He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, but couldn’t help but laugh. This sort of thing never happened to him in his old body.
After he got to work, they had him out mowing the grounds with a large industrial riding mower. He immediately had the feeling he was being watched, but this time, he was certain he’d identified the car. It was parallel-parked on the other side of the street.
He drove the mower all the way around the hospital so he could come up on the suspect sedan from behind. As he approached, he could just make out a man in the driver’s seat through the tinted windows. Without thinking it through, he drove the large mower across the street and stopped it inches from the front bumper of the car, blocking it in.
Startled, the driver tried to back up, but he was too close to the car behind him to get out.
Josh jumped off the mower and went to the driver’s door. It was locked. The car surged forward, hitting the mower and sliding it sideways to make room, and then it backed up, hitting the car behind.
Josh knew he wouldn’t get another chance. With adrenaline flowing, he used a martial arts kick to shatter the window on the back door.
The car started pulling out.
There wasn’t time to open the rear door, so he dove part way through the broken window and reached for the driver. With his head and shoulders inside and his feet dragging, the car pulled out. Josh got his hand under the driver’s chin and forced the man’s head up so he couldn’t see. The car accelerated erratically and then jumped a curb and hit a telephone pole.
The airbag deployed as the impact threw Josh from the car. He hit the sidewalk and rolled. Ending up on his back, he decided to stay still and play possum.
The driver stumbled out. Wearing a golf shirt, jeans, and a black windbreaker, the man in his mid-twenties pulled a pistol out of a shoulder holster.
Josh kept his eyes mostly closed as the man moved toward him. He stopped outside of Josh’s reach, but not outside the range of his legs. Once again, time slowed, and with a lightning-fast scissor kick, Josh swept the man’s feet from under him. As he fell, Josh was on him with phenomenal speed. He knocked the man’s pistol loose and in seconds, had him in a wrestlers hold, yelling, “Who are you?”
The man surprised him by saying, “FBI! FBI!”
Josh carefully reached in and pulled the man’s wallet out. Throwing it open on the ground, he saw a badge and FBI ID.
With a heavy sigh, he carefully let the agent out of the hold. As the man sat up, Josh picked up the wallet and gun and handed them to him. Shaking his head, Josh asked, “Why have you been following me?”
The man stood up and put his wallet away, but held onto the pistol. “Homeland Security Joint Terrorism Task Force, and you’re under arrest for assaulting a federal officer.”
13
PROBE
Josh avoided arrest by pointing out to the young FBI agent that he would have to explain how he damaged hospital property escaping from a surveillance subject, not to mention losing his weapon.
Josh’s boss, however, was less understanding. With the mower damaged and no police report explaining the incident, his boss suspended him and told him he would probably have to fire him.
Home early, he had the condo to himself and called Jesse. Frustrated, he said, “Just had a run-in with the FBI.” He shook his head. “You’ve been evasive about who you are and who you represent. I haven’t questioned it because you obviously know what you’re doing or I wouldn’t be here, but this is crazy. I need to know exactly who you work for.”
Why?
Indignant, he said, “So I can make sure I’m working for the right side!”
What’s the right side?
He stopped and realized with the human race at stake, was there a “right side”?
Do you have a problem with the mission?
Frowning, he shook his head. “No, of course not.” Regrouping, he said, “I just don’t like being kept in the dark. You obviously have access to amazing technology. What do you need me for?”
When children are learning to walk, do you grab them every time they lose their balance?
He sighed, and under his breath, said, “Here we go again.” Shaking his head, he finally said out-loud, “No.”
Why?
“Because they’ll never learn to walk.” He understood the analogy. “But I’m not a toddler.”
I wasn’t referring to you.
He frowned. “You mean humanity?”
Yes.
He paused to consider that, and then said, “OK, but isn’t it a bit late for us to be learning to walk?”
Humanity is still very young.
“In comparison to what?” He sensed the conversation was over, and once again, Jesse hadn’t answered his questions ... or had he. It wasn’t just what Jesse said, it was how he said it. Josh shook his head. It was almost as if Jesse had a perspective outside of.... No, he wasn’t ready to go there, not yet.
He didn’t have to go to work the next morning, and it was also Elizabeth’s day off. He’d been up for an hour doing research on the computer when she came out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. He noticed she was wearing a short silk bathrobe. Peeking out from underneath was a black negligee. Unlike Amber’s shirt, the robe did its job, properly covering everything. He could see a lot less of Elizabeth than he did Amber, but for some reason, Elizabeth was more distracting. She was also barefoot. He liked women in high heels, but for some reason, he found barefoot women particularly attractive. He wished she didn’t keep the condo quite so warm.
She asked, “Do you want some breakfast? I’m going to make some anyway.”
“No thanks, I’m fine.” He tried to angle himself so that she wouldn’t be in his direct line of sight.
After a few seconds, she said, “Josh, is there any particular reason the kitchen faucet is disassembled?”
He totally forgot. “Oh, sorry. It was dripping, so I thought I’d fix it. After I took it apart, I realized I needed a couple extra parts.” He needed extra parts because one of the micro springs had shot out of the valve, and he hadn’t been able to find it. Taking things apart to see how they worked was fun, but he had a tendency to lose interest when it came to minor details, like putting them back together.
He realized he and Elizabeth were opposite personalities, just as he and Kelly had been. Kelly was outgoing, loved people and lived in the present. She saw the trees but sometimes missed the forest. He, on the other hand, was reserved, task-oriented and lived in the future. He saw the forest but sometimes ran into a tree. Kelly had been his perfect complement: fascinating and frustrating, intriguing and incomprehensible. His secret term of endearment for her was “Kelly Bear,” cute as a koala, with the temper and passion of a grizzly. Elizabeth looked nothing like Kelly, but she had that same indefinable something.
“Ouch!” Elizabeth scared him out of his reverie.
He looked up. “You OK?”
Hopping on one foot, she was trying to look at the bottom of the other foot. Somehow, she made that awkward pose both graceful and sexy.
She pulled something from the bottom of her foot. Examining it with a frown, she added, “Weird. It looks like a tiny metal spring.”
Quickly looking back at his computer screen, he added a non-committal, “Hmm.”
After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she came over. Standing right next to him, she looked over his shoulder at the screen.
He once read that Americans had larger “personal bubbles” than other cultures. Elizabeth never got the memo.
“What are you working on?”
He pointed at the screen. “It’s a diagram of the Oort Cloud at the outskirts of our solar system. It’s where dwarf planets and comets hang out.”
With her coffee in one hand, she put her other hand on his shoulder and leaned in to look at the picture. He couldn’t help but glance down her loosely tied bathrobe.
As she looked sideways at him, he quickly looked back at the screen.
He stammered, “I can explain.”
She shook her head. “You don’t need to.” With a half-smile, she added, “I know Amber.”
He changed the subject. “But having just a guy roommate might cause people at work to talk.”
Waving her hand dismissively, she said, “For goodness sake, Josh, this is the twenty-first century. The people I work with would never question you living here.” As she turned and walked back to the kitchen, she added, “Because they already assume we’re in a hot steamy relationship.”
“Uh....” he replied wittily as his eyes followed her of their own accord. To himself, he quietly said, “Focus.”
After Elizabeth left the kitchen to get dressed, he put the faucet back together and went back to studying the enemy. A mountain moving many times faster than a rifle bullet was awe inspiring and terrifying. He was chasing down an interesting line of research, when he heard Elizabeth say something about what a beautiful day it was.
He said, “Uh huh.”
A few minutes later, she inserted her face between him and his screen. “Off the computer!”
Startled, he pushed his chair back. She was wearing running attire. “You’ve been on that thing for six hours.” She pointed outside. “It’s a perfect spring day with blue skies and summer temperatures. You need to be outside, getting some exercise, vitamin D and color.” Her eyes swept up and down him, and with a smile, she added, “Well, at least vitamin D.”
He really needed to finish, but looking at her expression, he yielded.
She said, “Go put on your running shoes. We’re going to the park.”
“I don’t have any running shoes.”
She held up a pair of brand new ones. “Happy birthday!”
He frowned. “It’s not my birthday.”
Laughing, she said, “How do you know?”
They opened the canvas top on her Jeep. Sitting in the warm sun with the wind in his hair, Josh forgot about the comet and just watched the world go by. They arrived at a park surrounded by running trails that wandered through small lakes, athletic fields and woods. Brilliant yellow daffodils were everywhere, punctuated by pear trees in full bloom. The white blossoms made the trees look like giant popcorn balls. Runners, skaters, bikers and kids filled the park. It was a barely controlled cacophony of sound and colorful chaos. He realized this was what they were trying to protect.
Before their run, they stretched against a large oak tree. Elizabeth was exceptionally limber, and could bend herself into impossible but interesting angles. He caught a small pin-stripe tattoo just above a truly spectacular empennage.
As they ran trails that wound through the park, he was impressed with Elizabeth’s fitness, measured both in her ability to set a fast pace and to turn male heads. After three miles, they slowed to a jog. The sun was beginning to set and there was a large moon just above the horizon.
She stopped to look at it and said, “That’s so beautiful.” She turned to him, biting the side of her lip. He noticed it was something she did when she was nervous. She’d make a lousy poker player.
Tentatively, she said, “Josh, I don’t know what your spiritual beliefs are....” She frowned, “Guess you may not either, but I believe there’s something bigger than us out there.”
Curious, he asked, “What do you believe?”
She looked thoughtful. “I believe there is a God.”
He wasn’t excited about the topic, but nodded politely.
“And I think to whom much is given, much is required.”
Under his breath, he said, “Tell me about it.”
“What?”
“Uh ... I think you’re right about it.” He quickly added, “Did you grow up in a church?”
“Yeah.” Imitating a heavy southern drawl, she said, “I came from one of them there eeeevangelical Christian families.” Frowning, she added in a normal voice, “You know I hate that label. In the media, ‘evangelical’ is interchangeable with ‘fanatical.’ They act like anyone who actually shares all that ‘love your brother, turn the other cheek’ crap is a nut job.”
He shrugged. “A fanatic is just someone who’s more excited about something than you are.”
She smiled. “But if people don’t believe in God, why do they get their panties in a wad about religious stuff? Shouldn’t they just be amused and ignore it like we ignore the Flat Earth Society?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly and said, “Unlike the Flat Earth Society, organized religion has had a rather checkered past. The Crusades and the Inquisition caused a lot of death and destruction.”
Looking serious, she said, “Really? I think if you look closely you’ll find most of the death and destruction was motivated by one of three things: expanding territory; ‘haves’ versus ‘have nots’; or just plain prejudice. Religion was often used as a convenient excuse to mask empire-building or justify a historic hatred.”
Josh frowned. She continued to surprise him.
She added, “Think about it. If religious differences were the biggest reason for conflict, shouldn’t Hindus with lots of gods and Christians, with just one, be at each other’s throats all the time? Instead, we saw Protestant against Catholic in Northern Ireland, and today, we see Muslim against Jew, even though they share many beliefs and even prophets. There issue with each other isn’t about religious philosophy; it’s historic hatred and distrust.”
He nodded, but still frowning, said, “Jihad?”
She shrugged. “You’ve got me there, but not all religions are the same. When was the last time you heard about a Buddhist, Christian or Hindu-motivated suicide bombing?”
He shook his head.
“Because it totally violates the tenets and beliefs of most religions.” She shook her head and laughed. “I’m sorry, Josh, I’ve been totally lecturing. I want to hear what you believe.”
He knew her beliefs were the result of years of religious indoctrination, but her arguments were surprisingly well thought out. Regardless, he couldn’t afford to alienate her. Slowly, he said, “I think we’re more than just the sum of our parts, and I agree, it’s not just all about us.”
She gave him a questioning look.
Deflecting, he asked, “What happens when mankind goes gentle into that good night?”
Elizabeth exclaimed excitedly, “You must have read poetry!”
“Uh, maybe.” He smiled. “Or I might have heard it in a TV commercial.”
She finished, “It would be very sad if mankind doesn’t ‘rage against the dying of the light.’”
He nodded. “Yes, but not just for us. We’re the only life on Earth that can save all the other life.”
“From what?”
He nodded toward the moon and asked, “What do you see on its surface?”
“Green cheese?” she giggled.
He smiled. “More like Swiss cheese.”
Still smiling she said, “Craters?”
“Yup.”
“So, you’re saying we can save life on Earth from an impact like in the movies?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “Cool!”
He loved her attitude and open acceptance of new concepts. He really wanted to share the truth with her, but on the way home, they passed a construction area where they were putting in the entrance to a new mall. The sign read, “Logan Shopping Center.” Seeing his old name reminded him of his lost family, bringing him back to reality. He couldn’t tell her the truth; the risk was too high for both of them.
That night, after Elizabeth was asleep, he decided to try cross-examining Jesse again. He called quietly and sensed the communica
tion link was live. “Jesse, I understand your analogy — letting a child learn to walk without catching him every time he falls — but you wouldn’t let him learn to walk next to a cliff. Wouldn’t a cataclysmic comet kinda fall into that category?”
Yes, that’s why you’re here.
He shook his head. “That wasn’t the answer I was looking for. A minor in astronomy and access to some defense programs doesn’t qualify me to do much. I hope that’s not why I’m involved.”
You’re good with people, and despite your skepticism, your belief is stronger than your fear.
“Belief? What does that have to do with anything?”
Fear is being convinced of a negative outcome that has yet to occur. The opposite is believing in a positive outcome that has yet to happen. Without belief, nothing significant is ever accomplished.
“OK, but how is a comet going to help mankind ‘learn to walk?’”
How do you feel?
“Frustrated with your answers.” He shook his head. “I feel clueless and inadequate.”
What else?
He thought for a moment. “I guess ... some excitement?”
What causes happiness?
He had no idea where Jesse was going. “I don’t know ... maybe getting something you want?”
Are you happiest when you get something you want or during the pursuit of it?
“We should be happy when we get it, but society is littered with people who reach the top of their game and are miserable.” He paused. “We’re happiest when we’re pursuing stuff, aren’t we? That explains why I feel excitement, but I don’t think you told me all this to help me ‘find myself.’”
Do you think societies are so different?
“You lost me.”
What was your nation’s finest hour?
Josh frowned. It made him nervous that Jesse referred to the U.S. as ‘your nation.’” He shook his head. “I don’t know ... maybe when everyone pulled together during World War II, or when we landed a man on the moon?” He paused. “You’re suggesting that for a society to be happy, it also needs to have a purpose?”
Impact (Fuzed Trilogy Book 1) Page 7