Flight of Fancy

David drove the route he had driven almost every day for the last month, when he was getting the firewood ready and creating that unfortunate “mistake”. However you looked at it, it definitely felt like a mistake. A mistake which could have horrifying repercussion, not only for him, but for his whole family. The authorities would come crashing down on his family and would destroy them all, either with made-up charges or with planted “evidence”. Everyone would fall victim to his folly.

Yet, he still couldn’t let go of the feeling that he had achieved something amazing, even though it was nowhere to be seen, After all, that’s why he couldn’t let it rest and went to the forest for another look.

He came round the corner and saw the place he usually parker. He almost expected the agents’ SUV to be waiting there. He was ready to turn the car around and flee as soon as he could. But there was no one in sight. The little forest was as deserted as ever before, as if the whole thing had never happened. Even the birds were chirping and leaves were rustling, as an animal probably stamped on them. The entire ordeal seemed almost like a dream.

Oh, if only it was a dream.

Unfortunately, it was all too real. He was determined to make the most of his last days as a free man. First, however, his curiosity had to be satisfied.

He parked the car and reversed it, so he could escape easily of the need arose. There was enough room around his car that if somebody tried blocking him in, escape was possible from any side.

He got out of the car, then walked to the place where the device once stood.

He sighed. Of course, the device wasn’t there, only crumpled leaves where it was once positioned. The leaves were brown, as it was already heavy Autumn.

There was something strange about the leaves though. The leaves under his foot sort of bounced back up and stirred in the wind, while the leaves under the device’s former position remained in place, always keeping that crumpled appearance.

Something definitely doesn’t look right.

He took a step closer and he could swear he could see a shimmering in the air, above the leaves.

What the hell?!

*************

Jane Kemp was one of the female agents assigned to work with Jack Dawson on this mission. She decided at a very young age to work in law enforcement.

It started when she was a girl in school. She had always been very brainy, however her constitution hadn’t always been as strong as these days. The other girls would tease her, pull her hair even, sometimes they would even spit on her. And why? All because she was a good pupil. A teacher’s pet, they called her. They were nothing but criminals, who would amount to nothing. So she kept telling herself.

She suffered through school, somehow managing to maintain her dignity throughout. Once she became a bit older, she realised brains were not going to be enough, so she decided to start doing fitness as well. Very soon after that, all the bullies seemed to disappear. But that wasn’t enough. She wanted to show the whole world, all the people, that they need to follow certain rules, that certain guidelines had to be obeyed, otherwise there would be chaos. She and others like her would bring an end to chaos. But there seemed to be a limitless amount of people who seemingly embraced chaos and disorder as their religion. That’s why she enjoyed her work and saw it as an almost God-given duty.

So, when she was old enough, she studied criminology. And she was good at it. There were so many aspects of the work and she excelled at all of them, even the newest ones, which included DNA testing. She could observe, deduce and analyse with a ruthlessness that even astounded the professors.

Quite soon into her studies, she was approached by the FBI to help fight international crime, to put a stop to people playing against society’s rules. She had moved up the ranks quickly and knew that she could one day become head of an important agency. She didn’t care which one. She knew there was nobody better than her.

For the time being, she was still stuck answering to people not worthy to eat her shit, like Dawson. But as a professional, she never let her personal opinion distract her from the performance of her duties. She would perform like no other could and show Dawson and everyone above him that she was better than all of them and would eventually be telling them what to do.

It was Jane who was observing the tedious video stream of the family’s forest, when she saw the young man, David, drive up in his car, walk into the forest, then stand as if transfixed.

She thought it prudent to call Dawson immediately.

“Glenn, get Dawson, now.” Her voice was placid and emotionless, yet there was no mistaking its urgency.

Glenn was the male agents and he moved swiftly and without question. That’s the kind of power Jane had, or at least she presumed so.

Within a few seconds, Dawson was in the room with Glenn and Laura, the other female agent.

“What’s going on?” Dawson asked.

“I think you’d better take a look at this,” said Jane.

Dawson saw the young man staring transfixed into presumably thin air. There seemed to be a slight disturbance in the air ahead of David. Dawson didn’t know what it was, but he felt it was important.

“Let’s go,” he said. “And take that computer with you. We need to keep an eye on this.”

Within a few minutes, the whole team was out of the door and scrambled inside their big SUV with tinted bullet-proof windows.

*******************

David stood watching the air. He had never seen anything like it. The air above the leaves looked like one of those mists you saw on a hot day on motorways. He felt like he couldn’t move. His eyes were transfixed on the air.

What is going on?

Every now and again the mist seemed to be gaining structural stability, as if the gas was turning into a solid. The game continued for a while longer, David’s anticipation rising within his body like a fever. His thoughts were completely scrambled and he was just waiting for the conclusion to the proceedings.

Then, there was complete silence. Everything stood still. There was no winds, no birds. It was as if he had stepped into another dimension and the old one was merely the background, like one of those picture wallpapers.

He knew something was going to happen, and soon.

***************

In the car, Dawson and Jane sat in the back seat, with Laura driving. She was almost a professional driver, so nobody else every volunteered to drive. She could get them out of any scrape or could get anywhere as fast as an arrow.

Dawson and Jane were watching the screen. The mist was still there, but there seemed to be a disturbance in the signal every now and then.

“Come on, work!” Dawson yelled.

Crap!

Dawson didn’t want to say that out loud. He wanted to keep the illusion of being calm and in control. But this was too important.

Jane could tell he was on edge, even without shouting. She wished men could control their emotions better. She hadn’t met one yet.

Something important was happening in that forest and while they were only a few minutes away, it seemed like a lifetime, especially to Dawson. There were all sorts of disturbances in the feed, then all of a sudden, the picture cleared.

Thank fucking God!

The young man was still standing there, immovable as a statue and staring in front of him, but there was nothing there. The mist appeared to dissolve and it looked like David was just a very strange man staring into nothingness.

Then, the feed was gone. The screen went black.

What the fuck?

He managed to stifle the urge to scream that out loud.

Jane tried changing the cameras, but there was no point, none of them was working. Dawson hesitated for a second, trying to control his emotions, mostly anger.

Then, he realised it was necessary to get there as soon as possible.

“Laura, put your foot down.”

Laura didn’t need to be told twice. She turned on the flashing lights on their roof and hit the accelerator. The others could barely remain in their seats. Jack Dawson didn’t care though, as long as she got them there in time.

In time for what?

He didn’t know the answer to that, but it seemed of the utmost importance.

********************

David remained in that bubble of timelessness for who knows how long. It could have been an eternity or only a fraction of a second. Time didn’t appear to have any consequence her. It felt almost like a dream, where a whole lifetime could be played out in the space of a few seconds or even less.

This dimension or whatever you would call it was nothing like the old one. There seemed to be no substance to it at all. It was almost as if it was nothing but a slight stop in between their dimension and some other one, a sort of no man’s land, where nothing existed, only the fragments of the original dimension.

David felt both at peace and trapped at the same time. He couldn’t move, yet he felt he wasn’t in any immediate danger.

Why not just play this out.

As soon as he thought this, there was an image crystalizing in front of his eyes. It was coming into focus.

Almost there!

Still, it wasn’t clear, yet David had an inkling of what it could be. It was that infernal device that caused so much worry in the last few days.

Here it comes!

And so it did. The contraption materialised fully in front of him, revealing itself in its new found glory. David recognised it immediately. There was, however, something different about it. It appeared to have grown to twice the size it used to be.

*************

Laura got them to the little forest in record time, but to Dawson it seemed to have taken ages. He was swearing all sorts of profanities in his head about women drivers, even though he knew Laura was just about the fastest driver on the planet.

One last turn, and they were there. Dawson was getting ready to jump out of the car and confront the transfixed young man. However, David seemed to have beat them to it. He and his car were gone.

Shit!

It didn’t take long, however, for Dawson’s disposition to improve. He remembered the spot where David stood. As he ran there, the rest of the team followed. He recognised the spot where the little mist was forming. There was a bunch of crumpled leaves on the ground. They seemed unnatural, as if something was still pushing them down. There was quite a strong wind in the air, yet the leaves didn’t budge.

Very clever.

There was a wry smile on his face, as he realised that this particular terrorist was more clever than they had originally believed.

He’d read about cloaking technology before, but didn’t really believe in it. It belonged more in the realms of science fiction, as far as he was concerned. However, he was willing to change his mind.

This could be the discovery of the century! No, the millennium!

The rest of the team watched what he would do. He walked towards the leaves, waving his hand above them until he reached the ground. He didn’t strike anything solid. He did this several time, always with the same results.

What the hell!

There appeared to be nothing there, so how could the leaves remain crumpled and immune to the effects of wind. It was baffling.

Even though he knew it was pointless, there seemed to be only one logical course of action.

“Spread out,” he said a bit louder than he intended. “Search the forest and call if you see anything or anyone suspicious.”

His three “musketeers” ventured into different sides of the forest like a well-oiled military unit, but he somehow knew they wouldn’t find anything. It appeared the young man had just narrowly escaped them and somehow incapacitated their cameras. He had no proof of this, but he vowed to make David come to justice.

You’ll be mine.

There was enough time to wait for a mistake and then “boom”, the young man would be caught like a mouse in a trap.

Once the three agents returned from the forest empty-handed, he didn’t exasperate, like had been the case lately.

“Set up some more cameras,” he ordered. “Use slightly different locations. We don’t want more equipment getting destroyed.”

The team did as they were told. They also retrieved the old cameras for later inspection. They certainly were a diligent and an efficient bunch.

They headed back to their hotel, where another spell of watching the live camera feed would ensue. Dawson didn’t envy the job of the agents. It was a tedious task. But he was the man in charge and he had had his fair share of tedious and repetitive tasks when looking for cyber crime on Facebook. It was someone else’s turn for a change.

*******************

David had no idea how long he remained inside that bubble of timelessness and spacelessness. There must have been a point when his mind became disengaged and returned to “normality”.

He “woke up” in the car, hands on the steering wheel. The car was slowly rumbling along the narrow country lane that he always took to the forest. The realisation took a few seconds, then a moment of panic set in and he gripped the steering wheel tighter. He had no idea how he got behind the wheel and he didn’t like the situation of being without control. It reminded him of the time his mind dozed off for only a fragment of a second on a long journey on a highway. He had woken up with an abrupt twitch and the adrenaline kicked in, waking him up immediately. Luckily, he had remained straight on the road. But the situation had been frightening. This felt similar, but the “nap” was apparently longer, as there was no recollection of starting the car and driving to that point at all. That was at least a minute.

Thank God.

He thanked his lucky stars or whatever force was watching over him and made the turn towards the house. He parked the car, took a deep breath while still seated, then got out, locked the car and went upstairs to his lovely wife.

****************

Ana noticed that David had been acting strange lately, almost suspiciously. She knew her husband well and always sniffed out when something was amiss. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was going on in that head of his. They usually shared everything, which made her even more worried.

What is he hiding?

It took her a long time to get him to open up, but once the flood gates opened, there was no shutting them. He shared everything with here and she was glad of it. That’s why this whole situation wasn’t making much sense.

What could he possibly be doing?

She noticed his unorthodox behaviour shortly after their move, maybe when he started spending time by himself in the forest. She didn’t want him to go back in his shell again. It took a long time for him to become more open, to trust her. It would be a major step back if he became more shut off again.

She also noticed he became very uncomfortable when the agents starting asking questions. They’d all been uncomfortable, but he unproportionately and suspiciously so.

Was he doing something illegal?

As far as she knew him, she doubted it very much. In any case, she would wait a bit longer, then would drag it out of him, like in the old days, when she had to be stubborn like a mule to get him to share any thoughts.