Togo (Goes) on Assignment (Why?)
Chapter 5:"Why?" is the Essential Question, Scene 15
Togo Goes on Assignment is published weekly as a series. If you came in late, you might want to go back to the beginning. Or, if you’re cut from the same adventuresome cloth as Togo, feel free to read on and figure things out as you go. If you’ve been reading along and just forgot what happened in the last episode, you can click here.
After breakfast, Togo and Nikki made their way to Cutter Aviation at the El Paso International Sunport. Togo’s communication officer, Doug, the Dove, met them there in a secluded conference room.
“I swept the room for bugs,” Doug announced matter-of-factly.
“Wow!” Togo said. “You’re efficient. We just came up with this plan a half hour ago. Do you really think someone would have had time to get here and wire the room?”
Doug cocked his head and looked strangely at Togo. “What do wires have to do with it?”
Togo quickly inserted, “Sorry, just slipped back into some old language. Of course, I know that everything now is wireless.”
Doug took a couple of steps forward. Togo couldn’t suppress a giggle. Watching Doug’s head bob to the front and back while he walked never grew old.
Doug’s head spun around quickly and Togo’s chortle was immediately silenced.
“No wires. No wireless,” Doug stated. “I’m a bird. Okay? I checked the room for bugs because I was hungry.”
“Oh,” was all Togo could think to say. Then, “Well I hope you had a nice snack.”
Dove muttered, “No luck. This is a class operation. Not a bug in sight.”
Noting the awkward silence, Nikki chimed in, “What do you have to share with us, Doug?”
Doug fired up his computer and began projecting pictures from Togo’s recent adventures on the screen.
“Well, you went to Greece with Alison and Dan, two of our top operators, got close, but couldn’t find anyone or anything to explain why ancient ruins were being restored,” Doug noted.
“Then off to London where you viewed another statue and a church building. And no one doing anything suspicious. And then a fly-by of the backside of the Statue of Liberty where there was absolutely nothing going on.”
“What you do make of this, Doug?” Togo queried.
“I have a theory,” Doug said. “But your experiences here in Albuquerque make things pretty convincing — almost embarrassingly so.”
“Oh,” Togo said, looking down at the floor, “if you’re talking about that whole ghost-thing, I don’t think it’s relevant.” He glanced up at Nikki to see her nodding in agreement.
“Ghost-thing?” Doug asked. He started to arch his eyebrows but it’s not a good look in doves.
“Irrelevant!” Togo cried. “Just go on about Albuquerque and your theory.”
Doug cleared his throat. “As I was saying, what you found here — or didn’t find — was the cherry-on-top.”
Togo’s eyes immediately glazed over as he thought about ice cream sundaes. Doug continued explaining his theory to Nikki. About the time he finished, Togo was coming out of his sugar-fueled daydream.
“Did you get all of that, Nikki?” Togo said. “Because we have one more piece of intel to get from Doug before I agree to jump in a plane and go anywhere with you!”
Nikki looked a little startled at first at his aggressive tone, but then shrugged. There was very little that Togo could do at this point to surprise her.
Doug pecked at his keyboard and the entire wall was covered with Nikki and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
“I think you should explain what you were doing with these reptilian rascals of the underground, Nikki,” Togo glared.
Nikki began to giggle which made Togo more flustered. “This isn’t going to be so funny in a minute, Agent Nikki. I had Doug computer-enhance this photo so we could see what is really going on. Go ahead, Doug. Tell her what you found.”
“Certainly,” Doug said. “I used a fourth-generation laser scanner to break down each pixel of the original photo. Then we took the energy bursts produced and had them shot through the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The particles were then reconstructed and used to trigger metabolic process to form a new image, which looked like this.”
Togo squinted at the screen. “That just looks . . . brown,” Togo said.
“Yes, it would to the untrained eye,” Doug stated.
“So, tell me what we’re looking at,” Togo demanded.
“Brown,” Doug asserted. “We’re looking at the color brown.”
“Your trained eye sees the same thing as mine?!” Togo asked.
“Of course. I just did all the laser scan -- particle acceleration razz-a-ma-tazz to help my kid with her science project,” Doug said. “Anyone who looked closely at the original photo could see that Nikki is sitting in front of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie display at a local theater.”
“Yep,” she said. Looking at Togo, she asked, “Satisfied?”
“Just leaving no turtle shell unturned,” he said, then muttered, “It still looks suspicious.”
Within the hour, Nikki was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat while Togo was curled up in the back. Next stop, Washington D.C.
My Alfie the Parrot loves Doug the Dove. Birds of a feather...