Class Fives: Origins (31 page)

The three men sat at the table in the far corner of the small café just a block away from the massive medical facility, each consumed with his own thoughts.

Dan absently swirled the spoon in his coffee cup, his attention fixed on the table before him. John and Roger sat on the other side of the booth, trying to digest what they’d been told.

At last John shook his head and released a weary sigh.

“I still can’t…” he began, then fell silent, raising his eyes and glancing around before turning to focus on Dan.

“So we really are freaks,” he finally added. “Somebody’s science project.”

His tone turned sour as he mimicked a different voice.

“Hey, let’s monkey around with this science thing. Oops, it’s gone wrong. Oh well, at least we didn’t hurt anybody.”

He dropped the mocking voice.

“Assholes,” he muttered.

Dan smiled and glanced up at him.

“At least you didn’t wind up with two heads or something,” he said quietly.

John’s face twisted sourly.

“Yeah. That’s a blessing. I’m just a frickin’ Frankenstein. That’s not bad, is it?”

Dan shrugged weakly.

“You’re not a monster,” he said gently. “You just have this… extra thing you can do. Some people would consider it a blessing.”

“A blessing?” John shot back. “You know what it feels like when I use it? What it does to my gut? It’s like somebody’s hit me with a two-by-four. It’s not pleasant.”

Dan fixed on him sharply.

“So why do you do it? If it sucks so badly, why do you keep doing it?”

John seemed about to spit back an angry response, but caught himself and leaned back in the booth.

“This thing has fucked up my whole life,” he muttered. “I could have just been… normal. And why me? Out of everybody on the planet, why me?”

“You heard what he said,” Dan responded, “it was an accident. Just bad timing.”

John smirked.

“Yeah. Thanks a lot, God. Nice going.”

Dan glanced at Roger who seemed deeply lost in his own thoughts, then back at John.

“Well, there isn’t much you can do about it, is there? It’s what it is. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

“Do about it?” John replied. “What do you mean, do about it? What am I supposed to do?”

Dan hesitated, then had to look away as he responded quietly.

“You could do some good with it,” he said.

John stared at him, startled.

“Some good? You mean like stopping a guy from shooting another guy during a robbery? Or how about preventing an explosion that would have killed a couple of hundred people? That kind of good?”

Dan’s expression turned to one of defeated exasperation. John gave a tight, sour smile.

“Yeah, that worked out real well, didn’t it?”

“Okay,” Dan said, “Point taken.”

“I’m not a hero,” Roger said softly, causing the other two men to turn to him.

“What?” John said.

Roger paused before responding.

“I’m not the ‘good guy’. I don’t want to save people. If I’d wanted to do that, I’d have been a cop, or a fireman. I’m a computer programmer. I like doing that. It’s private. I don’t have to deal with other people.”

“Right," John added. “Besides, we’d look stupid in stretchy costumes. I had to wear some tights in a high school play once, and that felt really creepy. You get wedgies like you wouldn’t believe.”

For the first time Roger turned to him, his expression puzzled.

“Wedgies?”

John nodded.

“Yeah. Where they ride up your ass crack? Not fun.”

Roger’s face opened in surprise and he turned to stare at Dan, who locked eyes with him.

Then a smile began to tug at Roger’s lips, which Dan’s eyes picked up, and despite themselves, their smiles bloomed and bubbled into laughter.

John frowned, shooting a look between the two men.

“What?” he said, suspiciously.

That seemed to release the restrained amusement, and the other men boiled into full laughter.

“What’s with you guys?” John snapped, annoyed. “What did I say?”

Dan let his laughter boil away and turned to him.

“Super skidmarks,” he managed to say, then erupted into laughter once more.

Roger merely shook, his body smothering and absorbing each jolt of amusement.

John shook his head, rolling his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, “I get it. But you know what I mean. That’s comic book stuff.  It’s not real.”

There was a moment's pause as the laughter finally wound down.

“We’re real,” Roger said quietly.

John gave a sharp, dismissive nod.

“Yeah, we’re real. But
that
isn’t. I mean, what, you want to spend your life running around saving people? How you going to do that? You going to sit around with a police scanner waiting for reports about… I don’t know… shoot-outs or fires and stuff, then rush over and save everybody? How’s that gonna work?”

Roger fixed on him seriously.

“It felt good, didn’t it?” he said, simply.

“What did?” John responded.

Roger examined him thoughtfully.

“Stopping that explosion,” he replied. “Didn’t that feel like you’d accomplished something? Done some good?”

John gaped at him.

“I got arrested,” he shot back, his voice rising. “They thought I was a terrorist.”

“They didn’t understand,” Dan added gently.

John’s attention snapped to him.

“That’s right,” he spit, “They didn’t understand. Nobody would understand. Hell,
I
don’t understand. What I am. What I can do. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“According to what that Henry guy said – “ Dan began, but John shot up an arm to cut him off.

“I know what he said. I get it. He’s got an idea to explain it. And maybe he’s right, who knows? But it’s so frickin’ out there, that as far as regular people are concerned, I’m just this weirdo freak. I’m like some high school nerd, only times a hundred. A thousand. I’m like the ultimate creepy outsider. We both are. And every time I use it to help other people, I wind up getting fucked over. Well, no thank you. I’m doing the tests, I did what they wanted, and as soon as they’re all finished I’m done. I’m just going to go home and start packing. The trotter races start in Jersey next month and I’ve got to make a living. So that’s it. I’m done.”

Dan gave him a crooked smile.

“You’re done when White and Jones tell you you’re done. Remember, you’re a terrorist.”

“Christ,” John spit. “I’m never gonna get out of this, am I?”

Dan stared at him a moment, then turned to Roger.

“What about you? What are you going to do?”

Roger drew in a thoughtful breath and slowly released it.

“I don’t know,” he replied distractedly. “I’m not like him,” he inclined his head toward John. “I can’t just go back to normal. I don’t have a normal. Normal for me is trying not to break everything I touch. That’s never going to change. Not for me. I’m stuck with this.”

He fell silent, his expression indicating his thoughts were dancing far away, groping toward something just out of reach.

“At least, if I could do something with it. Use it in some way…”

He paused a moment.

“Then maybe I’d feel like it had some kind of purpose to it. Like there was some kind of point.”

“So, what?” John said, “You want to go around fixing things? Saving people? Being the big hero?”

Roger turned to him.

“You got a better idea?”

“Yeah, I got a better idea,” John shot back, “Tell those suits, those White and Jones guys to just leave you alone. You did what they wanted. You took their tests. So that’s it. Game over.”

Roger seemed to slump slightly in his seat.

“Besides,” John went on, “What could they do about it? If you told them to just leave you alone, what the Hell could they do to you?”

Roger shook his head.

“Who knows?” he responded quietly.

“I’ll tell you,” John snapped back. “Not a goddamn thing. They couldn’t lock you up.  Even if they tried, you could just punch a hole in the wall and walk right out. They can’t shoot you. So what could they do?”

It was Dan who responded.

“They could take away whatever he’s already got,” he said grimly.

Roger’s eyes flicked up to fix on him, suddenly wary.

“They could,” Dan continued, “Harass him. Audit his taxes, go after his property, whatever money he’s got. They could follow him around, put a twenty-four hour a day stake out on him. They could harass the shit out of him.”

“They wouldn’t do that,” Roger said firmly. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“Probably not,” Dan replied. “They’re not stupid. And they sure wouldn’t want to piss you off. My God, if that happened, you could be their worst nightmare. Somebody they literally couldn’t stop, couldn’t even slow down.”

Roger considered this, his expression slowly darkening. Dan fixed on him intently.

“You’d scare the living shit out of them,” he said. “You probably already do. If you ever decided to go after them….”

This drew another blanket of silence over the table, as all three men contemplated the thought.

“They’re not going to leave me alone, are they?” Roger said finally.

“Probably not,” Dan replied. “You’re like a nuclear bomb. Even if you never plan to use it, you still keep an eye on it, just in case.”

“Hey,” John shot, “What am I, chopped liver?”

Dan allowed himself a wry grin.

“No, not at all. But your… talent is different. It’s manageable, at least by them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” John snapped back.

“It means that if they want to control you, all they have to do is get you locked up somewhere and keep you there for longer than ten minutes. Then you’d be stuck. You could jump, but you’d just wind up in the same place.”

“Oh,” John muttered, “So I’m no problem, is that what you’re saying? They don’t have to worry about me. I’m no big deal, then. Well, that’s nice to know.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Dan cut in. “You’re different. Your ability is different. It’s more specialized. Hell, it’s the kind of thing that would make you some kind of super spy or something. But it wouldn’t make them feel like you could turn it against them. You wouldn’t scare them all that much.”

John seemed to consider this a long moment, then nodded.

“Okay, I get that.”

Dan regarded the two men and leaned back in the booth.

“You know, when I was a kid I was so into superhero comics. And you just dream about, some day, maybe you’ll bump into one. And they’d be right there, in front of you. And maybe you'd get to talk to them. How incredible that is.”

He looked from John to Roger and back.

“It’s different. When it really happens.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Roger said quietly.

“Oh no,” Dan said quickly. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disappointed. Not in the least. It’s just… more than I ever thought it could be, that’s all.”

They sat quietly for a moment, before Dan added, “And besides, you aren’t wearing any tights.”

The laughter of the trio floated through the quiet café.

11

Acceleration

The instant he had heard the name, Crawford’s inner sense of alarm started screaming. He’d made the analyst repeat everything, jotting notes furiously, and by the time he hung up he was already examining the pieces of information and searching for the framework on which to hang an operational plan.

The Karillan Foundation. Of course. He’d overlooked that reference, buried and disregarded it because Alexander Karillan was dead. He’d forgotten about the man’s memory. He’d instructed the analyst to find out whatever information existed about the organization, then turned his attention to the immediately actionable parts.

Joseph Franklin had done a job for the Karillan Foundation. Joseph Franklin had shipped something to Eastern Europe and then gotten gunned down as he was leaving the airport.

Crawford reset his phone, and dialed the unlisted number, which was answered on the first hint of a ring.

“Operations,” the clipped voice responded.

“Crawford,” he said back, “I need eyes on the ground in Arizona, Tucson. I want a full forensic team on the address I have. And I need it right now. We’ll be very late in getting to the scene so they have to look carefully. I’ll be there do give a video briefing
in about twenty minutes. Set up a video briefing with New Mexico. I’ll give them the details then.”

“Copy,” the voice on the other end responded and the line went dead.

At last, he told himself, a lead. Maybe a slim one, but something.

He now had another stepping stone toward Dr. Walter Montgomery. Whether it would bear the weight of his examination or just sink uselessly, he couldn’t know yet. But it was something.

He stopped at the corner of the wide, busy thoroughfare and waited for the light to change. Glancing over, he could see the Washington Memorial jutting into the sky.

He still couldn’t believe what resources the government that rested behind that granite pillar had at its disposal. The systems and secret networks that watched and listened to absolutely everything. That read every email, that recorded every video image, that listened like a nosy neighbor to every phone call. And still it might not be enough to save the world.

The light changed and he stepped across Pennsylvania Avenue toward the garage where his car was parked. In twenty minutes, he would have to begin briefing a strike team out of the secret base in New Mexico that was one of his current resources. They would have to get to Franklin’s business as quickly as they could. Presumably, if he was assassinated at the airport, then perhaps the local authorities would have little reason to do an extensive search of his offices. That would be good. His forensic team was the best. They not only were trained to sniff out normal crime scene evidence, down to the smallest hair or droplet of blood, they were also trained to see things that were out of place, that didn’t belong. If Franklin had retained a single scrap of paper regarding whatever it was he had built for the Karillan Foundation, his team would find it. With luck there might be a phone number, or something else Crawford could use to extend the chain he was clawing his way up toward Montgomery.