Chapter 4

Posted: August 26, 2006 - 07:02:25 pm

My twenty-first birthday, was the say day I was paid at the new rate my lawyer got for me. I was now making ten thousand dollars a month, or one hundred twenty thousand a year! I was up in my mom and dads pay area now. Not bad for someone only twenty-one years old. I celebrated by going to a steak house.

The visit with my mom and dad had gone well. Dad had pushed the idea for savings and investment. Now that I had twice as much money as before, I had moved yet again... into another tax bracket. The government was digging yet deeper into my pocket. Damn, but they had a good racket going. I gritted my teeth. I figured that for the most part, the money was going to benefit the whole; but, man!

It was late in that same year, when I was approached by Mr. Smith, my CIA representative. He had given me a couple photos to look at and seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he opened his briefcase and pulled out another photo.

"Here is one that we want to know if he is alive. If alive, we want you to tell us where he can be found," he told me, passing me the photo.

"Got a name? Part of the world?" I said, asking him my standard questions.

He seemed to hesitate. Then he said the target would be located in the United States most likely. His name was Tom Wilshire.

I nodded and stared at the photo, memorizing the face, and then started searching. Thirty minutes later, I still had nothing. What I did have, was a mild headache. This was new. I never got headaches from my searches. My conclusion was, that if I couldn't find him, he was dead. I said as much to Mr. Smith.

"I was afraid of that, but I wasn't sure," he muttered to himself.

"He a terrorist, or criminal?" I asked curiously.

"I'm afraid that what he is, or was, is classified. Thanks for trying though, I appreciate it," Smith said, while putting his photo away.

He got up and left the room leaving me to my own devices. I made my way to the office I had been assigned. Eric had been seconded to another team, and was out doing HS business. As I was now an 'office worker', it was deemed that solo work was acceptable for me. I poured myself a cup of two-hour-old coffee, and made a face. I dumped that cup, set it aside, and took our twenty-cup percolator to the sink. I cleaned it out really well, and refilled with the coffee that I had discovered tasted the best. My own stash. Twenty minutes later I was drinking a fresh cup of my specially blended coffee.

While I was sitting there drinking coffee, I started thinking about the last photo I had looked at for Smith. I was pretty sure now that the guy had not been one of the bad guys. I had already been used to locate agents who might be in trouble. No one had been hesitant about identifying them as an agency agent of some type. This guy though, had seemed to have Smith off balance, somehow. The whole thing made me curious.

Another thing that had me wondering a bit, was that it took me only twenty minutes to do a world wide search. If the guy was recently dead, my search would reveal that. If a person had been dead a long time, I was able to decipher that, too. But this guy didn't register as dead, really. Well, not the normal way a dead person registers. Thirty minutes, and my mind still had been searching. This was a first for me. If he was somewhere in the world, I would have found him. I had had to actively disengage from the search and tell Smith the guy was dead, but now I was wondering. Did my talent extend to orbital positions? That would be interesting to discover.

I was not going to jeopardize my raise by waffling over this 'Tom Wilshire'. He was not a terrorist or criminal. He would not be the first guy an agency wanted me to find for them. For instance, the FBI had requests in for my services. They just did not know what my service actually was. They just knew that HS had the ability to locate and to find whoever needed finding. Since I knew HS and the CIA were very careful in guarding my existence and what I did, I started wondering if this Wilshire guy might be someone who had a special talent, too. I could not be the only one in the world with a talent like this. Oh, their talent might not be the same as mine, but I existed. Others had to exist, too. It just stood to reason.

Smith had been edgy when he had me try to locate this Tom Wilshire. He had definitely been reluctant to tell me almost anything about him. Well, I could do something about that. Despite everyone thinking their lives were private, I knew that there is more about an individual on the internet than a person might think reasonable or prudent.

When my day was done, I took off and stopped at a branch of the county library. All terminals were in use, and there was a waiting list. I proceeded with plan B and paid a guy ten bucks to use the rest of his time. This did a couple things. One, it left no record or trail to me; and two, it got me onto the internet much quicker.

I quickly googled Tom Wilshire, and was surprised at what came up. He had been a rich man living in the Boston area. The photo that went with him was the same as the photo that Mr. Smith had shown me. Same person, same face.

Wilshire had been a private investor in stocks, and had found some incredible things in his youth. He ran a foundation of some sort that gave money to needy organizations. He had died in a gas explosion at his home just a few years ago. He had been only a few years older than I, when he had died.

"Relative?" a voice asked me over my shoulder.

I looked behind me. A young woman was standing there, reading over my shoulder.

"No. Someone got me interested in him earlier today, though. Thought I would finish by looking him up and seeing if he was anyone who had accomplished anything. He died at a young age in a fire though. Why do you ask?" I finished curiously.

"You and this guy have the same shape head. I am an art major. I notice these things. Now that I see your face, your eyes and his are almost identical. Spooky, really, considering you're not related. Also, there is a similarity to your noses," she said smiling.

"May I help you? Did you want something?" I asked her, trying to change the subject.

"I am scheduled for this terminal next. I just wanted to let you finish before I kicked you off," she replied with a grin.

"Oh, my time is up, sorry," I replied and cleared the terminal.

"Not at all. I was just going to look up a sculptor for my class. He is a recent sculptor and boring. He is into modern expressionism and I find that a stupid study. I am more interested in the classic form by the 'old greats', really," she said, assuming her place at the terminal.

Her fingers flew over the keys, and soon she was reading up on someone I never heard of before, and had no interest in. I wished her a good day and took my leave. Cute girl, really. It had been a while since I had had a girlfriend. Maybe I should find someone who would not ask too many questions about my job?

I forgot about Wilshire and my inability to locate him. I was busy for the next couple of weeks. The science johnnies had come up with new ways to investigate my ability. I was beginning to think torture was looking good, compared to what they were doing. They shot me with a fluid, a die, which burned like hell inside me for about twenty minutes. They were apologetic, but still put me through it. I told them that's the last time they inject a substance into me, ever again. That of course started a disagreement. It went on until I stormed out. I refused to come back, if they continued to insist on that avenue of investigation.

Eric came with me to a meeting that was called late Friday afternoon. I was to see Dr. Babcock, and another administrator about my reluctance to cooperate. Mr. Owens, the administrative coordinator for the local HS offices and the science department, tried to run rough shod over me and cow me into submission. Eric tried to get his attention, as did Dr. Babcock, But this Owens guy kept going.

I stood up and ended the meeting.

"You will contact me through my attorney from now on Mr. Owens. I will not be treated like a slave, and I am done with medical experimentation and constant poking and prodding. If I wanted to be a lab rat, I would have signed up for it. Good day, Sir," I grimly stated, and stormed out.

"Scott, calm down. I'm sure Owens didn't mean to be as abrupt or abrasive as he was," Eric said, trailing after me.

"Eric, I know my position is strange here. I like working with you, and I like working with the other guys. I never get to go out into the field for investigations, but thats not my specialty. I recognize that.

"But I am a human being! I demand respect and treatment that is above reproach. The science boys have tons of CAT scans and MRI's by now. They have blood and urine samples out my ass, not to mention the three 'stool' samples I have given, also. I must have donated two pints of blood in the last two months. This is the final straw, as far as I am concerned," I said firmly.

I went home. Eric told me to relax over the weekend and try to calm down. I had informed him that I was calm: I was just tired of the shit I'd had to put up with. A man can only take so much shit before he puts his foot down. That's true about anything, come to think of it.

Saturday passed slowly. I watched some TV and went to the library. I checked out a couple books to read. I decided to get on the computer at the library. I looked in one of the Boston paper's archives, and pulled up the story on Tom Wilshire.

I read again how his home had exploded. It had been a gas explosion, the story said. Later investigation showed a faulty valve was the culprit. Still, the reporter had mentioned that not only had the police investigated, but the FBI had shown some interest in the remains. It had left the reporter with more questions. Questions that were never answered.

I pulled up his photo again, and looked at it. What startled me was that my mind started searching for him, again... and found him! This was impossible! I had searched for this guy before, and gotten nothing but vagueness. Now, almost as soon as I started to search, he pops up!

Just like that!

Huh?

I cleared the terminal absentmindedly, as I studied the area around him. He was in a car, with a very beautiful girl. I looked out the window, and saw the St. Louis Arch off in the distance. He was not only close, he was in the St. Louis area!

I concentrated on the controls of the car. They were many, and the fact that I could not identify more than a few, puzzled me. I stayed with him while he dropped the girl off at a hotel downtown, and he went to a few other places. One was a showroom for older model cars. I was sure that I had driven by that place, but I could not for the life of me remember where.

Soon, he was back in his car, and I carefully noted that he had parked out of sight from anyone. He looked around, and then... I lost contact!

I froze!

Then my mind found him again!

He was in a barn of all places! It looked like it had been converted to a machine shop of some sort.

I was still marveling at his disappearance. Then, me finding him again a few seconds later, somewhere else... What the hell had happened? Nothing like this had ever happened to me before!

Damn!

I watched him as he left the car in the barn, and went outside. He walked past a house and to the mailbox on the side of a blacktopped road. I burned the address into my memory. There was something familiar about the road name.

He went into the house, and I saw a clock, which told me we were on the same time. He was downtown less than five minutes ago, and now he was out in the boonies of St. Louis County. There was only one explanation that I could think of. This guy had a talent, and it was very powerful, indeed! No wonder Smith had been looking for him. Still, that didn't explain why I couldn't locate him, before.

If his talent was just teleportation, I would have been able to detect him when I first was set to looking. No, teleportation had to be in addition to his talent somehow, or a part of it. For example, I could do telekineses, but I had not let the government know about that. I had an idea that would not be a good idea at all, if they found out about it.

So this guy could at least teleport somehow, or trans-locate, or whatever. Still, because I had been unable to lock onto him before, that told me he had something else going for him that was still an unknown.

I now wondered if I should tell Smith that Tom Wilshire was back among the living?

No. For some reason, I felt that this guy didn't want anything to do with the government, and if he had worked for them, but managed to get clear, more power to him I thought.

This left me wondering how to contact him. I didn't want to lead the government to him, so I had to figure out a way to get clear of any type of monitoring. It came to me quickly. I checked in on the girl who had been with Tom, and she was working in an office in the hotel. Ok, I knew how to contact those people, and I think I knew how to do it safely.

Most likely, my phone was bugged, so no calls. Pleasant thought, eh? There was also a good chance a tracker had been installed in my car, to yell out where the hell it was at all times. Standard procedure. That left my clothing and personal items. Time to go shopping.

First, I drove to the nearest Metro Link station. I bought a round trip ticket into St. Louis, as I would be returning to pick up my car.

After I got off the Metro, I went to the nearest ATM, and withdrew three hundred dollars. This would give me emergency cash, if I needed it, on top of the forty dollars I already had in my wallet.

Next, I went into a store, and bought a new wallet, new shoes, socks, slacks, boxer shorts, shirt, and a sport jacket. I changed clothes in the store, placing my old clothes and shoes in the store's shopping bag. I transferred all the money, my drivers license and a few papers to my new wallet. The old wallet minus those few cash items was also placed in my shopping bag.

Now I needed a storage locker. That was really obvious. The Greyhound bus station was near, and served my purposes, perfectly. I put everything in a locker, there.

Then I found a cab outside the Greyhound Station, and dickered with the driver. He was only going to take me nine blocks. That's where the hotel was, where Wilshire's girl was working.

I was ready to try and set up a meet with Mr. Wilshire.

That spy school had done a good job about teaching me to cover my tracks. I had done nothing that could not be explained reasonably.