The Blue Blur:
A Mission Remembered
By Tanner Froreich
CONTENTS
Title Page
Chapter 1: Seeking to Find
Chapter 2: Remembering
Chapter 3: Shot in the Dark
Chapter 4: Threating
Chapter 5: Former Things
Chapter 6: Mental Torture
Chapter 7: IODINE
Chapter 8: Waiting
Chapter 9: Closed Door
Chapter 10: The Prisoner
Chapter 11: Face to Face
Chapter 12: Outside World
Chapter 13: North Korea
Chapter 14: Dark Memories
Chapter 15: Voices
Chapter 16: Before Governors
Chapter 17: Second Encounter
Chapter 18: Different IODINE
Chapter 19: Barriers
Chapter 20: Escape
Chapter 21: The Woods
Chapter 22: A Choice
Chapter 23: A Decision
Chapter 24: Home
Chapter 25: Setting Your Eyes
Chapter 26: Rest
Chapter 27: Past and Present
Chapter 28: Pride and Fear
Chapter 29: A Memory
Chapter 30: Hope
Chapter 31: Last Memories
Chapter 32: Abandoment
Chapter 33: Conspiracy
Chapter 34: Better Late than Never
Chapter 35: Never Alone
Chapter 36: Coming For You
Chapter 37: Into the Depths
Chapter 38: Algorithm
Author’s Note
The Blue Blur: A Mission Remembered
Copyright © 2019 by Tanner Froreich
All rights reserved. This book or any part there in may not be reproduced or used in any manner at all without the express written permission of the author except for the use of short quotations in reviews.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 9781095597163
Cover by PerryElisabethDesign.com
Images via DepositPhotos.com and Pexels.com
Check out my blog at withgodsspeed.wordpress.com
This is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to persons, living, dead, real, fictional, or actual events is purely coincidental.
To all those of you who have pushed, pestered, and encouraged me through the course of writing this book. I want to personally thank a few individuals
To Malachi Cyr, for suffering through the writing process waiting for the next chapter.
To my other beta readers, you know who you are, for your invaluable input and perspective.
To Mrs. Ronsick for being an amazing editor!
Above all, I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for dying for my sins and giving me the new life that I now live!
All Glory Be to Christ.
“And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”
-John 10:28
Chapter 1
Seeking to Find
Istill couldn’t believe it was the year 2068. Truly, I felt like a man out of time. If that wasn’t a problem, I was streaking across the landscape at Mach 5. Dodging off of the roadway, I disappeared into the woods. I looked around at what was left of Yellowstone National Park. There were a few plots of trees including the one I was hiding in, but on the horizon, I saw a large city. A few seconds after I had stopped, a black streak zoomed by heading south. I didn’t like having to run away from anything, but I had to draw attention away from my main objective. As soon as I thought it was clear, I sped back to my original location.
I approached a dark ominous building, hid behind a tree, and glanced around it. The building I was getting back to was heavily secured. I looked across the complex to the tree line on the other side. Even though I knew where he was, he was well camouflaged. A young man, about eighteen years of age, covered in debris, was looking at me with a pair of binoculars. I would have simply sped over to him, but the building was equipped with special hyper-speed sensors. I had to wait to trigger them at the right moment.
A laser shimmered in my eye from the young man and I knew I was exposed. I ran away from the building and came back around the long way. When I placed my hand on his shoulder, it caused him to instinctively jerk.
“It’s just me, Timothy,” I said as he relaxed. He didn’t look much younger than me. Normally I wouldn’t have let him come with me on one of these missions, but I needed his tech skills.
He questioned, “Why were you on the east side?”
I rubbed my forehead. “Sorry, I got confused. I couldn’t remember which side we were meeting on.”
He shook his head, and looking behind me, asked, “Did you lose him?”
I nodded and took his pair of binoculars. “But he’ll realize I doubled back on him. We’d better hurry.”
I looked over the complex. It wasn’t large, but it was heavily guarded. A fifteen-foot fence lined the perimeter, and a security patrol went by every five minutes. I readjusted my mask, which was made of hardened plastic that latched onto my face. My bright blue armored suit didn’t help much when it came to stealth. We had tried to paint it a variety of colors, but they all rubbed off while I ran.
I glanced over at Timothy’s watch and asked, “When is that truck due to arrive?’
He looked at it. “Any minute now.”
Just as he had said, a box van with no markings on it drove up to the gate. I took a deep breath and said, “Here we go.” As soon as the gate was opened, I rocketed into the complex and knocked out all of the personnel on the outside security features.
Then I ran back, grabbed Tim, and brought him up to the door. I said, “Ok, those sensors will finish confirming that it was me in five seconds and send a signal to Phase…”
Tim quickly pulled a tool out of his bag and said, “Chillax Arf, I got this.” Even though his father had told Timothy to call me Mr. Fredrick, he was finding that hard to do since I didn’t look much older than him at all.
He placed the tool on the keypad and pressed a button. I heard all the power for the building drain and the locks on the doors click. With no effort, I pushed the door open wide.
I smiled. “Cool, good job.”
He slung his bag back over his shoulder. “Like I said, ‘I got this’, now let’s go get that software.”
We crept through the hall. The software we were attempting to retrieve would help me get back something that had been stolen from me a while ago and I wondered what it would be like to have it back. I had been thinking about it for what seemed like years. Since it was very personal, something deep inside me wanted so much to get it back.
Timothy asked, “Where do you think they are keeping it?”
I shrugged my shoulders as I looked around the corner and saw another group of guards, ready for almost anything. I sped into the hallway and knocked them all unconscious before Timothy could blink. “I’m not sure, but we have to find it. We’ll search the entire building if we have to.”
He flipped on a flashlight to see better and asked, “How was it stolen?”
“What?”
“You know…” He knew it was a sensitive issue and didn’t want to blatantly mention it.
Chapter 2
Remembering
Iglanced around yet another corner, and Timothy and I continued carefully moving through the building. Timothy said, “Arf, you didn’t answer.”
“Sorry
, I was just thinking. What was the question again?”
“What was stolen from you? Dad never exactly told me.” It was so weird hearing someone talk about Simon as their dad, but that was the world I was in.
We entered a room filled with lockboxes. This was where it should be. Finally answering Timothy’s question, I said, “It’s complicated. I know, yet I don’t.”
Timothy placed an electrical device in the middle of the room. “Well why don’t you start with what you do know.” With a push of a button from his watch, the device turned on and sparked a little. Nothing happened. Timothy scowled and grumbled, “Stupid outdated tech; this may take a minute to fix.”
I nodded and walked around the room looking for any indicator of which box had the intel. “I don’t know exactly what was stolen, or if it really was stolen. When the first Mindsweeper got me, I think he put a mental block on major parts of my memory. When we find this Intel, this software, we can pair it with the hardware we have back at the Strong Tower and remove that block.”
Timothy shook his head. “I really hate those Mindsweepers. I’ve lost two friends to them.”
I stepped back into the hallway briefly to double check for any guards that were coming but the coast was clear. Suddenly with a loud crash, three men with guns and gear dropped from the air vents. I rushed back into the room as one of them immediately tossed out a round sphere that caused a flash, blinding me and Timothy.
I sprang into action, though I still couldn’t see, and sped up to one of the men, but as soon as I began to engage them, I realized they had enhanced response tech. I was caught off guard and wasn’t able to effectively defend myself. If it wasn’t for some quick reflexes, I would have had my head blown off. I pulled away and grabbed Timothy, dodging behind the doorway.
“Ok, Tim what can we do?” I asked before I stepped out again. I needed to find something to fight back with.
“Arf! Catch!” Tim said, as he pulled a baton from his bag, which as he tossed it, extended into a staff. I batted their guns out of their hands as Tim shouted, “The power cell that’s guarded under their armor!”
I stepped back to get out of their reach. “Thanks for the help! Where?”
He mumbled some indistinguishable words, but then shouted, “Right shoulder! I think.”
It was better than nothing, so I thrust the edge of the staff with all my might into one of the men’s shoulders. The staff shattered into several pieces, but the power cell must have shorted out because he jerked back from the exposed electricity. I sprang upon the helpless man and delivered a solid punch, knocking him out cold. From behind me, Timothy leaped out from behind the doorway with a stunner he had in his bag. He jumped another one of the men and jammed the stunner into his right shoulder.
The last man had regained his weapon and was aiming at Timothy. I acted quickly to move into the path of the bullets which, with my speed, I swatted out of the way. The man’s radio made an unfamiliar sound and he tossed down another flash grenade. When I could see again, he was gone, Timothy was dazed on the ground, and the other two were also gone.
They had retreated. They were just a distraction to stall us. They pulled out because he was coming. I wasn’t sure how much longer we had before we ran out of time. I had to get Timothy out of here.
Timothy had already gotten back to his work on the broken device. I tried to walk up to him without indicating that there was anything wrong. “How much longer?”
He didn’t respond because he was holding a wire in his teeth while he worked on the device. He removed the wire from his mouth and said, “One more… there!” The device lit up again and powered down.
“Is it broken again?”
There was a click as the lockboxes all unlocked. Timothy pumped his fist and declared, “Yes! Now we just need to find that software.”
“No, I have to.” Before he could answer, I grabbed him and rushed him out of the building, dropping him off a mile from the complex.
Back in the building, I scrambled to dig through the boxes to find the Mindsweeper software. Many years ago, I had taken a Mindsweeper glove. Even though Simon and Abigail had cracked how to power it nearly twenty-five years ago, they needed the original tech’s frequency to undo the mind wipe that it caused.
I was digging through the IODINE safe boxes looking for that original Mindsweeper tech, but time was running out. I had gotten Timothy out safely, but he was coming. I opened a box and found some rudimentary pads with straps to attach them to a hand, along with a box of computer chips.
I smiled as I stashed the contents of the box into a bag. As I zipped it shut, the unmistakable sound of a speedster caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up and the grip I had on my staff to tighten.
“I see you finally have what you’ve been looking for. How long have you been searching again?” said an ominous voice all too similar to my own.
I turned to face the masked menace. “Too long.” I had grown to hold a special disdain for this blacked armored fiend. His head was completely covered by a mask with no distinguishing features other than his eerie red eyes. Though I didn’t know the identity of this man, he was always persistent in his opposition to everything I was doing.
Algorithm had sent him like he always does. I wasn’t going to bother with a match of wits, and in the blink of an eye, I raced off with my enemy not far behind. His speed was a true rival to my own. He closed the gap between the two of us and reached for the bag.
I wasn’t about to let him have it, not after the long journey I’d gone through to get it. I spun around and whacked him in the head with my staff. He slowed for a moment, but then rocketed forward, not bothering with the bag. He tackled me and we both tumbled across the landscape.
I dropped the bag and staff somewhere during the tumble. When we rolled to a stop, I punched him off me. He glared at me with his glowing eyes as he attacked with hypersonic punches to the gut and face. It began to rain as we fought in the dirt, which was now becoming mud.
I fought back with a few good blows myself. Our fight shifted positions across the valley at a rate that was almost inconceivable. Blocking my attack, my foe delivered a solid kick across my face, knocking me to the ground. A crack of thunder beckoned the beginning of a downpour.
He bolted forward and grabbed me before I could react. His voice was cold and riddled with hate. “As always, Arf, too slow.”
I punched him off of me and prepared to face him again, but I was, as he said, too slow. I was back on the ground in an instant.
“Just give up. You’ll never be as fast as me,” he taunted as he threateningly walked towards me.
I looked around. My staff had converted back into a baton and was no more than a few feet away in the mud. I shot back, “I already am, how do you think I got here Phase!”
He lunged at me as a lightning bolt struck in the distance behind him. I quickly reached for the baton. He grabbed me by the shoulders with both hands and I spun around, extending the baton into a staff and smacking the menace across the head.
He wouldn’t be defeated that easily, but with a weapon, I had the upper hand. Sweeping his legs, I smacked him again as he tried to block. I swung at him a few more times before darting off.
As I had hoped, before he could recover enough to pursue, I was long gone. I tried to find the bag, but it was gone. I went looking for Timothy, but he was gone too. I was frustrated. I would’ve lost my temper if my radio hadn’t gone off.
“Hey, Arf! I’m going for the bag. Once you’ve lost Phase, head back to the Strong Tower.”
“Understood Tim. Good work.”
∆∆∆
It was a few days before we got back to our hideout, which ironically was the old IODINE mountain base. It had been abandoned ever since I escaped from it and now was a hidden haven for Christians in this corrupt nation. Simon, who had led them here, was aware of the risks, but it had been a refuge for a solid three years.
Timothy and I were waiting while his fa
ther and mother, Simon and Abigail, were busy configuring the two different Mindsweeper models. It didn’t take them long to do so.
My old friend came out with that wiry smile across his bearded face. I hadn’t seen that look in a long time, as he was so much more mature these days. Abigail also bore a proud smile on her face. The two of them had grown in the time I was gone. It was odd, seeing my friends in their fifties, but I was still in my youth thanks to running a bit too fast.
“Well my friend, I pray this will work,” Simon said as he slipped the glove on and powered it up.
For a moment, I worried about what would happen once the block was removed and my two minds were merged. Yet I knew that possessing the rest of my old memories would make me better suited to fight Algorithm and Phase.
“Let’s do it.”
I sat in a chair as Simon placed the cold pad on my head. All it took was a brief shocking pain and it was over.
I remembered everything.
Chapter 3
Shot in the Dark
Itall started with me running down the highway. I was bolting to a high-security bank in Arizona. Simon had been up late working on something when somehow he learned about it. He had many confusing ways of finding these things out for me. However, it made my job easier as I didn’t have to be out all night all the time. As I streaked across the desert, the sky was perfectly clear and the stars were shining bright, but I didn’t have time to admire them. I had another criminal to catch, so I picked up the pace.
Being a superhero the past two years hadn’t been that bad. There had been a fair share of hard times that God had refined me through, but nothing I couldn’t handle. My ministry was growing too. Simon’s fan page was a huge blessing in that field. It gave the Blue Blur a platform to spread the Gospel out to more people than he could reach on foot. Unfortunately, Simon had recently confided in me that he didn’t want to run the page anymore. He felt that it was rather childish and that he needed to “grow up”, as he put it. So, we would see where it went now.
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