“No, I didn’t..,” Jake hesitated. “The what?”
“That’s just it.” Scott’s paper was now rolled up in his hand and he bonked Jake on the top of the head with it. “We don’t have an interdimensional teleporter. Where did she come up with that one?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, you had a little bit to drink, got a little nookie, and decided that was reason to spill your guts about every single classified thing going on here?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Though..,” Scott’s voice drifted off. He was no longer really listening to Jake. His gaze was growing distant. “An inter-dimensional teleporter may not be such a bad idea. This would solve a lot of problems. I mean, I’ve theorized the existence of parallel worlds for some time. I did that when I was twelve. And I have proven my theory correct. But the problem has always been how to cross from our universe to one of the others.”
“Scott. Focus.”
Scott looked at him questioningly. Then, “Oh, yeah. Sorry. Okay, here’s the problem. They’re bringing over a team to interrogate us all, and to try to figure this out.”
“What’s there to figure out?”
“Jake, this is a major security breach.”
“Nobody’s interrogating me.”
“Jake, just sit with them and answer their questions. I’m sure everything will be all right.”
“No.” Jake got to his feet. “I’m tired of us having to play lapdog for the Secretary. Why do we have to work for him? Do you know why? Because they’re afraid of us. That’s why. They don’t have respect for us. What they have is fear. You know what all of this security is for? It’s not to protect us. It’s to keep tabs on us. That’s what.”
Scott sighed. “You think I don’t know this?”
“Then, why the hell do you play along, kissing up to these guys?”
“I need the funding. I’m developing some things, and I need the capital. Simple as that.”
It was Jake’s turn for his voice to rise. “So, you just go along with them for the rest of your life, playing lapdog, letting them decide where you live and how you live and letting them keep a watch on you like you’re some sort of prisoner?”
“Not for the rest of my life, Jake. Just until the time is right.”
“Until the time is right for what?”
“You’ll see.”
“All right. Be cryptic. Play your games.”
Jake turned toward the door, then stopped, one hand on the back of his neck, squeezing away tension. He turned back to Scott. “You know why I did it? You know why I blabbered about us and everything?”
Scott shook his head.
“Because ever since the explosion, my whole life has been spent following you around. All of your whacky experiments. I just wanted a normal night with a girl like a normal guy, which turned into a normal weekend. I found a normal girl, one I could talk to, who wasn’t some sort of goddam meta-human, or a government operative trying to maneuver us.”
“And, of course, your normal girl happened to be a journalist looking for the big scoop. The story of her life.”
Jake threw his hands in the air. “All right. I screwed up. But if I had something of a normal social life, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. We both need to have people in our lives. We need to get out of this blasted lab more often.”
“Well,” Scott shrugged, “we did go to a bar a couple nights ago.”
“We need more than that, Scott. We need normal social lives. We need to hit a college football game once in a while. It would be good to just go to the Cape for the day. It wouldn’t hurt just to watch a movie, or read a book that’s something other than a textbook on quantum mechanics. Have you ever just sat and read a novel?”
Scott shook his head. “Not since I was seven or eight. We did see a movie, though.”
“That was Zorro, and it was a while ago,” Jake said. “Sometimes you need to think about something other than all of the discoveries you’re trying to make.”
“But this is what I love. It’s what I want. It’s my work, as well as my recreation.”
“Well, it’s not mine.”
“I ruined your life, didn’t I? That explosion. It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”
“I thought you knew that already.” Jake could see by the look in Scott’s eyes his last remark hurt. He immediately felt bad about having said it, but he was too angry to take it back. “I’m going for a walk.”
“The Secretary asked that you wait here.”
“The Secretary can go to hell. I’m sure you can figure a way to teleport him there.”
Jake turned and strode through the doorway.
“Jake, they’ll just go looking for you.”
“Then them find me.” And he left Scott standing alone.
CHAPTER TEN
The breeze had picked up, and the sky was clouding over. So much for the beautiful morning, Jake thought. As his mood clouded, so apparently did the sky. He wondered, being sarcastic with himself, if this was some sort of additional ability he had gained since the explosion.
He had intended to simply walk aimlessly, but as he walked along he realized what he really wanted to do - what he needed to do - was talk to Mandy. Ask her how it was possible she could take what for anyone else would have been an incredible weekend and turn it into a story. She had commented, he remembered, that she had slept with the star football player she had been hoping to land an interview with. And now it looked like she had slept with the star player in another league.
Jake walked across town to her apartment, thinking the long walk might cool his temper a little. It didn’t. He knocked on her door, but there was no answer. He turned to walk away. Maybe he would head back to the school, and see if she was at the campus newspaper office. Or at least they might to know how to find her. If he felt like a little spiteful revenge, he could always give them her so-called secret identity.
He stepped back down to the sidewalk, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets, when two men in black suits and gray trench coats were suddenly at either side of him.
“Jake Calder?” one of them said. “We need you to come with us.”
Jake stopped, hands still in his pockets. He was not in the mood for nonsense or harassment. “Just are you ugys supposed to be? Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones? You guys look ridiculous.”
A flash of annoyance crossed the man’s face. When a man dressed like something out of the Men In Black movies stops you on the street, he expects you to at least feel a little intimidated. He reached into a jacket pocket and produced a small wallet, which he flipped open to reveal a badge Jake was not the slightest bit interesting in reading. “D.T.D,” he said. “We need you to come with us.”
Jake always thought D.T.D. sounded something like a pesticide, but he knew it to mean Department of Technological Development, created specifically to monitor himself and Scott. Officially a branch of the F.B.I., though he doubted many in the Bureau actually knew of its existence.
Jake said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
He turned to walk away, and one of them grabbed his arm. Jake pulled free, his hands coming out of his pockets, and he turned to face them. His gaze was firm, his voice level. “You really don’t want to hassle me. I’m not in the mood today.”
The one who had spoken ignored him. “You need to come with us, sir.”
The other one remained silent, his hands in his trench coat pockets.
Jake said, “Look, I’m not having a very good day. And unless you want yours to take a solid turn for the worse, you’ll leave me the hell alone.”
Jake believed with power came responsibility and he tried to never use his power out of anger, but as he stood facing these two federal officers he found his patience was exhausted. He began powering-up.
The man who had spoken said, “We were ordered to bring you in. And this is what we are going to do.”
“You and what army?”
The other one pulled a hand fro
m his pocket. In that hand was an automatic pistol. Jake didn’t know enough about guns to know the caliber or anything like that, but it looked big. Regardless, it was evident to Jake these two clowns didn’t know who they were dealing with.
“We don’t want any trouble,” the man said, “but we were told to use deadly force, if necessary. You are coming with us.”
“Apparently you’re even more stupid than you look. Go ahead and pull that trigger.”
“Sir, we don’t want to hurt you. But you are coming with us.”
Jake simply smiled, as he continued the powering-up process. “Pull the trigger.”
“Sir, I’m warning you,” the one with the gun said. “I will shoot.”
“What am I talking to? A machine? I am telling you, pull the trigger.”
Jake seldom powered up to this level. The air seemed to take on a different feel as his human need for oxygen faded away. He no longer felt the air temperature or any heat from the sun on his shoulders at all, because he was now capable of tolerating temperatures that would kill a non-powered human within seconds. Even the pavement beneath his feet lost its solid feel and seemed to take on a sort of brittleness.
“I’m turning to walk away,” he said. “Pull the trigger if you want to.”
Jake turned, and the gun went off. He felt the bullet slam into his back and bounce away. He might have a small bruise from that, he realized, so he powered-up some more as he turned to face them.
He said, “Is that all you have?”
“I hit him,” the agent said. “I hit him dead on, but he’s still standing.”
The other drew his pistol and said, “Fire at will.”
They emptied their clips at Jake, the bullets tearing into his shirt and jean jacket, and bouncing away. A couple struck his cheekbones, one his forehead. Powered-up to this new level, the bullets felt like little more than pebbles being tossed harmlessly at him.
The agents stood staring at him.
“Had enough?” Jake said. “Keep in mind, if I wanted to I could just shout and blow out your eardrums. However,” he noticed the car parked at the curb, a nondescript Chevy Impala with Federal plates. “This must be your car.”
Without waiting for a reply from them, he walked toward the car, and with one hand he gripped the underside of the car behind the front wheel and lifted, rolling the vehicle upward. With a final toss, he flipped the car over onto its roof. The metal creaked and groaned as car roof caved inward.
Jake then looked to them. They had dropped out their clips, and slapped in fresh ones.
One thing Jake had found was, powered-up like this he could move with incredible speed. He darted forward and snatched each pistol from their grip before they could even react.
“You keep shooting like that, you won’t hurt me but you might hit someone passing by.”
He squeezed, crushing the guns as though they were made of clay, and dropped them to the sidewalk.
“Have I made my point?” he asked.
The agent who seemed to be in charge said, without expression, “You have, sir.”
“Leave me the hell alone.”
He turned and walked away, leaving the two agents standing by their upside-down car and the debris that was their pistols.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
April Hollister was in her senior year at the University of Mass. She was almost twenty-one, with sandy brown hair that was gently highlighted. She was five-four, and had what she considered to be an average figure maybe made a little more curvy because she maintained her muscle tone running every morning. She reported to a running track and did laps, each lap being a half mile. She ran maybe ten laps every morning.
She didn’t consider herself a brain, and had to work hard to maintain her three-point-one GPA. She considered herself lucky enough to have found a part-time job on campus, sweeping up and washing test tubes and answering the phone at the University Science Center, usually working for Doctor Tempest.
She envied the way he could simply visualize mathematical formulas, when it was all she could do to understand college-level calculus. She could always ask Doctor Tempest to tutor her, but he did not generally work with students. His functions seemed to be only to run experiments and develop new theories. He might make an exception for her, but she would be too embarrassed to ask him for help with something that was probably as rudimentary to him as simple addition was to her.
April was majoring in early education, hoping to one day teach kindergarten. She had a few friends on campus, but little social life because most of her time was spent either in class, in the library doing the pounds and pounds of homework that came with college studies, or hanging out at the lab assisting the doctor.
And, she admitted to herself, she was in love with Doctor Tempest.
He was barely twenty-five, five years older than she. A little bit of an age difference, but nothing she couldn’t live with. He had a beard that was neatly trimmed, and had a strong and commanding way of speaking. He strode across the floor of the lab, his white coat unfastened, its tails sweeping behind him almost like some sort of cape. She loved the way he moved, the way he spoke, even the way he reached for a cup of coffee.
One time, when hooking up a new coffee maker, he actually looked at the globe and computed in his head how many scoops of coffee would be necessary to produce exactly the correct pot.
Jake Calder, of course, said, “Why don’t you just read the directions?”
The doctor looked at him in his slightly distracted way and said, “Hmm?”
She found this so incredibly endearing.
She had never told the doctor how she felt. She almost did, on the previous Valentine’s Day. But when he looked at her, with eyes behind which such a super intelligence worked, she found her knees growing weak and she simply couldn’t get the words out.
It was early Tuesday morning. She had a nine o’clock class, and then at one she would go to the lab and work with the doctor and Jake until maybe seven. Then it would be back to her dorm for many hours of homework.
She left her dorm at seven, moving at a slight jog. The grass was shiny with morning dew, and the sun hadn’t been in the sky long. She wore a navy blue sweat shirt with the front zipper pulled to her neck, and matching sweat pants. A wide white stripe decorated the side of each leg. Beneath the sweat pants were running shorts, and if the morning turned off warm before she was done running her laps, she could toss aside the sweat pants before she worked up too much sweat and dehydrated. A runner had to be careful. She would use the quarter mile between her dorm and the running track as the opportunity for a light warm up. Her pony tail bounced against her back as she ran.
Suddenly, a man in a dark suit and a gray trench coat stepped in her way.
She said, “Excuse me,” and was making a move to run around him when a second man stepped in front of her. Then a third to her side.
She stopped, not sure what to do, when a fourth was suddenly behind her, grabbing her and covering her mouth and nose with a cloth reeking of a smell she recognized as ether.
She was screaming, “No! Let me go!” through the ether-soaked cloth, as the world started growing dark.
Once she was out, one of the men draped her over his shoulder like a sack. One of the others produced a walkie-talkie from his coat and said into it, “We have her.”
Within a minute, a black Chevy Impala was speeding into view and coming to a screeching stop by them. They loaded April into the car and climbed in themselves, and the car sped away.
The phone in the lab was ringing, and Scott supposed he was going to have to answer it. This was something he hated to do, but April wasn’t due at the lab until one, and Jake was off somewhere still pissed off, not only because of the argument between them but because two D.T.D. agents had tried to arrest him the day before.
Scott doubted anyone on Earth could arrest Jake, if Jake was not willing to go with them.
A few months ago, Scott had had a discussion with the lunkhead
in the president’s cabinet, known as the Secretary of Technological Development. He was not a scientist, as one would think such a position would require. He was just another sleazy politician who gained his position in the cabinet as repayment for a favor.
Scott had tried to explain to the idiot that Jake Calder possessed potentially limitless power.
“Scott,” the Secretary had said in his patronizing way, “nothing is limitless.”
“If there is a limit to his power, it is somewhere on the cosmic scale. Much beyond the comprehension of a normal human. Maybe even beyond mine.”
“Scott, you give him too much credit. I’m sure that, while as powerful as he seems to be, there is a limit. After all, just how much zeta energy can he possibly build up before it burns him out?”
The plebeian used the term zeta energy with a straight face. He always did. He was too dense to catch the joke behind it.
“Mister Secretary,” Scott said patiently, trying not to say what he wanted to, that the Secretary was a bone-head who was hardly qualified even to be having this conversation with him. “Jake Calder doesn’t build up zeta energy, or store it like a battery. He generates it. And he generates it at no cost to himself. His wellness actually increases the more he generates it.”
The Secretary simply could not wrap his brain around the concept of Jake’s power. Neither, apparently, could the D.T.D. It was a good thing Jake was on the side of good, Scott thought, using the terms of the comic books he had grown up with and which were still dear to him, otherwise those two agents would be dead.
Scott had theorized, though he had not told Jake, that Jake could probably fire concentrated blasts of zeta energy through his eyes if he tried. Zeta radiation seemed to be harmless to humans, but zeta energy, cranked up to a severe degree, would be of an extremely high temperature and might have vaporized those two agents.
Zeta energy seemed to be an unstable thing – the reactor explosion was one indicator. Unstable, except when it came to Jake. He seemed to command it, as though it were a part of him, which Scott supposed it now was. Scott wished he could understand how zeta energy really worked. He thought the answer might be multidimensional, but that would have to be explored at a later time.
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