The university director sighed. "Well, I'm not going to pressure you on this, Professor, but I am also not going to authorize another day off so you can go propitiate this young hoodlum."
"Hoodlum-?"
"Go to your classroom, Professor."
Professor Frank Curtis left the office of the director of the university, but he didn't go to his classroom. He got in his car and he drove away. Out of town. Out of Virginia. Maybe he'd never go back.
His wife, his friends, his fourteen years of tenure in the department, all those things could wait. Right now he had an important job to do. It was important because Greg Grom said so.
He had been driving for hours when he spotted the tour bus a couple of miles ahead of him on the interstate. He closed to within a half mile and set the cruise control to pace the bus at sixty-six miles per hour, then opened the window and held the digital camera outside to avoid the windshield glare. With one hand he fumbled to get the tiny display adjusted so he could see it, then to max out the digital zoom. It was difficult getting the extreme close-up of the bus into the viewfinder while keeping the car from veering off the road.
When he finally got the tour bus in the shot, he snapped of few dozen high-resolution images and put the camera on the dashboard to see his results.
It was the latest top-of-the line digital camera for use by professional wildlife photographers, and had all kinds of bells and whistles that were beyond the understanding of a professor of anthropological studies. Somehow, though, he managed to take several high-quality shots. There were close-ups of the shoulder of the road that were crisp enough you could count the stones. Quite a few images of the surface of the highway showed contrast so vivid you could practically feel the texture of the concrete.
Only the last few shots finally managed to get the bus in the frame. A fender with some mud spots. The back window with a brilliant reflection of the late-morning sun. And finally, the top of the bus-and two people sitting there.
"Well, I'll be!" Curtis exclaimed. Then he squinted into the display. "Dammit!"
He tried shooting another round of photos. His aim got better but his frustration mounted. The third time he managed to get a total of six shots of the roof of the bus, but he was so irritated with the result he felt like ripping out his comb-over.
He plugged the camera into the data port on his phone and E-mailed the best of the photos while hitting the speed dial for a voice call. "This is Professor Curtis, Mr. President."
Greg Grom sounded tense. "Took you long enough, Frank," his former student said. "I expected you an hour ago. Did you get the camera?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you get good shots of the bus?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Well, come on, Frank, were they there or not?"
"Yes, sir," Curtis said. "A white man and an old Asian. You can see them plain as day relaxing on the roof, as comfortable as you please."
"Oh shit, Frank!"
Professor Frank Curtis, Ph.D., always followed President Grom's orders without question. This time was no exception. Still, he couldn't stifle the grunt that accompanied the sudden but successful effort.
"What's the matter with you?" Groin demanded.
"Nothing, sir. Excuse me, sir. It's just a habit, I guess."
"What's a habit?"
"When I-you know," Curtis stammered.
"Frank, I haven't got the foggiest clue what you're talking about."
"Just following instructions, sir," the professor said, embarrassment mixing with disgust at the smell and the squishiness. "I sent you the shots, sir."
GREG GROM DOWNLOADED the files onto his laptop. They were so big they seemed to take forever, but the high quality was worth the wait. It was amusing to think how much the professional-grade digital camera had to have cost the old fart.
When the first image filled the screen, Grom wasn't amused anymore.
There they were, sitting on the roof. It was weird; it was eerie. Except for his strangely thick wrists, the white guy could be any one of fifty million Caucasian adult males in North America. The senior citizen from the Far East was another story. He looked too frail to get across the sunroom at the nursing home without a walker. He looked underfed, and it seemed as if the billowing silks of his geisha outfit should have taken him into the air like a kite. And yet he sat cross-legged and relaxed. He looked like he was meditating, for crying out loud.
Grom magnified the image, muttered an insult at the old fart on the phone and moved on to the next image. Then the next.
"You moron, there's not a single good shot of their faces!" he said into the phone.
"I know, Mr. President. But it is very strange. Everything else is perfectly in focus."
What the hell was the old loser talking about? Grom magnified the next shot until the lounging white guy filled the screen. The dark blue T-shirt was perfectly in focus. Grom could count the neat stitches on the expensive Italian loafers with the ruined soles. But the face was unidentifiable, as if his features had been moving too fast for the camera to focus on.
The ancient Asian was the same. Grom could see the perfect stitching in the embroidery, but the face was just an expressionistic mess of colors.
Every photo was the same way. In the last shot, the white guy was shown giving the camera a friendly wave. "Oh, shit!" gasped the President of the United States Protectorate of Union Island.
"I'll try my best, sir," the old professor replied mournfully. He grunted again.
"Stop it, you moron. Get closer and get me some better shots. I gotta have face shots! And patch me in to the camera feed."
The real-time, frame-a-second images from the old fart's new toy fed into his laptop in low resolution, but the camera electronics stabilized them pretty well. As the professor closed in on the bus, the images of the pair on the roof became vivid.
Grom was squinting at the screen and barking at Curtis whenever he lost the bus from the frame. "Hold it there!" Grom ordered. He was as close as he could get and still have the top half of the white guy in the frame.
The white guy was just staring into the camera. "Take some more high-res shots but keep me on the feed."
"I'll do my best, sir," Curtis said.
"Get one now!"
"Got it, sir."
"Now zoom in on that asshole."
"Yes, sir." The image moved up on the white guy.
"Take another one."
"Okay."
The face. The damn face was still not coming into focus! Even the low-res feed showed the guy's torso in crisp detail, but the face was a blurred mess.
Were they human? Grom's fear mounted. "Keep shooting!"