Synchronicity

San Diego Zoo entrance, by the lion statue, 9:04 AM. You’ll recognize me.

The parking lot of the zoo was massive. Diana arrived at 8:53, and seven minutes to opening the lot was rapidly filling. Still, she managed a spot near the front. With some trepidation, she stepped out of the car and crossed the asphalt toward the noisy gates. A class—college, by the looks of it—was lined up along the curb, talking amongst each other as their teacher leafed through a stapled packet and discussed it with another older adult and a zoo employee.

The slightly geometric lion sculpture was past them, in the middle of a wide square. It was golden and posed as if landing from a pounce, but its radiance was dulled by the cloud cover. The gates lay behind it, and a crowd of would-be visitors waited to be let in.

Diana had never seen him before, but she knew him as soon as she saw him. He was the only one so nondescript as to be missed even standing alone. The only one radiating, even at this distance, a warmth that only Diana could feel. He was in a green t-shirt and jeans, unbothered by the light mist in the air. A black baseball cap sat atop his head, pulled low over black sunglasses; the only features that she could identify with certainty were that he was white and of average height and build.

She walked casually to him, brushing red hair out of her eyes—it was frizzing in the dawn humidity—and putting her hands into the pockets of her long coat the same gray as her eyes and the cloudy morning sky. She felt more than heard the click of the tape recorder there as she turned it on. She had no fear, only a rational awareness of the danger he posed.

“You must be Diana,” he said, and the intangible heat vanished. His voice was on the border of smooth and gravelly, not what she expected by looking at him. He lifted his hat a bit to look at her, but his eyes remained concealed behind mirrored lenses.

“You’re the Bystander,” she replied, measuring her voice.

“Aron,” he said.

It was probably fake. “Aron, then.”

“Have you been to the zoo before?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at the gates.

“Is that important?”

Aron shrugged, turning to face her again. “It’s trite to call this a game we’re playing, but we are playing a game, aren’t we? Hide and seek.”

“Why meet now?”

He assessed her. “Because I think you aren’t understanding the significance of the situation.”

“I assure you, I do.”

“And I assure you, you don’t.” He checked his watch. “Not long now. You arrived later than I expected.”

“Traffic was hell.”

Aron got an amused smirk. “Lucky you made it in time, then.”

He started toward the throng, and Diana followed. “Does 9:04 have significance to you?” she asked.

“No,” Aron said. “I’ve found that unusual times lead to punctual guests.”

“I wouldn’t miss this appointment for the world,” Diana said. “Especially when you send the invitation in the way you did.”

Aron bobbed his head and said nothing.

“How did you choose your victims?” Diana asked.

“Down to business, huh?” Aron shook his head. “You should know it was random by now. Leave it to one of us to search for patterns, though; I don’t blame you, but you should know that some patterns can’t be found. Especially when Strangers are involved. And you’ve made it clear your powers of observation exclude the capital-O.”

They stopped at the edge of the crowd of patrons.

“Are we going inside?” Diana asked.

“Yes; don’t worry about the cost. I’ll cover it.”

“I assumed.” She nodded at the booth some distance away, as they waited with all the guests that had already gotten their tickets.

“Astute.” Aron checked his watch.

“Are you waiting for something specific before you do it?” Diana asked. “You won’t contrive it then?”

“It’s been contrived,” Aron said.

Likely before she’d arrived. “Did you bring me here to stop it?”

“No, and I don’t think you could. Don’t worry, no one will get hurt.”

That was some relief; on that, he had proven he wouldn’t lie. “Fine. A simple show of force, to prove what a threat you are.”

“Exactly.”

“I—assure—you, I understand the threat you pose.”

“And I assure you, you don’t.”

Diana looked out across the crowd. She would try to counter him anyway, but he was so frustratingly good at disguising his methods—and then would be the explosive result, too quick to stop. She wished not for the first time that she had that legendary power of Observation after all. Some part of her feared that Aron possessed it. In fact, she was almost certain he did.

A mother and her teenage son were arguing quietly, but it looked like it was lighthearted. They both wore plaid shirts.

A man with a dog was being told by a zoo employee that he couldn’t bring it in. The leash was fraying.

A trio of small children played with plastic dolls. The dolls and children were all blonde.

A number of patrons wore matching family reunion shirts, laughing amongst each other.

A woman riffled through a bag on a man’s back, taking out a bag of chips. She zipped it up and handed them to him.

Two men peered at a large digital camera one of them held.

A child and her teenage sibling fought over a bottle of water.

Aron watched her search the crowd. There were commonalities and differences, as there would be in any group. Any of it could be meaningful. There were things that stood out—and things that could go wrong. The fraying leash could snap, the fight over the bottle could knock into someone else. She could identify any other Stranger’s methods, and quicker than most, but the Bystander’s had always proven elusive, even if she knew where it was going to happen and when. As she had, several times.

“Any luck?” Aron asked.

“No,” Diana replied. There was no need to posture.

He sighed. “A shame.”

The crowd started to move as zoo employees checked tickets and let people in. Diana searched the area quickly, trying to make out anything unlikely, any convergence or divergence. Slow waves of heat began to radiate from Aron.

He led her right through the gate, the ticket handler conveniently turning his back to them as the guests behind them were preoccupied, suddenly or not, with their companions. Aron and Diana had not needed to slow down at all, and Aron made no kind of movement to contrive its happening. She had suspected he was capable of such a feat, but it was another thing for it to be confirmed.

Two peacocks wandered the walkway, but that wasn’t unusual. Aron led her to one table of many near a series of food stands. He sat, and Diana sat across from him, back to the park. The peacocks called. The stands weren’t quite open yet, to the chagrin of a child who had raced past.

“You are the only one following me, right?” Aron asked.

“You know the answer, I’m sure?”

“That is…” Aron sighed. “Annoying. This might change that, though.”

“Do you want to be taken down?”

Aron frowned behind his sunglasses. “That wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

“Some serial killers do.”

Aron scoffed. “Please, I’m not a serial killer.”

“You’ve killed three, and injured a dozen more.”

“And they were all accidents.”

Diana shook her head. “Just because the world of the familiar can’t see what I can doesn’t mean you aren’t culpable.”

Aron leaned forward. “Then why are you the only one following?”

Diana’s hand twitched in the urge to rub her forehead in irritation. A few factors could take some of the blame, but the only real blame belonged with her leaders. In her eyes, it was inexcusable that the Bystander had been all but ignored despite his body count, but she did not have the power to change that. So here she was, face to face with him, alone, and there was no guarantee he wouldn’t kill her right now. She was reasonably certain he wouldn’t, though. That wasn’t his goal. She may not have known his actual goal, but she knew it wasn’t getting rid of her. It probably wasn’t even torturing her. She had gone after…and worked with…worse.

“The fact that you don’t have an answer is a bummer,” he said, sighing. “Maybe we’ll both get what we want after this.”

“What do you want?” Diana asked.

“To be taken seriously,” Aron said simply.

He didn’t seem so insecure. “That’s all?” Diana asked.

“That’s all.” He checked his watch. “Hey,” he said, tapping it. “It’s time.” He nodded to the park behind her.

She turned, and saw it immediately.

There were probably a hundred or more guests around the inside of the gates now, deciding where to go or waiting for friends and family, and every single one of them wore a green shirt. Plain t-shirts, plaid button-downs, family reunion shirts, college shirts, jackets, even a few tank tops despite the morning cold. The peacocks’ green tails were at attention, too. Everyone. Even the trio’s dolls had worn green. Even Aron.

Even Diana.

She jolted to her feet. There was no particular reason she had chosen the green button-down today. It just happened to be the first thing she saw in her closet. She replayed the morning in her head. She never felt anything—no heat of a Stranger’s manipulations. The more remote from its source, the weaker the sensation, but…nothing. She’d felt nothing.

The contrivance was over quickly, as other colors came in, greens dispersed throughout the park, and the peacocks lowered their tails. But for a moment…

The scale was unbelievable, the timeline terrifying.

“How,” she said, voice hoarse.

He took his sunglasses off, revealing green eyes. “You understand the significance of the situation now, don’t you?”

She nodded grimly. It was one thing to contrive the familiar. It was another thing entirely to contrive a Stranger. Such a thing had never happened to her before, and she wasn’t exactly…“green.” This shirt had been in the same place in the closet for days. Was it contrived all the way back then? Or was her absent whim to wear the first thing she saw this morning itself contrived?

It was such a uniquely violating feeling. She felt like she couldn’t trust herself, or her own actions, or even her wants. She hadn’t felt a thing.

The Bystander lifted his hat to scratch his scalp—his hair was brown, and buzzed to a quarter inch—before replacing it and standing up. “You’re here for free,” he said. “Take some time, look at the animals. There’re giraffes, elephants. ‘Chubby unicorns.’ Tickets aren’t cheap, you know.”

He started toward the gates, and despite her inward spiraling she automatically stepped forward.

“I can’t let you leave,” she said.

“You can’t,” he said, nodding. He put his sunglasses back on.

She felt a Strange warmth. She took a step backward right before some rough-housing boys would have run into her. She hurried after the Bystander, and contrived an inattentive guest to run into him—but the man turned in time to see him and apologize for the near bump. The family reunion moved between her and the Bystander with a ripple of that false warmth, and Diana knew it was over.

Contriving that a hundred or more people wore the same color was powerful. That was a hundred people’s desires to choose the right color, a hundred people’s circumstances to get them here on time. At the most extreme, it was a hundred people to even decide to come to the zoo today. Contriving that a Stranger did all that too was even more powerful, almost unheard of—and to do both together was mind-numbing. That power turned toward violent ends could…ruin. If the timeline was long enough, he could cause a shooting, or even a bombing, or worse.

She had one solace, though. She had noticed the ultimate result in the turbulence at the entrance, she just didn’t make the connection. Somehow. It had been so obvious in hindsight—so obvious that she should have seen it, and that wasn’t regret talking. Something prevented her from seeing the whole. But she had managed to see its parts; whatever effect the Bystander had cast over her search wasn’t perfect. With enough time, she probably would have caught it, even if she couldn’t stop it, and that meant she could get better at it. He had given her his whole appearance, too, and that was quite the jump up from nothing.

Diana clicked the tape recorder off. She took out her phone and dialed. The line picked up, but no one spoke. She took a breath.

“We need to meet.”