Sparks

Chapter 13

I scowl at the bandage on my finger. It's just another testament to my stupidity. I spent all morning training with the new sword, which went differently depending on who you ask. For example, Jacob is currently nursing a nice goose egg on his head, but other than that he thoroughly kicked my butt. Right now I'm at the table eating a turkey sandwich for lunch. Jacob is sitting somewhere upstairs with an ice pack and Carrie is finding some books or something to teach me about not being noticed, I think. Right as I take another bite, she comes down the stairs with three books in her hands. Two are thin paperback books but one is a probably four-hundred-page hardback that's three-quarters the size of standard printer paper. I sigh. She sits the books down in front of me with a resounding thud.

"Alright, you'll need these. You're going to have a new responsibility now that you're a bit trained and these will help you prepare." I pick up one of the small paperbacks. The title is strange so I ask,

"What's a 'gray man'?"

"It's just a term for being invisible in plain sight. You know, using psychology and knowledge of the brain to make yourself utterly forgettable."

I bite the inside of my cheek. "So, like, wearing the same clothes?"

"It's a tad more difficult than that. It's like... instead of being part of the crowd, you are the crowd. There's nothing in your appearance or mannerisms to distinguish you."

"Ah."

"Anyway, I think Jacob has something he needs us to know. Come on." I grab my sandwich and we walk up the stairs towards the tech room. When we open the door, he turns around quickly and smiles.

"Oh, hi. I didn't expect you guys to be here so soon. Here, just..." He presses a button on his console and a wall slides back to reveal a couch and a plush chair. Fancy. "I'm working on something at the moment, so if you could just wait there for a bit, that would be great." I sit on the couch and Carrie sits on the other side. When we're both seated, Jacob turns his attention back to his console and types into a keyboard the letters, which show up on a text box on the screen,

status[camera1]activate?true

A blown-up picture appears on all of the screens of presumably one camera out of many. It's the town square and people bustle slowly across it. He watches this for a few minutes before typing,

find!currentcamera-sparky

The screen goes black and he sighs.

status[allcamera_grid]activate?true

Probably around fifty different camera pictures appear spread across all the screens.

find!allcurrentcamera_grid-sparky

The screen goes dark again. Evidently no camera is picking up the thing he's trying to find. He spins around in his chair to face us.

"Sorry, I had to check. I check multiple times a day - sometimes it's there, most of the time it's not."

"No need to apologize for doing your job," says Carrie calmly. "I brought Aryn so we could explain what she'll be doing twice a week from now on."

"Oh! Right!" He grins tiredly. "On Mondays and Fridays you'll be going on patrol." I tilt my head. "You'll be walking around the city, concentrating on the places where we haven't any cameras. You'll mostly be looking for Sparky, but also for any potential dangers to us." I nod.

"That makes sense. Is that why Carrie gave me all those 'gray man's books?" He snickers.

"Yeah. See, we want you to be able to be forgettable so it won't take notice of you and put you in too much danger. There's always an element of danger with these kinds of jobs, but we seek to minimize it as much as possible." I consider what this means. I haven't been outside at all in about a month and a half, which is insane. I've been entirely in this building, training. I don't even remember Carrie or Jacob leaving much, which begs the question how we get our groceries.