Convergence - The Last Science #2.1 - In Plain Sight

B2: Chapter 15 - Making Friends and Influencing People - II

  Jeremy had a way back into the field, but he still wasn't sure where to go next. The manhunt for Dan Rhodes and Boris Morozov had still turned up nothing from their Canadian friends. Jeremy couldn't contact them or get up there himself, since he was strictly limited to Seattle for the time being. At best, he might be able to swing trips out to Tacoma and Olympia, but he knew Aderholt was itching for any opportunity to punish him further.

  His best bet was the phone number. He'd texted Hailey back a dozen times without a response, picking up a new burner phone for each one. He knew better than anyone that it wouldn't stop the Bureau from noticing a few texts, but it'd stall them long enough that he might find her first.

  As soon as I find them, I tell the chief everything I know. Just so long as Jackie's safe. Jeremy had priorities, but he was still an agent. Whatever the fuck was going on with Hailey Winscombe and the rest of the Rallsburg survivors, it concerned the whole country.

  No, the whole fuckin' world. This is some next-level shit.

  He ignored the cases he was nominally working. Gangs murdered each other; that was just normal operating procedure. The police could handle it just fine. He logged every request to come assist and carefully timed his comings and goings from the field office to match, but as soon as he hit the streets he was on a completely different track.

  Every hint of strangeness, every weird report or unnatural sighting. He even listened to the goddamn crazies hotline for tips. If it sounded abnormal, he was there. Off the books, no badge and plainclothes, but he was there. He listened to each of 'em, and gave them the most police help they'd probably ever seen in their whole goddamn lives.

  Not that he was a cop, of course. He made damn sure none of them thought he was a cop, in case they tried to run it back to the legit police.

  It took Jeremy a week to finally strike gold.

  A kid doing a magic show, of all things. The tip line recording was a shrill old woman trilling about a 'warlock of Satan's highest order', which Jeremy had overheard a couple coworkers laughing about. It was practically on his way to Lani's PT place with the agency, so he decided to stop by the guy's next show for a few minutes. Might give Lani something to laugh about.

  It wasn't exactly discreet, in spite of the attitude he'd seen from Winscombe. He filed in with the rest of the crowd into the city library, which had a small-ish theater for community productions. Jeremy stood in the back corner where he could see everything clearly. Up front on stage was a wooden easel with a sign, declaring "THE MARVELOUS MAGIC OF MR. HUDSON" in bold letters, with a stereotypical top hat and sparkling black wand underneath.

  Jeremy got one or two furtive glances from the crowd, but he couldn't tell if they were because he was the famous Agent Ashe, or just because he looked painfully out of place attending a random kid's magic show in the Tacoma suburbs. As the lights flickered, everyone's attention returned to the front, and he stopped worrying about it.

  "Welcome!" boomed a deep, theatrical from the stage. Kid's got some pipes.

  Smoke billowed onto the stage from both directions as the curtain rose. A silhouette strode forward from center stage, and as he walked the smoke around him seemed to fly away, as if he had an invisible force field pushing it aside. As he reached the front of the stage, the fog seemed to spill out onto the floor, dissipating just before it reached the front row.

  If Jeremy hadn't seen the same stunt in the bar a week earlier, and much more intense, he might've been impressed.

  I need to talk to this kid.