Altair was frozen for a moment. But then he slightly relaxed, expecting instructions for how to proceed next.
James, who was at the door leading to the rooftop left the door and walked towards Altair.
"We're almost done. Finish quickly we'll take care of it." He said as he walked by.
"Wait. Don't harm them, we can just leave and come back later." Altair suggested in a whisper.
"Ronald is not here. Just finish what you're doing." James said calmly, still going.
.
At the stairs, David heard James question. \"Can you already see the person?"\
/"Almost there."/ He murmured a reply.
A man in an old black suit over a grey turtle neck turned in to walk up the stairs when he saw David standing up the stairs.
He held a phone on his ear and when he saw David with his neat red suit and shades, he said in a tone of annoyed exasperation.
"Oh, great."… The man said as he briefly stopped.
/"No, not to you. I think I just ran into one of those nutters filming a scare vid…"/
/"No, he has a red suit and shades while inside… yeah, the outfit's all wrong, I'll just ignore him"/ The man resumed climbing up the stairs.
On the other hand David, at the other end of the stairs heard a question from his comms.
\"He's not leaving even after seeing you?"\
/"No."/ David replied quietly.
\"Any camera with him?"\
/"No."/
The next moment James teleported right beside David at the end of the stairs.
The man was startled and briefly stopped, only scared briefly having a questioning look. Probably wondering how they did that.
He was about to continue walking up when… James Slinged, first to the middle of the staircase and then right next to the man.
Each Sling left a brief vacuum at James's previous spot, shifting the air and causing a breeze.
The man seemed to stiffen right where he was as if the breeze froze him in place. His eyes moved slowly from the top of the stairs… to the middle… and then to his side, where James now stood.
He did not check anything else and suddenly, he started running away from the place with as much speed as his legs could allow.
With the man gone, James seemed amused and very much satisfied with himself.
David watched silently, listening to the man's footsteps grow fainter as he went down the stairs.
By this time Altair had finished taking the last photo and he approached the two, with a Sling since he was in a hurry.
"I didn't touch him." James said playfully in defense.
"Yeah, you just scared the life out of him." Said David.
James shrugged.
Altair looked between the two and asked. "Isn't that the opposite of what you guys want? No witnesses, no memories?"
"This is different," said James. "All he'll remember is some weird guys in red suits and his story will not be that different from many others. He'll pass for someone with an overactive imagination and a story that almost no one would believe."
Well, it's true that there were several of those stories out there, and the advent of the internet just made these kinds of "conspiracy theories" more widespread. Either way, they were done.
"Let's return to the base. We'll go over what you got there." Said David.
Without another word, the three of them Slinged out leaving the place empty.
.
Back in the white room.
"Good job Mr. Rohan," Ronald started. "SAMANTHA will take it from here."
"The phone." David stretched his hand.
He moved to the wall and a protrusion came out. He placed the phone there and moved back.
Then the images captured by Altair appeared on the screen sequentially in small squares.
When all the images were uploaded, they started to sharpen and dimension themselves on the screen, making them clearer.
"For now, we'll wait for SAMANTHA to enhance the images and do her magic." Said James.
David explained. "Once SAMANTHA enhances the images you took, she will look for anything around to establish a profile of its tenants. It could be clothes sizes and objects in sight to, if we're lucky footstep marks on the floor. Anything that helps to establish a profile."
Just as David finished talking, the image enhancement completed, then something amazing happened.
There was about a second of darkness and then, all the other walls in the room were now screens, and they each showed all the rooms on one floor of the building, with each wall displaying the rooms on one floor.
Then, in real time different labels of annotation appeared near the visible objects, while fine lines traced less obvious details which SAMANTHA deemed important.
Altair was marveled at this wonderful scene unfolding in front of his eyes. He slowly looked around with his mouth opening progressively in a soundless and breathless 'woah'.
"This never gets old." James said grinning at the scene unfolding.
The walls were now filled with information. Each of the pictures had various labels and many things that could easily be missed were now outlined and labeled.
A cup of tea with fingerprint marks had the sizes of the fingers measured, shoe marks on the floor with estimations of shoe size and even a coat hung laying on a sofa labeled not by its color but an estimation of wearer's height.
Somehow all the added information did not make the pictures look chaotic but instead gave them a neat style.
While Altair was in his dazed amazement, Ronald walked slowly around the room, going through the different images.
"Mark any images with items that match or closely resemble Denton Black's physical profile."
Suddenly, different items labelled by sizes flashed briefly on the different pictures. A shoe with the label |shoe, female, size 40|, a coat with the label |coat, male, size XL| and several of such items were flashed briefly. Some of these items maintained the light and others not. Then an orange rectangle outlined the images with these retained objects.
All this vibrancy made the walls feel alive.
While Altair stood in a stupor with his eyes moving around from one picture to the next, Ronald looked around calmly and said to SAMANTHA.
"Move the marked rooms to the front wall."
The images of certain rooms presented themselves neatly on the front wall.
Some of the items which SAMANTHA choose as matching Denton Black's profile were still highlighted.
Ronald observed the images and soon started picking out some rooms to remove.
"Remove this… this too…"
David stood beside Altair and started explaining. "He is taking out images of rooms that look like a family has stayed in them. Going by Denton's splurges and the kind of purchases he made. We don't think he's a family man."
As Ronald continued removing images. David continued.
"Now, he's removing images of rooms that look like someone has occupied for long. Judging by the interaction we observed when following him to this building, he must be unfamiliar to the people here, which means he got here relatively recently."
When there was only one image left on the wall, Ronald made a spreading gesture with his arms and with that the image enlarged.
"So, that's where he stays" James said approaching the picture.
"This is the most likely match." Ronald responded.
"SAMANTHA, analyze this and establish a time frame of when in the images each mark and trace was left."
"You can do that from a picture?" Altair asked with some surprise in his voice.
"Yeah." David replied. "SAMANTHA applies a spectroscopy technique to use the light emitted by the different traces and how deep in depth or color the traces are to estimate when they were left. With that, we can "see" Denton movement around the image almost like a video."
"How long will that take?" Altair asked.
"Not that long." David said and a sound soon followed.
*trririt~*
"Oh, she's already done."
Altair was wowed. Everything here was so impressive.
On the screen, semi-transparent traces started appearing around the picture of the room. Footprints changed into legs that moved around; some dust patterns and other marks were traced into arm lines which showed arm movements and the arms appeared which connected with morphing and shifting torso.
Soon enough, several stable silhouettes approximately Denton Black's size were placed in the image and these silhouettes were moving around filling in for the traces appeared.
A few seconds passed during which the number of silhouettes reduced with many of them merging over time, and then there was just one silhouette moving around and replicating how the different marks were left. Even the most mundane movement was considered and it almost felt like watching a video.
At first the movement of the silhouette was very fast, around x8, and after a few repetitions the video slowed down to play at around x4.
"So," Altair started, still taking in the scene. "we're not only looking at where he stays but also what he does?"
"Yes," James replied. "understanding this helps us decide if it's the right place to approach him and approximately when to do so."
He continued. "Take the situation of your house for example. We did not decide on a whim to confront you in your living room. You spend a lot of your free time in front of the TV in that central sofa. Knowing that lets us determine where to set our equipment and also when is the that you are the most relaxed and thus the best to be approached."
'I see.' Altair thought silently. 'Now I know how they decided where to plant the things that tied me to the ground and that electric board that burnt my mat… But when did they do it?'
Instead of voicing out his thoughts, Altair asked. "When do we go in?"
Ronald looked at him for a moment and then he replied. "Tomorrow. You don't need to do anything for now, just observe."
"Not to worry." James said passing his arm on Altair's shoulder. "We'll just take more pictures tomorrow anyway. It's not like we've decided to establish contact in that room."
"We're running out of time." Said David. "We can't let him relocate, so we're making contact tomorrow."
Turning to Altair he added. "Just like Ronald said, you'll just observe. Since it's indoors and we can't show a real time video, you're coming with us to observe on site. It's better that way anyways."
"I understand." Altair said. "Do I return the suit to you?"
"No need. That's now your uniform." Ronald replied. "Take your phone and go get some rest."
Altair took his phone and replied. "Tomorrow then." Following which, he vanished from the room.