Chapter 3

The suite of algorithms tirelessly looked for disruptive patterns, anomalous data which seemed to block and resist rather than ‘go with the flow’ of ‘standard’ data and behavior. Rice stuck out like a sore thumb.

Rice left for school as usual, and lulled his on-duty oversight watch team by using his second most common route. As soon as he entered a thick wooded area that was the reason he selected this particular one of his varied routes, he angled off in a crouched scrabble down a dog trail he had discovered in his ramblings. Before he was expected at the other end of the wooded area, he was across a golf course to where a flight of hot air balloons were almost ready for lift off. Rice was able to talk his way onto one of the balloons using his open faced awe and wonder, and was airborne unnoticed before the clueless sticky organization was able to close their net, leading to a lot of finger pointing and recriminations, again.

Rice knew that the metaphorical (he hoped) hard on Mr. Sticky himself had for him was unabated, and he probably had only had his predatory nature inflamed by Rice’s evasion for now, as he undoubtedly viewed things. So realistically, it was merely ‘contact broken’, again. It was the most pleasant morning Rice could recall, floating in the quiet air above the wakening earth, drinking from a thermos of hot coffee to warm the hands, the sounds from below attenuated so only the roar of the heater lifting the envelope punctuated the accepting amiable silence. At some point over open fields, Rice let the pieces of his pager fall while his balloon mentor was attending the canopy. On landing, a mild adventure in itself even in the calm air, Rice thanked the lady for the experience, and was thanked in turn for being the best passenger ever, short of none.

Deciding that he had no way to directly remove Mr. Sticky from his life unless a unlikely series of events provided a miraculous opportunity, Rice realized that he had to use his location unknown status to beat feet to somewhere they can’t find him. He decided to go south, for climactic reasons as much as any, one way was as good as another, it was all a big suck anyway. Oh well, it isn’t as if he would find himself missing his family much.

Spotting a slow freight train just pulling out of the yard, Rice clambered onboard before it got moving too fast. He was on a lumber car, and parked himself on the back end of the car in spite of the reduced wind flow at the head end, fearing the effects of momentum on the load in case of a sudden stop. Rice whiled the time thinking to himself, willing to let the train remove him from the main search area.

After a cold sleepless overnight spent huddled and shivering, Rice looked out at the dry water less scrub-lands the train was rumbling through. When the train slowed for a turn and a river crossing Rice bailed out, facing the direction the train was traveling and running while supporting his weight from the personnel rung and then shoving away from the train as he stumbled and staggered to a stop in the early morning light. He smelled smoke, and followed his nose under the bridge to find a ‘hobo jungle’, stealing a phrase from the past. Still, the only way to arrive here seemed to be by train, as there were no roads or other signs of civilization in view except for a few rutted gouges in the earth.

The rough and dusty men looked up curiously at Rice’s appearance before their morning fire and cups of camp coffee. One of them called out to him, “Come on over here, then, Boy. Here’s a clean tin, have some joe if you care to, we’re all out of tea!” The other men laughed good humorlessly, and Rice could detect no harm intended to him, in fact, these men seemed just like any ordinary men Rice might encounter on a city bus in spite of their rough hodge-podge costumes and he wordlessly accepted the cheap battered enameled steel mug of ‘joe’, using his sweatshirt sleeve as an oven-mitt to protect his hand from the boiling brew. The men seemed to accept him probably because he didn’t seem to present any challenge or look like trouble.

Nodding thanks to the spokesman, Rice pretended to try to sip from the burning hot tin cup, being too sharp to actually touch his lips to the metal, and watching the six men to see who anticipated him burning his mouth. They all were waiting for their own drinks to cool, some of the first to get theirs or the most impatient, (Rice couldn’t tell which) were starting to take noisy slurps of mostly air and taste of caffeine.

Unable to delay conversation politely further, Rice inquired, “What’s where, from here?”

Rice figured it might be an innocuous question, not too nosy or curious, and besides, he really did want to know.

The spokesman replied with the theatrical drama of a T.V. script “‘Bout eighty odd miles of nothing in all directions, then a bunch more of nothing much, but less’n a hundred miles north, you’ll find some ranches, and a bit more yonder some towns start’n up. There is wilderness area all ‘round about, here.”

Rice tried not to appear daunted by this information, and was encouraged by the forthright answer given to assay another important question. “If I go along the river here, will I come to any place?”

Rice gradually came to the understanding that these were a group of role players, a bunch of grown men playing let’s pretend. The particular flavor of LARP they were live acting was Zom Apoc. They were seeking the uninhabited regions on the theory that with less pop. there would be less Zom. They adopted Rice as a survivor/stray, and he adapted to their collective delusion. It was actually kind of fun, in a morbid way. They were intentionally removed from all but the remotest possibility of chance encounter, and so they took finding Rice as a lucky sign, and it was lucky for Rice that by happenstance they were there, as there wasn’t really any way to get anywhere from here on foot.