Preserving Will

by Alex Albrinck

“I… well, Mr. Maynard seemed upset, and…”

  “Lance? He’s a worrywart, but that’s his job, and he does his job well. I’d be far more worried if he didn’t consider my idea to be one of sheer lunacy.” He smiled. “I take it you’ve come to discuss the status of the system upgrade?”

  “Yes, sir. The team performed sensational work. Flawless, in fact. A week in and we’re seeing a tripling of performance, which is better than we’d projected. To say that I’m pleased would be a significant understatement.”

  “And to your area of expertise…?”

  Cain chuckled. “Ironic I’m following Mr. Maynard in to talk with you, isn’t it? We reran our data security and integrity tests, and the information is still as inaccessible as ever. Unless someone points a gun at me or you, they aren’t getting anything without going through our formal processes.”

  “Don’t let Lance hear you say that,” Will muttered. “Storage concerns?”

  “None. The new compression system reduced raw storage requirements, and we’re now consuming storage at early 2028 levels. We have room to grow for a year or more without bringing in new equipment.”

  “At some point you’re going to demand a raise from me, Mr. Freeman, and I’ll be forced to comply.”

  Cain chuckled. “The stock option valuation and vesting schedule are quite generous, Mr. Stark, and I truly enjoy what I do. But I won’t complain if you decide to increase your generosity on my behalf.”

  Will slipped his feet off the desk, donned his shoes, stood up, and walked over to Cain. “I’ll talk to payroll next week. You’re taking some time off, if I recall. I suspect everything should be processed by the time you return.”

  He held out his hand, and Cain shook it. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Go home, Cain, and get an early start on your vacation. Beat the traffic out of town. That’s an order.”

  “Thank you, sir. Again.”

  Cain spun on his heel and walked out of Will’s office. His departure, though ordered, was meant to hide the emotion on his face. Given that his boss had just commended him and offered to give him a raise without being asked, one might suspect Cain would be overjoyed, dancing out of the office for a well-earned vacation and the promise of greater compensation when he returned.

  But Cain had to hide his face because he looked anything but happy. Instead, he was distraught.

  What no one else in the office realized was that the handshake he’d just shared with Will, the conversation they’d held, would be the last contact he’d have with the man for nearly two centuries. The farewell he’d shared with Will, before he began his drive to the safe house in West Virginia to await Millard Howe’s eventual arrival, felt like saying goodbye to a loved one with a terminal illness, waiting for death to finish its claim.

  But in this case, Adam couldn’t even grieve his impending loss.

  There was work to be done. A young woman needed to be protected from potential supernatural harm. Two fully grown clones needed creating. And they needed to steel themselves with the discipline to avoid interfering while they watched their worst enemies unleash their wrath on a man they’d known for centuries, knowing he could do nothing to defend himself.

  Starting Tuesday, he’d have one hundred eighty-nine years to grieve.

  XVI

  Choices

  January 4, 2030

  He floated over the gated community, invisible to human eye and electronic sensor alike, looking for his landing spot. The layout and terrain came back to him in an instant, though he’d last spent significant time here centuries ago. Upon locating his target spot, he drifted down to the ground, his feet settling gently onto the frozen earth. The invisible skeleton formed of quadrillions of subatomic, intelligent particles dissolved around him. His appearance would be unfamiliar to any who saw him, as would his Energy signal, for both had been modified decades earlier. Much of his disguise would be discarded this day, and to ensure he wasn’t discovered prematurely, he’d settled down into a thick grove of trees.

  Trees, of all sizes and shapes and leaf patterns, had been a key to his successes over the centuries. It was only fitting that he was among them today, the day when he would trigger everything that was to come, and everything that had already happened.

  The man looked around. No one was nearby, which was to be expected. The residents of the community, many of whom were united by a bond far deeper than mere household proximity, were even now working to preserve the life of a friend.

  His life.

  And he was here to ensure that those preparations were necessary.

  Since his presumed death at the hands of the Hunters, Will had found himself with plenty of time to think, to do research, to push the bounds of everything he’d ever tried before. He’d figured out how to “recode” his Energy so that it produced a different signal. Someone like Porthos could still sense Energy emanating from him—if he didn’t Shield that Energy—but would be unable to tie that Energy to Will Stark. He could walk among them without recognition.

  He’d taken the nanos he’d been given a thousand years earlier and had enhanced them, tinkering and tweaking everything about the devices until he could adjust their capabilities and programming as needed. The Alliance would one day acquire the ability to produce the nanos he’d once been gifted, once a man called the Mechanic, among others, joined the organization. Until that happened, and until Will could avail himself of those advances and production capabilities, he needed to develop the expertise on his own. His efforts over the past decades enabled him to produce more nanos, and those he produced were more powerful, with greater computing and problem solving capability, than those he’d owned for centuries. Those enhanced nanos served him well, both in maintaining his stealth existence and caring for those he loved.

  He wasn’t here to reminisce. His task, after centuries of contemplation, was clear. And so Will Stark went through the process of changing his Energy signal back to the one he’d called his own since the beginning.

  Something had attracted the Hunters to Pleasanton on his thirty-fifth birthday, like insects homing in on a bright light. Something had triggered Porthos’ enhanced senses, had led the Tracker and his cohorts to this city. Something had helped them realize that Young Will lived here and was married. They would reach the conclusion that, by rules of the Aliomenti—rules Will had never agreed to follow—Will Stark was due for a very long prison term. Something had forced them to summon the Assassin as well. The quartet would formulate a plan that would bring about a fire that would leave his younger self believing for months that Hope and Josh had died, a plan that would leave him beaten and close to death in his own back yard, a death he desperately wanted as a man believing he was, once more, all alone in the world.

  The Hunters had not located Young Will through anything as simple as an Internet search. They’d never think to look for him in the human world, not even Porthos, a man who relished his forays into human haunts. There was only one possible trigger to the events. Porthos had told him the answer, had said that the Energy burst he’d detected was unequivocally Will’s, that the burst was too powerful to belong to anyone else. In one of the more morbid conversations the Project 2030 team had held prior to Will’s indefinite departure, they’d hypothesized that they might need to build a machine that could mimic Will’s Energy and set it off in the Stark’s yard a few days before the attack if Will didn’t return from his journey to the casino.

  Yet they’d never tried to build that machine, not even when most thought Will was lost forever. They would trust that fate would bring the Hunters to Pleasanton.

  He’d wondered for a time—years, in fact—if Josh’s Energy signal was so similar to his own that Porthos would be fooled if the child’s very immense Energy gift was briefly unleashed. Perhaps Josh, in becoming Fil, had altered his Energy signal as well as his name, forever hiding its similarity to his father’s. When Will had gotten close enough to Josh during one of Hope’s rare Shield outages, though, he’d r
ealized that wasn’t the case. Josh’s signal was unique, nothing like Will’s at all.

  If Porthos had detected Energy from Will Stark, it was because Will Stark had produced that Energy. Since Will Stark’s Energy signal had been transformed years earlier and was now silent to the entire world, he had to face the cold reality.

  Everything he’d experienced, everything those around him had gone through, every bit of the pain and suffering… all of it had come about because he’d chosen to make it happen.

  He couldn’t give off that much Energy by dropping his Shield due to a lack of concentration. He couldn’t give off Will Stark Energy at all… unless he chose to change his Energy back to the signal of his birth.

  Would he make that choice, though?

  It was an option. He could choose to stay in hiding, keep his Energy signal in its new, altered state, and let this time go by while doing nothing.

  Porthos wouldn’t detect a Will Stark Energy burst.

  The Hunters would have no reason to come to Pleasanton.

  Hope and Josh would never come face-to-face with The Assassin.

  And he’d never suffer the brutal, painful, near-death experience here in his back yard.

  What would happen with the future, though? Would Adam and his children build their time machine, travel here… and find no one to take forward in time with them? Would they take a healthy Will forcibly, despite the fact that there was no compelling reason—no inferno consuming his home, no presumed deaths of his wife and son, no near-fatal injuries—to do so? What would happen to Hope and Josh and Angel then?

  Every time he considered that option, every time he felt the temptation to spare all of them the pain they’d experience in three days, he always came back to the same sobering conclusion.

  They were going to find him at some point. It was inevitable.

  His fame in the human world had reached such astonishing heights that no amount of effort could hide his existence from the Hunters forever. Porthos spent enough time skulking about in human communities and entertainment venues that he’d eventually hear someone mention Will’s name. Aliomenti banking interests would eventually be involved in some massive business buyout or stock offering, and the Aliomenti would recognize the name. The Aliomenti might try to recruit one of his employees and in performing scans of memories and Energy potential locate his name.

  The events he remembered were going to happen.

  The only choice afforded to him, then, was the timing of when those events would happen. He could choose only to delay the inevitable.

  He wouldn’t do that. No, he’d force the events to happen at the time and place of their choosing. He’d force everything to happen here and now, giving them the optimal chance to ensure the outcome they needed, and to minimize the damage and injury and death that would inevitably come from the efforts to seize him. Delay meant introducing variables into the events that they couldn’t predict or control. The only true chance to avoid these events had passed long ago, when they could have prevented Will from entering into his business career… or forced him to legally change his name. None of that had happened.

  Was this act a choice when all options beyond timing had been denied him, long before he’d understood that those options existed?

  In the end, it didn’t matter. In spite of everything that had happened, everything he and others had endured and would endure as a result of this action, he knew that the choice was the correct one. There were far too many positives that traced their origin to this single event in history, advances that had meant better lives for untold millions.

  It was what he’d spent his entire life striving for, with or without Energy.

  Will looked at the tree directly in front of him, reaching out a tendril of Energy, feeling the tree reciprocate the connection. He moved along to the next, and the next, until the entire grove was ablaze in Energy, feeding him, growing his Energy stores far beyond their usual massive capacity. He could feel the thrum of Energy buzzing around him, vibrating the ground ever so slightly. At this point, he suspected that the Alliance residents of De Gray Estates had noticed the uptick in Energy, and if they hadn’t yet… well, what was coming would leave no doubt in their minds that Will Stark had indeed survived that fateful journey to the casino decades earlier.

  He allowed the feedback effect to continue, uninterrupted. He’d rarely had the chance to stay in one place more than twenty or thirty minutes, yet today the connection continued, building upon itself, for over an hour. His Energy levels soared, replenishing faster than he could possibly expend them.

  At last, he reached the point where he could hold no more.

  With a silent plea for forgiveness to his younger self and all those who would be affected, Will pushed every bit of Energy out of his body at once, willing it to seek out Porthos wherever the Hunter might be.

  ●●●

  Eva raised her eyes from the lunch plate before her and looked at Aaron. “Do you feel that?”

  Aaron, who was chewing his food, looked at her, puzzled. As he swallowed, though, his eyes widened.

  The table began to shake, rattling the dishes.

  “Is that an… earthquake?” Aaron asked. “In Ohio?”

  “No,” Eva said. She rolled up her sleeve, and observed the tiny hairs on her arm standing on end. “That is not an earthquake. That is an explosion of Energy.”

  “I’ve never felt anything like that,” Aaron said, his voice full of awe. The hairs on top of his head spiked as if struck by static electricity. “Who could possibly…?”

  Aaron’s eyes widened. Eva dropped her fork, which clanged noisily against the fine china plate. Neither noticed the noise. Lunch was forgotten.

  They knew who had generated that Energy explosion.

  Seizing their coats, they raced from their home, allowing their aged human forms to dissolve into their youthful Alliance personas as they moved. They ran at their enhanced Energy-fueled speed, dodging trees, heading for the Starks’ house.

  The Energy hung in the air, thick like a dense fog, and the vibrations drove their own Energy stores skyward. The trail to the source of the Energy was so dense with the powerful surge that they felt as though they were swimming. As the moved along, they were joined on the trail by Archie and Ashley, and then Judith and Peter, each entering the clearing from the direction of their own home. No words needed to be exchanged, aloud or telepathically. They all knew what they sought.

  Will Stark was alive. And he was here.

  Two minutes after their trails converged, they found him.

  Will was lying on the floor of the forest, seemingly oblivious to the cold, his eyes closed, his jet black hair a sharp contrast to the grays and browns and frosty whites of the terrain around him. The gentle rise and fall of his chest indicated that he was very much alive; whether he was unconscious, resting, or asleep, they did not know.

  They knew only that he was here.

  Eva stepped forward to kneel beside Will, laying a hand upon his chest, as if still suffering disbelief at the idea that he was alive, needing the confirmation of his beating heart to eliminate all doubt.

  She looked up, and her radiant face provided the confirmation and encouragement they needed to move to surround his sleeping form.

  Ashley looked in the direction of the house. “Shouldn’t we tell Hope that he’s here?”

  Peter shook his head. “She knows, Ash. She felt it, no doubt. Maybe she already suspected he was alive. Because if not? She would have been the first person out here.”

  “She can’t come running out here, though,” Ashley protested. “She’s Shielding Josh so he can’t be detected by the Hunters.”

  Peter snorted. “The amount of Energy Will just unleashed means that Shielding Josh is no longer necessary, not until this Energy fades away.” Peter paused. “What he’s done will bring the Hunters here, without question. Porthos will notice this, regardless of where he is in the world at this moment.”

  Eva’s head
snapped around. “You are correct, Peter. We must therefore remove Will from this place and hide him.”

  “Why? He can sleep it off and then, when they get here…” Peter slammed a fist into his hand, eyes glinting. “Pow. We can rid the world of the Hunters for good.”

  “No,” Eva said, and her voice was firm, startling all of them. “They would find two Will Starks, Peter. That cannot be allowed to happen. We must remove this Will from this place, masking his presence in this time, until he recovers. We can then determine, with this Will, what his and our next actions should be.”

  They picked him up, three on each side, and moved at tremendous speed until they reached Eva and Aaron’s home, the closest to the Starks’ house. Will remained immobile during the entire journey. They carried him inside, setting him on a bed in a guest room. Eva removed the boots he was wearing, and they covered him with blankets to keep him warm, suspecting it was the appropriate thing to do.

  “Is there anything else we can do for him?” Ashley asked. “He just released so much Energy that I can’t believe it didn’t kill him.” She wrinkled her nose. “Again.”

  Eva shook her head. “He will recover, but he needs rest. He has done something similar to a maximum teleportation effort, expending all of his Energy stores in an instant.” She glanced at Judith, who nodded, acknowledging her own experience in performing such an act. “He needs rest to allow his Energy to replenish and to reduce his fatigue. The best thing we can do for him is to provide him the space he needs to do so.”

  They all left the room, and Eva shut the door behind the sleeping Will.

  Archie glanced back at the room as he walked away. “Should we… tell someone? Will’s alive.”

  “Who would we tell?” Aaron asked. “And what would we tell them? That Energy burst was felt by any Energy user within a hundred miles. Or more. Word will spread.”

  “I’m wondering if we should actually tell our people that we’ve seen him and he’s alive. Call the Cavern, send emails to the ports, make sure people know it’s true, rather than just hearsay.”