“I never watch those shows.”60
“Anyway. Now imagine that Uncle Jed sells the property where he found the oil, buys gold with the proceeds, buries it, then dies before he can tell anyone. Now, nobody will ever know about it.”
“Right,” I said. “Unless he’s a... Stringer.”
“Correct,” Aptat said. “Thirty years after Uncle Jed goes to the big whiskey barrel in the sky, let’s say there’s another Stringer, a small-town banker who needs money after a run on the bank… uh, call him George Bailey.”
“Really? It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“Did you want me to continue explaining?” Aptat waited to see if I was done interrupting. I was. “So, George finally gets tired of the visions he’s been having of a bright red Black Tupelo tree.61 He sees it clearly in his mind. It’s a hundred paces behind an abandoned gas station on the outskirts of Hill Valley, a place he’s never been. He closes the bank and drives down from Bedford Falls, finds the boarded-up filling station, hops out of his car and walks around back. His heart skips a beat when he sees the flaming red leaves and he knows it’s a Black Tupelo because he’s googled it so many times. He burrows into the earth and a few minutes later he’s pulling the dirt-covered lid from a priceless find. Unrelated legally to Uncle Jed, George ends up being the only beneficiary of the dead hillbilly’s estate! Because, in a way, they are related!” Aptat exclaimed. “It means George can save the bank, now, Ben. Merry Christmas.”
I nodded, happy for the overwrought explanation to be done. “I get it.”
“The reality, of course, is that the great majority of Stringers aren’t privy to the location of some hillbilly’s riches – most of the knowledge they have is mundane because most people’s lives are mundane. And more often than not, they die without any understanding of their condition. We stringhunters seek out those few who possess a form of treasure far more valuable than Jed’s gold: secrets. Nobody dies without them and most are worthless, but some... some will fetch a lot of guush, Ben. Scavenging the galaxy for Stringers is how we find information that would otherwise be lost to the eternity of death. Get it?”
“Like stealing someone’s mail,” I mumbled. Mostly it’s cable bills and coupon books and unwanted catalogues, but sometimes it’s a card from granny with a cold hundred dollars folded neatly inside.62 Mostly it’s junk, but sometimes you get Uncle Jed and his gold. I had too many questions. “Does the Fray, like, go into animals?”
“Yes, if their brains are developed enough, it seems to. But by degree,” Aptat continued. “The more advanced the lifeform, the more threads in the cord that reaches out. It is why you would never find yourself occupying the same string as an animal with only rudimentary awareness. Some are so basic that the Fray devotes only a few strands, while those that operate completely by instinct, without any subjective awareness of their perceptions, seem to be ignored by the Fray altogether.”