by Mark Eller
Harvest Patton felt he owed Aaron a debt. If there was one thing Aaron understood, it was the need to repay debts.
"Can you play the part of my personal secretary?"
Patton nodded. "Yes sir. I thought it would be a good cover so I trained for it specifically. I've spent the last four years preparing for this job so there isn't much I'm not qualified to do so long as it keeps me in your presence."
The entire idea was ridiculous. If trouble appeared, Aaron could disappear with the shutting of his eyes. This meant Patton would be more of a handicap than an asset since Aaron's instinctive reactions would be slowed by his need to take Patton along with him.
Then again, the kid had spent four years preparing for this. Many of those years had been thrown away. At his age, Patton should already have a wife or two, and he should be raising his own children. Patton had made a huge sacrifice to pay back an unknowing benefactor who never suspected Patton existed. His chances of fulfilling his vow had never been greater than slim, and yet he still carried through with his plan. That took determination.
Aaron sighed. "You start tomorrow. Miss Bivins will give you a key to my apartment."
"Thank you!" Grabbing Aaron's hand, Patton shook it with a firm grip. "I'll wait outside until you're finished."
After Patton released his hand, Aaron checked his fingers to make sure they were unbroken. He waited until Patton closed the door. "Why does everyone have to prove they're stronger than me?"
Amanda smiled. "Because you frighten them. For a slight man, you give off an unnatural aura of power."
Aaron snorted. Amanda made a small gesture with one hand. "I know. You never believe these things about yourself. Aaron, you better give me your key so I can make a copy for Mister Patton. You did promise him one."
"Give him yours," Aaron said irritably. "You used it last night before putting me to bed. While we're on the subject, I'm warning you. If you ever spike my drink again, I'll do something drastic. This 'get Aaron into bed' game of yours is going too far when you drug my wine. " Which he realized was the cause of the unnatural hangover.
She frowned. "I won't deny I want to tumble you at least once more. My biological clock will start hiccuping any year now. I want to have kids by you so I have to be aggressive. However, I did not spike your wine. The last time I did my belly remained flat, and you had almost no memory of the encounter. The next time you'll be sober and totally aware. Also, I do not have your key. I decided a long time ago that your home in N'Ark is your sanctuary."
"You weren't there last night?" Aaron asked. Almost, he thought her a liar, but he did have a vague memory of somebody else.
She shook her head no.
"Your people were in my kitchen this morning. " Aaron pointed out.
"Maybe the door was unlocked. I'll have a locksmith sent over to look at it. What I want to know is how somebody I did not give a pass to got by your guards?"
"I want to know why I haven't seen any guards," Aaron countered.
"If you saw them, they wouldn't be doing their jobs. Anything else?"
"That's it for now. I have some digging to do."
"Then you had best let me get back to work."
* * *
Aaron didn't have a hardware store's location memorized so he walked out of the office building and paid a boy to run down a cab for him. The cab driver gave Aaron a strange look when he asked to be taken to the closest hardware. Geeing her horses, she stopped half a block later.
"Here you are. " She sounded amused.
"How much?" His face felt warm.
She scratched her head and squinted exaggeratedly. "Don't rightly know. Never had such a short fare before. How about an eighth copper?"
"Take three."
He made a silent vow to stop transferring so often. It saved time, but he never learned where anything new was located. This incident wasn't the first time his ignorance had proved embarrassing. However, after paying the hardware clerk five coppers for a shovel, he immediately broke his vow once he rounded a corner and was alone.
Flicker
* * *
A stream ran ten feet to his right. A large gray rock sat straight ahead, leaning against the base of a fire burned oak. Around it, a few live oaks leafed out, but the surrounding trees mostly consisted of ten and twelve foot poplars growing around burnt oak skeletons.
Four trees dead north of the gray rock was the remnants of an older poplar with a crook in its trunk. The tree had died, split, and fallen since his last visit, but the remnants of the trunk remained to mark his place. Aaron set the shovel two feet upslope from it and dug. Three feet down he unearthed a crate.
Pulling open the top, he lifted out ten one pound bars of silver, thought a moment, and then removed them all. He pulled out several lead wrapped packages containing horseshoe magnets equivalent to what within this world were called Talent Stones. Their magnetism augmented a person's natural Talent as well as the rare natural Stones did. The way he saw it, he needed those magnets near him. Jutland was a long way from here. If anything happened to his Stone, it might take a year or more before he could get a new one from this stash.
Satisfied, he put most of the silver back into the crate, replaced the top, and shoveled dirt back into the hole. Finished, he looked down on the ten one pound silver bars and felt a moment of sadness. With these ten removed, another seventy-eight remained, the last of the silver he had brought over from his home world. As the years went by, he owned less and less of the things he'd brought from there. Soon he would have nothing of Jefferson left but memories.
After tamping the dirt down, he scattered debris over the area to hide his digging. His attempt wasn't entirely convincing. Anyone happening across this spot in the next couple weeks would know the earth had been disturbed. Fortunately, the chance of that happening was small. To the best of his knowledge, the closest human lived approximately forty miles away.
* * *
Back at his apartment, he put the silver in a canvas bag and stored it in his closet, vowing no banker would tell him he did not have enough money to pay the people depending on him. He now had the needed money without the too efficient and far too nosy Amanda Bivins pulling it from his corporate accounts. Some things Aaron Turner could handle on his own.
He needed a drink. He normally preferred wine. Remembering the bottle from the previous night made his stomach churn, but a beer would be good.
* * *
Saturday came too early, even if he did not open his eyes until a little after ten. When Aaron walked into his living room, he found Patton stretched out comfortably on the couch with the morning newspaper propped in front of him. Patton looked up.
"Morning, sir. The locksmith was here yesterday. I watched her work so I guarantee she didn't make blanks of your new key. After inspecting your old lock, she said it had been broken so it would seem to lock when you put a key in it, but could be opened without a key if the handle was turned hard enough. You now have high security deadbolts on the inside as well as a new outside lock. I put your keys on the table."
Aaron hated morning people, even though he had once been one. These days, he preferred to sleep late. Early sunlight hurt his eyes. Besides, he hated conversations before his third cup of black-leaf tea.
He thought about breakfast. After the previous evening's beer, the thought was hard to keep.
"Are you familiar with N'Ark?" Aaron's head felt fuzzy
Patton frowned. "Only lived here a couple months. I know some of the city, but I won't say I'm an expert."
"We," Aaron said,"are going clothes shopping. I want Fasberly pants and flannel shirts. In fact, I have an entire wardrobe to replace."
Fasberly pants were the closest equivalent Aaron had found to blue jeans. True, they were black and not blue, but he could put up with the color since they were comfortable and had an actual zipper. The zipper had been introduced to Isabella six years earlier thanks to Aaron's books. With its introduction, Aaron's days of fumbling at button
s when nature called were over. He could not say he missed the experience.
"I saw a place like that on Fourteenth near Seventh," Patton said. "I can't remember exactly where, but it was somewhere around there."
"We'll find it. Please flag down a cab for me."
Folding the paper, Patton set it on the end table. He straightened on the couch and stretched his legs.
"Not today. Fourteenth and Seventh are only a couple miles away. Your training begins with a walk."
Aaron felt amused. "Really, Mister Patton, two miles is a bit far. N'Ark provides us with cabs for a reason."
"Yes, she does," Patton agreed. "Unfortunately, easy transportation makes people lazy. Sir, I saw you back when my father was still alive. Remember, I told you of that yesterday. " Patton swung his legs off the couch and sat up. Spare and fluid, his movements showed a gracefulness that had never belonged to Aaron. "You stood straight. You had more muscle and walked with a spring in your step. Even then, I knew you were to be admired, so I paid attention to what I saw.
"Now," Patton said as he rose to his feet,"you're different. You slouch when you sit or stand. You shuffle when you walk, and you have very little muscle tone. I hired on as your bodyguard. Part of my job is to teach you to guard yourself because nobody can guarantee to always be near when there is trouble."
"Mister Patton, you are impertinent. " Some part of Aaron was laughing. This kid was intense and vibrant and driven. He should be on a soapbox running for public office instead of acting as a bodyguard.
"Yes, I'm impertinent which doesn't have much bearing on my argument."
"No, it doesn't," Aaron admitted. "Impertinent or not, in this case you happen to be correct. I'll walk with you. " After all, the exercise would do him good. Fresh air would clear his head and make the kid feel useful. What could a little walk hurt?
* * *
Twenty minutes and a mile later Aaron wished he had kept his mouth shut. His lungs burned and his legs felt like two sandbags loosely connected to his hips. Beside him, Patton strode along like the fast pace was absolutely nothing, which probably meant it really was nothing to him.
Okay, Aaron admitted, so he was a bit out of shape. A decade away from physical labor could do that to a person. For a short while several years earlier, he had played with running and lifting weights, but the kid at the gym's counter had been correct. A lifetime membership would have been wasted. Aaron's burst of self improvement lasted less than nine months.
Yes, he was out of shape. Was it his fault people kept doing things for him? Amanda was more than at fault there than anyone. She treated him like he was a child incapable of taking care of himself. She had been bad enough at first, but every year her need to control him grew worse. In fact, her inability to leave him alone was a good part of why he had left Isabella. She had too much of herself wrapped up in her firm to allow her to travel back and forth between Isabella and Jutland to keep an eye on him. True, she could hire people and arrange things so he had constant babysitters. If she did, he would move on. It was a big world, and even she could only hire so many people.
Aaron frowned at a sudden thought. Was his situation her fault? Yes, she hired people to look after him, but he had let her. Perhaps he had encouraged people to flock around him by handing out simple jobs and large tips.
Reaching up, he felt his left biceps. It was soft, without the underlying muscle he owned while running the Last Chance General Store. His arm felt more like it had been when he was a cripple living within the militia compound on his birth world.
No way around it. Some people were born with an impressive amount of natural muscle. Others, like Aaron, had bodies that seemed to think matters were adequate if they possessed some bones, a few ligaments, and a scrap or two of muscle. Anything more had to be worked for.
Gritting his teeth, he continued walking. Tiring out in a mile was ridiculous. Patton was right. He did need a personal trainer.
And there he went again, looking for somebody else to help him out of his self-made difficulties.
Eventually, they reached the clothing store. Having no idea what his sizes were, Aaron was forced to try on several pairs of pants and a few shirts before finding something approaching comfortable. His size was, embarrassingly enough, a large boy's. At five-foot-six, his body proved to be too small to fit anything on the men's rack.
He bought seven pairs of pants and twelve red checked flannel shirts. Giving Patton a sly glance, he wondered if the man would object to a small bit of laziness. Deciding he was the boss, Aaron asked to have his purchases delivered to his apartment.
Patton just smiled.
Hineman's, Aaron was told in a most emphatic manner, did not have delivery. If he desired that type of service, he was more than welcome to travel six blocks down the street to one of the upscale, snooty stores. If he wanted to keep possession of his purchases, he would have to carry them himself.
They left the store, he and Patton carrying the sizable bundles of clothing until Aaron found an abandoned alley he could duck into. When he came out, his hands were empty and his new clothes were on the bed in his apartment. He would have transferred himself there too, only Patton's eyes were all too ready to accuse. Aaron could not find it in himself to disappoint the young man this soon. There was plenty of time to disillusion him later.
Patton walked him to the city zoo and attached them to a small group of four young women who refused to give their names. The women found Patton absolutely wonderful. They tolerated Aaron. During the next few hours, Patton spun stories to keep the women mesmerized. Aaron was amazed. The man had an incredible talent for outrageous lies. Patton knew they were lies. The women knew they were lies. Nobody cared.
Near evening, they picnicked on the grass with food the women had brought. Once everyone had their fill, the women gathered around Patton and thanked him for the pleasant time before drifting off. Patton received a small kiss on the cheek from two. The other two were not so shy. Their goodbye kisses landed exactly dead center on Patton's lips. Aaron got polite handshakes.
Patton laughed at Aaron's expression after the women left. "Don't take it personal. It would have been unprofessional if they got chummy with you. All four are your guards. In fact, two saved you several times."
"Which two," Aaron asked.
"Homes and Margrave, the affectionate ones."
Aaron nodded. "It figures. Look, I know how you feel about exercise, but I'm beat. I'm going back to the apartment, and I'm taking the fastest way."
"Go ahead. You walked six or seven miles today. That's enough for a start. You won't feel up to doing much tomorrow."
"My thought exactly," Aaron agreed. "Tomorrow is Sunday. I'll spend it reading and drawing. Be at my place early Monday, like nine-thirty."
"Yes, sir," Patton said. "Before you leave, I need to tell you something. Miss Homes told me the woman who jimmied your lock has been found. In the future, take more care when hiring a cleaning lady. She confessed to breaking your lock before she got smart and shut up. The girls talked to some people who know her. Those people say she's idolized you for years. She's smart as a whip, but mentally unstable due to a childhood illness that deformed her face and body. Anyway, the matter has been taken care of, and she won't bother you again."
"Thanks," Aaron said with a rueful smile. He knew the woman slightly. Her real appearance bore little resemblance to the goddess who had been in his apartment. The drugged wine had been a powerful brew. "Apparently the only woman who likes me is crazy."
"Just shows the rest have sense," Patton noted.
"And did the ladies tell you how she managed to get past my guards?"
Patton frowned. "There was a scheduling mix up. It's being looked into."
"Tell them not to worry about it. " Aaron told him. "I won't be in Isabella long enough for it to matter. " He studied Patton's expression. "Is there something else?"
"Yes sir," Patton admitted. He drew a folded envelope from his pocket. "This letter arrived i
n Miss Bivins office mail yesterday. She asked me to pass it to you at the end of your day. It was addressed to both of you, so she already read it. I was to say she would be home all night if you need to speak with her.
"Thanks," Aaron said, taking the letter. "I'm sure I'll be fine on my own."
Flicker
Chapter 5
With Doc Gunther's letter in hand, Aaron entered his sitting room. The evening light was fading into night so he lit a few of the lanterns he had scattered around the apartment. He started reading Doc Gunther's letter, frowned, and then read the rest. A flux had hit Last Chance, one too strange or powerful for Doc's Talent driven abilities to touch. Over two dozen had died, all but six of them male. A number of individuals and several entire families had moved away. Doc would soon be one of them. Two of the dead had been his wives. With no further family connections to Last Chance, he had decided to travel across Isabella, seeking out the cause and treatment of the mysterious flux, along with any other strange disease he could find.
Doc never wanted to lose a loved one again because he didn't know what to do.
The letter was dated more than a year earlier. Its envelope bore stamps from more than a dozen different post offices.
Aaron let the letter fall to his lap. Doc's leaving removed Aaron's last active connection to Last Chance. Few of his old friends remained there. Most of those probably never gave Aaron a thought, and for all he knew, some of those old friends might have died along with Doc's wives. A postscript on the bottom of the letter was in Amanda's handwriting. She pointed out that Doc's leaving made it even more important they discover another Talented healer who would accept one of Aaron's Talent Stones. The search she had started over two years earlier had only turned up one candidate, a woman who was presently in prison. She had used her unboosted Talent to stop several people's hearts.
Picking up the letter from his lap, Aaron looked at it again, trying to find some new meaning, some new explanation, but could not. The thing was unreadable. It's writing was blurry and his eyes were damp. Crumpling up the letter, he threw it against the wall.