with a check in form. Will you be having guests?”

  “Just me,” David assured her. “I don’t have friends or relatives anywhere close. She leaned forward far enough to see him pull out his driver’s license to copy the number. She certainly could see it said Georgia if not the details. She did look a little quizzical though when he went back and looked out the window at his car.

  “I have a rental car. I haven’t needed the license number before now to remember it,” David explained. “I can see you are renovating. Do I get one of the refurbished rooms?”

  “Oh sure. That wing is all done,” the lady said, waving to her left. My husband is doing the other wing right now, room by room. Some of them were in pretty bad shape and take a month to really fix up. The previous owner let things go a long time. By the time they closed down even they wouldn’t try to rent out about half the rooms.

  “We usually close down the office and turn the sign off at midnight. If you need anything after that we’d appreciate it if you only wake us up for an emergency. You can leave the key card in the room if you leave early. That’ll be four hundred seventy five, Five fifty five with local and state tax and VAT.”

  “That seems terribly reasonable with you fixing the place up. Call it an even six hundred,” David said, laying six bills down.

  “Thank you, that’s appreciated,” she said, but still ran the money through a verification machine to check it wasn’t counterfeit and report the serial numbers. That didn’t matter, he’d be long gone before anyone could trace it to his cash withdrawl against his card. With so many vendors and reporting systems there was always lag and sometimes outright data loss between systems.