Branded by Fire

CHAPTER 26

In an ordinary—if coolly upmarket—section of the city, not far from the Palace of Fine Arts, a brown-eyed, brown-haired man walked into a corner store and paid the extravagant markup on a number of cleaning supplies. “Emergency,” he told the old lady who whispered to him that he could get a better deal at the supermarket a few blocks away. “New apartment has slime mold.” He made a face. “My girlfriend’s threatening to go back to her parents if I don’t clean it up right now.”

The old lady smiled and patted his arm, wishing him the best of luck with his girl. He grinned and tipped his baseball cap at her. There was nothing at all remarkable about him. The corner store manager forgot him as soon as he walked out, and had he, for some reason, needed to check the security footage, he’d have found that the stranger had somehow managed to either have his back to the cameras or his head bent, shadowed by the bill of his cap.

The same scene, or a variation of it, was repeated throughout the city. The customers all bought different things. Innocuous things. So long as you didn’t put them together.