Uno and Fog: Things Opened and Left Unopened

David brings me the box as I waited in the common area.  I thank him and open the cardboard top, inside are several text books, note pads, and old lap top, which might have something useful, a couple coffee mugs, one which read Archaeologists take their time.  A couple of pictures of ancient ruins around the world. One old pocket knife, a family photo that was creased in several places, and a couple of novels.

“Those were his favorites from childhood.” David pointed out helpfully.  I took a look at some dogeared copies of Tolkien.  At least it wasn’t Harry Potter.  There wasn’t anything written in the novels, although there were several pages that were no longer connected the binding.  There didn’t see anything significant to those pages.

I turned to the notebooks and flipped through them quickly, but nothing came to my immediate attention.

I looked over at David, “I will see if any of these provides any clues to what happened to him.  You still have my card?”

David nodded.

“Good.  If you remember anything else, who the woman was, or if you see or hear from him, please call me.”

“Will do.”

I thanked him and headed out with a box carrying bits and pieces of a madman’s past life.  No the question was whether I brake into Dr. Sarah Alvinson’s office.  I thought about how easily she had tracked me and even knew what I had said even though I hadn’t seen her.

I fingered the crystal hanging from my neck and wondered if it would shield me from her which seemed unlikely or if she would be aware of its presence and could track me with it, which when I pondered it seemed far more likely.

How would she react to me breaking in her office?  I thought about how I would react.  It wouldn’t be good.  The need for more information weighed against damaging a relationship with a potential ally.

I wondered how much of my indecision was a trust issue.  My mother had left when I was four and I never saw and heard from her again.  I’d never been able to find her either and I wondered why she had left me, and a cynical part of me wondered if she had been paid off for some reason, and if so, how could you pay a mother to abandon her son?

My father never spoke of her, ever.  Sometimes he got angry when I pestered him with questions, usually he just got sad.  There were pictures of them as a couple at charity or other events on the internet, but nothing in my home growing up.  He had taken everything down.

She wasn’t beautiful exactly, but what would be described as a regal looking, if a bit severe.  My father looked happy in a way I have never seen personally and she was always smiling in those shots, but if I was being completely honest the smile never completely reached her eyes.

She doesn’t look the way I remember her.

In the end I didn’t invade Teri’s office.  I took the Intracity Transit System carry the box with me.  There were always people traveling between the cities, people that worked in New Amsterdam and were willing to commute for a bigger home, or just couldn’t afford to live in there, but unable to let it go either.

The way into my city has less travelers at night during the week days heading in than leaving the city.  There were three men at the end of the car I was in, but other than that I was alone.

The train left the station and headed off, it would take ten minutes to get to downtown and from there a short cab ride up to midtown and Greensward park where my abode awaited.

As the outside slipped into darkness the three men started to head toward me.  I could pick up the rising energy of their nervous systems and I started to pull in power for the electrical systems around me.

“What’s in the box?”  The one in the middle asked, another sniggered.  I shut down the cameras quickly, but they had been recording up to this point which could lead to inconvenient problems for me.

“Nothing of importance,” I answered and looked up at them, “but your friend doesn’t look well.”  I reached out and triggered the vomit response in the medulla part of sniggering guys brain with a small surge of power.  I had to be careful, since that part of the brain regulated respiration and circulations.

The guy stopped suddenly and suddenly spewed a vile stream of foul smelling bile.  The other two jerked backwards and took their preferred deity’s name in vain.

“I don’t know what happened there,” no longer sniggering vomit guy said, wiping his mouth. I triggered his medulla again making him heavy again, getting what little was left in his stomach and then sending him in to dry heaves.  “Oh, God . . .”

“Disgusting.” one of his companion’s chimed in.  I put the vomiter to sleep then, I looked like he had just passed out.  I wondered what his buddies would do, but any thought of hassling me had ended, they grabbed their sleeping buddy and walked away from the mess he had made.

I was left in peace for the rest of the trip, although it wasn’t the most pleasant smelling excursion I had taken.

At the time I felt like the trip had been pretty much a waste, but I was wrong.