Day 221 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 8.2 - (2048 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

 

CHAPTER 8.2

Brian, Harold Prime, Ivan and Michael all disappeared in an instant. They were standing there one second and in the next split they were not. There was no sound, no flash of light, no special effect like a science fiction transporter, they were deleted from the room faster than the human eye could see. At the same moment Harold Two's hand was outstretched and he was moving towards the four men, in slow motion he inched forward and of the four men two of them reacted to his movements.


Ivan saw and stepped backwards slightly, not matching the same speed as Harold Two, but his reactions were lightning fast by comparison to Harold Prime and Brian. Michael noticed the approach or perhaps he heard the exclamation first and his eyes flicked over to the incoming Bank Manager, and where Ivan was moving, Michael stayed still but his eyes opened wider in surprise at Harold's attempt to close the gap between them. The look on his face never changed as his eyes widened and Ivan took the half step backwards, then they were gone in that instant.


The fingertips and thumb of his right hand disappeared at the same time as the men and it looked just like the had suddenly been deleted from the extremity of his right hand cleanly and impossibly fast. The momentum of his surge kept him moving forwards into the gap left by the vanished four and it took no time at all for the blood to start spurting from the abruptly open veins in his fingers. He stumbled as he ran forward, his orientation challenged by the sudden removal of the target from right in front of him, the blood arcing away from his hand, spattering the floor as his arm drops in confusion, misdirected by the evidence in front of him.


The scene froze on that moment and the droop in Harold's shoulders could already be seen to take effect, he was on the way down towards the floor when everything stopped and stayed static, locked in place. Straightening up as time moved backwards he retreated slowly along the path he had taken in until the four men reappeared.
“There!” The detective's voice cut across the room and annoyed the video technician who had decided where to put the freeze frame before the 'expert' investigator had spoken.


“Yeah, yeah I got it.” Wally the technician was making no effort to hide his disdain, and the other officers gathered around heard it, but everyone deferred to the lead detective's directions, George Rainford.


“Can you zoom in on that?” George was pointing at the hand on screen a moment before it was due to be unexpectedly amputated.


“A little, but at a six forty by four eighty resolution and only 5 frames per second you are not going to see much more than this. I can rock it on frame by frame.” Wally spun in his chair to face George, “But I'm telling you now I already looked over this twice and there's nothing to see.”


“I'll be the judge of that thanks.” George pointed back at the screen. “Besides, nothing to see means something on it's own. Sometimes nothing is more of a clue than you realise.” He was trying to soften the conversation, technicians were good to have on your side, especially in the gnarly ones like this.


Wally sighed heavily but complied, it was his job after all and it was this man's vocation to track down the answers and find the truth. Or solve the case, whichever was more important to the department at the time. He fiddled with his computer and retrieved the settings he had already saved where all the important markers were. He had looked over this instant backwards, forwards and sideways at least a dozen times before he called the officers to let them know it was ready. He could not believe what he was seeing, it seemed impossible.


The picture flickering on the screen shuffled to a slowing halt and froze again with all four men and all four fingers still on the screen. Then he pointed to the keyboard and got out of his chair, allowing the detective to sit and control the on screen action. “Tap N for one frame, one tap equals one frame and one fifth of a second. Don't hold the key, it's not on burst mode, it's just one tap per.” Then he stood back, melted into the crowd who were pressing in despite the fact that the screen was twenty seven inches and fully high definition using In Plane Switching, which made it viewable from any angle very clearly.


“One.” George tapped the N key.


“Two” he tapped again.


“Three, fuck.” he tapped and in that 3^rd fifth of the second between the men being there and not, there was nothing at all. They were there and then they were gone.


“P to go backwards” Piped up Wally from the rear, a satisfied smirk on his face, why didn't people just listen to him? He was the expert after all, it's not like the could find anything that he could not.


“One, fuck me … how the fuck did they do that?” George sat back and looked at the screen after he hit P and there they were, all four men in place, not fading not moving and nothing to indicate anything except what they could see. He rocked back and forward on the P and N buttons repeatedly making the fingers, the men and whatever else he wanted to look at disappear.


“See? I told you there was nothing to see, nothing to see and still you want to see it for yourself. You know I do this for a living right?” Wally shouldered his way through the crowd who were a mixture of disappointed and amused at what was happening in front of their eyes. To some it was watching a trick, to others a mystery and to some a miracle. No one had the remotest idea of wht it was they were seeing, but it was fascinating regardless.


“Can I have my desk back please?” Wally asked angrily, his frustration at being taken for granted starting to boil over, heated by the fact there were twenty people in his tiny room and he was a litle claustrophobic in this little room with no windows and no natural lights.


“Wait a second.” George held up a finger with his left hand and kept rocking the frame by frame on the screen a few more times, speeding up a few frames, dropping back a few frames. He kept doing this for about a minute, seeing the same things over and over again and further irritating the technician.


“Come off of it George, there's nothing there – I've looked a dozen times already.” Wally was holding the back of his chair, ready to tip the detective's position around so he'd exit the desk when he realised that George was pointing at the screen.


“What's this? See here, keep you eyes on that.” He pulled his finger back and made the screen jump a frame prior to the disappearance, then counted off as he framed upwards.


“One, two, three, four. See?” And he was pointing again.


Wally did see, he batted the hand away absently and came in close to the screen, not looking down he slid into the chair and pulled the keyboard in close, filling the void left by George as he slunk to the left and Wally came in from the right, two men moving in perfect synchronisation, neither man looking to the other's movements but one hundred percent focussed on the screen.


“Jesus. I missed the....” Wally turned to George, instantly impressed. “How did you see that?”


“George just lucky I guess.” He answered to a ripple of laughter from the audience.


Wally snorted at the pop culture reference and ran the previous and next buttons a few times to see for himself in the same manner that George had been examining the video.


“What are we looking at?” The captain asked from the spot next to George, no one except the two men could see what they were talking about but no one but the man in charge was man enough to admit he didn't see whatever it was.


“See here?” Wally was pointing at the chrome bars on the stanchions near the doorway, they were just inside the shot from the video camera. “That is the reflection of the men standing in the middle of the room. Now, watch carefully.” He replicated the demonstration for the crowd, now they were watching the spot more closely, putting the obfuscated and convexly distorted image into new context as he moved backwards and then forwards in one fifth of a second increments.


“One.” The men were there.


“Two” The men were gone, but the reflection was unchanged, it did not look like three men, it was an amorphous blob on a curved chrome surface only a few inches wide poorly picked up by a 5 frame per second camera at six forty by four eighty resolution.


“Three.” They had not changed.


“Four. There, gone now.” Wally pointed at the screen and the room too a collective breath that they had held waiting to see the magic, they saw the reflection had changed, but in the picture merely sixty percent of one second had passed and no other movement except the previous disappearance.


“Holy shit.” The captain swore and then rubbed his chin. “Good work Wally, good work.” he clapped the technician on the shoulder and then turned to the detective. “What does it mean George?”


“I have no fucking clue. But for whatever reason the light of the reflection moved slower than the light on the objects. That's another impossible event. By the way.” George had a huge grin on his face. This was a proper mystery and finding the tiny, almost inconsequential difference put him on his path, the first step towards resolving the mystery. He rubbed his hands together and felt the electricity of excitement course through him and he made a satisfied chuckle.


“How fast is light? I mean this is a fifth of a second and ...”


“Nope.” Wally said.


“No? No what?” The captain did not get to finish his sentence, he did not like being cut off.


“Three hundred million meters per second. That's the speed of light, the lag we see here is three fifths of a second. That's still what.... umm...” Wally did a mental calculation, clicking his fingers like an abacus in the air. “...one hundred seventy something … MILLION... meters per second. You could be halfway to the moon in that time. It's not the speed of the light that's the issue.”


George was staring at the screen and watching the reflection. “What did Harold say when he woke up? Some nonsense about time travellers?”


Wally started and spun around to George. “You are joking right?” he was going white in the face.


“No, that's what he said, and you see where I'm going with this right Wally?” George was bringing the technician in on his thoughts, but he did not want to say them out loud, he wanted a mind that had the capability, the knowledge and the imagination to make the same leap as he did. Provided of course that was a logical leap to make, it felt like it was but he did not want to jinx the power of the idea, which would be instantly disbelieved.


“Jesus.” Wally whispered.


“Don't blaspheme please.” The captain said sternly.


“Sorry sir, but this is... you know about the speed of light right? You know what happens when you go faster than the speed of light?” Wally was holding his cheeks together with both palms, he could not believe what he was seeing. “No it has to be some kind of trick, right?”



“If it is, it's a very good one.” George tapped the desk and walked out of the room.