“The Catalyst” Series
Chapter 20: Feeling Overwhelmed
Anthony Barlow entered the dimly lit diner with some
trepidation. He wasn’t used to such intrigue, his normal milieu was an office
overlooking the downtown cityscape, not a crummy diner in a bad neighborhood.
He wasn’t at all comfortable with the situation, but he was desperate, and he
wanted a solution to his problem. He figured this Wittmore fellow didn’t have a
traditional office he could simply drop in on during business hours, and he’d
asked Wittmore to meet him as soon as he could, so Anthony knew he really
couldn’t ask for anything better.
There were only a handful of people in the dark
establishment at this hour, and it wasn’t difficult to pick out Henry Wittmore.
He was the only one watching Anthony as he stood just inside the door. Everyone
else was either watching their drink or the legs on the waitress who slowly
paraded past carrying everyone their orders. The Investigator looked gruff,
unshaven, and worn by the years. But Anthony figured that’s the kind of man he
needed for the job, someone who had seen the seedier side of life and who knew
how to look through the dirt for messy little details. Having figured out what
to do, Anthony stepped smartly up to the table Henry was sitting at.
“Henry Wittmore?”
“You Anthony?” Henry asked, knowing better than to use his
client’s last names in even as unsocial an environment as this was.
“I am,” Anthony answered simply.
“Then have a seat. Can I order you a drink?” Henry inquired
as he took the measure of his potential new employer. He was used to all types,
focusing mainly on spousal abuse cases, and those tended to hit people of all
stripes. But this man looked so out of place he was practically begging for
someone to mug him when he left the building.
The man was older, with gray hair and dressed in a
conservative and downright boring business suit. He also had a dour expression,
as if he’d been tasting something that curled his lip for the past week. But
Harry didn’t have to wonder what it might be since he was sure the man would
tell him shortly.
“I think I should stay away from alcohol at the moment. In
the mood I’m in, I’m likely to overdo it. I could use some coffee, though.”
“The coffee is crap in this joint,” Henry told him. “Wait
till you get back to the city and get yourself a Starbucks. The only things
worth drinking here are the beer and the whiskey. The beer because it’s in a
bottle and they can’t water it down, and the whiskey because you can tell if
they cut it with something.”
“I’ll do without then,” Anthony said, ready to get down to
business right off the bat.
“Fine by me. Now what’s your problem? You mentioned
something about your daughter getting into trouble?”
“Yeah, apparently it’s just started. Her boyfriend was
agitated when he brought her home earlier today. Seeing that, I assumed he’d
done something to my daughter, so I cornered him. He was evasive, but he told
me enough for me to bluff my daughter into giving me the basics. It seems they
met some charismatic charlatan in downtown Beaumont, and now it seems my
daughter is involved in some kind of a cult.”
“I wasn’t aware we had many cults in downtown Beaumont?”
Henry asked with no trace of humor in his voice. Somehow Anthony couldn’t
picture the man having much of a sense of humor, as he looked like he was too
used to seeing the ugly underside of life.
“Apparently they caught this clown traveling between cities.
It seems he was traveling between New Orleans and Houston. They supposedly only
talked for a short while, but it was long enough to cause my daughter to decide
to run off to meet him.”
“So your daughter is missing?” Henry asked, more interested
in knowing what the job entailed than in this suit’s personal problems.
“No, she went to some concert in Houston this guy was
supposed to be attending. But she told me she was going and that there wasn’t
anything I could do to stop her. She informed me that if I refused to allow her
she’d leave anyway, and if I locked her in her room she’d just break a window.
Normally she’s not very motivated, but she’s resourceful, so if she makes her
mind up to do something you can bet she’s going to do it.”
“Yeah, so the problem is?” Henry asked, hoping to skip the
minor theatrics.
“She’s ready to follow this guy wherever he leads. She said
he wants her to study hard and get ahead, but I figure that was just to
convince her he isn’t after her money. But I don’t trust him. From how she
describes it, she’s willing to drop her entire life just to follow this kid
at the drop of a hat.”
“Kid?” Henry asked.
“Yeah, the guy’s not even old enough to drink yet, but
apparently he’s got a whole train of women following him around, doing his
bidding. I don’t like the sounds of that.”
“I can understand,” Henry answered, not particularly caring
how this kid or his potential employer entertained themselves. He was looking
to figure out what he’d have to do. “So what do you want me to do? Hunt him
down and hurt him? I’m sorry, but I don’t do that kind of thing. If that’s what
you want I can give you a number, but I won’t get involved in it, and I don’t
want to be informed about it either.”
“No, no. I want information. I figure my daughter is already
convinced this guy is the best thing since sliced bread. What I want is for you
to dig up some dirt on him. Hopefully, if I can show her this guy’s dark side
she won’t be as susceptible to his claims.”
“You realize that she’ll probably like him more, simply
because you dislike him so much yourself?” Henry asked, getting as deep into
psychology as he had any interest in getting.
“Yeah, I realize that. I don’t think it’ll be easy, but
she’s a smart girl. If she thinks she’s being taken advantage of she’ll fight
back. She may not come home to me seeking solace, but at least she’ll be better
able to look out for herself.”
“All right, that sounds like something I can do. I do
surveillance all the time. Just who is this character and where can I find
him.”
“Well, she wouldn’t tell me where he is now, other than
somewhere in Houston. But apparently he’s spent a lot of time in New Orleans,
where he’s developed quite a following as a religious figure of some kind. All
I know is his name is Alex, but apparently that name should be recognized by a
bunch of people there.”
“So you want me to locate someone named Alex in the Big
Easy? You know this is going to take some time, effort and expenses. I charge
$150 per hour plus expenses, and New Orleans ain’t cheap. Plus, I may need to
pay certain people off.”
“I understand. Just keep detailed records and if the
expenses are justified I’ll cover them. I’m not going to pay for you to party
there, or to pad your expenses, but if it’s reasonable I’ll pay it.”
“That’s good to know. The other half of my business, my
assistant, is very good with the record keeping, so you shouldn’t have a
problem with the itemizations. Now, is there anything else you can tell me
besides this guy’s first name?”
“Well, he’s supposedly been in the news down there recently.
He also seems to go after women, so figure you’ll have to focus on the women
surrounding him, or who knew him when he was there.”
“That’s not much to go on, but if he’s attracted that much
attention that helps. The fact he surrounds himself with women could be
difficult, as it may make me getting access to his followers more difficult. I
may need to involve a female associate along to gain their trust. That’ll
increase the daily rate and the expenses, of course.”
“As I said, I’m not afraid to pay for good information. If
you can get me some real dirt on this creep, especially if you can actually get
a photograph of him showing his true nature, I’ll appreciate it.”
“I’ll have to leave right away,” the detective warned his
businessman employer. “If he’s on the run he likely won’t be around very long,
so I’ll have to move fast. Any idea how long he’s going to stay in Houston?”
“Grace said she’s planning on meeting him at some concert in
the city tonight and tomorrow, so I have no idea what he plans beyond that. As
you can imagine, she wasn’t anxious to tell me much other than to defend the
guy and tell me to screw off.”
“All right, there’s no telling how long it’ll take to dig up
any dirt on this guy. I may not be able to get anything incriminating before he
skips town again, but if he sticks around trying to soak your daughter, I may
be able to follow him around after I learn some more about him. I’ll try to
give you daily updates, as I figure the short timeline is going to involve a
lot of changes of plan, and that’ll affect your bottom line. You got a number I
can call?”
“Yeah, I’ll give you my business cell phone number. The wife
and my daughter are bored by my work, so they won’t answer it. That will keep
anyone from finding out what you’re doing before I’m ready to reveal the
results to them. I figure my wife won’t understand the implications unless I
can show her what’s wrong with this guy, so I figured it’s better if I keep her
out of it for now. But I appreciate this, since I didn’t know how else to
address this.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Whatever dirt this guy has, I’ll
find it. Now, if you’ll excuse me it sounds like I need to pack in a hurry and
head out of state, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow evening after I see what I can
find.”
“Thanks, I’ll take care of everything on my end, and I’ll
keep you out of whatever I decide to do to him afterwards, as well.”
“OK, Alex, now that everyone is gone, we’ve got several
things to discuss before Patricia gets here,” Cate warned her brother. “I know
that after all this time she’s going to be wanting to spend some quality time
with you, so how about you strip naked so I can get some quick time with you to
discuss things before she gets here.”
“Ha! Like I’m going to strip naked when I know Patricia’s
likely to stop by here with her whole band in a few minutes.”
“That’s hardly the ‘Rock and Roll’ spirit,” Cate teased,
“besides, most of them wouldn’t mind seeing you naked.”
“Still, I’d rather not answer the door in my ‘all together’,
just on the off chance it’s a 5-year-old from down the hall who’s been drawn to
me. I’ll strip, but I’m keeping my pants on, at least.”
“Oh, phooey, you’re no fun. All right then, that’s good
enough for me to get my daily exposure to you, I guess. I was hoping maybe we
could fool around a little, but I can work around your pants,” she told him
with a leer.
Alex quickly took off his shirt and undershirt, opening his
arms to her. She sat down, giving him a kiss and quickly fished his cock out.
Alex didn’t mind her playing with it, but when she started to go down on him he
protested.
“Hey, I thought you wanted to talk?”
“Hmm?” Cate asked with her mouth full. She removed it before
answering. “Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right. How about we talk while you’re
balls deep in me?” she asked playfully.
“No deal, you know you get lost looking in my eyes. The best
I can offer is to spoon you while we talk. With my pants on,” he told
her.
“Drat, well if you insist,” she responded, playfully
pouting. She’d expected he’d be a bit hesitant, as his mind was currently
occupied with other things. She quickly peeled her top off. The fact she
conceded so quickly told him much more about how serious she was about this
talk than anything else she’d said.
As she settled down against him, pulling his hands up to
cover her breasts, she began.
“Now, there’s several things you missed tonight that I want
to cover before Patricia gets here and you forget everything else,” she told
him while getting comfortable, worming her ass into a better position against
his crotch. “First off, don’t go making arrangements with people when you don’t
know what’s going on.”
“Huh? What’d I say?”
“You told those girls to meet you at the club tomorrow
night, but Patricia was only scheduled to play there tonight. She made an
arrangement with someone she knew to play here so they could see how well they
performed before her first big show. I had to tell each of those girls where to
show up and how to get in.”
“Why am I always the last to know about these things?” Alex
complained.
“Because you’ve got more important things on your mind,”
Cate reminded him. “Besides, if you don’t ask, we don’t bother you with the
small details, just like you didn’t ask about our travel plans this past week.”
Alex grunted, acknowledging she had a point while gently tweaking her nipples
in appreciation. Cate mewed her thanks but continued on.
“The House of Blues isn’t that much bigger than the clubs
Patricia has been playing at for years, so it isn’t that much of a leap for
her,” Cate explained.
“So where are we supposed to go tomorrow, then?” Alex asked.
“The Houston Astrodome, though it’s now called ‘Reliant
Stadium’.”
“Wha…?” Alex managed to sputter. “You mean THE Houston
Astrodome?”
“No, I mean ‘Reliant Stadium’. They changed the name some
time ago,” Cate reminded him with a smile. She couldn’t see his expression,
since she was facing away from him, but she could well imagine it just from his
response.
“Damn, that holds a mess of people,” Alex responded in
astonishment.
“It’s a little over 70,000,” Cate informed him.
“Shit! That’s a lot more people than we’ve dealt with
before.”
“No, usually we’re in large cities with hundreds of
thousands of people, but it’s more people in one place than we usually
encounter, which is why Patricia was so anxious to set this tour up for you.
She figured you’d be able to find quite a few people during each show.”
“Hell, we found three last night, and that was out of only…”
here Alex hesitated, since he didn’t know how many people were in attendance.
“The House of Blues holds 1,500 people, so the Astrodome
would hold over 60 times as many people,” Cate calmly informed him, enjoying
his stunned mumbling as he tried to wrap his mind around the numbers. As much
as Cate loved her brother, she knew visualizing large numbers wasn’t his strong
suit.
“Wait a minute, 3 into 1500, multiplied by…”
Cate took pity on him. “You can expect somewhere around 120
Watchers, though there could be any number of Seers. That’s assuming full
attendance, of course.”
“Holy Fuck,” Alex quietly swore.
“Not if you keep going on about this,” she informed him. “By
the time you finally figure out the numbers Patricia and her band mates will be
here. After all, it’s a ‘holy fuck’ with a nearby angel that I’ve been hoping
for.”
“Wow, do you really think we’ll meet that many new people?”
Alex asked her.
“People, yes. Watchers and Seers, probably not. The club was
packed tonight, and Reliant Stadium isn’t likely to be. Plus, even if it was, I
doubt we’d manage to grab them all. We’ll have to manage the people better, but
we need all of those girls.”
“Wait a minute,” Alex said, trying to wrap his head around
another issue. “How the hell can Patricia pack an arena as large as the
Astrodome?”
“Reliant Stadium,” Cate reminded him, just to be difficult.
“And she can’t do it on her own. At least, not yet. But that’s just another
thing you haven’t asked about. This isn’t exclusively her tour. She’s the
opening act for Diane Kennedy.”
“Diane Kennedy?” Alex asked. Hell, even he’d heard of
Diane Kennedy. She was hardly as big as she once was, but he was well aware of
the fact that she’d just released a new album and that she was trying to
reclaim some of her former glory. “How the hell did Patricia connect with Diane
Kennedy?”
“The studio who agreed to do her next album thought a lot of
it and pulled a few strings, and along with a lot of effort on Henry’s part,
they managed to get her on the tour.”
“And Diane is starting in Houston?” Alex asked.
“No, they started on the East Coast with another opening
act, but Diane wasn’t getting along with them, so when they suggested a
replacement Diane’s people jumped at the chance. Diane isn’t real easy to work
with,” Cate explained.
“Ah, that explains a lot I guess, though it makes Patricia’s
role more precarious as well.”
“But Patricia just needs to last until California, where
they’ll cut her album. The album is where the sales come from. The tours are
mainly designed to help sell the albums. Once Patty makes her own album, it
won’t matter as much if Diane throws a fit over her.”
“OK, I get it now. So, was there something else…?” Alex
started to ask before Cate rushed ahead.
“Yeah, there’s a lot more. You did all kinds of things wrong
tonight. First of all, that idea of standing in the entranceway as everyone
walks into the concert was one of your stupider ideas. What would you have done
if someone fell to their knees before you in front of 1,500 people?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Alex replied honestly, since he hadn’t
actually considered it.
“Right, you don’t. Which is why you have people around to do
your thinking for you,” Cate replied with a smile. “Next time, and by next time
I mean tomorrow, you’ll be hiding in the men’s room on the outer rim of the stadium.
Since all your followers are women, you shouldn’t have much trouble there.
Well, aside from hanging around a men’s room for an abnormally long period of
time. That might attract its own attention,” she replied in jest.
“Then once the band starts, you get out of the common areas
and enter the back of the auditorium. Hopefully there’ll be enough people there
that no one will notice any kind of commotion you may produce. Patricia knows
to watch out for you, so she’ll start wailing right off the bat, so you
shouldn’t disrupt things too much. As I said, I’m going to talk to the other
girls and we’ll manage to station them around the stadium, herding any Watchers
towards you. I’m assuming the Seers will find you on their own. Just expect a
couple of women to be waiting for you when you get out of the men’s room.”
“OK, good point. I hadn’t thought out what might have
happened tonight,” Alex conceded.
“No, you didn’t. That much was obvious,” Cate agreed. “But
that’s why you have people like me, Patricia and Gail around.”
“OK, I can see putting all the girls to work tomorrow night,
but what about after that?”
“You mean when we hit San Antonio on Thursday?”
“Yeah, how do we manage a crowd that large with only the
three of us?”
“I guess you’ll have to do your magic and attract a few new
followers. We can’t afford a new trailer to carry a bunch of new support
people, and we can’t uproot all of your people, since the whole idea of this is
to create communities of your people around the country. So either you find all
new people at each stop, or we’re going to do a whole lot of running,” Cate
informed her brother.
Alex sighed heavily in exasperation, but recognized there
was no getting around it. After all, the last thing he needed was to have a
large contingent of women following him around in each new city he visited.
“Another thing,” Cate continued, not waiting for him to get
comfortable, “talking about obvious screw ups, you’re really lucky there weren’t
any obvious Seer activations.” When Alex quit playing with her tits in
questioning silence, she went on. “It’s bad enough that anyone could snap a
picture of you at any moment, but when you’re walking around with a name tag
showing your face and loudly proclaiming your name, you’re just asking for
trouble.”
“Damn, that was stupid wasn’t it? OK, backstage pass
goes into the pocket whenever I’m not backstage. Anything else?”
“Just the most obvious, Patricia has been very patient and very
dedicated. She’s been working hard setting everything up in New Orleans for
you. She set up that whole ‘hopeful potential mother of the day’ program for
you, she covered for you whenever you screwed up in New Orleans, and she’s
planned this whole concert tour as a cover for you. I think you deserve to show
her one hell of a good time to repay her for it.”
“Yeah, I was planning on it,” Alex agreed, looking a little
guilty since he was already aware how little time he’d manage to give her so
far. “Though to be honest, when I offered she said we’d get together when we
had more time. She was anxious to have me impregnate all those girls.”
“And I just don’t mean a normal ‘it’s yet another girl’ type
of response,” Cate continued, ignoring his weak rationalizations. “She’s been
one of your biggest supporters. She’s put in more legwork than anyone else
around you. You owe her a lot, and you’re going to make it up to her.”
“Yeah, well, she—” Alex said, starting to invent another
excuse.
“I don’t want to hear it. She deserves several mind-melting
orgasms, at the very least. I’d tell you to treat her to a phenomenal date, but
after what she’s been through today, I don’t think she’ll be up to it.”
“Actually, given that, I’d recommend some personal
attention. The non-sexual kind,” Gail offered, reminding both Cate and
Alex that she was still in the room. “I don’t know if her room has a hot tub,
but I’d recommend a hot bath and a back and/or foot rub at the very least. And
don’t you dare go getting distracted with anything else. You need to treat her
like the wonderful princess she is, since she’s done more for you than anyone
else has. It’s the least you can do for her.”
“Good points all,” Alex replied. “Now, is there anything
else I need to be aware of?”
“Just to keep playing with those until Patricia gets here,”
Cate said, indicating Alex’s hands that were still playing with her breasts.
“I’ll second that,” Gail responded. “Watching the two of you
together is almost as good as having her to myself.” With that they all broke
out in giggles, reassuring Alex that the lecture period was finally over and that
both Cate and Gail were ready for some relaxation of their own after their own
busy day.
The noise of several people moving about in the hall warned
the three that they’d be having company soon, so they got up to welcome them.
There was a knock on the door before they could get to it, then the door opened
a little and someone peeped in.
“Hello? Everyone decent?” Mac asked.
“Yeah, we’re decent,” Alex replied, opening the door to
reveal a tired looking band leaning wearily against the wall. “Hard night, huh?
Come on in and relax. After all, you’re paying for the room.”
“Jordan and I will take the gear to your room for you,”
Chelsea offered, which the others gladly agreed to. They stumbled in and
collapsed on the beds and chair.
“Man, you always forget how tough a first night is,”
Patricia said, as she stopped to give Alex a kiss before sitting down herself.
“I mean, we’ve done this enough times that we’re used to it, but until you get some
experience under your belt, doing it every day, it always wears you down until
you adjust to it.”
“Can we get you anything?” Cate asked.
“Yeah, got any whiskey?” Sammy asked in a croaking voice.
“Uh, no, we didn’t think to stop at the liquor store,” Cate
informed him, smiling at him because it was so obvious that no one would ever
sell her liquor.
“Oh, then I guess we could use some water. Once we’re
rehydrated we’ll think of looking for something else,” Sammy replied.
“Coming right up,” Cate replied.
“So how’d it go?” Alex asked anxiously.
“We should be asking you the same thing,” Patricia
replied. “After all, this was your first night at this as well.”
“Oh, we did fine, several new girls, no Seers this time. No
problems. But we’re not talking about us, we’re talking about you. How’d the
show go?”
“It went well,” Erica told them. “The place was pretty busy,
and Patty got them revved up as she normally does. It was hard getting out of
there since there were so many well wishers afterwards.”
“Any more than normal?” Cate asked, as she and Gail returned
with water for everyone.
“What, do you mean was there anyone asking about your
brother?” Mac asked with a smile. “Nah, but it was a new city with new people.
Back in New Orleans, after each session there’d be a ton of people anxious to
talk about Alex. Here they were actually interested in us. I guess we should
be glad he’s here now, so he’ll draw off the new followers and just leave us
with the appreciative fans.”
Just then the inner door connecting the rooms opened and
Jordan walked through. “We got everything situated. You guys have the bigger
room, as I’m sure you were expecting. We have the smaller one on the far side
and Gail and Cate have the one on the other side of this one.”
“Anyone need us to get anything for them?” Chelsea asked,
peering into the room.
Sammy idly waved his hand. “Nah, we just want to chill.
We’ll probably go wandering later, but right now we just want to unwind. If we
can’t recover from a small event like this, we’ll never make it through the
bigger events.”
“Uh, did anyone mention what’s going to happen tomorrow?”
Patricia asked, glancing worriedly at Alex.
“Yeah, Cate finally brought me up to date, as well as
reading me the riot act about everything I did wrong tonight,” Alex replied.
“Good, then you realize we’ll be at the Astrodome tomorrow
night, then?” she asked, just to confirm they were talking about the same
thing.
“Yeah, with 70,000 people,” Alex said with a grimace.
“Not likely,” Patricia said. “This is a comeback tour for Diane,
and she doesn’t even have a new album to help it. She’s trying to push a mix-up
of old songs and a couple new ones.”
“They released a compilation album a while back, if you
don’t remember or didn’t notice,” Mac explained. “They included two new songs
on it, but they were hardly exceptional.”
“Yeah, so I wouldn’t expect a full house tomorrow,” Patricia
added. “She’s struggling, and it shows in her mood, so I’d watch myself around
her if I were you. She’s developed a reputation as a prima donna and has driven
off all her opening acts, most of her workers and many of her associates. We
got this gig because no one else would take it. The current opening act only
stayed this long because I offered to take over but we weren’t ready to start
until now, but they were anxious to get away from her as soon as possible.”
“Sounds like it’s going to be difficult,” Alex said. “Think
you can last?”
“I can last as far as California. But actually for us it’s
perfect. We get the exposure of playing for a big audience, and you get the
draw of a major auditorium without the media attention of a big-name act.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I can also see you’ve put a hell of a
lot more thought into this than I was aware of.”
Patricia laughed. “Alex, you’re lucky if you notice whether
your socks match. You’re not always the most observant person regarding what’s
happening around you. But that’s because you’re always so focused on those you
have to deal with, and that’s what makes you such a strong leader. Everyone
feels you take a personal interest in them, and thus they want to do the best
they can to earn your trust.”
“I focus so much on everyone because I do take a
personal interest in them,” Alex said, getting a little defensive.
“Exactly, and that’s your forte. You need to do that, and
the rest of us will work around your other shortcomings to make sure you can
continue,” Patricia concluded.
“So let me catch up a little,” Alex said, hoping to get a
handle on things. “We head to San Antonio after the show here tomorrow, and
then—”
“We play in San Antonio for two nights, Thursday and Friday,
and then we make a mad dash to Dallas for a Saturday night concert. After that
we have a couple of days to make our next stop in Oklahoma on Tuesday.”
“Three cities a week, huh? Is that the way it’ll be the
entire tour?”
“More or less. Next week we’ll hit four cities, as we’re
only stopping over in Amarillo and Albuquerque for a day before hitting
Phoenix.”
“Guess I’d better get used to traveling, huh?” Alex laughed.
“Don’t take it too lightly,” Gail warned. “You’ll likely
have to stop several times on the way between cities, but you won’t be able to
stop for long, because the band needs to get there early to set up. Then you’ll
only have a few hours to check the city for new followers before you have to
make it to the stadium. We’ll likely leave before dawn each day to make the
next city, so you’ll be limited in how much you can search for any new
followers each time we stop.”
“I hadn’t considered that,” Alex said in surprise.
“We know,” everyone else chorused. They all giggled at
Alex’s embarrassment.
“Don’t worry, it takes a while to get into a rhythm,” Erica
told him. “Once you do you’ll be fine. But until then, life is going to be hell
for a while.” Everyone in the band nodded sagely at that little bit of wisdom,
before Patricia moved on.
“So I’m surprised, no young lovelies gracing your bed
tonight?”
“Only one I’m afraid, and she’s the most beautiful and
hardest working one I know. In fact, she’s set up this whole trip for me, and I
intend to make sure she knows just how much I appreciate it,” Alex told her as
he stepped up, took her hand in his, and kissed it gently while staring into
her eyes. She giggled graciously at the gesture.
“OK, I think that’s my cue to disappear if I’ve ever heard
one,” Sammy announced as he stood up. “You guys ready for a quick run to the
hotel bar?”
“Are you kidding? This is romantic. We want to stay and
watch how an angel seduces a fair maiden,” Erica replied.
“I suspect he’ll do it the way men have been seducing women
for ages,” Sammy guessed. “The only difference is he does a mind meld at the
height of their orgasm, at which point they forget all the stupid lines he used
to get them there.” The others laughed along with him as they reluctantly got
up and followed him out.
“We’ll head to our own rooms if anyone needs us,” Chelsea
answered for both Jordan and herself.
“I doubt anyone will need you,” Patricia told them, “unless
one of those clowns gets drunk and causes a ruckus, but it’s really too early
in the tour for anyone to get that carried away. Enjoy your evenings, because I
know I will.”
“I think we’ll leave as well,” Cate told the two lovers, who
were currently too busy staring at each other to respond, even though one had
to do so by looking away and watching the other with her peripheral vision.
“I’ve left your snack in the bedroom. I put everything in there while you were
busy talking. Make sure you don’t overdo it, and we’ll see you in the morning.
Gail and I will check downstairs for anyone looking for you down there.”
“Speak for yourself,” Gail corrected her. “I’ll be watching
out from outside, then I’ll be next door. If there’s any trouble or anyone
tries to get in the room, just pound on our door and I’ll be over in a second,”
she explained, but they didn’t seem to pay any attention so she and Cate quietly
left, leaving Alex and Patricia alone just as Alex was lifting Patricia in his
arms to carry her into the bathroom to prepare her bath.
When Alex and Patricia showed up for breakfast in the
hotel’s dining room the next morning she positively glowed, looking like she
was walking on air. Cate wondered whether she looked like that after spending a
night with Alex, and if she did, how could anyone miss the fact they
were sleeping together, and if not, she wanted to try whatever Alex had done
last night.
There had been several places they could have met nearby,
instead of the dining room, but they were hoping to avoid meeting anyone new
just yet. They knew they’d find them anyway, but maybe they could avoid it
temporarily.
Cate had run down early and reserved a table large enough
for everyone, both the band and all of Alex’s girls he’d wanted to talk to. So
when the others entered there was a table full of anxious women waiting to
speak with Alex. When they saw Alex they were each about to bubble over in
their excitement. Cate observed how different this was from the responses they
got in New Orleans, but there everyone they met was already a part of an
established community, whereas here the girls were new to the experiences and
they knew that Alex was only available for another day. She could understand
their nervousness in that regard.
Patricia and her band sat at the far end of the table in
order to give his new followers better access to him. In order to help out some
more, Cate sent a couple of the girls to sit with Patricia, knowing that
anything that Alex said could be relayed telepathically through Patricia.
“Hey, everyone,” Alex greeted them, sitting down quickly so
he could get started. He knew he had a limited amount of time, so he wanted to
cover as much material as he could as quickly as possible. “I want to apologize
for giving you all the wrong information about tonight’s concert. It seems I
wasn’t informed of the change in venue until after you left.”
“That’s fine,” Devon replied. “Cate explained where it was
and what was involved. She also explained what she expected us to do tonight.”
“She did?” Alex asked, glancing at Cate with a worried
look. “Exactly what did she say?”
“She told us we’d all need to work together to cover the
expanse of the Astrodome. She gave us zones to work. We’re supposed to shepherd
any new followers we see around to you so you can handle them.”
“OK, it sounds like someone has things planned,” Alex
sighed. “Given that, we’d best focus on other material. I don’t know how much
time we have.” He then proceeded to give them all the standard introductory
spiel. The women soaked up the information like sponges, and only had a few
questions. Then Alex got to what he was really interested in.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t you tell
me a little something about yourselves? How about you, Devon, what is it that
you do?”
“I’m glad you asked,” she responded enthusiastically. “I
work in a print shop downtown, and I can get you great rates on any printing
you need for what you’re doing. I can either run off a small set of stuff for
your own use, or if I’ve got a little more time, I can run off bigger projects
for either the New Orleans or Carbondale communities.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open in shock, and he simply stared at
her as if she’d suggested eating babies for breakfast. Then he started waving
his hands.
“No, I don’t want you printing anything for the
movement. And I want the rest of you to listen to this as well, never write
down anything about the organization. Remember that anything that’s written
down, either physically or electronically, can ultimately be traced back to
others in the community. I want this to be a completely word of mouth movement.
“We printed out a small amount of material when we started
this trip, using material that was very expensive yet behaved just like it was
incredibly cheap. It would fall apart almost immediately. If you left it out in
the sun it would be unreadable within a day. If you kept it indoors it would
possibly last a week, but you’d only be able to read parts of it. If you stored
it with other documents in a quality controlled environment it would probably
screw up the other books due to the high acid content in the paper. Even then,
we’ve stopped using that because our stock has already begun to disintegrate.”
“So we can’t e-mail anyone in New Orleans about our
experiences?” Lacy asked.
“Only if you’re very careful. Remember that nothing ever
disappears on the internet. There will be no mention of Watchers or Seers
online or on the telephone. You can refer to types 1, 2 and 3, but don’t
describe what that entails. If anyone asks, just tell them it’s how you rank
how attractive someone is for your own amusement. I can’t stress this enough,
the internet is filled with thousands of ways of identifying and tracking
information, and anything you say could mean your friends end up in a
concentration camp some day.”
“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Moran asked, looking worried
over Alex’s excitement.
“My primary mission, above and beyond everything else, is to
protect those that I care for. I’m not about to jeopardize those I love by
being careless. If I’m being paranoid that’s fine, but I’d rather be paranoid
with everyone I love safe, than to have been careless and someone important to
me suffer as a result. If there’s a golden rule here, it’s this: take care of
those in the community first, take care of your family second, after all, they
can generally look out for themselves anyway, and then take care of your
friends. Whenever you do anything, think of who it’s likely to hurt.”
They all looked chagrined, which bothered Alex because he’d
taken a helpful suggestion to help and attacked Devon for it.
“Just remember that sentiment,” Gail cautioned him. “I’m
sure everyone here feels the same way about your risking yourself. Keep in mind
that it works both ways. Anyone here would be willing to risk themselves to save
you, and the others would gladly step in to prevent you from saving them if it
puts you at risk.”
Alex considered that. He hadn’t really followed his own
train of thought through to its natural conclusion.
“You know, speaking of crumbling paper, maybe you know how
to properly dispose of old documents?” Cate asked, coming to his rescue by
distracting the current thread of the conversation.
Devon still looked stunned for a couple of seconds before
responding. “Oh, sure. I can put them through an industrial shredder. What’s
more, the remains will be buried with a bunch of other financial documents from
companies throughout the city that would be impossible to get a court order to
examine, since it could potentially embarrass most of the movers and shakers in
the city.”
“Good, then I can get that junk out of the car,” Cate said,
speaking with a false enthusiasm to cover Alex’s short diatribe earlier. “We’re
already starting to get little white dust all over the interior. It really
looks like we’ve been living in the car when we climb out covered in paper
fragments. I’ll be glad to get rid of the crap.”
“I’ll address one related item, and then I’ll let the
discussion drop,” Alex added before finishing. “I don’t want anyone to have a
complete list of all my followers in the city. Treat your contact lists like a
phone tree. Everyone should have a list of contacts memorized, maybe a few
friends in the community in their phone book, but don’t differentiate them at
all. That way if anyone gets exposed, the whole community won’t be exposed.
Right now there’s no way to identify who is or who isn’t one of us, and if
we’re lucky no one will be able to track us. Now, that’s all I’m going to say
on the subject.
“Devon, I hope you’ll extend your offer to the other people
in the community, though, for use in their personal lives. There’s nothing
wrong with helping friends. Don’t put yourself in debt doing it, though.
Protect yourself while you protect others, understand?”
The other women all nodded, not quite sure how to respond
yet. Realizing he’d scared everyone, Alex tried to get the conversation moving
again.
“So Wilma, what do you do?”
Wilma looked a little stunned, and then started speaking.
“I’m a court stenographer. I work at the local city courthouse recording the
events of the trials.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting. I’ve never met a steganographer
before. Do you use a machine, or do you use shorthand?”
Wilma smiled. “I do stenography. A steganographer is someone
who codes secret messages. They’re similar but they’re completely different.
Everyone uses a machine nowadays, but my grandfather used to work for the
courts years ago, and he taught me how to do shorthand. It’s fallen out of
favor because everyone develops their own shorthand, thus if someone died, no
one could ever translate their old records because one stenographer couldn’t
translate the work of another.”
“Interesting,” Alex replied, looking intrigued. “So if we were
looking to pass secret messages, you’d be the one to talk to?”
She laughed again. “Only if they were trained, and only if
we knew each other’s shorthand methodology, which nowadays is pretty rare. I
learned to use my grandfather’s, so I’m not sure anyone could ever figure it
out.”
“Hmm. Maybe we should appoint you to keep a master list of
who has each of the other lists. Of course, you’d have to teach someone else
how to read your messages, so they could figure it out if something happened to
you, but it would be a nice subtle way of hiding information in plain sight.
You could tell anyone curious about it that you’re keeping notes of your cases.
No one would ever be able to validate that without a lot of effort, and even if
they found you out they wouldn’t be able to decode your list.”
“Well, there are limitations,” Wilma replied. “Numbers are
pretty discrete, so they’d be easy to figure out even if I tried to code them.
Stenography has been around for ages, so people theoretically know how to
decode it. You can’t really hide information with it, but someone couldn’t
translate it freely enough to use it for official documents.”
“Ah, oh well, it was worth trying out anyway. But it’s still
a decent idea for you to keep track of the master lists. If you code the messages,
no one would question them since it’s tied into both your work and your
personal history. Hopefully no one would look any further than that.”
“That may be,” she agreed.
“You know, just out of curiosity, Watchers have a better
than average ability to discern things about people. They can’t perform as well
as a Seer can, of course, but I think it would be interesting if you started
marking your stenography with a symbol indicating whether you think the person
is innocent or guilty. It would be interesting to see if you had better than
random odds at it.”
“Well, it might not be so straightforward,” she cautioned.
“Oh, I know, but still, it would be an interesting
experiment. What’s more, if you had better than typical odds, if anyone started
to apply heat to the community you could tell anyone you trusted to check your
records. If they could document your successful odds, you’d have fairly
convincing evidence of your abilities, but still have deniability that the
marks could mean anything or nothing at all.”
“But—” she started to counter.
“And if they argue that you got many of them wrong, you
could simply point out that those cases were probably correct, that they just
imprisoned innocent people,” Alex replied with a smile. “After all, it’s hardly
an unknown phenomenon.”
“Yeah, but one that no self respecting Texan would ever
utter in public,” Grace added.
“Yeah, it’s probably too farfetched,” Alex sighed.
“OK, that’s two of you. What about you Lacy? What do you
do?”
“Oh, I write a blog. That’s why I was interested when you
objected to writing about our experiences.”
“You didn’t, did you?” Alex asked nervously.
“No, I didn’t. I frankly wouldn’t even know where to begin.
I could have done one for the community, but as you say, it would be fairly
easy to trace to anyone who read or contributed to it. After all, most
Americans aren’t as cautious as they are in Pakistan or India, where most
people use community internet cafes they can’t be traced to. Most people here
use an internet service which can track your digital signature on anything you
do.”
“Good, I’m glad we’re thinking along similar lines,” Alex
told her. “So what is it you blog about? Surely you can’t make much of a living
writing free messages on the internet, can you?”
“Actually you’d be surprised. The blogs don’t cost anything,
but the ads we carry pay us. Not a lot, but enough to allow us to get by,
especially if we do other things as well. I also write reviews for various
magazines, and do YouTube reviews as well.”
“Really, wow. But again, what do you—”
“Oh, sorry, I never answered your question,” she answered
quickly, realizing her slip up. “I thought the answer was obvious. I write
music reviews. I was at the club last night to catch Patty’s performance.”
“Wow, now that is really surprising. What did you say
about the performance?”
Lacy laughed. “Nothing. If you remember, I didn’t actually
watch the performance since someone in the audience was distracting me. But
I’ll tell you this, I checked the other reviews this morning, Patty has been
getting some rave reviews.”
Patricia and her band perked up at this news and soon
crowded around her. “Really, what did you hear?” Sammy asked.
“We checked the paper, but our performance was too late at
night for it to hit the papers. Where did you get your information from?” Mac
asked as well.
“Actually, the owner of the club was excited about what he’d
heard about you from his friends in the music business in New Orleans, so he
put out an invitation to a number of local music reviewers, so there were quite
a few in attendance last night. You’re right, it’s too early to appear in the
paper, but they usually put them up online pretty quickly so those of us in the
know can review them ourselves. As I said, the reviews for your performance
were all excellent. They raved about the stage show and how you seemed to hold
the audience in the palm of your hand.”
Everyone started talking at once at that point, so Alex
eased back and let the band cluster around Lacy. It was then that Alex noticed
movement by the door and looked up in time to see two young women looking into
the dining room, apparently having just entered. One was pointing at him to the
other one. Alex got Cate’s attention and signaled where to look and she quickly
got up, taking one of the other girls with her to intercept the women.
That was Alex’s clue that they’d been there too long. If
they were attracting people from off the street, then they needed to split up
so they wouldn’t attract so much attention. It was one thing to create a scene
when they encountered a new Seer, but it was another to do it with a full crew
of women attending your every movement. They’d need to be more discreet than
that if they wanted to avoid trouble.
The breakfast ended soon afterwards.
The rest of the day was pretty busy. Cate had been right.
They hadn’t really noticed it, since they hadn’t had to stop and chat with each
Watcher they observed in New Orleans, but here in Houston there were a lot
of them. There were even more, now that Alex could assign people to go out and
shepherd them in.
A small group set out to stake out the nearby Houston
Center, an indoor shopping center next door to them. They handled it just like
they had any other mall, but the amount of people they attracted were larger
than they’d encountered before. Not only that, but they tried two other
locations in the downtown area trying to find as many people as they could.
They even found two Seers. However, as much as Alex had wanted to find someone he could put in charge of the Houston community, he was unable to find anyone he considered suitable. Out of the two he considered his best choices, one was a very competent but mousy woman who he thought couldn't handle much responsibility, while the other was from out of town there on business. The mousey one didn’t mind helping Alex as much as she could, but Alex just didn’t feel good about putting her in charge. He was anxious to boost someone in order to give the community a little extra protection based on his paranoid fears that the government might try to arrest and interrogate his followers if anyone discovered their hidden abilities. He was
starting to get nervous about finding an independent siren in the city who
could alert the other Seers if anything happened to the community in Houston.
Dinner was similar, with a few people showing up in the
middle of dinner, but there weren’t any major surprises so they handled it
fairly well. Alex kept the people around him to a minimum, sending a couple of
watchers out to round up anyone watching him, and sending the people they met
to talk with a couple of other nearby watchers. That way they could use their
numbers to get a maximum amount of work done while still maintaining a low
profile.
Dealing with new followers in a large city had proved more
difficult than they’d anticipated, though they’d managed it. Now all they had
to do was weather meeting, activating and training a string of new followers
during a concert at a large public stadium.
To Be Continued