This choice: Try reappearing as yourself. • Go Back...Chapter #8Try reappearing as yourself. by: Seuzz   You went through all the trouble of possessing and manipulating Jillian and Mark, and then working with them to come up with a cure, so you could return to your family as yourself. So there is no way in hell you're going to just turn yourself into someone else and start over with a new life. Mark and Jillian are sympathetic and understanding, but they are at a loss as to how you are going to explain your absence and recovery. For almost two days—while you continue to subject yourself to a battery of tests—you plot and argue with them over possible cover stories. Eventually, the three of you conclude that any story would be absurd, so it might as well be one so absurd that it can't be questioned.
So on a bright, cold Saturday morning you and Mark make the hour-long drive to Mountridge, where he helps you buy a junky used car and some Good Will clothing, and then you drive back alone to Saratoga Falls. It's mid-afternoon when you pull up in front of your house. In one form or another you've been living next door to it for three months, but it still feels very strange to walk up the front steps. You take a deep breath, open the door without knocking, and call out "Mom, I'm home!"
There's silence for a moment, and then the sound of something heavy hitting the kitchen floor. A few seconds later, your mother, her face a chaos of emotions, appears. She stares at you, and screams. Then she runs up and hugs you tightly.
You hug her back, and despite yourself you feel tears streaming down your face. Through them, you look up to see Joanna, her face white as a sheet, looking at you through an open doorway. And then your father appears. Soon you are being pressed so tightly from so many directions you can hardly breathe.
* * * * *
"I can't say anything about what I was doing out there that day, except that it was stupidest thing anyone ever did," you say. "I'm so sorry, to everyone, for what I put you through."
Your mother starts crying again, but she's laughing too. Your father is looking more gaunt than he did when you first saw him, and it occurs to you that he has aged considerably in the few months you've been missing. Joanna and Mary look much healthier, but they also look intensely relieved.
"But what happened afterward," says Mary. "Why didn't you—? Where were you?"
"Well, I didn't know where I was myself," you say with a sigh. You brush back your hair. "I just wanted out of the place after the fire started, and I got out a window and got to the fence, and then I just got hit by a wall of sound. I think I must have bounced off a couple of things real hard. Anyway, the next thing I knew I was out in the wilderness, running. And then I was fainting. And when I came to there were a couple of nice people standing around me and trying to make me comfortable."
"Who were they?" your father asks.
"Just people," you say evasively. "Really nice people. They were day-trippers in the park. Anyway, they asked me who I was and where I belonged, and I told them I didn't know. Because I didn't."
"What do you mean you didn't know?" Joanna interrupts.
You shrug helplessly. "I'd gotten hit really hard on the head. And I'd lost my IDs in the fire or the rush out of the place. So I couldn't tell them, and they couldn't figure it out."
"So why didn't they take you to the authorities," your dad asks in disbelief.
You turn your hands palm up in a gesture of helplessness. "I don't know. They were very nice, but ... I don't think they were very smart. They just took me home with them. To West Virginia."
"They were hillbillies?" Your mother's voice rises almost to a shriek.
"Please, mom. Like I said, they were very nice. They fed me and gave me a bed, and when I got better it was my idea to help them out. I did lots of physical work for them, got lots of exercise. And they never said a hard word to me, and took me to church, and just kept telling me how blessed they felt that they could help me."
"They still should have taken you to the authorities." Your father face has turned almost black. "What was their name?"
"I'm not going to tell you," you say quietly. "Because you're right. They should have taken me to the police or back to the base, or somewhere. But they didn't. And after what they did for me, I don't want anyone making trouble for them."
Your parents stare at you, and then they look at each other. Your father deflates, and your mother starts bawling again. But Mary looks impressed. "That's ... really decent of you," she says with a voice that sounds like it combines anger and awe.
"Anyway," you continue. "When my memory finally came back, I told them who I was and that I had to leave. And they gave me a little money—more than they could spare—so I could buy that car out there and some gas. After I get a job, I'm going to pay them back."
"You don't have to get a job," your father says. "I'll pay for it. We'll sell the rust bucket. I'll only be out a few hundred at most."
"No, I want to keep the car, and I want to get the job, and I want to pay them back myself," you say firmly. Now it's your father's turn to look impressed.
* * * * *
Word goes out to the relatives that you've returned, and you go and see Dana and Caleb and your other friends. There is much hugging, and Caleb looks horrible. But you give him a manly hug about the shoulders and tell him it would take a lot worse to shake your (totally straight) affection for him. On Monday you return to school and start taking remedial afterschool classes to catch up on what you've missed. Your time in Mark and Jillian, at least, has left you with a much stronger capacity for absorbing knowledge, and the math and biology and chemistry are such a breeze that you hardly notice the burden of the extra assignments.
The only mildly disturbing change at the school—though after all you've been through it seems very minor and unimportant indeed—is that Dana and Shawn Gregory have started dating.
Meanwhile, news soon reaches Fort Suffolk of your return, and on Wednesday you are invited ("summoned" would be a better word) to put in an appearance the following day. Jillian gives you a discreet phone call Wednesday night to alert you that she'll be there too as part of the panel that will question you, and that she'll help keep things covered up.
Still, you feel more than a little nervous as your father drives you through the gates and then sees you into the conference room briefly before he is asked to absent himself. (The excuse is given that matters pertaining to classified information are likely to be discussed; he is still not happy.) You find Colonel Lord, Jillian Harding, Captain Eric Sanchez, and two other officers waiting for you.
The questioning is brief and to the point. You recount the story you've already given your parents, and again you refuse to identify the kindly (though dirt-stupid) people who took you in, citing your refusal to see them get in any kind of trouble. Even when promises are made that they will only be questioned to corroborate your story, you refuse. Lord looks very unhappy by the end, and you notice he is quite peevish toward Jillian. But you are alive and seemingly unharmed, and there doesn't seem much he can say or do except acknowledge the fact.
When the hearing is over, you find a text message on your cell phone (a present from your folks); it's from Mark, asking if you can meet him and Jillian at the Burger Palace at seven.
* * * * *
"Yo." You flash a fake gang sign, push back your bandana, and slouch into the booth next to Jillian. She and Mark regard you with open astonishment. You smirk back.
"David?" Jillian finally says, breathlessly.
"Yeah, you like my new look?" You scratch delicately at the bristly moustache. "It's Eric Sanchez, with about ten years shaved off, and done up like a gangbanger. Grabbed the clothes this afternoon at a thrift shop, and got myself done up in the bathroom here before you arrived."
"Well, you're unrecognizable," Mark says.
"That's the idea," you reply. "Didn't either of you think how bad it would be for anyone to see David Johnson chatting with Jillian Harding after that hearing today?" You put an arm around her shoulders. "So, hot mamma, what's your special today?"
She wriggles free. "I just thought I'd give you an update on what's going on. Lord read me the riot act, wanting to know what the hell and why the hell. I told him that apparently you hadn't been turned into sludge, and that it was only an accidental coincidence that we discovered those properties of SX-2. He wasn't buying it, but there was nothing else he could buy either."
"They're not gonna reactivate the project, are they?"
"If they do, it'll be without me. And I doubt they'd do that. I'd be too valuable to leave on the sidelines."
"I think we're probably safe," says Mark. "There's no upside in reactivating it, now that David's reappearance has closed the last loophole. By the way, how'd your family react to the story of the Hatfields? Or was it the McCoys?"
"It was unbelievable. But, like with Lord, they had no choice but to believe it."
"I'd have called or dropped by earlier," Mark continues, "to see what was going on, but your dad's been frosty to me ever since you returned."
"I think he doesn't like being reminded of what happened."
"You think he blames me, because I suggested you take a job at Protean?"
"Probably not consciously. But maybe subconsciously."
"Well, you know, there's still a job for you there," Jillian interrupts brightly. She dimples in embarrassment. "Actually, given what you've ... er ... picked up ..." With a flick of her finger, she points to her temple, and to Mark's. "There's probably lots of jobs for you."
"Good. I need one."
"Sorry, but with your history, I doubt they'd be letting 'David Johnson' get close to Fort Suffolk," says Mark grimly.
"Not even in the warehouse in town?" Jillian protests.
"Not as David Johnson. Not even as Robert Rodriguez, or whoever you're supposed to be." He nods his chin at you.
"Fuckin' bigots," you grin back.
"Actually, that's an idea," Jillian says. "Who says he has to be 'David Johnson' when he applies?" She looks between your astonished face, and Mark's. "I'm serious. It would probably be a good idea to have us all close. I can't be seen with David in public, and David's father sounds like he has it out for you, Mark. So if David joined Protean, even if he had to take another name and, er, appearance ..."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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