“No!” I said, as steadily as possible.
I could tell he wasn’t sure how to continue. Then he said, “did you see a black man exit the café?” The officer was staring up and down the street as he spoke. There were few people around, a young woman pushing a stroller was across the road, glancing at us and an elderly couple were heading toward us from the direction of the café.
“No, officer,” I was polite.
His partner had reached his side. They moved away from me a little, but I overheard what they were saying.
“Did he look black, to you?”
“Damn right he did.”
“Strangest thing.”
“Must be the light. Let’s go talk to the manager.”
“Okay.” He turned back to me. “Thanks for your help, sir.” Then they both set off to question the manager. My heart was singing, now. I wanted to burst of laughing. “Thanks, Sally.” I thought.
“You’re welcome,” she replied.
Chapter 13
MORE INSTRUCTIONS
I kept walking for a while, feeling that I needed to put some distance between myself and the café. There was a Chinese restaurant across the street. I enjoyed the Szechwan Chicken, taking my time. I watched a recording on the heads-up display of the manager being told not to waste police time. He looked embarrassed and when he tried to call the waitress over to substantiate the story the police officers had had enough and promptly left. Done and dusted.
I was home by three and back to being Dave Murphy. Shortly before four, Betty knocked on my door and asked if I’d like to come over for dinner. Crock-pot lamb shank, with all the trimmings. Sounded great and the idea of some normal company and an escape from the bizarre events of the day was truly welcome. I said I’d be over by six, which gave me time for a shower and a rewarding Black Label.
Saturday morning came bright and early. The sun shone in lines through the bedroom window, highlighting the dust dancing gracefully around the room. My cleaner came on Mondays, I needed to remember to clear up the family room. Maggie was coming over for dinner. She had texted that she wanted Thai food, so I needed to book a table at our local favorite Thai restaurant, just two stops down on the train toward the City. No drinking and driving with a police office for a daughter. I wondered briefly if she’d heard the story of the vanishing black man. Somehow I doubted it, those cops would have kept that incidence to themselves.
I was comfortably cocooned under my duvet, enjoying the peace, watching the lines of dust in the sun-light. I reflected on the whacky events since Wednesday. If it hadn’t happened to me I simply wouldn’t have believed it. I needed to know why? That was paramount. Sally had said there was more instructions, ‘the best for last.’ Then the answer I wanted. Just thinking of a computer as a person was nuts, yet we were all moving in that direction. Our smart phones had become extensions of ourselves. We talked to them and they answered back. Rudimentary and often wrong but they were improving almost daily. What was Sally but an ultimate smart phone with an unlimited database of information. If everybody had access to that database maybe crime and evil would end. If the police forces of today knew immediately who was responsible for every crime, then I guess crime would simply be futile and cease being such a problem in our society. Incredible to even imagine it. Sally had said there was no crime on Cirion, no racial problems. Everything solved by technology. We were heading in that direction. CCTV was everywhere in England, recording events. Catching criminals was much easier. You could listen to conversations through their smart phones, people posted where they were and what they were doing on Facebook. What was the difference to the ultimate situation the people of Cirion had achieved? It didn’t seem to me to be so far off on earth. Technology was moving exponentially. Just five hundred years ago, we couldn’t fly around the world in aircraft, there was no electricity, no engines, medical treatments were heathen.
If Cirion was truly four hundred and fifty million years ahead of us, shouldn’t there be something incredible they had discovered, that we hadn’t even thought of? Who had projected the internet prior to its invention. Little did I know that in a few short hours I was going to experience a quantum leap into the future.
Breakfast was grape-nuts, blueberries and bananas. Coffee was dark roast ground beans from Kenya. I was ready for my final instructions.
Ensconced in my usual place, with fresh, hot coffee close by, I called up Sally. She was dressed in a plaid, red, mini-dress. As usual, very distracting. Why didn’t I have teachers like that growing up? Not a chance of skipping school. I was starting the day in a great mood.
I spoke out loud. “Hit me with the final chapter, Sally and let’s get to your leader’s motive.” I was smiling and she recognized my mood.
She seemed delighted with my enthusiasm. “You remember when you found the container and picked it up,” she pointed at where I’d left it on the floor. “It appeared to be empty, very light. And when you placed the monitor tile in the air, it remained in place.”
I nodded, she was referring to the business-card thingy.
“That’s anti-gravity,” she continued. “you can do that; it’s programed into the belt around your waist.” Her expression invited surprise. I was.
“Say that again.” I said.
She started to repeat herself, but that wasn’t what I meant. I raised my hand and she stopped.
“Are you saying I can fly?”
“Yes,” she said.
I was suddenly hot under my arms. “But if you counteract gravity, you just float upwards, vertically,” I said, redundantly. For some silly reason, I indicated with my arms.
“Initially of course, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to gain horizontal motion. Different parts of the body are subjected to oscillating anti-gravity waves, they move very fast, so you can’t feel the changes. But the effect is you can move vertically as well as horizontally.”
“Oh,” I said, not understanding a word. “How?”
“Guess,” she said, grinning.
Guess! What’s she saying? I looked at her with my best hangdog expression. I recalled the same dumb feeling throughout my childhood education.
Sally continued. “You just think it.”
“I do?”
“Uh-huh! Stay where you are and use your thought to imagine upward motion.”
“Here!” I glanced up and wondered how hard I would hit the ceiling.
“Sure, just imagine how far you want to go up, the computer will take care of the rest. It knows there’s a limit in the room that you can reach.”
The best for last, she said, I guess she was right. Okay, here goes nothing, Superman in born. I thought ‘up’ and suddenly I was sitting in midair. My heart jumped a beat and I flailed around with my arms. It was damn scary. I looked down at my family room and for a second wondered how the hell I was going to get down. So, I thought, ‘down’, without being prompted, oh yea, I’m a fast learner. And down I drifted, very gently, back to the sofa. Holy crap! I can fly.
I was grinning broadly. I wanted to rush outside and give it a real go. Sally stood quietly reading my thoughts. “Try horizontal,” she said.
I looked at her and then glanced around the room. Not a lot of space to play with. The drapes were drawn, my usual precaution. I could imagine the fright I’d cause to a nosy neighbor.
I thought, ‘up’ and drifted off the sofa, already more confident. I thought ‘pause’ and hung there in mid-air, disconcerting but quite honestly amazing. I looked at the door and thought ‘towards door’ and immediately drifted in that direction. I was still in the ridiculous sitting positing, which didn’t feel right at all. Almost instinctively I began to straighten into an upright, the thought process was not definitive but worked just the same. Incredible. I looked down and began to float down to the carpet, where I came to rest in a standing position.