08-28-2013, 11:16 PM
Rasmussen's face is set and still except for the slightest widening of eyes in pleasure and maybe even a little bit of pride, the kind of revelation that must be deliberate, but is no less effective when wielded by an elder with such presence. It is almost a surrogate for the feeling of the sun peaking behind storm clouds and warming ones face. Like something powerful taking notice.
Which can also be very dangerous.
But at this point in time it probably doesn't feel like that. No, Rasmussen hears his answer and is pleased with it. Only how analytical and mindful might dictate what would have happened should circumstances have developed differently.
But that is hypothetical and this is the present. Rasmussen turns back toward the war room and continues down the glass sheathed corridor back to it. It might seem almost dismissive if he didn't say, “Come with me,” as he begins the short journey.
The tables is large and white, surrounded chairs all pushed in but one that Rasmussen must have been using pulled out. All of a similar postmodern architectural construction: White painted steel and similar in pattern and design to concave slices of a Hoberman sphere, and the table's surface is scribbled with writing in dry erase marker.
Amongst the writings are street names around Union Station with a roughly drawn map, a list of other cities (Wichita, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, Omaha).
Another list of dates and cities (January 19th, 1931 – Henrietta (turned); 1973 – Colorado Springs (lost), 1985 – Cheyenne (lost), 1994 – Grand Junction (lost), 1999 – Omaha (won), 2007 – Santa Fe (lost), 2011 – Amarillo (lost). Beneath are names with X's and O's near them, though the majority have red lines marked through, and one can guess what that means.
The names of light rail stations, bus depots, airports are marked in their various directions on the four points of the compass with numbers near them. Ratios in red: 1/9, 1/3, 1/5, 1/2. Higher ratios marked beside them in green marker. Smaller notes scribbled beside the number, things like... "Attack... Three wounded... Safe passage... Lost supply truck... Four disappearances... Staged ambush..." Peppered across the table and its contents.
Rasmussen is looking at what is both a notepad and map of a battlefield with delineations that are dictated by numbers instead of geography, dates and events instead of cartography.
"Where are you?"
The question is simple. Again. But of course this is just as much a test. It is obvious the way he looks up to examine how Gray takes in the complexities of the chessboard it illustrates.
Yes, Richthofen is on the map, but so are stretches of East Colfax and other thoroughfares of the city. Marked out in lines of passage, along public transportation routes, or simply by landmarks like Brown Palace Hotel, condominiums and apartment towers, and numerous other innocuous locations.
Which can also be very dangerous.
But at this point in time it probably doesn't feel like that. No, Rasmussen hears his answer and is pleased with it. Only how analytical and mindful might dictate what would have happened should circumstances have developed differently.
But that is hypothetical and this is the present. Rasmussen turns back toward the war room and continues down the glass sheathed corridor back to it. It might seem almost dismissive if he didn't say, “Come with me,” as he begins the short journey.
The tables is large and white, surrounded chairs all pushed in but one that Rasmussen must have been using pulled out. All of a similar postmodern architectural construction: White painted steel and similar in pattern and design to concave slices of a Hoberman sphere, and the table's surface is scribbled with writing in dry erase marker.
Amongst the writings are street names around Union Station with a roughly drawn map, a list of other cities (Wichita, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, Omaha).
Another list of dates and cities (January 19th, 1931 – Henrietta (turned); 1973 – Colorado Springs (lost), 1985 – Cheyenne (lost), 1994 – Grand Junction (lost), 1999 – Omaha (won), 2007 – Santa Fe (lost), 2011 – Amarillo (lost). Beneath are names with X's and O's near them, though the majority have red lines marked through, and one can guess what that means.
The names of light rail stations, bus depots, airports are marked in their various directions on the four points of the compass with numbers near them. Ratios in red: 1/9, 1/3, 1/5, 1/2. Higher ratios marked beside them in green marker. Smaller notes scribbled beside the number, things like... "Attack... Three wounded... Safe passage... Lost supply truck... Four disappearances... Staged ambush..." Peppered across the table and its contents.
Rasmussen is looking at what is both a notepad and map of a battlefield with delineations that are dictated by numbers instead of geography, dates and events instead of cartography.
"Where are you?"
The question is simple. Again. But of course this is just as much a test. It is obvious the way he looks up to examine how Gray takes in the complexities of the chessboard it illustrates.
Yes, Richthofen is on the map, but so are stretches of East Colfax and other thoroughfares of the city. Marked out in lines of passage, along public transportation routes, or simply by landmarks like Brown Palace Hotel, condominiums and apartment towers, and numerous other innocuous locations.