NaNoWriMo, Day Six

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

I realized the other day that in some ways, writing (and displaying) a “zeroth draft” like this, almost as a stream of consciousness exercise, is almost like making a really, really detailed outline. What I see happening (which you don’t) is that I’ll notice things a day or two after I write them that I know right now I’m going to need or want to change or re-write — but I can’t do it at the moment. In part this is because I need to get the next day’s 3,000 words done, and in part because doing so will change what I’m writing today, so today’s post won’t make any sense to anyone who hasn’t already read the revised versions.

Clear as mud?

Look at it this way. If I were working on a first draft without it being NaNoWriMo and without letting everyone watch, I could and would make plot revisions as they pop up, and then write from there. No one would ever see the first draft until all of those major revisions were done. On the other hand, that can get really time consuming and regressive. It’s easy to get into a death spiral of revising and writing a bit more and revising some more and then re-revising and re-writing and then re-re-revising…and you never, ever finish the damn first draft! So the “NaNoWriMo & fling it at the blog” approach bypasses that.

For example, the scene in Chapter Four where Tom meets Ellen at the chocolate shop. I only had the idea to put the cat in that scene at the last minute. As soon as I thought of that and what would happen, I knew that it was a good idea, moving the plot along, putting some tension between Ellen and Tom, and ratcheting up the suspense. But, in retrospect, in real life there’s probably not going to be a cat wandering around in a restaurant & chocolate shop. Real world health regulations and all of that. So what will need to happen will be something like Tom finding the store closed with some plot thing that leads him to some place like Ellen’s home (maybe she lives in an apartment over the store?) where they can have their conversation and have the tomcat freak out.

There is a growing list of quick notes and comments that are being added to the file as we go on. In Chapter One I need to put in more physical descriptions of Tom – I have an idea of what he looks like, but I didn’t let you know. I need to make it more clear at the beginning of Chapter Four that Tom has a pet sitter and didn’t just abandon his cat when he went to Denver. In the Manitou Springs police station in Chapter Four, I need to give the cop a name. Corrections to typos. And so on.

It’s just a big, fancy, detailed outline I’m telling you!

CHAPTER SIX

Tom drove with his brain on autopilot for a half hour. He set the cruise control on the rental car for fifty-five MPH and stayed in the right lane with the trucks, letting the drivers who were paying attention fly by him. He needed to be moving, even if he wasn’t sure that he was moving forward, but he also needed time to think. Too much had happened in the last seventy-two hours and all he had done the whole time was respond to what was being done to him. He needed to figure out was happening and become proactive instead of reactive.

Why had Ellen misled him? No, that wasn’t even the half of it. Why had she flat out lied through her teeth to him? He was just trying to find a lost aunt. It wasn’t like he was smuggling secrets to the Russians or trying to crack some secret society’s hidden conspiracy. What had triggered this deception and betrayal? Tom really didn’t want to be paranoid, but between Jason’s warnings about an unknown cop bot being on their tail and this inexplicable move by Ellen, he was really wondering what he had gotten himself into. Wryly, he remembered a high school friend telling him that just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean that they’re not really after you.

As Tom was lost in thought, a sudden patch of slush on the pavement made the car start to skid and fishtail. The car’s cruise control tried to compensate and made the skid worse. Tom’s attention instantly snapped back to his driving as he gently got on the brakes, tripping the cruise control off, and steering into the skid. Fortunately, most of the pavement was less treacherous, so after a brief but terrifying sojourn onto the margin, Tom was able to regain control and get the car back into the lane. Now he remembered why you should never drive with the cruise control engaged in slippery conditions.

Tom realized that he was out of his league and needed some help. Paying attention now to his surroundings, he saw that he was coming into the outskirts of Pueblo. Spotting an exit sign that pointed toward the Colorado State University campus, his next move became clear.

Exiting the interstate, Tom followed the signs and made his way to the CSU campus. At the campus entrance was a visitor’s information booth where he got instructions on how to get to the main library. He bought a temporary parking pass and hunted around until he found an open spot in an extremely full parking lot near the library.

Going into the library, he felt out of place with the crowds of students, almost all of whom were less than half his age. No one asked him for any kind of ID as he entered, so he strode purposefully past the front desk as if he knew exactly where he was going. As a reporter, he had spent more than enough time doing research in libraries to look like he belonged there.

He looked around until he found an area that was mostly empty of students. Looking for privacy, he found an empty work cubicle and chair buried back behind rows and rows of neatly shelved reference works. There were of course the obligatory security cameras in each corner of each room. Mindful of how a well-placed camera could see and record his keystrokes if some cop bot thought that to be necessary, Tom casually sat so that his keyboard should be hidden. He hoped that he was paranoid enough and there weren’t any other cameras that he didn’t see. Once he got his pad up and running he was grateful to see that, as he had expected, the library had an open wi-fi system, a robust signal, and a high speed connection.

Using the software that Jason had given to him, Tom connected to his home system in Los Angeles and verified the existence of a secure connection. Using that connection to contact Jason, he hoped that their conversation would be free of scrutiny. He opened a chat window and typed, “Jason, I need your help.”

It only took a heartbeat before Jason typed back, “What’s up? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I can’t call right now,” Tom typed. “Is this connection secure?”

“Yes, it’s coming through your home system and the software says we’re invisible. What’s happening? Where are you?”

“I’m still in Colorado, at the university library in Pueblo. Last night I thought that today I would be driving to see someone who might still be in touch with Auntie Annie. This morning I found out that my contact in Colorado had buffaloed me. She took off without me last night. I need help figuring out which way to go next. I’m running out of clues.”

“What kind of help? What do you need me to do?” Jason asked.

“I need to try to get a lead on my fugitive contact. It might require some ‘advanced’ software tools in order to access some non-public data. I’m sure you know what I mean. The security software you have is very ‘cutting edge’. Do you have any access to anything else that could help with this latest problem?”

There was a significant pause before Jason replied.

“I might have some toys that could help, but there could be serious consequences to using them. I’m not anxious to go to jail but I’ll give it a try. What exactly do you need?”

“The woman I met is named Ellen Summers. She was raised in that commune outside of Manitou Springs but left years ago. Her mother appears to have been one of the leaders of the commune. The local police gave me a picture of Auntie Annie from her arrest two years ago. Ellen recognized her but said her name was ‘Dahlia’. Ellen said that she was going to take me to meet her mother, but when I showed up an hour ago to pick her up, I found that Ellen had taken off overnight. The phone number and email address she gave me were bogus. To top it all off, I’m told that her mother died last year.”

“Yeah, nothing suspicious about any of that,” Jason replied.

“I was able to find out that Ellen’s mother probably lived in New Mexico, possibly somewhere in the Four Corners area. Ellen used to call a phone number there. Is there any way we can access the phone records for the store and find out what that phone number is, then do a reverse search to figure out where that other phone is located? That will tell me where I have to go next.”

“Do you mean, ‘Can we find that information legally?’ No way,” Jason said. “Practically speaking though, anything is possible and public utilities aren’t exactly legendary for their top notch security protocols. It may take an hour or two, I’ll have to check with some people I know. Anything else you need?”

“I know that Ellen’s driving a new four-wheel drive vehicle she just bought. If you’re pulling miracles out of a hat, I would like to know what kind of car, color, license plate, whatever. Ellen may be wherever that phone is located and she’s got a big head start. As much as I would really like to find her for any number of reasons right now, I would prefer not to stumble on her by accident if I can help it. Finally, I could use an ID for Ellen’s mother and any information at all you can get on her.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Give me the information on Ellen and this store.”

Tom sent over all of the information he had so far as well as a quick image of Annie’s booking photo that he had gotten.

“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises,” Jason typed. “By the way, you’ll want to see what I’ve found in the video from your security cameras. You’ll love it, but I’ll update you later when we have more time.”

“That reminds me, there might have been another ‘anomaly’ or ‘event’ when I was talking to Ellen. There was a cat in the room and it went from sleeping to nuts just like mine did, staring off into space the whole time. Just like before, I didn’t see a thing. Ellen thought she might have been hitting the catnip, but I’m not so sure any more. Do you have a cat that you can use as an alarm?”

“No, I’m a dog person.”

“Of course, now that I think about it, we don’t even know if it’s all cats or just certain ones who can see these things, whatever they are. I’m getting really tired of our list of questions increasing a thousand times faster than our list of answers. Anyway, you might think about getting a cat if these things are really happening.”

“Oh, they’re really happening,” Jason said. “Let me do some hacking and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can on Ellen’s information.”

“Okay, I’m going to get some lunch,” Tom typed. “I’ll be back at the library in about an hour. I’ll reconnect then.”

Tom shut down his pad and went looking for lunch. In the middle of a college campus it wasn’t hard to find a place to get some decent pizza. There were a few breaks in the clouds but no sunshine. From time to time the mountains to the west could be seen, well covered in new snow.

Tom went back to his spot in the library, this time taking a minute to pull some dusty volumes off the shelfes and take them to his seat. He spent some time looking though them at random, then reconnected securely to his home system and waited for Jason to get back to him.

He was flipping through a volume of the International Journal of Quantum Mechanics when the icon for a new file popped up on his pad. Before he could open it, Jason’s text chat window opened up.

“Tom?”

“Yes, I’m here, Jason”, he answered. “A file just got uploaded but I haven’t opened it yet. Were you able to find anything?”

“Yes, I think that I got what you needed. There’s the phone number, an address in New Mexico, and some other documents. As for Ellen, I got the vehicle registration information on her Tahoe and her DMV driver’s license data. The mother’s a ghost, no record of her at all that I can find. She didn’t even get arrested like your aunt did when they shut down the commune.”

“Good work, thanks. Do I want to ask how you did it?”

“Boy, I sure hope you know the answer to that already, Tom. Needless to say, be very careful letting anyone know that you even have any of that data.”

“Right, I will. Just checking. I’m going to head toward New Mexico to see what I can find out. I’ll let you know tonight where I’m at.”

“One more thought that I had before you go, Tom,” Jason typed. “You now know what this lady is driving, which she won’t be expecting. Look at the flip side of it. Does she know what you’re driving?”

Tom had to stop and think about that. His immediate reaction was to answer “no”. He had walked to the chocolate store so Ellen hadn’t seen his car. But then she had asked about it. And he had told her that he had a rental from Denver, as well as where he was staying. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to figure out which car was his.

“Thanks for thinking of that, Jason. I think we can assume that she does.”

“Is there a place in Boulder where you can swap for a new one? It’s probably not worth going back to Denver for, but if you can do it there, maybe you should. Also, you might want to do a quick check for any kind of GPS tracking devices she might have planted on your car.”

“Jason, you are really taking to this paranoia thing like a duck to water. But you’re right. I’ll check.”

“Sorry, but those things aren’t that uncommon or hard to get. Remember, I work for a security company. We’re professional paranoids.”

“Keep it up. I don’t think that I’m going to be kidnapped or murdered if I catch up with Ellen or figure out what’s going on, but I don’t want those to be famous last words either.”

“Good luck in New Mexico. Keep in touch and let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, Jason.”

Tom checked to see if there was an outlet in town for the car rental agency he was using and was pleased to see that there was. He noted the address and then closed and locked his pad.

In the parking lot Tom did take a quick glance into the wheel wells and behind the bumpers to see if there was anything obviously out of place stuck there. He didn’t find anything. He thought of checking in the engine compartment, but realized that he knew so little about modern day engines that he wouldn’t recognize it unless it was marked “Super Secret GPS Tracking Device” in bright yellow letters.

At the rental agency he told the college student working there that he was having problems with the car, getting random error messages flashing on the display screen. The agency manager wanted to have some tests run on the car so they could fix it for him, but Tom said that he was in a hurry and wanted a replacement. Since they were a small office, they didn’t have the same type as Tom’s. He settled for a smaller and less comfortable model and hit the road.

The information Jason had sent indicated that the mystery phone number was in northwest New Mexico, outside of the small city of Farmington. Setting the car’s GPS with the address given to him by Jason, Tom was frustrated to be told that no such address existed in the GPS’s database. He tried it again and verified that he was putting in the correct data, but again got nowhere.

It was something he would worry about later. For now he pointed the GPS toward city hall in Farmington. The GPS said it was 310 miles, a five and a half hour drive. Tom was bemused to see that, if you assumed that Farmington was the correct destination, Ellen had even lied to him about how far away it was.

An hour south of Pueblo, in Walsenburg, the GPS instructed Tom to get off of the interstate and head west into the mountains. He did as he was told, but as the road started to climb the amount of snow on the side of the road began to increase quickly. Soon Tom was driving in increasingly heavy snow showers, until he came upon a roadblock set up by the highway patrol.

A polite highway patrolman explained to Tom that they were only allowing through local traffic, and then only those with both four-wheel drive and chains. The locals knew the routine and were properly equipped. Tom was not, even if he could have convinced them that he was local. He was turned around and sent back down the mountain.

Updating his GPS with the new parameters and taking the recent and upcoming weather into account, Tom saw that his 310 mile trip was now a 531 mile trip. He would have to follow the interstate all the way down though Santa Fe and almost to Albuquerque before he could swing back north through the high desert to Farmington.

Worst of all was that Ellen, with her eight-hour head start and a four-hour shortcut because of her well-equipped SUV would be there well before he was. She would be free to do whatever she planned on doing and heading off with no further trace for him to follow. Assuming of course that he had guessed correctly and was going to the right place. Assuming this trip wasn’t just one huge wild goose chase. Assuming his aunt was still alive. Assuming Annie knew anything at all about the weird phenomenon that they had witnessed. Assuming they hadn’t imagined it all from the start.

It was going to be a really long drive.