Chapter 31

Davids was in Middlebury, Vermont. No problems on the road so far. Four hours in, he stopped in a place called Nonnie’s for a sandwich and a beer. Several TVs were hung on the walls around the kidney-shaped dining room, all tuned to the local NBC station, putting out its version of the news.

Sitting at the bar drinking a local ale, Davids avoided eye contact with the crowd as best he could. On TV, the meteorologist, a pleasant, plain-looking woman who was dressed like a 60’s hippie, was finishing her ten-day forecast with a “back to you guys” when the anchor, a handsome seventy-year-old man with big ears and sagging skin began telling viewers that police were asking for the public’s help in finding ‘this man’, wanted for questioning in a hit-and-run death in Connecticut. The anchor was describing the man, Willie Davids, as his picture was displayed on the screen. The police were uncertain how Davids was traveling—whether by plane, train, bus, car, bicycle, or hitchhiking, the anchor droned.

Fortunately for Davids, the picture was from his driver’s license, showing him with longer hair and a black eye, neither of which he now had. At a glance, he didn’t look like the picture.

Like everyone else in the place, Davids had his eyes on the TV; like everyone else he looked around; unlike everyone else, he paid attention to see if anyone’s eyes stayed focused on him. No one’s did, at least that he could see. He slowly exhaled. Putting his shaking hands in his pockets to hide them, he ordered lunch.

Summa, Murphy, and Officer Cardona were in her police car, talking about the meeting with Stone and McGowan. They were all concerned about the welfare of Stone and Danders, in spite of Stone’s assurances to the contrary, because none of them believed him. But there was nothing Cardona could do except to wait until he contacted her, or didn’t. They agreed to stay in touch and parted.

Stone wanted proof that the others were not being held captive or dead before he proceeded. McGowan told him no. McGowan held all the cards, so Stone and Danders reluctantly began to work alone assembling the latest version of the eyeglasses, which had been taken apart and stored in separate compartments inside Stone’s briefcase. It only took a couple of minutes for them to put the pair together. They stood up and headed to McGowan’s library to show him.

McGowan, watching on his security cameras console, was pissed for not searching the briefcase when Stone arrived, knowing now that he and Danders had played him, and wasted his time. He angrily told them that Straight was being sent to pay Long a visit, and that if they were holding anything else back, then Straight would visit Murphy.

“Do you think that he will have trouble getting past the police guards Cardona has provided them?” he asked.

They knew the likely answer was no. Stone wondered now if he should tell him about the contact lens he was wearing. He had to take it out eventually, and one of the cameras was going to capture that. Danders, knowing what Stone was thinking, subtly shook his head.

“Call Straight off,” Stone responded. “Try these out,” he said, handing McGowan the current version of the thought-reading eyeglasses. “The neural read accuracy rate is 98% with them, but no enhancement can be made to them to prevent a subject from overriding his thoughts with diversionary ones. We have delivered our invention as promised. It is made to read thoughts of people who don’t know their thoughts are being read, and who have no idea that they need to hide them. Only because of our meditational training were we able to hide ours from you, and we were as surprised, as you were frustrated, by that. We will stop using our meditating to demonstrate how powerful the invention has become, and then you will pay us and we will leave.”

Stone handed McGowan the glasses.

He held them for a few moments in one hand, comparing them to the other pair he held in the other, admiring how sleek and normal they appeared. Then he put them on and told Cueball to come to the library. As he waited, he looked at Stone and Danders and saw that they were wondering what McGowan was up to. Stone, reading McGowan’s thoughts with the contact lens in his eye, struggled to keep McGowan’s thoughts out of his mind so that McGowan would not know that he knew.

McGowan also saw them wondering if he was going to let them go once this demonstration proved the product. McGowan saw Danders thinking what sports teams he would buy with his share of the sale, and Stone thinking that he never should have helped create this Pandora’s box.

Before Cueball arrived, McGowan asked them if they doubted that he would harm their loved ones and friends if Stone was lying about being unable to read a person’s thoughts if that person did not want them read. They both said no, but McGowan saw doubt in both their thoughts.

Cueball entered the library. McGowan shot him dead. McGowan saw not only the thoughts of the shock of the shooting, but the thoughts that both men knew what Stone said was correct; it could not be done. McGowan believed that no one could witness a cold-blooded murder and be sufficiently disciplined to hide their true thoughts; he therefore decided to let them leave, with payment in full.

Stone gave McGowan the remainder of the components of the invention from his backpack, and he and Danders left, knowing not to think or express anything other than happiness for completing the sale until they were far away from McGowan’s prying cameras, microphones, and now, special eyeglasses. Fortunately for them, McGowan did not ask if he had been given the most current version of the invention, leaving Stone and Danders free to foil McGowan’s plans to rule the world. Surely goodness was going to triumph.

The most important meeting of all time did, indeed, turn out to be a freak show. Everyone involved came away a loser, although not everyone realized it right away. Lewis and Chapin didn’t get the use of the invention and the killer of Toni Chapin fled, location unknown; Cardona lost self-esteem by not being able to protect Stone’s friends, although in her defense she was dealing with McGowan, the most powerful man on the planet; Murphy, Summa, and Long were minor players who came away with nothing; McGowan had paid full price mistakenly thinking that he had the latest version of the invention; and Stone and Danders learned first-hand that McGowan’s questionable mental health and his potential ability to ultimately modify the invention and use it for evil, threatened everyone.