Ch. 75 – Trade Offer

Xian dropped the key ring into Tony’s palm, and picked out the key to the building.

Derrick said. The last thing they needed was for Tony to strain something trying to force a door open. The keys stuck to his fingers as he tried to find a good grip, as if they were covered in some sort of dried glue. They made a loud grinding noise as he forced them into the keyhole, and Derrick held his breath as he strained, the keys biting into his hands while he threw his weight into turning them.

Crunch. The door opened and dust billowed out of the room, rising up in the cold air and irritating the back of Derrick’s throat as he inhaled in surprise. He stepped back and coughed, spitting grit out onto the ground. The door swung inside, keys still stuck in its lock.

Tony asked.

Xian said.

Jane crouched and peered in through the doorway, which was becoming clearer as the dust settled. she asked.

Xian said.

The group of them, lead by Xian, stepped in through the door, shielding their noses with sleeves, or a scarf, in Jane’s case. Wilbert followed after Jane, still staring at the room through his augmented reality glasses.

Xian groped around the wall near the door until the lights blinked on, and then flickered unsteadily.

Despite Xian’s claim that he had ‘knocked down some walls,’ the house was already so small, that reclaiming the few square feet from the walls had hardly improved it. It was like a hellishly small studio apartment, and was almost certainly not up to code. The place made Hack Alley’s shop seem like a mansion in comparison, and its only saving grace was the single window installed near the front door. Jane, Xian, and Tony walked through the unit, Jane inspecting the walls and cabinets.

Wilbert was once again staring into space toward his left, and holding his left hand out. It didn’t stand out before, but the boy stood a bit crooked. His left shoulder seemed higher and stiffer than his right shoulder. What was he doing it for? Did he see something in AR that they couldn’t? Either way, the kid’s skills were the real deal, and Xian had, perhaps unwittingly, delivered what seemed to be a field-tested computer vision expert to their doorstep.

The other thing was: even if they had a computer vision specialist, how could they trust him to keep quiet, if they found something unsettling? Whatever Maxine had been hiding in that room would hopefully give them a clue as to the stalker’s whereabouts, since there had been a picture on that data card of Derrick near the sea wall too, which meant that the Drifter had also been there. And if that noise that Derrick had heard in Maxine’s hideout was actually a person . . . the stalker might’ve been after her, too.

If the stalker’s reach was truly that wide, and they realized Derrick and Tony were investigating them, then someone might come snooping around, and maybe even question Jane and Wilbert—new arrivals to Chinatown—to see if they’d given Derrick and Tony any information.

Thankfully, Wilbert was still a kid, even if he was incredibly smart. Unless someone saw him messing with his augmented reality glasses, they wouldn’t guess that he was skilled in computer vision.

Jane said, as she was testing the door chain on the front door, sliding it back and forth to see how large a gap the door would have with the chain fully extended. She pointed towards his augmented reality glasses.

Wilbert jerked at his mother’s admonishment, and took the glasses off his face, exposing his eyes, which Derrick now noticed were red and slightly bloodshot. Wilbert said, pouting.

Jane said, still fiddling with the lock.

Wilbert sighed, but made no further comment.

It was good to know Jane had the sense to keep Wilbert’s augmented reality glasses out of sight when they weren’t needed. Hopefully he’d only be using them in the house, or wherever Xian wanted to run this ‘winter camp’ program he’d promised them.

But if someone were to question Wilbert directly about the image that Derrick asked him to analyze . . . would the boy say anything?

If someone pointed a gun at him, he’d have no reason to refuse. But, there was one upside to their computer vision being a kid genius; he might be easier to fool. Or if he wasn’t, then hopefully he’d be making enough new, formative memories—maybe meeting his first crush, or getting bullied—that he’d soon forget a single image that these weird uncles had asked him to analyze. Kids worried a lot about getting along with other kids, after all, and not as much about boring adult stuff.

And if they asked him to analyze an image for them, he’d hopefully forget about it soon enough, or maybe they could convince him it was some boring old instruction manual that had gone out of print.

Of course, it all depended on what they found in the image. It’d actually be ideal if Wilbert would lend them the glasses, loaded up with the appropriate algorithm, and then Derrick and Tony could analyze the image from Maxine’s hideout on their own. If they then wiped the data, and returned the glasses to Wilbert, then there’d be nothing to worry about.

It was time to bring out whatever charm he could muster, and convince the boy’s mother to stay, at least long enough to get the image analyzed.

Jane asked.

Xian rubbed his chin, looked around, and then shrugged his shoulders.