Monthly Archives: November 2013

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.

Today’s distractions have been brought to you by football, the successful return to Earth of the ISS Expedition 37 crew (congratulations on a great mission!), and the usual Sunday breakfast+groceries+shopping routine. Last week that routine and football had little-to-no effect on my word count because I was on a mission from God. With today’s IRL events coming on top of yesterday’s day-long event, the cumulative effect has been more significant.

To continue the running/marathon analogy, I had a great pace and was going strong — but now I’ve stumbled. My rhythm has been broken. I realize now just how hard I was pushing myself for this first week and I would really like a break – but one does not take breaks while running a marathon, if one can avoid it! While I’m still making progress, I feel a little bit like the football player who’s just caught a toe while running at full stride. (The analogy works for either version of “football”.) My figurative arms are windmilling and my figurative strides are uneven as I try to catch my balance and reset my stride, or, if that fails, at least go down semi-gracefully and not get hurt and knocked out of the game. So it will be important to see if I “fall” (i.e., end up with little or no output for NaNoWriMo for a day or two) or if I can “recover” (i.e., pick up the pace again and get back on track) in the next day or two.

Okay, so it might not be my best analogy, but it’s kind of the way I feel. Time to flail and stagger for a bit to see if any words come out. If they’re good words, so much the better. Maybe if I promise myself ice cream if I get ‘er done?

CHAPTER NINE (continued)

The camera came next. Tom was accustomed to using a good, high-end camera so it didn’t take long to set it up and get used to the subtle differences between the Canon he usually used and the new Nikon. He took a string of pictures using both lenses and also tried out the video capture capabilities.

The small telescope was trickier. The easy part was getting the camera to attach to it. Getting that setup to focus on something only a mile away or less meant that the focusing mechanism was pretty close to the end of its range. After all, t was designed to focus on nothing closer than the moon. But Tom found that it could be done, if only barely. He doubted that he could get it to focus on anything closer than a half mile or so, but for that he had the regular telephoto lenses.

The hard part of dealing with the telescope was the mounting. The modified half-horseshoe mount was computerized and designed to let beginning astronomy buffs find objects in the sky without learning where they were or how to point the telescope. Just set up the telescope properly, pick an object from the onboard database, and hit the “Go!” button. But that wasn’t what Tom needed it to do.

While it was possible to disengage the computer drive and manually point the telescope where you wanted, the mount was still designed to find things in the sky. Finding targets on the ground either at or below the horizon was not a normal operation. On the other hand, while the telescope itself could be removed from the mount, doing so and using as a huge telephoto lens was extremely awkward. The whole thing was unbalanced and unwieldy, with no way to attach it to the tripod or another system.

In the end, Tom decided to leave it attached to the mount. It wasn’t a perfect setup by any means, but it did allow the added benefit of having a good cover story built in. If someone should see him and become curious about his activities he could pass as an amateur astrophotographer setting up for a night of dark sky observations. That couldn’t be that unusual out here so far from the big cities.

He tested the rig with some pictures of Farmington, fifteen to twenty miles away on the plateau beneath the mountain he was on. Getting a really good focus was tricky, but when it got the hang of it the results were impressive.

Carefully Tom packed up all of the equipment, putting the telescope in the car’s trunk with the sleeping bag and new clothes, while he kept the camera and binoculars on the passenger’s seat where he could get at them quickly if needed. Crawling gingerly down the steep mountain roads toward the interstate, he headed back to his hotel.

CHAPTER TEN

The stack of brochures for local attractions split pretty evenly into two classes on closer review. There were a lot of activities in the region for the “indoors” or “mainstream” crowd who were looking for nothing more strenuous than maybe golf or water skiing. Other attractions for them in the region were shopping, jewelry, restaurants, even a winery.

For the “outdoors” or “active” crowd, the area within a three or four hours’ drive had at least a dozen national parks and monuments, plus state parks and historical sites. Many of the latter were associated with early Native American ruins and villages.

Tom wasn’t a dedicated hiker or outdoorsman, but he wasn’t in terrible physical shape either. A lot of his reporting assignments over the years had involved getting out into the field with various scientific teams, often in places well of the beaten path. He wasn’t going to be running any marathons any time soon, but a couple of hours of hiking on a trail designed for the average desk-bound and overweight American wasn’t going to kill him.

Sorting through the brochures, he built a list of all of the attractions and started summarizing some notes on each, along with building a map of their locations. It was soon obvious that many of the sites had been considered to be sacred or mystical sites and many still were.

It didn’t take much digging to find “New Age” connections to every single site, which explained all of the billboards for psychics and tarot card readers he had seen coming into town. It seemed like nothing sold harmonic crystals or mysterious psychic energy sources like the ruins of a two thousand year old Native American village location.

What Tom didn’t find was anything on any of those websites or in any of those brochures that said anything solid or factual about any of the grandiose claims. In particular, nothing was mentioned in any of the claims and treatises about the phenomenon that Tom and Jason had seen. The paranormal and supernatural claims were all the same vague, non-specific, open-to-endless-interpretation mumbo jumbo that Tom always saw when these sort of paranormal claims were made and supernatural services offered. He had investigated and debunked plenty of these types of claims when he was working as a reporter. It wasn’t science. It wasn’t even science fiction.

Most of the national parks and monuments had gotten those designations because they were unquestionably remarkable and stunning. The Bisti Badlands looked like a landscape from an alien planet with pinnacles and spires of rock carved into bizarre shapes and totems by millennia of wind and rain. Tom wasn’t surprised to find that some science fiction films and television shows had filmed outdoor scenes in the area.

Along those lines, Tom also immediately recognized Monument Valley from the movies, but not science fiction films. He suspected that it had been seen in probably 90% of the westerns made in the 1950’s and 60’s.

As for Native American sites, the Aztec Ruins National Monument was also a UNESCO World Heritage site. So was the Mesa Verde cliff dwelling city. Shiprock Pinnacle was a sacred site to the Navajo. Canyon de Chelly was an ancient fortress and city predating the arrival of the Europeans by centuries.

Many of the ancient sites had some sort of astronomical building or a suspected observatory location in addition to the other buildings and homes. Related in spirit to other ancient observatories at places such as Stonehenge in England, Chichen Itza in Mexico, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Egyptian pyramids, Tikal in Guatemala, Medicine Wheel in Canada, Machu Picchu in Peru, and countless others, these locations had been far more advanced than anything used by Western astronomers for hundreds of years before the Renaissance had given birth to the telescope.

Finally, as he was startled by the horn of a fast moving passenger train rolled through town, Tom was noting that there were also several historical railroads up in the mountains. Now they took tourists up to the Grand Canyon and some of the other big parks, as well as on wine-tasting tours and “murder mystery” rides. A hundred and fifty years ago they had been a vital to the mines and cattle ranchers and a huge part of the development of this part of the world.

While he felt more knowledgeable now, Tom still didn’t see how any of those pieces fit in with the puzzle he was trying to solve. What did any of those things have to do with why the commune members had come here? Why would any of those things have attracted Auntie Annie here? And why would she be making those funeral urns out here with the bizarre artwork?

Granted, Annie by herself was probably just a loon, prone to making bad or bizarre decisions. But if she had others involved, especially others who weren’t out of touch with the real world, someone must have had a reason to come to this part of the world instead of another. And if they were making funeral urns with weird artwork for $5,000 a pop, someone had to be very much in touch with the real world.

It could have simply been that the land was cheap and the locals minded their own business, so commune members could find a place where it felt safe and they would be left alone. That could be especially true after they got evicted from their long-time home outside of Manitou Springs. While it would seem that there were plenty of other places that might fit that bill and not be 100-plus degrees every day during the summer, maybe that’s all it was, a need to be away from everyone else. There was most certainly a lot of room to run away to out here.

Tom was shaken from his revelry by another new icon popping up on his phone. He tapped it and watched as a secure connection was made to his home system, followed by the opening of a mapping application. The map showed the Farmington area, with two colored, blinking dots standing out. Almost immediately a chat window opened up from Jason.

“I can confirm that this connection is secure. Anything exciting happen today, Tom?”

“I took your suggestion and got some tools and toys,” Tom typed, explaining to Jason about the gear he had gotten earlier in the day and how he had tested it out. “I think that will give me a good start, especially for a rank amateur.”

“No half measures, eh, Tom? You told me that you were a reporter of some kind? Some day you’re going to have to tell me how you can afford to just go out and buy all of that stuff on a reporter’s salary.”

“Don’t sweat it, Jason. Let’s just say that I’ve made some good investments. Other than that it’s a story for another day, like when you tell me where you’re getting all of these James Bond-like computer programs. Speaking of which, is this new app what I think it is?”

“If you think it’s a tracking map for your GPS tracking devices, then yes, it is. You’re the green dot, Ellen’s car is the red one. If you tap on any of the dots you’ll be able to see a track and history of that device’s movements. Try it.”

Tom tapped the green dot and the map zoomed in to show an area of a mile around his current location, with a bread crumb trail of smaller and dimmer green dots leading off along his earlier path. Zooming back out a bit and following the trail, Tom could see exactly where he had gone on this afternoon’s trek. Hovering the cursor over the trail caused the cursor to change to a time stamp indicator. Tom was impressed.

“How often does the location update?”

“Readings are taken once a minute and sent to the server in real time, assuming that the unit can get a connection. If not, it can store up to a week’s data and then upload it later when a connection becomes available.”

“How long will these things last? What’s the battery life?”

“It’s anywhere from sixty to ninety days, but there are other factors that can affect it, such as low temperatures. Up there if it’s getting below freezing every night, we’ll get less, but I expect we’ll still get at least forty-five to sixty days.”

“What’s the accuracy on these readings?” Tom asked.

“The specs say about ten feet, plus or minus a foot or so. I don’t know if you should use it for driving in the dark without lights in the fog, but it should let you see where Ellen’s car is in the parking lot next time.”

“Great. Where is she now?” Tom tapped the red icon.

“She’s somewhere a couple of miles off of the main roads over near the Arizona border. It doesn’t look like your friend has been anywhere else except for the post office since you tagged her last night. You can see that she stopped at what looks like a gas station as she got off of the highway on the way home, but other than that she went straight to that location and hasn’t moved.”

“Do we know what’s out there? Is it a farm or another commune?”

“That’s the next interesting thing. Double tap the dot to get a menu, then go to the Google Earth overlay.”

Tom did as he was instructed. The location showed itself to be nothing but dirt and weeds, no matter how far he zoomed in on the image.

“There’s nothing there. Are they camping out or something?”

“Look at the image data in the fine print down at the bottom. The picture you’re seeing is over ten years old. Do you know how to use the history function on this map app? Most people know that they can slide back through older pictures and maps, but they don’t know that sometimes you can also use it to go a little bit the other way? Pull that history slider to the left, then bring it back to the right all the way against the stop and watch what happens.”

Again Tom did as he was instructed. Nothing much changed as he moved the slider to the left, since today’s dirt pretty much looked a lot like yesterday’s dirt. The only significant difference was that the image quality kept going down as older and older aerial photographs were used and they were soon in black and white. Then Tom brought the slider back smoothly to the right, the images flipping forward in time. Suddenly there were a group of over a dozen buildings shown when there hadn’t been any before.

“I see it now, but what just happened?” Tom typed.

“The default aerial photo for this location is over ten years old and it shows an empty desert location. But it turns out that there are newer photos available, you just have to know to ask for them. This latest photo is only six months old and it shows a compound there.”

“Why wouldn’t the most recent data show up by default? Could it be simply some sort of database error? After all, that function to force the most recent data to show instead of the default has to be there for a reason.”

“True, that little trick exists for a reason. There are times that Google deliberately doesn’t want to show the most recent data. Any government might request that for security or military reasons. Google might be collecting new data and building a new data set for an area and they don’t want to integrate it until it’s completed. Neither of those explanations appears to apply here as far as we know. So what do you think, is it just a coincidence?”

Tom was starting to get sick of that word. “You keep using that word, but I do not think that it means what you think it means,” he typed back.

“Inconceivable!” replied Jason. At least Tom now knew that he had a respectable background in classic cinema.

“So, someone’s hiding something and they’ve either got enough pull to get Google to do it for them or they’ve got enough skill to get into the database and change it themselves. Can we use this to figure out when the compound was built?”

“I already did that. It went up very quickly, about year and a half ago, which would put it a month or so after the commune in Colorado was shut down.”

“Correlation does not imply causation,” Tom typed.

“True, but it does give us something to think about. In addition, that compound doesn’t look ramshackle, it looks conventional construction. You’re the guy with money, you tell me how many bucks you need to put up a dozen buildings like that. So where did a bunch of hippies get that kind of money?”

“Maybe they’re not hippies. Maybe it’s some kind of religious cult. They wouldn’t be the first ones to hand over all of their worldly possessions to some self-proclaimed prophet only to live like slaves for payback.”

“Either way, that’s your target. Just be careful. The more we find out the less it makes sense, but we do know we’re dealing with people who have some skills, some resources, and a strong desire to not be found. They may react badly toward someone actively tracking them down and spying on them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tom typed.

“You’ll also need to keep in mind that they may have other vehicles and other people. You know about Ellen and Annie and this lady who was driving last night, but there could be two other people there or twenty-two.”

“Times like this I wish we could just turn this over to the police or the FBI or someone and let them handle it. Then I remember what we’re investigating and how those padded cells don’t have internet access.”

“You have that right. Two more things,” Jason typed. “First, go into the setup menu on this app and you can have it send you a notice when a target starts to move. You’ll want to do that, but don’t bet your ass on it. The data for this app is actually being stored on your system at home for security reasons. You’ll only have access to it when you have a secure connection. You should be able to get that any time in town or on the highway where you’ve got a good, high speed connection, but you might not have it out in the boonies. As in, out in the boonies near this compound where you might really need it on short notice.”

“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll send messages whenever I’m able, to keep you up to date on what I’m doing and what I plan to do. I think tomorrow I’ll start trying to get a better idea of what and who are out there.”

“Great. What do you plan on doing tonight?”

“It’s clear, it’s getting dark early these days, and I’m supposed to be pretending to be an amateur astronomer out here for the dark skies. I think that I’ll make a show of checking with the hotel front desk for advice and directions, then taking all of that gear out to actually look at the stars.”

“Be careful.”

“What, do you think I’m going to coincidentally run into Ellen or her friends out there while watching Jupiter’s moons?”

“No, I’m worried that you’ll trip in the dark and break your leg, or go over the edge of a cliff.”

“I’ll be careful. About all of those things.”

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.

There’s a meme that shows up a lot around the beginning of NaNoWriMo that describes the writing process as:

1. This story is fantastic!
2. This story really could be better.
3. This story sucks and is worthless!
4. I suck and I am worthless!
5. Maybe it’s not that bad.
6. This story is fantastic!

Somewhere in the middle of last night’s writing session, we entered “Phase Two”. I’m not sure how or why, but things didn’t really “flow” last night. It was more like pulling out your own teeth without benefit of anesthesia. The blue funk finally lifted toward the end, about the time that the idea of the GPS tracking beacons became clear to me. (Good thing that I had included it to begin with back in Chapter Six.)

Those who serve as mentors to those of us who are trying to learn how to do this writing thing warn repeatedly of this sort of thing. (As always, Chuck Wendig says it better than I can even dream of saying it, but he uses “strong language” so you shouldn’t read this in church or at work.) Some days it’s magic — but some days it just sucks and you wonder why you’re doing this to yourself. Most days are somewhere in between. This is exactly how I feel when running a marathon, by the way. Exhilarated at both the start and at the finish line (I can give myself a huge emotional boost at any time just remembering the last do-or-die mile of the 2012 LA Marathon), having fun every now and then, but often (especially in the middle sections) wondering just what in the hell ever possessed me to voluntarily put myself through this.

The key bit of wisdom we get from our writing mentors (and from our running coaches) is to know that these ups and downs exist, and steel ourselves psychologically to just soldier on through the down spots and trust in your training, your craft, and your faith that you will pull through the other side. Above all, give yourself permission to suck and permission to fail. This doesn’t mean that you want to fail or try to suck, but by giving yourself permission to let that be a possible outcome (“Failure is always an option!” say the Mythbusters) you allow yourself to learn from the experience and get better the next time.

So. I plowed through the tough spots yesterday, one verb and noun after another, finally “breaking through” and finishing strong.

And then I spent a huge chunk of today helping The Long Suffering Wife and our local Habitat For Humanity organization with a BBQ For The Troops event. It will be interesting to see (I’m writing this at 19:30 after finally getting home and having dinner) to see how much I can get accomplished before I collapse. The good news is that I started the day significantly ahead of the minimum pace necessary to “win” NaNoWriMo. I’m currently averaging over 3,000 words a day and that projects to crossing the “50,000 word finish line” on about November 17th or so. I’m just a shade under halfway there right now!

Having said that, this might be a tough day to keep to that pace. There may be only a portion of a chapter below. If that’s the case, look for the rest of it tomorrow, hopefully along with all of Chapter Ten. We’ll see. It’s not life and death — NaNoWriMo is much more important than that!

(Oh, no, I’M GETTING SHOUTY!! Note to self — Chapter Nine may require significant re-writing, if you know what I mean.)

CHAPTER NINE

Skipping dinner for the moment, Tom went straight back to his room. He quickly had a secure connection and tried to contact Jason. He failed to get an immediate reply, so he left a simple message instructing Jason to immediately start using the first tracking device to follow Ellen’s vehicle 24/7. He also said that he would activate the second device to keep in his pocket.

Tom was famished and almost went out to find dinner without bothering to activate that second device. He caught himself after he had left the room and was waiting by the elevator. It was so tempting to blow it off, but the little details like that were the only ones he could really control right now and he would hate for one moment of neglect to end up being his epitaph. Tom forced himself to go back to the room and activate the device, only then allowing himself to get dinner.

While waiting for his meal to arrive, Tom found himself nervously checking his phone every few minutes to see if Jason had responded. When an email finally did appear on his phone, just as his salad arrived, it was nothing more than a spam message (“Acai Berry Power 500 Oxycontin plus Viagra To Make Her Admire You No Prescription Needed!”) that had somehow slipped through his filters. Annoyed, Tom swiped to delete the message.

“Enter password to delete message,” was the prompt that displayed. That caught Tom by surprise. He simply hit “return”, but the message did not delete. He tried again but received the same prompt. He tried one of his generic, personal passwords. The message did not delete. Again, this time with a different password. The message did not delete. Stumped and starting to get angry, he had the presence of mind to set his phone down calmly and resume eating.

Tom knew that his normal email filtering software should be more than good enough to keep that sort of spam out of his box. He knew that spam like this still existed and plenty of people put up with it. But he wasn’t plenty of people and he didn’t put up with it. He couldn’t remember the last time that a message like that had made it into his system. For many years he had found it worthwhile regardless of the cost to keep upgrading to the best software available to keep his systems safe, secure, and private. That in turn was one of the reasons that he had been so surprised when Jason’s software upgrade had proven to be so much better. Tom thought that he already had the best.

Even given that, there shouldn’t ever be any reason that he couldn’t delete any email or file. The fact that he couldn’t made him wonder if this might be some kind of new super computer virus that was good enough to penetrate even this system. And needing a password to delete? That sounded like some kind of “ransom-ware” attack.

All of those facts should have been true even with his previous top-of-the-line system. This meant that it should be even truer now with Jason’s upgrades installed. In summary, if Jason now had him using some kind of top secret, cutting edge, and military operating system, who knew what other kinds of similar but hostile systems might be hunting such a “benevolent” system? Was he now inadvertently involved in some kind of cyber war on top of everything else?

While Tom was waiting for his main course, he decided to take a chance. He took another look at the spam message, this time reading the entire text.

• “Going bald? Grow new hair!
• “Oxycontin available, no prescriptions!
• “Testosterone replacement available!
• “Incredible results, guaranteed!
• “Testicular cancer won’t kill your love life!
• “Just make the move to satisfy her!
• “Available discreetly!
• “Satisfaction assured!
• “Only available a limited time!
• “Never be impotent again!”

Suddenly it became clear. The message wasn’t spam. It was from Jason. The system allowed it through because of that and then didn’t allow him to delete it because he needed to see it. Yet to anyone other than Tom and Jason, it was just an annoying file that was messing with his operating system and might have loaded some kind of virus or malware.

Satisfied that his message had gotten through, he finished his meal in peace.

Tom had the best of intentions, planning to do more research on the area and figuring out what his next move should be tomorrow. But he got back to his room with his stomach full and the day’s multiple adrenaline crashes taking their toll. When he saw the room’s desk covered with brochures about the area attractions, he decided instead to lie down for just a few minutes before attacking them.

He was sound asleep in seconds.

When he awoke in the morning, he was surprised to find himself sprawled on top of the bedspread, still in his clothes, with the room’s lights all on and the temperature uncomfortably cold. What had happened? It took a few seconds before his brain kicked into gear and brought him back to reality.

Tom’s perceptions were still being heavily clouded by the vivid dreams he had experienced all night. It felt like the entire night had been filled with images of cats and toothy holes filled with ghosts hovering just out of reach over him. Everywhere he went they followed him, the cats yowling as if they were in heat and the disks bobbing and weaving above, popping in and out of existence.

While the dreams had been far more detailed and realistic than any he could remember ever having before in his life, they had not been nightmares. The overall emotional feeling of them all was not fear or terror, but rather comfort or reassurance. In the dreams he was frustrated and confused by his inability to touch the disks or understand what the cats were saying, but those feelings were secondary to the overall feeling of impending acceptance.

Over all of the other events of the dreams was a continually recurring chorus of train whistles. Sometimes the trains could be heard Dopplering up as they approached and then back down as they went by. Sometimes the sounds were the warning blasts they screamed as they approached a grade crossing. But again, the sounds were never indicative of danger. It was much more like the wistful, mournful association of train whistles and sad country songs.

Tom looked at the clock next to the bed. It was just after 9:30. He had slept for over twelve hours, but he didn’t feel particularly rested. Shaking his head, trying to clear it, he downed two aspirin, started the room’s small coffee maker, stripped, and headed into the shower for a long, steamy soak. He ignored the plaque on the bathroom wall asking all guests to conserve water due to the area’s drought conditions.

As he turned off the shower and began to towel dry accompanied by the welcome smell of brewing coffee, Tom again heard a train’s warning blast. Sure that he wasn’t dreaming, he padded over to the window and peeked out through a crack in the drapes. Across the river, beyond the parks, he could see a freight train trundling through town, crossing guards down and holding up traffic as it passed. That would explain where the sounds in his dreams came from.

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.

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.

Another really interesting thing that I’m finding out while writing this story is the way plot twists and events pop up as I’m typing them. I’m writing this story with a general outline and a target of where I want the plot to end up, but there have been several things that I had no clue were coming until I got there. For example, the fact that Ellen lied through her teeth to Tom and ditched him. I was literally typing, “He pulled up in front of the store about 8:55” when my brain said, “You do know that she’s not going to show up. Right?” Well, now I did!

It’s happened several times, and each time it’s been quite clear in my head that it was the correct way to go. In addition, by the time I finish writing out the modified scene, it’s usually pretty clear what follows next on the altered time line.

That’s pretty neat. I don’t know if I can count on that happening the next time, or the 1,000th time I need it, but for right now it’s kind of an amazing feeling. Not quite “amazing” like finding out that you have the ability to teleport or kill people with your mind, but more like the “amazing” when you suddenly find out that you have a natural talent for juggling or roller skating.

I’ve never been a big fan of “faith”, more of a “cover your ass and your bases” kind of a guy. But if this keeps up, I might have to start having faith in my ability to do this. It feels like jumping off a cliff and having faith that I can learn to fly on the way down. That analogy, in turn, could have profound consequences for many other aspects of my life.

As Alice said, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The miles droned by as Tom drove the long way around the southern end of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. He passed into New Mexico before sunset, but soon it was dark and more light snow flurries started. At one point the GPS chirped and asked if he wanted to take a shortcut through Taos, but when Tom checked the elevations on the alternate route he decided that it was better to just stick with the interstate. It wasn’t worth it to possibly be forced to double back for three or four hours just to maybe save an hour.

As the snow continued, Tom was able to keep moving but he was forced to slow down. He kept checking the radio for reports from the highway patrol and the news was always that the road was open but caution was necessary. When he had left Pueblo he hadn’t planned on the weather getting worse. The GPS periodically updated his ETA in Farmington, but it was always basing it on the maximum speeds for the roads. As the reality of the slower speeds and sloppy conditions kept being factored in, the ETA soon slipped into the wee hours of the next morning.

Tom tried to keep an eye out for any late model, white Tahoe SUVs, but there weren’t a lot of other cars out this far in the middle of nowhere in a storm. Most of the traffic was made up of long-distance truckers, who didn’t seem to slow down for anyone or anything. It was almost like they were driving in an alternate reality that didn’t include darkness or snow.

It was seven o’clock by the time he got to the New Mexico version of Las Vegas, where he stopped to get gas and a quick dinner. From there the interstate went back up into some higher elevations, along with their heavier snow. The roads were starting to get icy underneath the snow which just made everything all the more treacherous. Driving his compact car Tom could feel every gust of wind and was pushed around by every truck that blew past him.

When he got to Santa Fe it was nearly ten o’clock and the GPS was telling him that he would get to Farmington by 3:00 AM, but Tom knew that was a lie. Ellen had probably arrived hours ago wherever it was she was going. Getting himself killed in a stupid car accident wasn’t going to solve anything. It was time to hole up for the night.

The freeway sign indicated that the next five exits serviced Santa Fe. The first couple still looked like they were way out on the outskirts of town, but soon Tom could see that he was coming into the main city. Even from a distance he could see several towering signs for gas, motels, and restaurants. He took the exit and then had to choose between a national discount chain motel and a more upscale national all-suites property. Tom went with the suite.

Once in his room he tried to do some more searching online for anything that might be useful, but he was having problems maintaining his concentration. Now that he wasn’t focused on driving in dangerous conditions, all of the adrenaline and tension of the day leaked out of him and left him deflated. He turned on the television to see if there might be something mindless to distract him for an hour while he wound down, preferably without insulting his intelligence.

Flipping through the satellite channels on the motel’s system, his attention was caught by a local access channel promoting a number of the area’s tourist attractions and small businesses. Living up to Santa Fe’s reputation, most of the ads were for art galleries, jewelry stores, historical sites, spas, luxury boutiques, and restaurants.

Tom had never been to the city before, but he couldn’t help but wonder how much of the art in the galleries was actually unique and inspired and how much was simply trendy and expensive. As the ads began to scroll back through their loop for a second time he reached for the TV’s remote control. Just as he changed the channel an image in a gallery ad caught his eye. He flipped back as quickly as he could, but the loop had already moved on.

Getting a pen and notepad from the hotel desk, Tom waited impatiently for the ads to loop through again. He kept scanning the ads for a repeat of the image he had seen, but it never appeared anywhere else. Finally he recognized one of the ads that had just preceded the one he wanted to see and he got on the edge of the bed so that he could clearly see the television.

The ad he had seen came on and he wrote down the name, the Starry Mountaintop Gallery. As he quickly wrote down the phone number given, he clearly saw the piece he had glimpsed the first time. In a collection of large vases, bowls, and various pottery items, there was clearly something like a large cookie jar painted to show two cats staring up into a cloudless, blue sky. In the sky were several black disks and circles, all of them with a row of teeth around the inside rim.

Tom watched the ads for a third time to make sure that he was seeing what he thought he had seen. It went by quickly as the camera panned across the gallery showroom, just one art piece in a room full of them, but it stuck out like a sore thumb to Tom. He quickly checked out the gallery’s web site but didn’t see any sign of it there. He noted the gallery’s hours and address.

As long as he wasn’t going to be getting anywhere before Ellen, this was something he needed to check out first.

In the morning Tom slept in late and took his time getting up and finding a good breakfast. The gallery didn’t open until ten o’clock, so there was no hurry. Tom was glad to see that the skies were clear. Even with the sun up it didn’t look like it was going to get much above freezing any time during the day. The streets and sidewalks were all clear of snow by the time he went out, although there were still plenty of white patches in yards and parks where no one had trampled it yet.

The GPS indicated that the gallery was only a few blocks away and Tom had seen several notices about restrictive parking in the area. It seemed that many streets were primarily for pedestrians only. After checking with the front desk at the hotel, Tom decided to leave his car at the hotel and walk.

The cold air was thin as Tom hustled along at his usual brisk pace. He had seen the signs indicating that Santa Fe was at 7000’ altitude and there were warnings in the hotel room about the dangers of overexertion in the thin air, but it didn’t register until he found himself getting seriously short of breath. Like it or not, he was forced to ease his pace and take it easy.

As Tom entered the Starry Mountaintop Gallery he saw that it was arranged less as an art gallery and more like an upscale furniture store. All of the paintings, sculptures, and other art pieces were displayed as they would be if they were prized possessions to be shown off as ostentatiously as possible. Some of the furniture being used could have been art pieces in their own right, but some appeared to be minimalist set dressings. In what was apparently the theme of the gallery, almost all of the art pieces portrayed some kind of astronomical object or symbol.

There was only one employee in the gallery as Tom entered, and she was engaged in conversation with a young couple. The well dressed, middle aged woman caught Tom’s eye and held up a finger indicating that she would be with him shortly. Tom gestured back with a thumbs up, hopefully indicating that he was fine and in no hurry. He began circling the room slowly, looking carefully at each piece.

There was no sign of the piece that he had seen in the ad last night. Stars, moons, and suns were everywhere. A huge oak headboard on a king-sized bed was intricately carved with something that could have been a distant cousin to van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. A monstrously huge chrome mobile displaying the solar system hung high above a living room setting, the planets each etched with detail and embedded with semi-precious stones. Several stained glass windows showed stylized constellations. A large painting of the sun in full eclipse had amazingly detailed loops, rays, and whorls in the flaming corona.

Some of the pieces included animals, but only one had a cat and it was obviously not the one that Tom was looking for since the cat was shown curled up and sleeping. Other pieces showed various animals looking up at the sun, the moon or the stars, but nothing bizarre or unusual was shown in the skies anywhere. Tom liked a tapestry that showed a mountain lion lounging on a cliff ledge while looking up at Orion rising above a city, which he assumed to be Santa Fe. Curious, he looked for a price tag, but found that nothing in the gallery seemed to have one. He thought that it was a subtle touch that spoke volumes.

He realized that the gallery saleswoman was now standing quietly behind him, apparently done with the couple who had been here earlier. Suddenly deciding to take the initiative, he turned to her, smiled, and stretched out his hand. “Tom Tiernan. And you are?”

The woman graciously shook his hand and then released it. “I’m Karen Anders. Is there something in particular that you’re looking for today?”

“Perhaps I am, I’m not sure yet. I’m out from Los Angeles, just visiting the area for a few days and your gallery seemed interesting. It seems that everything has some astronomical connection, yes?”

“Quite so,” Karen said. “I have always been fascinated by the stars and astronomy, but when I wanted to study it in college I found that I should have studied a lot more math when I was younger. Instead I ended up studying art and business, then starting this gallery to combine it all. So far it seems to be working out. Are you involved with astronomy?”

“In a way, I guess that you could say that I am. I worked for over thirty years as a science and technology reporter, mainly for newspapers out on the west coast. In the course of doing that I’ve covered a fair number of stories relating to astronomy and the space program. It was always special when I got to go to JPL or Florida for a space shuttle launch. But I wouldn’t have guessed that enough people shared that interest to have a gallery that specialized in that sort of thing.”

“It’s a niche market, but there’s not a lot of competition and it fits in well with the culture here in Santa Fe. I couldn’t sell straight astronomical art here, it’s not the right market for that, although I did have Alan Bean do a showing here once. Mainly I look for things that will stand out and be eye catching. That’s what a lot of people in this area are looking for. Did you see anything that you liked?”

“There are several very nice things, but I’m not sure that they would fit in with my current décor. However, I noticed your ad on one of the local access channels in the hotel last night. There was a piece there that caught my eye. I don’t see it here, or anything like it, but maybe you’ll recognize it if I can describe it.”

“I can do even better,” Karen said. “We only have four video ads that we’ve shot, and I have a DVD with copies of all of them. Why don’t we look at them and you can show me which one you’re looking for.”

“Perfect, that would be great,” Tom replied.

It only took a minute for Karen to pull the DVD out of a file cabinet and put it in a player in her office. A very large flat screen display lit up on one wall. Neither of the first two ads were the ones that Tom had seen, but the third one was and Tom froze the playback to show the piece with the two cats and the disks in the sky.

“Can you tell me about this?” he asked.

Karen looked puzzled for a second but then her face smoothed to hide the emotion. “That’s an odd work, part of a series that we get from time to time. I don’t have any in right now and I really can’t say when I’ll get another, but if you like I can take your information and let you know when one becomes available.”

“I noticed it because of the cats,” Tom lied. “I’ve got a British Shorthair just like that and I’ve had others from that breed in the past. I’ve got some other artwork that shows British Shorthairs, so I thought that this would be something that would fit with my collection.”

“I see,” Karen said. “Now I understand. This particular work was here when we shot that video about eighteen months ago, but it went fairly quickly. This artist’s works usually do, but generally it’s someone who’s already familiar with her work or has been introduced to them by someone who is. It’s unusual for someone to ask about these works at random.”

“From the video it’s unclear just how big it is or what the design is. Would you have any still pictures of it or anything else on it?”

“No, I can tell you that it’s a little more than a foot tall and the artwork you see here is repeated on the other side, but I don’t have any other photos I’m afraid. The artist is quite strict about allowing any images to be taken of her work. I think she may be worried that her designs will be copied or stolen.”

“Thank you, that helps a great deal. What’s the astronomical connection to the piece? Do you know what exactly it is that the cats are looking at? I can’t quite see it clearly in the video.”

“I’ve never quite gotten a detailed description of that from the artist, but when I’ve been able to talk to her at all she has spoken of ‘other worlds’ and ‘signs in the sky’. All of her works have cats, and all have some variation of those symbols. If I had to guess I would think that they’re star symbols with the points turned inward instead of out, or possibly some kind of symbol for a solar eclipse. Perhaps they’re of paleographic origin or related to a more recent Native American symbol, but I don’t know enough about that to say for sure.”

“That’s fascinating,” Tom said, his sincere interest being obvious. “It almost looks like it has a lid, or is that a lip or top on it of some sort?”

“You’re correct, there’s a lid. I’m hesitant to say too much for fear of sounding macabre, but in addition to being beautiful, these works are designed to be functional.”

Now it was Tom’s turn to be puzzled. “I’m sorry, but that just makes me even more curious,” he said, giving Karen his biggest smile. “Please, I promise to not be upset or offended.”

“Very well, if you must know. While they might be used for a variety of things, I understand that these works are actually intended as funeral urns, to hold someone’s ashes after they’ve been cremated.”

Tom did his best to hide his surprise. “That’s not macabre, that’s wonderful. Many people keep the ashes of their departed family members for years in their homes. What better way to do that than to have some beautiful piece of artwork to use for the job? I think that it would be fantastic to use something like that instead of something that’s just ordinary marble or pottery.”

“I agree and I’m glad that you’re not bothered by that. I’m just always afraid that it might upset someone or violate their religious convictions.”

“Not at all,” Tom said. “In fact, I’m becoming more fascinated by the minute. I would love to meet this artist. Is she from the area?”

“She’s regional but not local. I believe she lives up beyond Farmington. I’ve only met her a handful of times. Usually I deal with her agent. When they first approached me about carrying her works I had doubts, especially since they’re both so odd. The first pieces I took strictly on consignment, but now I get pieces at irregular times, usually about four or five times a year.”

“If I may ask, how much do her pieces cost?” Tom asked.

“I currently ask $5,000 for each piece,” Karen answered.

“That sounds quite reasonable,” Tom lied again. “I would be very excited if you could let me know when you get more of her works in. What’s her name again?”

“Her name is Dahlia,” Karen said.

It was everything Tom could do to keep a straight face and keep his voice level. “Really? Dahlia? Like the flower?”

“Yes, just like the flower. She’s got a beautiful tattoo of a purple dahlia on her right shoulder. It’s wonderful work as well, but I don’t know if she takes the name from the flower and the tattoo or if she got the tattoo because of it’s her name. I’m sure that you know how eccentric artists can be.”

“I know, their actions can often be inexplicable. Please, let me give you my information,” Tom said, fishing out a business card. “I’m very interested, but I need to ask if you can be extremely discreet about my identity. I have a wide range of financial partners and competitors. In my investment field it’s a very competitive and cutthroat business, so it would not do to give anyone any unnecessary information, even the artist.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Karen assured him. “As I said, I rarely see her. Usually it’s the agent that I talk to, and then only when she comes in. I’ll make sure to let you know as soon as I have another piece available.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate it. You mentioned the agent that you deal with. What’s her name?”

“Ellen Summers. I used to deal with her mother, Beth Summers, but she passed away two years ago, so her daughter took over for her.”

Tom almost didn’t dare to speak. To buy some time, he held out his hand again for Karen to shake. “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful, very helpful indeed. I’m so happy that I stumbled across this, it had made my whole trip worthwhile. I look forward to hearing from you soon.”

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.