15
Sometimes the smell was truly detestable. He turned it down with a barely audible click. Even on a day like today when clouds blanketed the city and the heavy rain forced people indoors and under umbrellas, the streets reeked of every type of stink imaginable. The man reclined at his current post near the subway entrance, which was almost entirely devoid of people tonight. His violin rested in its usual place, tucked away safely in its case—no sense maintaining a charade for such a scant number of people.
When it was on, it was really on. It was still something he had to get used to. Maybe building his tolerance was a better way to think about it. He ticked it up a notch: twice a normal human. Already he could smell a little through the rain, and not just the tendrils of pollution that were so prevalent in every city these days. He could smell the pub down the road and a little of the kebab shop past it. Sickening, both of them, he thought. Taking a deep breath he increased the ability to that of a blood-hound.
The smells formed colors behind his eyelids. The enlightenment of smell was truly a pragmatic but unpleasant gift.
A man walked by him into the tunnel and left a trail of odor lingering behind him. It was almost too much information. The man had showered this morning, wore cologne and after shave, had a wife, had eaten eggs for breakfast and a bacon sandwich for lunch. He was sweating nervously—perhaps on his way to a meeting? He needed new shoes, worked in an office, had not brushed his teeth or washed his hands all day and was most likely a white male. The man sitting in the tunnel opened his eyes long enough to catch sign of the other's back as he stalked out of view. It all seemed close enough for jazz. The man was indeed white. He wore a light grey suit and was carrying a briefcase. So he was indeed a businessman.
He closed his eyes again and turned it up once more and an overwhelming rush of smells caught him in a web that was almost paralyzing. It made him nauseous, but he took deep, slow breathes and left it on. He wondered how far it extended, how far this new sense could really take him when even now it was difficult to process it all mentally. His computer kept it all in neat and orderly columns and rows, to be sure, but even without it he could pick out a multitude of objects that were beyond his range of vision; women, cars, a few men, children, dogs, restaurants, cigarettes, petrol, flowers, toilets, wood, concrete, fabric, electronics even, they all had their little distinctions. One of the women was wearing perfume. He imagined her to be very beautiful, not for the perfume but for the two different types of cologne that still lingered around her, still, evidently, unnoticed by their respective owners.
Peoples moods, too, had become easy to distinguish since the augmentation. It had taken him some time to realize this because, in the beginning, the pure deluge of scents around him required experience and familiarity before he could really make use of his new talent. Yet, once he learned them, the smells of moods, he could tell without sight whether people were feeling happy, sad, fearful, nervous, confident, cheerful, panicked, angry, lustful, impatient, tired or energetic. Even greed had its own special odor. Most pervading of all was love; love left an unforgettable smell something that smelled like a combination of confidence, happiness and lust.
It was his extraordinary talent for olfactory divination that told him that the two subjects were still near, too. Still radiating their timid happiness. Even from here he could isolate their scents, which were as unique as their situation. Their time was almost up and if they didn't move within the next few hours, he would flush them out of hiding.
Hearing the rain outside continuing without abatement, the man let out an exasperated sigh, expelling the air from his nostrils, and turned off his sense of smell completely. He opened his eyes slowly, gradually letting in the visual world, like sunrise on a steppe.
He didn't consider himself an introspective person; he was a doer not a thinker. His role required of him obedience in exchange for power. He was happy with this single truth about his identity. Still, he couldn't help questioning his decision to receive this augmentation; yes, now it was expensive. Impossibly expensive. But what if he had simply waited? He had sacrificed the freedom of choosing his path to be one of the first of this new technological paradigm. The Colonel hadn't had the choice, of course, but he would have taken it anyway, he thought, because he was full of his vengeful purpose, and because machines feel less pain than men.
"Sniffer, report in," came the voice from no where.
"No movement as yet. Still waiting. Shall I give them a push?"
"Not yet, maintain a distance out of eyesight at all times. We want them to feel as safe as possible. Report if you near the Library."
"Yes, sir."
The com went dead and then he felt a rush of blood. The hunt would surely start soon and he would commit to it with the ability and ferocity of an animal, and the intelligence of a human.
The rain outside gradually slowed to a drizzle and before long he smelled it—the thing for which he waited. Rosie and Blake had left the safehouse. He waited twenty minutes though his legs were twitching like those of a hound on a leash, but eventually he stood up, picked up his violin case and began the hunt, eyes only open when absolutely necessary.
His name was Gaspode the Sniffer. He wended casually through London Proper as he followed the two. Their pace was no where near strenuous to his standards and, even in the face of all they had undergone, neither took any precautions that he could see. His task felt almost too easy. He often reminded himself of what might await him at the end of the hunt and that always stirred him from his lackadaisical stupor; a ronin hacker, a real, living, Class A, one of whose caliber had not surfaced in Britain for over ten years, one who could manipulate other’s thoughts, one who could cause anarchy if he chose, one who might even be a match for Hurn and most of all, one who could kill him if he got careless.
He followed the trail of the couple’s scent for about ten minutes before noticing it was meandering oddly. Perhaps, he thought, they were more suspicious that he had first thought. There was little he could do about that except continue to follow their course through the Proper. He had no need to stay close, but still he knew he wasn't far behind them, perhaps five or ten minutes at any given time. Once he almost came within sight of them—the smell, isolated by his senses, suddenly become so pervading it was impossible not to notice—and he quickly stopped short and waited for them to continue on their way.
The area they initially passed through was exceedingly beautiful. Most of the buildings were new, less than a decade old. The Villas had sparked a sort of parallel metamorphosis within London Proper. As soon as the world knew of the attractive and daring projects—and was sufficiently ensured of their success—money poured into the entire city like a stopgap for history. The money flooded the city like a tidal wave, destroying much but leaving ample room for regrowth. The buildings shone with decadence. Shops cradled their wares in velvet pillows visible through self-cleaning glass and ornate but nearly indestructible doors, and residences, while perhaps most couldn't rival the Villas in luxury, could make affluent urbanites in other cities across the world green with envy.
He knew the area well. They were nearing the flowering spires of Villa 4, which was easily visible from the street. You barely had to look up to see it. It made him laugh to see just how big they really were and marvel at their construction. More than a mile high each. Was that simply unfathomable?
Sure and steady, he trailed the two prisoners, for prisoners they still remained, past the base of Villa 4. He couldn't help but crane his neck upward. The foundations resembled the stencil of a flower and the building wound in and around itself so much it radiated a feeling of life, each interwoven cell inseparable from the other.
He returned his gaze to the street and wondered silently to himself at his lack of professional calculation. This was no time for anything but concentration on the task at hand. It was entirely likely that he would kill today. Still walking through the crowded streets, he closed his eyes for only a moment and imagined killing them both. Seeing their faces frightened and powerless. Watching as his own hands bled the life from each of them. Blood on his hands and his wrists, flowing upward, defying gravity, up past his elbow then shoulder then neck until it travelled up his nose and he smelled the salt of their lives and inhaled it into his mouth and felt his brain awaken and his eyes turn red.
He neared a bridge, keeping his usual distance, eyes keen to see the quarry he could already smell far in the distance.
The chair Jay reclined in was far from comfortable. He had been there for only ten minutes and already his ass felt like it might detach itself from his lower back. Jay laughed to himself and shifted his weight. His altogether too powerful imagination had formed a picture of a large pair of buttocks walking off, carrying with stick arms a totebag full of toilet paper and seat cushions. Could it be, he mused, that this place was making him crazy?
Their stay had lasted long enough to make almost all the residents, or prisoners (or asylum patients) restless. Questions hijacked their minds, but the more questions they had the more Odin made himself scarce. The only one to see him was Faraji, and the boy almost never spoke on the subject of his visits to Odin, not even to his mother, who recently had forbade her son from further tutelage.
Billy had recently asked Faraji what Odin was teaching him. He had asked about the two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, but the other boy's response was evasive. He said he knew nothing about the two birds and, as for his lessons, Odin was simply teaching him to "use computers." To say Billy felt slighted by this was an understatement. In fact, the younger boy had told Jay that the boys had not spoken since.
As eighth day wore on into evening there was little to do but watch the monitor. It did feel a little like subjecting one's self to the world's worst TV program. The only thing it wasn't lacking was suspense—even the smallest noise from inside the complex provoked a response from the person standing watch.
The sounds of the place inexplicably died down just after lunchtime and so Jay began to feel very drowsy from the inertia of his surroundings. Before long the discomfort of his chair ceded to the weight of his eyelids and he fell fast asleep.
When he woke it felt like he might have slept quite a long time. His body ached. Really, there was no way of knowing just how long he had been out but, judging by the near rigor mortis in his limbs, it felt like at least an hour. He stood up and stretched painfully. It was probably about time to eat, not that there was any consensus on meal times amongst those living in the complex; he was just hungry.
Jay took a few steps before turning back around as an afterthought. He looked back at the monitor, thinking maybe his sense of intuition might have nudged him out of his slumbers. The room inside the monitor was still, nothing disturbed. The brown chair with a blanket over its back was still in one corner. The splintering door opposite the camera lens crouched like a toad, the woven rug in the center flat and untrodden upon. Jay had the image burned into his brain and needed only one look to know nothing was out of place. He turned around and walked out.
He opened the door and was about to descend the flight of stairs when Odin came onto the landing below, walking rather quickly. He only said one word:
"Up."
Jay took this to mean something was happening in the library and he rushed back into the room. The ancient man's long strides took the stairs two at a time and he reached the top at the same time that Jay sat down in the uncomfortable chair, waiting expectantly for something to happen. The boy felt Odin's presence behind him but refused to take his eyes off the screen.
Almost immediately the door to the room opened and Blake walked through cautiously. He was followed by a woman Jay had never seen before. Jay leaned forward in his seat. The woman looked perhaps not quite like a real woman but more a girl, like she was actually in the process of changing. The woman was only a few inches shorter than Blake and, Jay thought, she had an uncommon air about her. Her hair flowed in dark brunette tresses down to the nape of her neck and, though he found it difficult to make out her features on the old grainy pixels of the monitor, he thought she might even be quite beautiful, although this didn't truly make an impression on Jay.
In the space of seconds Blake disappeared into the kitchen but returned with equal brevity. He motioned to his companion and they left the room and closed the door behind them.
Jay's mood encompassed a mixture of joy, apprehension, curiosity and powerlessness—a volatile combination and one that only intensified as Blake and the girl disappeared back through the door and into the hallway.
Odin spoke quickly. His face empty of any perceivable emotion.
"Do you know that woman? Have you seen her before?"
"No," he said, "I haven't. You don't think that's why he was missing for so long, do you?" Maybe, he thought hopefully, Blake hadn't mixed himself up in anything to do with this. He felt stupid thinking that, having no clue what this was.
"Did it look to you like they were just two happy young people returning from a date?" The other man's pupils never strayed from the monitor.
Before Jay could answer the door opened yet again but this time only Blake appeared. Billy immediately understood what Odin meant. Blake's movements were quick, furtive; he once again snuck into the kitchen just as he'd done only minutes before. A momentary clanging echoed through the microphone, then stopped. He must have found the phone, Jay thought (he hid it in the cookie jar). Sure enough, Blake reappeared holding the device left for him.
Odin rested a gloved hand on Jay’s shoulder. It felt cold and bony even through the thick material. He said:
"Stay here and watch for fifteen minutes. If you see anyone else enter, run and tell me."
Jay nodded.
"I will be preparing everyone to leave," Odin said.
"But we don't know if anyone is following them yet! What if I don't see anyone?"
"There are still other ways they might be followed."
"Do you think so? I guess it’s true, but really?” Jay asked.
"I have an adequate level of suspicion. I think this will be our last night in this place."