He fought the urge to lean back, to rub his face, to do any of the things he usually did in awkward moments.
“I don’t know why, but I,” he paused, “believe in you.”
And because that was the truth, truth was in his tone.He did believeinher.It was as insane as agreeing to become a time traveler.
Her shoulders sagged just a bit and her eyes widened, probably with shock.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?”she said.“I feel the same way.”
“Strange.”He nodded agreement.“So how do we deal with the tracker?”
Even in her time there were hardware stores—stores still beloved by men, if Red’s expression was any indication.It was nice to know that some things hadn’t changed.
She slouched after Red, a grin wanting to twitch the edges of her mouth.
He looked as happy as he’d been since they met.Their plan was two pronged.They needed to build a Faraday cage, though she hadn’t used that phrase with Red.
But she couldn’t build an effective cage because of the need for grounding any charge that was generated.And she wasn’t sure she could weave it tightly enough to be totally effective.
Best case was to get it removed.That could be tricky and uncomfortable all the way to life-threatening.
In either case, they needed to locate the signal.
Red thought a metal detector might work.And they were also scouting copper material options.
They needed to be in a bigger city, but could they get out of Roswell without getting stopped?
And they needed a place to go to ground.Again, a problem because of all the reporters here in town to report on the “weather balloon.”
“I had to order some in,” the storekeeper was saying to Red.“Everyone wants to hunt for metal out in the desert, but the demand fell off when the military closed down most of the search area.”
“Lucky for us,” Red said easily, producing some cash to pay for the metal detector.
He was using his money, which was wrong if he were hitch hiking around.She’d have to pay him back from her stash, but they needed a place to catch their breath.
Red had added thin copper sheeting to the metal detector, some copper wiring and some metal cutters.It was a temporary measure at best, but they couldn’t keep on the move forever.
The man wrapped up their purchases and handed the parcel over to Red—after Red had declined delivery.They needed it, wanted it now.
They just needed a place to get out of sight.She considered the idea of going back to her room.
If there were only two guys after her, that didn’t leave anyone to watch the room.And they might be relying on the signal to track her now.
They couldn’t stay there long, but she wouldn’t mind getting her backpack, and she’d need the emergency kit if they did try to remove the signal device.
She half frowned.Did her backpack have a signal, too?She’d bet it did.That might make those two over confident.When you were in an old tech place, it wasn’t a good plan to rely only on new tech.
And then she wondered how long that thought had been simmering inside her head.When had she realized it was possible to be too high tech?
At first, Con wanted to object.Going to Rita’s room seemed crazy.Surely it was being watched—unless the two men were working alone?There had been no sign of any other dudes in black.But who knew what surveillance techniques they’d brought with them from the future?
It had been disturbing to learn Rita had an implanted tracker.He had an implanted device, too, but it was for retrieval and would only activate if he died.Happy thought.
He did have a couple of devices that he could use to send Jack and the others information about what was happening to him.But the small cylinders used a signal to let Jack know it was there.
If the men in black were scanning for signals, there might be a real risk they’d pick up that signal.The signal wouldn’t activate until the right time in the future, at least he thought it wouldn’t.He wished he’d paid more attention to that part of the briefing.
The pictures he’d taken wouldn’t mean anything to the two men—well, he had taken a picture of them—but they didn’t need it to make sense.All they had to do was watch, see who picked it up, and follow them home.
