Arnesto Modesto

by Darren Johnson

  “Who is this?” he asked. He looked out a side window and noticed a sturdy-looking man in a suit standing across the street. He looked out another window and saw another suit standing by a tree.

  “We’re not hiding from you, Mr. Modesto. We want to do this the easy way, and we know you do, too. In thirty seconds, you’re going to hear a knock on your door, or you can come out on your own.” The female voice was starting to sound more firm and less pleasant.

  Arnesto looked around the apartment for answers, but his possessions seemed inconsequential all of a sudden. He went to the door and looked out the peephole. He saw another suit standing by one of the cars in the parking lot. After a quick sigh, he opened the door and locked it from the outside before walking down the stairs.

  “Thank you, Mr. Modesto,” said the woman on the phone. Please walk over to the street. We have a limo waiting for you.”

  Arnesto looked at his car and saw another suit standing next to it and still another walking toward him on the sidewalk.

  “There’s even more of them that you don’t see,” the woman said. “I suggest you not make them pursue you.” He agreed; escape was not a viable option. “We appreciate your cooperation. I’ll see you in the limo.” She hung up.

  As he approached the road and the suits closed around him, a limo pulled up alongside them. One of the three suits opened the passenger door for him, and Arnesto got in. There were four more suits inside, one in each corner, and Arnesto had no choice but to sit between two of them in the back seat.

  Arnesto tried to figure out who they were. They weren’t the police or FBI; they hadn’t shown him any identification. CIA? They looked American, at least. He probably wasn’t being kidnapped by the KGB, and they definitely weren’t ISIS or members of the Yakuza. But they were all stocky men. How dangerous did they think he was, and where was the woman from the phone?

  The man on his immediate left said, “Thank you for not kicking and screaming.”

  As Arnesto turned to face him, he felt a prick on the right side of his neck and fell unconscious.

  When he awoke, he was in a cell. He felt disoriented and a little nauseous, more from whatever they had given him than the anxiety. He tried to take note of his surroundings. There was nothing in his cell except for himself, his cot, and a small, metal toilet. His clothes were different now: he was in a gray t-shirt, gray sweatpants, and white boxers, but nothing else. None of the clothes were his. This made him shudder. He had neither socks nor shoes nor any other possessions.

  His cell looked out at a wall. Pushing his face into the bars, he could tell by looking left his cell was at the end of a hall, but looking right, he could only see more wall. There was also a camera in a protective bubble in the ceiling just outside his cell; they could see everything.

  As he walked around his cell barefoot, he became acutely aware of his footsteps. He realized they were the only thing he heard. He coughed and snapped his fingers to make sure he wasn’t losing his mind. He heard these fine, but otherwise, the hallway was perfectly quiet. Perhaps he was alone in this hall.

  “Hello?” he asked. “Hello?! Is anyone there?”

  There was no reply. Maybe an apocalypse had happened, leaving him the only survivor. Nah, he would’ve remembered that. Where was he anyway? Was he even in the United States?

  He sat down on his cot and waited.

  While he still wasn’t feeling well physically, he was surprised he felt as well as he did psychologically. As he reflected on this, it occurred to him that a huge source of his stress was gone. No more would he spend his days wondering if he was being watched or when he would be captured. It had happened. He had sacrificed himself in order to save many lives, and now it was over.

  It had taken a cell to make him feel free.

  He lay down with his head toward the camera — so as to give them less to look at — and waited some more.

  After what felt like an hour, he heard a door open and footsteps come his way, so he sat up. His cell door opened and two guards appeared.

  “This way, please,” the female guard said.

  They were wearing suits, which didn’t give Arnesto much information about where he was, only that it probably wasn’t the kind of place that had visiting hours. The guards didn’t even put handcuffs on him, which meant they didn’t consider him a physical threat.

  They led him to an interrogation room where he sat down behind a table in an uncomfortable chair. Soon after, a man came in and sat in the chair opposite.

  He wore a suit that looked brand new and custom-fit to his athletic build. His hair had a fresh ivy-league cut with a seamless part on one side, not a single hair out of place. Arnesto noted it was a shade lighter than black, as if the gray was just beginning to appear while still blending in perfectly with the existing color. The man looked to be of Hispanic descent.

  “Mr. Modesto, hello. Do you know who I am?” the man asked, staring intently at Arnesto.

  Say nothing except to ask for a lawyer. No, too soon. Your only chance is to act like any other suspect. Play the game, but only as much as necessary.

  “I’m sorry,” Arnesto said, shaking his head.

  “You don’t know who I am. Come on, take a guess.”

  This is odd. What is he doing? Arnesto squinted his eyes a little and tried to remember, but came up empty.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know who you are,” Arnesto said.

  The man relaxed a little and looked away. Arnesto thought he seemed disappointed. “Let me paint you a picture. A cashier approaches a table full of agents, tells them there’s a phone call. A young agent walks over, picks up the receiver and has a very interesting conversation. He hears a hesitant voice tell him to listen to a tape he left behind at the Dr Pepper museum.”

  Oh shit.

  “Can you believe that was twenty years ago when you called me? Of course now you know who I am. I’m Agent Whiteside. It is so good to finally meet you in person. Tell me, Arnesto. May I call you Arnesto?” He looked back at Arnesto who nodded. “How did you not predict your capture? Don’t you know everything?”

  There was a silence as if Whiteside expected an answer, but Arnesto chose to take it as a rhetorical question. He looked at the mirror and wondered how many people were watching him from the other side. He then returned his eyes to Whiteside.

  “Okay, Arnesto, you’re not omnipotent. Nobody is, right? The difference is, there’s nobody else on the planet that I know of that can predict the biggest earthquakes of an entire decade. How did you do it?”

  Lawyer time? No, not yet. There’s still a chance. Play dumb and don’t give him anything, not a single microexpression out of line.

  “I can’t predict earthquakes,” Arnesto said.

  “You can’t… anymore? But you could before?”

  “I’ve never been able to predict earthquakes.” Arnesto was grateful to be able to say that truthfully.

  “A computer program then? Some advanced tectonic plate simulator? I’ve never heard of a simulator that good, though. No? What about a weapon? You have some sort of sonic weapon that can perform extraterrestrial shockwave lithotripsy? I hope not, you might decide to hit us with one right now, heh!”

  What is he doing, putting on a show for his superiors? This is a big deal, he must be one of their best. You don’t get to be top dog by showing off, so that’s not it. Is he building to something?

  “Did God come to you? Tell you when these earthquakes were going to happen?” Whiteside asked.

  This question didn’t seem to be rhetorical, so Arnesto said, “God has never spoken to me.”

  “Come on, Arnesto, work with me. We know you’re the source. You’re the guy who gave the list of earthquakes to Father Martin. You did the right thing. You’ve saved countless lives. We want to work with you on this, we really do. But you understand, that kind of power is too much for one person. Can you imagine what would have happened to you if some other country got to you first?”

  So
I am still in America.

  “I know who Father Martin is from the news. But I’ve never met him. I’ve never spoken to him or had contact with him in any way,” Arnesto said.

  “Alright,” Whiteside said. Without taking his eyes of Arnesto, he signaled somebody behind the mirror.

  A moment later, an agent walked into the room carrying a briefcase, which he then opened and began removing its contents, placing them on the table in front of Arnesto. Whiteside studied Arnesto as this was happening. The other agent then closed the empty briefcase and set it down next to the table before walking out of the room.

  Don’t look at the items, maintain eye contact. No, wait, an innocent person would naturally look down out of curiosity. Look at them, but do not look surprised. Only look confused if anything, and be consistent.

  Arnesto looked down at the items. The first was an old, faded piece of paper. It was one of his flyers warning about rioters should the officers who beat Rodney King be acquitted. The moment he recognized it, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. He had to focus on his breathing to keep from revealing himself. He was still in control, but just barely.

  The second item was a cassette tape. Somebody, not him, had written on it, “David Koresh: Burn the Children.”

  The next item was a picture of a crater in front of a destroyed semi.

  “I couldn’t find a big enough piece of the Ryder truck. Oh, these go together,” Whiteside said, sliding the next item next to the picture. It was a receipt of the car Arnesto had rented when he had tried to chase down McVeigh.

  After that was a heating tile.

  “That’s actually from the Space Shuttle Columbia. I’m particularly proud of that item. That was the one piece I thought I would never get. They were reluctant to loan it to me, but under the circumstances… Of course, a threat to national security as big as yourself has to take precedence over leaving some piece of debris in storage.”

  Next was a copy of the police report involving a rental truck with a flat tire parked at one end of the Santa Monica Farmers Market.

  The next item was a burned logo that said, “Jee.” The letter ‘p’ had been broken off. Arnesto immediately recognized it from the 2005 Glendale train crash.

  “Remind me not to ask you for a ride anywhere,” Whiteside said.

  Arnesto wanted to scream. Or pass out. Or something, anything. This was all too much. Instead, he looked up at Whiteside, whose eyes betrayed his excitement.

  “I want a lawyer,” he said.

  “C’mon, Arnesto, I was really hoping we could talk about this. I have so many questions—”

  “I know my rights. I’m not saying another word without a lawyer.”

  “We analyzed your DNA while you were unconscious. Took a full body scan, too. I know you’re human, so you’re not going to melt my face or explode or anything. You probably would have teleported out of here by now if you could have. Right now, in here, I don’t think you’re dangerous. But out there, on your own, you are a threat to national security. I just don’t know how you do it. How do you do it, Arnesto?”

  Arnesto crossed his arms. The two sat there in silence, glaring at each other. Whiteside let out a sigh then stood up. “Well try again soon,” he said, starting toward the door.

  Two agents came into the room to escort Arnesto out.

  Arnesto jumped up out of fear. “What are you doing?! I’m an American citizen, I have the right to legal representation!”

  Whiteside spun around and walked up to Arnesto. “In here, you have no rights! What, you think you were brought in for stealing Granny’s purse?! I have you at the scene of every major event since the Kennedy Assassination. And believe me, we double-checked that one, too. Look, like I said, I know you’ve saved lives, though if you had worked with us from the start, we could have saved a lot more. But I can’t let you go out there and risk getting picked up and tortured for information by one of our enemies. Look at these, Arnesto,” he said, motioning toward the items. “I can’t even imagine what we’ve missed, what we don’t know. Good intentions or not, you’ve put this country at risk. If I got you a lawyer, I wouldn’t be able to let him leave, either. We both know that’s not something you’d want.”

  Arnesto sized up the man in his face. At five-feet-ten, Whiteside was a couple inches shorter than Arnesto, half a dozen years older, and twenty pounds heavier, all of it muscle. He was fearless, intimidating, and in control, like any good alpha male. Arnesto, the nonviolent omega male, suspected Whiteside was the last guy he would ever want to mess with.

  Whiteside nodded to the other agents, who began to move toward Arnesto, but Arnesto walked out on his own. Whiteside then turned to the mirror and said, “He’s going to put up a fight. He’s smart but vulnerable. It will take some time, but I’ll break him.”

  Alliances

  Pete's Law Firm

  Massachusetts

  Monday, April 29, 2013

  7:30 a.m.

  “Arnesto’s an idiot,” Pete said.

  “What makes you say that?” asked Agent Huntley, Pete’s interrogator, a strict-looking woman with all the charisma of a brick wall. She was in her early fifties but had no crow’s feet due to never smiling. “His test scores were great, his GPA was high, he graduated college at nineteen.”

  “He couldn’t have done any of those things without his… power,” Pete said.

  “And what exactly is his ‘power?’”

  Pete looked around the conference room. Besides Huntley and himself, there were two more agents with notepads seated on either side of Huntley, and two larger agents standing by the doorway, preventing anyone from coming in — or going out. At least those two weren’t staring at him like the three across the table. Pete didn’t know any of their names except Huntley’s; their little group didn’t seem too fond of introductions.

  “You don’t know?” Pete asked. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “Mr. Morgan, please. In all the years you’ve been friends, Arnesto never told you how he does it?”

  “He once told me he was a god”—the lackeys immediately started writing on their notepads—“as well as an oracle, a time traveler, a visionary, a psychic, and what else, I know I’m forgetting some.” As Pete was listing them out, the lackeys realized the value of this information and put their pens down.

  “And what do you think? If you had to pick one?” Huntley asked.

  “I always had this odd feeling that he might be an alien, but then I realized he’s just sort of weird.”

  “Mr. Morgan, I must insist on your cooperation.”

  “I don’t know how he does it,” Pete said, throwing his hands into the air. “You want me to pick one, fine, he’s psychic. Sometimes he knows things about the future. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “Mr. Morgan, why aren’t you rich?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have this friend who can see the future. We’ve been over both your finances. You’re both well-off, but with his ability, you could both be extremely wealthy, yet neither of you is. Why is that?”

  “Did he tell you about the time he convinced me to bet big on the Pistons and they lost?” Pete noticed their eyes widen at that remark, and continued, “Yeah, he’s not always right.”

  “Perhaps he did that intentionally, to get back at you for something or to shake your faith in his ability?” Huntley asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. He’s always done right by me.”

  “Has he?” Huntley rifled through her files. “Tell me about your mother. She died young, did she not? Did Arnesto try to warn you?”

  Pete frowned. “There’s an explanation for that. I told him beforehand not to interfere with my life.”

  “Did you specifically order him not to warn you about immediate family members dying?”

  “No. What exactly is your point?” Pete asked.

  “My point, Mr. Morgan, is that your friend Arnesto seems to enjoy playing God. If he’s wi
lling to sit by as his own friend’s mother gets cancer—”

  “That’s hardly fair. He didn’t make her smoke.”

  “But he could have stopped it. He could have saved her life.”

  “There’s no way to know that for sure, Agent Huntley. But what about all the lives he did save?”

  “Yes, let’s talk about Oklahoma.” The lackey on Huntley’s left handed her a file. Huntley opened it to the first page. “Timothy McVeigh a.k.a. The Oklahoma Highway Bomber. They estimate Arnesto may have saved fifty lives, many of them children.”

  Pete put his hand up. “Hold on, fifty? Try almost four times that amount.”

  Huntley took out a pair of reading glasses and put them on. She then flipped past a couple pages in the report. “According to our analysis, the Murrah building’s structure would have withstood the brunt of the blast. Two independent contractors agreed that no more than forty to fifty people would have died. Did Arnesto tell you the number was higher?”

  “Much higher, yes,” Pete said.

  “Perhaps he was lying, embellishing his heroics knowing you would never know the truth?”

  Pete’s voice got quieter. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “He wouldn’t what, lie?” Huntley asked. “Did you know less than an hour before the explosion, he lied to a police officer? He told the officer that he and McVeigh stayed at the same hotel the night before. Minutes later, that same officer was murdered by McVeigh. Did you know that? Here, read the report for yourself,” she said, turning the report around and sliding it across the table to Pete.

  Pete read the report, much of it being news to him. Still, he found nothing to contradict what little Arnesto had told him aside from Huntley’s speculation which he didn’t trust anyway.

  “Seventeen people died in the blast,” Huntley said, “most of them federal agents. If he had given them just a little more notice… But Arnesto has proven himself to be reckless. Here’s one question I would love to have answered: What was he doing there?”

  “I am happy to answer that. He told me he was worried that his warning was going to be ignored. Again. He went there as a last resort to try to stop McVeigh himself. Run him off the road if necessary.”