Things Not Seen: Chapters 15–21

My name is Officer Martha Pagett, and I'm from the school and truancy division of the State Department of Children and Family Services.

Since the school has not received a note from a physician, we've been asked to make a visit and simply verify that Bobby's on the mend and that everything's fine at home.

But I can assure you that I do have every right under the child protection laws of the state of Illinois to have a brief visit with your son, and if I need to have a search warrant to accomplish that, then I can certainly get one.

Kids do get hurt by their parents and others, and someone's got to be allowed to look around if things are suspicious. And right now, our situation looks very suspicious.

So she takes about three minutes and tells the condensed version of how Bobby became a fugitive from the law.

You have permission to make a superficial survey of the premises in order to see if my son is here, which, as I had already told you, he is not.

Bobby will be classified as a missing juvenile under suspicious circumstances.

The case officer's building up evidence that Bobby is missing, and she plans to send someone to Florida to bang on Aunt Ethel's door, and they'll no doubt have a search warrant.

The way I am, it's like being paralyzed or—or blind.

"What... like, you think they're going to tap our phones? That's pretty paranoid, Mom."

But she said there could be criminal prosecution, and that means you get arrested, and when you get arrested, they take you to jail.

And he gets this idea that if he could make every part of his body reflect light the same way that air does—which is not at all—then his whole body would be as invisible as air, and he could be completely transparent and have all this power.

At first he's happy, but what he finds out is that being invisible is terrible and that all these ignorant people are scared to death of him, and that makes him even crazier, and he turns into this schizoid homicidal maniac

They looked through this huge database of other patients, scanning for people with the same kind of problems and conditions as mine.

Don't do the 'poor little Bobby' routine.

You've got to find someone else who wants to sit around and listen to you snivel about everything.

He's only in the door three seconds before he starts spouting some theory about spectral analysis and the refractive indices of protein substances, and he's carrying a big box full of books and papers.

Dad nods as the professor talks, and then he flips out some chunks of jargon, and all the while they're both peering at the well-dressed young man who's got no hands or head poking out of his flannel shirt—which is me.

This site is called Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility ... it's an essay by a lady, and she's serious. . . .

She says she's talked with a lot of people who apparently just stopped being visible to others around them, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes longer ... and other people can't see them or hear them.

But this stuff is all, like... mystical. What we were talking about on the phone today? I was talking about reality, real people, not a bunch of hocus-pocus.

"And what makes you so sure that science is so reliable? Or that the university crowd has any better answers than the hocus-pocus gang?"

And out of the corner of my ear I hear myself. I'm being very logical. Like Dad. Pretty scary.

Listen to this from some ancient writer in India: 'concentration and meditation can make the body imperceptible to other men, and "a direct contact with the light of the eyes no longer existing, the body disappears."

"The schematic diagram shows the electrical details—it's like a map of how the electricity flows, and it shows impedance and resistance, the voltage at different points, any motors or capacitors, transformers or resistors, things like that."

We want to see if this controller unit is working right. Because if it's not, it could be generating an unusual field.

Electric blankets always create an electron field of some sort, because you can't run power through ten or twelve yards of wire without causing an electromagnetic disturbance.

"This resistor is way outside its parameters. It's letting about six times too much power through!"

I don't know what to say, but I don't want to sound flustered, so I say, "Another question: What do you see when you think of me?

"But you're judging them at the same time you accuse them of judging you. It's like you've got a prejudice against the popular kids, and you assume they have a bad attitude toward you."

I don't need to formulate a workable theory. All I need is the model number and the manufacturer.

We are encouraging any customer who has this item to send it to our customer service center and receive a comparable product of equal or greater value in exchange.

I'm the Greek warrior again, more like a general now, planning my campaign, getting my troops ready for battle.

My parents and your parents are the only other candidates. Since I don't think they'd get behind the idea of stealing corporate secrets, that leaves you.

I'm off to commit my first real crime.

As we sway and bounce and change lanes and brake and accelerate and feel our way along the highway, her nostrils flare like a wild pony sniffing the wind, and I know Alicia's also processing the smells—the exhaust and kerosene, the accumulated scent of a thousand cab passengers, that half-eaten tin of salad on the seat by the driver—an ocean of airborne information to sift and sort.

Access through the security doors? A snap: I wait for a slow moving person of considerable size and slide through the doorway right behind his behind.

And with a couple simple sort functions, I've got their names and addresses and phone numbers isolated in a list.

What I end up with is a wad of paper about an inch wide and two inches long, the perfect size to stick up into my left armpit—gross and uncomfortable, but effective.