Spring-Heeled Jack (2 page)

He went about with his typical morning
ritual and started by rolling out of bed. In doing so, he saw Brock
was still sitting at his desk in the corner, passed out from
studying. He wasn’t sure exactly how late Brock stayed up, but
Atticus assumed it wasn’t too late.

Atticus shuffled his way over and
nudged his roommate awake. “Studying a bit too hard, I
see?”

Brock grumbled and sleepily pushed him
aside. Atticus laughed and continued his way to the bathroom. He
started up the latter half of his morning ritual: washing up. He
brushed his hair, his teeth, took a quick shower, and changed into
his Fortuna Prep uniform: A white button shirt, an indigo sweater
with golden trim and the Fortuna Prep logo over the left breast,
and a pair of black slacks.

As he was finishing up his business in
the bathroom, Atticus heard Brock finally wake up in the other
room. In a hectic rush, Brock stubbed his toe on the desk and let
out a high pitched yelp.

“
Why didn’t you wake me
up,”

“
I tried,” Atticus said. He
tried his best to hold back his laughter, but it was no
use.

When he made his way out of the
bathroom, Brock quickly shoved past as he tried to frantically put
on his uniform and brush his hair.

“
How long did you stay up
last night?”

“
Way to late!”

Atticus laughed and picked up a comb
off his desk, slicking back his hair into just the way he liked
it.

“
How can you be so calm,”
Brock shouted from the bathroom. “I know you’re smart, but isn’t
this at least a little bit stressful? It’s worth forty percent of
your grade!”

Atticus shrugged. “It’s all just
memorization,” he said. “And it’s not forty percent, it’s
thirty-five.”

Brock scoffed off the remark as he
made his way out of the bathroom. He looked good for getting ready
in such a short amount of time. His black mangled mess of hair was
brushed into a less chaotic fashion, his face was clean, and his
small rectangular glasses rested perfectly on his nose. You’d never
believe that he’d woken up less than five minutes ago. Together,
the two grabbed their schoolbags and headed off to
class.

The day went by like normal. Classes
went by as usual with no unwanted interruptions. Brock spaced out
most of the day trying to cram as much information about the
upcoming history test as he could, but deep down he knew he’d do
fine. Students socialized. Everything was perfectly
normal.

Finally, the day had reached its final
class: U.S. History. Professor Varnum sat at his desk, taking roll
as all the class bell rang and the students got to their
seats.

“
Anne Lowell?”

“
Here, sir.”

“
Brock
Mackenzie?”

“
Here.”

“
Victoria Marin?”

“
Present?”

“
Michael Nelson?” Nothing.
Professor Varnum looked up from his desk and scoured the room.
“Michael Nelson, are you here?” Still nothing. The professor
grumbled under his breath. “It seems that someone is trying to skip
out on their exam. If anyone sees Mr. Nelson later today, tell him
that there is no point returning to my class!”

Atticus was filled with a feeling of
dread. Yesterday, Mike had looked so down. All sorts of terrible
thoughts began to run through Atticus’ head and a queasy sensation
formed in his stomach.

Brock sank in his seat. “Poor Mike,”
he whispered. “I wonder what happened. Do you think the stress got
to him?”

Atticus shrugged.

Professor Varnum began passing out the
exam, and once each student had theirs, he went through the rules:
“Don’t forget that this test is worth a large portion of your
grade, so take your time. When you complete the exam, you may come
place it on my desk and you may be excused. If I catch cheating of
any kind, you will be granted an automatic failure for, not just
this, but the entire course. Now, you may begin.”

Instantly, pencils went to work on the
paper. The test was just over five pages thick and contained over
one hundred and twenty questions all covering topics from early
American history: From the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 all the
way to the conclusion of the American Revolution in 1783. Professor
Varnum expected the test to take nearly the entire class period for
most students.

Much to his surprise, Atticus was not
an ordinary student. Right from the get-go, Atticus thought the
test would be a breeze. Like he told Brock, basic memorization was
the only skill he needed to ace Varnum’s test, but mesh that with
his desire to know what happened to Mike, he worked even faster. In
less than fifteen minutes, Atticus had completed the entire
exam.

As he made his way down the lecture
hall, Professor Varnum looked up from his paper and sighed. “Mr.
Whaelord, you know you’re not allowed to ask questions on exams of
this caliber.”

“
I don’t have any questions
sir,” he said. “I’m finished. May I be excused?”

The professor stared at Atticus
through his dark black tinted glasses. You could never really see
the professor’s eyes, but you could always feel his glare. It was
like he had heat vision, but it couldn’t melt steel, just warm you
up to uncomfortable levels.

“
Do you mean this as some
kind of joke, Mr. Whaelord? This kind of disruption won’t be taken
lightly.”

“
I-I’m not joking sir. I’m
actually done.” Atticus set the exam down on the professor’s desk.
“It really wasn’t that hard of a test to begin with.”

“
Do you honestly expect me
to believe that you could complete this entire exam in such a short
time? I have half a mind to send you to Principal Shepard’s office
this instant!”

Atticus was never good with
confrontation. He wasn’t the bravest student at the school, that
was for sure. All sorts of things scared him: spiders, big dogs,
the dark, and getting yelled at by old cranky history professors
were some of his biggest phobias. Luckily enough, Brock wasn’t
afraid of such things.

From his seat, Brock shushed him.
“Professor Varnum, you need to keep your voice down. There’s an
exam going on.”

The professor’s face beamed a bright
red. “Mr. Mackenzie, that is not funny!”

“
S-Sir,” Atticus chimed in,
“you can grade it right now. I promise it’s all done.”

“
And I bet it’s perfect,”
Brock said from his seat.

“
One more outburst from you,
Mr. Mackenzie,” Varnum shouted, “and I’ll send you both to the
principal!”

Varnum glared back at Atticus and down
to the exam. He sat down with a hard plop, picked up the test as
well has his favorite red pen used to point out errors, and went
straight to grading.

Atticus watched as the professor
darted across the page, his pen always at the ready, but whenever
he wanted to mark something, he couldn’t. Varnum couldn’t bring
himself to believe it, but Brock was right: Atticus’ test was
perfect. He wanted to mark something wrong for whatever reason he
could think of, but he knew, as a teacher, he couldn’t do such a
thing.

It only took the professor a couple of
minutes to examine each answer, and since every answer was correct
it required even less time. He placed the exam down on the table,
his hands twitching with frustration.

“
Mr. Whaelord,” he mumbled,
“you’re excused.”

And with that, Atticus thanked him and
bolted out of the classroom.

Normally, as he’d done his past years,
Atticus would head to the courtyard fountain and take a nap after
his exams. He’d listen to the hum of airships and zeppelins that
fly overhead, and the purring of the different science labs on the
far side of campus. But today, he couldn’t do that. Atticus needed
to find Mike and see what was up with him.

As long as they’d known each other,
Mike was never one to skip class for any reason. His parents were
higher ups in the mechatronics industry, owning all sorts of
machinariums and laboratories across the west coast. If they heard
news that their son was skipping class for any reason, they would
be furious.

Atticus made his way across campus to
Mike’s dorm room. He did, their usual “Shave and a Haircut” knock,
but just like the other day, there was no response. Instead, he was
greeted by Mike’s roommate, Justin Drasken.

Justin was the president of the
school’s tennis club with a still undetermined career path. When
Atticus asked where Mike would be, he just responded with an unsure
shrug. As far as Justin was aware, Mike left for class in the
morning like he usually did.

Atticus wracked his brain for any
place Mike might’ve gone too. He tried his best to use his
makeshift detective’s intuition and tried to think of all of Mike’s
favorite places on campus. The bookstore and western park areas
were the places they hung out most often. If Mike wasn’t at either
place, then Atticus would have to assume Mike was taking care of
business elsewhere that he had no idea about. Perhaps he was making
up class time that he missed the other day, or perhaps he was
speaking with Principal Shepard.

He scoured the campus hotspots for
Mike and sadly found nothing. Atticus didn’t want to admit it, but
he was a bit afraid. He naturally feared the worst whenever he
didn’t know the answer. He knew worrying wouldn’t solve anything.
Mike would turn up eventually; he just had to be
patient.

Atticus made his way to the campus
fountain and laid down. As he stared up at the sky, he closed his
eyes and began to think of his parents: William and
Isabel.

His father was a Nevada native with no
proper schooling, but a natural gift in clockwork science. He was
brash, confident and a bit of a gambler, but he was also a klutz on
his feet. His mother was an immigrant from Mexico who attended
college to earn her degree in Plasma Engineering. She was calm and
gentle, but she could explode if need be. The two complimented each
other wonderfully. Atticus was nothing like either of them, but he
was happy. They were a perfect family.

But, six years ago, when Atticus was
just ten years old, his parents left for a business trip and never
returned. They were both former employees of the Zebulon
Corporation but left to try and start their own business. They’d
said they were only going to be away a short while to meet with
some new colleagues. They didn’t mention the potential risk in
never coming back. They just disappeared, and no one had any idea
where they’d disappeared to.

After they vanished, Atticus was sent
to live with his grandparents in Boulder City. They refused to talk
about the disappearance; Atticus assumed it was just as hard on
them as it was for him. The only thing he had to remember his
parents was a small locket his father gave to him before they left.
It was small, brass, and had a design on the face of two gears
entwined with one another. On the inside was a picture of the three
of them from when Atticus was just a baby. His father always told
him to keep it close to his heart; if he had the locket, they’d
always be together. And he did just that. Atticus always kept it
snug in his pants pocket, the chain coiled up around a belt
loop.

He pulled the locket out and held it
up to his heart. The comfort it brought him plus the warm autumn
sun quickly lulled him to sleep.

It felt as if Atticus had only closed
his eyes for a second before he was quickly shaken awake. His eyes
flared open and he saw Brock standing above him.

“
Atticus, I’ve got some
really bad news.”

“
W-What? What’s
happened?”

“
It’s Mike,” he said. “He’s
dead.”

Brock lead Atticus to the far corner
of the west park area. Normally, it was tranquil and one of the
best places to relax, but that day it was lined with officers
causing all sorts of commotion. In the distance, Atticus looked
past them and saw a body hanging from a tree: Mike.

Atticus wanted to vomit. There was
Mike, dangling from the tree. How could this happen? Why did it
happen? Atticus felt light headed and dizzy; his mind was racing
with too many questions. He stared at the body, blankly.

He tried to make his way forward but
was stopped by a man working on the scene.

“
Sorry lad, no students past
this point.” The man had a faint Scottish accent and wore a dark
brown fedora, long trench coat, a pair of black leather gloves, and
a very strange pair of goggles.

“
S-Sir, that’s my friend,”
Atticus said. His voice was stilted.

“
I’m sorry, but rules are
rules and I’m not allowed to disclose any information.”

The man began to turn back to the
scene, taking off his goggles. As he did, Atticus caught a glimpse
of the man’s face, and more importantly, his piercing green
eyes.

“
D-Detective
McCloud!”

The man smiled and turned back around.
Atticus was at a total loss for words. Detective McCloud was his
idol. An extremely successful detective that worked for not just
the Las Vegas police department, but as a personal private
investigator for the Zebulon Corporation. Atticus had sent him
numerous letters asking about becoming an intern at the police
station over the summer, but he’d never gotten a
response.