Chapter 6: The Encounter

George sat on a blanket in an open field and listened to the birds chirping. He was tempted to listen with the song, but he wanted this moment to feel pure and simple. A gentle breeze swept through the trees and the grass and Sophie's hair briefly touched his face.

"George, this is incredible. How did you know about this place? That all these flowers would be in bloom?"

"I had Miss Claire pick it out," he lied. In truth, he had used the song to find something Sophie's eyes would find truly beautiful. In finding a ballroom that seemed to correspond to visual beauty, he had actually made an incredible discovery. George always knew he was ugly, kids in school had made sure he knew that, but now he had an objective measure of how people felt about his face. Unsurprisingly, most people were repulsed by it, but not Sophie. When she told him she found him beautiful, she wasn't lying at all. George had cried when he learned this.

"It's been a while since we had a picnic," said Sophie. "I'm glad you suggested this."

George put his hand gently on Sophie's shoulder. "There's something I want to tell you," he said. He couldn't see her face, but her body shifted inquisitively.

I wish I could tell you everything, thought George. But for now it's safer to this Canardino fellow far away from you.

"You've made me so happy for so long. We've shared everything, the highs and the lows, and I have no regrets."

"I feel the same," said Sophie.

"You know how we always dreamed about growing old together? About having children?"

"Yeah, but-" started Sophie.

"Would you… stand up?"

Sophie didn't ask why. She got to her feet, and George did the same. Then he descended to one knee. He produced the ring.

"Will you marry me?"

Sophie's voice was trembling. "I'd love to, but how? What about-"

"It's taken care of," said George. "Look."

He pulled the paper from his pocket and handed it to her. He heard her gasp.

"It's signed by the head of a Bureau."

"How did you get this?" asked Sophie breathlessly.

"I agreed to work for the regime. I'm something of a consultant."

"George, this is amazing, but I still don't understand. What does the head of a Bureau want with a poet?"

"It's complicated," said George. "I can't say much because the work is top secret, but it has to do with the unique way that I think. I'm helping them solve problems."

Sophie's voice cracked as she spoke. "I never thought this day would come…"

He held her, and the two sobbed in each other's arms. Not just tears of happiness, but all the stored tears of more than a decade of sorrow that neither had dared cry. It was peaceful and cathartic and still. George felt happy in a way he didn't know was possible. It wasn't until near the end of their picnic that the doubts began to work their way in again.

I've done it, thought George. I've gotten everything I ever wanted, but I had to trade my freedom to do it.

George wondered if he would be working as a "consultant" for the regime for the rest of his life. Knowing the regime, the rest of his life might be shorter than he thought if they caught the person behind all of this and no longer needed him. He couldn't let that happen. As beautiful as the future looked, he knew it was entirely contingent on his usefulness. Even if they let him live, the exemption could be revoked at any time. He had to catch the person writing the music, but he had to do it in a way that clearly demonstrated his indispensability. It was time to get to work.

George explained his first plan to Donald in no uncertain terms.

"I can study people from a distance using the songs without them knowing," he said, as the two sat in his writing room. "So we have to assume that whoever made the music can do that too."

"You think they're listening to us right now?"

"We can't rule out that possibility," said George. "If they're truly omniscient, then we probably can't beat them, but I don't think that's the case."

"So what's your plan?"

"I'm going to send them a message. Even if they're not listening to our conversions, I'm willing to bet they're listening to the music we're making in each of the ballrooms. If they're paying attention, they'll notice the message."

"How can you send a message through music?"

"I'm going to use Moore's code. A series of short and long notes."

"And what are you going to say?"

"I'm going to thank them for the music sheets and ask them to send a sign that they heard the message. If we're lucky, we can use that sign to learn things about them."

Donald frowned and crossed his arms. "It seems like kind of a risky plan. If they are listening, then we lose the element of surprise. They'll know we're trying to find them."

"If they want to be found," said George, "they might just do our job for us. Maybe they're just waiting for someone to reach out."

"If they wanted to be found they would have a put a name or a return address. But let's try it."

George immediately went about encoding the signal into as many different ballrooms as he could, halting the music he had passively been emitting and replacing it with something that sounded like the tapping or beeping of a telegram. If they were listening, it would be hard to miss.

Both conspirators were disappointed to find that the next day's letter had no change whatsoever. The writing "for your ears only" was still scrawled on the envelope, and the sheet of music was still enclosed within. Donald had the writing sent to a handwriting analyst who concluded that the odd, blocky style of the writing from all of the envelopes had the mark of someone disguising their handwriting. It was hard to tell what type of person had written it, but whoever they were, they didn't want to be found in the traditional ways.

For this reason, Donald grew impatient with the plan. After three days of no response to the message, he insisted they move to a different strategy. George wanted to continue, hoping that eventually the composer of the music would feel compelled to answer. Donald gave him a harsh reminder.

"Normally when we pay someone in advance, we have to worry about them skipping town or not being motivated to do their job," said Donald. "but not with you. If your insistence on waiting around for something that's not going to happen turns into a stalling tactic, we might have to reconsider our arrangement. It would be a shame if you had to postpone your wedding."

"No need for threats," said George, shifting uncomfortably. "We'll try something else. I just wanted to make sure we weren't overthinking this."

The two brainstormed for the rest of the day, trying to come up with ways that the composer could be tracked down.

"Well how did you find me?"

"That was different," said George. "I wasn't looking for you specifically. I was looking for someone like you. I went to the building you work in and listened to all of your colleagues."

"And what did you hear?" asked Donald, his tone indicating concern that George might know more state secrets than he was letting on.

"Only certain people were allowed in certain parts of the building. And the people who were allowed anywhere made a very specific kind of music in certain ballrooms. That's how I knew you were high ranking enough to grant my request."

"Ok, well do that cousin thing you did earlier. Can't you find the composer's family?"

"You don't understand, I had already found you when I did that. I just didn't know your name."

"So why don't we just go to likely places the composer might be? Music concerts, and things like that. And then listen like you did at the intelligence building."

"Ignoring the fact that there are over half a million people in this city alone, I could be right next to the composer and I wouldn't know. We need a way to differentiate them from everyone else. Something that's completely unique to them."

"Like what?" asked Donald.

"I don't know," said George.

"Well what do we have?"

George thought for a moment. "We have the letters."

"Great, let's start there," said Donald. "Listen to the letters and tell me if you notice anything strange."

George studied every note from hundreds of ballrooms, but didn't find anything he thought they could use.

"What about fingerprints," suggested Donald, grasping at straws. "I could send the next letter in to be dusted."

"Even if we got some, how would we know whose fingers they belonged to?"

Suddenly, something occurred to George. "But maybe you're on the right track. Maybe there's another kind of fingerprint we can look for."

"How?"

George said nothing, but felt around inside one of the desks for some blank paper and envelopes. He handed Donald the supplies, along with a pen.

"What do you want me to do with these?"

"The same thing the composer does. I want you to write music on it."

Donald tried to give the supplies back, throwing up his hands. "I can't even read music, how am I supposed to-"

"It doesn't matter, just scribble some random notes on it until it's full and then put it in the envelope."

Donald sighed, but did as he was told. George floated from ballroom to ballroom. Most of them were useless. He turned the dial faster. Still nothing.

"What now?" asked Donald, giving George back the finished envelope.

"Do it again."

"I feel ridiculous," said Donald. "I don't even know what I'm writing."

"You won't feel ridiculous if this works. I just need a baseline."

"Like with the magic trick?"

"Exactly."

Donald seemed to accept this and continued. He got through seven more letters before George stopped him.

"There!"

"What is it?"

George listened closer to make sure he heard right. It was incredibly faint, but it was there. Every ten seconds or so, a few notes of a piccolo solo jumped into the music that the paper was playing. They were the same notes that Donald was playing.

"When you touch it for long enough, it leaves a trace, but only in this ballroom. It took me forever to find it, and it's barely audible, but it's definitely your signature."

Donald perked up. "So you're saying whoever has touched this leaves a kind of psychic fingerprint?"

"Let's test it."

George took the letter and removed it from the envelope. He folded it into a crane, and then unfolded it and put it back into the envelope. When he had finished, he gave it back to Donald and listened. A tiny hint of trumpet was now playing in the letter's band.

"This just might work."

Donald was initially very happy with the idea that the composer could be tracked, but it quickly became apparent that it wouldn't be simple. George asked Donald to write down a number for every repeating unique riff coming from the composer's letter. It took hours. When they had finished, George concluded that six hundred and twelve different people's signatures were on the paper or the envelope.

"I don't understand," said Donald. "How could that many people have been involved in making it? Are there that many composers?"

"It probably means that this ballroom is more sensitive than I thought. You and I added our signatures just by touching it. It probably applies to every part of the letter. The person who sold the stamps, the factory workers who made the paper, and every mailman likely left a mark on it. The signatures might even be like a kind of dust that can spread from letter to letter when they touch."

"Then our job just got a lot harder," said Donald. "We can't exactly arrest six hundred people."

"Maybe we don't have to," said George. "Let's cross reference it with the other letters."

This task took days. George had to teach Donald to read music so that he could transcribe the exact notes and rhythms that corresponded to each signature. Then they had to catalog every person who had ever touched any of the letters and check them against each other. In the end, between ten of the letters, there were sixty four different people who appeared on at least two of them. It was eleven o'clock at night, and both men collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion.

"You wanna get a beer?" asked Donald.

George snorted. "I'm surprised you'd ask that. It's not really my style, and I never took you for the type to let off steam."

"We worked hard, and now we've got it to a manageable list of suspects. We can start tracking them down tomorrow. Why not take a break and celebrate a bit?"

George mulled it over for a moment without moving from the floor. He didn't have many friends, and given how much time he and Donald had spent together for the past week, it didn't seem like Donald did either. Maybe this was an attempt to socialize like normal people, instead of like a captor and a prisoner. George reminded himself that Donald was secret police, and that meant that he always had a trick up his sleeve. This was probably a mind game of some kind. Still, it might be nice.

Donald drove them to a dive bar with only a handful of patrons. He ordered them both beers from the tap. George listened to his glass in a number of ballrooms, hoping to find one where he could appreciate something about it. Every time he took a swig, he could only think about how much he wished he were drinking tea. Even its music sounded offensive to his ears. Over the course of the night, Donald ordered them three more rounds, each time insisting until George eventually relented.

The night had started off fairly awkwardly, with neither of them really knowing what to say. They couldn't talk about their work in public, and the only things George knew about Donald had to do with him being secret police. As the beers worked their way into their nervous systems, some semblance of a conversation began.

"So what's it like being blind?" asked Donald tactlessly.

George laughed. "You know what the worst part is?"

Donald grunted inquisitively.

"People asking me that question."

Donald laughed.

"No, but seriously, it's mostly just trying to navigate places I haven't been before. It takes a while, and I usually need someone with me as a guide. That's actually gotten a lot easier since… recent events."

Donald nodded.

"But I might well ask you what it's like being deaf."

"What?" croaked Donald, a little too loud.

"A week ago you couldn't even read music, and now that I can hear… you know, it's like you're the blind one."

"Huh…" said Donald.

"I never regretted not having sight," said George. "Well, maybe a little. I would have liked to know what my wife looks like. I'm told she's very pretty. But now that I have this, it makes me wonder what I've been missing out on. So much information that I never knew existed. It's incredibly liberating."

"Let's talk about something else," said Donald in an effort to steer the conversation away from mission critical subjects.

"Ok then," said George. "How about this? What did you want to be when you were a kid?"

Donald laughed. It was a disarming question. He didn't think a lot about his childhood. "It's embarrassing, but I wanted to be a florist."

This time it was George who laughed. "A florist? I never took you for the florist type."

"I know, right? Kind of a girly dream for a little boy."

"Not at all," said George. "I know plenty of manly florists."

"Well it was a silly dream anyway. I grew out of it."

George chuckled. "It's not too late to quit and follow your dreams."

"Eh, I can do better than being a shopkeeper. Plus, I like my job."

"I see," said George.

"What about you? Did you always want to be a… rich eccentric intellectual?"

"I'm a poet," said George. "I guess I've always been. It seemed less like a dream and more like something that I just was. Like I would have been a poet in any reality."

They sat in silence and sipped their drinks before George spoke again.

"Do you believe in destiny?"

"Yes," said Donald, surprisingly quickly.

"Well, you're full of surprises," said George. "I definitely had you pegged as a 'no fate but what we make' type."

"Well, things change," said Donald cryptically. "I know better now. We've all got our lots in life, and the most we can do is just to have a bit of fun before it's over. There's nothing more than that."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," said George. "If you believe in destiny, isn't that a comforting thought? That you're a part of something greater?"

"Who said greater?" spat Donald, nearly falling off his stool as he shifted. "I'm a part of something I can't control, but it's not greater than me. It's just as ridiculous, if not more. It's all a joke."

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," said George, "but I think that outlook ignores the beauty in life. Things don't have to make perfect sense as long as they're beautiful. That's what music is all about. Poetry too."

"You poets," laughed Donald. "Trying to see the beauty in everything. It sounds exhausting."

"I'd rather be exhausted than sad," said George.

"I'll drink to that," said Donald, raising his glass. "To being exhausted."

They spent the rest of the night laughing and teasing each other through slurred words. Donald nearly crashed his automobile three times on the way back to George's house. George tried to remind himself of his warning earlier that he couldn't grow attached to an agent of the secret police, but as his body collapsed into a pile of blankets on the floor and his consciousness faded from him, he listened to Donald's snoring and felt warm.

Minnie swam through a hundred worlds like a dolphin. These days she felt more comfortable navigating the various slices of 4D space than she did in 3D. The world sparkled with dazzling shapes and colors as she watched the results of her work. She laid on her back on the couch and drifted from scene to scene.

"This one is my favorite," said Minnie. "Calvin Ryerson."

"Which one is he? The insurance guy?" asked Mickey as he prepared them dinner.

"No, he's the cook. You know the story of Ratanoulli?"

Mickey chuckled. "Sure."

"It's just like that," said Minnie, glowing with pride.

Ratanoulli was an old desert folk tale about a young man who makes a deal with a djinn, the titular Ratanoulli. The djinn takes the form of a rat and grants the young man the ability to become an incredible chef. It had a surprisingly happy ending for a story involving a faustian pact.

"He's so happy," said Minnie. "He's getting what he feels he deserved all those years of barely being able to pay the restaurant's rent. He's doing something creative that makes people happy and getting paid a lot to do it. You know he just got a fifth star? It was in the paper."

"I'm happy for him," said Mickey.

"Do you have a favorite?"

Mickey thought for a moment. "I'm not as good at observing them as you are, but if I had to pick it would probably be the comedian. Marcy?"

"Marcy," said Minnie, as if fondly remembering an old friend.

"It's just not at all what I thought she'd be doing with it," said Mickey. "I mean, she's an eighty year old retired physicist who does piano lessons. I kind of expected she'd use it for science or something, but this is much better."

"Oh that reminds me," said Minnie. "Carla Fuentes is using it for science. It took her a while, but she caught on to the layering trick. It was a great idea to have a doctor as one of the recipients."

"And it's all thanks to you," said Mickey, beaming.

"I can't take all the credit," said Minnie. She frowned suddenly. "That needs more salt," she said, without getting up from the couch.

Mickey looked down at the sauce. Minnie rose and passed him a note with some coordinates on it. He rotated and quickly agreed.

"I'm turning into quite the Ratanoulli myself," joked Minnie.

"I thought that was the rat," said Mickey. "The guy's name was… Sadif?

"Same difference."

There was a pause.

"Hey, so I've been thinking," said Minnie. "I think it's time to scale up. We've done our little experiment, and we know it's producing a positive change in the world. We should do more than ten."

Mickey frowned. "It's a risk."

"I know."

"We already know people are starting to look for us. Remember Goofenburg with that message?"

"How can they find us? We're completely anonymous."

"I don't know about that," said Mickey. "There are still things about this that even you don't know. And even without the fourth dimension, no one is ever completely anonymous."

"What's another ten letters?" said Minnie. "It wouldn't be that much of a risk, would it?"

"I guess not," said Mickey.

"It's decided then," said Minnie. "We'll start picking new candidates tomorrow.

The next day, Minnie kissed Mickey goodbye and he went off to work. She got back to observing her handiwork and testing new abilities, but soon heard a knock at the door. That's odd, thought Minnie. No one ever knocks on our door. Maybe Mickey forgot his key or something. She walked over and flung the door open. Before her stood two men, one in his thirties wearing a nondescript suit, and the other in his twenties with a misshapen face.

"Mrs. Mouse," said the suited man, breaking into a smile that resembled that of a shark.

Minnie froze, the realization setting in.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions."