Of Images and Angels 8

They did an awful lot of experimental shooting around the place.
To Angie, the camera looked like a fat smart phone. The lens was better than what one found on cellphones, and would telescope outward for most shooting. “It shares much of the same technology with cellphones,” Preston assured her. He pointed out that the only two external controls were a pair of buttons near opposing corners along one side. “Both are double deep. This one, the first click turns it on or wakes it up from sleep mode. Once the camera is activated, it does nothing. Press farther to the second click and it takes a still shot. The other button allows you to view through the lens on the first click to compose your shots, or records the view as video on the second click. Everything else, including power-down, is on the touch screen controls.” The entire back panel was a view screen.
The old man was a little nervous about them poking around the apple cider presses, but when Preston began discussing the various pieces of equipment and maintenance, he relaxed visibly. It was painfully obvious English was not all that easy for him, and he sometimes paused to think of the word for this or that piece of equipment. So while Angie practiced framing shots with high contrast and visually appealing angles, Preston learned about pressing and juicing apples, separating the solids and the fermentation process.
The man stepped away to do something or other while Preston discussed with Angie the results of her efforts. Suddenly, he stopped. One image indicated an anomaly his eyes had missed earlier. Among an array of pipes, one was not quite parallel with the others. He stepped around and took a look. His eyes chased the pipe back to see if this misalignment had any significance. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like a joint was bent back behind one of the vats.
The old man seemed only mildly irritated when Preston interrupted his work to ask about it. Preston showed him the image on the camera viewer, then pointed out what he saw. The old man looked back and forth between the two, then became absorbed in walking around the vat in question, back and forth. He went and got a folding ladder from the corner of the building and came back, opening it out near the corner of the pipes. After a bit of shifting it around, he climbed slowly, carefully turning himself for the best view. A bit more shifting and then he froze, starring at the backside of the joint. He touched it with his fingers, rubbing back and forth gently.
“Cracked,” he announced.
Preston had not forgotten any of his mechanical knowledge, and the old man seemed genuinely grateful for Preston’s help in replacing the joint. When they were through, the old man insisted on a careful inspection of all the rest, even asking Preston to take more pictures. Preston coached Angie through more shooting for the particular purpose of engineering analysis. They found nothing wrong, but a repeat of the earlier shot confirmed things were now neatly lined up.
From then on, the old man seemed to take a good deal more interest in their camera work around his property.
As they sat down to dinner that evening in their apartment, Preston said to Angie, “Tell me about camping in the dunes.”
She grinned and blushed just a bit. “At the orphanage, our presiding priest was old and pretty tame. We loved him. Unfortunately, his bishop was younger and not a nice man at all. Whenever he came to visit, at least one or two students always got raped. The nuns were powerless and didn’t seem to believe us, anyway. Three of us girls didn’t like the risks, so we would hide. There were all kinds of places around the school seldom used. When we got old enough to have our own student rail passes, we would find some excuse, like going to one of the museums or a music recital somewhere, coming back as late as we dared. As we got older, we took greater risks. Once or twice we simply stayed out overnight, coming back and taking our punishment after the bishop left. In our wandering, we discovered that spot. We pooled our money for a tarp and camped out there because no one ever bothered us. Over the years, I replaced the tarp once or twice and used the place just to get away.”
Preston thought for a moment. “Can you picture this? While you were going through that, I was here with the US Army running all over the countryside, completely oblivious to such things.”
The next day began the lessons on photo editing software.
They were interrupted when their hostess came by about mid-morning. She began by expressing gratitude for their help with the equipment. Regardless whatever else she and her husband were were doing, they still had to make a living and fixing the cracked joint before the system pressured up and blew apple juice all over the building saved them all kinds of money. Apple season was not that far away.
“It becomes necessary to explain a bit about your staying here and who we are. Naturally, you would expect me to avoid saying more than you really need to hear,” she said.
Preston knew all too well from his days in the service. “I learned to bridle my curiosity a long time ago. It’s harnessed to much more important things.”
She smiled. “Yes, I see that. You’ve been no problem at all for us. We simply told you not to leave because we can’t help you much otherwise, but no one here will physically restrain you. Your measured curiosity has served us quite well up to now and we want to encourage your apparently wise choices.”
Preston turned his head to one side as he looked at the older woman. “How much would you be able to explain about this ‘we’ that Angie and I have stumbled upon?”
Her smile faded somewhat. “That’s what I came to talk about this morning. Hendrik gave you a hint of the complexities and you appeared to accept, even if you didn’t exactly understand. We are nothing like your military, nor anything you might have read about regarding the various clandestine services. We don’t actually serve any particular government or the global banking system. Much more than that I shouldn’t say. Perhaps I could characterize us as people involved in a lot of other things who have agreed together that, once in awhile, someone should do something sane and actually help common people who may never know. We don’t pretend our goals are all that lofty because our decisions and our operations are more instinctive and philosophical than activist and political.”
She waved her hand as if to dismiss a world of things. “It’s almost like a hobby; we all have to pay our own way. We fail more often than we succeed, if you measure things in terms of objectives. Yet, we agree we cannot stop trying to do some things. There is no real structure; we each volunteer for each project. People come and go in our association; it’s been active since World War II. So far, nothing has ever come back to haunt us in ways we find unbearable. It could come apart at any moment and we would all go on with our lives still trying to do what we find we must do.”
Angie spoke up. “It sounds like a homily from my favorite old priest. He said the only worthy goal in this life is peace with God at whatever cost in human terms. Even if you don’t believe in God, it’s the optimal life to seek the place where the soul and conscience agree to rest.”
The hostess smiled. “That’s a more familiar way of saying the same thing. What holds our association together is not what we believe, but what we can agree on today as something we simply have to stop or we’ll never be able to live with ourselves. Instead of activists loudly promoting some popular causes, we happen to have stumbled upon an affinity among certain people who have talents and an acquaintance with greater political power and what goes on behind the scenes. We recruit very carefully. Hendrik is not in a position to become your case officer, as it were, but my husband and I are. We think you two would make a marvelous addition, adding capabilities impossible to duplicate without a far higher cost.”
Then she added, “We can’t hire you ourselves, but it so happens an associate of ours is hiring photographers for a legitimate publishing business.”