Chapter 7: Move and Countermove

Minnie stared in horror for a second as she recognized George Goofenberg with an agent of the secret police in tow. She regained her composure and hoped they hadn't noticed.

"Questions?" asked Minnie, "Are you detectives?"

"Yes," said Donald. "My name is Detective Smith, and this is Mr. Jones, a police consultant."

"Did something happen? Did one of the neighbor's apartments get broken into?"

"No, nothing like that," said Donald. "May we come in?"

"Please do," said Minnie. She led them into the apartment, her mind racing.

Donald produced a sheet of music from his breast pocket.

"Do you recognize this?" he asked.

Minnie took the page and stared at it for a few seconds. It was the one she had sent out yesterday. Judging by the time, it might still have a little residual power left in it. Minnie considered her options, trying not to panic. She had to figure out what they knew. Minnie came up with her answer.

"It looks like a sheet of music. I can try to play it for you if you'd like."

"No," said Donald, "that won't be necessary,"

Minnie was attentive enough to catch the suited man glancing nervously at George. That made them uncomfortable, thought Minnie. That means Goofenberg told him what it does. But it also means they don't know who I am yet.

"Are you a musician," asked Donald.

"Well, no," said Minnie, "actually I'm a painter. Violin is just a hobby of mine, and I'm not all that good."

"Would you mind if we look around for a little bit?"

"Sure. But I have to ask, what is it you're looking for exactly?"

Minnie knew well they were looking for sheets of fourth dimensional music, but she also knew they wouldn't find any. All of today's sheets were safely with Mickey already.

"We're investigating a case of mail fraud," said Donald, looking around the apartment. George stayed where he was, and took a seat in one of the chairs by the dinner table. Minnie stood awkwardly, trying not to appear nervous.

"Mail fraud? Like somebody stole a letter or something?"

"Something like that."

Minnie knew how dangerous the secret police were. She knew they had the power and authority to disappear anyone without the proper political connections. She knew he was close to finding her out. But it wasn't Donald that scared Minnie. Sitting on the other side of the room, George's gray eyes flicked randomly across the room in various directions. She was sure he was watching her.

Minnie wanted desperately to take a glance in a fourth dimensional direction, but she dared not do it. She had long had a theory that fourth dimensional sight was only possible through some sort of sensory organ. It couldn't be one of the normal ones, since rotating or moving them would make them seem to disappear, and anyone using the music remained completely visible. Somewhere, on one of the other slices, was a kind of fourth dimensional third eye. Minnie hadn't detected it yet, but that didn't mean it couldn't be detected. If Goofenberg was good enough to find her, maybe he was good enough to see when her third eye opened.

"Your husband is Micheal Mouse, correct?" asked Donald, peeking into another room."

Minnie tried to calm her heart rate. Trying to have a poker face good enough to fool the secret police was one thing, but with someone who could see other slices, Minnie knew she had to have hundreds of poker faces.

"That's right," said Minnie.

"I'd like very much to meet him," said Donald.

"He's at work right now."

"Is your husband a musician like you?" asked Donald.

"No," said Minnie.

This was going poorly. Minnie could only feel herself growing more nervous as the questions came. She knew she would be discovered at this rate. George was staying silent, but his mind was far from still. Sooner or later he would find something in one of the slices that clearly marked her as the composer of the music. Sooner or later she would slip up and crack under the pressure. Minnie's horror only grew as she realized that even if she didn't, there was a simple test they could perform to find out the truth. All they had to do was detain her for two days, and when George stopped receiving letters, it would prove she was the source.

Minnie tried to come up with a plan to get out of this, but came up with nothing. They held all the cards. Her position was desperate. Minnie's mind wandered to something her grandmother had told her once as a child. Always beware a cornered animal. Even dangerous animals don't usually want to fight, but a cornered animal will fight like a demon, because it has no other options. It can't flee, so it must attack. Minnie imagined herself like a fox in a hole, surrounded by barking dogs. Only one way out.

"I'll tell you one thing about my husband though," said Minnie, changing her demeanor to that of a frustrated spouse. "Total slob. Never pulls his weight, always says he's tired from work. Musician? Don't make me laugh. He couldn't tell one note from another."

"I see," said Donald, starting to turn his attention back to Minnie at this sudden outburst. "Well in any case I'd like to ask you about-"

"You're hunting Whitegloves, right?" Said Minnie loudly, cutting him off. "I could get you one."

"Oh?" mused Donald, momentarily forgetting his line of questioning.

"Sure. My neighbor Daisy. She's always playing that awful record player well into the night. Some of us are trying to sleep! Can you imagine? Being kept up all hours of the night by Tony… whoever or whatever dreadful record she's always playing?"

"She's a Whiteglove?" asked Donald, still taken aback by this sudden animated diatribe.

"Well, sort of. I mean, anyone who listens to jazz must have some sort of Whiteglove sympathies, right? I'd be willing to testify that I saw her talking with card carrying communists. I'd swear it up and down."

"Did you see her talking with communists?"

Minnie smiled. "You come and cart her away and I saw anything you say I saw. And on that note, there's this old college friend of mine, Sissy Frances. Always rubbed me the wrong way, that one. You know the type, always gossiping."

"I think we're getting off topic-"

"She's a Whiteglove too. Honest to God. Take her too, please."

"Mrs. Mouse, I think you misunderstand exactly why we're here."

"Yes, yes, mail fraud or something," said Minnie. "Somebody stole your music. I'll testify to that too. But first… hold on, let me get something."

Mickey ignored the stunned expressions of both men and bounded off to another room. She returned with her arms full of easels and paintings.

"I've got a list of people I know are Whitegloves, but I might be convinced that a few more people are if you see anything you like. Fifty dollars for the small one, two hundred and four hundred for the two big ones."

"Ma'am, please," said Donald, an earnestness bleeding into his voice, "We're not here to buy paintings."

"Fine, fine. You drive a hard bargain, so I'll knock it down to three hundred for all of them. But you have to take Daisy. And while you're at it, could you arrest my husband for not doing the dishes? He always says he's going to but then when I ask him about it-"

"Ma'am!" snapped Donald. "I'm not arresting anyone. I'm just here to ask you about one case. I'll ask you again, and I want you to answer with a simple yes or no. Do you know anything about this letter?"

There was a silence as Donald held up the letter and Minnie stared at it blankly. George's eyes darted across the room rapidly.

"No."

Donald sighed.

"But I'll tell you what I do know. My husband has this coworker, right? And they're competing for the same promotion. If you could maybe take the coworker out of commission somehow, I could really use a new oven, and with the extra salary from the promotion I could finally-"

"This interview is over," said Donald, striding towards the door. "Thank you for your time."

"I've got other paintings too!" shouted Minnie after them as they hurried to leave. Once they were out of sight, she closed the door.

Minnie wanted to fall apart and let the persona drop, but she knew her charade wasn't over yet. She had to appear on every slice to be Minerva Mouse, spiteful housewife. The likelihood that George was watching might be even higher now, because if he believed it was an act, the best way to verify would be if her demeanor changed once they left. Minnie waited another hour before she dared to drop the act. She made up whole backstories for neighbors who had slighted her and people she was feuding with and concentrated her mind on how much she hated them. If George was still watching, he would only see the conniving caricature of a person she had invented.

After the hour was up, Minnie tried to think about what to do next. They would likely go to interview Mickey at some point, but he wouldn't be off the steamboat until eight o'clock. Minnie wanted to warn him. She wanted to blink a message in Moore's code and tell him that she was safe and to play it cool, but any message he could see, George could see, if he happened to be looking. She couldn't take that risk.

Minnie did allow herself a quick glance at Donald's direction and distance, and estimated approximately where they were in relation to her. Another glance ten minutes later confirmed that he wasn't moving. She pulled out a map of the city and measured the distance with a ruler. Minnie gasped. DeMarcie's Stationery shop, five blocks away. The same shop where she had purchased the paper to write her music on. That's how they found me.

Minnie picked up a blank sheet of paper from the same store and stared at it. Then she plunged into the fourth dimension and let a thousand colors wash over her. Her body and the paper twisted and merged into countless shapes. In most of the slices the paper had little to do with her at all, and occupied some distant space. Occasionally, every few hundred slices or so, her form and the paper's form touched. In some slices, they merely brushed up against or drifted past each other, but in others, they were intricately intertwined. This is bad, thought Minnie.

It was dark outside when Mickey returned from work. Minnie saw him drawing closer in the yarn slice the moment he got in the automobile and breathed a sigh of relief. Donald and George were in some far part of the city. He was safe. When the door opened she rushed to him and embraced him wordlessly, trembling slightly.

"What's the matter?" said Mickey, his tone quiet and gentle.

"They found us," said Minnie, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Who?"

"The regime. Goofenberg. I don't think they know it's us yet, but they're close."

"Goofenberg is with the regime?" said Mickey in disbelief. "I thought he was a poet."

"He is," said Minnie, "But now he's working with the secret police as a fourth dimensional 'consultant'. They came by the apartment to interrogate me. They'll want to do the same for you."

"That's not good," agreed Mickey.

Minnie started to pace the floor of the apartment, holding a hand on her forehead in a feeble attempt to suppress her mounting headache.

"What are we going to do? They're so close to finding us. I've been doing experiments all day, and it's the paper, Mickey. Our signature is all over it on dozens of slices. We're leaving traces on the ink and the page, and even thinking about the paper leaves a trace on some slices. I thought we were anonymous, but we're basically putting up a signal flare to anyone who knows what to look for."

"Slow down," said Mickey. "It's gonna be okay."

"How can you say that? We could be in front of a firing squad by tomorrow morning."

"But we're not," said Mickey. "Which means we're not found out yet. Even if they did catch us, you said yourself that this is too valuable for them to throw away. They would never kill us. Either way, right now we should focus on getting them off of our trail."

"But how can we do that?" asked Minnie. "If they've already narrowed it down enough to show up here? There can't be more than fifty people who have the same ties to the music sheets as we do."

"We have two huge advantages," said Mickey. "The first is that the only reason they found us is with a power that you gave them. Stop sending Goofenberg the music, and he's just another poet."

"If we stop sending him music now, they'll know for sure it's because they were getting close," said Minnie. "They'll just arrest all fifty of us. If they do that, it's over, we'll break eventually because they can hold us for as long as they want."

"That's where our second advantage comes in," said Mickey. "They don't know what they're looking for. To them, this whole thing seems like magic, not science. That means we can give them a red herring. If another lead looks more promising than the current one, it'll draw the attention away from us."

"What do you mean?" asked Minnie.

"I mean we need to send them on a wild goose chase. Make them think that this whole thing is deeper and more complicated than just the two of us sending out letters."

"You really think that'll work?"

"At the very least it'll buy us the time to think of a better plan," said Mickey. "In the meantime, we need to decide whether to keep sending out letters to the other ten."

"You think we should stop?"

Mickey grimaced. "We might have to. If what you say is true, they can be traced back to us by anyone who knows how to use the fourth dimension. Goofenberg might have been the first to find us, but he won't be the last."

"I think I might know a way around that," said Minnie. "I've been getting better at moving around and manipulating objects in the different slices. I think I might be able to untangle us from the letters. It'll take a while, but I think I can wipe all the traces we've been leaving. If it works, we can cover our tracks with the letters going forward."

"Have you started yet?" asked Mickey, his face suddenly betraying concern.

"No, why?"

"Because I think we should wait until Goofenberg is cut off before we start."

Minnie's eyes widened in realization. "You're right. If he's looking at us it'll be a dead giveaway."

Mickey thought for a moment. "But if it does work, and we could wipe all traces from the letters, then that changes things. If you want to keep sending the letters to the other ten, I'm with you."

Minnie took a deep breath but trembled as she did so. Mickey sat next to her and held her.

"I'm so scared," admitted Minnie. "I just want to run away to somewhere safe and leave everything behind. But this is more important than either of us."

Mickey nodded resolutely. "The plan will work."

Donald arrived at George's house at 9:15 in the morning like usual. George was already standing at the door. Donald frowned. Something was wrong. He could already tell by the fact that George was waiting for him rather than just leaving the door unlocked, but the expression on George's face told him that whatever it was, it was bad.

"What happened?" asked Donald, not wasting any time with greetings.

George shifted uncomfortably. "Come inside."

They sat down in the living room and George produced today's letter.

"Is that the song?"

"No," said George, his voice fearful. "There was no song today. Only this."

Donald read it. Instead of the usual "for your ears only," a letter written in the same hand read:

Dear Mr. Goofenberg,

Congratulations on your progress. We are pleased to announce that you have passed the initial phase of testing, and are now invited to proceed to the second round. While the first round tested your aptitude with using the music we sent you, the second round will be more difficult, and will test a different kind of aptitude. If you succeed in passing this round, we will be pleased to welcome you into the Organization. In order to begin, we ask that you ascend to the summit of Mt. Carasis at sundown tomorrow. Pay careful attention to everything you hear. The riddle we send you the following morning will be unsolvable otherwise. Best of luck,

Your patron, Organization Member # 102

Donald scoffed. "They can't be serious."

"What do you mean?" asked George. "This is a big problem right? I don't have the songs anymore, and it's clear there are way more people to find than we thought. Just when we thought we were getting close…"

Donald leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. "We were getting close. Why else would they have stopped sending the music?"

"But now we're back to square one, and without our biggest tool."

Donald narrowed his eyes. The disappointment in George's voice wasn't just about the case. He thought about it from George's perspective. He had been gifted a hundred eyes and then each of them had suddenly been gouged out. He was blind again. Donald shook his head. Even as an act of self defense, it was almost cruel.

"This is obviously a ruse," said Donald.

"What?" asked George. "What makes you say that?"

"It's too cute by half," said Donald. "The Organization? Member number 102? Riddles? Why all this sudden complexity? The previous letters barely said anything, and now they're going to send you riddles? I'm not buying it."

"Well how do you explain it then? You don't think there really is an Organization?"

Donald crossed his arms. "There might be, but I don't believe there are a hundred members. We interviewed all sixty four people on your list, and then suddenly the music stopped. I think whoever is behind this is in that sixty four, and I think they're trying to throw us off the trail. I think they're scared."

"So what do we do? Arrest all sixty four?"

George's voice was hoarse. Donald could tell the thought of the case ending worried him almost as much as the lack of the music did.

"No," said Donald. "Not just yet. We still don't have a way of telling which ones are the ones we're looking for. If they all play dumb, we won't get anything."

Donald thought about the Whiteglove weapons cache. "The smartest move here would be to let the enemy think they have the upper hand. We should play along. I want you at that mountain tomorrow night. But you'll have to get someone else to take you."

"You're not coming?" asked George.

"No," said Donald.

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get you back in the game."