CHAPTER 13

The Cloak of Invisibility

PRIMERIS HAD BEEN waiting forty minutes outside of Jain's condo. Nearby, two teenagers were practicing aerial stunts on a homemade ramp. The construction was primitive but adequate.

The cloak surrounding her was functioning within design specifications. She was invisible. Primeris was skeptical about the cloak's potential usefulness in the field. At the moment, though, it was providing her the cover she needed. The optical meta-material configuration was able to bend light around the cloak, creating a negative refraction. The end result was an illusion that captured environmental elements surrounding the wearer, mimicking the background. Thumbnail-sized computers continually adjusted the images, compensating for irregularities, and then transferred them onto the cloak's surface.

Primeris was aware that the smallest flaw could compromise her position. One such concern was the faint subsonic hum pulsating through the nano-optic fibers. Since it wasn't detectable by human ears, it had been worth the risk testing the device. For almost three weeks, she had staked out the librarian's place unobserved — except for the dog that had recently arrived. It either heard the low-frequency noise or was picking up her scent. These problems needed to be resolved before the cloak was ready for the field.  

Unfortunately, there was another thing the cloak's designers hadn't anticipated: dog pee! Primeris stood motionless as the warm liquid oozed into her shoe.

You urinated on me, she thought and then questioned her own reaction. The only word to describe it was stunned. That was a human emotion... or was it? Animals aren't predictable. It's logical not to anticipate such an event, she reasoned.

The smell was unpleasant, but not unbearably so. Some of the urine had penetrated the cloak's material and seeped into her left shoe. Wiggling her toes, she concentrated on raising the temperature of her foot to evaporate the moisture. The odor lessened but didn't disappear completely, a constant reminder that she was still wearing a sock saturated with body waste. Nothing in her training or data banks had prepared her for such an experience.  

Under other circumstances, allowing herself to be discovered, even by a dog, could have proved disastrous. The girls' activities had been a distraction. So was the woman standing fifty meters to her left... and now she was dealing with the dog's unwanted attention.

*  *  *

The woman had arrived the previous day. Primeris had no doubt she was aware of her presence, even under the invisibility of the cloak. The stranger's gaze never wavered from the spot where Primeris was standing.

Who are you? Primeris asked. She had spent half the night searching databases for images that matched the woman's facial specifications. Although there had been several likenesses, the hunt came up negative, leaving Primeris perplexed. Every citizen and resident in the U.S. was required to register with Homeland Security, all under the guise of national security. A few did manage to avoid the system, but it was rare. Apparently this woman was one of them. The alternative was that she was an operative for another government organization. Colonel Cranley wouldn't like that.