Jacob made his way through the streets of Seattle on one of the summer’s most beautiful days. It had been a mild summer this year with plenty of overcast skies, but anything less wouldn’t be Seattle-like would it? Today, it was a roasting seventy-eight degrees and climbing. All Jacob could think about was the pool at his friend Jayson’s house. If he could get there before lunch, maybe he and Jayson could get a dip in before they were forced out to eat lunch by his overly-protective mother.
As he rounded a corner, just three blocks from Jayson’s, he ran into the last person he ever expected to see this time of year- Fred Malone.
“Where ya goin in such a hurry Jakey!” He and four of his cronies, John, Bud, Clyde and Sebastian, were blocking the whole sidewalk and were closing in ranks at the site of him. Fred and his gang were known in and out of school as some of the meanest kids around, but no one ever told on them because the consequences were dire. The last known kid to do that was Bobby Brown who got his leg broke in a “mysterious accident” a week after Fred got out of Juvenile Hall for stealing Bobby and a few other kids’ bikes. So, any “chance meeting” with Fred and the Gang was one where you just curled up and hoped it got over with quick.
“Well?” John, Fred’s number one crony asked. “Aren’t ya gonna answer the man?” Clyde and Bud had laid their hands on Jacob’s shoulders and Sebastian, Fred’s number two crony, came up to fill in the gap to the other side of their leader. There was nowhere to run and nothing to do but give up or die trying.
Not being the hero-type, Jacob gave in easily. “Here Fred,” He said as he opened his wallet. Pulling out his last ten dollars he held it out expecting it to help calm the situation. “This is all I’ve got man. I was just on my way to a friend’s. What’s ten dollars anyway?” Tactic was something Jacob was never good at.
“Ya know Jakey… You’re right,” he said as he grabbed the money from him. “Those look about like nines to me boys,” he said to Bud and Clyde with a grin on his face that evil only understands. “Get me them shoes too.” Before Jacob could even fight, not that he would, he was on his face. The two boys behind him had grabbed his ankles and flipped him upside-down in order to fulfill their boss’ request. And there went Jacob’s brand new Nikes.
Dizzy, scraped up from his fall, and worried about what he would say to his folks, Jacob scooted up against one of the trees along the sidewalk and held his head. After he figured out a story he could tell Jayson’s mother, should she ask about the scrapes, Jacob got up and stumbled the rest of the way to his friend’s home.
***
“All right man,” Jayson stared him down. “You might be able to fool my mom with that story, but I wanna know the truth. Was this Fred who did this to you?” Jayson was Jacob’s best friend since they lived around the corner from each other when they were four years old. The two had never been good at lying to one another and so the truth came out. As Jacob told his story, Jayson got an “I knew it” look on his face. “Man… That sucks.”
“You’re telling me!”
“Hope your parents buy the whole ‘someone stole my shoes at the beach’ story you cooked up. Man. They’re never gonna buy you new shoes again.”
“Yeah. Looks like it’s Thrift Store Shoes once again.” Jacob grabbed his head. The pulsing from his accident still hurt a little.
“You gonna get that checked out? It looks pretty hashed.”
“I’ll be all right. It’s just a little scratched up,” he said, pulling his hand away. He dunked his whole body underwater and then pushed up off of the bottom of the pool with surprising results. All Jayson could do was stare as his friend shot up into the air above him. Jacob looked down in shock as he hovered in mid air. Both boys looked in wonder until they heard Jayson’s mom call them for lunch. Then, with a thought, Jacob floated back down into the pool.
“What was that?!” Jacob asked as he turned white with fear.
“I… I… wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it myself!” Jayson had a look of glee in his eyes as he grabbed Jacob’s shoulders. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.” Jacob said a little more nervous.
“We gotta figure this out man.”
“Like heck we do! I don’t wanna do that again!” Jacob exclaimed as he pulled away from his friend’s grasp and climbed out of the pool. Jayson hopped out after him and spun him around to face him.
“Whatever ya do, don’t tell my mom!”
“Do you honestly think I would tell anyone about what just happened?! It’d be my luck they’d ask to see it again and I couldn’t do it, or I’d tell them and they’d think I was nuts. OR, worse yet, they’d take me to some hospital and run experiments on me til the day I die!!! Telling your mom about… about that… whatever it was… is the farthest thing from my mind Jayson!!!” Jacob turned in frustration. He grabbed his towel and put on his t-shirt and headed for the gate.
“Hey!” Jayson yelled as Jacob began to run, “Aren’t ya gonna stay for lunch?”
***
To be continued…
PART II
For the rest of the week, Jacob didn’t talk to Jayson and even pretended to be not feeling well when he tried to come over to visit. It wasn’t until his worried mother sent him outside to get some fresh air that Jacob set foot out the door in all of that time. Most of the week he’d spent sitting in his room trying not to think about flying, but would often wake in the middle of the night hovering just over his mattress. And though his nights were some of the most restful he’d ever had, his days were spent worrying about floating off into space or something.
“Now you stay outside for at least an hour before you think of coming back into this house, young man.” Jacob’s mother warned him as she scooted him onto the back porch. He’d overheard her talking with his father the night before. A week of worrying and talking of possible drug use and his father finally gave in to supporting his mother on a “mandatory hour-a-day, spent outside.”
“Whatever” Jacob mumbled as he stepped off of their back porch and headed to what was probably the only tree house in the whole of the Ballard district. His mother had already gone inside and missed his remark entirely, but that’s the way that Jacob had always been. Never one for confrontation and definitely not one to do anything that required him getting into any sort of mix-up, Jacob always made sure that he was never on anyone’s radar when he made his little jabs.
For a July day, it was a bit breezy and, ever since he started this whole flying business, he was uneasy about any wind. The climb to his tree house made him a little nervous. When he got to the top, he closed the hatch below him and went for his “supply box.”
Cupcakes, a brick of medium cheddar cheese, a knife, some bread, and a huge stack of comic books that Jayson had left there to hide from his mother when she decided he was too old for them and needed to grow up. Normally he would have found some great pleasure in losing himself in a few of the well-read pages but the sight of them made him feel nauseous. He grabbed the cupcakes closed the box and pushed it to cover the hatch. Jayson had a habit of popping up whenever he felt like it, and although he didn’t normally care, he didn’t particularly want to face him- especially after what he’d witnessed.
Jacob laid down on his beanbag couch and bit into his snack. He had forgotten that he bought the cream-filled ones and a blob of filling landed on his shirt. Not being a stranger to these kinds of food accidents, Jacob reached for his pile of napkins and began to wipe himself clean. About halfway through, he noticed that there was writing on the napkin. The writing on the napkin was Jayson's.
Jacob,
I tried to come by and tell you in person, but your mom said you weren’t feeling well. So she let me leave a note for you in our fort. I hope you get this in time. My dad got this big promotion and they’re sending him to Washington DC. You know what that means… We’re moving.
Jacob dropped the note in his lap and exclaimed for the world to hear, “NO WAY!!!” A mixture of relief and sadness filled him and he hesitated a little before picking the note up again to read further.
…I’m sorry for making such a big deal the other day… about what happened and all. I promise you that as long as I live, I will not tell a soul about it. I just got excited was all. I mean… you know me and comic books. I just thought “The world finally has a real live superhero!” But I know how much you hate the spotlight. I’m sorry. If you get this before Wednesday, come by and say goodbye. Please.
Your Brother Form Another Mother,
Jayson
Jacob hadn’t really paid attention to the days since he was out of school, and especially since his last meeting with Jayson, so he ran inside and asked his mother what day it was. She told him it was Wednesday and, as he ran out the door, he heard her tell his father, “See! It’s got to be drugs!”
He got to Jayson’s house quicker than he’d ever done before. He wasn’t sure if he ran all of the way or not, because usually he’d be huffing by then, but he felt totally refreshed. Seeing the moving trucks, he said aloud, “Great I’m not too late.” As he rushed up the stairs however, he was stopped from entering the house by a big mountain of a mover.
“Where do ya tink you’re goin?” He asked with his arms crossed.
“This is my friend’s house! He told me to come by and see him before he left.”
With a look of pity in his eyes, he asked, “You Jacob?” Jacob nodded and the man pulled an envelope from his back pocket. “Da boy left dis for you.” He handed him the envelope as Jacob stared down in disbelief. “You jus’ missed ‘em. Da boy tried to get them to stick around a few more minutes, but his fadder said they was in a hurry.”
Jacob took the letter and sulked off to the tree in Jayson’s yard where he sat to read the contents of this letter.
Jacob,
Hope you get this. Keep in touch.
Your Brother From Another Mother,
Jayson
Below that was an address and a reminder that a friendship forged for just over eleven years had finally been split. And Washington DC was about as far away as you could split one.
PART III
School started back up and Jacob became a bit more withdrawn. Some of his other friends, who already thought he was weird, started talking less and less to him until their senior year rolled around- then they felt obligated to talk about “old times.” By then, Jacob had played around with his “powers” enough to keep himself from floating away while in the midst of daydreaming and, though he was not much of a social elite, he still got a few laughs from stories retold.
After graduation, Jacob followed in his father’s footsteps for a little while. That was, until Jacob got the nerve to tell his father that, although he was good at fixing cars, he didn’t want to spend his life playing the grease monkey. His father respected that and told him that there was always a place for him at his shop if he needed a part time job. And so, wanting to make his own way in life, Jacob went on to a slough of part-time jobs as he made his way through college.
Jayson and Jacob wrote each other about once a month or so all through high school, but after that the letters got further and further apart until they ceased all together. So, by the time he graduated from college, it’d been a year since he’d last heard from him.
Unlike Jacob, who got a degree in Electrical Engineering, Jayson had been headed in much the same direction his father had been… straight towards a military career. Last he heard Jayson was on his way to some big job in the Middle East that, if all worked out, could land him a nice job somewhere in intelligence or something. It was all too complicated for Jacob to think about with his own studies going on at the time.
During the summers, Jacob would take off to his uncle’s house a few miles from the Canadian border, right on the Columbia River, and would watch the place while his uncle took off to one of his many gold mines in Alaska. There, Jacob played around with his powers more and more, both to get accustomed to their limitations and to rid him of the unbelievable fear of falling. That’s right. Though he could flip himself in a dozen loops in seconds, he was always afraid that one day, in mid-air, his powers would give out on him.
One of those summer nights, while flying just over the top of the water, he discovered another power that he had not known of. He heard someone yelling to someone else about a “flying man” on the water. Being a good swimmer, Jacob aimed for the water and sunk deep with his speed. To his surprise, he didn’t feel the water. And when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a bubble of air. He sped underwater to where he thought it would be safe and then flew up and out of the water like he did so many years ago when he first came into possession his powers. This time, however, there was an exclamation of excitement fueled by a freedom he could never share with anyone else.
***
Though Jacob’s adventurous summers were his and his alone, the rest of his life was not as exciting and not so alone. Strapped into a job with Philips Medical Systems, his life was a day-to-day demand for his time and energies. With project deadlines and such, there was hardly any time for social interactions. But Jacob didn’t care too much because his lack of social skills and a secret he would take to his grave were always on his mind.
PART IV
Late one evening, after a particularly rough day, Jacob decided to take a small jaunt around town to clear his head. So, he hopped in his VW Minivan and cruised on down to some of his old haunts in Seattle. He stopped at the Ballard Locks and parked his car. Walking with no destination in mind, he somehow found himself on the opposite side of Lake Union, looking up at the I-5 Bridge. Tall and ominous in the evening light, he was suddenly aware of how dangerous this part of town was.
Under the bridge itself, there were several groups of people making their beds for the night, setting up cardboard and laying down newspapers. Others were more equipped with sleeping bags or blankets. The one thing out of place in the midst of it all was him.
A chill ran down his spine as he passed the place where the bus drove off of the bridge just a few years earlier because some desperate man shot the driver. Almost clear of all of the hungry lookers, Jacob gazed skyward to see the patch where the repair crews had fixed the bridge.
As he looked at the spot in the dim light, he thought he saw movement. Then, he was certain of it. Someone was climbing over the rail. “But why?” he asked himself. “Perhaps they’re base-jumping or something.” Just as thought completed, the person jumped. Jacob waited to see what kind of parachute they were using, but suddenly realized he was witnessing a suicide attempt!
For the first time in his life, Jacob went into action without thinking of the consequences. As he shot off of the ground, two bridge-dwellers dropped their whiskey simultaneously and looked at one another as if to ask, “Did you see that?” Jacob had no clue whether or not he could carry another person, nor if he could catch them in time. Only one word repeated over and over in his mind, as he flew through the air at incredible speed, “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”
Jacob caught the person about twenty feet from the ground and flipped as he did so, because he wasn’t used to sudden changes in weight. Righting himself, he heard the person scream, revealing that he had caught a woman. She went limp in his arms as she must have realized she wasn’t anywhere near the ground and was, in fact, over Lake Union, quite a ways from where she had just jumped from.
Jacob flew low over the water and landed in Gasworks Park. He set the woman on a bench near where one of his father's friends, Officer McFahy, would take his midnight break and scribbled a note, describing what had happened. As he looked at the note, Jacob couldn’t help but laugh to himself. “No way he’ll believe it,” he said aloud, “but at least she wreaks of enough alcohol that they’ll put her away for a night.”
“What am I thinking!” He picked up the note and put it back in his pocket, “If they analyze the handwriting on this note, they’ll know it was me!” The repercussions of his actions suddenly flooded his brain and he began to sweat. Fear, anger and frustration filled his mind. Suddenly, off in the distance, he heard the familiar Irish tune, “Kevin Barry,” being whistled… and it was getting closer!
Jacob couldn’t think of anything but up. And up he went! As he rose above the trees, he saw Officer McFahy walking up to the bench where the woman sat unconscious. And, as was his luck, a pebble that was stuck to his shoe fell and landed on the policeman’s head, causing him to look up!
“She just tried to jump off of the I-5 Bridge across the lake.” Jacob called down to a white-faced policeman who couldn’t believe his eyes. “She fainted on the way over here.” Jacob hoped it’d been long enough that Officer McFahy wouldn’t recognize his voice.
“Who are you?” came the distant voice of the policeman as Jacob started to fly away.
A wave of relief hit him and he turned and answered whole-heartedly, “Just a friend.” And with that, he flew back to his VW Minivan and went home.
***
The next day, Jacob turned on the news thinking he would hear some bit on a flying man, but was a bit relieved and upset that there wasn’t. He was relieved because a big part of him was still in shock from the whole event- enough that he called in sick to work- and upset because he had hoped to hear if the woman was all right. “Oh well.” he said as he plopped on his couch and turned the TV to the Cartoon Network.
When his phone rang, about an hour later, Jacob almost didn’t answer, but then gave in. “Hello?”
“Is this Jacob Turner?”
“Yes, but if this is a sales call, a ‘special offer,’ or some other telemarketing scheme, I’m not interested and please remove me from your list.”
“Jacob, it’s me, Jayson. Jayson Childs." Jacob's jaw dropped. "Hey. We need to talk.”
Jacob went silent and dropped the phone on the couch.
“Jacob? Jacob, are you still there?”
PART V
“Jacob? Jacob… I can still hear your TV… Jacob?”
Jacob was stunned to say the least. He slowly picked up the phone and covered the speaker with his hand. Was it just coincidence that the day after his debut flight that an old friend, who may or may not be involved in government intelligence, calls him up and needs to talk? “He-hello? Jayson? Is it really you?” he stammered out, trying not to sound too scared.
“Yeah Jacob,” he sounded rushed. “Hey, I don’t have a lot of time. I’m in Seattle. Can we meet up somewhere and talk?”
***
As Jacob got dressed and shuffled through his pile of dirty clothes for his car keys, he couldn’t help but feel a mixture of excitement and sheer anxiety. On the one hand, here was a friend whom he’d last seen about ten years ago (and last heard from about two years ago) calling him up to talk. On the other hand, here was a friend who just happens to call him the day after he’s first been witnessed flying in public- a thing he never hopes to do again. Yet, Jayson sounded as if he was in need of help than anything else. In the end, a plea from a friend beat out his common sense, and he pulled his keys from the khaki slacks he’d wore the night before and rushed to his VW Minivan. Jacob climbed in and hit the garage door opener.
As the garage door opened, it revealed a typical misty day. Fall was always Jacob’s favorite time of year in the greater Seattle area. It would rain a lot, forcing one into a cozy couch with a book or to find some indoor activity to pass the time, and Jacob didn’t mind doing either. On the days that it didn’t rain, it was real misty out, kind of like a London fog but sweeter smelling, as the flowers and trees that grew plentifully abounded and filled the air with the smell of things that once were making way for things to come.
His Minivan, a custom job that he put together himself in his father’s shop, cut through the wet streets towards his destination, the original Red Robin restaurant, just across the University Bridge. It was the place where he and Jayson first met. Jacob was new in town and his mother invited kids from around the neighborhood who were about Jacob’s age to a small party. The two boys seemed to be like two peas in a pod and they were instant friends. These and other rushes of memories filled his head as he tried to push out of his mind the possible reasons why he sounded so urgent. It seemed only fitting that the place where they first met would be the place where they meet up again.
As he was getting ready to cross the bridge, the lights started flashing and the arm closed two cars ahead of him signaling the coming of some ship that needed the bridge drawn for passage. The boats that would pass through the drawbridge usually ticked off Jacob, but today it gave him more time to think about what he would say to Jayson when they met. As the bridge lowered and the cars ahead of him started moving, Jacob realized that he had no idea what his friend might look like after all of these years.
As he pulled into the tiny, overcrowded parking lot, the mist turned into rain. Jacob, having grown up in this area had no umbrella because, as was the case with most Seattleites, he had accepted the rain as a part of life. So, when he saw a man about his age holding an umbrella, standing just outside the door to Red Robin, he guessed that it was his friend.
“Jayson, is that you?” he called out. The man turned, but it wasn’t his friend. And though he was not the person he was there to see, the man surprisingly responded.
“Jacob? Jacob Turner?” he asked. Jacob noticed that the man had a photograph in his hand. When he nodded, the man handed him the photo. It only took a moment to realize that it was an old picture that he had given his friend of his fourteenth birthday at that very same location. Jacob looked up in wonder as the man continued, “I’m John, one of Jayson’s friends. He asked if I’d meet you here. He wanted me to bring you somewhere safer to talk.”
“Safer?” Jacob was getting worried. “Is Jayson in some kind of trouble?” Jacob asked as he followed the man around the corner of the building, just out of public eye. Then the man turned around abruptly.
“No, but you are.” Something hit him from behind that felt like an electric shock, and Jacob lost consciousness.
***
“Mr. Turner… Mr. Turner?” Jacob heard a voice calling to him from what seemed like miles away. Though he could hear, he was not able to see who was calling him or where he was.
“I can’t see…” he managed to mumble.
“Of course you can’t, you’re in the dark.” A blaring light came on, causing him to wince back and close his eyes. “Is that better?”
“Actually, now I can’t see anything but a big white spot. Does that thing have to be in my eyes?” Jacob realized then that he was tied to a chair and sitting at a table.
“It’s an unfortunate accommodation that we must make for the time being.” A second voice responded from the darkness.
PART VI
Jacob tried to turn his head to see past the light a little, but he was wearing dark clothes and little light reflected off of him, making it only possible to see the vague outlines of two or three people standing on the other side of the light. “What’s going on?” Jacob asked, hoping for this to be some big practical joke from his friend. “Where’s Jayson? Tell him he can come out from hiding now! Ha ha. Big laugh. You got me.”
The first voice spoke from further away now. “We were hoping you could tell us the same thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Where is Jayson?!” the second voice came quickly and sounded very agitated.
“I was supposed to meet him at the Red Robin…”
“We know that.” the first voice broke in, “What we really want to know is where he might be now.” He heard the man get out of a chair and move closer. He stood near enough to the light that he could see that he had white hair. “You see, Jacob… Jayson has something of ours and we were wondering why he would contact you after taking it.”
“What? What did he take? Jayson is not a thief…” Jacob stopped. The sudden realization of the seriousness of what was going on finally sunk into him. “Is this about some sort of intelligence stuff?”
“You see,” the second voice boomed. “I told you we should have waited to move in on him after they met up!! Now all we have here is freakin nerd boy and a lot of unanswered questions!”
“Will you shut up!”
“The dude’s walkin’ around somewhere with our machine and you tell me to shut up?” Jacob heard the rustling of material, like a backpack being dug around in. “Let’s just drug the dork and get what we want!”
“HEY! HEY, there!!!” Jacob called out, really nervous now. “I… I don’t know what Jayson did or where he could have gone! I’m really the last guy you should be asking about this. Really, I haven’t talked to the guy in two years, and that was in a letter!” Jacob started straining at the ropes. Flying might get him free, but it wouldn’t get him out of the room, so he decided not to even attempt it, as they obviously, to a little relief on his part, didn’t know anything about that part of his life.
The white-haired gentleman began to speak to Jacob again, “I’m sorry for the roughness of my companion, but it is of the utmost importance that we retrieve our item from your friend.” A hand unexpectedly came from behind him and rested on his shoulder. Too afraid to look, Jacob only trembled. “If you would be so kind as to tell us some place we might be able to find your friend, we will be on our way and you can go back to life as you know it.”
Jacob thought quickly. He wanted out of this horrific place, but he didn’t want to give his friend up too quickly, so he made up something quickly. “Whe- When we were kids…”
“Yeah?” The second voice sounded interested now instead of intimidating.
“When we were kids, we used to hang at the Ballard Locks.”
“Ballard Locks you say?” The white-haired man asked.
“Yeah. There- there was a place there, near the Puget Sound side… where we would hide under the trees and fish. No- no one ever caught us there.” It was the truth, but not a likely place for someone on the run to go to.
“Thank you very much Mr. Turner.” The white-haired man stood and turned away. “Now you may drug him.” he said to the second man. As the second man came forward, he recognized him as the “John” from in front of Red Robin. There was a poke in his arm and then a blurry swirl of consciousness.
***
“Excuse me sir.” *Tap*Tap*Tap* “Sir, would ya please be rollin down your window?” Jacob had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. Vague bits of memory came to the surface, but all he could recall was a man in front of Red Robin and a really bad feeling. “Sir. I’ll ask ya one last time ta roll down your window and then I’m going to have to break it!” The voice sounded serious. Jacob reached for the knob and, as he began to roll down the window, realized he was in Gasworks Park at night. “Saints be praised!” came a familiar voice from outside his window as he finished rolling it down. “Jacob! Is that you?”
Jacob looked into the flashlight the officer was holding and had a strange memory of a white-haired man who was fairly polite. “Officer? Am I in trouble?”
“Heavens no, Jacob!” Came the familiar voice again. Suddenly he realized he was talking to Officer McFahy. “Yer Father’s been worried sick about ya Jacob! Where ya been the last few days?”
Jacob tried to think, but again all he could recall were vague images and a white-haired man. “I… I don’t know.”
“Well, ya look like somethin the cat dragged in.” Officer McFahy shined his flashlight around Jacob’s minivan. “Are ya feelin all right enough ta drive then?”
“Actually, no.” Jacob said, and then he collapsed on his steering wheel.
PART VII
When Jacob came to, he was in a hospital bed and it was late at night. He sat up, trying to make heads or tails of where he was and what was happening. Vague flashes of people and instances were all that he could manage as he tried to recall how he got to where he was. Two things stood out in his mind as he tried to sort through his thoughts: Jayson was in some sort of trouble and a vague impression of a light bulb with white hair.
A snore from the next bed over brought him back to his current situation. “How the heck did I get here?” he asked himself aloud.
“Officer McFahy found you and brought you straight here,” a voice from the darkness responded, causing Jacob to jump a little, “and it’s a good thing too.” From the shadows of his room, a darkened figure stepped forward. Suddenly, Jacob realized who it was.
“Jayson?”
“Officer McFahy was always getting you out of trouble, if I remember right.” he openly joked, to ease the tension.
“As I recall,” Jacob said, leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees, “it was you who got me into that trouble in the first place. You and your ‘let’s be superheroes’ plans.” Jacob shot back, and then hoped Jayson would have forgotten about his ability to fly all of a sudden.
“Look who’s talkin’ superheroes Mr. Flight.”
“So you do remember…” Jacob trailed off into a ‘could we drop it’ tone.
“Remember?” Jayson came up and sat in a chair next to the bed. “Dude, you’re the reason I’m here…” He looked down in a shameful sort of way and continued, “I guess it is like the old days… I’m the reason why you’re here too.”
“What do you mean? Did you do this to me?”
Jayson looked up, “Man, they musta given you something hard.” Jayson got up and checked the other patient to see if he was really asleep then came back, speaking in hushed tones. “I caught a flight into Seattle the other night and took a stroll through Gasworks. I ran across Officer McFahy and he was babbling about some flying man who had saved this girl who was sitting on the bench in front of him. I had smelling salts on me and brought the girl around. When she told the same story of a flying man, I had to use every bit of my ‘influence’ to convince them that it was a top secret government project and if they told anyone, they could be imprisoned for life for giving out intelligence.”
“Was the girl all right then?” Jacob asked, dismissing for the moment the rest of Jayson’s story.
“Yeah. I think she’ll be all right.”
“She say why she jumped?”
“As a matter of fact, her boyfriend died on that bus accident and she wanted to die where he did.” Jayson smiled at him and suppressed a laugh. “She called you her Angel, but don’t get any ideas about using that name or Marvel may sue.” Now he couldn’t hold it back, and he let out a light laugh under his breath.
“Funny!” Jacob hit him with a pillow. “I don’t plan on doing that again.”
“Bro, if there’s one thing I’ve come to learn in all that I’ve done, you never plan to do anything. Sometimes you just do what you’ve got to do because you know that no one else can.” Jayson was serious and Jacob could tell.
Trying to break away from the flying topic Jacob picked up an earlier part of their conversation. “What do you mean by ‘They,’ Jayson? Who are they and how did I get here?”
“I wish I could Bro, but there’s little I know for myself.” Jacob could tell that he was hiding something from him. Jayson sat back down in the chair and looked him straight in the eye. “What I can tell you is that there are traitors in our midst. By that, I mean in our own government.” He leaned forward and began to whisper, “I know this may sound like something out of some movie, but it’s for real Bro. Remember my last letter? The one about a mission?” He waited for Jacob to nod. “Well, it went through without a flaw and that landed me a job in… Well, let’s just say in government Intelligence. What I found there was a whole other game. I was going to write you, but with things going as they were, it’s best not to let your enemies know you’ve got friends.”
Jacob wasn’t having a hard time believing all of it. Jayson grew up idolizing heroes from his comics and always said one day he’d be a real live GI Joe. But the fact that Jayson wasn’t telling him something made him nervous. He decided to call him on it. “You never could lie to me Jayson.” Jayson made no change in expression at his friend’s accusation. His training had prepared him for these kinds of attacks. “How’d I get involved in all of this? You said that you were responsible for why I was here.”
“I never could lie very well to you.” Jacob looked down and then back up again, “Traitors in our midst Bro… I don’t know why, but I kept that stupid picture you gave me at your fourteenth birthday, sort of a ‘don’t forget where you came from’ token. Anyway, I had it in one of my bags. I was working a job in… well, a ways from here, with a partner. We were supposed to do this job, but he turned out to be a double agent. I had ta bail with what I had and my bags weren’t with me. They must have taken the address from the other side and done taps on your phones and junk…”
Suddenly Jacob remembered the call to meet up at Red Robin. “They knew where we were gonna meet.”
“I was there, but they got sloppy and I recognized one of em and slid out to the parking lot before I was noticed. Just as I was leaving, I saw them jump you.”
“And you didn’t do anything?!” Jacob shot at him angrily.
“There was nothin I could do Bro. Four of them, one of me; do the math.”
“At least you could have…” the lights came on suddenly and the night shift nurse was there.
“Are you family?” she asked very haughtily. “Because if you aren’t, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Jacob turned to her and smiled innocently, “Didn’t you hear him call me ‘Bro?’” She looked at the two of them, sizing up how different they looked and then pointed to the door. “Will I see you later?” He asked as Jayson got up and walked towards the door.
“If things don’t change… very likely.” Jayson said over his shoulder, as he walked out of the door and out of sight. Something in Jacob wasn’t quite excited about either his parting words or the story he’d just been told.
“Right or left?” the nurse asked, holding up a syringe.
“What is that stuff?”
“A detox agent; looks like you were drugged pretty good.”
PART VIII
Jacob got home at about two thirty and plopped down on his sofa wanting the memories of the past week to just disappear, but something Jayson said at their last parting wasn’t settling too well on his mind. The whole idea that his relatively unnoticed life was making a spotlight in Government Intelligence circles didn’t give him much comfort, especially because of his special abilities. Sooner or later, someone other than Jayson would find out, if they hadn’t already, and that didn’t help Jacob get much sleep the last few days of his stay in the hospital. Jacob pushed the thoughts aside for a moment and turned on the Cartoon channel to help numb his brain.
* * *
*Three Days Earlier in and abandoned bunker on a naval base in the Puget Sound.*
“Soldier, we’ve got some bad news for you.” The general in front of him was nameless, as were most of the people that Jayson was used to working with the last few years. If it weren’t for the uniform and the fact that he had a photo from Intel identifying him as a high-ranking superior that he was to report to, Jayson would have treated him like an inferior and tried to get information out of him. This was an important meeting and, at the moment, Jayson didn’t like where this conversation was headed. “The package that you delivered showed no metaphysical irregularities.”
“You’re saying that there’s no genetic reasoning behind it?”
“Sorry, soldier. I know you had your hopes set on an answer, but our top scientists have found nothing in the sample you provided.”
“Damn!” Jayson hit the table with his fist. He ran his other hand through his hair and thought quickly. “What about the MRI? Did it detect anything that we might be able to recreate?”
“Again, I’m sorry soldier.” the general moved around the table. “You remind me of your father, full of ambition and ties in high places.” Jayson looked up, still taking everything in. It wasn’t surprising that this man knew his father. Not many high-ranking officials in Washington didn’t know who his father was, or about his reputation. It was a reputation that Jayson carried on in pride. The general looked him square in the eye, “But the only way we’re going to get what you want, is through convincing your friend to come in and join our cause.”
Jayson had thought of this too, but Jacob would never be convinced of something as crazy as joining the elite in Intel. Nor did Jacob have the backbone to do anything the government asked of him. “It won’t work. He’s too weak.”
“Son, if this man can really fly like you say he can…”
“What do you take me for?” Jayson yelled as he stood out of his chair. “I’m not some school brained kid who imagines flying men, I’ve passed every mental evaluation since joining the force, and there is no history of mental illness in my family or I wouldn’t have the job I have!” Jayson was fuming. “Don’t patronize me! I know what I saw…” Then he remembered who he was talking to and straightened up a bit. “…Sir.”
“I’m not denying you, only cross-examining you,” the general said with a look of satisfaction. Jayson suddenly felt unsure of what was going on. “You see, son, what we have here is the ultimate secret weapon- if we can get him to work for the government.” Jayson stopped fuming and began assessing what was being said, just as he had been trained to do, to make the best prediction from what evidence he was able to gather. “But, as your friend won’t likely come in on his own…”
“Are you proposing that we persuade him to come into the organization and then glean from him what we can about his ability to fly through other necessary means?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying son.” The general picked up his coat off of a rack near the door. “And there’s only one person I know who can do that, and I’m talking to him.”
“But how am I supposed to…”
“Forget your training already soldier?” the general looked at him with a grin and turned to walk out the door. Before he closed it, he looked over his shoulder and said with a grin, “Gain his trust…”
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