As a child, Ethan was not discernibly different. His divergence began in his teens. He wore out new clothes in less time than other kids. By Christmas, the new notebooks he'd received at the start of the school year were frayed with only a few crinkled pages still attached and all the loose pages stuffed between the covers. His mother complained that he was just too rough on his things. When she talked to his classmate's mothers they said their sons were too rough and careless with their things too. The difference, lost in superficial discussion, was that Ethan's clothes and his common possessions were destroyed substantially faster. He'd promise to be more careful with his clothes, and within weeks there'd be holes and tears in the knees or seat.
He'd worn through his original wedding band the week before Ray was born. It just fell off one day in the shower with a "tink, tink" as the seam wore thin. He'd decided he was just rough on things in the way other people decided they were clumsy or forgetful. He was just rough on things.
Ray's diagnosis, so rare and freakishly out-of-the-blue as it was, didn't seem to tie to anything, Maggie's family had no history of it, and his parents were healthy and vibrant new grandparents. For Ethan, in those weeks of soul-searching after the diagnosis, there was no connection to anything except himself and the strange faster-than-normal entropy. He began, for the first time, to consider that perhaps there was something truly abnormal about him. With this new perspective, he examined his life. Objects he used more, like his rusty tools, aged more quickly. The chair he sat in each night, looked five years older than Maggie's. Nothing he saw disproved his suspicion that he was different from everyone else.
When he finally mentioned his concern to Maggie, she laughed. "It's ridiculous," she said, taking him to the mirror. "Look. All these things you're talking about are just normal wear and tear. If anything, you look younger than you should, you dog. If everything around you is, somehow", she shook her head, "aging super-fast, what about you? You're not aging fast and you're around yourself all the time."
She was right. He'd let it drop. Looking through the wedding pictures later, he looked virtually the same as today. But, he was not totally convinced, and as the months went by and little Ray's future grew increasingly close, the feelings of guilt bore down on him. He became certain there was a connection. He'd brought it up, as casually as possible, to Ray's doctor during a checkup. Even though he'd become almost certain himself, he was afraid the doctor would think he was a kook. The doctor had dismissed the idea out of hand, giving Ethan a mini-lecture on Progeria as if he hadn't read all about it and lived it firsthand already through the first year of baby Ray's life. He just went along and pretended he agreed with the doctor, as convinced as ever there was a connection.
The next years were a blur, with Ethan working extra hours at the mine and struggling to eke the last iota of energy out for time with Ray. There was never enough, looking back, he knew that although he'd been with Ray as much, or more, than any other father in the little mining community, he'd rarely been rested enough to really give Ray the focus he had in the mornings when he woke early for work. He'd think about Ray and Maggie during the day and be eager to get home, but after a couple hours together, he wasn't able to keep going. He'd lay beside Ray in bed telling him a made-up bedtime story, only to have Ray stop him. "That's not what happens," he'd say and Ethan realized he'd mingled discussion from work into the story as he fell asleep talking. Weekends were better. Waking up with Ray and Maggie, he gave them his full attention.
Those early years with them were the best part of Ethan's life, and he remembered them often. As Ray's condition worsened, the stress on Ethan mounted. All of his life, he'd been an early-riser, usually waking before the alarm went off. He began to oversleep and where he'd been a light sleeper before, now he had to be shaken awake. Back then, he'd just assumed his sleep quality was low. Anyone would have trouble relaxing in a similar situation, he thought. In any event, he didn't feel groggy, or sleep-deprived so it wasn't a problem, other than requiring Maggie to wake him up.
After Ray was gone, Maggie was not the same. Ray had grown between the two of them in a way that felt tight and complete at the time, but left cold empty sadness between them. With no family history of illness with anything like Ray's rare Progeria, she'd blamed herself and Ethan equally. Both of their genes had combined in a way that doomed Ray, and she would wake up each day and roll the stone of her grief up the mountain over and over.
She left the house one Saturday a month after Ray's death without waking Ethan. She intended to spend the day driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and just remember Ray alone. She drove all day and felt it had helped, at least a small bit. The house was quiet and Ethan didn't answer when she called, although his car was in the driveway. She walked to the shed and around the house without finding him.
Cell phones were decades away, so she made dinner and waited. She was worried and angry with him in equal parts. The brief relief she'd gained during the day was lost in frustration at Ethan for not leaving a note about his plans. At ten o'clock, she decided she'd go to bed.
She saw Ethan in bed and let out a gasp, with her hand holding her heart in place. As she approached him she saw that he was breathing normally. He seemed to just be sleeping. She switched off the light and slid in beside him.
In the morning, he still slept. Maggie considered waking him but decided to let him sleep. She skipped church, she wasn't ready to face anyone there yet anyway. When she came home Ethan still slept. Throughout the day, she'd come to the door and watch him. Her amazement and compassion drained away as night returned. Ethan's coma was creepy and unnatural. She slept fitfully on the couch with the bedroom door closed. She woke with sunrise and found Ethan sleeping peacefully on.
She shook him, and he came awake with a mumbled "thanks" and went into the shower.
Maggie was still sitting on the bed when he came out, towel around his waist.
Ethan asked "anything special you'd like to do today?"
"Ethan," she said, "it's Monday."
She told him then about how she'd spent the weekend watching him sleep.
"I didn't know a person could sleep that long," she said, almost as a question. Ethan didn't reply. He had no answer, but she could tell he was working through something. He dressed and went in to work.
Maggie pulled out the wedding album and looked at Ethan. He really hadn't aged since the wedding. Staring at the mirror, she could see lines at the corner of her eyes and the hint of a crease around her smile that would eventually set in place. She was aging. Normally? Or faster than normal? She had no way to gauge and of course, after what she'd been through what would be normal anyway?
But Ethan's concern that somehow he might be the cause of Ray's Progeria came back to her. She'd laughed it away then, but that was before she'd seen him sleep in a coma for 58 hours. There was no doubt that Ethan was different now, and it wasn't so hard to accept other differences might be possible. She spent the day looking at the house, his things, his clothes, his chair and the tools in his shed, and she started to believe. By the time Ethan came home, they both knew he'd been right.
The next days were worse even than Ray's last days.
The crushing guilt they'd shared had tenuously held them together. With no family history of illness in either side of their genes, the disease was a fluke, just incredibly bad fortune. The combination of genes that gave them Ray's unique personality and indomitable spirit gave him only a short time. With the guilt burden removed, there was nothing left between them. Maggie's eyes had looked at him with love and loyalty once. He'd seen the fear and sadness in them as they brought Ray into the world and saw him out. He'd seen her eyes vacant with guilt and sadness. The last time he saw her, they were filled only with fear. She'd increasingly avoided him over the weeks after the long sleep, minimizing contact and staying as far away as she could manage in the little house. She thought he was causing her to age faster and although it horrified him to think of it, he thought so too.
In the years since, Ethan's strange condition increasingly isolated him. Alone in the little house, time came apart. Without anyone to physically wake him, he slept for days or weeks at a time. When he woke, he felt like he'd slept normally. He listened to the radio to learn how long he'd been asleep, always feeling like a single night passed.
He'd wondered why he'd slept normally before Ray's death. Ethan tried often to exert conscious control of his strange time condition. He'd stare at a clock trying to slow or speed it up, but nothing ever happened. Since he couldn't control it consciously, he decided his unconscious mind somehow could. Clearly, it was his unconscious that took over as he slept and created some kind of time-deflecting cocoon around him, allowing him to go without food or bathroom for weeks.
But he couldn't control it consciously. He tried day after day without success of any kind until, like the little steel puzzle rings he had as a boy, he put it out of mind and let his unconscious mind work on it or ignore it as it chose.
He imagined his unconscious mind as a separate person from himself, with different objectives and mysterious and frustrating ways. It controlled his strange, useless ability throughout his life allowing it to leak out in only the most subtle ways, with his clothes and the objects around him aging faster than normal. The oddities of his genes swept into Ray too, minus the unconscious control mechanisms. Ethan read everything he could find about Progeria victims. Almost nothing was ever written about their parents, so he had no way to know if they had conditions like his own. He'd never told anyone who actually documented his own fears. If any other parents had come forward with similar concerns, those had likewise never been documented. He thought it possible that the kids that died of Progeria had the same physical condition he had without the control system. Whatever that was.
He became flotsam in the time stream, and the world moved on. Mine operations slowed and finally stopped as richer sources were found. People moved out of the houses around him. With his long sleeps, he only ate one day every couple weeks. Compound interest and minimal withdrawals on the money he'd saved covered his expenses. The world left him alone and soon forgot him.
He talked to Ray and God intermittently through the day and listened to the radio during meals catching up on what he'd slept through. He'd slept through the death and funeral of both his parents, visiting fresh gravesides to pay belated respects. They'd left their only son an inheritance which he put into long term, high-interest accounts.
Years passed, then decades. The century turned. For Ethan, it was a year. Alone with his grief and rare interactions with complete strangers. He started to heal. While he lived a completely abnormal existence, he held the loss of Ray and Maggie in a heart that no longer felt like broken glass. He talked to the memories of them every day and in his long, slow dreams.
He'd given up trying to control the thing, consciously at least.
Apparently, my unconscious has worked it out, he thought. After all this time.
When the tree crashed to the ground, Ethan felt a rush of joy, relief and power that he couldn't imagine existed. He felt like the light of a sun was shining out of him.
He breathed, "Wow" and shook his head, smiling.
Wow, Ray agreed. That was great, Dad! You did it! Did you see that? Wham!
Ethan beamed. Yes! It was amazing. I found it Ray. I finally figured out how to let it go where I want without it slipping out bit-by-bit, aging everything around me.
All those years alone…
Dad. Hey, Dad! Better pay attention. We've got to help Leo!
Ethan set his thoughts aside and bent down to put the gun back in his pack. He lifted it back to his shoulder keeping an eye on the soldiers. The rifles still targeted him, and he could only hope they could see he'd put the gun away. Now he had to do something they might consider threatening. He braced himself and took a step toward Leo. He waited. No one fired, so he continued walking slowly toward the boy. He came to the tree and straddled it to get across.
The soldiers watched him through rifle scopes as he crossed the clearing.
"Are you ok?" he asked Leo.
"What was that?" Leo asked back. "What just happened?"
"It's a long story, Leo, a sad one. We don't have time for it now."
Ethan looked back at the soldiers who seemed to be struggling to restrain one of their own. Good, he thought, that'll give us some time to get him out of this thing on our own. They can have it, that's probably all they want anyway.
"How do we get this thing off you Leo?" Ethan asked. He saw the boy was looking at the soldiers. When he turned back, he was wide-eyed with fear.
"We can't," he said quickly, "We can't take it off, Ethan. There's no time. You've got to help me, Ethan! Quick!"
"What?" Ethan asked trying to understand what had escalated Leo's fear so quickly. "What do we do to get it off?"
"We can't take it off in time, Ethan. That's him", he nodded over his head at the soldiers as they wrestled on the ground. "That's the alien. It's taking over that soldier now. This suit is his. If he comes within twenty feet of me, he's going to take over my mind just like he's doing with that agent and this time, he's ready to leave."
"Leave?" Ethan asked, "Where's he going?"
"Home!" Leo shouted. "Ethan, he's going home! He'll take me with him and I'll be a prisoner in his mind there all by myself." Leo peered over the edge of the suit's collar. "I can't see it."
"See what?"
"The helmet. Get the helmet Ethan. It didn't fall off the edge did it?"
"No," Ethan replied, picking the helmet up and holding it where Leo could see it. "Its here."
"Put it on me, before they see what you're doing," Leo gasped.
"What? No! We can't go any further with this Leo. We might only be making it more impossible to get you out."
"If you don't," Leo locked eyes with Ethan. "If you don't Ethan, you're condemning me to death all alone and completely helpless, living out my whole life as a voice with no one listening. Please, Ethan, put the helmet on me now!"
Ethan's mind raced with his thoughts circling back to the same place. Leo was asking, was begging him to do something. He didn't understand why, but the boy seemed sure. He didn't have facts or time to understand, but if he didn't act immediately, something bad might happen. The boy thought it would.
58
He lifted the glass bowl up over Leo's head, careful not to brush against the suit. He had no idea if it would try to stop him, but he didn't want to take a chance. This close to the edge, he'd probably fall right off.
The soldier they'd restrained seemed to have come to his senses. He'd apparently reassured them enough that they'd let him up, and they were walking toward the suit with rifles pointing at Ethan.
He positioned the glass helmet as close as possible to the right location and held it steady over Leo's head. They looked at each other. Leo smiled at Ethan to reassure him. He was afraid to look at the soldiers. He knew they were getting close. He felt the alien's mind reaching into his. Leo nodded to go ahead.
Ethan spread his fingers, and the helmet dropped in place.
The helmet clinked lightly, and seals made a soft "pop" as they settled in place. Leo's eyes darted inside the glass dome. Seconds passed. The suit's arms released and fell to the sides, and Leo stumbled in the suit. Without thinking, Ethan grabbed at the suit and pulled Leo back from the edge. He jerked his hands off the armor once he'd realized he'd touched it, even though it hadn't stunned him this time. He kept his hands close just in case Leo's knees gave out.
The suit settled lower, dropping Leo down to eye level with Ethan. As Ethan watched, the suit drew itself in tighter. The shoulders shrank down, and the long forearms pulled back. Leo felt his fingers touch the glove tips. He held the r
ight glove up to his eyes and watched seams appear between the two flat fingers. The seams deepened, and he felt the suit sheath around his fingers.
He looked at Ethan. Ethan saw his lips moving but couldn't hear anything through the sealed helmet. A blue circle of light traced on the glass surface in front of Leo's mouth, and Ethan heard "…fitting itself to me".
"I hear you Leo," he said. "Can you hear me through that?"
"I can hear you perfectly. It sounds like your mouth is talking right into my ear. At first it was like being underwater, but now I can't tell the helmet is even there." The dust that had covered the helmet was gone. It was crystal clear.
He brought his arm up, flexing the gloved fingers. Ethan watched the collar neckline drip down like hot wax onto the chest plate as the clear glass of the helmet extended below Leo's chin.
"I can see the ground in front of me now," Leo said with a small smile touching his lips. "That helps."
The flightsuit felt like a second skin. Ethan stepped back as Leo stretched his arms and fingers, feeling the flightsuit respond to him. It wasn't bulky or cumbersome at all. It mirrored his movements without hesitation or drag. He snapped his fist up into a straight arm punch, and the flightsuit amplified the movement, making his arm a blur.
Leo smiled, "I think its ok, Ethan."
59
"Raise your hands now!" Hack didn't need to yell. They'd closed the distance and were less than 40 feet from the two and continued slowly closing the gap.
The delay while he restrained Sowyer allowed them to get the helmet on. Hack was pretty certain that was not a good development. The suit instantly compressed a full helicopter, plus pilot and gunner into a speck that Horton couldn't see. He had to assume it could do the same or worse, if that is possible, to a person. He didn't want to find out what might be worse.
The suit was an alien artifact. Clearly a functional alien artifact. It was irreplaceable and priceless. The government would have it at any cost. The lives of everyone here meant nothing. The suit would fund whole new arms of the government. They would analyze alien technology, and convert it to weapons and new industrial technologies. Keeping the suit secret would prevent ownership squabbles with other countries. Secrecy would be maintained, at any cost. Hack considered options, signaling the team not to approach closer.
Flightsuit Page 17