The Way Things Seem

by Mackey Chandler

  Linda rolled the disk around and frowned. “It reminds me of a chrysanthemum design like the Japanese use. When you turn it just right it gives a little sparkle like it has glitter in the paint.”

  David’s heart skipped a beat at that.

  “You’ve good eyes. Very few people see that. It’s a little leakage of what powers it. It could be any design, but we put them in the form of our new logo.”

  “If it was just me,” Linda said, “I’d suspect you setting me up for an elaborate joke, but I know you wouldn’t do that to my mom.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to anybody,” David said. “I’ve never been that sort of jokester. Indeed I was regarded as too serious in school. I always found those sort of jokes to be hurtful when I was the butt of them, so they never became a thing for me.”

  “Boys are bad enough,” Linda said, “but you’ve no idea how bad it is when you have a gang of mean girls, so that’s another thing we have in common,” Linda said.

  “Thank you for understanding,” David said, and excused himself before he made a fool of himself trying to find out what else Linda and he had in common.

  * * *

  Johnson went through the judge’s things, both in his chambers and later after they presented warrants at his home. Records showed there was a brief period of time a decade ago when the judge’s wife died that saw him have sudden unexplained deposits to his bank accounts. Then things quickly returned to normal and indeed, reversed. His expenditures reduced to much lower levels. He dropped his cable service and there weren’t any of the normal household expenditures you’d expect just for upkeep and maintenance.

  There were several light bulbs failed in his home and never replaced. The towels and bed linens seemed ragged and in need of replacement. They had obviously been washed, but there was no detergent in the laundry room. The cupboard had a very simple variety of food like canned stew and there were several empty boxes on the kitchen floor of the sort grocery delivery services use. The countertop had one set of washed dishes on top with no towel or drainer, like they had been hand washed, but the dishwasher was empty and appeared unused.

  When Johnson checked the medicine cabinet there was an empty prescription bottle for blood pressure medication with a date eight years old. There was a toothbrush in a glass by the sink but frayed and worn to shapelessness and no toothpaste to be seen.

  On his desk was an outdated computer that refused to boot up when turned on. Like many areas of the house it had a layer of dust on the case and the keyboard and mouse pushed out of the way. There were several ordinary moleskin notebooks sitting to one side on the desk, but the writing in them used characters Johnson had never seen. They had a fishy disagreeable odor that gave Johnson a headache.

  The judge had a wallet sitting on the desk with an expired driver’s license and a couple credit cards. Johnson would have them inquire, but he suspected they would show as unused for several years. There was a car in the garage as dead as the computer, with a plate and renewal tag eight years old. Johnson already knew the judge was picked up and taken to the court each day by a driver.

  In the middle of the desk pad was a glass or ceramic tile with a swirl of false colors on it like a whirlpool. It made Johnson dizzy to look at it and he couldn’t force himself to touch it. It made him sick to his stomach to even reach for it and when he tried a little harder he was shocked to feel the disk David had given him buzz in his pocket like a rattlesnake. He did manage to push it off the desk into a plastic handle bag with a wooden spoon he got from the kitchen.

  Johnson had the warrants in process to do the same thing at the clerk’s house and expected it to be similarly strange. In a day or two he’d have a better picture of the judge’s affairs when he had his tax records and bank statements. It all reminded him very much of cases he’d known where a person died and wasn’t discovered for years because they had substantial funds and everything was on auto payments. The bills got paid and as long as the house didn’t burn down or flood the neighbors and police had no reason to investigate.

  Of course Judge Ramaris had been alive, or at least the shell of him was kept alive by something that seemed to understand the minimal actions needed to keep him functioning, but not the details of a normal human existence. He had been maintained more like some sort of lab animal in a cage than a normal person. His controllers saw no need of details like using detergent in the wash or didn’t care. Who took the delivery boxes away or the old food containers? Maybe the clerk saw to that and more difficult tasks like directing the car service to transport the judge. That would indicate he had either a better handler, or was more capable of communicating what was normal with his own handler. It was all very creepy, even discounting the tile.

  * * *

  Joan came in his office two days later and gave David the name of a Botanist at the University of Georgia, Shinya Obokata, who was willing to try to ID his succulent. She’d made no mention of his visit to her home since it happened. He thought even Joan might thaw a little and make nice-nice by saying it was nice having him stop or something.

  He arranged to have a small portion of his sample couriered to the scientist and described where it was collected and the environment there. He also offered to cover any expense involved in his search. That seemed like the right thing to do.

  Later in the day he got a call from the man asking if he’d mind funding to have the gene sequence for the plant run. David laughed and told him he wouldn’t care if he wanted to fly to Ethiopia and look for fresh samples. There was a brief silence and David realized he might have offended the man.

  “I didn’t mean to be flippant, but it’s important to me. I’m not without resources. I entered Ethiopia from Djibouti and the political situation there was getting hostile to foreigners. So much so I was encouraged to come home early by my hosts. So actually doing what I suggested might not be feasible. I’ve been busy and not following the news to know if things have improved or gotten worse.

  “Thank you for explaining. Your secretary was very precise and straight forward, not the sort of person from the public who calls and wants to know what the new invasive weed in their garden is, but who can’t describe it. If you aren’t cost sensitive I will have this sequenced. You can get it done cheaper, but a professional lab doing it with proper handling and documentation still runs about five hundred dollars.”

  “I really wouldn’t care if it were five million,” David said. “If you want a retainer to work on this sort of problem for my company just tell Joan your account and routing numbers and she’ll wire you an advance. I very much appreciate you taking time to deal with it.”

  There was a pause again before he replied. “I should have searched and found out what your company does before calling,” Obokata said. “I did not recognize the name as associated with the biological sciences. Your company name would suggest it is involved with aerospace, is that correct?”

  “Yes, but not vehicles. That’s the first thing that comes to mind for most people. We are in sensors and processing. Our products ride along on the vehicles. It’s a privately held company, so you won’t find a stock price or prospectus. I’m the founder and owner,” David added.

  “Thank you. I’ll call your secretary if expenditures become significant enough to bother making her do a transfer. If it is a new organism do you have a preference for naming it?”

  “In the local culture it has a reputation for enhancing vision, so that could be referenced, that it is a succulent also perhaps? You know the forms for customary nomenclature better than I do. Your name would be appropriate. I didn’t really discover it. The plant is known locally, but I just hoped to bring it to the attention of Western science if it was not classified before.”

  “That’s most generous,” Obokata said. “I’ll have some information in perhaps a week.”

  “Here’s my email,” David said, rattling it off. “Feel free to use that anytime. You don’t have to worry if I’m at work or if it is after hours.
If you’re like me you don’t follow regular hours.”

  Obokata thanked him and hung up. David wondered what he looked like and looked up his profile at the university. He was older than David, but it seemed like he mostly dealt with older people.

  * * *

  David was frustrated. His company had a fairly extensive array of test equipment. He’d used it in privacy to measure the fields he could generate using his new talents, but he was no closer to finding a link between what he could create and any normal physical explanation for them. Yes, he could produce an electric field or induce a current in a conductor, which totally freaked out his electrical engineer, Burt Williams, who was helping him. He’d gotten the man’s word these experiments were confidential company data covered by his nondisclosure agreement. He’d had a smug little smile when David reminded him of that and got his affirmative reply that he remembered that quite well and it would apply. The smile disappeared when David could produce a current in a copper ring unattached to anything, but humor progressed to disbelief and then frustration when they could not find any link to a source.

  David was just irritated when Burt threw up his hands and said maybe it was magic.

  “Magic is just a cop-out and excuse to avoid saying we don’t understand it. If I showed a Roman an electric light bulb he’d declare it magic. For that matter, if I showed an engineer like you an LED bulb back in 1960 he wouldn’t have any more idea what made it work than the Roman.

  “I’m sure we’ll uncover irrefutable physical evidence if we keep looking. The energy isn’t coming from my brain. That level of energy would consume all the glucose in my blood stream and burn my brain out in short order. It’s just a control or trigger, but I just can’t see yet where it is coming from.”

  “Neither can I David, but how would your Roman start to discover how a light bulb worked? He has no idea what sort of instrument would show him the process. A certain caution is also appropriate, because your Roman might discover how to unscrew the bulb and stick his fingers in the socket unaware what that would do. Maybe it is beyond our current understanding and technology to investigate. I thought you were full of crap and had gotten scammed by some nut, until I saw the meter register significant current. I knew you hadn’t rigged my own equipment to fake that, but I understand other people would assume it was a humbug. I’m frankly out of my depth here.”

  “Not to imply any disrespect to you, because I do appreciate your competence, but is there anyone you can think of who might help us?” David asked.

  Burt suggested one of his instructors at the same University of Georgia where Obokata taught.

  David mentioned Dr. Obokata at the university was already working for him. “If you want to contact him and ask help, please do so, but he needs to take a payment so he has a fiduciary obligation and agrees to confidentiality,” David said.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Burt promised. “May I mention Obokata to Dr. Wood?”

  “Yes, but be aware he’s just investigating a botanical specimen for me, nothing directly having to do with what we have been looking for,” David told him.

  Dr. Wood didn’t seem enthused when contacted. He more or less brushed Burt off, but out of curiosity he called Dr. Obokata, trying to imagine how Carpenter had an interest in such diverse disciplines.

  “The man is one of those maverick entrepreneurs,” Obokata said. “I researched him and the man never graduated, though he was pursuing multiple degrees. He quit and founded his own company and has done very well at it. It’s unusual for someone to succeed at a technical level and retain control of the business aspects of it too. Usually that sort end up bargaining their rights away. I suspect if I ever meet the man I’ll find that he is one of those rare polymaths. He certainly has the resources to investigate and dabble in anything that strikes his fancy.”

  “Thank you,” Wood said, and reconsidered his rejection. On second thought, he spent enough of his time writing endless grant proposals and begging for funding that a wealthy and eccentric patron might be worth cultivating.

  * * *

  Obokata had good news. Several of the hardened segments David broken off the weed rooted when soaked on a filter paper dampened with a nutrient solution. The plant looked very similar to a number of other succulents, but definitely had its own unique genetic code.

  David made the fellow happy by saying identifying the plant was way beyond him and the botanist was welcome to name it Obokatanius Visio as suggested. He had no idea what that little bit of immortality meant to the man. What David was more keenly interested in was propagating the plant. Even knowing its normal habitat that was going to take months, before David could be sure he had a sure supply.

  Unknown to David, Dr. Obokata would eventually fail in his attempts to interest drug companies in this plant for its rumored benefits to vision in folklore. All their attempts to see any benefit in rats with induced vision problems were fruitless. They had no idea of the other sort of vision it helped.

  Chapter 23

  Of all the people David expected to visit him at work, Linda Sweeny wasn’t even on his mental list.

  When Joan showed her in David saw her mother was as surprised as he was, but displayed her usual unflappable disposition and closed the door behind her without questioning either of them.

  “Just what in the hell is this thing?” Linda demanded and slapped his logo card on his desk.

  “You are in such an emotional state, if I tried to answer you wouldn’t even listen,” David said.

  “Damn right I am. I have good reason to be upset,” Linda said.

  “Then perhaps you should explain what happened to get you so righteously indignant I can try to make a sensible reply. I’m no mind reader. What was your experience?”

  “I went with a couple friends to New Orleans, to the street festival. First of all we had lunch and were walking to a music event. I was in the middle as we were walking down the sidewalk. Everybody was going the same direction, so we weren’t blocking the way to walk side by side. There was a man ahead playing a horn and when he got close he was moving around to the music and pivoted to face us. He cut right off blowing and actually gasped.”

  Linda looked at him like he might have a reply at the ready.

  “I can’t blame him. You are breathtaking, but I try not to be so vulgar as to show it.”

  “Flatterer. He stepped in front of us, which was kind of alarming. I mean it was broad daylight and plenty of people around, but you still hear of the occasional weirdo who doesn’t really care about those sorts of things.

  David just nodded, acknowledging that was so.

  “He got down on one knee with his horn in his hand propped across it like he was going to freaking propose to me and said, “Mistress, bless me please.” He had a hat on the ground for tips, so I figured that’s what he wanted, but when I got a twenty out he shook his head and said he didn’t want my money, just my blessing because I had the light about me.”

  “Well I didn’t know what to do. My friend Marlene urged me to go ahead and bless him already.”

  “Well, I was in a mood and still feeling the wine from lunch a little, so I asked him what he wanted. Did he wish riches? He had the hat there after all. He said riches wouldn’t stick to him, because he’d had them before and lost them, but if I would grant him health he would be pleased with that and anything else of which I thought him worthy. I said, ‘May you have health and happiness and your music be sweet’, then I tapped him on the shoulder.

  That’s all he wanted. He thanked me and went back to his hat and resumed playing.”

  “Interesting, I’ve never had a similar experience,” David admitted. He wondered if what she did actually had any benefit due to the influence of the logo.

  Linda looked at him sharply.

  “I can’t see why this was so upsetting. Your boon was cheap and easy, he wouldn’t even take your money and you made the poor fellow happy,” David pointed out.

  “Because I w
asn’t planning on being the freaking priestess of street musicians?” Linda asked. “Marlene suggested I put my own hat out and offer fifty buck blessings.”

  “Ummm, did you by any chance fold the cover back on your logo and expose it? David asked.

  “You do know!” Linda accused.

  “One guessed.”

  “The next experience wasn’t so benign. After the music we tried to get in line for a restaurant. As we got closer to the Maître d’ somebody came and talked to him. He come down the line past several other groups waiting and told us the owner said we were not to be seated and to ask us to leave. Just like the musician he came straight to me and ignored my girlfriends.”

  David found it of interest she was with girlfriends.

  “Prejudice is such an ugly thing. I’m sorry for your experience,” David said. “I haven’t travelled around enough to realize these devices would upset so many strangers. I didn’t expect it to be such a common problem.”

  “It was in my purse, unseen,” Linda objected. “How could it upset anyone? How could they even know it was there? What haven’t you told me and why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Because you wouldn’t believe and if you didn’t believe you wouldn’t carry it. It does confer some protection. If the man didn’t want you in his business I strongly suspect you were better off not going in there and associating with him. The sort of people it will bother or inhibit are not nice.”

  “You speak in generalities. Don’t think I don’t notice. You sound like a politician being grilled about something at a hearing. You’re going to have to tell me something of substance, or I’m going to pitch this and avoid you.”

  “What are you studying in school?” David asked. It seemed like a non sequitur to Linda.

  “Psychology, but a psychiatrist might serve you better.”

  “You see? You saw events that were unexpected and inexplicable, but rather than accept them as real, you’re ready to accuse me of being crazy as a way of denying them. If people refuse to accept events outside their experience that would upset their life what would you call that?”