A World Without Secrets by Thomas DePrima Read Free Book Online

became really upset. Then I realized that I had originally aligned the sheet vertically like a book, but when I'd placed it against the wall this time, I had aligned it horizontally like a television or computer monitor. When I reached out and touched the top left corner, the device lit up instantly. The image flashed for a fraction of a second as it realigned for horizontal projection, then stabilized. Again, I was seeing the Capitol Building from a great distance. I breathed a great sigh of relief.
    "So removing the paper from the wall doesn't damage it," I said to myself, "it merely deactivates it. And placing it against the wall again doesn't automatically reactivate it." I sat there looking at the device for several minutes before muttering breathlessly, "There has to be more control than just shifting the image right, left, up, or down."
    As I bent closer to examine the device, I noticed a row of tiny light-grey squares that I hadn't noted previously. They were along the bottom border just inside the image area. Touching the leftmost one caused a numeric keypad icon to appear as a superimposed semi-transparent image over the normal image. A flashing row of numbers appeared at the top of the keyboard almost immediately. Before touching the device again, I grabbed a piece of regular scrap paper and recorded the numbers. Then, as I touched a value on the keypad, the first number in the display area changed. More importantly, the background image changed radically. The Capitol Building faded away and was replaced by a pastoral scene with grazing sheep. A farmer on an ancient tractor could be seen plowing a field in the far background. I keyed in the former number and was instantly back to Washington, D.C. When I touched the tiny square again, the superimposed keypad disappeared, giving a clear picture of Washington again, and I knew I had just made considerable progress in understanding how the device was manipulated.
    I considered my next move carefully, then touched each of the tiny squares in succession, writing down the numbers displayed on the screen before touching the next. The three squares on the rightmost side didn't affect the keypad numbers. Touching them simply changed their color. One was either black or red, another was black or green, and the third was black or blue. When I reached the end of the squares, the row of numbers I'd recorded on the scrap paper read, 38-54-366-77-01-418-163-86-03-26-2014-14-26-12.
    Jumping up, I rushed to my living room to retrieve a CD, then returned to the kitchen. As I loaded the disc into my laptop, a World Atlas program opened up. I entered 38° 54' 366" and 77° 01' 418" into the boxes on the opening screen. Instantly, the computer produced a street address in Washington, confirming what I'd suspected. When I entered the address of my apartment in New York City into my laptop, it responded with latitude and longitude coordinates for the house. I held my breath for a few seconds before entering the coordinates into the viewer using the pop-up keypad. As the last digit was entered, the image morphed to show rooftops disappearing off into the haze beneath an overcast sky. I touched the bottom of the image and the view lowered until I was looking at the site of the explosion, from inside the area. Although the result was the one I was hoping for, I couldn't stop my lower jaw from trembling or my breathing from quickening again when I saw it. After a few more seconds, I touched the seventh square and changed the numbers on the keypad from 163 to 343. The view instantly swung around one-hundred-eighty degrees to point directly at my house. The plywood-covered third floor window with the foot-square opening protected by clear plastic could belong to no other.
    I let my arm drop to my side as I stared dumbfounded at the image on the screen. Google offered map images of streets on the internet, but they weren't remotely real time. In fact, they might be a couple of years old before