Chapter Four: Vancouver
Subject: Vancouver
From: Randall Clay
Date: 01/11/15 13:16
To: Douglas Clay
I just got finished driving one of those cars a few hundred miles in the snow and wet. A Rental, of course. I can't say I miss the noise and the smell of internal combustion, but I do sort of miss stopping for gasoline. It was good to have an interruption in the task of driving, one that doesn't seem so self-indulgent as a stop for rest or food: the car, it needs fuel, and I must stop. I may use the facilities, or grab a snack or two at the station, but that is mere efficiency; I did not stop strictly for my own needs. Alas, no more; every stop that I made along the journey was purely for my own benefit and nothing more.
I rode one of the earlier versions of this technology a couple of years back, as it happens, and the current models are a huge improvement. Where this care is as close to silent as a machine that propels itself at sixty five miles per hour down a spottily-maintained asphault surface can be, its predecessors were not. I'm told that the batteries were the source of the distracting humming noise, and that it was only recently that engineers realized that they didn't have to make that noise in order to function. Is this true? I am relying on your superior knowledge of the state of our knowledge of Shouter psychology here.
Since I was in Vancouver, I felt a pressing need to visit the Miracle Monument, just because that's what you do when you visit Vancouver these days. The monument, to be honest, is not nearly as dignified as it appears on television, and brings to mind just how shabby the events that get classified as Miraculous are in this era. A shoddily-constructed nuclear device built by North Koreean scientists and engineers who probably had the equivalent of one decent meal during the months over which it was built fails to properly detonate, leaving behind a lump of highly radioactive slag rather than a detonating critical mass? I say never attribute to divine intervention that which can adequately be explained by incompetence. The second 'miracle' was even less miraculous: one is fairly certain, if one has a brain with which to reason, that Dear Leader Kim's sudden heart attack was induced not by God Himself but by poisoners not relishing a second Korean War. So beyond the awakening of the Canadian national might toward eradicating international terror networks like the one that bought the device and picked them as their target, nothing requiring a belief in providence actually happened back in '09. Of course, the 'Close Call Monument' would not, I'm fairly certain, draw in nearly so much of a tourist trade, nor would it, one supposes, be as respectful to the memories of the three poor souls who took lethal radiation doses during the cleanup.
So, after doing the touristy thing, I got on with the business of this stop, and paid a visit to Thadeuss Bones, Dad's accountant and executor. I don't know if you'll remember Tad, but if you do, he hasn't changed a bit. He looks, well, old but active, a constant appearance of being just under 65 that he has had since before he turned forty and will no doubt have into his late 90s. He was not particularly talkative, but he was at least cooperative. Especially since I'd secured funding for my trip through MP NeoTech, and didn't need to try and extract money from my Trust, only the keys to the old house.
Nobody lives in the house, permanently. Dad bought it shortly after the divorce and lived in it, when he wasn't travelling around the world, until his disappearance. When he was travelling, he arranged to have a college student do some house-sitting to keep the place maintained, and Tad has kept the practice up since thie disappearance, but this month was one of the periods of non-occupation, so it was empty when I came around.
I'm not exactly sure why I felt the need to go here, other than that Dad's last trip started here and so, on some level, should mine. It was, and still is, a mostly impersonal dwelling, with no art or photos or furniture old enough to drive. Other than our photos on an otherwise bare desk (Dad's computers were taken away once it was clear that he wasn't coming back soon, as part of the police investigation, and I believe that the company wound up with them after the police stopped working on the case.), no sign of the owner was left, in the above-ground floors at least.
The basement, though, was another story. These rooms were locked off, but I had those keys, and so ventured down the stairs into some severely dusty rooms. The workshop showed the danger of allowing tools to fall into disuse: rusted metal and warped wood and plastic dominated. The playroom had done much better, with dust alone being the nemesis. I got a kick out of seeing the city-that old, futuristic city Dad built to roughly the scale of our action figures out of wood and plexiglass. I looked it over, looking for the hidden oibliette that I always thought was the most interesting feature of the town, wondering if Mace Windu or Green Lantern was still trapped in there after all these years. After a few minutes' search, I found the spot, blew clear the dust to reveal the hairline faults in the wood, and tried to trigger the trapdoor. Nothing happened. I tried a couple more times; it was definately stuck. Possibly the wood had expanded a bit, or the hinge had rusted shut. Either way, I couldn't get enough leverage to spring it with my hands.
I started to head back upstairs, defeated, but, passing the workshop entrance, it occurred to me that I had access to any number of simple tools, and was stubborn enough not to admit a trivial defeat to an ancient, inanimate object. Thus, one screwdriver, as thin-edged and non-rusty as could be wrangled, went from pegboard to hand and then accompanied me back to the City of Tomorrow, and, after a quick application of Archimedes' work on leverage, the compartment opened, revealing not a long-imprisoned superhero but rather several quite interesting objects.
The first was a billfold, stuffed with large amounts in various currencies. Some of it is, of course, completely worthless these days, in Euros or Yuan, but there was about a thousand dollars, and around the same amount in Yen, and again in Rupees.
The second was a set of Canadian passports-probably fakes, but very good fakes. One with his own picture under the name 'Adam Weissel', and two more, without pictures but listing ages appropriate for each of us, as 'Rudy' and 'Daniel' Weissel. Let me know if you have an address you'd like me to send yours to; it might be reassuring to have a backup identity ready for whatever contingencies might occur, down the line.
The third is a small notebook, containing nothing other than a handful of names, each one listing beside it a city and a phone numbers. I suspect that the numbers are in code of some sort; some of the exchanges simply do not make sense. And finally, taped to the last page of the notebook are two keys. So, all in all, I'm quite glad that I came out here, even setting aside how much less hassle it is to fly internationally out of Canada than it is out of America. I'll probably spend a couple more days here, touristing about and seeing if I can crack Dad's code, then head off to the first city on Dad's last journey, home of two of the people in the notebook as it happens.
Next stop: Seoul!
From: Randall Clay
Date: 01/11/15 13:16
To: Douglas Clay
I do not look for holy saints to guide me on my way,
Or male and female devilkins to lead my feet astray.
If there are added, I rejoice- if not, I shall not mind,
So long as I have leave and choice to meet my fellow-kind.
Rudyard Kipling, A Pilgrim's Way
I just got finished driving one of those cars a few hundred miles in the snow and wet. A Rental, of course. I can't say I miss the noise and the smell of internal combustion, but I do sort of miss stopping for gasoline. It was good to have an interruption in the task of driving, one that doesn't seem so self-indulgent as a stop for rest or food: the car, it needs fuel, and I must stop. I may use the facilities, or grab a snack or two at the station, but that is mere efficiency; I did not stop strictly for my own needs. Alas, no more; every stop that I made along the journey was purely for my own benefit and nothing more.
I rode one of the earlier versions of this technology a couple of years back, as it happens, and the current models are a huge improvement. Where this care is as close to silent as a machine that propels itself at sixty five miles per hour down a spottily-maintained asphault surface can be, its predecessors were not. I'm told that the batteries were the source of the distracting humming noise, and that it was only recently that engineers realized that they didn't have to make that noise in order to function. Is this true? I am relying on your superior knowledge of the state of our knowledge of Shouter psychology here.
Since I was in Vancouver, I felt a pressing need to visit the Miracle Monument, just because that's what you do when you visit Vancouver these days. The monument, to be honest, is not nearly as dignified as it appears on television, and brings to mind just how shabby the events that get classified as Miraculous are in this era. A shoddily-constructed nuclear device built by North Koreean scientists and engineers who probably had the equivalent of one decent meal during the months over which it was built fails to properly detonate, leaving behind a lump of highly radioactive slag rather than a detonating critical mass? I say never attribute to divine intervention that which can adequately be explained by incompetence. The second 'miracle' was even less miraculous: one is fairly certain, if one has a brain with which to reason, that Dear Leader Kim's sudden heart attack was induced not by God Himself but by poisoners not relishing a second Korean War. So beyond the awakening of the Canadian national might toward eradicating international terror networks like the one that bought the device and picked them as their target, nothing requiring a belief in providence actually happened back in '09. Of course, the 'Close Call Monument' would not, I'm fairly certain, draw in nearly so much of a tourist trade, nor would it, one supposes, be as respectful to the memories of the three poor souls who took lethal radiation doses during the cleanup.
So, after doing the touristy thing, I got on with the business of this stop, and paid a visit to Thadeuss Bones, Dad's accountant and executor. I don't know if you'll remember Tad, but if you do, he hasn't changed a bit. He looks, well, old but active, a constant appearance of being just under 65 that he has had since before he turned forty and will no doubt have into his late 90s. He was not particularly talkative, but he was at least cooperative. Especially since I'd secured funding for my trip through MP NeoTech, and didn't need to try and extract money from my Trust, only the keys to the old house.
Nobody lives in the house, permanently. Dad bought it shortly after the divorce and lived in it, when he wasn't travelling around the world, until his disappearance. When he was travelling, he arranged to have a college student do some house-sitting to keep the place maintained, and Tad has kept the practice up since thie disappearance, but this month was one of the periods of non-occupation, so it was empty when I came around.
I'm not exactly sure why I felt the need to go here, other than that Dad's last trip started here and so, on some level, should mine. It was, and still is, a mostly impersonal dwelling, with no art or photos or furniture old enough to drive. Other than our photos on an otherwise bare desk (Dad's computers were taken away once it was clear that he wasn't coming back soon, as part of the police investigation, and I believe that the company wound up with them after the police stopped working on the case.), no sign of the owner was left, in the above-ground floors at least.
The basement, though, was another story. These rooms were locked off, but I had those keys, and so ventured down the stairs into some severely dusty rooms. The workshop showed the danger of allowing tools to fall into disuse: rusted metal and warped wood and plastic dominated. The playroom had done much better, with dust alone being the nemesis. I got a kick out of seeing the city-that old, futuristic city Dad built to roughly the scale of our action figures out of wood and plexiglass. I looked it over, looking for the hidden oibliette that I always thought was the most interesting feature of the town, wondering if Mace Windu or Green Lantern was still trapped in there after all these years. After a few minutes' search, I found the spot, blew clear the dust to reveal the hairline faults in the wood, and tried to trigger the trapdoor. Nothing happened. I tried a couple more times; it was definately stuck. Possibly the wood had expanded a bit, or the hinge had rusted shut. Either way, I couldn't get enough leverage to spring it with my hands.
I started to head back upstairs, defeated, but, passing the workshop entrance, it occurred to me that I had access to any number of simple tools, and was stubborn enough not to admit a trivial defeat to an ancient, inanimate object. Thus, one screwdriver, as thin-edged and non-rusty as could be wrangled, went from pegboard to hand and then accompanied me back to the City of Tomorrow, and, after a quick application of Archimedes' work on leverage, the compartment opened, revealing not a long-imprisoned superhero but rather several quite interesting objects.
The first was a billfold, stuffed with large amounts in various currencies. Some of it is, of course, completely worthless these days, in Euros or Yuan, but there was about a thousand dollars, and around the same amount in Yen, and again in Rupees.
The second was a set of Canadian passports-probably fakes, but very good fakes. One with his own picture under the name 'Adam Weissel', and two more, without pictures but listing ages appropriate for each of us, as 'Rudy' and 'Daniel' Weissel. Let me know if you have an address you'd like me to send yours to; it might be reassuring to have a backup identity ready for whatever contingencies might occur, down the line.
The third is a small notebook, containing nothing other than a handful of names, each one listing beside it a city and a phone numbers. I suspect that the numbers are in code of some sort; some of the exchanges simply do not make sense. And finally, taped to the last page of the notebook are two keys. So, all in all, I'm quite glad that I came out here, even setting aside how much less hassle it is to fly internationally out of Canada than it is out of America. I'll probably spend a couple more days here, touristing about and seeing if I can crack Dad's code, then head off to the first city on Dad's last journey, home of two of the people in the notebook as it happens.
Next stop: Seoul!
posted by Jeff R. at 5:40 PM
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