After we changed out of our combat gear, two of Agent Wells' men debriefed Jason and me for around thirty minutes. When that was done, we were finally taken to the first floor of the building in order to see Howie. He was asleep in a hospital bed by the time we walked into his room. Jason and I stood beside his bed and stared at him in silence. He still looked a lot thinner than usual but I was glad to see that a bit of his color had returned.
“I'm sorry, Howie,” I muttered.
“This isn’t your fault, Reaper,” Jason said.
“Yes it is. I shouldn’t have left him,” I replied without taking my eyes off of Howie.
“You're the reason he's alive, Reaper. You saved him. You saved both of us.”
“Yeah well, if I hadn't left him on that rooftop I wouldn't have had to save him. If it wasn't for Agent Wells, we probably never would have found him. What if he had refused to help us?”
“And why would he do that?” Jason asked.
“Because I refused to help him. When they took me from 3D that day, Wells all but demanded that I abandon my pursuit of The Strangers and help him go after The Righteous. He wanted us to back off of The Strangers because they had men on the inside, but of course I didn’t listen. Maybe I should have. If I had listened to him, then I wouldn’t have almost gotten Howie killed and I wouldn’t be indebted to him for helping us save him either.”
“All that matters is that Howie is safe. If that comes at a price, then we’ll just have to pay it together, Adam. For as long as I'm alive, you never have to take on anything alone. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up about leaving Howie behind. If you didn't do what you did, Tango would have killed us both and then they would have killed Howie. Without you, we’d both be dead. I don’t blame you for what happened to us, and I’m sure Howie feels the same way.”
“I wonder what he's thinking,” I said quietly as my feelings of guilt began to melt away due to Jason’s kind words.
“He's wishing you two princesses would keep it down so he can get some sleep,” Howie muttered, unexpectedly. We all laughed at Howie's surprising joke as he opened his eyes and lifted his head slightly.
“You can get all the sleep you want, buddy. You’ve earned it,” Jason replied.
“I’m pretty sure that I’ve gotten enough sleep for all of us over the last four days,” Howie smirked as he sat up in his bed.
“It's good to have you back, Howie,” I chimed.
“It's good to be back. Thanks for coming back for me.”
“I never should have left you in the first place. I never-”
“Dammit, Reaper, there is nothing to apologize for. You could only save one of us, and you made the right decision. Your chances of saving Jason were significantly greater than your chances of saving me. I'm not bitter at you for leaving me. If anything, I'm the one who should apologize.”
“What are you talking about, Howie? You almost died!” I replied.
“And it would have been my fault if I did. I did this, Adam. I’m the reason they went militant. I’m the reason that PJ died.”
It was still hard to hear PJ’s name even though some time had passed since his death.
“I don’t understand,” I muttered, choking back tears.
Howie dropped his head in shame. “I took a contract job from The Strangers a year before the attack on Fox Valley State. They needed a program. I didn’t know how they were going to use it, but I should’ve said no. I should’ve-”
“What does this have to do with PJ?” My voice came out a lot harsher than I intended it to sound.
“The program can temporarily disable cell phone towers and land lines for up to a fifty mile radius. It’s the perfect tool for a terrorist attack. If I had said no, they wouldn’t have been able to move forward with their plans to go militant. I did this, Adam. I’m the reason they all died.”
I turned my back to Howie and Jason as tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I took a deep breath to compose myself and wiped the tears away.
“Adam, I’m sorry,” Howie said from behind me.
“It’s fine,” I lied but it was obvious that the memories of my older brother were raging throughout my mind, triggering the same emotions I felt on the day that I received the news that he was killed.
“We have to stop him, Adam. We have to stop him before he strikes again.”
“You’re damn right we do,” I said as I turned and rejoined Jason at Howie’s bedside.
“No, you don’t understand. We have to stop him now. He threatened to attack my family and blow up our school because I didn’t reveal your identity.”
“Your family is safe. Agent Wells moved them to protective custody three days ago.”
“Protective custody? Where exactly are they? When will I get to see them?” Howie asked.
“You just worry about getting well, Echo.” Agent’s Wells’ voice rang out from behind us. He was standing in the entrance of the room wearing his standard issue black suit and dark sunglasses.
“Your family is being guarded around the clock by some of my best men. They’ll be fine.”
“What about the school?” Jason asked.
“We dealt The Strangers a crippling blow tonight. I doubt their forces are strong enough to organize another attack any time soon, but we’ll look into it anyway,” Wells replied, nonchalantly.
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Howie muttered.
“I usually am,” Wells smirked as he turned his attention to me. “Reaper, if you’d care to join me, I’d like to discuss a few things with you.”
“Sure,” I said as I nodded at Jason and Howie and walked over to join him.
Here to collect my soul, I thought begrudgingly as the two of us exited the room.
MINUTES LATER WE SAT AT A CONFERENCE TABLE IN A room on the opposite side of the facility. The large glass table dominated the center of the moderate sized room.
“You want anything to drink? Soda? Water? Beer maybe?” Wells asked.
“I’m 16,” I grumbled.
“Alright, sport. Fair enough,” Wells replied as he leaned back in his comfortable office chair. “So have you had enough time to reconsider my offer?”
“You can’t expect me to just forget about The Suspect.”
“He’s a small fish, Reaper. You have to forget about him.”
“He killed my brother!” I shouted, slamming my fists down on the table as I spoke. Deep cracks in the glass spread outward around each fist.
Wells stood and glared at me. “This isn’t just about you anymore, kid! Do you understand that? While you’re wasting time trying to satisfy your piddling vendetta, people are out there dying. People that only you have to power to save.”
“I’m just a kid!” I fumed.
“Tell that to the 400-pound soldier that you put in a body cast earlier!”
“That wasn’t my fault! He attacked first. And you should have told me that he was working for you!”
“It was your fault! You deviated from the plan! You were supposed to use stealth, not force! He had to attack when you came barreling in like a wild rhino, otherwise he would have blown his cover! Look, you have to grow up, son, and you’ve got to do it quickly. Sooner or later you’re not going to have much of a choice.”
I stood and glared into his eyes. “Are you threatening me?” I asked.
“If I was threatening you, you wouldn't have to ask. But I am not the enemy, Adam. The Righteous is the real threat and if we can’t stop him, this country and everything that you know and love is finished. Do you understand that? This isn’t some game that you can decide to pick up and participate in later. We need to move on this and we needed to do it yesterday.”
“What makes me so special? Why can’t you just use the Army or the Navy or something?”
He paused for a moment before replying. “You have a particular set of skills that we believe will be very effective against our enemy,” he said carefully.
“How do you even know about what
I can do? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I can't tell you that right now. You’re still a civilian and it's classified,” he said firmly.
“Then I can’t help you. I’ve got a reason to go after The Suspect. He's real to me. The Righteous is nothing more than a fairytale.”
“If you need a reason, I'll give you two. The Righteous is the reason why you are the way you are and he's also the reason she's dead.”
He caught me off guard with that. Whose death had he been responsible for and why did Wells think it would compel me to join his cause? And how could The Righteous, a person whom I didn’t even believe to be real, be responsible for my condition?
“Wh-what are you talking about? Who are you talking about?” I demanded.
I could have sworn that Wells’ eyes were tearing up as he suddenly turned his back to me. “Forget it. I shouldn't have said anything. It's classified.”
“You can't expect me to just forget that! What aren't you telling me?! How much do you know about my past?”
“Sorry, sport, but I've got to run. I’ll be in touch, though.”
“You can't just leave after that!” I shouted after him, but Wells didn't reply as he hurriedly exited the room.
46. LEXINGTON
♫ http://youtu.be/sPHxLFJyPwk
BESIDES HOWIE AND HIS FAMILY BEING PLACED IN PROTECTIVE custody, things were surprisingly normal for the next two weeks. Each day I expected The Strangers to barge into our school with guns blazing, but they never came. Jason and I brought our combat gear to school every day just in case they did, but it was starting to look like Wells was right about them being too weak to attack again after we captured so many of their men.
I finally decided to take advantage of that sliver of normalcy and spend some quality time with Monica before things got crazy again. As far as she knew, I was still working on renovating 3D with Jason and Howie, which was taking up most of my time. She was surprisingly cool about not seeing or hearing from me as much, so naturally I felt even guiltier about misleading her. I offered to make up for my absence with a trip to Lake Victoria, which she gladly accepted.
When we arrived that evening, the lake was crowded, but as the sun set and the moon climbed higher into sky, the crowd dissipated and only the two of us remained.
We lay beside each other on beach towels, staring up into the night sky as the darkness changed Lake Victoria. The river of fog that drifted above her blackened waters gave way to an elegant yet much more ominous version of her.
It was hard not to think about PJ. The flickering stars that littered the inky-black sky above reminded me of him. He and I used to stargaze all the time when we were young. But that was before his rebellious phase. That was before The Strangers took him away from me.
“What’s on your mind?” Monica suddenly asked.
“Nothing, I’m just taking in the scenery,” I lied.
“You looked like you were deep in thought to me,” she replied. She didn’t come right out and accuse me of lying, but I could tell that she knew that I was holding back. It amazed me how well she knew me despite having not really known me for that long.
“You’re right,” I responded, “I was thinking about my brother. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. I understand if it still hurts. I still think about my father all the time.” Her voice cracked as she mentioned her father.
My stomach turned as the guilt I felt for not saving him surfaced. I didn’t respond. I knew that if I did, I would either continue to lie to her about his death or confess the truth and risk losing her forever and I wasn’t prepared to do either at the time.
Instead of the stars, she was looking at me when I glanced at her. The cool breeze that enveloped us gently blew her raven hair out of her face as she lay still in the glistening sand. Even the stars above paled in comparison to the beauty that lay before me in that moment.
“What made you think about your brother?” she asked.
“The stars. We used to stargaze together all the time. PJ would often slip away at night and lie on top of the old broken down van in our backyard and stare at the sky. After a while, I decided to join him. We never really spoke to each other while we did it. We’d just lie there in silence listening to the crickets and looking at the stars overhead. I did it mainly because I enjoyed spending the time with my big brother. But for him, I could tell that it was more than just that. I could tell he did it because he wanted to leave.” I looked to the sky once more as a cool breeze swept over us.
“He wanted to leave home?” Monica asked.
“We both wanted that, but that wasn’t it for PJ. He wanted to leave Earth altogether. He had that look in his eyes, you know? I could tell that when he looked out there, it wasn’t simply because he enjoyed the view. It was because he wanted to actually go there.”
“Why do you think he wanted to leave?”
“Why wouldn’t he want to leave? We were miserable in that house. ”
“What about you? Did you ever think about leaving us troublesome earthlings behind?”
“I definitely thought about leaving Lexington, Florida behind,” I said as I gazed in her eyes. “But I wasn’t as imaginative as PJ. I never really thought about leaving Earth.”
“Do you think there’s anything out there?”
“Anything’s possible, I guess. It’s a big universe. What about you? Do you think anything’s out there?” I asked.
She was silent for a few moments before replying.
“I’m not telling,” she finally said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because you’ll think I’m crazy. That’s why,” she playfully shot back. She refused to make eye contact as I sat up and looked down at her.
“I just told you that I think there may be something out there. What makes you think I’ll call you crazy for thinking the same thing?” I questioned.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she muttered.
“Try me,” I coaxed, curious as to what was on her mind.
“Well, like I said, you’re gonna think I’m crazy, but the reason I believe that there are other planets with life is because I’ve seen one.”
I was tempted to laugh at her remarks, but I held it in when I realized that she didn’t appear to be joking.
“I had these dreams…when I was much younger, about a planet called Eden. There was this song that was always playing. It was such a beautiful song…played by instruments the likes of which I’ve never seen or heard of here on Earth. Each night I’d fall asleep here, but I’d awaken worlds away as the sound of that melody would pull me out of my sleep. I was always standing in the center of this sort of palace surround by thousands of strangely dressed people. I remember the massive marble walls that surrounded us seeming to glow in the brilliant silvery light of the moons that shined through the crystal ceiling above. The people that surrounded me were all looking to the sky, but they weren’t staring at the enormous full moons that hung high overhead. They were focused on a massive starship that was descending upon us.” She finally trailed off into silence while she continued to stare at the stars.
I didn’t know what to say or think. Hearing her talk about that dream as though it was real was honestly a little weird to me, but I kept reminding myself of how vivid my own recurring nightmare was. As I stared at her in silence, I could tell that there was probably much more to the dream than she was telling me.
“What happened next?” I finally asked.
“Then I’d wake up,” she whispered. “But I knew it was more than just a dream. It was far too vivid. It just felt entirely too real. And even though I had never been there before outside of my dream, it all somehow seemed familiar.”
“That’s interesting,” I said as laid down beside her and pulled her into my arms. “If it is real, maybe we’ll go there someday.”
I felt her body grow tense for a fraction of a second before she relaxed. It was odd that instead of replying, she j
ust laid there in my arms with her eyes closed. I wanted to ask her more about her dream, but I could tell that something about it was bothering her. Instead, I continued to hold her and marvel at the ocean of stars above as they glimmered and winked down at me like the scatted embers of a dying fire.
As their beauty seemingly called out to me, I suddenly realized that leaving Lexington and Earth behind didn’t seem like such a bad idea. I had never truly found happiness in that city and I didn’t think much would change anywhere else in the world. As I lay there, stroking Monica’s hair and listening to the sound of her breathing, I knew that the only thing anchoring me to that place was the goddess that I held within my arms.
47. PRIORITY
AS THE PASSING WEEKS TURNED INTO MONTHS, MY LIFE became a blur, and I became consumed by the frustration brought on by the constant anticipation of the impending Stranger attack on our school that never came.
Howie was still in protective custody, so I couldn’t rely on him for any leads as to The Suspect’s whereabouts, and when it came to the investigative side of our operation, Jason and I were virtually useless. With Howie out of the picture, our quest to bring down The Suspect and The Strangers had become nothing more than an afterthought.
To make matters worse, I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going exactly as Agent Wells had planned. After all, he wanted me to give up my pursuit of The Suspect and focus on his mission. By putting Howie in protective custody, he had effectively taken away the brains of our operation and left Ace and me practically shooting in the dark.
As Jason and I sat in 3D, it had been almost sixty days since we last saw or spoke with Howie. We had abandoned our extracurricular vigilante crime fighting because neither of us wanted to take the chance of hitting the streets without Echo monitoring the nearby police activity. Our days mostly consisted of going to school, then meeting at 3D afterward in order to attempt to monitor Stranger activity online. There was a lot of talk and rumors, but there hadn’t been another Stranger attack or a threat from The Suspect since we rescued Howie. Things were quiet but I was smart enough to know that that didn’t necessarily mean that they were finished. Something told me that they were rebuilding their forces and waiting for the right time to strike. I knew that we needed Howie back in order to find them and hit them before they got the chance.
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