by Eros, Marata
“So, Mr. Thomas?”
Clyde nodded, keeping his eyes latched to the three that were behaving like prowling cats from the foothills of the Cascades where he and his Pa used to hunt for cougar.
“I've had my ear to the ground and a little birdie chirped about your whereabouts last night.” Glummer began to clean his tidy nail with a small switchblade. Then his eyes went to Clyde's. “Where were you last night?”
“He was with me,” Maggie said, her large seawater green eyes flashed with righteous anger in a face with creamy skin and bright red hair.
Oh no, Maggie-girl. Clyde knew she was covering. He reached out and squeezed her hand in subtle warning and she tightened her grip in understanding.
Glummer shook his head to the negative. “No, now... Miss...”
“Parker,” Maggie said in a flat voice and Glummer narrowed his eyes on her.
“... Parker. There are some that would contradict your statement. Those that place your lover-boy at a condemned speakeasy on the wrong side of the tracks.”
“Don't speak to her like that. Maggie deserves your respect. She'll be my wife soon,” Clyde said, giving him a hard look.
Glummer smirked. “But she ain't yet, is she?” He stepped forward and Clyde moved in front of Maggie protectively, instinctively.
The three moved in to flank them. Glummer said, “You won't 'fess up and come clean. We think you'll speak a blue streak if we give your honey a squeeze here.”
Glummer lurched forward to put his hands on Maggie, and Clyde responded as he always had to violence.
In kind.
Clyde slammed his elbow into one of the three that was nearest, bashing him in the nose as he slapped the flat of his opposite palm into the nose of the other. The third thug moved in behind Clyde and had him in a lock-down as Glummer grabbed Maggie.
She shrieked, whacking him over the head with her thick, wooden spatula, held strategically in the pocket of her apron, swinging the red sauce and splattering Glummer. His perfect suit now wore red spatter, some droplets speckled against the car behind him like blood.
While two of the corrupt police writhed around on the grass, holding their tenderized faces, and Clyde was held in a vise-like grip by the third, he used the man that imprisoned his arms and swung his legs up to strike Glummer in his thick gut.
“Argh!” Glummer stumbled backward, his arms pinwheeling as he fell on his giant posterior.
Clyde didn't waste time, turning, he took one of the hands that held him and pulled the finger he could pry back to the wrist. Howling, the fella let go suddenly and Clyde turned, laying him out with a solid strike to a jaw that was not used to being hit.
Perfect.
The blow knocked him out cold.
Maggie ran to Clyde, his chest heaving from the exertion of fighting them all at one time. He gathered her close and looked down at Chief Glummer.
“Get out,” Clyde said in a low voice.
The Chief made an unsteady attempt to get to his feet. “I reckon I know where you really were last night.” His eyes fell on Maggie and she glared at him from underneath Clyde's arm. “You can lie for him, but there's no boy around these parts that can take pieces out of my men like that and not know how to handle himself.” His eyes glared into Clyde's as he spit a wad of bloodied phlegm on the dirt of the driveway. “This isn't over. I want that bankroll,” he slapped his fist into an open palm. “And I'm not going to take no for an answer.”
Clyde stared at him. “I don't know what you're referencing but you're dead wrong. I don't know who is in charge of the illegal fighting and furthermore... no you won't. Be. Back. I'm no longer feeling hospitable.”
Clyde put his hands on hips strong from his labors over the years.
And fighting.
Clyde was an honest man and he truly didn't know who organized the fighting. Though he was always a participant. How could this hypocrite, little better than the swine he'd slopped mere hours before, endeavor to coerce money, come onto his property, his family's farm and threaten a woman.
They were without integrity. It was something Clyde had no use for.
Never had.
The police made their slow progress to their vehicle, the two with bloodied faces dragging their unconscious associate behind them, his heels making railroad tracks in the driveway.
Glummer never took his eyes off Clyde and Maggie.
Clyde never dropped his eyes either. Glummer was a proven snake in the grass and bore watching.
“I need more men. Of the persuasive type for you, Mr. Thomas.” He kept his eyes on Clyde like a dark promise. “And you do handle yourself like a fighter. You won't always be around here.” Glummer's eyes flicked to Maggie and his grim smile turned feral. “Don't make me do things that aren't of a gentlemanly pursuit. If you force my hand, the fairer sex may be affected.”
Clyde felt his wounded hands fist in response to the implication.
They'd be back to hurt Maggie. Whatever it took to maintain his cooperation. After all, Glummer wouldn't put a real hurt on him, Clyde knew. For once he found the instigator of the fighting, he knew that Clyde would be the star.
Anything for greed: harming females, bribing humanity into wrongdoings to gain wealth through their blood and tears.
Clyde's eyes narrowed, memorizing Glummer's face.
Marking him.
He smiled back at the Chief of the Kent Police and watched as his smile faded.
Their engine rattled and spewed as they drove off his land. A momentary reprieve.
Clyde and Maggie stood in silence for a time, watching the dust settle after their departure.
Clyde tightened his arm around her waist and she gazed up at him. “Clyde, sweetheart... they're going to return. They'll...” Maggie burst into tears, using her apron as a handkerchief against her face, blotting the dampness of her emotions.
He tipped her chin up in his large hand and rubbed a rough thumb over the smoothness there. “I'd never let anything happen to you.”
She nodded through a sheen of tears. “It's not that and you know it.” She stamped her foot on the ground and he smiled at her quick temper. “Stop being so stubborn, tell them who he is so they can...”
“They're on the take, Maggie. They want another person to bleed money from.”
Maggie shrugged helplessly. “You can't protect them at our detriment. Those thugs that pose as policeman will be back, and then what? You going to shoot them?”
Clyde shook his head.
“No, sweet honeypot,” she flushed furiously at his tender secret nickname for her. “I'm taking you with me until this thing blows over.”
She stared at him for an oppressive heartbeat, two. “Where?”
Clyde shrugged. “There are other towns that don't know who I am, I can get a larger pool.”
Maggie scoffed. “What about the farm?”
“I'll have Frank tend things.”
“Oh him? He's a ne'er do well.”
Clyde's expression softened as he wrapped her narrow shoulders in his hands. “We need the break. And Maggie...?”
She folded her arms across her lovely chest, determined to be cross with him, but she peeked up through the veil of her ginger eyelashes to gauge his expression.
“I have enough money now for the wedding, to pay off this farm... to give you the ring that matches your beauty, Dear Heart.”
She gasped, her hand flying to her chest, her large eyes widening further. “Then why do ya fight, Clyde?”
“You know why, Maggie-girl,” his eyes searched hers and she cast hers to the ground.
When she looked up he knew she'd figured it.
“How?”
He let a finger trail down her cheekbone. “I pay attention.”
Clyde pressed a gentle hand to her flat stomach, soon to be filled with his child and whispered, “I fight for our child. So that his future may be filled with choice. That he may be whatever he wishes to be, to endeavor to become.”
; Maggie giggled, getting up on tiptoe, she used her palms to balance herself against the hard planes of his chest. “And what if our child be female?” she asked in her coyest voice.
His hazel eyes sparkled as he lifted her up in his strong arms and spun her until she was dizzy.
He deposited her on the soft grass and held her until she stopped swaying, their combined laughter a music he would never tire of.
Clyde answered her question, “Then she be the luckiest girl to be born.”
“Oh... why is that?” Maggie asked. Not waiting for a response she turned, running up the steps of his grandfather's farmhouse, the earlier evil of the visit from the police lost in the joyous press of the secret knowledge they'd just shared.
“Because her beauty will rival that of her mother's,” Clyde whispered. Desire flared in his eyes with heat and purpose.
Intent.
Maggie saw it and ran, laughing as he charged after her.
Clyde chased her up the stairs, catching her easily on the turn in the stairwell, the pain of his fists forgotten before the distraction of her love.
CHAPTER THREE
2010
Jeffrey was scared. His skinny arms were trapped in banded restraints. Not too much different than all the other kids that were here.
Except, maybe they wanted to be.
Jeffrey didn't. His parents did. Well, not his parents . His mom was actually his bio-mom. But the dad... he was step. A step he'd like to bash in the head a few hundred times. When those government dudes had come by the house and waved some cash in front of them, they'd jumped at the chance.
Selling Jeffrey out. He was young, not stupid.
And these apes gave him the effing full-on creepers. One of said apes approached, his eyes like big, magnified fish eggs behind his glasses.
“Don't you have a minion or something to figure this out for you?” Jeffrey Parker asked, his bold gaze not intimidated in the least by the scientist's stare. Even in the face of the large needle he brandished.
“Oh yes, we do, young man.” Those bulging eyes landed on him with slithering intensity.
Jeffrey thought it'd be a great idea to poach those suckers.
“But, my colleague and I enjoy the personal touch. Quality control, young man, quality control.”
Jeffrey's eyes flicked to his name tag, Dr. Zondorae. The name was the same as the other doctor's. “You're related, not colleagues,” Jeffrey accused. He just knew these two were up to something. Who the hell comes to a kid's house and bribes their parents to let them be a part of human trials for a new drug?
In secret.
*
Gary Zondorae narrowed his eyes on the brat that presumed to question him. Whatever good nature he possessed, vanished.
Not that he'd had any to spare.
He moved in with the needle, piercing the vein of number one hundred three.
Gary actually had two needles. He'd made a split decision with one hundred three. He'd been palming the placebo dose, but when the subject got mouthy, that clinched his decision.
This brat was getting the real McCoy.
As he strolled away, angry tears stood in one hundred three's eyes. They didn't fall.
Gary tapped his clipboard with a pen, using his finger to line up the number with the name.
Jeffrey Parker.
The stupid kid didn't know what the gift was that he'd get. His ability could be something spectacular. He was ungrateful. Gary would have given his eyeteeth to be injected with the genetic splice. The equivalent to the shortcut to the full potential they held as humans. Why couldn't people accept change? Be brave? Embrace opportunity?
Gary understood that most of the subjects came from socio-economically depressed environments. Most of them were of inferior intelligence.
He smiled, glancing behind his shoulder as he did. Gary's eyes fell on subject one hundred three. He saw that the kid's right hand was straining in the universal and unspoken language of communication.
Jeffrey Parker's middle finger stood at erect attention, directed at Gary Zondorae.
Of course , Gary thought, there could always be exceptions to that rule as he took note of the fierce intelligence that burned within the depths of Jeffrey Parker's eyes.
The kid would bear watching. Gary was suddenly struck that it would be very bad if that particular subject manifested a powerful ability. A yet unknown ability. With the type of constitution he appeared to have, a dangerous ability would be unfortunate indeed.
A flash of regret surfaced in Gary's mind for giving Parker the Cocktail instead of the placebo like the others.
He walked away, the disquiet of his epiphany following silently after him.
*
Kyle strode down the corridor, humming tunelessly as he did. His thoughts focused completely on the excitement of the breakthrough that everyone within his tight, scientific group were raving about:
Pulse Technology.
He slapped Brandt's door open, grinning when he saw him bent over his lab samples.
“Hey Hart, come to gloat?” Brandt smiled.
“Definitely,” Kyle said, clapping him on the shoulder, taking note of the spot of mustard on his tie, the rumpled shirt.
“Did you spend the night on the Thinking Couch again?” Kyle asked, letting the sarcasm permeate the room.
Brandt swung his palms up. “Guilty. Come here, fellow smartass, and see this newest thing.”
Kyle's brows came together. “Aren't you under a huge smoking gun, Brandt?”
He nodded. “You know it.”
When Kyle's eyes grew serious, Brandt waved his concern away. “You worry too much Hart. Maybe it's that paternal instinct coming online. Stork's coming soon, right?”
Kyle barked out a laugh. “Yes, quite. Now show me what you have.”
They bent over the detailed calculations and after a long while, Kyle stood, his back cracking and realigning from his hunched position.
“The very last piece is the integral intelligence puzzle of human electrode impulse to device transference.”
Kyle grinned. “Like a microwave.”
Brandt grinned back. “That's extremely simplified since it's well known people don't cook potatoes.”
“Right!” Kyle said. Then, “So when's show and tell today?”
“Two o'clock.” Brandt's eyes flicked to Kyle's. “What about you? Have the trials... finished?”
Kyle scowled and gave a terse nod. That had not gone the way he'd wanted. However, he had gained a small victory in ensuring that only a small number of children were actually given the Cocktail, the nickname his colleagues had given the drug that would unlock paranormal ability.
“Look at the bright side, Kyle.”
What could that be? Kyle thought morosely, his lack of total control over the implementation of the Cocktail stealing some of the joy of his discoveries, and dampening them with a cloud of doubt.
“What you've discovered, combined with the Cocktail, in addition to Pulse Technology will be a perfect complement.” He shrugged. “We're fortunate that all this discovery and technological advance happened in synchronicity. It was meant to be.”
Kyle thought about the Zondorae brothers and winced. They were ambitiously greedy. He didn't think timing had a helluva lot to do with that.
Kyle believed it had a lot more to do with money and power.
The heartbeat of humanity.
*
Two weeks later
Jeffrey gazed into the undersized mirror above the bathroom sink, his image reflected back in a spiderweb of cracks. He didn't look any different.
He looked lame though. He'd just started his growth spurt, as Mom called it in a rare sober moment, and shot up four inches in the last six months.
That's one of the reasons the government dudes were so hot to nail his ass for the trials: poor, stupid and in puberty.
They had a couple of things right, but stupid Jeffrey wasn't. With a little more secret spy shit, they could h
ave gotten an IQ test result for free. But that little detail hadn't mattered. Because Jeffrey knew that he was in the top .003% of the world population.
His Brain Number was high, weighing in at a hefty one hundred sixty. Hell, if he gave two shits he could've applied to Mensa.
Jeffrey didn't many fucks. Whenever his step-monster began giving him the Verbal Onslaught, as he liked to think of it, he just chanted his IQ inside his head. Sometimes, when step-monster got louder, he'd just turn up the internal volume, drowning the pisshead out.
The method was effective, causing his stepdad to really believe he was dumb. Jeffrey liked handing him up the false proof whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Like now.
“...and your goddamned chores!”
“Huh?” Jeffrey deadpanned into the flushed face of Dave. Dear ʼol Dave.
Jeffrey let his eyelids droop into that half-eye look that adults interpreted as the Brain Fog epidemic that struck all teens. Jeffrey was exempt, of course, but had mastered faking it.
“See!” Dave wailed, stalking toward Mom, which made Jeffrey's faked stupor flicker. He better not touch Mom . Of course, Dave wasn't really his stepdad, he was just the latest Guy. Didn't matter, he wasn't going to touch his mom.
He shot Jeffrey a death glare.
Mom shuddered.
“He's a retard! He can't even respond with an actual word! He grunts like an idiot.” Dave fumed, throwing his hands up, dangerously close to Mom's face.
“He's a smart boy, Dave. You need to give him a chance,” Mom said in a weak voice.
Jeffrey hated that. Had always hated that. Couldn't she choose people that were good to her?
Good to them?
Dave grabbed Mom and shook her.
Mom's hair flung back and forth like a brown whip as she tried to remove herself from his grip.
Jeffrey knew from experience that if he distracted Dave, he'd go after him instead of Mom.
She'd be safe again.
Jeffrey rushed him from behind. His body, now five feet nine instead of five five, was nearly Dave's height. But what Jeffrey didn't have was the weight of a man.