The Dilemma
As soon as he could gain control of his pulse -- he
worked to slow it down to a normal pace.
As he did, he thought through the options available to him. Should he call the CEO of Humanity
Services? What would he tell her? No, that would never do. The last thing you want to do is try and
convince someone you know something about them and… and what? In the best of cases you come off as a nut,
in the worst-case scenario you are a stalker and when that accident happens who
is number one on the suspect list?
Monty’s business was unique, he was a private
detective, in fact, he was the most private of private detectives, and only a
small handful of people knew of his abilities, an even smaller number knew him
by sight. Only one, his Control,
actually knew where he lived. So
reaching out to the CEO was definitely off the table, in fact, about the only
option that Monty saw was to call Bryan, his controller, and layout the events
as he saw them, and seek Control’s advice on what should be done.
But there was the rub. His contact with Bryan was by a very specific
schedule. He called him at precisely
1:23 in the afternoon. Neither early nor
late, if he missed the call his information would have to wait for a whole
day. The problem was Monty didn’t know
exactly what time the CEO of Humanity Services was in trouble. In his surprise and excitement, he had not
thought to find a way to put the event into a time reference. He did know that her speech was for later in
the afternoon, somewhere around dinnertime, but he also knew she was in another
time zone, and he may have found her well before the meeting if her theta waves
were amplified by the horrific events he had witnessed.
What could he do?
What should he? Rising up from
his chaise he paced the dark room, searching for answers. Was there any other option, anything at all
he could do? Still wound up from the
excitement, he decided to slip down to the kitchen and have his morning glass
of guava and pomegranate juice.
Sitting at the breakfast table, sipping his juice,
he slowly came to realize with the hours on his hands before he could call
Bryan, his contact and control, he should do some more investigative work to
see exactly what was going on with his subject, so he could offer something
more than the excited ramblings of a frightened spectator.
The only problem, and one he wasn’t sure how he
would handle, was the house would be coming to life, as would be the world
around him. Noise was not his
friend. Anything that drew his
consciousness and concentration away from the task at hand would make it just
that much harder to accomplish what he wanted to. There were some simple modifications to his
home, ostensibly normal things that would not appear out of place that should
help with the noise, but he tried very hard not to use them, to avoid
inquisitive neighbors or even his wife.
So, leaving the kitchen he climbed the stairs to
resume his work. This time he lowered
the sound deadening Rolladen shutters he had brought back from Germany. This would keep the room dark, and block most
of the outside noise. The rest could be
taken care of by his noise-cancelling headset.
On the door he hung a simple note to his wife, explaining that one of
those day stopping migraine headaches had returned and he was retreating to his
study to try and avoid another hospital admission. Crippling migraines were, apparently, a
by-product of his ability. As a young
man they had come without warning and with increasing frequency, but over the
past five years he had learned to control his diet and thought patterns so that
now they were a rare event, but remained a good excuse to be left alone.
Once Monty was secure in his fortress of solitude
he settled into the chair. Donning his
headphones he began the process of gaining mental control of his body. Using the relaxation techniques he first
learned to fight his headaches he began to sense his toes, feeling the way the
toe nails rubbed his slippers, and then relaxing the muscles and tendons of
each toe individually. Slowly he moved
up his legs until they were completely relaxed.
Then he shifted to his fingers, flexing, stretching and relaxing. He continued this process for what seemed
like an hour, but in truth was but a few minutes. As he went through his routine he was
separating himself from the normal time keeping our bodies use to a completely
different clock.
At last he started to slow his breathing…. Feeling
his heart’s beat he focused on slowing each pulse just a fraction, and then a
fraction longer… As the blood flowed through the heart he began to search for
that elusive blood cell that would focus all his attention. When all the sudden the piercing cry of a
baby shattered his concentration… Damn! Damn! Damn! He had forgotten today was his day to watch
the baby and his wife was going to a meeting downtown. What else was going to go wrong with this
day? Slowly he got up, moving too fast
when he had slowed his pulse would lead to a quick visit to the floor as he
fainted. He moved to open the Rolladen
and take down the sign from the door. He
then walked to the baby’s room calling his wife to let her know he was there
and would take care of breakfast.
Just how quickly could he get these chores handled
and the baby back asleep? That was
indeed the question.
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