Jumper: Books 1-6: Complete Saga

by Sean Platt

My hand finds the lamp beside the clock, and I turn it on, illuminating a bedroom/workshop, stacked floor to ceiling with shelves, boxes, and crates overflowing with tools, supplies, scrap, and electronics.

  The place reeks of metal, grease, and oil, all scents that Clifton loves, the odor of a satisfied life. Because nothing is better than being busy, having something to do, things to make, people to help.

  How can he sleep here?

  Details flood my mind.

  I’m underground, in the body of Clifton Emmanuel, a 65-year-old man and one of the older members of The First Front. They call him The Fixer, a nickname he wears with pride. He isn’t a Deviant with a super power or gift. He’s just a very handy man, one who helped turned these forgotten catacombs under the city into a fully functional secret headquarters with power, running water, and all the amenities required to fight the government’s black ops program.

  There are others here, but I’m not sure how many, because one name is instantly at the top of my mind — my father, Ben Shepherd.

  I get up, get dressed, and head out of the room into the winding labyrinth of stone passageways, following Clifton’s instincts.

  Nobody else is awake.

  I turn down several hallways, descend a crumbling stairwell, the path illuminated by lights along the stone ceiling running every twenty feet or so between large swaths of darkness.

  Finally, I find the gray metal door I’ve been looking for, in the concrete wall just like the others.

  I knock three times, sharply.

  The sound echoes off the wall.

  A slot in the door opens, and I see a man’s sad blue eyes looking back in the dim light beyond the door.

  His voice is groggy. “What is it, Fixer?”

  “I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.”

  He opens the door and I see a man in his late forties, wearing a thick cotton jersey and jeans, hanging loose on his body. His dark hair, with strands of gray, runs just past his shoulders, curling at the ends. His eyes are faint blue, looking like they’ve been subjected to more than one lifetime of sorrow. His beard is scruffy and his face gaunt.

  And now that I’m staring at him, it’s hard to believe I could have ever forgotten him.

  Memories course through me, bits and pieces, but definitely memories of him, of us together.

  “Dad.”

  “What?” he says, stepping back, confused.

  “It’s me, Ella. Oh, my God, I’ve finally found you.”

  My father backs up even further in his little room — less cluttered than Clifton’s — and bumps into his bed.

  He collapses on top of it, then sits straight up.

  His eyes burrow into mine. “What are you talking about, Clifton?”

  “It’s me, Ella. I Jumped into Clifton’s body. I’m back.”

  His hand reaches under his pillow.

  And then his gun is on me.

  He stands, eyes glaring, mouth twisted. “Bullshit.”

  He puts the gun in my face.

  Now I’m backing up.

  Why doesn’t he believe me? How can I convince him?

  I put my hands in front of my face. “I swear, Dad. It’s me. How can I convince you?”

  I realize my error. I doubt I’d remember anything, even if he were to quiz me.

  “You can’t convince me. You’re not Ella.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I buried Ella years ago.”

  The Fall

  Prologue

  Ella

  My father’s comment echoes in my head.

  You’re not Ella. I buried Ella years ago.

  “No, I am her,” I cry out. “I know it. I have her memories. I remember you. I’m a Jumper.”

  He grabs my hand, pulling me through his bedroom, then a door in the back, and into a dark, smaller room with nothing but a round table and five chairs.

  Papers, pens, and maps are scattered all over the table, along with half empty bottles of soda and alcohol. A planning room of some sort.

  He puts his gun on the table with a thud. “What else do you remember?”

  “I don’t know. Bits of this and that, but not much that makes sense.”

  He must see something in my eyes. He seems to relax. “We probably don’t have long. I’m sure that they’re using you to find me.”

  “Who?”

  “Fairchild.”

  I swallow. “I told him I’d talk to you. He said he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t follow you.”

  “Yeah, he lied. Once a Jumper has a location, they can home in on us.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t want to talk.”

  “What does he want?”

  “To bury his secrets. To hide the things he’s done. To kill The First Front. But most of all, he wants someone I’m hiding. Someone he needs so he can do something terrible. So, you really think you’re Ella?”

  I nod. “Aren’t I?”

  “No.”

  “Then who am I?”

  “You’re asking the wrong question. It’s not who, it’s what.”

  “What?”

  “I may as well share it all with you. I have a feeling I might not make it out of this alive, and there ought to be some record.”

  “Record of what?”

  He quickly steps toward me.

  I flinch.

  “It’s okay,” he says, placing his palms on either side of my head like he’s about to give my scalp a massage.

  His eyes, piercing blue, meet mine. They’re kind, though weary. “Are you ready?”

  “For what?”

  “To remember.”

  “Yes.”

  Then the memories surge, from his mind to mine.

  And I’m no longer in my body, or even in the present.

  I’m in his, as a child.

  Chapter One

  Ben Shepherd Age 12

  There are times when I can feel Fate humming, a vague stirring as its various mechanisms kick into gear, sounding almost like a computer powering up from its slumber. It thrums in my body. There’s an electricity in the air, and the hairs on my arm and neck stand on end.

  I can tell that something terrible is about to happen.

  I can feel it now as I stand in the lunch line with Timmy Spooner, one of my only friends in the world.

  Timmy’s in front of me pretending to debate between the pizza and the prepared salads as if the salad has any hope. I love Timmy like a brother, but he’s fat and doesn’t want to change, so why go through the pretense? Does he think I’ll judge him if he indulges in bad food? I’m not like the other jerks in this school.

  I look around, trying to find the source of the humming. Looking for the bad thing that’s about to happen, and, more importantly, who it will happen to.

  But I never see what’s going to happen or who it will happen to ahead of time. It’s a general feeling, and, if I’m lucky, I’ll happen to look in the right place at the right time.

  Sometimes I’ll see someone about to take a nasty fall. A few times I’ve seen servers drop entire trays of food shortly after the humming. The worst thing I’ve seen so far was the time I heard the hum and happened to look at the intersection near the playground by my house to see an old lady about to cross the street with her dog. I had a feeling that something bad was about to happen, but I couldn’t see any threats.

  And then, on a clear day with barely any wind, a giant tree fell on her, instantly killing the old lady and her dog.

  I never had a chance to intervene.

  And that’s the problem with this secret “gift” as my father calls it. It doesn’t help anyone. I never seem to see anything that relates to my future, or anyone around me. I see vague snippets of stuff I can’t do anything about. Mostly, I get an anxious feeling that something will happen in my general vicinity.

  Useless.

  I’m not like my father, who was born with abilities that help him do his job at Advanced
Dynamics. He hasn’t even told me what his gift is, or much about his job beyond his title as researcher, but I know his gift helps him stop bad people from doing terrible things.

  Dad says we’re different from most other people, and we can’t ever tell anyone about our abilities. Nor am I ever supposed to use my gift around others, not that I would even know how. It more or less uses me, as far as I can tell.

  My gift is an annoyance, and one that comes with crippling headaches. I’d be the worst superhero ever — Migraine Boy!

  Fortunately, I haven’t had a bad one in two years.

  I look at the line of kids both in front and behind us but see nothing out of place.

  I look at the cafeteria workers milling about, carrying hot trays to the line, others in the back preparing meals, and the cashier, sitting on her chair waiting for a boy to dig money out of his jeans.

  I can’t see any obvious problems about to unfold. I wonder if something might happen to me?

  But I never get a warning that I’m about to be tripped or jumped by some assholes looking to prove something.

  What if the thing that’s going to happen to me is so bad that this time I am getting a warning?

  I think about my earlier run-in with Rick Russo — a jock whose had it in for Timmy for years. Rick was trying to start a fight at the bus stop this morning, gently shoving Timmy, trying to get him to swing, calling him a pussy when he wouldn’t fight back.

  Rick’s friends laughed, calling Timmy every terrible name.

  Tired of standing by, I stepped up to Rick and told him to back off. That earned oohs and ahs from the other kids swarming like sharks smelling blood in the water.

  I could feel the electricity, and a part of me welcomed it. I wanted a chance to knock Rick on his ass.

  But then the bus came and paused the fight.

  Rick pointed at me. “Don’t think this is over, faggot.”

  As Timmy and I boarded the bus, sitting in the front, near the driver like we always did, Timmy whispered, “What were you thinking? He’s going to kill you.”

  I wasn’t worried much about it. I’ve been in fights before, and usually find my way out of them, either verbally or with a few good moves my father has taught me over the years. But I was relatively new at this school, and they assumed I was a wimp because of my stature and desire to lay low.

  And, for the first time, I feel a gnawing in my gut that maybe I pushed Rick too far. That I did something that’s going to screw everything up for either Timmy or me.

  Timmy finally tells the woman behind the counter, “I’ll have pizza.”

  I laugh, thankful for a distraction from my morbid thoughts.

  Timmy shoots me a look. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I say, raising my hands.

  “I’m not a fat ass,” he thinks.

  I can also pick up on people’s thoughts sometimes, even though I never try. Well, that’s sort of a lie. I have tried to a few times, particularly when I was wondering if a girl liked me or if I was in trouble with a teacher. But, as with the visions, I have no control.

  Timmy moves down the line to his next choice. My money is on the big ass oatmeal raisin cookie. The fruit cup might as well be a turd.

  I feel like a hypocrite putting the pizza on my tray. Not that I have to worry about my weight. I’m rail thin, which makes my friendship with Timmy a source of jokes for the kids that pick on us. We’ve heard many calls of “fatty and skinny” while walking the halls.

  And this time I thought things would be different.

  But no matter how many times we move for my dad’s job, kids are always cruel.

  At least this time, I have a comrade in Timmy, a fellow geek to commiserate with, and sometimes laugh at the others with. Nothing quite like mocking your tormenters to forge a bond.

  We make our way down the line and pay for our meals.

  Still, nothing’s happened.

  The hum is louder. I’m looking around the entire cafeteria, wondering who will be the recipient of whatever Fate has in store.

  I follow Timmy to the table nearest the teachers — that’s where we’re least likely to get messed with by the assholes who usually favor the rear of the cafeteria. That way, they are closest to the back doors, where they sneak out to do whatever it is that asshole kids do when teachers aren’t around to watch.

  Timmy and I sit at the table next to one another like we usually do, our backs to the teachers’ tables so we have a good view of the entire cafeteria.

  Sometimes you’ll see jocks looking to mess with you. Make eye contact, and you’re screwed. But if you saw them coming, you could pretend to be reading or engaged in a conversation — anything that might allow you to blend in.

  This time I’m not looking for trouble to avoid so much as a disaster in the making. I wonder who it will happen to, and how bad it will be. From a bloody nose to the death of an old woman and her dog, the volume of the hum isn’t dependent on severity.

  As Timmy goes on about some movie about to come out called Jacob’s Ladder, how spooky it looks and how he plans to sneak into the R-rated flick, I’m watching, waiting for the bad thing to happen.

  But it’s business as usual: chatter and laughter of other kids, a few obnoxious boys trying to get the attention of girls by acting stupid, and assholes being assholes, shooting spitballs while yucking it up.

  But nothing unusual.

  And the humming continues.

  It never lasts this long. It never warns me this far in advance. Usually, it’s a few seconds, maybe a few minutes before the bad thing happens. This time it feels endless, and my head is throbbing.

  No. I thought I outgrew these.

  Suddenly, as if on cue, the lights feel like they’ve been cranked a million watts. My eyes are burning.

  I close them, putting my head on the table.

  “Hey, man, you okay?” Timmy asks.

  I start to tell him that it’s only a headache, but the pain is immediate, violent, and sharp. A blade shoved into my brain.

  I cry out.

  Though my eyes are closed, I feel a change in the atmosphere.

  I know that people are looking at me.

  I remember in fifth grade when a particularly nasty migraine hurt so bad that I cried in class.

  Everyone laughed.

  Now, two years later, an age when boys aren’t supposed to cry, I know I’ll be mercilessly teased.

  The humming is now a hissing, rising in pitch. And, there’s another sound. Many sounds, like a detuned radio rising in volume.

  I need to get up and away, head to the bathroom where I can ride this out in private.

  I get up and open my eyes.

  A blast of pain forces them shut.

  There’s a chorus of laughter around me.

  Timmy is right at my side. “Hey, need me to get someone?”

  I stumble forward blindly, bumping into chairs.

  More laughter.

  The hissing gets louder, drowning everything else. But it's not just hissing or humming now. It’s voices. Music. Strange electronic beeping. Other sounds that I can’t even recognize, as if someone had tuned into every radio, TV set, computer, car radio, CB, and any other device that transmits signals, and opened a direct line into my head, cranked them all to ten, in one swelling cacophonic wall of pain.

  And it hurts.

  I’ve never heard anything like this. At worst, I might overhear a few people thinking at once, and it gets confusing. But this is like someone tuned into every signal in a twenty-mile radius and blasted it straight into my head.

  I bump into more objects. Chairs, tables, or other people. I don’t know. My sense of touch and place are overwhelmed by the clamor.

  I hit something hard and fall to the ground.

  I cry out.

  The pain gets worse.

  Much worse.

  I scream, only to hear something other than the reverb racing through my head.

  But I can’t even hear my own s
cream.

  In the past my migraines were short-lived, lasting from twenty minutes to a couple of hours.

  I don’t think I can survive another five minutes of this one.

  And yet, the sound and pain, somehow, increase exponentially, so loud I can no longer make out any of the sounds — a digital tsunami threatening to deafen me, or make my head explode.

  I’m covering my hands over my ears, fetal on the ground, crying, shuddering.

  Something wet and sticky trickles between my fingers.

  Blood.

  My entire body is burning as if the liquid inside me is boiling.

  There’s a building pressure as if I’m going to explode.

  The noise continues to grow louder.

  Pain increases.

  More blood from my ears.

  I need it to end.

  I’d even accept the crushing blow of one of my bullies’ boots against my skull if that meant ending the pain.

  I feel something else I’ve never felt — a clicking.

  My body straightens in one spastic stretch as if someone pulled on either end of me and violently snapped me.

  My eyes shoot open.

  I scream.

  And then, somewhere in the distance, an explosion.

  Followed by darkness.

  The only sound I can hear is the piercing whistle of my ruptured eardrums.

  But every other sound is gone.

  And the pain is only a ghost in my skull and bones.

  I stand in confusion.

  As my eyes adjust to the natural light bleeding through the ceiling’s few windows, I see that every eye is upon me.

  And they’re all afraid.

  Chapter Two

  Ben Shepherd Age 12

  I’m sitting in the backseat as my aunt Trudy drives me home.

  We drive in silence.

  Which is just as well, since I’m still trying to process what happened.

  I want to think that what my teacher told Trudy is the truth: I got a horrible migraine which just so happened to occur at the same time as a power outage that knocked out half the town.

  I’d love to think that I’m not the one responsible.