Pulse of Heroes

by A. Jacob Sweeny

  Michelle’s mouth dropped open. She looked at him in complete shock and whatever color she had regained in her face faded. She couldn’t find her tongue. Was he messing with her? Kidding? Elliot gave Michelle a tired smile. “Its true.”

  “The glass I sent you… that small vase I saw at the school…”

  “They’re both mine. I made them sometime around 20 B.C., about two thousand years ago. That’s why they look like that. The glass and the trace molecules have been oxidizing. That’s what causes all those different colors and specs of opalescence on the surfaces. It’s a patina; they used to be pure blue.” Michelle wanted to know how her mom had ended up with the disk, but Elliot told her that it was a long story, and besides he thought that Michelle should be in bed resting because eventually the pain would return and she wouldn’t want to be awake when that happened.

  “Then why don’t you just come back and do that healing thing to me again?” She couldn’t believe that she had just asked him to come see her again, and she looked away to conceal her awkwardness.

  When Elliot left Michelle’s house he felt emotionally drained. He hadn’t told her everything, because he could tell that she was getting information overload. And everything he told her clashed with her logic. But yet he was living proof of the illogical. He didn’t fit in into any scientific model or the Darwinist theory of evolution. He had thought about having his genetic print investigated, as it was only recently that an American scientist had decoded the human genome. But what could a geneticist tell him, really? That he was different. He already knew that. He didn’t want to put himself in a position where he might be looked upon as an abnormality of science and nature. He had no intention of turning himself into a lab rat to be poked and prodded under the world’s microscope. He had been in the spotlight enough, and had no desire to go back.

  Michelle, on the other hand, took a warm bath and let her bruised body rest from all movements. Floating in the still water, she thought about everything that had happened and everything that Elliot told her. She had heard all that he said and she had seen him do things that no one else could explain, but she just couldn’t grasp all that information without asking more questions. Was she supposed to accept the idea that she had befriended a supernatural being that lived in a strange school with the rest of the superheroes about a mile from her home? And on top of that, she was falling for him, hard.

  At first it was his looks that she understood; he was perfect. But after the kindness he showed her, it was his warmth that attracted her, and now with all that he had confided in her, it was obvious that there was so much more to him and she wanted to know every little corner that made up who he was. And there was something else. Elliot spoke to her about things like she was a complete adult, as if she should have known about red blood cells needing extra oxygen for healing. In the few hours she spent with him she had learned so many things, and her curious mind wanted to learn more. She could listen to him talk all day long.

  The bath water eventually got cold and Michelle’s fingers looked like small white prunes. It was time to dry off. Once safely tucked away in her bed with Crumb purring by her side, she smiled to herself in happiness. Elliot was going to return and see her, and she couldn’t wait. She thought about what Francesca had told her; if the man comes to see the woman that means he likes her. Could her prayers have been answered?

  Chapter 7

  Elliot showed up at Michelle’s house the next day at 4 o’clock, just as he had said. He was there right on the dot this time, and that gesture alone made Michelle feel blessed. He checked Michelle’s bruised forehead and told her that it was healing nicely. That made her feel cared for and she wanted to wrap her arms around him. They decided to walk through the woods rather than on the main street because Michelle insisted that she didn’t want to draw too much attention.

  When they reached the school’s walls, Elliot suggested that they could walk around to the gates but Michelle didn’t like that idea. She wanted Elliot to stop pretending to be who he wasn’t. Did he forget all that he had told her so quickly? She didn’t need him to try and protect her from him or what he was.

  “Maybe you can walk up the wall like you did before. Wouldn’t it be quicker than walking around to the front gates?” Michelle inquired.

  “Yeah, right,” Elliot said, still not fully comfortable with the fact that Michelle knew that he was not like everyone else. But he also had to smile to himself and remind himself that the things he could do naturally were miraculous to others. To Michelle, it looked like Elliot just took two steps and was already standing on top of the wall. But he explained to her that that was just what her eyes were able to detect. He actually ran towards the wall and leaped upwards, using the inertia to propel him. He explained that without momentum he wouldn’t have been able to do it, but Michelle didn’t care about the mechanics of things; she just stood below looking up at him and smiling in adulation. Michelle’s smile was so infectious that Elliot couldn’t help but smile back as he reached down to grab her hands and pull her up. As they walked across the school grounds, Michelle noticed that all the parking slots were empty. Elliot told her that all the guys had left for the day, and Michelle was excited by the prospect of spending her time with Elliot alone.

  Once inside, Elliot asked her if she wanted to anything to drink, but Michelle wasn’t thirsty for a drink, she was thirsty for knowledge. Elliot said he was going to show her things and she couldn’t wait. While they were still in the kitchen Michelle heard footsteps behind her and turned around to see Xander. Michelle was startled; she thought there were alone and there was the school regent! She feared that Elliot would get in some sort of trouble for having her there.

  “No need to worry,” Xander said to Michelle with a small nod. Elliot walked over to Xander and told Michelle that she was going to see and hear many things that would most likely confuse her, and he wanted to start with Xander.

  “Michelle, I would like to formally introduce Xander to you, as my grandson,” Elliot said. Michelle gave out a small nervous laugh and began to look back and forth between the two of them. Xander stepped forward and told Michelle that he could assure her that everything Elliot said was true. Michelle tried her best to digest the information, and thought about the black and white photo from Francesca’s wedding album. Was that Elliot in the photo? Was he really much much older than he looked. She asked Elliot about the photograph, and he admitted to her that she was right. That was him in the photo, although he had completely forgotten that he had attended that wedding, and he had no idea that he was in one of the pictures.

  “I try to avoid getting photographed as much as possible,” he disclosed. Without delay, Michelle’s mind considered that if Xander was Elliot’s grandson, then Elliot surely had children, and if he had children he probably had a wife. That thought turned Michelle’s stomach in jealousy, she didn’t want to know that Elliot had loved anyone before. But she also realized that there in front of her stood someone more complex than she ever could have imagined. Elliot was no longer just a boy wonder; he was a person with a past and with memories and genuine pain. He needed her, she thought. He needed someone.

  “Elliot, shall we go downstairs?” Xander asked him. And Elliot nodded and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Xander and Michelle alone. Michelle looked at Xander confused, and he told her that they’d follow Elliot in a minute. Xander walked over to the countertop and opened the cabinet door underneath to take out a bottle of wine from the small wine cooler. He poured himself a glass of dark, syrupy, almost-purple liquid, and asked Michelle if she would like one also. Michelle declined. Xander took a sip from his glass, savoring the wine in his mouth for a long second before swallowing it down. Xander then told her that both his parents and grandmother were dead. His father, Elliot’s only child, had died during WWII, and his mother had passed a few years after that, which everyone attributed to a broken heart.

  “My grandfather... I mean Elliot…” he corrected himself after
seeing that Michelle was not comfortable hearing that word describe the person she knew, “…rarely talks about our family. I’ve grown used to that ever since he told me the truth about who he was.” Michelle felt sad for Elliot. She also felt remorseful, realizing that she was selfish to feel disgusted over Elliot having a wife and a family in the past.

  Xander took another sip and continued. “Elliot will always look young. He has looked the same way for thousands of years. But his looks can be deceiving. He has suffered more loss and heartache than any one of us could ever get close to imagining.” Michelle looked at Xander peculiarly when he said the word ‘us’, and he picked up on her puzzlement. “I am just like you. Human. Dust to dust. Elliot will have to deal with my death as his last remaining heir. I myself chose not to marry or have a family of my own as a way of showing gratitude for the kindness Elliot showed me since my parents passed away, and still continue to do. I am fine with that decision, as my life has been full and adventurous. If I had my own family, Elliot would have to go through the loss of losing me and my children, and then their children, and so on. He might be immortal, but his heart is as human as our own, if not more so. He has suffered enough. And I know that he has only told me but a small fraction of that.”

  Xander took another sip from his glass and smiled at Michelle kindly. He told her that life with Elliot had been marvelous and poignant at the same time, and that he thought she might begin to understand why the reluctance to get involved with others on the outside. All the guys at the school carried the memories of many different lives around with them. He also told her that for Elliot to choose to bring her around and to reveal who he was to her was not a light decision to make. “Once we are hurt we are always careful about the second time around, but what if we have been hurt over and over again? What if the people that we loved were taken from us one by one? I believe that Elliot is trying his best right now, but as personal advice to you, I would recommend that you exercise caution when dealing with him and that you listen to what he says and really think about what he is trying to tell you.”

  Xander asked Michelle to follow him and they walked out of the kitchen towards the door to the downstairs restroom. Only now there was a second door next to the restroom that was definitely not there before; that Michelle was sure of. Xander pulled it open and proceeded to descend a long flight of stairs motioning for Michelle to follow him.

  At the bottom of the stairs there were thick double glass doors, and Xander entered a code into a small numeric keypad above the handles. The glass doors hissed when they slid open and Xander stepped into a small cubicle with Michelle still following behind. The glass doors shut behind them, and another set slid open in front of them.

  Elliot stood leaning against a massive table, waiting for Michelle. He looked different, Michelle thought, not older, but more tired, and she avoided looking into his eyes. Somehow it felt wrong to know so many personal things about Elliot without him telling them to her, and yet he chose not to. Elliot studied Michelle’s face. He wasn’t scared or worried that she’d reject him because he was long over such insecurities. He was more concerned that she would get scared. When people got frightened they tended to share those emotions with others in order to get the needed emotional support. He didn’t want Michelle to go talking to others about him or the school. He wasn’t in a bad mood, but there was nothing light or buoyant about what had been revealed to her. In all actuality it was a huge undertaking, one that would force him to remember and expose ancient wounds that never truly healed. So much of what he carried was raw and susceptible to more damage every time he revisited those rooms full of memories locked away inside him. He had learned how to turn off his emotions, and it had become as easy as switching off a light switch. It was more comfortable that way, and a lot more peaceful. Although he had told Michelle many things the night before, none of them concerned his personal experiences; there were no emotions attached to them. They were but tiny fractions of his life, and even those facts were thrown out like stones against a wall. He hadn’t felt much the night before when he had revealed himself to her, at least not until she held him by the shirt. Then something happened and he didn’t even know how, but the way she looked at him pierced through his very thick wall and he actually felt something.

  It was later on, after he had returned home from Michelle’s house that Elliot had admitted to Xander that he had become a bit more involved with the girl than he had previously let on. Xander was his blood, yet in an inevitable reversal of roles had become more like his father than his grandchild. Elliot might have experienced hundreds of lives compared to Xander’s one, but all that accumulated knowledge still differed from the knowledge that Xander held. Xander was his connection to what humans felt. Elliot could never truly understand the feeling of time running out, and the sense of urgency that that created in the human psyche, no matter how hard he tried. Xander was there to help him put things in human perspective, and it was Xander who suggested that at this point it was only fair to reveal the truth to Michelle. He was astounded that Elliot had followed her to Fort Bragg to begin with, even if he did know that a large storm was brewing.

  Elliot couldn’t explain his actions, and refused to even consider the idea that he might be developing feelings for Michelle. Still, Xander argued that once Elliot made the decision to save her life, he bore the responsibility to explain things to her. Michelle would be lost otherwise, and considering her curious personality would probably come after the truth anyway. Only she would do so without any supervision or care for their privacy, which could cause everyone at the school to suffer.

  Michelle looked around the giant room, then back at Elliot who was still leaning against the table. She might have been excited to discover what she considered ‘miracles’ of his physical abilities, but that was nothing compared to the entirely different reality he was about to reveal to her. Elliot knew that knowing about him and his kind was going to change Michelle’s life forever. Was he being selfish? Was he really sharing all this with her because she deserved to know the truth? Or was he sharing with her for his own benefit? Whatever the answer, Michelle the seventeen-year-old girl would not leave the school as the same person that entered it. How could he do this to her? How could he curse her like that? The humans that knew about Elliot and his kind always felt isolated from the rest of humanity.

  “I will leave you two alone now,” Xander said, and both Elliot and Michelle watched the glass doors hiss closed behind him.

  Michelle stepped forward and looked around in awe. “What is this place?” she asked in amazement. The place looked like a huge library and a museum combined. It felt circular, but she couldn’t see the walls from where she stood because the layers of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves extended in all directions like a labyrinth. Some of the shelves didn’t hold books at all, but rather they contained artifacts of all kinds, each marked with a date and place of origin. In what appeared to be the middle point of the room there was a massive circular table, the one Elliot was leaning against, with computer monitors occupying half of it while the other half remained clear. Close to the table there were four curved couches that were also laid out in a circular pattern. The floor was made of etched concrete although a few thin rugs were strewn about here and there. Elliot gave Michelle the time to absorb her surroundings. After spinning around and around several times to look at everything she became dizzy, and laughed at herself when she almost tipped over. Elliot laughed too.

  “Careful. It’s a lot to look at. This is where all our important things are stored and archived. We also do a lot of our research here when we are not researching on the road. As you can see, this is a school. Just not a conventional one.”

  Michelle wanted to know why it was underground, and why the glass doors? Elliot explained to her that the room was specifically designed and precisely calibrated to protect the many ancient artifacts stored inside. It was supplied with special pressurized air that had almost zero humidity, and there was a
filtration system that removed whatever moisture was brought in through their breathing. Many of the artifacts would have had to have been protected behind museum glass, but here they were lying out exposed and just as safe. Even the light was especially designed to eliminate all UV rays.

  Elliot motioned for Michelle to follow him and they walked deeper into the maze of multiple shelves, eventually reaching the wall. It too was made of shiny polished concrete, and Elliot explained that it was five feet thick and had been specifically constructed so as to keep the insides under regulated temperature. Neither fire nor ice could affect things within its confines, and it also provided security because the value of the room’s contents was utterly immeasurable. Michelle asked why the wall was curved, and just as she suspected, Elliot told her that she was looking at the bottom half of the same circular wall that surrounded the school premises. “This place is huge then!” Michelle exclaimed.

  Next, Elliot showed Michelle a small, dark glass room. Strange uniforms and masks that looked like HAZMAT outfits hung on hooks just outside it and Elliot turned on the light inside the room using a separate switch. The little glass cubicle held many more rolled up papers and books that were written on parchment, even fabric. He explained to her that the articles in there were extremely fragile, and that extra special care was needed while handling them.

  They navigated back to the large table in the center of the room. Elliot pointed to several computers stacked underneath it in a sort of cage-like structure, and told Michelle that Kahl was working on a massive project of transferring all the data they had in various manuscripts into a large file that they would eventually release to the public. They had many books and ancient knowledge that the academic world thought were lost to time. Michelle didn’t know what to say; there was nothing that could be said to describe the wonderment and newfound respect that she felt towards Elliot and the rest of them. She sat down on one of the leather couches and told Elliot how amazing it was to even be there. But then she remembered everything that Xander had told her upstairs, and she felt troubled again. Elliot’s mood changed when he saw her tensing up. “Everything Xander told you is true, Michelle,” he said as he sat down on a couch across from hers. Which only proved to Michelle that the tension between them wasn’t imagined. It was a strange tension, not like when they almost kissed, and it wasn’t about anger, or hurt feelings. It was a tension of mistrust. He wasn’t telling her everything. Normally she would feel hurt, but under these strange circumstances, she rationalized that Elliot was holding back because he was protecting himself.