Bossman’s got a new job for me. I can feel the email coming down. People underestimate how long it takes for a message to arrive. Not that I can read it before it gets here, but there is the smallest bit of time. I open up the site in preparation. I know it’s coming, might as well be ready. It feels like standing just a little too close to the subway line when a train is coming in, just a rush of pressure coming to a stop. And, as it stops, I wave the message open. ‘Davis: A rival interceded in the recruitment of Deshawn Phillips, Sally Lee, and now Oliver Marc. Investigate and find the responsible party. -Alden’
Deshawn Phillips. A college kid in LA. Disappeared for a week. Who hasn’t. He just did it quite literally. A nice, easy flip. Our recruiters were intercepted by people. They didn’t let the innocent recruiters live to tell about them. Sally Lee. A recent grad living in New York. Accidentally killed her fiance. That’s a hard way to learn about your abilities. She was picked up before the team made it there, disappearing without a trace. And Oliver Marc. A teenager in Houston. Burned down his family home. That would be a hard way to find out about this stuff, too. Our two survivors from that team confirm powers of some kind in the, and I’m quoting here, “big man who punched a jet to death.”
Two kids kidnapped right after being traumatized by their switch flipping. At least when my switch flipped, I didn’t do anything to the people I care about. Not long term damage, in anycase. Haven’t seen my folks in a couple years, but that’s okay. I check in on them through their phones, make sure they’re okay. I just accidentally told the local power grid to be quiet for a day. Fortunately Alden found me. I’d likely never realized what I’d done or what the quiet feelings in the corners of my mind were without him. Which is all the more reason that these missing kids were so problematic. Who knows what they might be taught or manipulated into doing by someone else.
Of the three, Oliver is the most recent. They were also sloppy enough to not confirm kills. They will have been sloppy elsewhere, too. I’ll check out Houston first. Grabbing my briefcase and putting my phone and wallet into my pockets. I head down the stairs. Mentally flicking through my phone as I descend, I order up an Uber. I don’t like driving, too much distraction. And, unlike taxis, ridesharing apps allow me to not ever have to pay for them. Flip the right ones and zeros and the driver gets paid by the app without charging me. Obviously, travel is not strictly necessary. If I thought hard enough and worked through the lines right, I could probably check out Houston from my home. But quite frankly, I don’t trust myself to. I get distracted far too easily for that. I make it out the door and onto the street well before my ride. Now I get to wait and listen.
Alden put me in charge of the local branch here just for that reason. Just being a fly on the wall in the backrooms of DC, you can get so much information. Now imagine being an unnoticed fly on the wall of every room in the capital. I check the GPS on my ride, and she’s just around the corner. I check in on the Senator who lives in my building. He’s still cheating on his mistress with his other mistress. Boring. A passerby is texting someone about a drug deal. More fun, but not interesting. Happens all the time. Some tourists are posting terribly cliche pictures on the ‘gram. Oops, with a thought they aren’t anymore, as their phones lose connection. Hopefully, this extra time will make them think about the ridiculousness of their actions. Likely not, humanity isn’t a fan of self reflection. But there is always hope that this once, they’ll realize their own foolishness. My ride arrives. I get in. She doesn’t speak, just listens to the radio as she drives. I don’t speak, just relax and try not to snoop. I succeed, until an incoming message to her phone hits me like a freight train. Stupid text messages. It’s a friend talking about plans. Boring. Why is everything so rote? She drops me off at the airport. I give her five stars and drop a nice tip on the app’s dime and head in.
I haven’t booked a ticket, but that doesn’t stop me. I walk up to one of the machines and start digging around inside with my mind. I find a flight in an hour and change that has two open seats and take one of them. I also make sure I have all the fun, get through the quick and easy security lines on my ticket. Heading over to security, I pass through no problem and get to the gate with about forty-five minutes to spare. I begin putting up my mental blocks, silencing myself to the world around me. I’m planning on resting on the plane and I wouldn’t want a bad dream to take us out of the sky. So, piece by piece, I wall off my mind. Piece by piece, I work to protect the world from myself.
Boarding the plane, I’m seated in the middle, between an older gentleman and a younger lady. Buckling up I close my eyes and let myself fall asleep.
I awaken to the lady beside me, shaking. “What is it?” I ask groggily.
“Pilot just said we’re about to land,” she replies, “And I have a connecting flight, so you best be up and quick about getting off this plane.”
I smile as I begin to sledgehammer down my walls. “It isn’t as though I have much to keep track of,” I say, gesturing towards my briefcase.
“Fair enough, but still.” She’s nervous. Then I see her schedule, and understand. She’s heading for her best friend’s rehearsal and her connecting flight is ten minutes after we’re scheduled to land. Fifteen, I correct my thought as I quietly check in with the tower, we’re early. I nudge the older gentleman. “You ready to get out fast, too?” I ask.
“Naw,” he replies, slowly shaking his head, “I got some stuff up top, figure I’ll let y’all dash past and take my time.”
“Fine by me,” the lady replies curtly. Clearly he said something to her while I slept that didn’t sit well. As we hit the ground, the phones around me begin to make much more noise, to me at least. They start communicating with the airwaves, instead of just the general quiet hums of functioning electronics. I hate this moment when flying, it feels like an explosion in the back of my mind. I unbuckle my seat and pick up my briefcase, ready to get out of here fast. I get another car to pick me up. It’s about thirty miles from here to where the jet went down. I figure I’ll start there, and head back towards the Marcs’ former household. But I’m not one to walk. Too much time, too much noise. Much better to ride. I set the destination for a parking garage near the plane’s final location. Less suspect than the middle of a suburb that I can’t go into any houses of, but still close to the fall. The plane stops. The three of us stand up immediately and I begin to rush towards the door. The lady follows me. No one moves to stop us, and we queue up first, waiting for the door to open and us to be let out. The flight attendant at the front looks curiously at us. “She’s got a connecting flight, and I’m bodyblocking,” I joke.
He chuckles. “Fair enough,” he says before he confers with the people at the gate. After a quick conversation, he opens the door.
After exiting the plane, I let her pass me. “Good luck on your connection,” I say.
She nods and rushes off as I take my time. The app says the car will be here in ten minutes, and I doubt the Houston airport will be near as interesting as DC, and waiting in DC wasn’t all that interesting in the first place.
I make it to the curb just after my car arrives. “Ivan,” he asks when he sees me, mispronouncing my name like most people. Like I’m a van of eyes.
“Yeah,” I say, not even bothering to correct him as I climb in the back and close my eyes. He gets in and starts driving.
He starts to talk too much. Not the biggest fan of that. I keep my eyes closed, focusing on the grid. I subtly manipulate things in the system. We make it down to the garage in no time at all. He’s amazed. “I don’t think we hit a single light on the way down here. Are you like some kind of lucky charm or what?” he rambles out as he stops.
I smile tersely and nod as I get out and make my way into the garage. I wait for him to head off before I leave. Can’t be too sure who I can trust, so it’s best to trust no one outside the Company. Once the coast is clear, I begin to walk down the street towards the crash.
Our crews cleaned up the area quite well. Unfortunately, it did happen in a residential area. Not a good one, particularly, but still residential. Someone will have pictures. As I continue walking slowly down the street, I turn on the computers inside the houses. Going through their synced phone images, as well as their saved pictures, I take a breath. Just putting one foot in front of the other, and looking at each and every photo with a digital watermark for the date in question. It takes three houses of computers before I find what I’m looking for. Mister Marc. He appears to be getting into a van with a local plate. Shutting down all of the computers I turned on, I dive into the city system from a nearby box. The plate isn’t registered. Likely taken from whatever factory or prison makes them. Dead end. The van looks to be stopped down by the nearby stripmall. Malls have good security. I hope they’ve saved stuff. Had our cleanup team been better, they could have caught this, found out everything already. And I could be chilling in the halls of power listening to the best secrets, like I belong. Instead, I’m out here in this heat doing someone else’s job and hoping someone somewhere forgot to clear their security cameras’ memory. Shaking my head, I head over to the mall.
It is a real terrible mall, dominated by a giant grocers. Fortunately there’s a liquor store there, too. In case you don’t know, they always have cameras. I begin to find my way into their system. Their security is abysmal, I’m in before I even reach the door. Entering the store, I go through security footage. Score, they still have everything. I can’t tell if I’m more happy that this’ll be over, or disappointed in the lack of streamlining. I go to the back of the store, to pick up something expensive and local. Scanning through to the timecode from the picture, I also begin looking into the expensive local liquors. I find one that I should like before I get to the timecode, but only by a few moments. Frame by frame, I search around the timecode for any images of the people in the van. Unfortunately, the powered individual gets out of the van on the roadside, so no dice there. I found a clear image from when the Van pulls up of the driver. He’s an older looking guy. Also, as they pick up Mister Marc, the attractive young woman who lures him into the car is clearly visible on one of the cameras. Sending those two frames to a proxy server, then from there to Alden, I send him the quick follow-up, ‘Alden: Two individuals now confirmed, at least one missing (the likely pi). PI acts as the muscle, and either the woman or the old man seem to be leading. Both in pictures. -Davis’
The response takes longer than I expect. I have time to purchase my booze and leave the store. Then, the reply comes in. ‘Davis: Images concerning, but no longer your mission. Return to DC. -Alden’ After that, nothing. I listen, though, and, after taking a swig, order myself a ride to the airport. Time to head home.
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