Masked

by RB Stutz

  Since, at the moment, I was in a relatively good mood, mostly due to the prospect of a real meal, and since she seemed kind and genuine, I decided I’d make the attempt to have a pleasant conversation with her as I waited for my food. I would do my best to present the manufactured information in the best way I could and pretend to be a real person. I thought it might even be good to talk to someone and she was probably ready to leave soon anyways. The fact she was a really cute college girl interested in talking with me didn’t hurt as well.

  “I live in Utah,” I said.

  “Oh! I have some friends in the Salt Lake area. They live in Logan.” Laura said energetically.

  “I know some people in Logan as well,” I lied. The only thing I knew about Salt Lake was what could be learned by looking at a map as well as some basic facts from Wikipedia. I knew just enough to bluff through most common follow up questions.

  “Where in Texas are you from?” I asked to be polite.

  “I’m from Dallas,” she said. “I don’t have to be back at school for another week, but thought I’d take some time for myself.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “It has been. I have been...” There was a pause. “Just doing a little soul searching,” she continued.

  “Here’s your check hon,” Olive said as she rested the check on the counter.

  “Thanks.”

  Laura looked at the check and reached into her jacket pocket to pull out two five dollar bills. She placed the money on the counter next to the check.

  “Do you like school so far? I still have another year before I graduate and haven’t decided where I want to go yet,” I asked.

  “School’s good. Right now I’m just trying to live the experience. I haven’t elected any major. I don’t want to take it too seriously yet,” she said. “You should consider UW. It’s a lot of fun.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  ”Well if you’re ever in the area look me up,” she said. She ripped off part of her receipt and wrote a phone number on the back.

  “Sure,” I said caught off guard at her directness.

  She smiled.

  She stood to gather her keys and purse. “Well, I better get going. I’ve been here long enough.”

  She started to rise and I asked “where are you headed next?”

  “Not sure. I’ll probably make a couple more stops though. I hear north Idaho is nice. No itinerary.”

  “The best way to travel,” I said.

  Laura pushed her stool back up to the bar and turned to me. “It was nice meeting you Michael,” she said with her arm stretched forward.

  I took her hand and shook it. “It was nice to talk with you.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you out on the road somewhere,” she said.

  “You never know.”

  Laura turned and headed towards the door of the café. I watched her as she exited before I turned back around to wait for the food. I was surprised to find I was sad to see her go. She seemed to be a nice person and for some reason interested in me. That felt nice and it was good to talk with someone for a change. I didn’t linger with those thoughts for very long.

  A few minutes later, Olive brought over two plates, each overflowing with a large greasy cheeseburger covered in all of the trimmings as well as a pile of oil heavy fries. A few seconds after that, she sat down a glass of coke and two large slices of pie.

  “Thank you,” I said to Olive.

  “Sure hon.”

  I didn’t waste any time digging in. The food tasted absolutely delicious. I hadn’t eaten like that in weeks and it didn’t take me long at all to get through the two cheeseburgers and mounds of fries. They were wonderful. The greasy deliciousness slid down with little more effort than breathing. When I was finished, I moved right over to the pie and devoured each slice of the sweet flaky treat in an equally efficient manner.

  It was awesome. Like I said before, I get gluttonous when I haven’t eaten in a while.

  Olive walked over and shot me an amazed look. “Anything else,” she smiled.

  “How about another slice of pie and a cup of coffee, black.”

  I don’t think she had really expected me to ask for more, but politely Olive nodded and turned to get me the pie and coffee.

  “Make it two pieces of pie,” I added at the last second. It was really good pie.

  She brought round two of my eat fest over, setting the pie and coffee down in front of me. I thanked her and heard the bell to the door ring as I reached for the sugar.

  “Good evening,” Olive said as she looked up to whoever had walked into the café. “I’ll be with you in a minute. Have a seat wherever you would like. As you can see we have plenty open.”

  “Let me know when you’re ready for your check hon,” she said. She turned to grab a menu before walking over to help the new customer.

  I never turned to look at the new customer. As I ate, I debated on where to go next, and asked myself the larger question. How long could I keep it up? It had been over a year now since I began my wandering, going from town to town, motel to motel. What else was I to do? It’s not like I could go enroll in school or get a job. I didn’t have an identity. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

  Even if there was a chance for me to someday have a normal life, I wasn’t so sure I wanted it. To have a productive normal life, one needed to form relationships. I wasn’t sure if I could ever handle that again. Besides, I‘d been able to help people and made the ones who caused the victims’ suffering pay for their crimes. I could do things most people couldn’t. Helpless people needed me which made my life worthwhile. It was all I had.

  So far I’d directed my wanderings to places where I could best use my talents to help the authorities find kidnappers, rapists and murderers. I’d saved lives.

  Having no identity left me with limited opportunities or ways to make money, none of which were legal. Even if I could find a legitimate job, I moved around too much to keep anything stable, but I needed money to be able to do what I did. The conclusion I came to was I had to steal what I needed, which wasn’t the morally correct way to procure financing, but it was the only option I saw. With no way to earn a living, I had to take what I needed.

  I didn’t steal from individuals, but from banks and I never took more than $5,000 at any given time. That gave me enough to keep going for several weeks, but at the same time not taking what I deemed as too much from any individual institution. The more I did it the better I was at not drawing attention. There was no way to trace it to me. Every once in a while, I’d hit a snag, like in Troy, but my system worked pretty well.

  At first, I was conflicted with my decision, but that soon diminished. I finally reconciled in my mind the work I did with the stolen funds, more than offset the unethical way I procured the funds. Also, I kept track of what I’d taken from which institutions. I told myself someday, I would redeposit the funds.

  I heard Olive ask “what can I get you?” to the customer sitting at the window.

  “I’ll just take a coffee with cream,” the nasally voice said.

  When I heard the voice my body went rigid. I knew that voice. I knew it very well.

  “James,” I said under my breath.

  I sat on the bar stool, frozen. What was he doing there? How was he there?

  I attempted to focus my mind on the young man by the window. I didn’t need to see him. I knew he was there, so my mind was able to find his. My head started to pound at both temples as I strengthened my focus. I hadn’t given myself enough time to rest, but I bore the pain and kept concentrating.

  “I’ll be right back with that coffee hon,” Olive said to James. “You look over the menu and I’ll take your order.”

  “Thank you mam,” he replied.

  He was thinking; “He’s sitting at the bar eating. It doesn’t look like he noticed me come in. When she comes back with the coffee, I’ll take out both of them.”

  James was not there to have a friendly chat. He
was still with Titan, working for them. I needed to move and there was no time for hesitation.

  In one fluid motion, I was up, my coffee cup was flying towards his face and I was running out the door. I heard a loud “ahhh”, as the door closed behind me.

  I started to run towards the inn, but didn’t get more than ten feet from the café before a fist landed firmly on my face. A sharp blinding pain erupted from my nose and I flew backwards. I fell down on the gravel and saw James standing above me.

  I wasn’t going down that easy.

  As I hit the ground, I swept James’ feet from under him and jumped back up as he fell. I had to shift to avoid his sweeping feet. He tried to get up, but my boot connected with his head with a crack, causing him to waiver for a second. I followed the kick with another to his chest which sent him flying backwards. The gravel crunched as he slid several feet across the ground after impact.

  I turned again to flee towards the inn when I felt a sharp stab in my right arm. I looked down and saw the small silver dart. Whatever was in the dart was strong as I felt its effects immediately. My head was swimming and my vision began to blur. Another dart hit my left arm. I saw the blurry image of a petite dark haired form in black pointing something at me.

  “Got him,” I heard a distorted female voice say before everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 4

  I watched the nurse take the babies away as their new parents followed. My heart broke and once again I was running. The light was getting closer. I was singing the words to that same song in my head as the light grew brighter. I heard the constant hum of an engine and I turned my head to make sure I was out of the vehicles path. The light blinded me and the pain came, immediate and piercing, coursing through my body.

  As I was screaming from the torment, the bright white light dimmed and a white room came into focus. The sterile room looked like a laboratory or room for some type of medical procedure. There was a variety of testing equipment both large and small against the wall and tables lined with different beakers and vials.

  Two men in black fatigues restrained me, one on each arm with another holding a three foot rod, which ended in a glowing bright blue electrode, to my chest. The electricity crackled as the pain coursed through me. He pulled it away and the pain started to pull away with it, but he put it back and the pain returned.

  A girl was screaming. I looked towards the center of the room and saw the source, a girl in terrible pain, wearing a white gown, strapped on a hospital bed. I knew her. I was looking for her. “Sara,” I shouted desperately despite the voltage coursing through me. “What are you doing to her?”

  “Stop, stop,” the girl pleaded, her voice filled with torment and desperation, as the door behind me burst open. I could only turn my head slightly to see a woman in a white lab coat enter the room. There was a trickle of blood on her face that flowed from her lip. The electrode was moved from my chest, but I was still restrained. The woman in the lab coat quickly moved towards me and injected a syringe into my neck. Sara was now thrashing on the bed, restrained and still pleading in a fanatical scream. “Stop, stop.”

  With the sharp jab of the needle I felt myself immediately begin to fade. I fought to keep my eyes open. “Sara, Sara,” I mumbled as everything faded to black.

  With a start, I awoke, to a world cold, dark and quiet.

  Confused, I frantically tried to assess my surroundings in order to get my bearings. I attempted to move, but couldn’t. I felt constrained somehow. It took a few seconds, but my alert response lessoned and I realized I was sitting upright in the front passenger seat of my truck. It was still night time and all I saw around me was darkness and trees.

  Again I was stopped as I tried to move forward off of the seat before I realized I was strapped in with the seat belt. After I unlatched the seat belt I opened the door and swung my legs out to try and stand. My feet hit the ground, but my head didn’t like that idea. Dizziness hit me, sudden and hard. The world moved side to side and up and down all at the same time. I was about to lose all balance and fall over when I grabbed the outside of the truck to stabilize myself.

  I stood still to let the dizziness pass until I began to feel like I wasn’t going to fall over and vomit. Looking around, I saw I was parked on the side of a gravel road, right at the tree line. Dense forest walled in both sides of the road.

  A chill breeze gusted by and cut right through me. Each time I breathed mist lingered before slowly dissipating. I had no memory of how I had gotten there. Images were murky as I tried to remember what happened. It was difficult to sort through the dreams, memories or whatever with the distraction of my screaming headache. Freaking headache!

  James was at the cafe. He was someone I thought I’d never see again. I had assumed he was dead, that they killed him after what I did. Apparently, I was mistaken. James was at the café to take me. That much I saw. Whether he was there to capture or kill, I wasn’t sure. It seemed James did join them then.

  Once I had realized it was him, I knew chances were slim of getting away. Throwing the coffee cup had been my lame attempt at trying. I knew what he could do though. I knew it wouldn’t work. There was no way to out run him. He was wearing his PTD and mine was locked in the back of the truck. I’d locked it up after the bank in Troy.

  It usually stayed in the truck with the weapons. The weapons were there more for the comfort of having rather than actually needing. Most of the guys I took down were not trained fighters, mercenaries or super-human like me. It usually took nothing more than strength and the element of surprise to stop them. If Titan was now after me, the rules had changed.

  I took a mental note to always wear my PTD.

  Even though I was quickly fading at the time, I recognized the blurry raven haired attacker who shot me with the tranquilizer dart as Rachael. I never would have believed she’d join them as well. I guess I had misjudged her.

  The events at the café and the fact I was left out in the middle of nowhere with my truck, raised several questions. How had they found me? I’d been on the run for over a year. Why now? Second, why was I not with them? Why wasn’t I taken back to the HUB or killed? It didn’t make any sense to capture me, only to drop me.

  I looked to see if the keys were in the ignition. They were.

  “Good.”

  Pulling away from the door, I noticed a small black rectangular form on the drivers’ seat. It looked like my phone. I checked my pocket and it wasn’t there. I powered on the phone and it went straight to the GPS application. The image showed a map with a red blinking dot. It was showing my location. I was only fifteen miles or so northwest of the café. I could follow the mountain road south and get to a road leading back to the highway.

  Nothing made any sense. James and Rachael took me out to leave me up on a mountain road with my truck and directions on how to get back? Did they think I didn’t know how to use Google Maps? That was kind of insulting. I thought it was safe to assume James and Rachael didn’t capture me, only to let me go. Which meant someone was helping me, but whom? I was the only one I knew who had any chance taking on James and Rachel in a fight, if I was properly prepared. It had to be some sort of trap. The throbbing intensified as I tried thinking too much about it.

  It was 1:30 am. I’d been out for a while and was fortunate I wasn’t unconscious until morning. On second thought, I noticed the truck was left in a spot where the trees would have shaded me from the rising sun.

  Had I been left in the shade on purpose or by accident? More questions. If whoever left me there put me in the shade on purpose, they knew about me, but the only people who knew about me were from Titan. I was back to the question of why they would capture me, only to turn around and release me.

  I opened the rear door and pulled out the duffle bag. Finding the latch on the floor of the truck, I opened the hidden compartment. The weapons were still there. I pulled out the small steel box, opened it and took a small control device that looked like a black wrist watch and three small
black bands. I fastened the control on my left wrist and one of the bands on my right. Ignoring my throbbing head, I loosened my boot laces and fastened the other two bands to each of my ankles.

  After selecting the 9mm in a black shoulder holster, I fastened it over my t-shirt and covered it with a jacket.

  The touch screen on the wrist control lit up as I activated it. It was extremely bright in the dark night. The display was divided into three windows. The first showed a coordinate, the next indicated a distance of ten feet with a small arrow above it, and the third showed another coordinate. Once I was comfortable the device was online and ready to go, I turned the display off.

  When I turned the key in the ignition, the truck sputtered for a couple seconds and started. I swallowed the pills from the glove box dry yet again hoping I would eventually shake the stupid headache and headed south towards the highway.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Michael, let me introduce you to the others,” Dr. Roberts said as she lead me through a large grey metal door into a room where there were four other people waiting.

  I didn’t know any of them and even though I couldn’t remember anything earlier than two days prior, Dr. Roberts had already confirmed I didn’t know them. She explained the people I’d be meeting had the same condition as I did. What she hadn’t explained yet was what that condition was.

  The room was a bare bones conference room with plain grey walls, grey floor and a scent of disinfectant in the air. There were four rows of chairs behind long tables facing the front of the room, six chairs in each row. At the front of the room was a large screen mounted behind a raised podium. I walked forward towards the group of four, each positioned separately throughout the small room. Some glanced in my direction as if awaiting my arrival.

  Each of the four strangers looked to me and then to Dr. Roberts as if waiting for instructions. They all looked about my age. I didn’t know for sure what that age was but guessed fifteen or sixteen. My body and face were made of the lean whipcord of youth and my facial hair was still on the junior varsity team. They looked as lost as I felt, which was a relief.