Chapter 20

None of us wanted to remain in the same area with the two inert bodies lying in the hall, so Jonathan and Marcus led Ted to the front reception area. There they could call the police and bandage Ted’s arm. I stopped for a moment to collect the two guns, on the off chance the guy I struck on the head woke up.

I had just picked up the second gun when I noticed a green card sticking out of the back pocket of the second man. I knew I should leave the scene to the police, but my curiosity got the best of me. I leaned over and pulled the card out of his pocket. It was a paper sleeve with hotel room keycard inside. The sleeve listed a hotel not far from Ted’s office. I’m not sure why I did it, but I slipped the card into my pocket. I knew that there was more behind this attack, and I had substance for my suspicions. It’s not that I didn’t trust the police, but I needed to get information, and I was certain they would not give me everything we needed to know.

Stepping over the bodies, I continued to the front office. Jonathan had grabbed a towel and wrapped it around the wound in Ted’s arm and Marcus was just hanging up the phone. I set the two guns down on the desk away from all of us for the police to collect and pulled up a chair in front of the three men.

“They are on the way,” Marcus said. “What the hell happened back there, Cas. How did you move that fast?”

All three men were looking at me intently, even Ted who was still gripping his arm.

“We only have a few minutes until the police get here, so I am not going to be able to explain everything to your satisfaction. Once this is all over I’ll be happy to answer all of your questions. The short version is that after that drive-by shooting at my school, we learned that my genetics are different from other peoples. We are still trying to get a full understanding of what is happening, but what we know is that my brain is significantly more active than the normal brain, and my muscles are much more efficient.”

“So you have what...” Marcus asked, “superpowers?”

Everyone seems to jump right to the superpower thing.

“Not really,” I said, “I can run a little faster than, well, anyone I know of. My hearing and vision are better. I also process information faster than normal. That last report you sent me, I read it in about seven minutes.”

“That was a hundred and fifty pages! I am finding this all very hard to believe,” Marcus said, shaking his head.

“I don’t,” Ted said through gritted teeth. “Consider what you saw, just now. Also consider Cas’s involvement in all of our business dealings. How is any of this normal for a fifteen year old? If anything, this explains a lot.”

“I am sure you all understand why it’s important that we keep this quiet, right?”

All three nodded their heads. Jonathan opened his mouth to start to speak, when we heard tires squeal out in the parking lot.

“That’s probably the cops,” I said standing up. “We can all talk about this later, ok?”

All three men nodded their heads as two uniformed police officers came through the front door. Jonathan showed them to the hallway where the two men were lying. We had all agreed to let Jonathan do most the talking for us, although we each had to give statements. Ted was temporarily spared when the paramedics took him off to the hospital to get his arm looked at.

It took almost an hour at the offices to get it all sorted out, and another couple of hours at the police station answering questions. Since Jonathan was involved, he arranged for a friend of his to come sit in while we were giving statements.

While they didn’t tell us we were in the clear, the detectives inferred that as long as everything at the scene backed up our stories, we should be ok. If ever there was a case for self-defense, this was it. I did learn that the second man, the one I struck in the head, also died. I wasn’t sure how to feel about all of it. I had killed two men, which would shake anyone, but I also felt I’d not had a choice. I found that I didn’t feel bad about having killed them, although I was feeling a little bad about not feeling bad. It would be something I would have to talk to Mom and the girls about. If nothing else talking to them would help me better understand my own thoughts on the subject, but for now I had other things to focus on.

First, I had to call home.

“Hello,” Zoe said when she answered the phone.

“Hey, Zoe. I need to talk to Mom,” I said.

“Where have you been. I thought your meeting was only going to last for a few hours?”

“Zoe, this is important. I need to talk to Mom.”

“Ok,” she said with an exasperated sigh, “hold on.”

“Cas, is everything alright?” Mom said when she came on the line.

“I’m fine, but please don’t freak out,” I said.

“What’s happening?” Mom asked. She was starting to get agitated.

“I am at the police station with Marcus and Jonathan. Some goons broke into the office tonight, with guns. Ted got shot in the arm and is at the hospital.”

“Oh my God. I’ll be right there,” She yelled.

She hung up before I could say anything. Marcus headed to the hospital to check on Ted and Jonathan waited with me until Mom got there, just in case. A few minutes later Mom came running up from the parking lot and crushed me in a hug.

“What happened?” she asked Jonathan.

“There was some kind of attack in the office. Cas managed to take out the two gunman before any of us could be seriously hurt, well, except for Ted. But the paramedics didn’t think the wound was life threatening.”

“He knows,” I told her, nodding at Jonathan.

“Ohh,” she said as she released me from her vice-like hug. “You and the others should come and talk to me, later this week. I know Cas probably told you some of it, but he tends to gloss over some information that embarrasses him. Call me and set up a time to meet, and I will have his doctor come along. We will explain everything. Did you say anything to the police about...”

“No,” Jonathan said, interrupting her. “Cas suggested we keep the more extraordinary aspects of what happened to ourselves, and we agreed. Thankfully, everything can be explain by Cas’s martial arts training, and luck.”

“Thank you for that,” Mom said, looking relieved.

“Jonathan, please call Mom later this week and arrange time to talk to her and my doctor. I trust you three implicitly, and could use your advice on everything that is happening,” I said as I turned to shake his hand.

“Will do,” Jonathan said.

We gave Jonathan a ride back to the office to retrieve his car. It was eerie seeing the front door taped off with yellow crime scene tape. When he got out of the car I turned to Mom.

“Before we go home, we need to make a stop,” I said.

“Where?” She asked.

“The Asbury Hotel on 12th street.”

Instead of pulling out of the parking space, she turned to look at me.

“Why do you need to go there?” she asked.

“There is more going on here that just two guys coming after us. It has to do with the drone contract and the Mapes guy that tried to break into our patent safe. I know I should leave it to the cops, but they aren’t going to see the bigger picture, at least not for a while. I am worried these guys will take another shot. We were lucky, tonight. I do not want to take another chance and see someone I care about getting seriously hurt.”

“So why do you want to go there?”

“They had a key for the hotel. I wanted to poke around a bit, see if I can find anything useful.”

“Caspian, you should really think about leaving this to the police.”

“I know, but I can’t. I need to do this. Please.”

She thought for a long moment and then turned back to face the front of the car, and pulled out of the parking space.

“I must be out of my mind,” she said to no one in particular.

It took less than five minutes to get to the hotel. I asked mom to stay in the car and promised I would be careful. The hotel was not one I would normally stay in, and if I missed my guess, they sometimes charged by the hour. The gunmen probably chose the hotel because employees and other guests went out of their way not to notice anything. I seriously doubted if this place had cameras, but I went in a side door, all the same.

The desk had been nice enough to write the room number on back side of the paper sleeve, room 413. I rode the rickety elevator up to the fourth floor, and leaned out of the elevator to look both ways before exiting. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting; but I was greeted with a silent, empty hotel hallway.

At the door to room 413 I knocked quietly and waited. I had decided it was better to have someone in the room think I was lost, rather than burst through the door with their dead friends’ room key. There was no response and after standing looking at the closed door for another moment, I put the key into the lock, and pulled my shirt sleeve over my hand to ensure I didn’t touch anything as I entered the room.

The room itself was clean. The hotel was cheap, but they still kept maid service, and clearly they had been through since the last time the occupants had spent the night. I didn’t know if the police would find this hotel or not, but I thought it best if I didn’t leave fingerprints if I could avoid it. I saw a closed laptop on the desk in the room. Powering it on, I was happy to see it didn’t have a password on it. Otherwise I would have had to take it to Zoe and see if she could get in. He had a mail icon on the screen and I clicked on it. I read through dozens of messages, most of which were either innocuous, or contained references that needed explanation. One was not.

From: kSambor@miltechinc.com

To: 10224uTns@yahoo.com

Re: Evolve

The original contractor was unable to retrieve the documents. We need to get the patent documents and any plans or designs they have, and soon. I don’t care what you need to do. Get it done!

K.S.

I grabbed the hotel notepad and supplied pencil out of the desk draw and scribbled down the email word for word, along with the email address. I slipped the notepad, along with the pen that now had my fingerprints, into my pocket.

It was quite the smoking gun, but considering I wasn’t supposed to be in this room, there wasn’t much I could do about it ... at least, not directly. I needed to talk to Ted and the others about this, and probably with Carter Talmon there, too.

I peeked outside quickly before leaving the room and locking the door behind me. Mom was relieved when I made it back to the car.

“See? No problem,” I said as I slid into the passenger seat.

“I still don’t like this,” she said.

“I know. I promise I won’t make a habit of it.”

“Hmm,” was all she said as she drove us home.

I put the girls off for a few minutes, until I could call and make arrangements to meet Marcus, Jonathan, and Carter Talmon in Ted’s hotel room the next morning. I made sure to impress on Marcus and Jonathan the need to keep the full scope of what happened away from Carter.

The rest of the night was spent answering questions for Mom and the girls. They were pretty freaked out. Rightfully so, since last time I was shot at, things had gone pretty badly. I reassured them that I was fine. Zoe in particular was keeping a close eye on me.

“What?” I said after I finished explaining what I found at the hotel. I could feel her eyes burning holes in me.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked.

“Yeah, not a scratch,” I said smiling at her.

“That’s not what I mean. I know how you let things get to you. How are you doing with what happened?”

“You mean, am I feeling screwed up because I killed those two guys. Maybe this is going to sound bad, but honestly ... no. I feel ok with it. By the way they were coming in, it was pretty clear they meant to harm me and the others.”

She looked at me with an unsure expression.

“I’m serious, I feel fine.”

She let it drop but the rest of the night I could feel her watching me. I couldn’t complain about that, really. I knew it was just because she cared about me and wanted to make sure I was ok, both physically and mentally. Still, I was happy when the next morning rolled around and Jonathan picked me up to go see Ted. I was surprised when Jonathan said we were meeting at Ted’s house and not the hospital.