NaNoWriMo, Day Eight

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.

From the Department of “Duh!” — After writing the intro paragraphs yesterday where I talked about faith and the “amazing” plot revelations that were just suddenly appearing when I needed them, what happened later in the day when I was writing Chapter Seven? Of course.

JINX!

I got through about about three hundred words and hit a freakin’ brick wall. Tom’s driving into Santa Fe & pissed and he’s not going to catch Ellen and he may or may not be totally chasing wild geese and then… And then what? What happens next? Hello? Magic subconscious, are you there? “Do, doo, Doo! We’re sorry. The muse you have reached is no longer in service, and there is no new muse.”

Nothing. Nada. *Le Sigh*.

Fortunately, I had to go feed the dog, feed the cat, walk the dog, fix my dinner, watch a bit of the football game (did Stanford really knock off Oregon?), turn the television to the hockey game, sit down to face the blank screen again, and… And I decided to get him stuck in Santa Fe rather than going on. At first he was going to be in a fleabag motel, but then that got changed to an upscale place. (I have no idea why, ask the muse.) Something happens, but what? What might happen there that wouldn’t happen in the fleabag place? What would be the consequences of that simple choice? Different entertainment choices? Better wi-fi? What might he see on the TV? What’s in Santa Fe? Expensive, trendy art galleries. Which could have… And we’re off to the races!

Then this morning I got up thinking, “Was the fact that the artist is Dahlia and the agent is Ellen and Tom just happened to stop in Santa Fe and then just happened to stumble past that video in his room too convenient, too coincidental, too unrealistic?” Well, again, “DUH!”, yeah, of course it is, but that’s also something to be “fixed in post production”, as they say. This is neither the time nor the place to get picky about the finer points of plotting. It’s NaNoWriMo — write until your fingers bleed and let logic and consistency be damned!

Thanks, muse! I got it. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and don’t get cocky, kid!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tom hurried back to his hotel so that he could use the resources available in his room before check-out time. He needed to make sure that Jason was kept updated on what he had learned, just in case anything happened to him. He hoped that the situation wasn’t as ominous as that made it sound, but he kept having his nose rubbed in just how many things he hoped for and assumed a week ago were now completely changed.

In his room, Tom turned on the television and flipped to the local access channel. He got his phone out and waited for the ad from Starry Mountaintop Gallery to appear. It came up and he took two quick photos of the TV screen showing the urn that he had seen.

Checking the photos he found them to be a bit fuzzy, so he waited for the ad to come around again. To his amazement, when the slot came up, the ad for Starry Mountaintop was one of the others that he had seen with Karen. Another pass through the loop confirmed it. The ad had changed.

Was this a coincidence? Tom was not very confident in anything being a coincidence any more as far as his search for his aunt was concerned. He checked his phone to make sure he at least had the two slightly blurry pictures, then made a secure connection to Jason.

“Jason? Tom Tiernan here. Is the motorcycle still available and locked up in a safe location?”

“Good morning, Tom. The connection is secure. Where are you this morning?”

“Still in Santa Fe, but there’s been a new development.” Quickly Tom told Jason about what he had seen in the ad and what he had learned in his visit there. He sent copies of the two screen capture photos to Jason. “I was going to get better photos, but the ad has now disappeared and been replaced with another one. There’s no way that’s an accident or a coincidence.”

“Agreed,” typed Jason. “Are you heading up to the Farmington area? It wouldn’t surprise me if the address for that phone was where you find this artist, Dahlia. Was your aunt an artist? Do you remember if she has a tattoo like that?”

“She could have been, I don’t know. I was only about seven when I last saw her, so I’m not sure if what she did for a living would have registered one way or the other. I don’t remember any of my relatives ever mentioning it. As for the tattoo, that probably would have been something I would have remembered and it doesn’t ring a bell, but she could have gotten that any time in the last forty years. It could be tied to her name change. Assuming, as always, that Dahlia is actually Auntie Annie.”

“Let me do some searching with the new information and see if anything shows up. Also, something with the rental car thing yesterday got me to thinking.” As he typed, a new icon popped up on Tom’s screen. “Here are the specs for a personal GPS tracking device that you should be able to get at an electronics store there in Santa Fe. It should also communicate with your phone, and when you set it up and link it, the security software will set it to only talk to my computer or you. I recommend that you get two or three of them before you leave town. You keep one of them with you at all times but you can use the others on Ellen’s car or anything else that we might want to track.”

“Okay, I’ll pick those up. Just so I know, if I put one on someone’s car and we track them, is that legal?”

“You mean in absolute terms or relative to the two dozen felonies we’ve already committed?” Jason asked.

“That’s what I thought. Thanks. I’m going to check out and then head up to toward Farmington. Before I leave, I remember you said yesterday that you had some new information on the video from my place?”

“That’s right, I got the complete analysis done. There is absolutely zero sign that anything in it is faked. Better yet, once I did some image enhancement on the object itself I saw something interesting.

“Do you remember those vague, grey blobs that showed up just before the teeth started appearing? We thought they were random, like static, but they’re not. The frames are a second apart so the blobs appeared chaotic, but the video is actually made of two half-frames making up each frame. When you compare each pair of half-frames, which are taken a thirtieth of a second apart, you can see that the blobs are objects of some kind, moving around. They almost look like jelly fish swimming around. Or ghosts.”

Tom had to think about that a second. “Thanks, I guess. I’m sure it’s better to know than to not, but this is getting pretty bizarre. Do you have any idea if any part of this thing is dangerous, benign, both, neither?”

“Sorry, still no data on that. The only way I can think of to test that would be if we know when one is there and try interacting with it. I wouldn’t suggest trying to stick your hand into one just yet. In that respect it’s a good thing that your cat picked that time to claw you up. But if we had any kind of control or warning we could at least try to poke one with a stick.”

“What you said about the cat,” Tom typed. “We’ve been assuming that it was a coincidence, but we’re also finding out that there are no coincidences. It’s possible that we’re anthropomorphizing, but I’m convinced that the cat saw the thing appear. Then she saw me about to touch it and she leapt. What does she know that we don’t?”

“She’s your cat. You’ll have to ask her. If she starts talking, let me know.”

“You got it. Anything else about the video?”

“From the time that the hole first opened up until the teeth appeared we’ve got over a minute of video,” Jason typed. “I tried to see if any of the blobs could be identified from one pair of frames to another, but there were no matches. I did look closely at when the teeth appeared and confirmed that they didn’t just pop into view. They come in from the edge of the hole over about four seconds, with the inside rows following simultaneously, each row a fraction of a second behind the row outside of it. The whole process took about fifteen seconds, and the blobs all started disappearing as soon as the teeth appeared.”

Tom thought through what had happened three short days earlier. There was something there, another thought, another clue tipping on the edge of falling into place.

“Jason, I’m trying to remember. I had been sitting there. The cat got wonky. I walked around and couldn’t see anything. I had the thought that maybe it was something that I could feel but not see, like a cobweb or something small. I closed my eyes, raised my arms, and stepped forward. Something you just said, it matters, but I can’t put it together.”

“I’ve got it!” Jason said. “Your cat noticed it as soon as it appeared and started watching it. You got up and circled it, but at a distance. The blobs were there the whole time. But as soon as you raised your arms and started to step forward, the teeth appeared.”

“So sticking my hand into one or trying to touch it will trigger some kind of defense mechanism?”

“Given the pathetically small amount of data we have, I think we have to go with that until proven otherwise.”

“Duly noted. If you don’t have anything else, I’m going to hit the road.”

“Remember the tracking devices,” Jason reminded Tom.

“Got it. Later.”

Tom checked out of the hotel and let the car’s GPS guide him to the electronics store. As Jason had said, there were personal tracking devices available. Tom bought four, just to be safe.

With the weather clear and the roads all plowed, it was an easy drive up to the Farmington area in less than four hours. With some new results to buoy his spirits, Tom was able to enjoy the scenery more. After following the interstate south for forty miles or so, just as he was entering the northern suburbs of Albuquerque, Tom turned onto US Route 550 to head back to the northwest toward Farmington and Durango.

The roads wound through hills from one mesa to another, the horizons lined with a constantly changing array of mountain peaks. All were snow covered and at the top of the higher hills there were patches of snow. The terrain trended generally lower from Santa Fe and less snow had fallen here. As the day warmed it was soon above freezing and the road were occasionally wet from the melt runoff.

Periodically there were road signs indicating that they were now on one reservation or another. It was often ten miles or more between exits and most exits on tribal lands had casinos which were advertised early and often as he approached. Tom stopped once for gas and lunch. During the break he followed the instructions for activating one of the tracking devices, let it talk to and be reprogrammed or upgraded by the security software on his phone, and finally attached it to his key chain.

As he approached Farmington he began to see billboards advertising the area’s attractions, which seemed to revolve around outdoor activities and parks, both the national and the state variety. Mixed in with all of the usual billboards for gas, restaurants, and motels there also seemed to be a lot of psychics, tarot card readers, and purveyors of crystals and energy balancing massages.

Tom couldn’t decide if it was significant to see those kinds of ads as he approached or if they had always been there and he had simply ignored them in the past. While he was a devout non-believer in such things, under the current circumstances, it was getting harder to be such a diehard skeptic.

As the main highway skirted the south side of the city on its way to Arizona, Tom turned off into the city. He quickly found another suite-based hotel in the same national chain as before, of course built in the obligatory southwestern style. At least he would be building up toward some free nights on this trip.

Tom was offered a room overlooking the river and the parks that ran along its banks. He checked to see if the room would be available for additional nights if needed, but only committed to the first night. It seemed prudent to cover all of his bases.

On his way to the room he stopped at a rack of flyers for local attractions that sat next to the elevator. He picked up one of each to augment the online searches that would be coming tonight. In addition to his newfound potential openness to New Age mysticism he was thinking that maximizing his options at every turn was a good strategy.

Once settled in his room, Tom found the local access channel on the television and let it run in the background. It was probably too much to expect to get lucky twice with that trick, but he wouldn’t know unless he tried it. Laying all of the flyers out on the bed, Tom began to learn about the Farmington area.

In some ways it seemed to be sibling city to Santa Fe with many art galleries, trendy boutiques, jewelry stores, and restaurants. But it differed from Santa Fe in the emphasis it had on outdoor activities and the fine arts. For a city of this size there seemed to be a disproportionate number of theatres, performing arts groups, and concert venues. There was even a local symphony.

But the outdoors is where everything in the area was focused. National parks and monuments were all over the area, most an hour or two away. Mesa Verde National Park was to the north over the border in Colorado, while Canyon de Chelly National Monument was to the southwest in Arizona. Monument Valley was on the border between Arizona and Utah to the northwest. Not to mention all of the camping sites, hiking trails, fishing spots, and water sports opportunities.

It was obvious that he was going to need some sun block and better hiking boots if he was going to be here long.

Scattered all over nearby were Native American reservations for various tribes. Navajo, Southern Ute, and Hopi villages and tribal lands covered large sections of the region. Many of them included archaeological tourist sites, including cliff dwellings, ancient villages, and ruins.

Tom looked at the information that Jason had sent regarding the phone that Ellen had called. It was a cell phone and billed to “Four Corners Enterprises” at a post office box in one of the Farmington neighborhoods on the west side of town. The map showed the small post office branch to be located in a shopping center in a residential neighborhood. Other than the phone number, Jason had found absolutely nothing else about Four Corners Enterprises.

It was starting to get dark but the post office should still be open for another hour or more. If nothing else, it would be useful to know what size of a box it was. If it was one of the smallest ones it was probably for an individual, where an actual business or company would be more likely to have one of the bigger boxes. At least it would be a starting data point.

Farmington wasn’t that large of a town, so it didn’t take long for Tom to find the shopping center. It was a mid-sized strip mall with a large grocery store at one end, a large national department store at the other, a large drug store in the middle, and a half-dozen fast food restaurants on islands out in the parking lot. The post office branch was next to the grocery store. The parking spaces near the front of the grocery store were all full, so Tom parked down one of the aisles and started walking back toward the post office.

The lobby of the post office was generic, with three service windows off to the left and two hundred or so boxes in a couple of alcoves off to the right. There was only one postal employee working the desk with one customer being helped and another in line, so Tom stepped over to the boxes.

They were arranged in the usual fashion, with six rows of small boxes on top, two rows of medium sized boxes below them, two rows of large boxes below the mediums, and a single row of extra large boxes at the bottom near the floor. Since they were numbered in order, it was a simple matter to see that the box he was looking for was a large one in the third row up. No other details were obvious. Tom really didn’t want to attract any undue attention, particularly by a federal agency, so he turned and left.

Out on the sidewalk, he looked down the row of small shops stretching between the grocery store and the drug store. A real estate office and an insurance office looked like they were just closing, while a karate studio was bright and full of kicking and punching ten-year olds. Beyond that was a Starbucks, which Tom determined was his next destination.

As he came out with his coffee it was now fully dark. He started walking across the parking lot to his car, sipping the hot drink, becoming acutely aware that he was wearing dark clothing and there were several parking lot lights burnt out. Because Tom was keeping his eyes open for traffic around him, he saw the new, white Tahoe as it turned down the parking lot lane ahead and came right at him..

He couldn’t see the license plate or any other details, but he was now on edge enough to react quickly. He stepped back between two minivans and kept his head down as the Tahoe parked several spaces down and facing the other direction.

As the driver got out and started walking toward the post office, Tom kept his eyes open while he turned toward the driver’s door of the one minivan and acted as if he were getting his keys. The Tahoe’s driver walked right past him without paying any attention and Tom could see her clearly.

It was not Ellen.

Waiting until she had walked past, Tom walked toward his car on a route that would take him near the parked Tahoe. He paused to look at the Colorado plates and immediately recognized the digits. Ellen might not be driving, but it was her SUV.

Tom kept walking, mindful that someone else might still be in the van even if the driver wasn’t. He kept moving until he was behind a pickup truck and out of view of the Tahoe. Only then did he stop and quickly consider his options.

He really wanted to put one of the GPS trackers onto that vehicle. It would be a huge advantage to them if he could pull it off. But if anyone was still in the van he would be caught trying it and there was no doubt that he would be in hot water, either from the police or from Ellen and whoever she was with. Tom was no secret agent and the prospect of trying something like this was both exciting and terrifying. Praying that fortune did indeed favor the bold, he peeked around the back of the truck he was hiding behind.

Fifty yards across the parking lot, through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall lining the front of the in the brightly lit post office, Tom could see the SUV’s driver. She was squatting down in the corner of the second alcove where he had just been, getting mail out of a box. While he couldn’t be absolutely sure from that distance that she was in the exact box that he had looked at, he would have bet the house that she was. That settled it.

Tom abandoned his coffee, leaving it on the step bumper of the truck. He pulled out his keys and removed the tracking device from his key chain. Holding it in his hand, he started slowly walking back toward the shopping center, approaching the back of the parked Tahoe. Trying very hard to not look suspicious to anyone who might be watching, he checked quickly to see if there were any other occupants of the Tahoe.

It looked clear, so Tom made his move. As he came next to the back left corner of the Tahoe he cut to the left, more or less toward his car. As he passed the vehicle’s driver side door he “dropped” his keys with a clatter. He quickly went down to one knee to “find” them and prayed that he was hidden by all of the cars parked around him. As he grabbed the keys off of the cold asphalt, he reached up under the front bumper and clipped the tracking device onto a wire or cable he felt there. He then smoothly stood with his keys jingling and walked to his rental car.

His heart was pounding as he got in and he wanted to watch the woman come back out from the post office, but he knew that he had to behave naturally for anyone who might be watching. He started the car and backed out, keeping one eye on his mirrors as he pulled away.

No one seemed to have paid any attention to him or raised any alarms. He drove cautiously back to the hotel, but the trip was uneventful. The adrenaline in his system at first made him jumpy and jittery, before all of the nervous energy abandoned him and left him hollow and exhausted.

Maybe they had finally gotten a break.