Chapter IX
"What do we do with him, sir?" said the butler from the driver's seat, who was looking at his master sitting in the back by way of the rearview mirror.
"Who?" Mr. Wilson asked, a puzzled look on his face.
"The intruder, sir. He was watching us from behind the garden plants. I'm sure a man of your caliber must have sensed the presence of such an amateur."
"Someone was watching us?"
"Yes, sir. Didn't you – "
"I didn't notice anyone, Will. It's just your imagination playing tricks on you."
"No, sir. I'm positive someone was there. I even felt his presence inside the mansion."
"You felt him?"
"Yes, sir. I looked for him but – "
"Did you find him?"
"…"
"Did you see this intruder of yours, Will?"
"No, sir. I didn't."
There was silence. The butler knew what the conversation was going to come down to.
It was Wilson who broke the silence with a hollow laugh, followed by a joking comment: "I never knew you missed me that much – enough to drive you nuts!" Wilson followed this up with another laugh.
"Tell you what, Will… While I'm attending to my business in the city, you can wait for me at the restaurant of your choice."
The butler wasn't convinced that his intuitions were wrong. But if his master told him so, it could only be one of two things. His master had either the correct idea, or a good reason not to present the correct idea.
"Thank you, sir." was all that Butler Will could answer.
Mr. Wilson smiled in reply and turned his gaze back to the zooming-landscape-view outside his car window. The truth was he did sense the presence of another individual besides Will and himself. Once in the spare bedroom when he asked Will to drive him to the city, and once again before getting into the car. It was the distinct feeling when being watched, that is honed with experience in the battlefield.
The problem was that he was not in a position to make any moves – offensive or defensive, for that matter. The intruder was probably someone sent by his son's kidnapper to make sure that he didn't try to do anything heroic. He couldn't afford to let anyone else in on his predicament either, not even Will nor his own wife. If his observer saw anything to dislike, Joseph was as good as dead.
Wilson would have to play by the enemy's rules…for now.
Robin checked the countdown-timer that he programmed the time-travel device to display.
I have only one hour and forty-five minutes left. I need to get moving. Make every second count, Robin…
He surveyed the brick wall that separated the mansion grounds from the woods outside, mentally taking estimated measurements. He took a few steps backward. And then, producing a pole-weapon from his belt, Robin performed a pole-jump over the wall. Before falling on the ground at the other side, he caught a thick tree-branch with one hand (as the other was still holding the pole) and let the centrifugal force carry him in an arc that went under the branch and beside it until he was on top of the branch where he planted his feet with perfect balance.
Robin's position provided a good view of the extensive woods. The car he was following was already a good distance away, but (as you would see later on) that was not a problem. If anything, it would just mean more invisibility for him. The road went through a series of smooth, curved turns but there was no fork in sight.
The fastest way to a destination is a straight line. – he thought.
He kept his pole and brought out his grappling hook again. He aimed for the farthest tree directly in front of him that his rope would allow him to reach, and fired. He then let himself get pulled to his target spot by his gadget's reeling mechanism, ignoring the curves and turns that the road took, as long as he stayed on the general path. He did this over and over, crossing the woods, until he came across a fork in the road.
By the time he got to the fork, the car was already out of sight, the moon was already up and the stars were already twinkling against the night sky. To find out which way the car went, Robin brought out another device similar to the telescope he used earlier but with slightly different features.
This camera doesn't have the zoom feature of the original telescope, but serves as some kind of an infrared camera (or thermographic camera). It runs on the principle that all objects give off varying degrees of temperature radiation, and that those radiations can be detected and projected into images. Cameras of that type tend to be monochromatic, making distinctions between temperatures by way of the color's intensity. However, the one that Robin was using displayed images in what is called false-color, meaning that temperature radiations are represented by different colors instead of different intensities. The higher the temperature radiation is, the brighter the color as seen through the scope.
Using this little gadget, Robin could clearly see the parts of the road with the highest temperature radiations. The hottest parts of the road, of course, were the parts where friction was present recently. This way, he found out which turns the car took.
At around the same time, the car pulled over in front of a Chinese restaurant in Jump City. Mr. Wilson and his butler got out of the car.
"Are you quite sure, sir?" the butler asked.
"Yes, Will. Go ahead and take a break. You deserve it. I can walk to my…my appointment. It's just around the block."
"Very well, sir. I shall be here when you get back."
With that, the two men parted. The butler entered the restaurant, and the master went around the block…just for the sake of making his companion think that his destination was somewhere nearby. In truth, Wilson still had to take the subway to the edge of the city where his so-called "appointment" was to take place – at Pier 41.
Author's Note: The paragraph about the infrared camera is scientific fact in real life, even the "false-color" aspect. Perhaps the only fictitious thing about it is the size of Robin's camera (the size of a cigarette; although I wouldn't be surprised if an infrared camera exists in such a size nowadays). It is also an allusion to a similar device that the Dark Knight uses in the animated series "The Batman". For the continuing drama of the bat who entered my room, well, he's gone. Our house-helper put him out the back of the house the same night he came and he stayed there with the dogs (yes, with the dogs; and they didn't hurt him). Two nights later, on my way home from school, I thought of keeping it as a pet because it was still there before I left the house that morning. But when I got home that night, I found out that our house-helper had thrown him over the hedge at the back of our house because nobody else in the house could stand having a bat around. Poor, misunderstood creature.
ADDED NOTE FOR RENA REDHEAD: I made an allusion to chapter 10 of your story "What?" by putting a Chinese restaurant in this chapter. I hope you don't mind. :-D