“Do you think our counterparts on the other side are handling this any better? Well, our theoretical counterparts, anyway. My bets are on them. They couldn’t be handling this worse,” Nora complained.

“Palantine says there always are,” Benny reminded her. “But if they are any like you two, they are in the same boat. So, Frank, want to bet which one of you will lose your glasses out here?”

“Both of us, probably,” Frank grumbled.

Ephram pursed his lips, let out a breath. The woman cocked her head.

“Wish you were there?” she asked.

“No,” he lied. “They can handle it. They’re professionals. I’m comfortable where I am.”

“Now, you can be honest with me,” the woman said. She moved around to his left whispered in his ear. “At least as much as you can be honest with yourself.”

The woman moved around towards the back of the screens, her voice echoing around the dark room around them. He could make out her form. She was dressed in some kind of power suit, with an attractive silhouette. Her figure blocked much of what was going on the screens demanding his attention.

What now, he wondered?

“You aren’t going to get what you want if you continue denying evident truths, Ephram, you have to know that,” she told him. “I am trying to help here.”

He tested his bonds again. They were as tight as ever. The woman got up and moved off to the right long the left side of the CRT array.

“You have to remember enlightenment only comes to those who pay attention to what their senses provide them,” she was now speaking from behind the screens. “You came here for a reason. You are not going to be able to leave until you accept what you are seeing and hearing and understand. Pay attention!”

He concentrated on the screens again, taking in another breath. What was he supposed to be looking for? There was nothing going on that would have been out of the ordinary in this kind of op, or different if he had been present.

His three Employees were showing a little more organization now, as they appeared to be moving together down the nighttime forest path armed with their flashlights and not a little snark. To be fair, it would have been worse if Tasmin and the Professor had been along. They were even less patient with situations gone sideways.

Interesting. During this phase he was allowed audio, as well as video. Or maybe he had been before, but hadn’t realized it.

“This way,” Nora was saying. “Yes, yes, I know it’s dangerous, but we’re here for a reason. And so are you, now which fork did he take.”

“Ghosts,” Frank muttered. “Can’t see them. Can’t trust them. Can’t put them out of their misery.”

“I’d bet he went right,” Benny said, pointing at a broken branch hanging by its bark. “If I was a decent tracker.”

“Left,” Nora announced. And that direction they went, even with Benny glancing back at the way he’d have chosen.

Ephram then turned his attention back to the screen showing Gary’s point of view. It was disorienting trying to make out the night forest through the man’s eyes, since something was interfering with Gary’s vision, or perhaps his mind. Ephram wasn’t at all clear on the nature of the screens he was watching, or even if they were as they appeared. It was entirely possible everything he’d been experiencing was through a construct, created through drugs, hypnotism or even metaphysical forces. It wouldn’t have been the first time.