So, yes, I'm still stalking Charlie.
I've engaged a few spies, people who don't normally talk to Charlie at all, and so are unlikely to arouse his attention by acting oddly around him. I've also asked Rick to come visit for a few days a few times this winter and collect information for me. And I've been keeping my own eyes peeled.
What information am I trying to collect? I want to know how he moves through campus, what his habits are, where he goes and what he does. I want to know where the holes in his attention are--he has to have some, and hopefully one of them is big enough for me.
I'm doing all this more or less at his instigation, just in case you forgot or skipped that post. He wants me to sneak up on him. It's a very challenging assignment. In fact, I worry that he's on alert because he knows I'm running out of time in which to do it. I should have made a half-assed attempt a month or so ago to throw him off his guard--though maybe he would have figured that out, too. Maybe all I can do is what I'm doing, slowly and cautiously collecting information.
I've had my information-gathering network in place for weeks, now. Slowness is critical, because if I try to collect information too efficiently--if I or my spies spend too much time watching him--he'll notice and start watching me even more carefully. Passivity is critical, too, for if I attempt to deceive him or manipulate him in any way, he'll notice. Students trying to pull one over on their masters make fools of themselves when they forget their masters ARE masters, as in excellent at what they do. I am not forgetting it.
Which is not to say that I'm automatically going to succeed. I could very well fail. I just won't make an ass of myself while I'm at it.
But I do think I've had a breakthrough.
The key to invisibility, I've learned, is to put yourself in a place the other person doesn't look. And that's going to be difficult because Charlie looks everywhere--but he only looks once. Charlie doesn't turn around and look behind him very often, probably because he doesn't want yearlings to realize he's as aware of everything as he is. That way, he can startle people by knowing things he wasn't apparently paying attention to. And he doesn't need to turn an look because most of what's behind him used to be in front of him he saw it when it was, and he has excellent hearing and a clear awareness of birds and squirrels and whatever else that react to what's behind him. But the fact of the matter is if he passes a place and sees I'm not in it, he doesn't turn around to check that I'm still not in it. He thinks he already knows.
Now I just need to figure out how to put myself in a place he's already checked.
No comments:
Post a Comment