atoms never hitting anything. Neutrino detectors are normally put in deep mines just to eliminate the background noise of everyday energy sources. Neutrinos are very very strange.
The problem with neutrinos and mass is that if they have it then all current theories would have to be changed. And the current theories seem to work! If they don't have mass, we don't know where they are going because we seem to be losing them. The detectors are not finding the numbers of certain types of neutrinos we know should be there. If they have mass, we know that the neutrinos are changing to a tau type neutrino, which we can't detect at this time thus explaining the low numbers.
The physicist had taken the current information from both the Super-Kamiokande Experiment and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and refined his equations. He had written two equations that were used for two of the types of neutrinos. The equations were identical except for having different constants. The one constant was just a little more than 4.5 times greater than the first. The equations used imaginary numbers in such a way that the neutrinos would disappear from our plane of existence when they had mass. Imaginary numbers are just a technique of math that mimics how real things sometimes turn themselves on and off.
I looked at those equations. They seemed so familiar. The 4.5 times greater and imaginary numbers. 4.5 and imaginary numbers. 4.5 and imaginary numbers. 4.66 and imaginary numbers! Chaos math and Feigenbaum's constant!
This brought to mind three aspects of chaos math. One, all chaos equations with single hump curves bifurcate or split at intervals that are 4.66 apart. Two, chaos type equations are usually written using imaginary numbers because they are easier to solve on computers. And three, there can be relationships between totally different problems if the underlying patterns are the same. In this case, I remember reading in a molecular biology paper, something about types of proteins that would disappear at one site in the cell and reappear as a partial mirror image.
I hurriedly checked the hard drive on my computer and found the biology paper. There sat nearly identical equations. The proteins were doing the same thing as the neutrinos. In this case though the biologist was able to track what had happened and had found a set of ideal conditions. Some of the conditions were found in cells and some were not.
Bach was now playing in the background. On the computer screen I placed both papers side by side. The equations, the music, a pattern, a rhythm, something was there in those sets of equations. My mind blurred as I tried to grasp what I was looking at. Slowly the pounding sounds of Bon Jovi brought me back to now. My head ached. Five hours of math, I needed a break! Just then Move-over yowled for attention.
* * * *
The Chameleon had a plan. Staking out a small rural highway at night, The Chameleon waited for a lone woman to drive by. A specially made focused flashlight rested in the Chameleon's hands.
The prey sang with her radio as she hurried home through the dark night. She had driven for hours and was nearly home. Her thoughts were of family not seen in months. The trap was sprung. A hundred thousand lumens of light hit her dilated eyes. Hands went up trying to shield her from the blinding light.
The car swerved. The front tires dropped off the edge of the tarred road. She grabbed the wheel and tried to turn it back on the road. The tires caught on the lip of tar at the edge of the road stopping the front end of the car. The momentum from the back flipped the car into the air. Five times the car turned end over end. The prey had her seatbelt on. She survived but barely conscious. Then the Chameleon came.
The Chameleon had the best technology the Users could provide. Within minutes of searching the prey's purse, the Chameleon had copies of all the documents the prey had. Back at the base, the Chameleon, now a she, made perfect forgeries of the prey's driver license and other papers and photos. She changed everything to reflect her current facade. The forgeries added two inches to her height and subtracted fifteen pounds from her weight. The picture on the driver's license now was hers. With valid identity numbers and proofs, she was ready to infiltrate.
Later that week, she used the prey's credit to purchase a car. On the last day of the week, she entered Chicago from the south. Her first objective would be to find a job.
Chapter 4
Learning
The day was ruined. The arraignment for the two punks took until 5:00. The prosecutor seemed to be just going through the motions. The lawyer for Jordan Blythe and his friend John Jorgenson grilled me for hours trying to get me to make mistakes and correct myself. I finally got fed up with the harassment and called him an idiot, a pea brain. I asked him if the reason he couldn't remember what I said about who had the knife to Tabitha's back was because his elevator didn't go all the way up. That finally got a response from the prosecutor and the judge. I was threatened with contempt. The prosecutor even wanted my comments stricken from the record. I then lectured the lawyer about how he could remember by making a mnemonic out of the letters. The judge in exasperation finally told me I could go. As I left the courtroom, the spectators started to clap. The judge was throwing another hissy fit as I left the room.
The drive home was even worse than the testifying. My brain and body were tired. I swerved onto the shoulder of the road when a large dark shape flashed in front of the windshield. Gulping for air, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw three crows picking at the carcass of some dead animal. I felt picked-over like that animal. I then noticed a bird circling above the road about a hundred yards ahead of the pickup. The hawk stayed circling until I got home and entered the house. There Move-over took over the watching.
“Mr. Blythe?'
“Yes John.'
“Both the Czeminski girl and Karpinen testified against your son. I did get both the prosecutor and the judge to agree to a plea bargain. Since both your son and his friend are seventeen, they will have clean records next year. Jorgensen will get sixty days in county jail with probation until he is eighteen and your son will have probation until his eighteenth birthday.'
“I thought you said you could make it all go away?' “I could have if Karpinen and Czeminski hadn't testified.'
“No one messes with my family and gets away with it. Hurt them. Hurt them bad. Start with the banks.'
“I think the girl has a college loan out. I'll start by having the loan called in. I think it is a federal loan so we will have to have it first transferred to another bank.'
“Stop bothering me with the details. You know your job Mister Jones. Just tell me when they are hurting.'
* * * *
This was a bad day for the Chameleon. A supervisor just returned from vacation. He was deaf. The Chameleon's disguise worked because she overpowered all the senses. She was an average female secretary. Your nose said she smelled like a woman. Your eyes would say the same. She looked, tasted, walked, talked, and sounded like all the other women in the office. But being an imposter she wasn't quite perfect. The slightly different scent she gave off was offset by her voice. The throaty whisper in her voice could be ignored when contrasted with the popular make-up on her face.
In other words, the supervisor without his sense of hearing to interfere had started watching her with a quizzical look to his face. She knew she had to disappear from this identity and start a new one. She liked the access she had gained by being female. She also noticed that the so-called security that was in place was more interested in her femaleness than in what she did. The Chameleon had heard talk about a lesbian bar downtown. She would go there. It should be easy to attract a new prey to exchange identities with. A new prey to destroy and place her current identification with. A new prey to be used to camouflage her infiltration.
Her change of identity was easier than she imagined. She had dressed the prey with her clothing and purse, destroyed her face and hands by leaving her body on the train tracks. The changes the Chameleon had to make to fit the new prey's identity were minor, slightly different shade of skin tone and hair color. This prey had a better education than the last. The Chameleon could infiltrate the community at a higher level.
* * * *
