There has never been a sound more smoothing to me than the sound of the ocean crashing up onto a shore. Maybe that's why I've dreamed about it so much in my life. It never really leaves my mind even when I'm not close to it.
I was sitting Indian style on the beach in a pair of shorts and nothing else. My eyes closed and the rest of the world nowhere around me. The sand was like sitting on the most comfortable cushion every imagined. Waves broke and crashed all around me as I sat in my own solitude.
Opening my eyes I could see the rolling waves as the sun came up over the ocean ever so slightly. No master would ever be able to capture such a beautiful sight no matter how hard they tried to paint it.
In slow motion I turned around and saw nothing but a small patch of sand and more ocean. My heart started to race and my breath became short as I spun around and could only see the sun over the ocean no matter which direction I looked. The world only consisted of sun, sand and ocean.
Getting up, I ran around in a circle spinning and spinning until finally I crashed down planting my knees into the sand. My hands covered my face in torment. Then I heard it.
Voices coming off the waves calling to me, "We love you, Michael. We need you! Come to us." I got up off my knees and ran into the water heading out to the waves. For a moment I felt complete happiness as I hopped wave after wave. Then the sun was gone, swallowed by darkness.
The voices were in my brain calling and then hissing at me. They wanted me to come closer. Blackness covered the ocean. Pale white arms came out of the waves and grabbed me. They pulled me in. I could see a speck of light as the arms wrapped tight and pulled me down into the everlasting blackness. I wanted so bad to get away, but hopelessness enveloped me and I let go. I watched the light disappear and was overcome with loneliness and bottomless despair.
"Ahhh!" I yelled as I sprang up from the white covered bed. I was breathing rapid and shallow as I tried to get out of the darkness and swim for the light. Sweat poured off my head and onto my jacket and the bed I was lying on.
Realizing where I was, I stopped struggling to swim. "I hate that fucking dream!" I yelled out, but no one was around to hear it. I was alone, as in the dream, but it wasn't an island of sand I was on.
Jumping off the bed, I took my jacket off throwing it to the floor. Anger, confusion, and loneliness were all catching me at once. Light was coming from outside the front window as I walked over and leaned against it. The waves were breaking and although it reminded me of the terror in the dream it soothed me as I tried to breath with the waves.
I'd been having this dream or some variation of it for about two years. I was use to it, but now I was worried my abnormality might actually carry me to a place where it did exist. It was a difficult thing not to think about and that could cause me to move to wherever it was.
Once I caught my breath, I swung the bag over my shoulder and picked up my trash from the night before. With my jacket in hand I headed downstairs to the scene of my breaking and entering.
Placing the empty bottle of Dom, the Caviar container, and the box of crackers on the counter, I pulled out my wallet and left $500 in cash under the bottle of Dom. I figured that would cover it. Not many thieves in the world would break into a house, eat food and leave $500, I figured.
On the wall at the end of the counter was a phone. Picking up the receiver off the cradle and turning it on, I was happy to hear the dial tone. Rich people would just pay the bill year round not worrying about it and keeping the convenience of having the phone if they just showed up spur of the moment.
I dialed information. Times like that made me wish I had my cell phone. "I need a cab," as I pulled over some mail sitting on the counter probably left by someone taking care of the place. "I don't care which one. How about Yellowcab?" Picking up some mail. "Islamorada, I don't know if I said that right, Florida." Never had I heard of a name so strange in the United States. "Please, dial it for me." I waited for someone to pick. "Yes. I need a pickup. I'm at 290 Atlantic Street, Islamorada, Florida." The wait would probably be forever, figuring the place was probably a tiny island all by itself. "15 minutes? Really? Okay." I hung up the phone shocked that they could get there so fast.
Matt and Bob crossed my mind as I held the phone, but I couldn't call them. They would just have to follow the instructions. Walking over to the dining table, I sat down to wait for my ride. I needed to have someone see me here and cab companies would be one of the first things the government or companies trying to find me would check. As far as speed of travel was concerned I much preferred just 'zapping' myself there. It was much easier. Saving on travel costs alone would be worth it.
Looking back on everything that was going on, it might have been better to have them just leave the country. Instead, I pulled them further into this mess and it was only now dawning on me.
After staring out the windows at the ocean for awhile, fifteen minutes had passed and there was a honk outside the front of the house. The cab was finally there and I exited the front door and hopped in.
"Where too, mister?" He had a strange accent. Some kind of islander is sounded like.
"Take me to the first spot on the mainland. Just drop me off there." I didn't need to be seen for long and taking a cab to the airport only to fly somewhere when I didn't need to travel that way anymore was pointless.
"Okay." He headed back out of the driveway and out onto the freeway. We were headed north on the 5, which was the 'Overseas Highway' and it did just that, travel over the ocean.
Watching the water as we drove, I lost myself in the distant horizon. So far away it seemed and yet nothing really was for me anymore. Getting use to that idea would take time and unlearning what I had learned.
When we hit the mainland the cabbie pulled over to the side of the road and dropped me off. Handing him some cash he looked at me like I was nuts. His reaction made sense; I was standing next to the freeway with the ocean on the south and all of Florida on the north. It did seem silly if you weren't me.
"Later man!" I walked off the freeway down to the beach and kept walking until I was too far away to be noticed. Sitting down in the sand, I crossed my legs.
Looking out at the water I started to think about where I wanted to go. The most hidden place I knew. I hadn't been there for over a year, but I could see it perfectly in my head. Focusing on it with every ounce of emotion I had, my left arm started moving. Then it was twitching. My vision hazed. My eyes twitched. All of this was in less than a second this time. The picture of the place was in my mind. Sounds of the crashing ocean began to fade away into the distance.
My eyelids came down and I was standing in the middle of the living room of the place I called 'The Artist's Loft'. Over my shoulder I could see myself sitting on a beach in Florida. Smiling, I looked at the living room as I closed my eyes and focused on the living room's image. The sound came in much faster this time and then Florida was gone. It had never happened so easy or fast before that moment.
"So crazy!" I dropped my bag on couch and headed to the kitchen. The house was setup just about the same as the 'Playhouse' in L.A. The only real difference was I had my office below not above. Pretty much everything else was the same. The furniture was a bit different and in a black and white pattern due to the phase I was in at the time.
Sleeping in my own bed would be a huge difference and I looked forward to it. In the fridge I pulled out some orange juice in a single serving bottle. It tasted fine even though it had been there awhile. Not having had anything for breakfast, I went through the cupboards containing a grocery store isle of cereal. I took a box of Frosted Flakes for the sugar and headed to the same place the line in the wall was in L.A. Since this office was below, there was no line in the wall, but I still knew where to lace my hand so the lift would take me down.
The office was the length of the entire house. It had an office setup at one end. On the other was a shooting range, basketball hoop and two bowling lanes. The pool table was upstairs in the pool room. Heading to the glass desk to the left end I dropped the orange juice and cereal on it. Scanning my hand my screens came up on the wall.
I opened a map icon on one of the desktop screens. Selecting the avatar with a picture of Matt and one with Bob, they popped up on the screen in Texas headed north to where I was. They were moving faster than I thought. Both of them had the ability to see me the same way.
Matt and I created a technology we kept to ourselves because we were too afraid it would cause a worldwide panic. It was a half silicon half organic chip that could be sewn into the skin. It was powered by human body heat. The chips we had only had a GPS in them. Although, they had a bunch of onboard memory we just didn't use it for anything. This way it was easy to make sure everyone was safe. Of course, it was imagined the end of the world would start in a similar fashion.
So, Matt and I put them in ourselves. Then, after I hired Bob, we asked if they wanted them as well. Again, we didn't want to step on anyone's religious beliefs. They agreed after we told them the number 666 was nowhere to be found on the chip. That got a laugh. It made it possible to track what we deemed 'The Family'. Of everyone that had it, the kids were really the best use. We never had to worry about them or wonder if they would be on an abducted child alert.
With all the stops I gave them to drop and switch planes, it was going to take until late that night or very early morning for them to get to where I was. This would give me time to think and do some research. I needed to get a hold of Jax anyway. Snooping around was best left to the professionals. Cyberspace could be an extremely dangerous place for the unprepared.
Clicking on the IM icon on the desktop a Message window popped up.
"Jax you there?"
"Yeah! What's up, boss?! How r u? Worried"
Jax could type this text language. I couldn't. I just type sentences and skip all the short words.
"I'm fine. Need you to do some digging."
"Sure. Where? What?"
"I need you to get into the NSA and find out what that new division is working on that had my name passed around. Can you do that?"
"NP. Let u no what I find"
"Okay. Later"
Walking away I wondered how much of that conversation the government acronyms could hack and pick up on. Jax was exceptionally good. He changed the security applications and algorithms once a month to something new that he created to keep out everyone who doesn't think as progressively as he does. Unfortunately there could be someone out there that is as progressive as he is. If he ever met someone like that it would be computer geek war to the highest extreme. They all seemed to be loners and hated people like themselves.
Tension ran through my body from being chased by the government, passing through space-time, sleeping in a house that I broke into, and having a nightmare that is getting progressively worse and more frequent. It was time to let off some steam. At the other end of the room I picked up one of the 4 handguns on the shooting range table. It was a 9mm Smith & Wesson. Putting in earplugs and goggles over my eyes, I grabbed a loaded magazine off the shelf and jammed it into the gun, pulled back the slide loading the chamber and took aim at a picture of some computer generated military guy at the opposite end.
Pulling the trigger made the gun kick up and back. Holding it pretty still I looked where the shot went. It was dead center mid chest. Aiming again and leaning a bit forward, I fired. This time the hole was middle of the forehead. Then I just aimed mid mast and fired off the remaining ten shots. They all smacked dead center. Since I hired Bob he has taken me to the range several times. I'd become a pretty good shot with any handgun caliber.
Taking the glasses off and the earplugs out, placing the gun on the table I turned around and headed for the lift. Scanning my hand on the wall, I came up in the living room and walked over to the bar in the corner. Same spot as in the Playhouse. What time it was no longer mattered. Relaxing and unwinding with a drink was more important.
Fetching the Grey Goose fifth out of the freezer, where I kept my chilled bottle, I dumped some ice in a tin along with a healthy amount of Vodka. Adding olives out of a jar from the fridge and poured some juice in it, I put three olives on a toothpick. Shaking the tin and cover I pulled down a martini glass from the rack and poured out a nice dirty martini with three olives. Sipping it gave me instant gratification.
I sat at a bar stool and started thinking about something of things I'd learned or at least knew about my abnormality. Focusing on something, whether it was a place or a thought about a person, could get me what or where I wanted. All of it seemed to be driven by my emotions, but it was just so random. At times it was happening slowly. Other times it was happening so fast.
There were times I could remember feeling my heart race and other times it was beating so hard I thought bass drums were being played right beside me. Did that have anything to do with it?
At this point it was pretty obvious when it was going to happen. Twitching in my hands and eyes and the hazy vision that just seemed to get worse until it happened, background noise faded in and out. There were the really strange times I seemed to be in two places at once.
Taking another sip off the martini, I got off the stool and walked over to the couch. Glass in hand, I laid back and tried to relax a bit. Hope rushed through me that Matt, Bob, Remy and the kids were alright. Someone had been by the house looking for me and interrogating everyone they knew ever had any contact with me.
Leaning forward to put the glass on the coffee table, my right hand started to twitch and the glass fell to the floor shattering. My vision hazed and I went with it closing my eyes and focusing deep in the back of my mind.
Bob and Matt were getting on a small plane. Watching them walking up the steps, Bob was getting into the pilot seat. He had flown for many years now. Oklahoma was the only word I could hear. Focus was on where I was now and with my emotions coming back I opened my eyes. The Artist's Loft living room was a comfortable place to be.
Wanting to know where they were made it just happen. Stretching my legs I moved from the couch to the bar. That vision gave me an idea. I needed to test out anything I could.
Focusing my emotion on the top of the staircase, every thought I had was on the catwalk. The haze started and not far behind my left hand and eyes twitched. Closing my eyes, I kept the focus on the catwalk. My mind held the image of me standing there. As I opened my eyes I looked back and saw myself down at the bar, but the odd part is I saw myself at the top of the stairs on the catwalk. Choosing the bar I shut my eyes focused on being by the bar. Opening my eyes I was standing next to the bar and no one was on the catwalk.
My heart beat faster but it didn't race or try to pound out of my chest. That was a place I had seen and knew. The hospital parking lot was a place that I could see. Vale I had been to before. Then there was Islamorada, Florida. I had never been there, seen a picture of it or even heard of it. My focus was thinking about the Florida Keys. How did that fit?
All of this made me wonder if I could pick a place I didn't even know the location of. At least with the Keys there was an idea of geographic location. How far could I go with this?
Sitting on the couch again I focused on a specific image. It was something I had seen but a place I had never been and didn't know where it was. Focusing all of my emotion on the thought, I could see the haze coming and my left hand twitched violently. With my eyes twitching I closed them and saw in my mind's eye the thought of what I wanted. With a rush of cold air passing through me, and opening my eyes to see I was standing behind the cockpit of a small jet. A curtain was blocking the cockpit off from the passenger cabin. Looking back, the other me was in the Artist's Loft. Closing my eyes and letting go of the me in the loft for the focus on the jet I felt my hand stop twitching and opened my eyes. Just as I wanted, I was in the jet where the thought in my mind had gone.
I giggled to myself and quickly put my hand over my mouth. Both of them were going to piss their pants. Giddy with excitement, I snuck up to the cockpit and ripped the heavy maroon velvet curtain back, "Rar!"
The plane dipped the right wing as Bob jerked it right and then left. Both of them were yelling. I started to laugh uncontrollably. Tears were pouring down my cheeks. It was the funniest reaction I'd ever had when scaring someone.
"Jesus Christ!" Matt was crammed into the dash of the plane. He looked back, "Michael?"
"What?!" Bob tried to turned around and hit the wheel dipping the wing again.
I winked at them both, "Hey, guys. How's the trip going?" calm and collected in a non-chalant way.
"You fucker!" Matt said with some anger that just led him into laughing. "Man, you about gave me a heart attack you ass!"
Bob looked a little pale. "How did you get here? Are you alright?"
"Bob, that is such a long story and yes, I'm fine," taking advantage of the moment. "Did you guys want me to leave? Because I can if that's what you both want?" There was so much sarcasm in the questions.
Both at the same time, "Fuck You!" It was a truly proper time to use it.
Laughing more, "The Artist's Loft is good. We need some food, though. Do you think you guys can pick some up on the way in?" actually serious this time.
Turning around I walked back to the passenger cabin. Toward the back was a bar station. Opening the mini fridge, it was stocked with everything in Mini. Pulling out a couple Vodkas, I grabbed two cups, threw some ice in them and poured.
"I'm going to go talk to him," Matt said to Bob and then came back to the cabin. I handed him the drink.
"Dude! What the fuck was that?! Seriously!" The situation had freaked him out more than anticipated. He was standing about as far away from me as he could in the little jet.
Laughing, "Come on. It isn't that scary." Sitting in one of the passenger seats I took a sip of the vodka, "I'm trying to understand this...thing." Waving my arms, "I'm getting somewhat of a handle on it."
"Thank you Captain Obvious!" He walked over and sat down in front of me with a table between. He sipped the drink and put it down in the cup holder cut out in the table. "What the hell has been going on? We've been freaking out wondering what happened to you." Leave it to Matt to bring me full circle back to reality. His, like Bob's, was very welcome genuine concern.
"And here I've been concerned about you guys. Did anyone come looking?" I knew the answer before I asked it.
"Oh yeah," he was giving his 'You have no idea' tone. "The FBI, CIA, NSA, Police, some agencies I'd never heard of and I think even Interpol." His arms were flailing wildly as he got more excited. "They went through most of the offices, the houses, they talked to everyone 20 times. It was a fiasco. We had a hard time ditching the tales and getting away." He took another drink and almost finished it off in a gulp.
I headed back to the fridge without saying anything. Pulling out two more vodkas I looked in the mirror behind the bar and saw a face that was starting to become different to me. Changed somehow.
"Well?!" I knew what he wanted. Where to start was really the hard part.
"I knew all those agencies were going to hammer you guys. It was pretty simple to predict." Crossing my legs I poured vodka into both glasses. "As far as the companies are concerned, I transferred all money off shore last week with Jax's help. That's safely tucked away. The companies are now licensed in different countries as well. The ones the government would know about in the US anyway," sipping from the vodka.
"Okay, so what happened to you?" his patience was running thin.
"Well, I had a crazy episode in Sydney's apartment where I saw myself in two different places in her room at once. Then I passed out, went to the hospital and became the world's next human miracle." Matt's eyes grew so big we could have played baseball with them. "Then I forced moving through space-time, escaped the hospital, went to my apartment where I texted you from, moved through space-time to Vale, Colorado as I just missed being captured by the FBI." I threw the FBI credentials from my back pocket at him. "I made sure I was seen in a bar there. Then I moved through space-time again to a place in the Florida Keys I had never even heard of before, broke into a house, drank Dom and ate Caviar, had a wicked nightmare about the Black Cloud shit again, moved through space-time yet again to the Artist's Loft." I was trying to get through it all without much detail, but his face looked a bit lost. "Finally, I contact Jax to hack the NSA, tested the space-time theory I had on the catwalk and then the plane. Ta-Dah!" I drank down everything in my glass.
Matt was looking more shocked than I had ever seen him before in all the time I had known him. "Holy hell, man! I thought I had a bad day." He chugged his drink.
I got more from the fridge. "Bob, I'm getting drunk, okay?" son-to-father esque.
"Yes. I heard all that. You deserve it! Do what you gotta do," he said with a sad chuckle.
"Wait a minute! Are you telling me you figured out how to travel from one place to another on command and where you want to go?" Matt was frozen waiting for the response.
"Yes," as I poured out another mini into both glasses.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, "Good God, man! I feel like I'm trapped in a movie inside of another movie." Bob and I both laughed hard at that one. "Mate, you're the brains here. What is all this stuff?"
"I don't know." It was frustrating to think about and consumed most of my thoughts most of the time.
"Come on, you have degrees in Physics, Math and whatever else. Don't you have some kind of theory," he seemed a bit agitated.
"Well, the only thing I can think of is that I can somehow bend space-time and then move through it. Like it's some type of wormhole in space-time." Thinking out loud is usually how I've done my best thinking. "In theory everything is made up of matter which would mean if you could change or rearrange matter you could turn it into anything you wanted. If you could recreate matter to bend space then theoretically you could create a passageway between two points making it possible to move through it." It was starting to sound like a text book. "Again, the theory of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge has been around since 1935. No one has ever been able to prove it though more recent theories like Morris-Thorne Wormholes have been presented."
"Until now!" Matt threw his arms up. "So, why are you able to do this?" his finger was pointing at me.
"Good question. I have no idea." I sipped some more vodka. "I'm not conscious of that part of it. I just figured out what I have to do to make it happen. It's not like I'm trying to do it, it just happens."
If it were true, that somehow my body or mind could create a wormhole then that would explain a lot and open up other possibilities I hadn't thought of until that moment. Looking at it from the scientific side was new; I was just trying to understand how to turn it off and on. Understanding the science of it was puzzling and at the same time exciting.
"If you can bend space-time and move through space," he led me right to where I was thinking about going.
"Then could I move through it to a different time?" it was interesting to think about that. I leaned back in my seat and stared off into the table contemplating the thought of moving back and forth in time. Books, comic books, and movies were written around this subject so many times over that it never seemed to be a reality.
"Whoa! That's some freaky shit." At some point Matt would throw out a bunch of dastardly ideas using this. It was only a matter of time. "You can transcend space-time," as if trying to soak it all in. "Trying to wrap my head around this thing, you got to all the places because you saw them in your head?" he was shaking his head.
"Kind of. I thought about this. In Sydney's bedroom I had seen the other side of the room before. In fact I had been there." Another gulp, it was starting to taste watered down from the ice. "Same with Vale. The hospital I was looking at the parking lot. Each of those I just focused on deep in the back of my mind. But, with the Keys, I had never been where I ended up. I was just picturing the Keys themselves." I was staring at Matt, "This plane I had seen you two climbing aboard and heard Bob say something about Oklahoma." Shock was slapped right across Matt's face. "So, I had seen the inside of the plane, but it was moving through the air. I didn't know where it was. Yet, here I am." I slugged down the watered down fluid left or at least it seemed watery.
The other thing I hadn't been thinking of was being in two places at once. That would support Matt's theory about moving through time in a way. It was all over in my mind now. If I could be in two places at once it would have to be time, but I could see from one me to the other. Would that be time or just space and duplication of matter?
"You know, when it happens I'm standing in one place and the other seeing myself from both ends of an electrical type of tunnel." Matt moved closer in his seat.
He nervously drank the rest of his drink. "That sure points to some sort of time situation, doesn't it?" I nodded at him and shrugged at the same time.
We all sat in silence with our individual thoughts for quite some time. It felt like an hour, but it was probably more likely about five minutes. The plane would shimmy a bit from turbulence and Matt would look at me. I figured he was checking to see if I was shaking at all.
Matt looked over and broke the silence. He was pretty excited, "Hey, can you do it right now?" I gave him puzzled look.
"What, right here in the plane?" It sounded a bit insane even coming from me.
"Yeah!" Excited was an understatement, he was coming out of his seat with anticipation.
Bob chimed in too. "Yeah, I want to see this too." He reached down and flipped a switch which had to be the autopilot because he moved to the cabin.
"Okay, I guess." Bob sat in the seat I was sitting in. I moved to the bar area. "Okay, here we go!"
Looking at the opening to the cockpit I focused. All my emotion was directed at that spot. My left hand began twitching as the haze came over my vision and then my eyes twitched. I could see the opening in the back of my mind and the sound in the room faded. Closing my eyes I felt a rush of air again. That was new. As I opened my eyes I was staring back at myself and I could see Bob and Matt sitting there staring at the other me by the bar. Letting go of the bar I focused on the cockpit and closed my eyes thinking only of the me in the cockpit area. Hearing the sound come back and when I opened my eyes they were looking at me by the cockpit.
"Holy shit! That was amazing, mate!" Matt was ready to explode. Bob was smiling huge.
"Was it different seeing it like this than seeing it the way it was in the restaurant?" staring at Bob.
"Oh yeah! Then I was just shocked and didn't know what was going on. This time I got to see it happen."
"Now, how quick did it happen?" This was something I hadn't known or been able to measure.
"It was about a second. You were there and I saw your hand shake a bit and then you were over there," he was pointing at where I was standing. "It was really fast."
"That's interesting." I sat back on the couch looking out the window across from me. The sky was blue and the clouds were like mountains covered in snow. It was oddly peaceful to me.
"What's interesting?" Matt said as he moved to the chair across from me. Bob got up and moved to the chair that shared his table.
"It moves much slower for me." Maybe I was messing with time after all and just hadn't seen it. Everything was slowing down for me as this was happening. Time slowed in the apartments and hospital. Matt's theory was more realistic than originally thought.
Moving past it; I wanted to show them something else while we had a moment. All this time alone was good to try and get everything out.
"I want you to see this, too." Picturing the table my left hand started to twitch and then the haze as I pictured my right hand coming up out of the middle of the table in front of them. I focused every single emotion I had on it. My eyes twitching back and forth, the lids came down and I opened them with my arm coming out of the table and both Matt and Bob jumping up out of their seats.
Grabbing Matt's glass in my hand, I could feel the chill from the ice though it wasn't in my hand. Pulling it back through the table and focusing on the glass in my right hand, I shut my eyes and opened them again. In my hand on my lap was his glass.
"Whoa! That was even freakier than you moving." Moving was a term. "I almost pissed myself when your arm came out of the table!" He laughed but it was a very shaky one.
Bob's mouth was open but nothing was coming out. He also looked a little pale. It might have been too much for them all at once.
I took a sip off Matt's drink and handed it to him. He was looking at it like it just spoke in Japanese. Sniffing it, he took a drink and then looked at Bob.
"Yup, it's the vodka. Amazing!" Matt was overly giddy.
"I think we might need to get Bob a drink," I said as I looked at him in complete shock. He nodded a resounding yes.
Matt went to the fridge and grabbed two mini Jack's. He iced a glass and dumped both in it. Handing it to Bob and Bob drinking it was all in one fluid motion. It was gone before the ice could chill it.
"Well, that's something you don't see every day!" We all laughed. "Can you do that with anything?"
"I don't know. That's only the second time I've done it." Could I grab something bigger than my arm? Did strength and weight exist in-between?
Lying down on the couch with my own thoughts, I looked at the roof. Slowing time down, I guess that's what it was; I did once to get the FBI badge. Not know how that worked, I didn't want to show or try to show them that yet.
"How long did that take?" I was curious about the time situation with all of this.
"Again, about a second," Matt sipped his vodka and got up to grab some more for him and for Bob. Pouring the drinks, "What about people's history and knowing things about them? You figure that out yet?"
"No. Not yet. I will though. I also have another thing to figure out." I smiled and rolled on my side. "Bob, how much longer until we hit South Dakota?"
"About three more hours. Why?" He might have been waiting for the something to jump out of my head or something.
"Good. I just need to take a nap. I'm exhausted and a little drunk," closing my eyes with the thoughts of slowing time. "Wake me up when we are about to land, please."
"Okay," Matt said with an easy going reply.
With a buzz going on it didn't take long for me to get lost in the darkness behind my eyelids and slip away. All the noise of the plane and Matt and Bob talking drowned into silence.
Standing in front of me was Bob and Remy watching the kids play in the backyard of my house. The sun was shining bright enough to require sunglasses to see. Crisp air floated around everywhere through the trees. Bob and Remy were smiling and laughing at the children running around through the sprinklers. I couldn't help but laugh along with them. Everything felt so blissfully happy.
A strange urge in my stomach made me turn around and look at the house. The double doors to the veranda were frosted over and I couldn't see through them. Looking back at everyone so happy and enjoying the sun, I couldn't get rid of the urge to go through the doors and enter the house. It felt like a rope was tied around my waste in tug-a-war and I was losing.
Reaching down I threw the doors open with a bit of anger. Bursting into the room with anticipation of a conflict, I saw close to nothing. The room was definitely not my house. It was a large office building floor with some cubicles. Light was coming from every electronic component in the room and from the lights outside the floor to ceiling windows, it was casting hardly enough light to see. This place was not familiar.
Spinning around and reaching for the door handles to the veranda, my hands smacked into a wall. I searched the wall with my hands, up and down and side to side, with no luck finding anything but solid mass.
Putting my back against the wall, I waited for my eyes to get use to the dim light in the room. Since I was there I put one foot in front of the other and started to move around the office.
Everything was typical for an office building at first glance. There were cross sections for walkways where the cubes had been cut into fours. Walking past them it wasn't like a normal office setup. I couldn't see paperwork, pens, staplers and pictures of people's family members. There were computer terminals in every cube. Each cube looked kind of generic.
"Michael," a whisper from that voice. The one that made me want to follow to unquestioning bliss. I followed the voice cautiously to the end of the floor. A door marked 'Emergency Exit ONLY' was in front of me and I could hear the voice on the other side drawing me in.
Pushing open the door I expected to get an alarm buzz, but there wasn't one. On the other side of the stairwell was another door. It resembled something you would think of for a janitor's closet. She was still calling me, that hypnotically soft woman's voice. I reached down for the handle and shoved the door open.
An office floor the size of the one behind me was scattered with back to back glass desks. Laptops were all over the room with glass dry erase boards and maps. Flashing lights blinked and beep and sputtered all over. Dimmed translucent lighting was hanging down from the ceiling. Not a single person was in the room. At the end of the room on the wall were a bunch of pictures, stuck to a white board, with writing all around them. I moved in for a closer look with my curiosity getting the better of me.
At the top of the arranged pyramid of photos was one that I recognized. It was my own photo staring back at me. My heart started to race, both heartbeats separately pounding out of my chest as I whirled around. Panic swept over me as I tried to find an escape. I needed to leave. It was the only need I had and my only desire.
Then a seeping calm came over me and I lost the panic. As fast as it started my heart beats were back to normal and the voice was back in my head.
"Michael. I need you, Michael. Over here." It was wrong and I knew it, but that voice made me feel so good inside, like nothing could hurt me or even make me feel any sadness ever again and freedom from all pain.
From the left, behind a door, the voice was calling and I was following. A black office door with a silver knob and a name plate blocked me from capturing the voice and the person that owned it. The plate on the door read 'Dept. Director S. McCoy'. My voice induced bliss state was cut off by the name. McCoy sounded so familiar too me.
Throwing the door open, a man was sitting in the chair talking on the phone through a wireless headset in his ear. His hair was black and short. A black suit was slipping down showing his socks as his legs were propped up on his desk. He was still wearing his black sport coat over his white shirt and white, black and red tie. His shoes were polished to a shine and were practical yet very nice. It was obvious this was McCoy.
"No, Director. He just simply disappeared." His head was bouncing up and down sarcastically as he tossed a baseball up in the air. "How the hell do I know?!" Yelling at one's boss is never a good thing. "Sorry, sir. It's just frustrating! We are dealing with someone that has not only an extraordinary talent by itself, but if there was ever a better talent for escape no one has thought of it yet." I assumed he was talking about me.
I looked around the room. Was I dreaming? What was the last thing I remember? The veranda and the kids. I walked into my house and it was an office building. It was definitely a dream.
The office was very dull and neat. Nothing personal meant he hadn't been there long, but long enough to have paperwork strewn across the floor from the door all the way around the desk.
"Look, I need more men. I have everyone either out looking for this guy or at home sleeping. I need another shift to keep going 24/7." He nodded and then started the sarcastic head bobbing again. "Look, it all comes down to this, how fucking bad do you want to find this guy?!" The phone should have broke when he slammed the receiver down to disconnect the call. "Fucking short sighted, penny pinching, bureaucrat! Fuck!" he stood up and walked to the only window in the room. His frustration ended with him smacking his head into the window a few times.
Figuring this was my dream and my imagination; I walked over to the desk and opened a drawer. Just as I did McCoy turned around and looked right at the desk drawer. It startled me for a second. This was my dream. Playing ghost was a fun thing to do.
I pulled open the rest of the drawers in the desk. McCoy backed up into the far corner of the room in terror. Then I shut them all. Glancing in every single one, nothing but pens and ammo for the .40 caliber something he had under his jacket.
"What the fuck?!" he looked around the room and pulled out his gun, it was an H&K. Walking over to him I started to wonder if this was real. It couldn't be. I opened the door to come in and he didn't notice that. He was occupied with the phone at the time and it was very dark in the office, but come on, anyone would notice a door opening and closing on its own.
Sliding one piece of paper at a time off the desk, "Oh fuck!" he cocked the slide back and then decided to point it all around the room. It was a lot of fun to mess with someone like this, even though it was only a dream. Walking over to the phone, I picked up the receiver and dialed 911.
"Hello, 911. What is your emergency?" McCoy grabbed the receiver out of my hand and slammed it down on the cradle. He started reaching out with the gun swatting with it looking for something in the room he couldn't see. Every time he did I watched time slow down and just moved out of the way. I hadn't had that much fun in a long time.
A knocking came from his door. "Yeah, come in, come in," he said hastily. A woman in a black walked into the room. She was a slim 5' 4" with sandy blonde hair and dressed in a black pant suit. "Close the door, quick." He came off a little panicky.
She looked pretty alarmed to see him standing in his office alone with his gun out and pointed at nothing. "What are you doing?"
"There's someone in here with us," he said in a whisper.
She must have been considered a good little soldier. She whipped out her gun and pointed in same direction as McCoy. By then I had moved behind her.
"What's he look like?" she like most people would have a hard time understanding this one. My dreams were always so eventful.
"That's a good question," he smirked.
She dropped her gun down and holstered it. "Are you trying to say there is an 'Invisible' person in your office? What, are we five again?" her sarcasm was uncalled for. I decided to do something about it.
"Hey you," I whispered in her ear. She jumped forward and spun in the air pulling her gun and firing at the same time. The bullets were flying right at me, but time had slowed down and I was sitting next to her on the floor by the time the rounds slammed into the wall.
"What the fuck was that?" McCoy said with his gun pointed at where her bullets hit the wall.
"Someone whispered in my fucking ear," she was breathing heavy from major anxiety. She got on her knees and was feeling around on the ground for me.
"Did you hit anything?" McCoy's breathing was heavy as well.
"I don't feel anything," I wanted to do this one more time before I woke up.
I leaned into her ear and yelled this time, "You Missed Me!" Both of them heard that and as she spun around firing so did McCoy in the same general direction as where I was standing. I was walking to the door when I heard her voice again.
The agonizing bliss of the voice I never could see. She was pulling me. Opening the door I closed it without looking at the response from the two in the room. She was torturing me for whatever reason. Passing right by my picture on the whiteboard I was headed for a door across the room.
By the wall I stopped and turned to see a clock on one of the desks. The clock read '7:07 PM'. "Michael. Michael," the voice was calling and pulling from behind the door. I couldn't resist its urges anymore.
The door wasn't just black; it was a black mist moving in a circular motion like a swirling cloud of morning on the beach. A woman's pale arm came out of the mist and reached out to me. I could feel it wanting me to touch it.
"Michael, I need you. We need you." Putting my hand out I touched her hand. It was ice cold and silky soft. It started stroking my arm which felt as good as anything her voice was doing to me. My eyes were rolling back in ecstasy.
For the first time a face came out of the darkness. A woman's pale white untouched face that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen before moved out of the mist that floated off of her like smoke. Her hair was midnight black as were her eyelashes. Hypnotizing Crystal Blue eyes with a single Yellow circle around the pupil stared into my eyes and whispered again.
"I need you, Michael. Come with me." Something felt so right and so wrong about it. I felt like I was on both ends of an extreme inside my body. She stepped out fully from the mist and was standing in front of me completely naked. She was the most fantastic creature I'd ever even heard imagined in any fairytale. Everything about her made me want to just be with her.
"Come be with me, Michael." The wrong was starting to outweigh the right. She wrapped her arms around me and every part of her that touched me made me feel euphoric. It was absolutely the most amazing feeling. But I couldn't escape the wrong that was rushing it's way from my heart to my brain, though.
Just as I started to pull away, more arms came out of the black cloud and grabbed onto me. They were black and shiny looking human like arms. I tried to pull away but they had a hold of me. Struggling to get away she kept talking to me.
"Michael, come be with me. Don't you want to be with me?"
I was thrashing and trying to tear myself away out of the grasps of their arms. I started to yell out, "NO! Let go of me! Let go!" Then something else didn't feel right about everything. The feeling just came over me in a powerful and distinctive thought through my heart to my brain. "This is real!" I yelled out in awakened understanding. "This is fucking Real!"
Her voice rang through to the depths of my body hauntingly, "Yessssssss."
"NO! Let go of me!" I yelled and screamed. I pictured the bar on the plane with all my focus and the terror that swept over me. "No, No! Let go!"
"Michael," a voice said.
"No! It's real! Let go of me! I don't want to go into the darkness!" still thrashing to get away.
"Michael, wake up, mate!"
I could see the bar. Then I was standing at the bar looking at Matt bending over the couch on the plane looking down. He turned to see me at the bar and looked very surprised.
"What the hell man? Now you can do that in your sleep?" I was panting and breathing heavy when I realized I was back in the plane with the guys on the way to South Dakota.
Putting my hand over my heart I dropped down like a bag of rocks onto my knees. Pain and a hell of a lot of anxiety was being pumped through my body.
"What was that all about?" Matt was sitting on the couch just staring at me.
"It was real. It was real." I threw my head back and looked at the ceiling. Catching my breathe with the thought of that woman in my head would be difficult. She was stunning.
"Yeah, you said that." Matt got up and helped me to a seat.
Bob came back. "You alright, boss?"
"I don't know if I'll ever be right again, to be honest." It was like an image you wish you could unsee.
"So, what happened and should we be worried?" Bob gave an unemotional worry that sounded concerned and yet didn't feel that way. This stuff was happening a lot more often and getting more bizarre. "The thought you are doing this in your sleep now doesn't settle well. What if you dreamed about being stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a sub or something?"
Matt smacked him, "Don't give him the ideas, you idiot!" Although it was funny to watch, Matt was right to be concerned.
"I have more dangerous things in my head than that. Don't worry," I put my hand on Bob's shoulder.
"So, are you going to tell us or do we have to guess," Matt's patience were gone at this point. I guess mine would be too if I saw someone disappear and reappear while trying to wake them up from a nap.
"Yeah." I took a breath, "That agency does exist and it is all based around me. They have a huge unit setup in some building. It's pretty hidden, too." Matt handed me a bottle of water from the fridge. "Thanks."
"Why are they looking for you so bad?" Matt was actually asking that question until I gave him 'Hello, dumbshit' look. "Oh, yeah. Duh! Sorry."
I shook it off, "The guy running it, his name is S. McCoy." I was picturing the guy with the gun out swinging it around the room. "He's about six foot with black hair and well dressed. Of course like all NSA agents, he's in shape."
Bob was listening well. "We should check in with Jax. If he is into their files then he should be able to get us some stuff on the guy."
"Good idea," Matt said and I nodded while taking down some water. "I don't get it. How did you find all this out?"
"I had a dream, but it wasn't a dream," this caused some confusion while I was trying to work through it out loud. "I was in the building they have the unit setup in. I was moving around listening to them talk. The actual workspace they are using is hidden behind a normal office floor. They have pictures and details of all of us."
Fear, utter fear cascaded over both of them at the mention of photos and details. Ever since Bob had told me about the NSA creating a new department, and my name had been passed around, I figured they had all this information. I had Matt and Bob both working on things to send any agency on time consuming wild goose chases. They knew that's what it was all for. Before now it was just speculation that didn't really exist. Now, it was stone cold reality.
"How many people do they have working on finding you?" Bob asked with a low shallow tone.
"I'm not sure on the number. It's a lot, though. McCoy was talking to his boss and told him he needed another shift of people to add to the two he already had in order to run 24/7 looking for me."
That hit a nerve with both of them. Matt started to smile a bit as the harsh reality of being chased by an entire department within the NSA was taking hold.
"Wow! All that just for you?" like a smartass would say. "Hope you're head doesn't get too big, mate!"
"No worries there. Any bigger and I won't be able to slip through space." We all laughed at the ridiculous thought. "I just thought of something though," both of them were looking at me with anticipation. "If I could slip on this plane without knowing where it was and end up in the Florida Keys on an Island I'd never seen or heard of then…."
"Why wouldn't you be able to get into that office now that you've seen the inside of it?" Matt always could follow the obvious.
Bob leaned back, "Not a bad idea. We could use some more information on what they do and don't know." He was right. I knew I needed to find out more.
"I'm trying to keep count of all these new…..things you can do." Matt was taking notes which was probably a good thing. "You slipped into the office in your dream and you were invisible to them?" I hadn't thought of it like that, but he was right.
"Yeah, I guess I was." We all sat pondering this for a few moments. "I don't think we can wait to see if I can figure out how to get control of it. The office, with the exception of McCoy was empty when I got there. Later a woman agent showed up. If McCoy got the signoff from his boss an entire new shift of maybe twenty more agents would be showing up starting tonight and running around the clock. This is our best shot."
Reluctantly, "I'll agree with you on that. But it's dangerous since you were just there." Bob being an ex-cop was always a good thing. He would always play devil's advocate and try to proceed with caution.
It took a quick second, "I should tell you guys this anyway just in case you ever need to know. Behind the fake office is the Emergency Exit with a stairwell. If you go straight ahead you'll see another door that resembles some sort of closet. Walk through that and it's the real office for the department." I could see they were both taking mental notes. "I can go in at the stairwell and make sure no one is around. Matt, did you bring some clothes with you?"
"Yeah," Matt headed to the back of the plane behind the bar. He pulled out a backpack. We were roughly the same size and build. "Let me guess, anything black?"
"You got it." Slipping around in the shadows was best done in black.
"I'd offer a ski mask if I had one, but if you really wanted one all you need to do is pop into a ski shop in Vale and grab one before you head to the building. That is a strange and fucked up reality to think about, isn't it?" He was right on both counts. If I ever really wanted to I could just pop in and out of anyplace I could think of, at least the way this thing had worked so far.
He pulled out a pair of black jeans and a black fitted Nike long sleeve workout shirt. I slipped the boots off and my cloths and put all of Matt's stuff on. Perfect fit, since he often wore my clothes it shouldn't have been a surprise.
"Bob, what time is it?" looking at his watch.
"Its 6:50 PM," he looked up from his watch. I stopped looking off out the window. Now I knew something about where they were.
"They're on the East Coast," I said in a revelation.
Matt looked confused, "How do you know that?"
"Because the clock on one of the desks said 7:07 PM before I left the room for the plane." Matt shrugged and nodded.
"That makes sense, then," he took his black watch off and threw it too me. "Take mine and switch me. That silver thing might be a problem." I tossed it over to him.
"How much longer until you land?" Bob got up and looked at the gauges on the dash of the Gulfstream.
"Maybe fifteen minutes."
"Okay. Bob, call Remy and have her and the kids go to the Cactus for now." He nodded. "Do me a favor and grab some food for the Artist's Loft. Non-perishable stuff. Get enough for awhile. No telling how long we'll be there."
"Good luck, mate! Better be back soon." Matt and Bob gave me a manly type of hug.
Humming a song that popped into my head, I started to focus on the stairwell in the NSA building. All my emotion while I was humming the song focused on the stairwell. My left hand started to twitch and my vision hazed. My eyes were twitching as I saw the stairwell in the back of my mind and closed my eyes. I opened them to see the stairwell from my dream and just before I left the plane for good, looking back I said the famous line from the song in my head, "8 Million Ways to Die, Choose One." I shut and then opened my eyes in the stairwell of the NSA building I was at in the dream.