The Ties That Bind

by T. Starnes

  That was what my brain focused on as I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 12

  The next morning I was up and ready by the time Megan came to pick me up. Andrea was already in the car and we were both dressed in running clothes. I was pretty calm, since honestly I was running this thing more out of support for Andrea than for myself, but she was keyed up. She started to go into our running strategy for the race, something we had gone over many times. I cut her off after about five minutes.

  "Andrea, it's ok. You can do this in your sleep, you're just nervous. You need to calm down and relax."

  She took a couple of deep breaths then said, "You're right, sorry. A friend of mine said Arkansas's team is going to be there, and I want them to notice me now, so I can get scouted as a senior. Those guys are amazing; they have been national champions like seven times in the last ten years."

  "You'll do fine, you have prepared for this and you're ready."

  She just nodded and looked out the window, he nerves getting to her a little bit.

  We had parked and started walking toward registration to get our numbers when I heard my name called from behind me. I was surprised to see Josh and Amanda walking up. They did our runs with us, but Josh was never going to be a great runner and I was certain marathons were not his thing.

  "Hey, what are you guys doing here," I said as they got closer.

  Josh waved a hand at Amanda and said, "She had heard Andrea talking about this and wanted to try it out. Don't worry; we know we can't keep up with you guys. We are going to run with the other amateurs."

  I smiled and gave Josh a chuckle, "You guys run more than most, and you'll do great."

  As with any large event, after registration we stood around just waiting for something to happen. Andrea said she saw her friend, the one that told her about the Arkansas team, and went over to talk to her. I made small talk with Josh and Amanda while we waited. We saw each other nearly every day, so there wasn't a ton of stuff to actually talk about.

  Amanda did try and press me for details on what our plan was with Emily, but since I honestly didn't know what schemes the girls were cooking up there wasn't much I could tell her. Like so much in my life I just referred her to them.

  It was almost race time when Andrea came running up, as excited as I have ever seen her.

  "You won't believe it, a couple of the Arkansas people didn't make it cause of car trouble or something, and needed another two people to run with them, so they had enough to switch off lead. My friend knows the coach and their captain, and recommended me to them. They want me to run with them."

  She looked concerned for a moment before continuing, "Cas, I know we were supposed to..."

  I held up a hand, stopping her, "I totally get it. I was just in this for a little fun. I won't be crushed if you run with those guys. Actually, this is such an amazing opportunity I would be upset if you didn't run with them. Plus, Amanda and Josh are here. I can just run with them."

  She threw her arms around me in a crushing hug, "Thanks Cas, you really are the best." With that she bolted to join her friend and the runners from Arkansas.

  I looked over and Josh and Amanda, "I never thought I would see someone so excited about running."

  They both chuckled and we headed over to our position to start. We were deep in the middle of the pack, which was fine by me. An air horn sounded and we were off. I let Josh set the pace and it was considerably slower than what Andrea and I had been training at, but that was fine with me. It was a nice day out, not too hot yet since it was still early, and I was looking forward to taking it kind of easy on the run. Andrea can get a little intense about her running.

  We started falling further back until we were one of the last groups. There was a pack of older people, maybe in their 40s, just ahead of us and no one I could see behind us. The group ahead of us wasn't well coordinated and they were putting a lot of distance between their lead and their stragglers. If I had to bet, I would guess they wouldn't stay a group much longer and a couple of people would either fall far behind or just drop out entirely.

  Amanda was leading our group at the moment, and unfortunately she also wasn't paying much attention to other runners. Josh was falling further behind and the gap between them was becoming noticeable. I knew that once Amanda realized she was putting distance between them, she should slow down and get back to his pace, so I slowly edged off so he wasn't running alone. You could see he was struggling, red faced and puffing.

  We started getting tangled with the group ahead of us. Amanda had actually passed one of their stragglers by a good bit, although he was ahead of Josh and I still. That was when it happened. We were running along an open road and it hadn't been shut down. I am guessing because the shoulder was so wide they thought there would be enough room for the runners and cars, and I am guessing they were right. Besides, the speed limit on this stretch was not all that fast.

  I am not sure if it was fatigue, or if he tripped, but the furthest straggler, the one closest to Josh and I, tripped and fell towards the roadway, rolling a bit. He wasn't that much in the road, but he was enough. That wouldn't have been such a big deal except for at that moment a car was happening by. There wasn't a lot of room, and I was almost certain neither the runner nor the driver were going to be able to stop what looked to be inevitable.

  I was closer to the guy than the car was, actually not far away at all. Time slipped into slow motion again, although it felt a little different. Instead of the incredible sluggishness I normally feel, this was more ... flowing is the best way I can describe it. I burst forward, getting to the guy almost as the car did. I grabbed onto him with both arms and pushed off as hard as I could, trying to use my forward momentum to get us clear of the car. I hadn't tried jumping much since I started noticing the changes in my body, and clearly my leg muscles were stronger than any of us thought. I propelled both myself and the runner up enough to clear the hood and just missed the edge of the car. Unfortunately we didn't miss it completely. The guy's body was dragging a little bit behind mine, and his right foot clipped the car's rear view mirror. He let out a shout of pain, followed by another as we impacted hard in the roadway.

  I lay there stunned for a moment, since the wind had gotten knocked out of me, but recovered enough that after a moment I pulled the guy out of the roadway, just in case another car who wasn't paying attention came along.

  The worst part was, the driver didn't even stop. Actually, I think he had been distracted and wasn't watching the roadway, because you could see him finally react just as he passed us. For a second the brake lights flashed like he was going to stop and check on everyone, then the lights went out and he accelerated away from us. Sometimes people are such cowards.

  The guy's friends got to us and helped me pull him the rest of the way out of the road, while one of them took off down the road, saying he thought there was a gas station nearby he could call for help from. The guy was moaning in pain and his ankle was turned at a gruesome angle. Without question it was broken, but considering he was still alive that seemed like a pretty fair trade. His friends had him at this point, talking to him and each other. While they thanked me, they were focused on their injured buddy, rightfully so. I fell back to join Amanda, who missed all the excitement, and Josh, who hadn't moved since everything happened. He was staring at me wide eyed.

  "Cas, how did you..."

  I interrupted him, wanting to avoid this line of questioning, "I just got lucky Josh. I was really close and the guy was already mostly clear of the car."

  His brows furrowed, "bullshit, I saw what happened."

  Amanda seemed interested now, which wasn't a good thing.

  "Josh," I said still hoping to forestall this entire conversation "It was nothing."

  "Cas, I know I am the dumbest person in our group, but I'm not an idiot. I have seen you and your girls working out. I remember what happened in your last game. And I saw this."

  Just then the guy over with his friend
s let out a yelp of pain. I took this as an opportunity.

  "Amanda, could you go see if he is ok. I am worried about that guy."

  "But I..."

  "Please Amanda."

  She looked very interested in our conversation and it was clear she didn't want to go, but after a minute of looking back and forth between Josh and I, she turned and walked toward the other runners.

  As soon as she was gone, I turned to Josh, "You're right, there is more going on here. It isn't for public knowledge and I don't want anyone else, including Amanda, to know about it if they don't have to. Come by the house tonight, I will fill you in. Ok."

  "Absolutely. I knew there was more going on with you lately then you had been saying. If I can get you to teach me even a little of how you have been doing all this stuff..."

  I shook my head, "Josh, it's not like..."

  "It's cool Cas, I can wait till later to talk about it."

  He was smiling as he walked over towards where Amanda was standing. The way Josh seemed happy, like something had happened for his benefit, bothered me greatly. And he wasn't really listening to anything I was saying. All in all there was no way this was going to work out well.

  It took almost half an hour longer for an ambulance to arrive, along with some folks from the organizing group. Both the injured guys group and Josh, Amanda and I called it a day and grabbed rides with the organizers back to the finish point.

  After a little bit he and Amanda took off while I waited for Andrea to finish. Josh kept throwing me expectant and questioning glances, and I knew this would come to no good.

  Andrea was excited to hear about the accident, the story of which was already making the rounds. Thankfully Josh was the only one who saw what I did. The guy was kinda out of it and I am not sure how much of what happened would be clear to him. For everyone I talked to, simply saying I pulled him out of the way seemed good enough.

  Andrea also wanted to talk about her run with the Arkansas team, and she went on about it the entire time Megan drove us home, and only stopped when she had to go into her house. Apparently they let her lead for a while and set the pace, and she was very happy about her performance.

  By the time Megan and I got home, everyone else was already there for the family meeting. While we were going to use this meeting to go over Megan's results, I was thankful to have a forum to bring up the stuff with Josh from today.

  Everyone was gathered up in the living room and looked up as we entered. Zoe stood up and gave me her spot, and promptly reseated herself in my lap, while Megan took an empty space next to Alex. Alex was about to start speaking when I interrupted her.

  "We have an issue. Josh has a fairly good idea about some of my abilities."

  That stopped everyone cold. Several people looked from me back to Megan, assuming she had some kind of knowledge simply due to her proximity to me while driving me home.

  "There was an incident during the marathon. A guy fell in front of a car and I moved to pull him out to safety before he was run over. I had ended up running with Josh and Amanda, and only Josh was in a position to see me. My actions were enough to confirm his already growing suspicions about my abilities. He confronted me about them and I told him that wasn't the place, and I would find time to sit him down and talk to him."

  "I tried to remain non-committal, but he is going to expect some kind of answers, and he has enough first-hand knowledge that we won't be able to put him off with platitudes and half-truths."

  Mom looked at me hard for a moment before speaking, "What do you want to do?"

  "I want to tell him about my differences, but not about everything. And he isn't to be part of the family meetings. As soon as I said that I would talk to him about what he had seen, he got excited and jumped to conclusions that he could get the same abilities. His attitude lately has been concerning me. He has a sense of entitlement that is frightening, and even if made loyal to me, his base personality is one that will be sure to cause us issues if he is enhanced, or even given all the information."

  Mom turned from me to the girls, "Zoe and Tami, you probably know Josh the best. What do you think?"

  They let a look pass between then before Zoe said, "Cas is right. Josh has always been entitled and it is getting worse. He also is not the most, circumspect, person we know. I think he would be a liability for us."

  Mom nodded and said, "Okay, Cas, it's your call, but it sounds like you have the right idea. I think we should sit him down with just you and me and talk to him. I want to be there; hopefully an adult presence will let him know the gravity of the situation. I think it's best if he doesn't know about everyone else."

  Vicki was shaking her head, "I think the three of us need to be there also. He already has an idea something is up with us and has asked me about it twice now. Both times I played it off as something in his head, but, once he has more information, it isn't hard to make 2 plus 2 work out to something reasonably close to four."

  "Ok, then the five of us," mom said after thinking for a moment. "Arrange a time and let me know. Now, on to the research we did on Megan's questionnaires. We did the best we could going over this, and had some help from a behavioral researcher at UT, although the data we gave them was scattered and anonymized enough that they cautioned their conclusions had a higher than normal error rate."

  "We looked at each of the questionnaires, and compared the changes in data points. We can say pretty conclusively that loyalty is a big part of the change. Megan was already predisposed to you, but now she falls in the, extremely loyal camp. If I had to guess, it is at the 'take a bullet for you' level of commitment. It is clear her behavioral changes are only in relation to you. Everything else we looked at says she is exactly the same person she was before the change, psychologically. Her moral values are the same, her relationships, other than her relationship to you, are the same. We can find no change in her personality other than an extreme level of commitment towards you."

  "The other thing you had been concerned about, the idea of a romantic element did not emerge. Her romantic feelings for you have not seemed to increase, and her feelings for her boyfriend do not seem to have decreased. I still feel like, if we get to test out someone who undergoes the change through more intimate means, we will find they do have more changes. But for those simply changed through blood transfer, there seems to be no element of that."

  "We also slipped an IQ test in there, and while IQ tests have limited reliability, it seems clear intelligence increases notably pre-change to post change."

  "Our sample size is still only one," Alex interjected, "which means it has limited usefulness. We will need to run this same study through everyone you change from now on, if practical. While we may never get enough to have a truly significant sample size, anything is better than a single source."

  "I'm open to that Alex. Megan," I said turning to her, "how do you feel about all this."

  "It's hard to say, since you can't think as someone you were before, even when thinking of how you thought then you still think as you do now."

  She stopped and laughed a little. You could hear Vicky say quietly, "That sentence got a little away from you."

  Megan chuckled again and continued, "Anyways, yes, it sounds right. I feel like I am the same person as before. I do have very strong, albeit non-romantic, feelings towards you. But I feel like I had some of those feelings before, so it's hard to say."

  "Ok, I guess that will have to do. Did we have anything else to discuss?"

  "Actually, I did have something else," I said, half raising my hand. "When I went into the slow motion thing, it was different this time. You know how I described how sluggish everything feels during the slow motion?"

  Everyone indicated they did.

  "It didn't quite feel like that this time. It didn't feel normal, but everything seemed to ... flow I guess is the best way to describe it. I was able to get more out of my body during the slow motion thing than before."

  Alex looked thoughtful for
a second, "Interesting, but I am not sure what we can do with that other than wait for it to happen again and see if it continues to change. Maybe..."

  After waiting for a second for her to continue I prompted her, "Maybe?"

  She shrugged, "Just a stray thought I will need to follow up with in the lab. Like I was saying, for now the best thing we can do is wait and observe. Did anyone have anything else?"

  Everyone indicated they didn't and so I broke up the family meeting and took the girls upstairs with me. Once the room was closed I pulled Vicki into my arms.

  "You and Tami are both headed out on Monday. I am going to miss you two. Are you sure you can't spend the night tonight?"

  Vicky and Tami both shook their heads no, and Vicki said, "I wish we could, but I have to pack, and I know Tami does too. I am going to miss you three while I am gone."

  "Me too," I said before leaning down to seriously show her how much I would miss her. After we finished, which took a while, Tami took Vicki's place, while Vicki moved to the spot in Zoe's arms Tami had just vacated. I repeated the process with Tami.

  All two soon both girls had to leave. Once they were gone I slumped on the bed and Zoe put her arms around me.

  "I am really going to miss you girls."

  I felt Zoe's arms squeeze me tighter, "yea, I know. I am going to miss them and you too."

  "I am glad you are getting a chance to see your family though. Family is important. I will try and get absorbed in my work so I don't feel so lonely," I joked.

  Zoe put her hand on my chest and said, "Not over Christmas holiday you don't. Don't worry though; I have worked out an alternative."

  Just then there was a knock at the bedroom door. Zoe stood up and moved towards the door saying, "And here is the alternative."

  She opened the door and Emily walked in. I have to say, I wasn't completely surprised. I knew my girls well enough that I saw this move coming.

  "Hi Emily," I said.