"Faint" (Rated R for language, violence, mature situations)

"Faint"

As a simple introduction to "Faint"...

This is an original story, original characters, originial ideas. The whole works. I've been messing around with it for four years now, and haven't really gotten far, but I love it anyway. It's based roughly one thousand years in the future (really science fictiony), and the world has been almost totally changed. The United States is the main setting, and I've done MASSES of research to make everything as accurate as possible. You have no idea how difficult it is for a Canadian to be writing it...

Just so y'all know. This story is rated R for language, violence, and mature situations. If you're comfortable with everything in it, it would be great to have you read it. Tell me what ya think! Any constructive criticism is welcome!

CHAPTER ONE

Mar. 6, Year 3014 A.D.

Alcatraz Island - San Francisco, California

Seven o’clock. Morning erupted in a flurry of screaming alarms that echoed down the hallways of concrete and swiftly broke into my subconscious, rousing me from yet another dreamless sleep. I cringed at the wailing bells, opening my eyes a crack to peer languidly through my eyelashes at the fractured rock wall next to my cot.

The buzzers came to an abrupt halt, the last lingering remnants of the morning alarm fading from the halls, and the ranges stirred with the tired grumbles of waking inmates and the squeaking of rusty bedsprings. I lifted my head from my pillow, looking past the veil of tangled brown that was my hair, and through the iron bars of my cell door to the shifting figures of my fellow tenants as they sluggishly raised themselves from their cots across the wide gap between ranges. I outwardly groaned in objection to abandoning this much-needed rest, and wearily swung my legs over the edge of my bunk, placing my bare feet on the cold cement floor.

Welcome to Alcatraz penitentiary.

Everyday since the January of 3008 I woke to the abrasive images of concrete and iron, with resonant bells tearing me from sleep, and everyday I gazed out my barred window to the sunless sky hanging over the gray waters of the harbor, that seemed always just beyond my reach. This was daybreak through my eyes, caged within the captivity of my five-by-nine-foot cell upon an island trapped in the hub of San Francisco Bay. I cannot count the times that I have thought to myself, ‘This is not where I should be, nor the other fourteen-year-old boys and girls imprisoned here. I can walk across my cell in three paces. There is a notice just outside my door that says D. Meesha, six three zero four five. What had we done to deserve those doors that made your every function known to the world? What had we done to deserve two cold meals of mashed God-knows-what, instead of three hot servings of something that looked at least fit to be eaten? Why am I here?’

The man who led the country, Samule Bryant, had somehow convinced himself that I, or any of the other adolescents he trapped in Alcatraz, was going to steal away his control of the United States. So he locked us up, all one hundred sixty-six of us, into this living hell of depravity, leaving us at the ‘mercy’ of a hardhearted prison master. Alcatraz was the ideal location for our confinement - surrounded by more than a mile of water on every side, isolated from the privileges of society, and a model reputation with the escape of only three prisoners in over one thousand years, and they were presumed dead, drowned in the harbor. I had called it home since I was seven years old.

Samule became the President of the United States after the former President’s passing. Nobody knew that we had been sent to Alcatraz. Not the media. Not the citizens. Not the police. Nobody but us, and those working for the crooked President. On January third of 3008, every famed individual in the country woke to find their children gone from their beds, and though the country had immediately been set into a frantic, frenzied search for the missing seven and eight-year-olds, no missing child had been found. But here we were. Samule had always had twisted ideas, it seemed.

Until he took the seat as President, about six of the inmates in Alcatraz had been raised in a wealthy orphanage far across the country, in Washington D.C., which was administered by a kindly middle-aged woman, Leanna Arrese, whom had lovingly been nicknamed Cookie. I had been one of them.

I yanked on my running shoes, which were wearing thin at the toes and heels, before standing from my cot and waiting patiently for my door to be unlocked and opened. The mechanical whir of Alcatraz’s automaton guards, called Sentinels, came from the ends of the ranges, perfunctorily releasing the lock on each cell door and driving the inmates along the corridor. A watch machine stopped to open the entrance to my cell, its right surveillance unit focusing in and out on my face as I stretched my left arm out to it and pulled back the sleeve of my orange uniform.

There, on the underside of my wrist, was my prisoner identification tag, a barcode, like I was some sort of merchandise. As the warden had put it, the barcode was his way of saying, “Welcome to Alcatraz, you little fuck.” I, just like all the other inmates, had received it upon my arrival at the penitentiary in 3008. I remember, Sentinels seized my left arm, forcing it through a credulous-looking, open-ended, metal box. The warden was grinning like a crazed man as a green light flared on inside cube, and it began to move toward my limb. There was searing pain as the light slowly, agonizingly burned the barcode tattoo into my skin. I remember, I screamed and the prison master laughed.

The Sentinel scanned the barcode on my wrist, reading through my prison records as it performed the first headcount of ninety-six for only another long, barren day. Along with the manifold other inmates from my cell block, which was Cell Block B, I was herded away down the corridors to the Block’s sickbay doors, the short trip that would begin the day’s tedious routines.

One by one, we paused with our feet placed inside a painted ring on the floor, and a mechanical arm moved down from the ceiling to clamp its cold, metal hand around the back of my head to hold me still. Another motorized limb reached down, and with a quick jab and a few seconds of waiting, I was allowed to leave the circle, favoring the stinging puncture mark on my neck. We went through the same routine every eight weeks to receive the injection that caused sterilization. It was just another one of those rules that Samule had set. Imprison this generation, prevent the next. Two hundred ninety-two adolescents that will always be behind the rest of the world. The injection was only experimental, and that was the reasoning for returning to the sickbay every two months. The shot was intended to instigate life-long sterilization.

Orange prison uniforms were piled into a robotic bin, which would navigate itself down the corridors and through the doors of the laundry room with the unclean clothing to return later in the day with neatly folded, laundered uniforms, as each inmate, stripped of our garments, found a place standing against one cold concrete wall, faces hidden protectively within the shelter of our hands. There was no gender discrimination here. The boys and girls lived together, ate together, bathed together. Painful jets of freezing water showered our bare backs, washing - though it felt like clawing - the filth from our bodies. What might have been cleaning a car, had become what we called our weekly bath, and while we were deprived of the pleasantries, we were thankful to be given a wash at all. The jets shut off, echoes bouncing from wall to wall and fading away, and with red, raw, and sore skin, I quickly dried off and collected a clean uniform.

The inmates of Block B were herded away, cold and in sour moods, to the Mess Hall where each of us were placed on benches that ran beside the length of the long tables neatly aligned and stretching across the cafeteria. I folded my hands in my lap, leniently staring ahead to the barred windows, somber light filtering through the rails and casting lackluster shadows over the cement, watching as the gloomy clouds gently drifted on the wind above the Bay, awaiting my breakfast to be set before me.

It wasn’t a nice image, our sky, even when you weren’t looking at it from behind bars. The last fallout of a nuclear winter, it was called. A repercussion of the detonation of more than ‘enough’ nuclear weaponry during the War of 2367 to veil the planet - mostly the northern hemisphere - in a leaden fog. I’ve heard stories about clear, blue skies, like oceans above our heads, but they’re naught but fairytales for the fainthearted. As desperately as mankind had tried to prevent it, the War came on anyway. The nuclear winter killed what was left of plant life, and in turn killed off much fauna. From there, there had been a decrease in human population - not that Earth didn’t need it - pruning the populace of mankind from ten billion in 2367 to three million in 2570 when the world’s temperatures had finally stabilized, and most of the nuclear shrapnel had come to rest. Fortunately, for all of us, solar greenhouses had been constructed across the globe before the War, originally as institutes for wildlife. They became farms, producing more than enough food to keep everyone fed and alive.

I glanced down at the table as a plate slid into my view, and I frowned with contempt at the grayish semi-liquid substance. Gruel. To be blunt, even though it provided us with all the nutrients we needed, it was like eating epoxy. Mentally sighing, I lifted my spoon from the dish and took a taste of the flavorless curd-like food.

The silence of the Mess Hall was broken as the final inmates from Cell Block D came through the doors, the poor boys and girls who were subjected to sleeping on threadbare mattresses in dark, cold cells with not only barred doors, but another made of six-inch steel - the warden’s ‘favorites’. The line was not long, maybe fifteen people. One tenant, burdened by shackles of black metal with a loop of blue electrical energy locking his wrists together, caught my attention each morning. I followed him with my eyes, pausing as I bent over my plate, my spoon raised to my lips.

That was Tack, my best friend since we had lived in the orphanage together. He was Metis, and six months my senior, with skin the colour of bronze, and straight black hair that fell to the stroke of his sturdy shoulders, tied into a loose tail at the base of his neck with a scrap of old, tattered cloth. Tack was thin, a little too thin for reasons that I will explain. He had a winsome face, which seemed marred by a perpetual frown, that was far more Caucasian in appearance than Native, and navy eyes, limitless pools of intensity, beautiful eyes infused with fire, but haunted. How I loved his eyes. I could lose myself in their depths, and swim forever in those molten seas of blue.

The electrical chains hissed as he was forced into a seat across from me, and I silently gazed at him as he glared down at the tabletop, his mouth set in a hard, indignant line. A plate was set before him by one of the mechanical arms that moved back and forth on the rafters above our heads, and he glowered resentfully after the robotic limb. Without removing his bitter gaze from the figure of the machine as it retreated along a girder back to the kitchen, he hesitantly raised his hand from his lap, placing his fingers on the rim of the dish to push it away from himself in distaste. Deprivation. It was an open gesture of Tack’s unbridled rebellion toward Samule’s rule. Proof of his defiance rested in his condemnation. His sentence had been extended by seventy-six years - one year for every broken rule.

I lowered my spoon to my plate and frowned in disapproval at him. I could say all I wanted to him in an attempt to get him to swallow more than a wedge of bread in a day, but my words would remain ineffectual. While there was some truth to the fact that he didn’t want to eat, his reasons were mostly derived from the certainty that he couldn’t. The malfunction was a product of a diminishing diet and immoral procedures to fix it. Over the course of our seven years in prison, Tack’s appetite had tapered off to the point that he ate hardly enough to keep himself surviving throughout the day, and should he tackle more than that, his stomach would reject it. Lashed tautly into a chair with a tube down his throat, force-feeding had been the only method to compel food into his system, but even then did his body throw up the meal. They abandoned that course of action only a week before, hoping that he would just eat.

“Tack,” I began, keeping my voice low. “Please eat. I hate to see you like this.” He just glanced at me, his face still, but there was an apologetic look in his eyes. I knew what he meant to say. I can’t admit honestly that I could understand what went on inside of his mind, because I had never felt pain on the same level as he. Tack was the warden’s personal ‘punching bag’. All of us were beaten, surely, but he had always received the worst of it. Of course, there were never any bruises or any scars. The prison master, when he was in his best of moods, would flog Tack to the point when he was wheezing through fractured ribs or a broken jaw, or struggling to stand through a concussion and eyes that had been swollen shut. Every ‘session’ ended with a trip to the sickbay, where each wound and cracked bone would be healed with the careful and swift precision of the medical technology.

But Tack, though he had been embittered, had never been broken, and would never be broken. I just shook my head and returned my attention to my plate, rearranging the paste into a pile on one side.

In Alcatraz, the rules governed our very lives. We no longer had to think for ourselves. We were told when to eat and when to sleep, and when it came time for my door to be shut at night, it was then that the smallness of my world really got to me. Everything outside became more unreal every day. I could almost forget that there was something beyond the bars and the locks to look forward to when my sentence was expended in 3018. But even for all of the rules and the restraint, even with the Sentinels patrolling the penitentiary, and the bars and the chains, Alcatraz wasn’t without a recreation yard, though it was surrounded by a twelve-foot concrete wall and crowned with an eight-foot chain-link fence. Here, during yard-up at three o’clock, we could find our tiny fraction of freedom.

Tack and I sat on the cement steps, while I was looking out across the yard, considering a group of inmates playing an enthusiastic game of basketball. I sighed with listless boredom, wishing that Tack would join the game so I might follow, and I set my elbows on my knees, resting my chin in my cupped hands. I glanced at Tack out of the corner of my eye, watching as he silently read the words of ‘The Tangle Box’, a novel by Terry Brooks from the 20th century. Reading had become his refuge that he built to escape from the nightmare that he bitterly called his reality. Not many of us had learned to read or write, but Tack had done so with diligence and eager interest of both, schooled by Cookie.

“Why don’t you go out there, Tack?” I suggested leisurely, gesturing toward the game with a nod of my head. “How much fun can you be having just sitting here?”

Tack flipped the page of his book, the shackles on his wrists hissing as the electrical loop crossed over itself. “Might as well get used to it,” he grumbled under his breath. He was one of those strong and silent types. It wasn’t often that he would say much, but with eyes like his, he didn’t have to. Of all of his features, they were the most expressive, the most compelling. Behind that haunted shell, they were the open windows to his soul, panes that he would allow very few to see into. I knew. Tack’s voice could cascade so clearly through the emotions written in his eyes, granting me infinite words that he would not speak.

I tried to cheer Tack up by joking around a little, and nudged his arm playfully. “Well, at least you look good in uniform.” He reluctantly turned to me as if to say, “Should I take that as a compliment?” I realized my error, smiled my silent apology, and returned to watching the game.

The warden’s son Roland Gredd was put in the prison under Samule’s law, but that didn’t stop him from acting like an ass. If anything, I think it made it worse. Roland was big in a stocky kind of way, with cold blue eyes and a misshapen smile. Not only did he have horrendous grammar, he didn’t have much for looks either, but he had authority among the inmates at the prison, and he had his father’s favor. Anyone with sense enough kept their distance and held their tongues in his company for fear of their own skin. He was one of the types who loved to see the anguish in an tenant’s eyes when they dragged themselves back from the warden’s office with cuts and bruises. Like father, like son.

Roland strolled up to us and dropped down on the steps next to me. “Hey, Meesha. How’s it going?” I pretended to ignore him. I was well aware that he had a certain vulgar lust for me, and frankly, it disgusted me. He shifted the toothpick in his mouth, pushing it around with his tongue. “My dad tells me how them Indians was always causing trouble back when Bryant wasn’t the President. Like them was always rebelling against their masters and their kings and stuff.” He looked around me at Tack, his untidy brown hair bouncing across his forehead. “My dad tells me that them Indians was real wretches, always stabbing people in their backs. Bastards.” He smirked and laughed, thinking that he had just won some great victory with his dirty words, but when Tack was taking the hits, nothing could break him. Being tough was stamped into his character.

I shot a glare at Roland. He was such a jerk. For years he had been trying to turn me against Tack using the immoral prejudice history of Native Americans. To me, it was pointless fuming, just hot air. “Lay off, Roland,” I commanded, taking the defensive for Tack unhesitatingly.

“Yeah, and what you gonna do about it? You gonna scratch my eyes out, or something?” Roland scoffed. “He’s a piece of shit, that’s what, and he ain’t good for nothing but getting high on Nitro, you bitch.” I looked up at him, surprise evident on my face, and for a moment I just watched as he sneered.

Tack’s fist connected with Roland’s jaw and he crumpled to the cement with a groan of discomfort. Tack was always protective of me since we lived in the orphanage. I was one of those shy types, the one who would only shrink away when someone took a shot at my emotions. Tack became my shield and defended me from the things I wouldn’t. It didn’t take much to make him crack when people were harassing me. If he had his way, he would have torn Roland to shreds before he would let him talk trash at me.

Tack grasped the shoulder of Roland’s orange uniform with both hands and yanked him forward, the electrical chain of his shackles sizzling only inches from Roland’s neck, flame burning in Tack’s navy eyes. “Listen, you son of a bitch! You ever talk to Meesha that way again, I swear I will rip your tongue out!” After all the times that Roland had his face forced into the dirt, been slugged square across the jaw, and handed black eyes, bloody noses, you’d think that he had learned his lesson.

A couple of Sentinels raced across the yard, the tracks that served as their legs wheeling, their surveillance systems pressing forward and back to fix on the source of the trouble. Each with one claw-like hand, they roughly seized Tack’s shoulders and jerked him away, kicking and struggling against the machines as they pulled back the sleeve of his left arm and pushed aside the black metal of the shackle, computing the barcode identification tag on his wrist.

“Prisoner six four four two nine, Ryans, Tack. You are in violation of your probation,” one machine rumbled in its grating mechanical voice, the motorized iris of its surveillance eye opening and closing as it scrutinized the glaring Tack, and it gave a forceful yank on his arm. “Penalty is in order.” The couple of Sentinels turned, dragging a reluctant Tack along with them to the warden’s office.

Roland spit blood from his throbbing mouth and scowled after Tack. “What the hell is his problem?”

“Damn it, Roland!” I yelled, causing him to jump unexpectedly and face me with surprised eyes. “Your father is going to beat him, and it’s your fault!”

Roland wiped his bloody lip with a sleeve, his eyes shifting from my face to the withdrawing figures of the Sentinels as they hauled Tack to the opposite end of the yard. “The bastard deserves it.”

The main office was located just outside of the penitentiary building in an area that undeniably had the ‘best’ view across the bay to the San Francisco skyline.

Thomas Gredd, the prison master, whom we nicknamed Bloodbath in return for his heartlessness, turned around from facing the window, revealing a face of beard stubble, shaggy brown hair, and a big gut hanging over his belt. He rubbed his fleshy belly, leering at Tack’s frowning face in amusement. Bloodbath was a hefty man, like Roland. His hair was matted up, his sweat-stained clothes reeked of blood and labor, and his ill blue eyes seemed to look right through you, to bore holes into your skin until he found a weakness. He beat us. All the time. There was always someone that he would deem deserving of his ‘attention’. For the past three or so years, Tack had been his favorite. Why not? Tack was the only one that Bloodbath hadn’t broken, and no matter how hard he tried, Tack wouldn’t let him.

“Well, well,” Bloodbath growled, his voice like grating stone. “Look what the cat coughed up.”

“Prisoner six four four two nine was detained exchanging blows with Prisoner eight six five three eight,” a robot reported, clamping its three-fingered claw firmly on Tack’s shoulder, while its partner gripped Tack’s opposite arm. “He is in violation of his probation…”

Bloodbath didn’t wait for the Sentinel to finish before he grabbed the collar of Tack’s uniform and violently yanked him closer, his putrid breath furious on the prisoner’s face. “Fighting with Roland again, huh?” We had learnt to keep our eyes down when we were around Bloodbath. It was one of his ridiculous rules - a prisoner’s eyes shall never meet those of his superiors. But Tack had always been undaunted by Bloodbath’s malignity and looked right up at the man. “That was your last chance, you little shit! You were given a warning!” The warden scowled and punched Tack across the face, who pitched to the floor from the blow, his shackles hissing, a stream of blood forming at the corner of his mouth.

Bloodbath hauled Tack up by the collar, and he hit him again, gashing the flesh above his right eyebrow with the heavy ring that Bloodbath wore around his middle finger. “I’ve never given a rat’s ass about you! From day one, I knew you were nothing but trouble!” He swung around, throwing Tack to the floor and he collided with the concrete. Rage mixed with fear flickered through Tack’s eyes as he scrambled away from the wrathful warden, his back pressing against the metal frame of Bloodbath’s desk. Tack struggled to stand, using the tabletop to lift himself up, never removing his gaze from the threatening figure of the warden as he stalked forward. “I’ve had enough of you!” Bloodbath snarled mercilessly. The warden towered over Tack, raising an arm in readiness to apply the final blow to the rebellious inmate’s skull, sneering with frenzied malevolence. Tack seemed to shrink before the hulking figure of the prison master, his hands desperately searching the desk as he leaned back over the table. And out of some stroke of luck, Tack’s fingers found the edge of a rather sharp mail opener, and he impulsively struck out with it. Bloodbath staggered back, howling in pain, clutching his face with his hands.

The makeshift blade dropped from Tack’s fingers, and he ducked around the warden, dashing between the disoriented, heavyset Sentinels as they attempted to turn themselves in the small confines of the office, and Bloodbath stumbled to the wall, one big hand crashing down on the switch that would sound the emergency alarm.

I lifted ‘The Tangle Box’ from where it had dropped to the steps, and brushed away the dirt with my fingers, flipping open the cover and reading silently to myself, “One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, ‘I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.’ The light was a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, ‘Oh, nonsense!’ and stood over him transfixed. Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, or ruthless power, or craven terror - of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more that a breath: ‘The horror! The horror!’”

I thoughtfully looked over the words, thinking of the things familiar that I saw in them. Was there somber pride in Tack’s eyes? No. Was there ruthless power? No. Was there craven terror? Never. There was, however, that look of despair, hovering just beneath the surface of his eyes. That intense and hopeless despair, hanging below the shell of those navy pools. Would he ever leave Alcatraz? I shook my head. Tack knew as well as I, that he was bound to the awful place until death brought him freedom…

The siren screamed like a wild banshee, and I cringed, slamming the book shut in my hands and wheeling around, startled by the sudden wail.

Tack raced down the hallway as fast as his legs could bear to carry him, steel and concrete passing him by in a blur of gray, his heart hammering in his ears with every pounding footfall, the alarm Sentinels tracks wheeled loudly behind him as the alarm wailed out. The fear, the adrenaline pounded through his veins like fire, and all he could see was Alcatraz’s dock. He burst through the doors to the office, stumbling down the cements steps, his shackles crackling angrily, and he sprinted across the stony land of the island, rushing for the wharf, the threshold of freedom. The prison walls, the iron bars were falling behind him and melting away as the pier came nearer with every sound of his feet drumming against the rock-strewn ground.

I saw him. The orange of his uniform stood out against the gray of the land, a stark contrast to the dull and lifeless colours, as he fled toward the dock as though the devil himself was at his heels. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder, his ebony hair flying, navy eyes flaring with sudden animation. I followed his line of sight, feeling my heart skip a beat as I noticed the surge of Sentinels racing in pursuit. I knew then that Tack was an escaped prisoner. I knew then that if he was caught, he would be killed. I knew then that the only way off of the island was over the crags that looked out over the Bay.

Tack skidded to a halt at the edge of the cliffs, frantically swinging his arms to regain his failing balance. He turned back to face the quickly approaching Sentinels as if contemplating one last time over his choices of jump and face uncertain fate, or return peacefully to the warden and accept death. I longed to scream out to Tack, but my breath was frozen in my throat. I wished to cry out to him. Jump, Tack! Jump! A few tears tumbled down my dirt-covered face, leaving behind pale streaks, as I watched. I felt so helpless, staring out from behind bars with tear-stained cheeks while my friend was out there, beyond the walls, past the fences, fighting for his freedom like he had nothing left to lose.

Tack was in a total panic. The Sentinels were closing fast. Any choice he had left was lost. He turned. He leapt from the island, plummeting into the cold, murky water below. The group of pursuing machines slid to a halt at the ledge. I screamed and fell to my knees.

Bloodbath hurried to the scene, his big belly bouncing with unhealthy overabundance, his breath coming in labored gasps. “He won’t get far. It’s a good couple miles to the coast,” he muttered to himself rather unconvincingly.

I slowly let my grip ease on the book, and it fell from my hands, covering my face with my palms and weeping freely. Tack was gone, gone to a better fate than behind bars, and I both hated and applauded his decision, but me…I felt alone. There would be no one to sit beside me and read, keeping me quiet company, and there would be no one to come through the Mess Hall doors in the morning with shackles on his wrists, and there would be no one for me to divulge my troubles to even though he did not say much back, my silent listener.

Bloodbath, raging with anger, face caked with blood and one eye closed forever, furiously tossed his cap to the ground, stomping the hat into the dirt. He ground his teeth in frustration. Glaring wrathfully out to the waves cascading along the shoreline, Bloodbath growled, “I’ll kill that little bastard myself!”

CHAPTER TWO

Struggling under his own suddenly burdening weight, Tack hauled himself onto the white sands of San Francisco’s empty shoreline, crawling upon all fours, cold, wet, and barely alive. His breath came in ragged, painful wheezes, his head hung low between his arms, water dripping from his sopping hair and drenched prison uniform.

The Bay’s icy water washed over his running shoes, the sound of the waves sloshing against the beach mingling with his irregular gasps, as Tack fought desperately to regain his failing breath. He was fading in and out of awareness, black spots floating around in his vision, his chest heaving painfully, and he floundered to his precarious feet, taking a couple of shaking steps and stumbling back to his knees in the sand. Blurry darkness began to shroud his sight. The phantoms of buildings and busy streets devoid of sound drifted aimlessly through his mind. The world was whirling around him as his effort to remain conscious collapsed, and he toppled to a heap on the pale beach.

I glanced around hopelessly at the cracked concrete walls that surrounded me. I felt so closed in, claustrophobic within the walls of solitary confinement. This was the place that we were sent for punishment, two or three days locked inside of the four-by-four foot room. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, everything was made of twelve-inch cement except for the six-inch steel door. Confinement was putrid with the stench of the sweat and tears of the many that had been trapped behind its door. Tack had been in this very room more than seventy times. He had scrawled the words over and over, scratched into cement the words that were the only thing that kept me sane inside that pit. Give me liberty, or give me death.

I traced one finger over the crude lettering, and I frowned, recalling the reason I was here. Bloodbath, one eye wrapped in bloody bandages, had ordered all prisoners to the recreation yard where he marched before us, glaring, scrutinizing every face. “Prisoner six four four two nine made a poor choice today,” he snarled, and his good eye curved upon me. I focused on the cement at my feet. “A exceedingly poor choice.” The warden resumed his march. “One that will cost him more than just an eye.” His shadow fell over me, and I could almost picture that angry blue orb staring down. “You have known him for all of both your lives. Tell me, does he think that he can get away with this?” Bloodbath grabbed the collar of my uniform, yanking me off my feet, but I did not answer. He grinned evilly, and said in a voice that was sickeningly sweet, “When I find him, you will be the one to watch him die.” The words froze me with horror. He threw me down to the cement, the other kids leaping away from where I lay in anguish and terror. Bloodbath beckoned a couple of Sentinels to him with a flick of his wrist and they pulled me to my feet. “She goes to confinement!”

Though Tack had often felt rage against him, he had never dared to speak it, something I would regret. “You asshole!” Bloodbath paled like I had just struck him. His fist came down on my face, knocking me from the Sentinels’ grips. It felt like my head had been near knocked off my shoulders. His foot dug into my ribs, the wind left my lungs in a hurry, and I lay coughing and sputtering, clutching my side.

“You are damn lucky that I do not kill you!” was all I heard him say before I passed out upon the ground.

Tack blinked his eyes open, his vision sluggishly clearing. He let out a soft groan and, heading pounding, stomach churning, strained to sit up. He couldn’t remember the last time that he had felt so sick. Slouching forward and squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to dismiss the ache in his skull, the stiffness in his joints, and that undeniably empty ache in his abdomen. He brought a hand up to his forehead, and slowly opened his eyes as the pain in his head dwindled a bit.

Letting his hand fall into his lap, Tack found himself to be settled quite comfortably upon a bed with soft, white blankets bunching around his waist, and he frowned in wonder as he noticed that the black, electrical shackles had been removed from his arms. They had been replaced by one thin band around his right wrist, bearing a tiny, uniformly blinking light. Even more, he realized that his arms were bare up to his elbows and that he was wearing a slack ashen shirt rather than his orange uniform.

Tack glanced up, eyes darting about in confusion at the dimly lit, empty room. The area was alive with the quiet sounds of droning machinery, and smelled a bit like cleaner. Puzzled and a little unnerved, he kicked the cozy blankets away from his body, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, pausing for a moment to stare in incredulity at the loose-fitting white pants he wore before sliding out of the bed, making to move for the door across the area. He was halted by a tug on his left hand, followed by a stinging pain spreading over the back of his palm, and Tack looked down at his hand, creasing his forehead in both surprise and alarm when he noticed the slender, transparent tube taped there, traces of a fine syringe planted under his skin, a cloudy fluid flowing through the tube and disappearing into his bloodstream. Tack tore the needle from his hand, throwing it to the floor in a rush. What the hell was this place!?

The lights flickered on with a whisper, forcing Tack to squint against the unexpected brilliance. “Are you quite awake now?” came a taunting voice from all around him. Tack frantically gazed about the room. “That must have been quite a swim. You’ve been out like a light for nearly four days.”

“Who are you? What the hell do you want with me?” Tack asked, his voice weak and hoarse from dryness.

“Paradigm X-921. I am this building’s computer system. I am called Sweetie,” the voice answered, and with a blaze of silver light a flickering image of wire mesh in shape of a petite figure materialized across the room. With twists and waves, a ribbon of colour wound about the figure’s legs, over its stomach, wrapping around its shoulders and head until the frame had been transformed into the likeness of a woman, so childlike that she may have been mistaken for a girl not yet in her teens, with curling golden-brown locks bobbing around her shoulders, and dark sparkling eyes.

Tack watched her with suspicious eyes.

Sweetie grinned. “You could say that I am, in a way, the building itself. Everything from the light systems to the defense program.” She could clearly see his hesitation, but it was not unforeseen.

Trust did not come easily to Tack. In fact, it hardly came at all. He had known Cookie not only as a mentor, but a loving nurse. She had raised him from barely a year old, taught him, tucked him into bed and sang him to sleep when nightmares came to haunt him. More than anything, she had been Tack’s mother. Only four months before he would reach his eighth birthday, Cookie was forced to hand several of us over to a troop of men in green uniform. I remember that she had been unusually quite that morning, with downcast eyes and shaking fingers. She hugged each of us, promising that our new home would be like butterflies and sunshine and cotton-candy, before she ushered us away, the men in green helping us into the van.

Tack had wheeled about, yanking his hand out from one man’s grip, intending to rush back up the front steps where Cookie stood, silvery tears falling from her eyes. But a strong hand caught the collar of his jacket, roughly yanking him into a pair of sturdy arms, hauling him toward the van. Imagine a little boy’s sadness when she turned back into the orphanage, closing the door behind her, even as he cried and reached out to her with terrified, desperate fingers. Imagine a little boy’s thoughts when the home of sunshine and butterflies that Cookie promised turned out to be concrete and iron.

Tack had never wanted to leave the orphanage. He had convinced himself that Cookie hated him, that she wanted him to suffer. It had been the beginning of a long-winded state of cynicism, and a long-lasting state of burning, confined anger. Soon after we arrived at Alcatraz, Tack’s once outgoing personality began to crumble.

“A couple of our agents found you in a comatose state on the shore, and brought you here to our medical center. There have been difficulties tending to your detriments while you slept. There are internal complications within your system.” Sweetie gave a shake of her head. “You are malnourished. Surely you must know of that. Your body weighs no more than forty kilograms.” Sweetie gestured to the syringe that was now lying on the floor. “That intravenous was keeping your system stable up until the point that you removed it. Not a problem, though. It was becoming unreliable.”

Tack glanced to where the needle had fallen. Four days?

“Now that you are fully conscious,” Sweetie continued, “methods must be taken to restore your health. The procedure will include five meals every day. I will decide what comprises the food, how much you eat, and when.”

Tack was careful to keep his wary eyes on the holographic form as she moved toward the door. She seemed so small compared to his five foot five frame. “The Commander expects to see you in her office shortly. Follow the blue beacons down the corridor and you will reach it.” With that a line of brilliant azure lights dashed along the juncture of the wall and the ceiling, turning out the door and into the hallway. Tack cautiously moved past Sweetie as she simply stood and watched.

Stepping down the corridor, his bare feet lightly padding on the tile, he stopped short before a set of four rounded transparent tubes as the course of beacons came to an abrupt end. A glass and metal door glided open, and Tack simply stared at it for a moment or two, glaring in incontestable bitterness at the small space beyond the entrance, not more than four feet across to each smooth, curved side. There, laid bare, were the invisible scars that Alcatraz left behind, notably the way his now clenched fists shook at his sides. Wasn’t four feet the width of solitary confinement? It was, and he hated to own up to the fact that he was afraid to step through that door, into that tiny glass room. Tack knew that this wasn’t Alcatraz. He knew that the space on the other side of the entrance was not confinement, and that it was simply an elevator. He was not afraid of closed spaces. It was the freshness of the memory that had his hands trembling.

Reluctantly, Tack stepped through the door, and the opening slid shut behind him and the elevator began its smooth descent. There was only the sound of the machine whirring as it floated down on the cushion of air that it traveled upon, and Tack stared soundlessly ahead, watching the walls of the chute as they passed, floor after floor after floor. Without warning, the passing walls fell away, opening into a massive view of a colossal chamber all made of glass and silvery steel. Tack gawked, navy eyes suddenly wide. At each side of the spacious square area were a set of four transparent elevator tubes running vertical from ceiling to ground along five balcony floors. There were dozens of glass doorways across the terraces, leading to the dozens of office rooms behind them. People bustled, men and women garbed in black hurrying about the galleries, into the apartments, around the bottom floor where a single fountain churned out water lit red, blue, and green by lights beneath.

The elevator came to a gentle stop at the final landing, the door gliding open as Tack left the compact chamber, gazing in wonder around him. He noticed a bright blue beacon flashing on and off across the way, and he warily moved toward it, feeling more than a little obvious, dressed in crisp white as he was among a hundred clothed in ebony. Yes, he certainly felt, not only out of place, but foolish.

Tack hesitated at the glass doorway, watching cautiously the woman who was dominantly beating on a punching bag with a series of kicks and blows from her fists inside. The woman abruptly halted, looking toward the flat computer monitor upon her ebony desk, her strawberry blonde braid swinging around her shoulder, green eyes flashing. A moment later, she glanced at the transparent door, not failing to notice the so obviously out-of-place boy standing beyond it, and she threw the entrance open.

“Ah.” She grinned and put a gloved hand to her chin. “Mr. Ryans, I imagine.” Tack warily took a step backward as she paced towards him, placing her hands behind her back thoughtfully. She leaned down to look more carefully at his features. “If I may, Mr. Ryans, you have your father’s handsome face, and your mother’s beautiful hair.” Tack was taken aback by the statement. The woman held out a hand in greeting. “Tarra Matock, Commander of the United States Secret Service. Nasty business, but I won’t bore you with my scars.” Dropping Tack’s hand, she turned to grab her jacket, slipping it over her black, sleeveless shirt. “Take a seat, Mr. Ryans.”

“You knew my parents,” Tack barely whispered as he slowly sank into a chair when she had dropped down behind the desk, intertwining her fingers and leaning comfortably back.

“I did,” Tarra answered. “Darin and Nolee were the Service’s finest agents, and trusted friends of the President. Oh, they were the most enticing people one could ever meet. Accomplished agents, honorable comrades, fantastic teachers. Every agent can only wish of being half as talented as they. Every damn agent I know. They swore on their lives to protect the President and his family until their deaths, would take a bullet for any one of them.” She gave a sad sigh. “Darin and Nolee were killed on April seventh, the very night that you were born. Later that year, the President and the First Lady were murdered.” Tarra clenched her fists in old anger. “The goddamned assassin took Arthur’s place as President, and sacked the entire Service. Oh, the Service is still around, but we will not baby-sit this corrupt man who is President, nor his family, nor those he keeps in office.”

There was a long moment of silence before she spoke again. “Are you familiar with the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle?”

Tack nodded, remembering the name. “I read about him.”

Tarra gave a chuckle. “Quite the reader, I see. So was your mother. But back to the point. Aristotle had a theory that everything in our universe was fabricated from four essential elements - Earth, Air, Water, and Fire - and as science long ago proved, that isn’t the case, but Aristotle’s assumptions did set other ideas in motion, which in turn set more in motion, and so on and so forth. Many modern concepts can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, and it is there that this fiasco begins.” She stood, marching toward a metal cabinet across the room, and with a brush from her palm, the breakfront slid open.

A glaring red light poured out from behind the door, bathing the area in a scarlet glow, and Tarra drew the light into her hand, turning to face Tack, crimson streams fleeing through the openings between her fingers. The glow grew brighter as she approached, the light almost blinding, and all at once it vanished when she stood before him.

Tarra opened her palm to Tack. There, lying so gently in her hand, was a round charm, golden in colour and hanging from a black string, with an engraved amber flame on red velvet. In the center of the marking was a glittering gem of deep, rich red, and that, Tack realized, was what had blazed so brightly just a moment before. He was almost instantly captured by its magnificence, feeling drawn to the charm in the most curious way, and he made no move of protest when Tarra circled behind him, pulling his long hair to one side, and lightly placing it over his shoulder. Her eyes shone as she noticed the tiny flame-shaped tattoo, only a shade darker than his skin, upon the base of his neck, one akin to the carving on the charm. She smiled, a confirmation to her own questions. Tarra tied the string around his neck, and softly laid the charm to the hollow of his collarbone.

A warmth spread through every limb as the metal touched his flesh, a sudden surge of raw power coursing through him, a feeling of phenomenal life and strength. Tarra leaned against the desk, resting one hand on the table top, watching Tack touch the charm in wonder and amazement. “What…” was all he could manage to say.

Tarra grinned. “That, Mr. Ryans, is a charm of the Elements, a magical relic created many thousands of years ago in the El Djouf Desert, part of the great Sahara, in Mali and Mauritania, Africa. There is little known of the talisman other than the fact that there are three others like it. This one, Fire, belongs to you.” She moved toward an old, yellow piece of framed parchment hanging from the wall, the picture almost completely faded away by time. “The charms seem to be imbued with some sort of spiritual energy, a completely unexplainable power for which our science has no eyes.” Tarra traced one finger over the washed out image of a flame. “This is the emblem of Fire, found only two places in the physical world, aside from pictures.” She looked to Tack. “You are currently bearing both. The first is the charm that you wear around your neck. The second is the birth-marking at the base of your neck, the counterpart of the talisman and a mark that was there when you were born.”

Tack absentmindedly touched the back of his neck, almost hoping he would feel the tattoo there that he had not known about until that moment. Not once had he seen the thing, nor had anyone told him of it. He might have hit himself for not noticing it for fourteen years if Tarra had not continued.

“You see, each of these charms, it is as though they have a mind to call their own. They can ‘choose’ those who will carry their mark. The jewel lights when its chosen is born, and fades when they die.” She paced across the room. “History has a way of repeating itself, and repeat it does. Patterns have frequently appeared in a certain bearer’s personality and mindset. Earth - powerful, ambitious. Water - deep, strong.” She spun on her heel. “There are hundreds of people born every day across the globe, and how the charm chooses, we’ll never know. There is only one chronically recurring piece of confirmation - the bearer has always been born within the first year of the new millennium. It narrows the search to within a single year. Clerics from the El Djouf are forever seeking the four gifted persons to hold the charms, and it was eight years ago that they came to us.

“Our vast network of connections made it a simple task to find four children, all born in the Year 3000, all the sons or daughters of distinguished men and women. The son of a powerful radical, the daughter of the Minister of Defense, the son of two commanding agents, and the daughter of the President of the United States. It wasn’t until Year 3008 that the information got out into the open. Two of the chosen were imprisoned, and one was left a seven-year-old child without a mother or father.”

Tack arched an eyebrow. “There was another put into Alcatraz?”

Tarra shook a finger at him. “I can’t tell you who. But that would be why you were brought here.” At his incredulous look, she grabbed him by the arm, and impatiently hauled him up out of his chair. “Come with me, Mr. Ryans.” Tarra led Tack along, out of her office, to one elevator chute. “Floor seventeen, if you please, Sweetie,” she commanded when both were inside, and the transport started upward, but did not travel far before halting to deliver the passengers onto one of the five terrace floors.

“Good day, Agent Dhakiya,” Tarra greeted as she threw open a crystalline door, and they stepped into a machine-cluttered room.

The dark-skinned agent turned in her chair, the lively robotic lemur-like critter on her shoulder chattering excitedly, away from the arching desk of colourful screens, to face the commander. She hastily dropped a pair of headphones from her ears to around her neck, her black dread-locks bouncing. “Hey, wha’s up, Commander. What can I do for ya?” she said with a smile.

“Akilah, I need you to assemble a new record in Sweetie’s files,” Tarra stated clearly, sliding into a chair and crossing her legs. “Open a residential accommodation, preferably on the thirteenth floor. A retinal scan and manual pass code to every area in the fourteenth to twentieth stories will be required, as well as the medical clinic. That is, including the training center and the garage…”

“The garage!? You gotta be shittin’ me!”

“And access to the armory and everything in it will be needed also. Did you catch all of that, Agent Dhakiya?”

“Either you found someone real special, or if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, Commander, you’ve gone goddamn crazy!” Akilah’s face was disbelieving as she faced the screens, her dark-skinned fingers flying across the touch-sensitive monitors.

Tarra stood. “Excellent.” She gripped Tack’s shoulders, steering him into the chair with surprising strength. “I expect the files to be complete within the hour.” She spun on her heel, marching away out the door.

Akilah glanced after her Commander in shock, and then at Tack, who returned her stare without emotion. There was stillness between them for a short moment, and she shook her head in surrender to Tarra’s peculiar request. “She’s gone goddamn crazy,” she mumbled, and the mechanical creature on her shoulder chattered in agreement.

This agent, Akilah Dhakiya, was a rather tall woman, well and athletically built it seemed, but with the look of African tribal dancers that you might see in magazines, with high cheek bones and dark, glittery eyes and wide shoulders. Her black dread-locks bobbed short of her shoulders with an almost spidery appearance, falling in all directions from the center of her head.

“Must be new here,” she started, seeking conversation, but finding none in the habitually quiet boy. She looked at him, inwardly questioning his silence. “Wha’s wrong with ya? You mute, or somethin’?”

Tack’s expression remained indifferent. “No.”

Akilah held up her hands in apology. “A’ight, sorry. Just curious, you know, seein’ how you ain’t said nothin’.” She turned back to the screens, tapping an icon with a fingertip, activating a hologram projection from the monitor nearest Tack. He glanced at the silvery-blue image uninterestedly, casually looking past the entrance to the area outside, following the colours and designs of the fountain beyond, or at least until Akilah’s mechanical pet vaulted onto his lap and scrambled up one arm to curiously gaze at his face, giving a tug on his cheek with one tiny metal paw as he stared back in surprise and puzzlement.

Akilah rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Kali. You stop buggin’ the kid, eh.”

Tack frowned as the mechanical creature chattered on his shoulder, and leapt away. Kid? She called him ‘kid’, right?

“The Commander ain’t even looked at another runner for Agent since the Ryans’ gave up their ghosts, and now she’s recruitin’ kids. The hell…” Akilah leaned, knocking Tack’s knee with the back of her hand to gain his notice. “Pay attention, kid. I’m gonna need a retinal scan from ya,” she told, and almost as an afterthought, Akilah added, “Don’t blink. Sweetie ain’t gonna appreciate that. Probably slam a goddamn door on your foot. Turn off all the hot water in the shower, or somethin’.”

Tack pivoted his chair around to face the computer-created image, letting the study pass over his azure eyes, cataloging his retinal patterns, and filing them away into Sweetie’s hard drive before a second passed by. Akilah nodded, turning to Tack. “Scan’s done an’ uploaded.” She watched him curiously as he made no move to leave. “You don’t have to sit there no more, you know.”

Tack shrugged nonchalantly, and broke eye contact. He was unfamiliar to this building, and all of the people inside of it. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere to go. He had no idea what he was doing here, or even how the organization found him washed up on the Bay’s beach. His last vivid memory was being engulfed in icy blackness as he plunged into the water. The swim following was a tangle of confused, hazy effigies. He could remember how cold he felt. His fingers and toes were first to go numb, and then his arms, and then his legs. Soon he was lacking feeling in every part of his freezing body. The current was continuously, hatefully trying to drag his head under the surface. His shackles were pulling him down. He was dimly aware that he had kept his deadened limbs working all the way to the shoreline only when his fingers struck the soft sand of the shallow waters near the beach. It was not long after that he succumbed to exhaustion. And now he was here.

Akilah watched him for a long moment before speaking. “When’d you show up here, kid?”

Tack shot a glare her way. “I have a name.”

Akilah shrugged and looked all the more eager to talk as she leaned forward in her chair to rest her elbows on her knees. “A’ight.”

He watched her in silence, before giving a roll of his eyes. “Tack Ryans.”

Akilah’s eyes opened wide enough that they might have rolled out of their sockets. “Ryans!? As in Darin Ryans!?” When Tack slowly nodded, she laughed and slapped her knees. “You gotta be shittin’ me! Thought you was back in D.C.!”

“Not since 3008,” Tack said almost inaudibly, absentmindedly rubbing one wrist where his shackles had previously worn his skin raw, not appreciating the direction this conversation was beginning to take. Those memories were still too fresh to surface without pain. And so he was thankful when Tarra walked into the room.

The Commander moved to stand behind Tack’s chair. “Dreadfully sorry, Akilah, but I am in need to borrow him from you.”

“Yo, Commander! You didn’t tell me he was ‘D’s kid!” Akilah cried, jabbing a finger at Tack. “Shit, girl! ‘D’ would be rollin’ ‘round in his grave if he knew you was keepin’ cloak-n-dagger like that! He would take that goddamn Arms right off your shoulder!”

Tarra folded her arms across her chest, lifting her chin and looking just as imposing as any commander might at such a statement. “Well, Agent Ryans has my most humble apologies then. Now, if you don’t mind, Agent Dhakiya.”

Akilah seemed to regress quickly to her station. “He’s all yours, Commander.” And she turned back to her desk, Kali settling comfortably atop one computer screen to play with the touch sensitive monitors and chatter amusedly, while Tarra firmly took Tack by the arm and lead him out of the office.

Tarra led Tack across the great square that comprised the lowest floor. Men and women, the agents of the Secret Service, saluted their Commander as she strode by, and Tarra replied with a touch of her fingers to her forehead as Tack trailed along behind her. A access slid open before her as she marched through the entryway and down the rather unimposing flight of curving steps that vanished around a corner and into the room below, lights flickering on separately at the sound of her hard-soled boots clicking against the tile floor. They came to a second door, and that one too, opened in a fluid motion to allow the Commander through.

The area beyond was dark, and Tack’s eyes frantically grasped for something tangible in the gloom as he moved inside after Tarra, who easily and undauntedly paced ahead, fearless of her utter lack of vision. “Lights on, if you please, Sweetie,” she ordered in an indifferent voice, and the room was illuminated, forcing Tack to blink his eyes at the sudden brightness. A gargantuan rectangular area had seemed to open up before him, four hundred feet long and another two hundred wide, and yet an additional thirty high. Black pillars stretched toward the ceiling, supporting the ebony framework balconies that ran along the walls, and the black floor stretched out, empty and huge, toward pairs of doors that adorned each otherwise plain wall.

Tack’s eyes fell upon Tarra where she stood far out on the floor, hands folded diligently behind her back. “Grand, isn’t it? The largest and most stimulating structure in the whole damned building.” Her authoritative voice echoed across the vacant area, bouncing and fading, She spun on her heel, slowly marching across the area, her footfalls resounding off the walls. When Tack did not follow, she gave a curious look over her shoulder. “Don’t just stand there, Mr. Ryans,” she commanded, and he reluctantly started after her. As Tack came to her side, the Commander continued. “This room serves many purposes. More often than not, it is a training area for our agents. The door to our left holds the armory. To the right, the pool section. And straight ahead is the entrance to our garage.” A smile lit her face. “Come. I would like you to see something.” She placed a firm arm over his shoulders, pushing Tack toward the entry on the farthest wall.

Heavy metal doors, taking up quite a deal of space on the wall, slid open with but a whisper of sound, and the lights flashed on. The garage rivaled the size of the previous room. Neatly lined up against the two longest of walls were the solemn processions of indistinguishable figures hidden under dust-covered armor shells. The faint smells of oil and fuel hung in the air, and the area seemed tomblike quiet as though it had long forgotten the sound of roaring engines and the touch of hot rubber.

Tarra’s footsteps fell loudly in the deathly stillness as she stepped toward a pale blue, cylindrical display of numerous levitating sets of keys, each with their specific data exhibited beneath in bold, white letters. The Commander’s palm closed around an individual key ring atop the characters of ‘Y3K/575M-Mar.’, and she pulled her hand from the display, examining the article she held. With a gesture of her head, Tarra beckoned Tack over as she moved beside a great figure on one side of the garage, and with a touch of her finger to the key ring, the armor casing peeled away into the floor with a series of metallic clangs.

Underneath was but an unremarkable gray vehicle, and Tack could almost hear his heart sneer, “Well, that was anticlimactic.” Yet, somehow the car spoke with nearly corporeal words, with touching fingers reaching into his imagination. ‘Think of what I could be,’ it seemed to say. ‘Think of what I could do.’

Tarra leisurely circled the piece of suddenly more interesting machinery, her arms folded rather forlornly across her chest. “575M Maranello,” she announced quietly, “developed in year 3000 by our team of automotive engineers in cooperation with Ferrari. She’s one-of-a-kind, designed and assembled for use by the Service. But it’s a sad thing, she never been completed. Your father helped to engineer this vehicle. Fabricated the plans, supervised the development. He passed away before he could finish it.”

Tack knew what was on her mind. She was afraid - though she dared not show it - that he could not measure up to his parents’ brilliance. He could see it written in the subtle worry-lines in the corners of her eyes. Tack furrowed his brow at her, his own expression hardening, and Tarra searched his face. Whatever lay within the doors of the Service was a remnant of Darin and Nolee’s talent…But whatever lay within the boy was a remnant of their hearts.

Tarra stood straight and lifted her chin. “We’ve yet to find an agent to put her in motion.” There was a mischievous twinkle in her green eyes, and the corners of her lips turned up. Tack was speechless. Did she just ask him to join the Secret Service? Obviously, she hadn’t been straightforward about it, but there it was - that redolent smile.

Tarra put a hand on his shoulder, leaning ahead to see him eye to eye. “We can strike a deal, Mr. Ryans. The Secret Service can construct you into an agent beyond compare…” She gestured to the car. “And you can have the Maranello.” She added promptly, “But you have to work for it.” Tack nodded slowly.

Tarra quickly stood, rigid as any veteran soldier, folded her hands behind her back, and stared down at him with a Commander’s steely gaze. “The United States Secret Service is mandated by statute and executive order to protect the President and Vice President of America, their families, heads of state, and designated foreign individuals, as was established in the year of 1901. For six months, trainees are under the strict instruction of several leading agents in the Service. From the moment on, should you convince yourself that you are worthy of this schooling, you will address me as Commander or Ma’am.” Her gaze turned cold, as if testing Tack on the spot. “Are you prepared for the grueling days and sleepless nights of demanding teachings and unfavorable hours that lay before you, Mr. Ryans? Are you willing to pledge your life and your allegiance to both the President of the United States and the flag? Have I made myself absolutely clear to you, Mr. Ryans?”

Again, Tack nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”

The Commander smiled, and with a powerful shake of his hand, said, “Then I welcome you to the Secret Service.”

CHAPTER THREE

Oct. 2, Year 3016 A.D.

Alcatraz Island

Two years had passed, and still there had been no sign of Tack since the day he disappeared from the island. Not a word. Not a letter. Just nothing. My emotions were battling against logic to believe that he was still alive somewhere, although reason said that there was no conceivable chance that he had escaped from the Bay. The good news was that Bloodbath had not found him, because I had never been made to watch Tack die. There was still a possibility, even if it was very small, that he lived.

I sighed for what must have been the hundredth time that day, and flipped the page of my book. Tack had taught me to read and write. He had loved it beyond all reason. My most distinct and beloved memories of my childhood friend were those when I sat next to him in the great, cushiony, red easy chair in the orphanage library and he would read to me, pointing out words and telling me what they meant and how to articulate them. He had read every child’s book on those shelves. And when he was finished with them, he had asked Cookie if he could read the tomes that she kept in her office. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, novels intended for far more experienced readers, he read them all, and by the time he had turned six years old, Cookie had to bring stories home from the public library for his ever-growing appetite for books. In fact, the day I met Tack when I was four years old, he had been reading, which was not surprising. He had slammed the book shut and hit me over the head with it. While I had been angry at him for it then, I now look back and laugh, for perhaps I shouldn’t have asked him so many questions about who Jim Hawkins was and why the man named Long John Silver had only one leg.

Though it was past twelve o’clock at night and I should have been asleep over an hour ago, I couldn’t seem to sleep while these thoughts of Tack remained frozen in my mind. Only a precious few of his features lingered in my memory. The way his dark hair fell across his shoulders, how his oftentimes cynical eyes smiled when he laughed, the reasons why I loved to just fall into his gaze. I marked my page in the book, folding the corner over, closed it and tossed it onto the table across my cell from me. I flopped onto my side, took a deep breath and slowly let it out as I closed my eyes, pulling the covers up to my ears and drifting into a light, unsettled sleep.

I had not been asleep long when I was woken by the almost inaudible rustle of clothing at the door of my cell. I felt my pulse quicken, and a gentle breeze ruffled my hair. I barely glanced back to the barred glass window, never daring to move my head. It was closed. In effect, it had never been opened. A shadow fell across the wall that I faced, and I bit my lip, silencing the scream building in my chest. I could feel eyes boring into my body, digging around inside my skin. Suddenly, there was a hand moving the blanket from my half-covered face.

I bolted upright in my cot, scrambling backward, the beginnings of a terrified shriek escaping my lips until an arm shot through the bars of the door and a gloved hand clapped over my mouth, pressing my head against the cement wall, silencing and paralyzing me where I sat.

“Quiet! You want to get us both caught!?” a figure whispered harshly. I shook my head, eyes wide with fright, and whoever it happened to be slowly took their hand from my mouth. They glanced back and forth down the hall, searching for any Sentinels that might have heard my momentary outburst, and in one swift and fluid movement, reached into a vest pocket, withdrawing what looked like a hand-held computer. “I’m getting you out of here.” The figure attached a thin, flat cord from the device to the override aperture upon the control panel, red numbers moving across a little screen as the computer began its work on the countermand password set on the lock of my door

I swallowed through my mouth had gone dry, my voice shuddering. “Who are you?”

“No time to explain,” was their only answer. From what I had gathered as they quickly walked off, this mysterious person was male, with a young, tough, and vaguely rough voice, chiseled facial features beneath a mask and sunglasses that had completely hidden his face, and a lithe, tall figure under his black clothing. He was still juvenile, I decided. Perhaps only in his mid-teens, the kind of boy who was a bad ass, dressed all in ebony attire, didn’t take shit from anyone.

“What’s that?” I asked, leaning my head against a couple of iron bars and gesturing to the device in his hand.

He glanced up at me, then back down at the half completed password on the screen. “Decrypt system…” He hesitated, turning his head to the sound of rotating tracks that echoed from down a dark corridor. “Shit!” The wire was unattached in a split second, and he all but vanished into the shadows. I flopped back into bed and yanked the covers over my head. The mechanical guard calmly took a look to the opposite end of the corridor, its surveillance unit focusing in and out, and after determining that the inmates were peacefully sleeping, turned and wheeled away.

I peered out from under my blanket, watching as the man seemed to materialize from the gloom as a ghost might from a wall, and he gazed guardedly down the hallway after the retreating form of the Sentinel. It occurred to me then that his eyes were covered, and I wondered to myself how he was able to see in the darkness of the prison at night, without so much as the light of the moon through a window. The sunglasses he wore must have been equipped with infrared vision, which would enable him to see through the shadows with ease.

Making good and certain that the mechanical guard had left, he reattached the cord to the override mechanism on the lock. In a moment, the tumblers in the padlock shifted and the deadbolts unfastened. He hid the decoder away in its pocket, and began to inch the door open, mindful not to make a sound. I eagerly swung my legs over the edge of my cot, and he took my hand, leading me from the cell, and closing the barred door behind me.

He guided me to the end of the corridor, moving stealthy and silent as a cat on padded paws, keeping his eyes on the ends of the hall. Glancing upward to a single window, he gave a soft whistle. Almost immediately, the bars seemed to simply fall away, and a rope leapt through the opening in reply, dancing against the cement floor. He steadied the line with a hand. “Can you climb?”

I looked to the window, three stories above my head, and I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He tugged me closer, and knelt to wind the cord tightly around one of my legs. “Then hold on,” he ordered firmly, and I swallowed hard, taking the rope in my hands. He gave another whistle, and with a jerk I was being lifted to the window. I gazed down at the man. Who was this unknown savior of mine that stood below me, down there on the floor, watching me through that dark mask that so hid his face from me? Who was he?

As my fingers grasped the window ledge, a pair of tough arms helped me through the opening and to the skeletal shelf on the wall. This new figure was female. Call it woman’s intuition. Her much tighter clothing revealed a good deal of feminine curves, and a slender, yet muscular shape. She gave only a nod to me, before she pressed a switch on a device that had been drilled into the concrete surface of the building, and the rope, which had been coiled by the mechanism, was lowered back through the window.

The man was upon the ledge much more swiftly than I, and his first order of business was to glare at the woman. “You said that I had four minutes before that Sentinel showed.”

The woman yanked the rope up through the hole, coiling it and attaching the device to her belt in one smooth movement. “You should know their routes better than me,” she hissed back.

In response, the man grabbed for what I acknowledged as the bars that had been cut out from the window, replaced them into their opening with a bit of an angry clang. “Fuck you, Matheaus,” he growled. “Your timing was off beam.”

In the open air, I could see the two much more clearly than I might have been able to back inside the prison. While the man wore a long-sleeved shirt that showed the contours of his strong arms and a vest with quite a few compartments on the front, accompanied by pants made of material somewhere between leather and jean, and a pair of light, soft-soled boots with a pair of belts strapped around his ankle and mid-calf, the woman wore a jacket that hugged her shapely figure, with a high neck, tight pants and the same quiet-soled footwear. Both bore ebony toques pulled low over their ears, hiding their hair.

The man took my hand again, carefully leading me along the crumbly shelf to a ladder climbing up the wall. The woman nimbly swung herself onto the stepladder and slid down, followed by myself, and then the man. As the three of us reached ground and crouched, the two figures glanced about for night patrols that may be wandering the yard with the searchlights. Getting a good, long look at his surroundings, the man nodded to the girl, and she took my arm, silently pulling me along through the dark. My vision was not obscured by shades, and my eyes strained to make out the shapes of the rough ground, and I stumbled clumsily after the agile pair.

The man went over the edge of a small rock face, and I could feel his hands at my feet. “Jump,” he whispered, and when I hesitated, there was a moment of silence, in which I could picture him rolling his eyes. “I’ll catch you.” I could tell that he was getting impatient with my impudence. The woman followed me, landing lightly next to us. There in the shadow of the outcropping, I could barely see the silhouette of a large, thin object laying against the pastel gray of the Bay. The underside of the board flashed with a sudden dull, red light, and it hovered into the air, just a foot from the ground. I stared in awe at the contraption as the man stepped onto it and held his hand out to me.

“Let’s go!” he demanded impatiently. I took his palm and unsteadily set a foot on the plank. To my surprise, it didn’t overturn as my weight was added. And the next thing I noticed, all three of us were standing upon it, which must have been more than three hundred pounds on a single board seven feet long and only one wide. The hover capabilities were obviously very sturdy.

I felt the man shift as he placed his footing and the woman leaned forward to whisper in my ear, “You might want to hold on.” Taking her advice, I reluctantly wrapped my arms around the man’s waist. The girl held onto the back of his vest from behind me, securing me into a safe grip between them.

There was a blast of movement and I was nearly torn from the man in front of me as the board shot off. Their bodies had bowed slightly backwards as their inertia insisted they don’t move, but as the motion picked up speed, they quickly righted themselves. I watched the ground pass beneath me and I glanced over the man’s shoulder. I almost panicked at what I saw. We were heading straight for the edge of the cliff. ‘He isn’t!’ I thought as the peaks neared. ‘He is!’ We shot off the ledge like a rocket and I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid to see my watery grave flying at me. I had a fear of water for I had never learned to swim. And of all the things in the world, I never thought that I would end up sleeping with the fish at the bottom of San Francisco Bay.

The seconds seemed to pass like hours, and I finally opened my eyes to find I had buried my face into the man’s back. I looked away embarrassedly as he glanced over his shoulder at me. What I saw astonished me. We were literally soaring over the water, only inches above the surface, the waves rushing, roaring away behind us in a wide, white-capped ‘V’. At first I was completely fearful that we would plummet into the sea at whichever moment seemed fit to seal our fate. Still, we flew across the Bay at a speed that I could only guess at - perhaps fifty miles per hour. My fright began to wash away as we neared the coast, the sun rising after us, though only its outline could be seen through the mist that hung over our world. But for the first time in more than two years, I felt some twinge of happiness rise in the pit of my stomach. Alcatraz was behind me, and before me lay a future of freedom. Yet somehow, in the back of my mind, there was a nagging worry that Bloodbath would wake in the morning, find my cell empty, and furiously search for his second escaped prisoner. My fears were crushed as the sound of waves breaking on the white sands of the beach filled my mind.

We passed through the area of the city they called the Fisherman’s Wharf in the twenty-first century, moving swiftly along the empty streets. The buildings, shady towering structures all of dark metal and glass, were cramped together along the avenues, sharp angles and spires seeming to brush the gray sky, silhouettes casting long shadows in the dawn. One man, a sleepy, boat-loving man raising the white sails of his tiny vessel, waved to us, and my rescuers saluted him as we sped by.

The board’s speed suddenly slowed, and we were steered onto a street that was devoid of moving traffic, all vehicles parked along the curbs until later that morning, locked up in their protective casings. When the board ceased to move forward any further without the thrusters, which appeared only as a thin mechanism stretched along the rear edge, I found myself in front of a rather large, elaborate building of shining white marble. Oddly enough, it was the only white structure on this street, or the next, or the next. Above the heavy oak doors was a magnificent statue of a beautiful woman with flowing hair, adorned with an elegant veil that framed her smiling face, and a rippling gown that frolicked around her ankles. She held her palms wide in loving welcome, a tender beckon to all of the people who passed her.

Engrossed as I was in the strangely calming stare of the monument, I had not noticed that both the man and woman had stepped from the board and were patiently waiting for me. My gaze was broken by the harsh clearing of the woman’s throat to signal that she was running out of tolerance of me. I glanced at her, and leapt down to the pavement with an apologetic smile. “Sorry.” No sooner had I removed myself from the hovering plank, the man pressed the button on his watch, and the board fell to the ground with a thud. He gathered it up under an arm after a moment of glaring at me through the dark lenses of his shades, and strode toward the doors. I would have stood dumbfounded in the middle of the street if it had not been for the gentle shove of the woman, telling me to follow.

The inside of the building, which I assumed was a cathedral of some sort, was even more extraordinary than the exterior. Between pillars of white marble at both sides of the large room sat rows of benches made from oak, and in the center aisle laid an exquisite golden carpet. At the end of the walkway was a podium, elevated by four steps. On each of the steps at either side rested a tall bronzed perch for a single frosty candle, glowing with a flickering orange flame, and behind the podium was a man on a cross, hanging his head in defeat and sorrow, but how noble he appeared, how self-sacrificing and compassionate. I walked forward, amazed by the elegance of the church. Of all the paraphernalia I could see, nothing overwhelmed me more than the intricate paintings and oak carvings of angels and choruses and all things good and wonderful that covered the ceiling. I turned in a circle, gazing up at the roof. Never in my life had I seen such beauty or felt such peace just staring at an illustration.

I looked at the man, intending to ask him about the painting, but instead noticed certain features in his now uncovered face that rang a bell in the back of my mind. He turned away almost immediately so the characteristics left only a tiny impression in my head, and he paced down a side aisle. The woman took hold of my arm, leading me after the man until we reached a pair of steel doors hidden away in a small room in the back of the cathedral.

Pushing in a series of numbers, only one or two of ten I could catch, the man summoned the gateway to open. The doors slid open to reveal an even smaller, rounded compartment of which I was balancing on the edge of discomfort to enter. Yet I trusted these people, particularly the young man who had saved me. There was something soothing in his voice, something comforting in the way he spoke to me. So I stepped inside. This tiny area, which I realized was an elevator, smoothly began its descent, and we slowed to a halt, the doors once again opening to a completely new environment.

Everything, the five balconies and the many offices that were located upon them, seemed to be made of glass and metal. I found myself most enthralled by the fountain in the center of the area, which was glowing green and red and blue, and even more so by the dozens of men and women, all dressed in black uniforms, wandering about the great square. The two that I was in the company of traded salutes with the people as they strode by, and as we finally came to a doorway, we were hailed by cheering and clapping from the hundreds of men and women that had come from their offices to see the return of these magnificent two.

The woman turned, offered a great bow and a smile before turning back, giving me a quick glance. “You’ll be meeting the Commander. Try to act normal.”

The man shot a glare over his shoulder at her. “Lenitia,” he growled sharply, “shut the hell up.”

Lenitia shrugged, placing her hands on her hips. “Whatever you say, Firestarter,” she snapped with a roll of her eyes. His dark eyebrows lowered threateningly at the comment, and she wisely closed her mouth.

The entrance opened, and I stepped in after the man, pursued by Lenitia. A part of me was dreading that room. This Commander, was he anything like I thought he might be? Gruff, and stern, and domineering? More importantly, was he like Bloodbath? Once inside, I prepared myself for a burly voice to yell out at me with spittle flying everywhere. Instead, I came face to face with a tall, slender woman in her mid-thirties with strawberry blonde hair pulled into a stylish bun at the base of her neck, wearing a pair of black pants and a red sports top, serenely settled on a pillow, cross-legged with her hands held together at her chest as if in prayer.

She opened one eye. “Good morning, Agents.”

The reply came in unison. “Good morning, Commander.” I glanced at the two standing on either side of me, their feet together and their hands at their sides.

The Commander closed her eye, and lingeringly raised her arms above her head, letting them gently fall down to her knees. “Come to join me for a little morning yoga?”

“No, Ma’am,” the man answered calmly.

The Commander opened her eyes once more. “Well, then. What are you here for?” Though I didn’t see it, the man tipped his head slightly toward me, and the Commander stared for a moment. She laughed, “Of course! Now, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” She stood and stretched her arms to the ceiling with a small grimace. “You must be Meesha. I’ve heard much about you. You were described in miraculous detail. I’m surprised that I did not recognize you earlier.” She bent to the left at the waist, throwing her right arm out in front of her, then stood straight and grasped her black sleeveless shirt, pulling it over her head. She approached me and held out a hand, which I reluctantly shook. “My name is Tarra Mattock, Commander of the United States Secret Service. It’s more than a pleasure to meet you Miss Donnell. Please, take a seat.” I did as she wandered around behind her desk.

Tarra paused before sitting. “At ease, Agents.” Behind me, I could hear Lenitia and the man, whose name I still had no knowledge of, shift their feet to shoulder-width and place their hands behind them comfortably. Tarra flopped down into her chair, casually leaning back. “I trust that your trip here with my two comrades was not rough.”

I shook my head. “No, Ma’am. Not rough at all. Ma’am, if you don’t mind my asking, why am I here?”

Tarra nodded. “The question coming as no surprise. Tack was a little confused himself when he first arrived.”

I was instantly shocked and relieved, scared and exhilarated all at once. “Tack’s here!?”

Tarra twirled a pen in her fingers and bowed her head, looking at me like Alcatraz had made me crazy. She pointed the pen. “He’s standing right there, Miss Donnell.”

I spun around in my chair, and my gaze locked on the mysterious man who had saved me from my fate. The corners of his mouth barely titled upwards into a slight smile…I recognized that smile. I felt hot tears well in my eyes. No wonder I had felt so safe all the while on the trip here. I had been standing next to my long lost friend the whole time. I jumped out of my chair and threw my arms around him, crying with unexplainable happiness. In return, his hands willingly wrapped around my back in a hug.

I pulled back to look at his face, tear streaks wet on my face. He pulled the toque from his head, his black hair tumbling down, and he set the sunglasses atop his head, his navy eyes meeting my fixed stare. God, how I missed looking into those incredible eyes. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I half laughed, half wept with rapture. He was everything that I remembered. He had grown in the past two years from five foot five to a five foot ten frame, completely dominating my five foot five height. He was no longer that skinny little boy that I used to know, although I could still see that he remained thin. His features were rugged and handsome, and his figure had become defined by finely-honed muscle. Here he stood before me, a strong, gorgeous young man, a supreme agent in the United States Secret Service…everything I had wished for, dreamed about for two years, and perhaps a little more.

Tarra cleared her throat. “Yes, well. I hate to break up this lovely reunion, Mr. Ryans, but you seem to be causing some interference in the system. If you’ll please.”

Tack nodded and turned to leave. I grabbed his sleeve, halting him. “No. Please, Commander. Please let him stay.”

Tarra laughed. “Nonsense. He won’t be going far.” I glanced at Tack, and hesitantly let go of his arm. He nodded to me and left the room, followed by Lenitia, who closed the door behind her. “Now, Miss Donnell. Do sit down. There are things we must talk about.” I sat once more, wiping rebellious tears from my face. “First of all, Tack arrived here just over two years ago. Since then, he has become a member of the United States Secret Service, committing his loyalty and guardianship to the rightful President of America. The problem is, the one who is President at the moment shouldn’t even have leadership.” Tarra gently swiveled her chair from side to side. “You see, Miss Donnell, after the former President’s death, only the Secret Service and the few who were not afraid to question the Bryants’ control remained allegiant to his bloodline. And frankly, our duty is to protect his bloodline, which is why you were brought here.” She stood and slowly crossed the room, hands held behind her back. Pausing, she turned to me, her forehead creased. “Do you know the name of the previous President of the United States, before Sammule, or Kalam Bryant took power?”

I shook my head. “No, Ma’am.”

Tarra glanced away in seeming disappointment. “I doubted that you would. His name was Arthur...Arthur Donnell.” She looked at me, a hinting twinkle in her eyes. “Your father, Meesha.” I gasped in shock. My father was the President of America!? I was the heir to Presidency!? My mouth hung open at the thought. Tarra laughed at me. “You seem startled, Miss Donnell.” I barely nodded. She placed her hands on my shoulders. “But I have more to tell. You didn’t happen to see the charm around Tack’s neck, did you?”

I looked up at her. “No. I didn‘t see it,” I replied quietly. “His vest covered it.”

Tarra bowed her head as she circled around my chair and sat on her desktop. There was a profound expression on her face as she looked at me. “Well, I will start from the very beginning then. Clerics from the El Djouf Desert informed us of the magical properties of four Elements, and the four ancient relics that bear their symbol. There are those that are ‘chosen’ by one of the four Elements to protect their powers and carry their mark.

“Tack is one of these four to bear the symbol and abilities of one of the Elements. Lenitia is also one of these four. Tack guards Fire, she guards Water, and they both hold with them a charm that gives them strength. You, Miss Donnell, are another of the four, so the charm of Air tells us.” Tarra strode toward a cabinet, from which a soft white light radiated, and as she opened the door, she took the light from its place, letting it dangle from the golden chain on which it hung. The brilliance grew brighter as she came toward me, and when it vanished just as promptly as it had begun, I could see that it was a little round charm, with the engraving of a wing on white satin, and in the center of the design was a tiny white pearl.

My life was turning around so quickly that I almost forgot to breathe. First, the President’s daughter, and now one of these ‘chosen’? I timidly took the charm into my hands, feeling warmth and vivacity rush into my body and into my mind.

Tarra crouched before me, her gentle hands on my knees. “This charm is the manifestation of all of your Element’s power.”

I clasped the chain around my neck with shaky hands. “What am I to do with it?”

Tarra smiled. “Hold on to it, Miss Donnell. Do not let it go. Do no take it off. You can protect it, and it can protect you.” She took my hand to help stand me up. “Come now, Lady Donnell. Let me show you to your room.”

I fell onto the plush, warm bed, reveling in the softness of the ashen comforters as Tarra remained in the doorway, watching me with a grin. I gazed around the room, where everything seemed to be ivory and glass, smiling in appreciation and awe for the lovely chambers. It was spacious, with a rich, ashen, queen-sized bed and crystalline night tables, ivory and gold lamps and a soft, white carpet across the floor. No more rusty cot. No more bars on my door. I could stretch my arms out as wide as possible and never touch opposite walls at once. It didn’t smell like mold. It didn’t have cold floors.

“Do you like it?” Tarra asked, a beaming grin on her face, already knowing my answer.

I turned to her. “I love it!” I scrambled up off of the bed, crossing the distance to the closet doors, which glided open before me. A bar, draped with many styles and colours of clothing, slid into my view, and I almost shyly began filing through the garments. “There’s so much to choose from,” I said with wonder.

Tarra laughed at that. “Well, you can’t go around wearing that dirty uniform, now can you.” She moved beside me, pulling a pair of cosy lounge pants from their place and handing them to me. I held them against my hips. I was startled to see a holographic image of myself appear before me, embarrassingly wearing nothing but my undergarments and the pants. Reluctantly, I pulled the clothing away from my body, and the image returned to a likeness of myself sporting only the underclothes once more. “Sweetie can help you with your wardrobe,” Tarra announced, gesturing to the hologram.

I glanced at her. “Sweetie?”

Tarra nodded. “Yes. She’s our computer system.”

I remembered the computer from Cookie’s orphanage, Anna. She was a gentle and pleasant personality, with a willing character and a love for young children. I smiled. “Sweetie sounds nice.”

Tarra chuckled, giving me a hearty slap on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t let yourself be fooled, Lady Donnell. Sweetie can be quite bitter at times.” She settled on the bedside. “Come now. Get yourself into some comfy clothing and sit down. Your hair looks a dreadful mess.” I flashed a quick smile, reaching for a top from the closet and hurrying off to the washroom with my bundle of clothing. When I emerged, holding my prison uniform in one arm, Tarra beckoned me next to her, and she kindly brushed out the long-spent tangles in my hair. “You’ve known Tack for a good while, I suspect.”

“Since I was four years old,” I offered, wincing as the brush became wedged on a knot.

“I worked with his parents in the Service,” Tarra told, tugging lightly at the brush. “A couple of fascinating people they were. I first met his mother Nolee as my trainer.” She laughed a bit. “I had two years under her instruction, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t convinced that she could sprint across the country without so much as breaking a sweat. She was a clever and kind woman, and very dextrous. Nolee was Native American. I’m sure you see what traits she passed to Tack.”

I smiled. “She must have been a beautiful woman.”

Tarra nodded. “As beautiful as they come. I thought of her as a best friend, always so full of advise and understanding. Her husband Darin was working on an engineering project at the time I came to the Service, and he was seldom seen anywhere but the bottom six levels of the building. He was extraordinarily gifted, just as Nolee was, on many fields. He had incredible ingenuity, and a gorgeous smile. Oh, don’t even get me started on his figure.” I couldn’t help but giggle at that. “He had blue eyes, like Tack’s - deep, passionate azure. And he loved Nolee past completely.

“Alas, they passed away on the night Tack was born - murder. Your father, who cherished the couple like his own family, had staged a colossal investigation to find their killers, but the assassins couldn’t be sought out.”

“That terrible,” I murmured, finally knowing the reason that Tack had ended up in the same orphanage as I.

Tarra gave a melancholy sigh. “Yes. A day for the whole world to mourn.” She sent me a smile, and stood to leave. “Well, I shall let you get accustomed to your new room. If you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask Sweetie, and she will help as she can. Good day, Miss Donnell.” With that, she closed the door behind her and marched away to her office.

It was getting into the evening by the time I had woke from a long deserved sleep, and decided to leave my room. “Sweetie,” I began. “Do you know where I can find Tack?”

“Of course,” a cheery voice sounded, and a line of blue, glinting beacons flared along the ceiling. “He’s on the twentieth floor in the training area destroying my speaker system, that damn vandal. Follow the trail of lights, and I shall open the doors for you when you get there.”

“Thank you, Sweetie,” I replied with gratitude, and I started out into the corridor. I anxiously pursued the blinking beacons to the end of the hall, and stepped into an elevator that would take me to the nineteenth floor. My mind was so filled with thoughts of Tack that I shook visibly. Now that I knew he was alive and free of Bloodbath, I couldn’t bear the notion of being a moment without him near. Tears welled in my eyes again, and I brushed them away angrily. This was no time to be weak and soppy. Why did I all of a sudden feel so fragile, so vulnerable? Around my neck, I could see that the little pearl was flickering with my tears, and I squeezed the charm in my hand, willing it to lend me a bit of its strength.

The elevator came to an easy halt, the entrance sliding open for me, and I quickly went to a door outlined in blinking lights. As it glided ajar, the sound of a strong drum beat floated up the stairs to me - music. I reluctantly started down the steps, the drumming growing louder with every pace. As I reached the bottom of the staircase, and the last door opened, I could see - or rather, hear - what Sweetie had meant by ‘destroying’ her speaker system.

And there he was, in the center of the vast, empty area, alternately pounding on a punching bag and attacking the air as though met with an adversary, with well-developed and trained series of blows from his fists and powerful strikes from his feet. His black clothing was gone, replaced with a pair of fraying, cut-off jeans, a red muscle shirt, and a pair of running shoes. I gawked, entranced by the fluidity and power of Tack’s actions, enhanced by the pounding rhythm of the thrashing rock music that filled the room, and for a moment, I just watched, admired the depth that flared in his eyes and the intensity of the vision before me. Slowly awakening from the daze that had fallen upon me, I called out his name above the music, and he looked toward me, his black ponytail whipping around his shoulder.

“Music off, Sweetie,” Tack ordered, and the tune was gone, the last remnants bouncing off the walls and disappearing.

As I came toward him, I spun in a light-hearted circle to show him my new attire, which was positively an improvement from the old uniform, and then threw my arms around his neck, feeling his strong arms wrap around me in a loving return. I hugged him tight, fighting not to burst into tears again, and pulled back to look up into his stunning eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too,” he replied gently.

“So,” I began. “You’re an agent, now.”

Tack bowed his head. “Special Division.” His gaze wandered to the charm around my neck, and he took it between his fingers.

I glanced at the charm, and turned my eyes to relic that lay against the hollow of his collarbone, watching it glitter red. “Tarra told me that you guard an Element too.”

“Fire,” Tack clarified.

I smiled. “It’s fitting.” There was a moment of silence as Tack moved to a bench along one wall, flopping down and taking a long, thirsty drink from a water bottle. I settled next to him, and though we didn’t say much, we took comfort in each other’s rekindled company. “I saw what you wrote on the walls in confinement,” I started, my voice barely a whisper. “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

“You’ve been in there?” Tack asked, sounding almost incredulous, shaking his damp, unruly hair, which had fallen unceremoniously from his tie, out of his eyes.

I rubbed my arm absently, nodding. “Bloodbath deemed me worthy.” I wasn’t about to tell him that the warden decided that I would suffer Tack’s punishment until he was found. He had a tendency to feel guilty about things that were my own misfortune.

There was another minute of quiet as Tack took a second swallow from the water bottle. “You swim?” he asked, glancing at me. I simply shook my head. Of course, he had always known how to swim ever since he was very young. I, on the other hand, had never gotten the chance to learn in the orphanage as Tack had, or in Alcatraz, which hadn’t offered freedom in sports or education other than a daily hour of yard-up and a library that we could visit only once in a week. “I can teach you.” That stuck me as a surprise. I had always known Tack to pass on his own knowledge. He taught me to read, to write…to survive, and now he offered to teach me to swim. But I was confused. Where was he going to show me? Certainly not outside in the Bay.

I shrugged again, trusting that he had someplace in mind, not about to refuse the suggestion. “Sure.” At my answer, he slipped his fingers around mine, gently pulling me from the bench and leading me to a pair of double doors.

My eyes widened with wonderment of the amazing sight before me. A rectangular swimming pool, situated in the center of a cement pad that was randomly placed with round ivory tables, which were surrounded by chairs of the same colour, and a few lengthy seats with inclined backs facing the edge of the pool. The swimming pool was softly lapping with clear blue water that cast gorgeous silver patterns on the ceiling and walls by the light reflecting off of the smooth ceramic tiles that lined the pool’s sides.

I looked around, voicing my admiration until the movements Tack made as he peeled his shirt away from his body and tossed it to a chair suddenly drew my eyes. My gaze followed his figure, gliding over his wide shoulders and powerful back, pausing momentarily on his narrow hips before crawling across his firmly built muscles. I unexpectedly felt compelled to take in every detail of his bare flesh as I watched him move along the side of the pool, and dive effortlessly into the water.

Tack surfaced after a minute, smoothing his sodden bangs back as he glanced up at me. “You coming in or what?”

I pointed at my clothes and smiled at him with apology. “I don’t have anything else to wear.”

He held his arms out from his sides as he tread the water. “Neither do I.”

He had a point. I hesitated before grasping the edges of my shirt, and shifting my weight from one foot to the other, raised my eyebrows demandingly. “Turn around.” Tack released his breath in an almost mocking sigh, and spun until his back was turned toward me. I delayed for a moment before stripping down to my undergarments and quietly slipping down a set of steps into the water, hiding my body below the surface of the water. “Alright. Teach me to swim.”

Tack turned around to face me, pausing to take a breath and disappearing beneath the water. I carefully watched as his silhouette drew closer, cutting through the pool until I felt his arms around my waist, and he came out of the water, shaking the hair from his face. I let out a surprised scream and struggled in his grip, noticing every point where my skin touched his. My laughter yielded along with my fighting as I realized that he was far stronger than myself, and I frowned at him. “You’re supposed to teach me how to swim, not to fly.” I could feel his heated gaze pass over me, and I suddenly felt very conscious of his eyes.

“I could teach you both.” Somehow his voice and the look in his dark eyes had become carnal as his glance met mine. His voice was alluring, his gaze was tempting. I had never heard him speak in that fascinating tone or seen his eyes turn as enticing as they did, and I hesitated at his words before I placed a hand on his forehead, pushing him back under the surface with a grin. He lifted only his head from the pool, spitting a mouthful of water at me. I screamed and splashed at him, but he had cleverly disappeared under the surface.

I watched his figure moving away from me. “Okay, Tack. That’s enough. Teach me to swim.”

He reappeared in an area where he was forced to tread water. “Come to me.”

I gaped at him. “I can’t!”

Tack ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing back his wet bangs. “Come on.”

I knew that I trusted his voice beyond anything. I knew that he wouldn’t let me go under. I took a deep breath, and began my pitiful attempt at swimming. The next thing I realized, I was next to him. I clutched to his shoulders in fear, gasping and kicking my legs futilely.

Tack held me up, the power of his legs keeping both of us afloat. “Relax,” he whispered, his arms around me. “I won’t let you go.” I nodded frantically, forcing myself to stop struggling, and I noticed that without kicking, my body naturally wanted to go to the surface. “Lay back,” he softly commanded, and I stiffly let my legs stretch out in the water, awkwardly keeping my head up. One of Tack’s hands lightly slid up my back, sending shivers through my spine, until it supported the back of my skull. “Ease your neck. I won’t let you go under the water.” His other hand found its way to the small of my back, holding the rest of my body.

It was a fantastic feeling to be floating, to be so weightless, to feel his tough hands against my flesh. I let my eyes drift shut, allowing Tack’s arms to guide me and trusting their strength to keep me afloat. It was freedom, complete and utter freedom. When I opened my eyes, I found that we had returned to the shallower end of the pool. I set myself upright, my hair heavy with water, and I watched as Tack scaled the few steps. My eyes were locked, and I held my breath in enthrallment. Water trickled off of his bronzed skin, glistening as it ran over his powerful muscles. I could see them working beneath his flesh, twisting and cording. I forced myself to blink and follow, slipping my pants back on while Tack leisurely dropped into a lengthy chair, crossing his ankles and leaning back.

I sat at the foot of the seat, pulling my shirt back over my head. “Tell me, what have you been up to these past two years?”

Tack half laughed. “Working my ass off. Get up at five every morning, don’t get to sleep until twenty-three hundred hours.” He lifted his head to me, propping himself up on one elbow and holding up his fingers as he counted off a list of activities. “I have to study arithmetic, chemistry, physics, mechanics, and munitions, and that doesn’t include the nine goddamn hours of physical training.” He leaned back again.

I winced. “Sounds rough.” I let my eyes linger on his composed expression for a moment. As I glanced away, my gaze fell upon the crooked scar on his right foot, and I furrowed my brow in curiosity. “What happened to your foot?”

Tack raised his head to look at his feet. “Shot myself,” he replied coolly as though it was nothing out of the ordinary.

I blinked, disbelieving. “You shot yourself!?”

He nodded as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “Working with a forty caliber handgun. The bullet went clean through, cut a bunch of nerves apart. Sweetie fixed most of them, but I still lost some feeling.” Tack sat up, bending his knee toward him, and running a finger over the desensitized area. “Last two toes and along part of the right side. Shit, someone could chop those toes off and I wouldn’t know it.” He dropped his hand into his lap.

I grinned, turning my eyes to my hands, which were folded neatly over my knees. “That’s what it’s like being an agent?” My gaze met his, and the world seemed to stop moving. I was suddenly very aware of his every defined feature - lithe body, strong chest, washboard abs, powerful legs…

Tack shifted his feet, setting them on either side of the chair, and he took my hand, running his rough thumb gently over the back. He softly pulled me toward him, and I readily complied, moving closer. His breath was warm on my face. My heart was pounding inside my chest. Warily, not more than whisper, his lips brushed mine. I felt no disapproval as he began placing timid kisses against them.

There was confidence now, and momentum, as his kisses lingered, mounting in passion, and I suddenly found myself returning the actions. His tongue slid along my lower lip, and I swiftly opened my mouth to him. His taste was overwhelming, all fire and fervor, and suddenly, I ached, burned for him. My mind blanked of all other thoughts, and I could feel only the sensations surging through my veins. I felt his hands against my bare flesh, inching along my spine, felt his lips against my jaw line, the ridges of his stomach beneath my fingers. And all at once, I felt doubtful.

“Tack, I don’t know…” I whispered as he planted fervent kisses over my neck and shoulders.

“Neither do I,” he barely breathed, his voice husky as he nipped at my ear. “And we never will if we don’t try.” He pulled back, grasping my hands in his, pulling me out the doors, and across the training area to the stairwell. He led me up the staircase, through the great open section of the nineteenth floor, and to an elevator. “Floor thirteen, Sweetie,” he ordered, and the compartment began it ascent.

He backed me through the door of his personal residence, his mouth against mine, and he roughly reverse-kicked the control panel, shutting the door and locking it. I flinched. I didn’t think that Sweetie was going to be happy about that.

Tack’s hands found the material of my shirt, sliding it up slowly, breaking the kiss only to pull it over my head and toss it to the floor. His suddenly teasingly pleasant fingers found the hooks of my bra, unlatching and dropping it, letting his lips dance over my skin, down my neck and over my shoulders where fabric had once touched, to the valley between my breasts, and I threw my head back in wild abandon, a moan of elation escaping my mouth. The strength of his arms was all that was keeping me quickly weakening knees from collapsing as I clutched at his back, fingernails softly raking his skin when one of those delightful fingers slid along the inside of my pants’ waistband, tickling my lower abdomen and loosening the drawstring. They, too, fell to the floor.

He abruptly took a step back, the warmth of his body leaving me, and so caught up in the bliss of the moment as I was, I had not realized that I stood naked before him. My gaze met Tack’s, and I noticed how he chewed on his lower lip, eyes dark and lustful as he drank in the sight of my bare figure. My hands clenched at my sides, and I immediately felt rather discomfited under his burning scrutinizing. I wondered what was going on in his mind, but his body language answered. His hands went to the back of his neck, pulling the tie from his hair and flinging it to a table. He took a pace forward, sweeping me up into his arms and lying me on the scarlet-coloured comforters of his bed.

His mouth was planting impassioned kisses against my face, neck, and shoulders as he moved his weight above me, fingers touching and caressing as though he wished to feel every inch of my body at once. “You…have no idea…what…you do…to me,” he said gruffly between kisses.

I fumbled blindly with the button of his jeans with trembling fingers. “What do I do?”

One strong hand encompassed mine, gently pushing it aside to unfasten the clasp himself. “You drive me to the edges of insanity.” The button of his pants came undone.

I buried my fingers in his ebony locks as his tongue swept over the hollow of my collarbone, setting my body aflame, and I sucked in a thrilled breath. “Tell me that I’m beautiful, Tack,” I murmured, shutting my eyes as my back arched up to him.

“You’re beautiful. You’re gorgeous…” his said softly in reply, and he kicked his jeans away. His hands roamed up my sides, sending jolts of electrical bliss through me as they guided my arms above my head. “Tell me you want me,” he almost growled, so husky had his voice become.

I gazed up at him, feeling unexpectedly doubtful. “I don’t know…” I whispered.

Tack lifted his head from my shoulder, confusion and ambiguity written openly in his eyes, his dark hair falling around me. “What’s wrong?”

My voice was wavering, and I reluctantly answered, feeling my hands begin to shake as they held to his shoulders. “I’m a little scared,” I admitted quietly.

Tack placed a gentle kiss on each of my closed eyes. “We’ll take it slow,” he promised softly, and the sensation of complete trust that the words instilled upon me had me nodding my head.

but its fuckin awsum

YOU DONT READ THAT FAST!!!!