Now You Don't
The sun had risen over the trees but remained behind clouds when Tansy jogged into the clearing around her fort. And she was now calling it a fort instead of a cabin. It made her smile and think of Sam.
He was back at the lodge, talking to his friends, figuring out possibilities and potentials for creating a security business. Over the past week, they’d talked about how to create it. She’d made him a spreadsheet for ideas with columns for pros, cons, required assets, and more.
The jump from chasing after the creeps to helping prevent kidnappings in the first place was a good one for him. His face and eyes showed his excitement over the project.
Tansy sent a quick text to let Sam know she’d arrived, and all was as expected.
Even with the additional security he’d installed around the buildings, he was panicky about her safety when they were apart. But she needed quiet for her work. When she headed out each morning, he kissed the breath out of her, then put her phone in her hand.
Tansy locked the door behind her and powered up the computer, glad the smell from her bark experiment had finally dissipated.
Her tweaks for the hologram program were showing improvements in the depth of the visual. At least from the heights she could reach in the trees.
She wanted to check the results in full sun and the weather was supposed to clear later in the day. Tansy set an alarm and turned to work on the trackers the DOD also wanted.
Undetectable trackers.
It was a fun challenge.
Some people lived under constant threat of kidnapping, and the DOD wanted ways to track them. Once Sam’s company was underway, maybe she could create something he could use as well. Something different enough from her DOD work that it wouldn’t be comparable tech.
Tansy wanted to create at least three variations, anyway. One that would be like a tattoo or could be hidden in a tattoo. Some kind of attachment to the skin that sent out location signals but was passive so couldn’t be detected.
She was playing with a cream as well. One that blended into the skin like moisturizer but held particles of tracking software.
Another option was placing the tracker under the skin or injected into the bloodstream. Keeping an underskin tracker passive to scans was a challenge. The biggest challenge to the bloodstream one was tracking at a distance.
But nothing worthwhile was without a challenge.
When the timer to test her hologram buzzed, Tansy yanked her brain away from the tracking program and gave herself a minute to do some stretches, helping her clear her brain for the new task.
With the tablet in her small backpack, Tansy climbed the first tree and then switched on the program. The visual density was stronger.
Tansy switched trees and checked it from all angles. Definitely better and this bright sunlight was the biggest challenge.
Using the tablet, Tansy made notes and took videos and pictures to share with the DOD. She’d see what they thought of the progress and then try working on different projections. The cabin roof was relatively easy because it was manmade.
It would be more challenging to create a realistic forest. Nature didn’t work with straight lines. And leaves were affected by wind. She needed to make that realistic.
It didn’t have to be perfect, just enough to pass a quick visual survey from a plane.
On cue, the sound of a plane registered, and Tansy looked up. A quick look around showed that she was in a good spot to remain hidden.
Was it the same plane? Was Sam correct in thinking it was related to her work? Or to James?
She hoped it was a pilot learning to fly or a someone with a destination, but coincidence wasn’t to be trusted.
In the previous four months, she didn’t think she’d heard a single plane. Was this because the weather was better? Or maybe there was a nearby flight school that had started giving lessons.
Too many variables and not enough data to come to a conclusion. She hadn’t even noted the time of the previous passes. Tansy opened a new note on her tablet and recorded the date, time, and weather conditions. When the plane moved into view, she noted it entered from the north.
The plane was white and about the same size as before. She didn’t know enough about planes to know if it was the same one, or simply the same style.
She couldn’t see any identifying features through the trees and she tilted her tablet down to avoid giving off any reflections. The few pictures she took didn’t show much.
If it was an innocuous flight, it would be great to ask them about the hologram. What would they see when they flew over?