The Boy Who Knew Everything

by Victoria Forester

  “Owww!” Conrad jerked his hand away but the tiny rhinoceros refused to release his fingers. Fortunately Daisy was able to gently pry its jaws open and Jasper quickly healed Conrad’s bleeding appendages, at which point they were all finally able to get a good look at the pugnacious little fellow. He was a muddy gray color and his skin was all wrinkled up and leathery. He made a snuffling sound when he breathed and he was stamping about clumsily knocking his horn into things.

  “I named him Fido,” Myrtle offered tentatively, trying to gauge Conrad’s reaction. “But you can call him anything you want.”

  Conrad grew very silent and looked at Fido, who was at that moment biting the bottom of his jeans and growling playfully. Conrad was by no means under any illusion; Fido was snappish, dangerous, and unquestionably one of the ugliest creatures he had ever seen, yet still he was struck dumb by the presence of him.

  As Conrad’s silence stretched into an uncomfortable length Myrtle shifted nervously and looked to Daisy for help. Daisy didn’t know what to say and so she nudged Jasper.

  “D-d-don’t you like him?” Jasper asked meekly.

  Conrad looked up at his friends with a suspicious shine in his eyes. “I’ve never had a pet before,” he said. “My father wouldn’t allow it.” Conrad swallowed hard. “I think this is the best birthday I have ever had.”

  “Yippee!” Conrad’s friends cheered with excitement and relief, and of the entire group Piper made the most noise.

  Fido was once again startled by the unexpected clatter and suddenly a pair of wings snapped out from beneath the folds of skin on his back. He bolted into the air, flapping about in erratic patterns. This development was such a startling revelation it struck many of the kids dumb.

  “I forgot to mention”—Myrtle shrugged—“Fido can fly. I think he’s part bat.”

  Conrad grinned, watching the crazy creature bumping into trees and bumbling through the air.

  “He’s fast!” Piper was delighted and immediately took to the air after him.

  The rest of the day was taken up with games and Conrad getting to know his first pet so that by the time the sun set everyone was tuckered and laughed out. When the kids had all gone home Piper found Conrad hunched over his workbench diligently tinkering with a white oval device the size of an ostrich egg, which he called TiTI (short for Time Infinity Travel Instigator). Fido snored loudly at his feet, twitching at odd moments.

  “Whatcha doing?” Piper asked, perching next to Conrad.

  “Just putting on the finishing touches.” Conrad didn’t take his eyes from TiTI, turning it over and using a very small laser to cut precise incisions on the mechanism within.

  “Are you really going to be able to travel through time with that thing?” Piper’s nose wrinkled up.

  “No, it’s not possible to travel through time.” Conrad had explained this to Piper a thousand times already. “I’m bending time. TiTI distorts time and allows the person holding it to move to different places on the space-time continuum.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  Conrad could see that he would have to explain it again at some point in the not-so-distant future because Piper was too busy placing a brightly wrapped package on his worktable and nudging it toward him.

  “You forgot to open my present,” she said.

  Conrad shook his head. “Piper, you didn’t have to—”

  “I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to, you genius-dummy. So, open it already.”

  Conrad sighed and tugged the paper away. Inside was a glass canister and inside that canister were several complicated mechanisms surrounding a small vial of silver liquid.

  “You didn’t!” Conrad gasped. “Plutonium?”

  “I’m your best friend.” Piper grinned and clapped her hands excitedly. “Just ’cause I can’t understand half of the crazy things you’re talking about, it doesn’t mean I’m not listening.”

  “But … how did you get weapons-grade plutonium?”

  Piper shrugged. “J. has a few contacts…”

  “J.!” Conrad snorted, anger flaring hotly in his cheeks. “I should have known.”

  “But now you can try out TiTI just like you wanted,” Piper said quickly. “Where it came from doesn’t matter. Don’t spoil the present. It’s the thought that counts.”

  A crooked smile played with Conrad’s lips and he swallowed his anger. “Thank you. It’s just what I wanted.”

  “See?” Piper said smugly. “Surprise birthday parties are pretty fun. I guess that means I do have good ideas.”

  “You’re something else, Piper McCloud. I’ll give you that.”

  Conrad gently placed the canister on a shelf and returned to his work while Piper gauged her words and waited for just the right moment.

  “You know, Conrad,” she said with forced nonchalance, “I was talking with some of the others, and they’re having a hard time out there.” Piper nodded to the outside world. Ever since the kids had escaped from the school they’d scattered to the winds in pursuit of their dream jobs. Unfortunately they didn’t get to see one another that much anymore and most of the kids were running into problems, particularly as they had to carefully keep their special abilities secret.

  “Last week Violet got stuck inside an Egyptian sarcophagus on an archaeological dig. Now, if Smitty had been there and used his X-ray vision she would have known that was going to happen before going in. And then last month when there was that freak flooding in Colorado, Jasper and Myrtle were trying to save a herd of deer and Ahmed and Nalen didn’t know they were there and started a windstorm to dry things out but blew the deer away and Jasper hurt his hands. Then there was the time—”

  “I get it. I get it,” Conrad cut her short. “There have been mistakes.”

  “Those wouldn’t have happened if you’d been in charge. Now, I’m not the only one who is thinking this,” Piper continued carefully, “but it just might make more sense if we all worked together. You know, as a team.” She waited on Conrad’s reaction.

  “Sure, if you want to.” Conrad kept the majority of his attention on TiTI. “Go ahead.”

  “No, I mean all of us.” Piper pointed at herself and then Conrad meaningfully.

  “You mean me?” Now he gave Piper his full attention.

  “Of course. Why not you?”

  “Because I don’t want to.” Conrad put his equipment down and walked away. Piper followed him.

  “But you have so many great plans and you always figure things out and we’d get so much more done. Together we could make a big difference.”

  “A big difference to whom? Or what?”

  “Everyone. Anyone. Think of it!” Piper’s face was animated with the possibilities. “We’ve been blessed with these abilities and we’ve gotta use ’em as a blessing.”

  “Thanks but no thanks.”

  “But why not?”

  “Because my work is here.” Conrad pointed to TiTI.

  Piper looked around the dusty old barn. “So you plan to just hide out here for the rest of your life working on this … stuff.”

  “It’s not ‘stuff.’ And yes. Why not?”

  “Because we need a leader, Conrad, and that leader is you,” Piper admitted. “We can’t do it without you.”

  “Sorry.” Conrad returned to his table, placing his back to Piper. “You’ll have to find someone else.”

  “There aren’t exactly a lot of super geniuses just hanging around the corner store.”

  “Things happen for a reason,” Conrad said quietly. “No one wants us to get involved.”

  Piper wanted to argue her point more when the dinner bell rang loudly.

  “Supper’s up!” Betty called. “Come and git it!”

  CHAPTER

  5

  Area 63 is a high-security psychiatric hospital that houses criminally insane patients who pose a threat to national security. They are considered by the United States government to be the most dangerous people in the world.

  It is located
just outside a sleepy Massachusetts town in the center of two hundred acres of heavily guarded woods. Most, if not all, of the residents of the town have no inkling of its very presence, which is not strange since it cannot be found on any map, no one in the government will acknowledge its existence let alone its location, and no prisoner has ever escaped, been released, or gone missing.

  If J. was a moth then Area 63 was his flame.

  Patient X, his target, was at the center of Area 63, and to get to her J. was going to have to pass through no less than seven security checkpoints. Being invisible didn’t automatically open doors for you. Indeed, invisibility only got you so far in this world, as J. discovered early in the game. You needed other skills like cunning and stealth and intuition and practical skills too. After all, those locks weren’t going to pick themselves, and a bloodhound could catch an invisible person almost as easily as a visible one. It had taken a lifetime of hard work for J. to develop the skills that would allow him to tackle a security behemoth like Area 63.

  Sweat was pouring down his face and he grunted softly as he pulled himself through a ventilation shaft in the heart of the beast. J. silently opened a hatch and dropped down to the floor. The instant he closed the hatch a security sensor was activated and an alarm sounded. J. positioned himself and waited patiently. Exactly four seconds later a door opened, just as J. knew it would, and he released the rat that he’d stashed in his backpack. The overexcited bloodhound went howling after the rat and J. invisibly slid through the open door, right past the guards. Security checkpoint number three was now behind him.

  J. didn’t celebrate, didn’t pause; his thoughts remained only on Patient X. He must get to Patient X.

  Six months earlier J. had heard about Patient X for the first time. It was a night like any other for J.; he was on the move as usual and had a long train ride to Boston. It was late, and with a first-class compartment at his disposal he’d made himself comfortable. No sooner had he stretched out and turned invisible than a middle-aged man bumbled into his compartment and locked the door, unwittingly trapping J. in the corner.

  Confident of his aloneness, the man had immediately opened his briefcase, dug through his files, and begun dictating voice memos into his smartphone.

  “Patient Jones is experiencing tics and sleeplessness. Decrease haloperidol to three milligrams two times daily, add plasmapheresis as needed.”

  J. glanced at the man’s briefcase, catching sight of the tag on it—DR. HARRISON ANTHROPE. J. sighed to himself. So much for getting some sleep.

  For the next twenty minutes J. did his best to block out the monotone drone of Dr. Anthrope, but the man had a voice so irritating that it came as no surprise to J. that his patients all seemed to be heavily medicated. At that moment J. would have taken whatever medication Dr. Anthrope offered if only he would stop talking.

  “Now on to Patient X,” Dr. Anthrope continued, pulling a thick red file from the bottom of his case. “Patient X persists in her delusions. She has elaborate and detailed fantasies of a hidden utopia where everyone has superhuman abilities.”

  J. sat up in his seat, lightning coursing through his veins.

  “Patient X is unable to explain where the imaginary people get their abilities, but claims to have one herself,” Dr. Anthrope continued. “She refuses to demonstrate this ability. She is strangely persuasive and influences those around her in disturbing ways. She continues to be a danger to the staff and herself. I recommend no further treatment, no medication, and complete isolation.”

  J. noticed that Dr. Anthrope’s hand was shaking, as though the mere thought of Patient X was causing him trepidation.

  “Patient X must have the highest security. Under no circumstances can she be allowed to have contact with any other patients. Only those staff with a level four TS SCI security clearance may address her directly.”

  Dr. Anthrope abruptly turned his smartphone off, wiped the sweat from his brow, and leaned back in his seat as though spent. He stared out the window into the darkness for long moments.

  J. wished he could crawl inside the man’s head and know all that was there to be known. Needless to say, when Dr. Anthrope departed the train in Boston the red file of Patient X was mysteriously absent from his briefcase.

  It had taken months for J. to plan his route through Area 63, accounting for all eventualities and timing it down to the last second. Standing at the threshold of Patient X’s door, J. tingled to be so close to what he hoped was his holy grail.

  Gently cracking open the door six precise inches, J. slid inside the room of Patient X. She was sitting on the floor, her back to him. As she rocked back and forth her forehead made a soft thudding noise against the padded walls. Everything was white: the single mattress that rested on the floor, the linens, her pillows, and her gown. In sharp contrast her hair was raven black, tangled and matted about her shoulders. He watched her closely, considering his options.

  “I can hear you breathing,” she said. Her voice was low and musical.

  J. was disappointed; he had wanted to observe her for a while before making himself known. She continued to rock, the thud of her head against the wall a metronome of sadness marking time infinite.

  J. turned visible and placed his backpack upon the ground. He didn’t want to scare her so he stayed put. “What is your name?” he asked kindly.

  “My name doesn’t matter, Jeston. That is not what you came here for.”

  J.’s breath caught, jagged and hard like a knife against the back of his throat. “What did you call me?”

  She rocked and rocked. “Jeston, Jeston, Jeston.”

  The sound of his name spoken aloud ignited a fury inside J. He felt exposed and was barely able to contain the urge to rush forward and beat this strange creature into silence.

  “Shhhh,” he said, and his voice was no longer soft.

  “Jeston, Jeston, Jeston.”

  Would she never stop saying it? “How do you know my name?”

  “How do you not know mine? Jeston. Jeston. Jeston.”

  J. bolted across the room, jerking the woman around and grabbing her by the shoulders. “Stop saying my name!” he growled.

  “Jeston,” she whispered one last time.

  J. saw her face then—her sharp green eyes, pale skin, and thin lips. The lips were the only thing that looked different, and only because she wasn’t wearing lipstick. The sight of her made him feel like his eyes had been harpooned.

  “Letitia?” He released his hold on her, his hands on fire. “Letitia Hellion.”

  She neither confirmed nor denied it but sat passively, making no movement.

  “But you died. You’re dead. You fell…”

  “I wanted to die. I prayed for death, but he wouldn’t let me.”

  “Who wouldn’t let you?”

  “Him.” She wanted to say his name but it wouldn’t come into her head. This frustrated her and she started to rock back and forth again. “Him, him, him.”

  “Who is him?”

  “The one who made me into a monster. He made me live and remember everything. He likes the fact that I suffer. If I didn’t know and remember I wouldn’t suffer as I am. He is … a shadow.”

  J. was too shocked to organize his thoughts, too confused to think about the fact that his time was running out and he must hurry.

  “A man who is a shadow?”

  She rocked faster. “I want to go home. He won’t let me go home.”

  “I could take you home.”

  She grabbed at him like a drowning swimmer. “You can take me? Yes. Yes. But … do you know where it is?”

  The confusion J. felt was apparent on all his features. “If you tell me…”

  She immediately released him and turned away. “Fool. Stupid. Do you think I’d be here if I could remember that?” She rocked again, holding her head.

  Without warning, a powerful emotion washed over J., filling him with an expansive happiness and relief. It was so strong he felt weak. He had never a
llowed himself to acknowledge what Letitia’s loss had meant to him. They had had their differences but family was family.

  “I missed you, sister,” J. said. She didn’t respond and so he sat next to her. “Why didn’t you tell me that you could fly? When did you first find out?”

  It took several moments for his words to penetrate into her head and for her to find a response. “It started when I was seven. I hated it. I didn’t want to be like you. I wanted to hide it.”

  He nodded; hiding it and pretending it didn’t exist would have been much easier. He understood all about that.

  “And then there was Sarah…” Letitia murmured, unable to finish her thought. Of course with J. she didn’t need to explain more. J. knew all about the day that Letitia had flown with their younger sister, Sarah, and there had been a terrible accident when they got caught in a rainstorm. Sarah had slipped out of Letitia’s hands and fallen to her death, and Letitia had never forgiven herself or flown again.

  “Mom and Dad will be glad to know where you are,” J. said, changing the subject.

  “They aren’t our real parents,” Letitia said matter-of-factly and without missing a beat. “They adopted us. They were the ones who called you Johnny, but that wasn’t your real name, not the one you were born with.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  Letitia was suddenly sharply lucid. “Don’t you remember anything? Nothing?” She watched him closely and saw that he didn’t, and then sighed. “Which is worse? Knowing and not being able to have it, or not knowing and never understanding what could be?”

  Her rocking returned and she slipped away again.

  An alarm sounded and J. remembered that his time had been limited, only now he didn’t care. Like his sister’s, his time had become infinite. He gathered his things and turned invisible, staying close beside her.

  “I want to know what you know,” he told her.

  “Jeston. Jeston. Jeston,” she said.

  J. liked the way his name sounded on her lips.