Apparent

By Rad Leskovar

A cautionary tale about perception, wrapped around a story of loss and redemption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rad Leskovar
• Release date: Jul 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370567201

Book preview

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2017 by Rad Leskovar

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2017

ISBN: TBD

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

I. RETRIBUTION

II. A YEAR EARLIER

III. RECONCILIATION

IV. PREPARATION

V. REVELATION

VI. RESOLUTION

VII. REDEMPTION

About the Author

I. RETRIBUTION

A small model aircraft tilted forward and pitched nose-first off the cross-beam of an electric transmission tower. It had been nestled in its eyrie 150 feet up since nightfall, clinging unnoticed on top of the steel latticework. Now, as it plummeted towards the ground in the cool night air, the plane’s speed increasing every moment, the dark craft suddenly swooped upward and began soaring noiselessly over a suburban forest.

It leveled off, still gliding well above the treetops. Then it pushed propellers out from compartments in its nose and from the middle of the leading edge of each wing. A moment later, the small plane accelerated and climbed. It leveled off once again at 150 feet and flew straight ahead for several miles. Using a combination of GPS and cell tower signals to navigate the clear, starlit sky, it passed over a strip mall, several suburban neighborhoods, a church, and a school. As it approached its final destination, it climbed to 200 feet. The propellers abruptly stopped and retracted as the small craft commenced its final, unpowered approach.

Entering a neighborhood, it silently descended lower and lower, purposefully heading toward one particular house. It passed like a shadow over the backyard and rear slope of the roof. Then it abruptly flared upward, its momentum suspending it in mid-air ten feet above the peak of the roof. With switchblade suddenness, the center of each wing snapped backward ninety degrees and the wings themselves swept back until their tips touched the fuselage. As gravity began to reclaim the craft, the three propellers re-emerged, spinning horizontally this time, and joined by a fourth that popped out from behind the tail. The re-configured glider had become a hovercraft.

It gently touched down on the street-facing slope of the roof, shut down, and stowed its propellers once again. If anyone had been awake at that hour, they would have heard a momentary buzzing sound, as if someone had lifted the lid off an oil drum full of angry bees and had quickly covered it again. Grappling legs slid under the roofing shingles, securely anchoring the craft to the roof. The wings then slowly executed a final shifting, folding maneuver that, when completed, gave the craft the appearance of an ordinary, nondescript roof vent. Even the owner of the house would have been hard-pressed to say that it had not always been there.

From the underside of the faux vent, two pea-sized lead spheres – known to fishermen as split shot – rolled down the roof, trailing cotton threads that pulled out and drew taut a plastic sheet. Appearing as a portion of roof flashing, the sheet was actually a flexible solar panel, sixteen inches square. When the sun next rose in the sky, the panel would re-charge the battery.

Two tiny camera lenses peered from underneath the reconfigured craft. One, a wide-angle lens, was positioned closer toward the street. It captured everything from the front yard and sidewalk in front of the house it was sitting on, the street, and then the sidewalk and front yards of several houses across the street. The second camera had a very tight focal point and a ten-power zoom. It was set farther back, and was presently focused on a single brick halfway up the front of the house directly across the street.

In a hotel room ten miles away, a man sat at a desk. He opened his smartphone, thumbed to a page on the screen, and tapped on a small icon. A video window opened and began displaying a live feed from the roof of the house. Although it was about three in the morning, a few men were milling about on the front lawn of the house on the opposite side of the road. One man in the group was perpetually the center of attention. He mostly sat on a lawn chair in the front yard while the others stood. On the occasions when he seemed to say something, the others leaned in to listen. He lit a cigarette every so often, and got up from his chair only once to urinate behind some bushes in the yard next door.

On a small pad of hotel stationery, the man surveilling the group began taking notes about the activities transpiring on the video – the number of cars driving by and their direction; the number of people in the area – and noting the exact time of each observation.

He tapped the screen to switch to the second camera. He zoomed it out until he could see the entire group on the lawn. Then using his finger, he guided a set of crosshairs onto the one who appeared to be the leader. He tapped the screen twice, causing the man’s image to be highlighted with a thin green outline. Using off-the-shelf imagery technology, the software assigned him a pixel signature based on his body size and shape, as well as his clothing. Thereafter, as the man moved around, the camera automatically tracked him, always keeping him in the center of the screen, the highlighted area changing to match the outline of his shape.

The observer again dragged the crosshair symbol across the screen, this time tapping the man’s face. The video zoomed in closer, outlining only his face. When he turned his back to the street, the camera zoomed out, reducing the magnification by half.