Asher Optime was not the Other. By all accounts, he had zero skills as a hacker. In fact, he detested the internet, found the entire history of human progress and technology repugnant. The Other evidently had made Asher Optime’s enemies his own and was doing to them what perhaps Optime had wanted to do. Neither Artimis Selene nor Ganesh Patel, nor anyone else involved in Project Olivaw, could determine why this should be the case.
Complicating matters, Asher Optime had vanished five months earlier, a month before the murders of his enemies had begun. For a man with no hacking skills and little understanding of the digital culture, who was most often described by others as a narcissistic ignoramus, he was doing a bang-up job of remaining off the grid, untraceable.
Now Ganesh said, “Artimis, I believe that we’re on the brink of a Jungian moment of unprecedented impact.”
“Synchronicity,” she said. As was the case with Ganesh, Jung’s theory was integral to her view of the world.
He said, “A series of coincidences so astonishing that it suggests that the collective unconscious of humanity is shaping events toward an inflection point after which nothing will be the same. This morning, a good friend of mine, Liam O’Hara, told me a story about his experiences on a ranch he bought in Montana.”
Artimis said, “You’ve spoken of him often before. I’ve seen his photo, and news film of course. He has an aura about him. I’d like to meet him one day.”
“I think that can be arranged eventually.”
“He’s a handsome man. Maybe we can have dinner. A quiet little place. I know just the spot. Being a feminist, I won’t expect him to pay. In fact, I won’t allow it.”
Ganesh smiled. Artimis had a sense of humor so dry that he did not always know what to make of it. “Now, now,” he said, “you know he’s married with children.”
“Dear Ganesh, whatever my desires might be, I understand that of necessity any contact with your friend must be platonic. Anyway, I’m married to my work. It’s a wonderful thing to have meaningful, fulfilling work, to be engaged with the many brilliant people on this project.”
Ganesh found himself frowning. “Is there something wrong, Artimis? Anything I can do?”
“You dear man, you’ve already done so much for me. Without you, I wouldn’t have this job. Now and then I have a little bit of a blue mood, but it always passes. It’s a woman thing.”
“Blue mood?”
“You wouldn’t know, dear. You’re eternally ebullient. It’s why everyone loves you. So what happened to Liam O’Hara in Montana?”
Ganesh shared some of the details with her and then said, “These events were so strange, Liam didn’t know what to make of them. He was even willing to entertain the most extreme supernatural explanation—spirits, demons—as I might have done myself, if I had been in his shoes. Because we at the project have developed so many theoretical profiles of the Other—trying to imagine his nature, identity, whereabouts, and purpose—and because control of household electronics was a part of this ‘haunting’ at Liam’s place, another possibility occurred to me.”
Artimis nodded. “I suspect I know which of the theoretical profiles you found most compelling.”
“I’m sure you do. Number six. Anyway, Liam hired a private investigator yesterday morning and sent him to Montana, a reliable man named Wyatt Rider. Coincidentally, I’ve also worked with Wyatt and consider him a friend, which Liam didn’t know. Whatever Wyatt learns will be of value, but if what we have here is the Other as imagined in Profile Six, gumshoe methods won’t get to the truth.”
When each theoretical profile of the Other had been completed and evaluated, a related file titled “Courses of Action” had been prepared, steps to be taken to confirm what the profile imagined. None of that had gotten them anywhere.
In each case, should they ever have a good reason to suspect a location—neighborhood or city, or state, or country—from which the Other operated, they would be able to resume the investigation. Thus far, he seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, as if he lived only in the virtual reality of the internet. Now, because what happened in Montana also involved the possession of animals, manifestations of a physical nature rather than just bedevilment via electronics, they might at last have a location. Rustling Willows Ranch.
“Or perhaps,” Ganesh said, “this is some strange business that has nothing to do with the Other.”