Triplicate #1

By John Foradori

Ten Year Promise

"I heard the voice of redemption;

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1-

When I was growing up, some people said that it was my memory that was my best attribute. I could remember the details of everything I heard and saw, no matter how complicated or how plain. It was as much a curse as it was a gift, I think.

That's what brought me to that bench on October 12, a promise that I had made ten years earlier to the day with a very special person that I had committed the more heinous act anyone could ever do to someone else, and of all my atrocities over the last ten years, this was the one that ate at my soul. Hopefully, I thought, I would get a chance to right a wrong. That was the main motivation for maintaining my end of the bargain. That and the fact that the end of my task was at hand, and by some strange twist of fate, it brought me back home.

It was a chance that I couldn't dream of getting.

It was something that I dreaded as well.

How could I tell her the truth? How could I tell her the reasons? I knew why, but there was no way that I could make her listen to the truth, and understand it for what it truly was.

The truth was that I couldn't. This was going to be bloody, no matter which way it turned out. I could only hope that time had eroded any feelings of hate, or even worse, disappointment. But I think that I am getting ahead of myself. I should introduce myself and set up the story so far.

My name is Gabriel McGuire, and I think that I'm dead. Truth is, I'm not sure, but whatever this place is that I am, it's dark, it's lonely, and I haven't found a way out of it yet. Somehow I doubt that anyone will find this record. Making it, though, helps buoy what's left of my life, and my mission, which may or may not have succeeded.

In due time, the story will be explained, up until just a few moments ago, when I started this chronicle. Remember, though, that my name is Gabriel McGuire, and I think that I'm dead.

And also remember that I am not sure of my demise. We'll see, I guess.

Back to the story now, the bench in the park. The park's name was Halmich, which was located in the northern suburban city of Warren, Michigan, which was within spitting distance of Detroit. The park was a half of a mile by a quarter of a mile, and was filled with numerous soccer and baseball fields. On the southern side of the park, near the baseball fields, a group of trees shaded the picnic area, which was filled with playground equipment, park benches, and picnic tables. There was a small, man-made hill on the west side of the trees, on the other side of it was the parking lot.

It was on one of those benches that I sat, looking at the hill, waiting to see the glow of headlights as a car came to a halt.

It was early October, and the weather was starting to cooperate with the season. The air was crisp, not a degree over fifty-five. The sky was clear and starry; I couldn't see a cloud anywhere. That was a bit strange for the Metro Detroit area, but not unheard of. A soft but biting breeze occasionally swept through the park, but it didn't effect me too much. The leaves on the trees had all changed from green to the golds, oranges and browns, all of the familiar shades of autumn. Most of the trees still had their leaves, but some of them had already packed it in for the year. I could see the harvest moon rising through the skeletal branches.

Ten years earlier, we sat here, on this very bench, two high school kids who had fallen in love, making a pack that no matter what happened between us, ten years from that moment, at ten o'clock at night, we would meet right here, on this bench. What we would talk about, we didn't know. Maybe we would still be together, at least that is what she though, and what I said. I knew different, though, I knew that it couldn't last. It wasn't part of the plan, of the mission I was on. There was no room for love, or even though thought of falling in love.

But I did, much to my chagrin.

Love is a powerful force, but in the end, when I had to make the decision, it wasn't powerful enough.

I remember the day that I left, we had graduated three weeks earlier. I was preparing to go to a college that I would never set foot in. She was already starting to integrate herself into her father's business, as well as preparing to go to college, a different one, far, far away from where I was going.

We had a date, a movie, and then a party with some friends. It was going to be fun, a lot of fun, but I never showed up at her house.

She called my home, I know it, but the number had already been disconnected. I was out of the state, with absolutely no trace that I had ever been in the state of Michigan. I had to do it, although I hated myself for it.

I think that hate made it easier to do the terrible things that I did after that. If I already hated myself, it really didn't matter what I did.

The wind picked up again and this time I felt the chill. I had a nice resilience against the elements, and the ragged gray sweatshirt and thermal undershirt I wore took care of the rest. Tonight was just as I remembered the night ten years earlier, and as I said, I had a good memory. I still do. It was close, but not the same thing.

Tonight was filled with something else. Doubt filled me as I sat there waiting. It was already ten after ten, and I was beginning to think that she wouldn't show up. I was hoping that she would, hoping beyond hope actually. I was scared that she wouldn't.

Her name was Jenna Dimonte, at least it was ten years ago. I wasn't sure that it was anymore, which, I think, would have made things easier to explain, even though it would rip my heart in two. She had auburn hair, it was always at least shoulder length and straight. Her dark, Mediterranean eyes were her most powerful features. They are what drew me to her. I could feel myself melt in them; I could feel them burrow into my mind, into my soul. They were so compassionate, yet powerful in an almost disturbing way. They showed a fire that was uncommon, at least in the other seventeen-year-olds that I had run across in high school. It was that power that first grabbed me, and her heart that kept me.

Her face was sharp, yet very feminine. It's hard to describe it, I was never any good at things like that. She was beautiful, though, extremely so. She was Italian, but also claimed to have some Greek in her. Her skin, slightly darker than most of the Italians that I had met, was soft and smooth, no matter what she was doing. She was perfect, in just about every way that I could think of.

She was a three-sport athlete, swimming, volleyball and softball. She excelled at all three. I knew of her in the tenth grade, my first one at the school, but I met her after a swimming meet. I went to the coach, whose name was Floyd Larson, and expressed interest in joining the team, which would start practices in about two weeks. He was eager to have me join, and asked me to stick around if I could and watch the woman's team swim.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't immediately attracted to Jenna when I saw her in her one-piece swimsuit. Instantly, I saw that she was close to perfection, and I was immediately intrigued. I was shy, though, and didn't say anything.

I sat there, watching the meet from the stands all by myself. I studied the different strokes, most of them I wasn't familiar with, but soon I knew what my body needed to do. I watched the races, the competitiveness, the team dynamics. I was surprised at how emotional the women got when they won, and when they lost. It was very refreshing.

In the middle of the meet, there was a short interruption and warm-up. Coach Larson motioned for me to come down and talk with him. He asked how I liked the meet, and I was honest with them. He liked that. He asked me if I had ever swam before, and I said no, which was true. He seemed a bit apprehensive about that, but I knew that as soon as I started, I wouldn't have a problem, and Coach Larson would be pleased.

I wanted something to take up my time. Homework certainly wasn't doing that. An organized sport would probably help out in more than a few areas of my development.

He patted me on that back, told me to wait there, and disappeared into his office. He came out with a maroon and gold sweatshirt, the school colors, and handed it to me. He told me that if I wanted to, I could watch the rest of the meet from down on the pool, assisting him as needed.

I agreed. It would be an interesting change of pace.

I went into his office, and slipped into the sweatshirt. I returned and almost knocked Jenna into the pool.

She flashed me a look that made my heart skip a beat. I was effectively put into my place. I stayed away from her for most of the rest of the meet.

The highlight of the meet was when I counted laps for the 500-yard freestyle. I sat at the opposite end from where the swimmers started, and when the swimmer in my lane was approaching, I would wave the lap number indicator in front of them, so they knew how far along in the race they were.

I watched a ten-minute race come down to fractions of a second and one blown flip-turn. It was fascinating.

I got splashed a lot, but I had a great time.

The latter portion of the meet was as much fun as I had had in high school to date. It was a close meet, both teams were tops in the league, and the winner of this one would have a distinct advantage when everything was said and done. With three races left, the 200-yard Individual Medley, the 100-yard Breaststroke and the 4x100-yard Freestyle relay, the meet was all tied up. It was very exciting.

The IM came and went. We took first, but the other school took the remaining points and held a two-point lead. It was up to the last two races.

Jenna sat down next to me, mainly because there wasn't any other room on the bench.

She looked at me with those eyes of her. They told me that she remembered what had almost happened earlier, something I should make amends for.

"I'm sorry for almost knocking you in the pool earlier," I said sheepishly. That's what shy people do, I guess.

She shrugged her shoulders, after which a wince of pain was evident on her face. Immediately, I became a bit concerned. She was on the number one relay team, a team that needed to win if we would have any shot at winning. Plus, I didn't like to see her face show any kind of pain.

I remember thinking that I was starting to fall in love with her.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"My shoulder," she said, knowing immediately that I had noticed her discomfort. "It's been aching the last three weeks."

I could help her, I knew. "Let me try something," I told her. She looked at me skeptically. "Trust me," I reassured, "this will help you."

"Who are you?" she asked. I was a bit deflated by that, she had never noticed me before. It wasn't a big deal, though, not now.

"I'm Gabriel McGuire."

"You go to Mott?" Mott was the name of our high school.

"I sure do."

"And I never noticed you before?"

"I keep a low profile."

She smiled a bit. "What are you going to do?"

"I know a way to stretch out muscles, which will probably help you out, at least for the race."

"How?"

"Well, I guess it's part stretching, and part massage."

She looked at me skeptically again. This strange boy wants to give her a massage. Oddly enough, she consented.

"Don't try anything funny, though."

I smiled at her, and went to work. First, I stretched her arm a bit, to get a feel as to how stiff it was. I pulled it as far as it could go, as gently as I could, and they went to work on the shoulder itself. I could feel not only the tightness in the joint, but also her apprehension. I started to work over the muscle, and I could feel the stiffness and apprehension leaving. She started to relax, which made it easier. Now I knew where her true affliction was. I pounced on it, kneading it out of existence.

People started to notice, especially how relaxed she was. Soon, I was finished, and pulled away from her. I didn't want to, touching her was really nice. She sat back and turned to look at me. "Wow," was the only thing that she could say.

"I used to put some time in at a hospital," I lied. "I learned all sorts of neat things like that."

"Thanks," she said, moving her shoulder around.

"Just go win the relay."

She did, and we won the meet. The women went on to win the championship. That was my sophomore year. That swim season, I was a distance swimmer, constantly underachieving in my times, but still, I was the fastest in the league. Jenna noticed me a few times in the hall and said hello. I usually smiled and waved, because I was shy.

A large leaf from an oak tree smacked me in the face, snapping me out of that recollection. I looked around, but I couldn't see anything except a bunch of leaves doing their tumbleweed impersonation blowing across the park.

I looked at my watch; it was now twenty minutes after ten. I would wait here all night if I had to, just to be sure.

Maybe she forgot. Her memory wasn't as good as mine.

So I remembered back to high school again, to my first swim season, to the end of my sophomore year. That summer, I decided to play football, so I learned as much as I could about it.

I was six feet tall, and I had a good arm. I decided to try out for quarterback.

I never got to play quarterback, though, because the kid ahead of me had been the quarterback for the last two years, and he was pretty good. In the first practice, the starting middle linebacker went down with a terrible knee injury. Since I had no future at quarterback, I asked for a try at linebacker. It was a natural fit.

After practices, I would go to the pool and work on my form. It was just an excuse to catch a peak at Jenna. I think she knew, although she has never confirmed it, and I never asked. It was a secret that was ok to keep on going.

Then, finally, things started to happen between the two of us. I started to notice her more in the hallways, and she started to notice me. It was nice that way, almost like we had some kind of hush-hush relationship going. We would exchange smiles, nothing more than that. It was enough, though.

The last football game of the season was upon us, and we were fighting for a birth into the district playoffs. It was a hard fought battle between two above-average high school teams. I liked it because the team that we were playing, Lamphere High, they liked to throw the ball around. That meant I got to blitz a lot.

I was the more brutish linebacker. I was fast, but I was also three inches taller than my counterpart. He would drop back into pass coverage, and I would rush the quarterback. It was a great setup, and both of us were very good at what we did.

I had already gotten three sacks by halftime, and we had the Rams scrambling. Their passing game was falling apart, and we were smothering the run. The rain was starting to turn to snow, even though it was only mid October. The field was getting messy, which meant that the game would get more physical.

We had a nice lead of ten points heading into the fourth quarter, and we had the ball. With about five minutes left, we punched it in, a nice ten-yard scamper by our tailback. We were up by seventeen points, and were going to make it into the playoffs.

My coach wanted to pull me, but I demanded to play. I wanted to end the regular season with an exclamation point. On one of the plays, I got hit funny, and fell into another player. Then, the pile started to form, and I heard my leg snap. The rush of pain was deadened as soon as I felt it, but still, I knew that my game was done.

It was a bad break, the femur. I couldn't walk so I was carried to the sidelines, a look of agony on my face, which was already covered with blood-not all of it mine. I got a nice cheer from the crowd, they appreciated the game I had given them.

I was concerned with the first aid I was receiving. They offered an ambulance, but I declined. My parents-no one had ever seen them at my school, or any of my games-were not there. (That will be discussed at a later time) No one knew how I was going to get to a hospital to get this worked on.

Then I heard a voice. "I'll take him."

We all looked over to the fence, and there she was. Jenna was at the game, bundled in her varsity jacket with a white scarf, looking at me with those compassionate eyes of her, filled with sympathy for my situation.

I looked at the coach, who looked at the trainer, who shrugged his shoulders. I turned back to look at her, and our eyes remained fixed on each other until I made it to her car.

Now, thinking back, I knew that it was unheard of for someone to be taken to the hospital during a football game by one of the student body. I don't know why we got away with it. I was happy that we did.

The passenger seat of her car, a 1989 Buick LeSabre, was pushed as far back as it could go. I already had taken off my shoulder pads, and was wearing one of the lined rain coats that the team was wearing to keep warm. My leg was already in an air cast, which was to be returned no matter what happened that night. I sat there for a moment while the trainer talked to Jenna, giving her instructions. I watched her get into the car. She looked at me, smiled, and drove off for the hospital.

One the way there, her hand found mine, and I felt like nothing in the world could hurt me, not now, or ever again.

I sighed, looking around again, not seeing anyone. It was closer to eleven now, and I was beginning to worry. I held out my hand, and watched it shake uncontrollably. It was amusing to watch, even though I knew the war that was raging inside my body. So far, I was winning. I had seen what had happened to those who lose this battle, and I wasn't there yet. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Only then could I control the shaking. Only then could I really keep it at bay.

I stopped reminiscing about the past. The more I remembered, the more desperate I got. I wanted to see her; I just didn't know how much I did.

The breeze had grown in strength, like it did every night when the air-cooled. It was constantly blowing now, not too hard, hard enough to put a chill through me.

So I sat there, waiting for a sign, any kind of sign.

All I got was cold.

2

I waited until eleven-thirty. The wind was too much to handle, if I were to give my full attention to keeping my shaking hands still. I started to gather myself, and stood up. I was a bit stiff; it would take some time to stretch out.

I turned around, and saw a silhouette of a person. I knew immediately who it was. Almost instantly, I wasn't cold anymore. My heart skipped a beat, which surprised me. She stood about fifty yards away, staring at me, not moving, only watching.

I didn't know what to do, I couldn't go running up to her, that wouldn't be right. I decided to sit back down. She knew that I saw her, and if she was going to come over and sit down, she would. It was up to her now.

I waited there, listening for the footsteps. I was so pleased when I heard them.

She looked exactly the same, as beautiful as the day that I left her. She was dressed nicely, in a sweater and slacks. She had done her make-up, too, which was something that she hardly ever did, she despised make-up. She didn't need it, either.

She sat to my left, approaching that way. She sat on the edge of the bench, not looking over to me.

I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. Anything I would have said would have come out wrong. I waited for her to make the first move. She didn't, though.

After a long time, something over ten minutes, I think, nothing had been said. I took a deep breath, and decided to make the first move.

"I didn't think you would show tonight."

She didn't say anything in response. I returned the silence with more of it.

We sat there in the cold, looking straight ahead, not saying a word. My heart couldn't take it, though. For me, it was like the last ten years didn't happen, that my soul was mine again, but it was all slipping away.

Then she broke the silence. "It was a mistake for me to come here tonight."

I looked at her, and I thought that she might be crying. She was stronger than that, though, I knew it.

"No, it wasn't." Stupid.

She turned and slapped me. Hard. I didn't think that I was that weak, but it knocked me off the bench. It hurt, too. Normally, things didn't hurt.

I couldn't move, or at least the way that I wanted to move wasn't getting me anywhere. This had already happened to me many times before, a side effect of the fight my body was raging.

So, like a sack of potatoes, I laid on the ground, at her feet, unable to move. I managed to twist my head, and saw her expression turn from one of anger to something a little softer. She must have seen the scar.

"Oh my God," she said, kneeling down next to me. "What's happened to you?"

"I can't move," I groaned. "Help me back onto the bench."

She grabbed me under my armpits, and struggled to pull me back onto the bench. Soon, the attack would end, and I would regain the full use of my body. They were getting stronger, though, which was a concern.

She looked at me, kneeling in front of me. She wiped the hair from my eyes. My once full, thick black hair was peppered with gray, and was a bit thinner.

She still held onto her youth, even though I noticed her eyes had rings around them. I must have looked so old compared to her.

"Gabriel, what happened to you?" she asked again.

"I'm dying," I told her. It was the truth, anyhow.

"Oh Gabe," she held onto my hands. No one had called me that since high school, since she did. "How?"

"I contracted a rare disease." To be honest, it wasn't a disease, but I wasn't ready to give away all of my secrets. I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but it wasn't a disease. "It's almost like ALS, eating away at my body." That much was true.

"And you still came back."

I smiled at her. She didn't have to know all of my reasons, just the ones that mattered. "I wanted to see you." I found I could move again, finally. "I wanted to make things okay between us." I stroked her cheek softly, and she turned her head into my hand.

"Why did you leave?"

I wasn't ready to tell her, and I'd be willing to bet that she understood that from my silence. I looked away, withdrawing my hand.

"Gabriel, it's the only way we can be okay. You have to tell me."

To be honest, there are more reasons that I had not to disclose anything of my past to her than I can go into here, but the biggest one was a more common emotion, fear. I didn't want to open myself up again, not like before. If I rebuilt anything with her, any of the feelings, it could jeopardize everything that I had worked and fought so diligently for over the last ten years. It could ruin everything, which, in turn, could ruin EVERYTHING.

I wanted to, but I couldn't. It was the story of my life, I have always been a slave to the whims of someone else. It would hold me until it was over, and it wasn't going to end, not ever.

I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do, not in a situation like this. She was the one person that I wanted to impress, to be good for. When things were tough, after I contacted whatever it was that I contracted, when I was alone in a hotel room writhing in pain as my body's defenses attempted to contain it's spread, I would think of her, and how I didn't want to fail her. It didn't matter what I did to her in the past, she was still everything to me.

Maybe it was because of that I started talking without even thinking. Maybe even though I shouldn't tell her, I wanted to tell her.

I was still looking away at her, my eyes fixed on the skeleton branches of the oaks in the park swaying back and forth in front of the almost full moon. The stars seemed to move with the branches. "Do you remember our senior prom?" I didn't wait for an answer, because I already knew it. "It was that night when things started to unravel for me."

I waited for a reaction, but I didn't get one. I continued to look away. "Do you know why you never met my parents?" Still no reaction. "Do you have any idea why we never went to my place, or anything like that?"

Still nothing.

"I didn't, not until our prom night. Things got clear for me that night."

Finally, a reaction. "I remember you getting sick that night."

"I wasn't sick, not really."

"It ruined the whole night. It ruined everything."

I knew that to be true. Everyone else had fond memories of their senior proms, the dance, the after party at the hotel rooms, the alcohol, the innocent fooling around. I remember everything from getting the tuxedo, picking the corsage and dozen red roses that I brought to her, the limousine, the dance, and the final slow-dance. I remember looking into her eyes during that final song, the music disappeared, the world disappeared. It was me and her, and I was lost in her eyes. At that moment, I knew that I would never love another woman the same way. At that moment, I knew that I never wanted to love anyone but her.

I think she felt it, too. We left the prom hand in hand, not able to take our eyes off of each other. It was such a great feeling. We got into out limo and headed for the after-prom party with our friends, mostly made up of members of the swim team. I was holding her in the limo, savoring the moment, when I started to get an excruciating headache. I took some aspirins, but they didn't help. Soon, I was on the floor of the limo, grabbing my head, tears rolling down my cheeks in the most intense pain I had ever felt up to that point.

Then it stopped. The pain was replaced by a voice. It was clear, and it was real. Jenna couldn't hear it, that much was certain, but the voice was calling to me, telling me that I had a mission, that I had to take her home, that I had to go somewhere else, without her.

It would always be without her after that.

The voice was too strong to deny, so I continued with the story of the headache, and that I needed to go home. I was rude, ruder than I had to be. I dropped her off at the party, and when she got out, I sped away, leaving her behind.

She was the one that took me to the hospital when I broke my leg during the football game. She was with me the following autumn when I dislocated my wrist. She had seen me when I was hurt, and I welcomed it. Having her around made it easier to go through the agony. It wasn't agony at all, actually. It was kind of nice.

But that night, I couldn't be with her. I pretty much kicked her to the curb and left. Nothing was ever the same after that.

The limousine took me to my house, and I got on my bike and rode off into the distance, to where I thought was no where. The voice told me to go, to keep on going, and don't stop.

I was pedaling fast, as fast as I could. Surprisingly, I was beginning to overtake cars on the streets. I knew the road I was on, Mound Road, had a speed limit of forty-five miles an hour, but no one went that slow. It was more like fifty, or fifty-five. And I was passing them.

I continued going north, and soon I was outside of Warren, through Sterling Heights. I was headed to Romeo, Michigan, which was about twenty miles or so to the north. I made it there in no time flat.

The voice continued to guide me. I had no idea where I was, but it wasn't the city, or anywhere close to the city. There were hills, small hills, but hills all the same. I noticed apple orchards, as well as other types of farms. It was a very beautiful place. I rode my bike through them all.

I finally came to what I first thought was a forest, but realized that it wasn't nearly big enough. It was just a about thirty acres of trees. I stopped the bike, and followed the directions of the voice in my head. I was beginning to think that it was a little bit crazy. The voice was real, though.

I should explain a little bit about the voice. It was the voice of a woman. It was soft and comforting, in every way that the voice of someone's mother should be, especially when the child has hurt himself or gotten scared, or something like that. I could get lost in that voice, listen to it for hours and hours.

There was more to it than that, though. There was a bit of a mechanical sound to it, like it wasn't completely real, that it was coming through a recorder, more a computer synthesizer than a tape or something. And there was a sense of urgency and power in it, too, just enough to give me the feeling that if I didn't do what the voice said, I would be in a world of hurt.

So that was what I was listening to, a sort of synthesized mother voice that seemed it could turn on me in a second. I think that if I were crazy, I would make up a more crazy sounding voice. So I did the only thing I thought was right, and I followed it.

I walked deep into those woods. I knew I would get lost, run into a witch or some kind of cult, or maybe worse, some big pissed off deer. I didn't want to run into a pissed off Michigan deer. They have scores to settle.

Surprisingly, I avoided all the supernatural forces, the strange cults to the moon goddesses, and the vigilante furry animals. I thought I would have run into something, though. It took about an hour before I did.

I was at least a mile into the woods, probably more. Around me, all I could see was trees. It was a lot like that night on the bench, ten years later, with the trees. Some had leaves, some didn't. The ones that didn't had the buds, though, which added a strange look to the regular skeleton tree. It was a knobby skeleton tree look, I guess.

Deeper I went, until I came to a very unnatural clearing. There was a cylinder cut into the branches, like something had fallen through. It was strange to see that hole in the trees, when everything else was so thick around it.

We're here, the voice told me, so I stopped. In front of me, the trunk of a fallen tree blocked my way.

Touch it.

I did.

There was a flash, and then I wasn't in the woods any longer. I was in a room, a very sleek and sterile room. The walls were pewter, like the pants of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. There was a chair in the room, facing a wall.

Sit in the chair.

I sat in the chair, and then suddenly, things started to change. My head started to, well, it's hard to explain. I started to recognize things, the chair, the room, the wall, and strangely, the panel of lights and knobs and buttons that appeared before me.

This room was my room, it was as close to a home as I have ever had. Then the voice returned.

Can you see again?

I smiled. Things were clear again, much clearer than they were before. All those superfluous teenage high school problems evaporated, and were replaced by much bigger, more serious problems. "I can, Michelle," I said to the voice. I think I heard her sigh.

The memory faded and I spoke to Jenna again. "Things happened that night, defining, life altering things."

"What could have been more important than what we were doing?"

I didn't think that I could tell her exactly what was more important, because I would have been on that bench for days. "It's hard to explain, Jenna, very hard."

"Well try." She was furious, I could read it in her voice. I don't blame her.

"My destiny paid me a call, and I couldn't refuse it."

She looked at me, but I still looked away. Finally, I looked back at her. She was crying, at least a little bit. I had hurt her something terrible. I had hurt myself as well. I didn't want it to happen, I liked where I was, and who I was with.

But I was called, and I was already promised to someone else. I got up and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in mine. "Things started to happen, and they happened too quickly. There was nothing I could do about them, and I had to leave."

She didn't understand, and I wasn't doing a good job at it.

"I'm not the person that you thought I was back them. I was never that person."

She still looked at me with those eyes of hers that were filled with sadness and anger.

"I wasn't back then, in high school, and I am even farther from that now. Things have happened to me, terrible things. I've had to make some disgusting, horrible decisions, and commit some heinous actions. Through it all, through the shit, I thought of you, and the time we spent together. It got me through it.

"That's why I came back. I needed to see you, to see that you were okay, that I hadn't ruined your life. I needed to know that you were in good shape, better shape than me. I'm a shell of what I was, and I wanted to know that you were better off than me."

I felt my hands starting to shake again, and I couldn't stop them. I let go, stood up, and stepped back. I couldn't stop the shaking, and I was beginning to get worried. Normally, I could control it, stop it before it got bad. I couldn't do that now, though.

I can't stop it.

That was a bad sign. They were shaking even worse now; my arms were starting to become uncontrollable. "I�I'm sorry, but I can't stay." I turned for my car, all I wanted to do was get out of there. My body wouldn't let me.

I don't think it was a seizure, at least not like the typical seizures that most regular people have. It was more of an episode, like I had way too much caffeine or something like that. It hurt, more than usual. I could still move, but the pain was overwhelming. I didn�t' get very far like that. Every breath hurt, every muscle contraction hurt. I thought I was going to die.

And then I felt her arm around my shoulders. She pulled me close to her and held onto me, and I started to sob uncontrollably. I didn't want to leave that moment, not ever.

She held me for a long time, and then she started to lead me somewhere. I wasn't sure where, but I didn't care. I would know if it was a danger, but it didn't seem like that.

Maybe those suspicions were wrong, maybe I had been paranoid for too long. Maybe everything that I knew was wrong. I sure hoped so.

Then the voice, Michelle, my true guardian angel, the one being in the entire universe that would do anything for me, started to speak up, and I didn't like what I was hearing.

Gabriel, try not to let your guard down, I have bad news for you.

Michelle, the voice, and I had an arrangement about moments like this. The only time that she would ever interrupt an intimate setting would be for some sort of extreme emergency. I guess this was it.

I've found trace elements on her fingernails. Not enough to be of concern to anyone, but the chemical signature is unmistakable.

Traces of what? I didn't want to hear the rest, I didn't want know this truth.

She's covered in Triplicate.

3

From that moment on, everything changed. She was covered in the stuff that was slowly eating away at my body. I wonder if she knew how it was used, at least how it was used on me.

When the pain left me, and the sobbing stopped, I carried it on a bit longer. She told me that she was taking me to her house, and I went along with it. To what end, I didn't know. I wasn't sure how to react to it, whether or not to tell her anything, or just keep it all to myself. Michelle wouldn't be of any help, not now. It was something I had to decide.

We walked across the park, to her backyard. I remember that she used to live in the subdivision right next to the park, that's how this spot became ours. When I was over her place doing homework, or watching a movie, sometimes we would walk through the park at night. It was so peaceful, so perfect. We sat on the benches, swung on the swings, walked through the woods. It was nice, really nice.

It wasn't her old house that we were going to, it was one a few houses down the street. I noticed that. "I thought we'd be going to your parent's place."

"I bought the house down the street from them. I got a great deal on it."

I tried to smile, but faked a more pained expression. She kept her arm around me, supporting me, pulling me along with her. I doubted she knew anything of my involvement with Triplicate. If she did, I didn't think that she would have been this nice to me.

Finally, we made it into her backyard, and into her house. It was nice, there were a bunch pictures on the wall, the fireplace was going strong, the furniture seemed nice. I've never been big on such things, the places where I've lived have had a variety of tables and folding chairs, with an occasional futon or something like that. It was hard to look at that kind of stuff and see anything worthwhile, so my descriptions will lag a bit in that department. There was a couch, which was a soft green and looked to be very, very pillowy, as well as a matching love seat and two oversized chairs. She had a coffee table and a couple of end tables with various things on them: some plants, some lamps, some pictures. The walls were an off-white, almost cream color to them. The carpet was a yellowish-brown. She led me to one of the chairs, and plopped me into it. I sat there, relaxing. It was more comfortable that I had originally thought.

"Are you okay?" she asked me.

I nodded, all the while making it look worse than I was. "I'm better. These things pass eventually."

She was shaking her head, sitting on the couch across from me. "I've never seen anything like that, Gabriel. Have you gotten professional care for it?"

I nodded. "No one knows for sure what it is. Everyone agrees on what it's doing to me, though."

"What is it doing to you?"

I smiled at her. "I never knew you were into such things."
"You are my friend, Gabriel, and I am a doctor."

"A doctor?" I retorted with a little shock added to my voice. I knew all about her being a doctor.

"I'm a geneticist. I know about things, my thesis was about genetic diseases." Interesting, I didn't know that. "I've seen lots of things in my time."

"It's only been ten years. How could you have gotten through all that schooling in only ten years."

She smiled. "I took a real interest into it, and I found that I was pretty good at it. I finished with my doctorate in six years."

That was impressive. I remember her from high school, and I used to help her with the physics and chemistry and math, and let me tell you, she was no rocket scientist.

Obviously! She was a geneticist. Wonders never cease, I guess. It didn't matter anyway, because she was still sitting across from me, a doctor in genetics, and I was sitting across from her, having my genes rewritten, or something like that. To be honest, with all this technology at my, ahem, fingertips, I still was having a difficult time breaking it down, finding the antidote.

Actually, the antidote already exists, and all I have to do is break into one of the more heavily guarded civilian facilities in the world, probably kill a bunch of people, and then hopefully figure something out. I would have to go through all that and then have to search for the antidote, which has been referred to as The Inhibitor.

It's a tough road, a last resort type of thing, something that would be, well, hard to do, even if I were one hundred percent. But I'm not, not now, not then.

"That's pretty impressive," I finally said. She smiled at the compliment. "But I don't know if I want to burden you with my troubles, especially since I think that one doctor might be on to something." Another lie. I was getting good at it with her, hardly thinking of them as I said them. Spooky stuff.

"Oh yeah, what did he tell you?"

"He took some blood samples, that's all, and was running some tests. He said that there are some other drugs that might be able to counter the effects of whatever I have. I don't know, though, if he's one to something or not.

"It's better than the other guys, though, who say I'm terminal."

She looked genuinely distressed at that last comment. Maybe she wasn't as bad as I thought she was.

"Don't worry about me, though, Jenna. I've got the best working for me, pretty much examining every single cell I have. I'm sure that if there is a way, then they'll find it."

"What are the symptoms?"

"First off, I started getting these monstrous headaches, worse than migraines. They were dominating my life, but after a while, they faded away." I sat back, watching her expression, trying to see if there was any recognition on her part. I didn't see any. Still, what I fed her was vague.

"Headaches like the one that you got in the limo at the prom?"
She remembered that. Looking back, why wouldn't she remember the one moment that ruined one of the most important moments in high school. "That was totally unrelated to what's going on now." Another lie, but then again, it wasn't really a direct lie. That headache was the beginning of the path that led me here, but it was not a result of this condition of mine.

"What else is there?"

"Now, it's mostly pain and those episodes. I used to get fevers, chills and the like, almost like a horrible case of the flu."

"And that's it?"

"Pretty much. I don't have any tumors, blurry vision, loss of mental faculties, no range of motion limitations, angina, no stroke, uh, no high blood pressure, nothing like that."

"Except for shaking and pain, right?"

"Right." That was pretty much it. I hurt a lot, and every so often, I start to shake. It's way more dangerous than that, and if they could, the doctors would have found subtle changes being made to my DNA. They haven't run those tests, because I didn�t dare risk anything being brought out into the open.

She was shaking her head. "The symptoms are common to a few things I can think of off the top of my head, but they all have more symptoms to them. What you are giving me is pretty vague with me running some tests on you to be sure."

That was the last thing that I was going to let her do. "I've seen so many doctors and been stuck with so many needles, Jenna, that I can't stand it anymore. If they can't find it, then no one will."

She looked mad now. "You won't even let me help you?"
"Just seeing you again has helped me, Jenna." Yeah, helped me reorganize my friends and enemies list.

Jenna seemed so sad, so genuine. It was hard to put her in the same categories of the enemy. I didn't want to, not in the least. Maybe there was some kind of accident, or she went somewhere and had no idea what the microscopic substances on her hands was. All I could do was shrug my shoulders at her, and smile.

"Oh Gabriel," she said. She got up, came across the room and gave me a hug. "It's so good to see you again." I think she was crying.

"Yeah, it is," was all I could say. We sat there for about five minutes, holding on to each other. It was nice.

Finally, she pulled away. "You have to tell me why you left, Gabriel. I have to know."

"I don't know if I can, Jenna."

Her hands were on my shoulders, her face about a foot from mine. Her hair fell on her face now, forming something like a protective shield in front of her eyes. It was very attractive. "Why can't you tell me? It was ten years ago."

I looked at her, trying hard to come up with a good reason to give her, but failing miserably. I was shaking my head, stammering to come up with the words, but saying nothing except some strange noises. "I, uh, look, Jenna. I didn't want to go, but I had to go, I was called away."

"Called? What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that my life, which was very, very unorganized, suddenly got a whole lot clearer. I was meant for something, and for the first time, I had an idea of what it was." I looked hard into her eyes. "I had to go, because what I was looking for wasn't here."

"But we had plans, didn't we? We loved each other."

"It wasn't you, Jenna, don't ever think that."

"You just said that what you were looking for wasn't here." She was getting mad now. "I was here, Gabe, I was here and I loved you."

"I know, Jenna, and I loved you, too. More than you can ever know."

"They why? What was so important?"

"My life, Jenna, my soul, everything about me. I didn't know who I was, and I had to find out." I had to ham it up a bit. In my experience, the females really liked it.

"And I wasn't part of your life."

"You couldn't have been part of that, no."

She was sad, and I think a little annoyed. I guess that happens when you tell someone that they can't be part of your life. "Then I guess that's it."

I nodded. "I came back because I still wanted you to be a part of my life."

"Just not a big part."
"It's just not meant to be, not like it was before."
She got up and walked into the kitchen. The mug was replaced by a bottle of beer. It was brown, but I couldn't see the brand. "Then that's it, right?"

"I still want to be your friend."

She smiled, but it was a rather unconvincing smile. "Sure, we can be friends."

I tried to get up, because I saw that my presence there was no longer welcome. As soon as I did, though, the shaking started again. First it was my legs, and then it moved into my torso. I sat back down, trying to fight it, knowing that I couldn't. I feared that the disease was beginning to win.

She was a bit more concerned, but when I finally gained a little bit of control over myself, she calmed. "You don't have to leave, Gabe. You can sleep here tonight."

"Thanks," I replied. This time, the weakness in my voice was not a put-on.

The rest of that evening consisted of her getting me a blanket for the couch, turning out the lights, and going to bed. I laid awake on the couch, looking at the ceiling. I didn't sleep, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. I hadn't slept in almost six years, I didn't need to.

During the night, though, I heard some noises, and saw that Jenna came out of her room and sat in a chair near the couch, watching me sleep. My eyes were closed, but I could see everything that was happening. She sat there and watched me with those dark, powerful, sympathetic eyes. All night.

4

She finally went to bed sometime around three in the morning. Like I said earlier, I don�t sleep, so I just laid there, looking at the ceiling. I expected a visit from Michelle, but she left me alone, too.

At about six in the morning, I grabbed the remote control and flipped on the television. I kept it really low, so I wouldn�t wake Jenna up. Granted, her well being wasn�t high on my list at the moment, considering what I had found out the night before, but still, I was a guest in her home.

It was Saturday morning, and nothing was really on. It was too early for the cartoons, something that I actually liked to watch ever so often. Mostly, I enjoyed the superhero cartoons, Batman and Superman to be specific. Animanics, or any similar type of show came in a very close second.

At six in the morning, though, there was a whole lot of nothing. Some news shows, a couple of movies on the premium channels. I put on Headline News, so I could get all the days headlines in only fifteen minutes.

I would always scan the headlines, the news shows, and even the internet for anything that may be helpful in my mission. Sometimes I got lucky, but most of the time I wouldn�t find anything.

Today was one of those long, boring, fruitless days as far as news was concerned. It made everything else easier.

When seven rolled around, I heard her alarm go off in her room, followed by a few choice four letter words. I had to smile. It was nice to hear someone swearing who wasn�t me.

In the kitchen, I heard a click. Then, for some strange reason, it sounded like someone was urinating in there. Coffee maker, I guessed. Soon, the aroma told me that I was correct.

For about a half-hour, I heard the alarm go off, a swear word, and then silence. I always liked to doze for at least a half-hour.

Finally, I got up to get a cup of coffee. It smelled too good to let it go to waste. I sat at her table, waiting for her to get up and join me.

A few minutes later, she walked into the kitchen in a nice burgundy robe. Her hair was pulled back and for the first time, she looked old.

Maybe it was because it was the morning, and everyone looks like death warmed over in the morning. Those bags under her eyes and wrinkles, though, couldn�t be hidden with make up. When I saw her the night before, perhaps it was just seeing her again or something, but she didn�t look like this. The last ten years had taken a toll on her, a big one. I felt bad.

She smiled at me. "I almost forgot that you were here." I chuckled and shrugged my shoulders.

"I get that a lot."

She immediately went to the cupboard, grabbed a mug and poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down. "Did you sleep okay?"

"I did. I feel a lot better."

"I'm concerned about you now," she said in-between sips.

"No need. I'll be fine, eventually."

"You are sick, very sick. I know it, I can see it in your eyes, and I can see it on your body."

"Things have a way of working out for me eventually."

We sat there in silence. I kept on drinking my coffee, trying to think of something witty or sly to say, but nothing came to mind.

"Gabe," she finally said. "I have to tell you something."

"What's that?"

"My boyfriend, actually, my fianc�e, is coming to pick me up this morning an about a half of an hour." My heart skipped a beat, even though it shouldn't have. How could she be married? Granted, I wasn't exactly thrilled with her at the moment, but still, I had always imagined that there was a chance that I would show up and everything would be just like it was, back in high school. Deep down, that's what I wanted to happen. I wanted her, but now, in more ways than one, I lost her all over again. First it was the Triplicate, now it was this other guy. Damn him!

Whatever I felt, and it was a lot of very negative things, I kept it inside, never showing her my true feelings. This wasn't the time, nor the place to get into anything like that. Actually, come to think of it, there would never be the time to get into this. It was a cross I would have to bear, no matter what happens.

"You're engaged? Congratulations!"

She smiled, genuinely happy, I think. "Thank you. We are planning on getting married next fall."

"I'll have to give you my address so you can send me an invitation."
"Oh definitely. It will be a huge party." Suddenly, her face got a little less happy. She stopped talking, and went back to drinking hr coffee. I doubt anyone else would have noticed the change, but I did. To me, it seemed as if she knew something.

Then again, I was a conspiracy theorist at heart. I had to be. "Do you want me to leave before he shows up? I mean, this is a potential awkward situation. I don't want him to get the wrong idea or anything like that."

She shook her head. "There's no rush. He knew that I was meeting with you last night, I told him all about it. He knows the whole story, too." Wow, I guess there really are no secrets. "I can just tell him you were sick, which was the case anyway." She looked at the clock on the microwave. "Oh shit, I have to get ready." She downed the last of her coffee and ran out of the kitchen. She stopped, though, and came back inside. She bent over and kissed me on the cheek. "It was great to see you again. I just wanted to let you know that." She took off in a blur right after that.

So I was alone in the kitchen, with a half a pot of coffee, a few plants and last night's dirty dishes. "Michelle," I said softly, "you there?" Of course she was.

I'm always here, Gabriel.

"I know, I know. I was joking."

What's on your mind?

"Do you have anything new for me?"

New as in what?

"About Jenna."

Oh, Jenna. Well, whenever she comes into the room, all of your vitals seem to get a little strange. Your heart rate increases, your blood pressure increases, body temperature rises, shall I go on?

"No, I think you can shut up about that. It wasn't even close to what I meant."
I know what you meant, I was just having a bit of fun with you.

"Yeah, thanks a lot. There's only one smart ass in this relationship, Michelle, and it's me, okay?"

Fine, Gabriel, whatever you say. Do you mind, oh great one, if I ask you a question?

"What?"

You are using my full name today, instead of M. Is there anything wrong?

"No, I just felt like using your name, that's all. Anything wrong with that?"

No, it just sounded nice, that's all.

"Maybe I'll try and use it more often."

Maybe.

"So, anything else on her?"

She works for the Anderson Research Facility, as you know. The fact that she had minute traces of Triplicate on her leads me to believe that she, how can I say this, is in the know.

"I thought of that, too. What do you need to know for sure?"

Plant a listener on her, and hopefully it will go with her when she goes into the office Monday. It should last that long, and it will be our best way of gathering information.

"I agree. I will take care of that before I leave. I was thinking of planting them here, too."

If I had a body, I would hit you. Of course, you leave one here.

"You know, I am a bit apprehensive of spying on her like this."

Gabriel, you are getting too soft in your old age. She is the enemy until proven otherwise. She is swimming in Triplicate, and she'd probably kill you if she had the chance.

"Her research probably already has."

See what I'm saying. Ten years is a long time, Gabriel. People change an awful lot in ten years. Look at yourself.

She had me there.

Gabriel?

I didn't respond.

Gabriel?

"What?"

Are you okay?

"I don't know if I can do this anymore. It's getting too hard."

Gabriel, we are so close, you can't let something like this stop you now.

"It was easier when I didn't have the love of my life on the wrong side. It's not easy anymore. I'm starting to have doubts."

You don't have to believe in it to keep going, Gabriel. Whether or not you like it, or believe it, it's the truth. The truth is a motherfucker that will set you free.

"Set me free, eh?"

But always remember it's a motherfucker.

Words to live by, or something.

Just then, ironically, there was a knock at the door. It seems that although they were engaged, Jenna had neglected to give him a key to her house.

Another thought flew through my head. Why weren't they living together? Everyone did that now, living together before getting married.

I got up from the table and went to the door. Jenna was in the shower, as far as I could tell. I could get to know my replacement a bit.

The shower was turned off. I'd tell her before opening the door. "Jenna, he's here. I'll let him in."
"Okay," she yelled back. "I'll be ready in a few minutes.

I continued my trek across the house to the front door. He rang the doorbell again. Impatience is not a virtue.

I undid the deadbolt an the chain. I opened the door.

"Oh, shit," I said under my breath. The man on the porch's face lit up.

"So, you are her old high school friend," he said as he forced the door open. "How wonderful it is to see you again, Gabriel."

The man's name was Louis Gibson. He was a tall man, about four inches taller than me, with a very muscular build. He was a very dangerous man. I should know, I had a run-in with him just over three years ago.

The best way to describe this man is that he's every woman's dream man. He's smart, extremely smart and very elegant. He has a very powerful personality, and can take command of a situation with relative ease. He dresses nice, today he was wearing some jeans, a slick sweater, as well as hiking boots that probably cost him more than the total income of a relatively large third world country. I wasn't up on fashions, so I couldn't tell you what kind they were, but they were all name-brands.

When I met him three years earlier, it was after I had discovered Triplicate. I was investigating it closer, thinking that it was the break that I had been looking for. Turns out that I was right.

I found a production facility in Memphis, or just outside of Memphis. That's Memphis, Tennessee. I don't know how they did, but I was discovered.

They had tailed me that day, and that night. I finally figured it out, and was trying to lose them. Turns out that they were leading me right into a trap.

It was a very dark night that night, and it was raining like a son of a bitch. First I was on Beale Street, that's where I noticed them following me. They were coming at my in three directions, leading me right where they wanted me to go.

In Memphis, if you leave Beale Street, especially to the south, you end up entering a not so nice neighborhood. I didn't want to head that way, I didn't want more trouble than I already had.

They wanted me to go that way, though. Slowly, they positioned themselves around me, and finally, got me into a small park. I was cornered, which surprised me. I realized it immediately, that I was exactly where they wanted it.

A car pulled up, a really nice black Lincoln Towncar. Out of the backseat came Louis Gibson, the six-foot-four leader of this group of thugs. I was surrounded, outnumbered literally fifteen to one, and now, I had a guy on me who looking like he knew what he was doing, and pretty much liked what he was doing.

Louis Gibson, M started reading off from her files. He's the manager of the facility. He just arrived three months earlier and has already turned this place into one of the larger production sites in the world. There is no background information on him, it's classified at a level I wasn't able to crack.

Great, I thought to myself. I attracted the big bad boss.

"What do you want with our facility?" he asked as he slipped on some black leather gloves?

"You know, in this rain, those will get all hard and crappy."

"Why were you breaking into our facility tonight?" He was right; I had broken in and accessed their network. M went to work and downloaded everything that they had, which wasn't much. I tried to get a look around, but I couldn't because some of their security personnel showed up and spoiled my plans. I had all the time in the world, though.

"I wanted to apply for a job."

"Wrong." He motioned to two of his men, who started in for me. It was time to shut up and start dancing.

The first one took a swing at me, the other one kicked. They obviously worked as a pair, and had trained extensively at it. They had never fought someone like me before, though. I blocked the punch, grabbed his arm, and pulling him in the way of the kick, which landed right in the gut. Still holding onto his arm, I jumped over his bent over body and kicked the original kicker in the face, breaking his jaw at least, possibly killing him. The man whose arm was still in my grasp was spun around so quickly that I dislocated his shoulder, elbow and wrist. He wouldn't be punching for a few months.

I pushed him aside and turned towards Louis Gibson. He was fiddling with something in his hands. The rain had gotten pretty bad again, and I was having trouble seeing him or what he was holding. M saw it.

Gun.

"Shit," I said.

"All of you, get him." The rest of the group, about ten or eleven of them, charged with fists and feet flailing. I was holding my own, though. I would take some hits, but I would also dish them out. When I hit, though, they would feel it a bit more than I would when they connected with me. I had an unseen advantage that they would never know about.

It was difficult, though. Eleven flailing goons is hard to defend against. Soon, I was overwhelmed. They held me as Louis Gibson came at me with the gun. Soon, I saw it wasn't a gun, but some kind of hypospray like the doctors use in Star Trek and other science fiction stories.

You don't want to be injected with what's in there, Gabe.

"I know, I know." I knew that it had to be Triplicate. It's the only thing it could be.

He was jest a few feet from me when I made my move. With all of my strength, I threw the people holding my arms at Louis. They hit him, and they all tumbled over. I worked over three shocked goons quickly, before they knew what was happening. I turned to run, but I was tripped. I turned over to see Louis leaping for me with the hypo. I rolled over on the ground away from him, but he was quick, very quick. He grabbed me with one hand and pulled me up. He was also very strong.

He had me by the throat, choking the air right out of me. "I could kill you right here, right now, but I won't." He picked up the hypo and shoved it in my neck, pressing the trigger. The sting of the injection was intense, more so than I thought possible. He dropped me and backed away laughing. "Now, I've just given you the gift that will keep on giving. Actually, it will take everything from you, starting with your life."

It was a very quick acting substance. Immediately, I felt it running through my veins, and almost as quickly, I was stricken with an overwhelming feeling of nausea. I was weak, too weak to walk, to even stand.

"Let's go, boys," he said, and left.

I was alone in that park, dying. M found a way to stop it from spreading, and has been working on a way to cure it ever since. I know of the antidote, that's most of the reason that I had to come home, back to Detroit.

The antidote is here, and to be honest, I shouldn't have been surprised to see Louis Gibson close to it.

"I see that you are doing well." He looked around the house for a second, then back at me. "You should be dead right now, Gabriel." If he were surprised to see me, he didn't show it.

"Well, I'm sorry that I couldn't fit that into my schedule. You know, with the holidays approaching."

He seemed to look me over, examining me to see if I was actually ill or something. "I can smell it on you, Gabriel. Your time is near." Then, as Jenna came out of her bedroom, dressed and ready to go. He smiled, and turned back to me. "One way or another." His voice got even softer. "I bet this is killing you more than what I gave you." He walked up to her and wrapped her in a big bear hug, giving her a long, passionate kiss. He was right, that hurt worse than anything that he could ever do to me. She was smiling and laughing when he was through with her.

"Louis, please, not in front of Gabriel."

"It's okay, Jenna, don't worry about me, I should get going anyway. I have a lot of catching up to do around town before I head out tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

Well, time for yet another lie. "Yeah, I finished up my business here, and I have get back."

She looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Where do you live now?"

"Memphis," I said, looking straight at Louis. "I was there about three years ago and fell in love with the city. Every time I think about it, I feel like I'm dying inside. Not being there, you know."
She smiled. "Well, it was great to see you again." She gave me a long hug, and I planted a listener on her. I had already taken care of it around her house.

Good, I'm picking them all up crystal clear.

"Same here, Jenna." I turned to leave, waiting to hear what they talked about.

"Don't be a stranger, Gabriel," Louis called out after me. I turned back to him and gave him a wink and a smile.

"Oh, I don't think you'll get rid of me that quickly." His expression changed oh so slightly. I then left the house, my one true love in the arms of the man who had signed, sealed and delivered my death notice. Oh, there would be hell to pay. Oh yes, there would be.

5

As I left the house, I immediately went for my car, which was still parked just outside the park. I wanted to get into position to follow these two, to find out some intelligence that would make my tasks a bit easier. See, I wasn't going to leave tomorrow, and my business wasn't completed. In fact, it hadn't even started yet.

I was at my car and in it in three minutes. I was across the street from her house in another one minute. I was ready to go.

"M, are they talking about me at all in there?"

Negative, Gabe. Mostly small talk, nothing big. A pause. Wait, here it is.

"Jenna, you should have told me about him earlier."

"Why? He's an old friend, I haven't seen him in ten years."

"I'm met him before, Jenna."

"When?"

"In Memphis, three years ago. I caught him breaking into our facility there."

"What was he trying to do there?"

"We couldn't tell. He didn't hack into our net, he didn't roam around looking for anything." Oh, I smiled to myself, if they only knew. "He broke in, and we chased him out."

"Was he the one in that report? The intruder that was infected?"

"Yes, he was. He should have been dead within a week, but three years later, he turns up looking as healthy as a horse."

Jenna had seen my true condition. I was frail, weak, and now they knew it.

"He's not healthy. He's very sick. Last night, he had two attacks or convulsions or something. When they hit, he was paralyzed, at least for a while."

"Somehow, though, he's been able to fight it for three years. Maybe we should re-evaluate the effects."

"Maybe it was just the way it was customized."

"We used the same thing on another, and he was dead inside of forty-eight hours."

"He's strong, Louis, he's very strong."

"No matter. He'll be dead eventually. He's a non-threat anyway. We have bigger things to worry about."

"Like the Pope?"

"Yeah, the Pope."
"How is he?"

"He's struggling against it, but it's slowly taking over. Within a week, he should be totally converted."

"That's good, it falls within the prescribed amount of time."

"Yes it does, my sweet. Soon, all of our plans that we have been working towards will come to fruition. Then we can be married, and live happily ever after."

"Oh, Louis, I can't wait."

Then I heard them kissing. "Enough, M. That's the last thing that I want to hear right now."

Any doubts now, Gabe?

"No more. I think whatever was left over from ten years earler just died on me."

It's for the better.

"How do you think?"

Because eventually it's going to come down between the three of you, and when it does, the heavens will tremble.

"Oh, quit sweet talking me, M."

You're lucky that I don�t have a body, Gabe, or else Jenna would have had some competition from day one.

"You are closer to my heart, though."

I am your heart.

"Now you are just being silly." I sat behind the wheel, waiting. "You keep an audio on them, and compile anything you can that is useful, especially on this person called the Pope."

Who do you think it is?

"I think it's a test patient."
So do I.

I started the car, and drove away. I wasn't in the mood to follow them. Besides, I had a matinee hockey game to go to, and I needed to get to the store and buy a jersey.

I picked up my cell phone that was on the passenger's side seat and dialed a number. It was ringing, but it only took three before someone answered.

"Apollo Sambonis, please." There was a pause, and then the voice of an old friend, a fellow high schooler, came on the line.

"This is Apollo."

"Hey, Apollo, It's Gabe."

"Gabriel, I thought you were going to call yesterday."

"Things came up, things that needed my attention."

"Jenna, eh?"

He was good. "How'd you guess."

"She's the only one besides me that you'd care about enough to blow me off for."

"Well, there are a few other things, Apollo, but not many."

"So it was her."

"Yeah, it was her. I had to meet her."

"Okay, okay. No big deal. I was out of town yesterday anyway, so it doesn't really matter too much."

"Then why are you busting my chops about it in the first place, asshole."
"Hey now, is that any way to talk to your business partner?"

"We aren't partners yet, Apollo."

"I know, I know, but I have a good feeling about this meeting of ours. And not just because the Wings are playing the Avalanche."

"So everything's set up?"

"Sure is. Go to the main box office, drop my name, and they'll find an usher to take you to my box. Then, we'll have a great time, watching hockey, doing a little business, talking about old times."

"Sounds like a lot of fun."

"It will be, trust me."

"The game starts when?"

"Twelve thirty."

"Cool. I'll get there about twelve, then."
"Great. See you then." We hung up.

Apollo Sambonis was a great friend back in high school. I was the new kid when I was a sophomore. That meant that I had to pass some kind of stupid ritualistic initiation which would be administered by the high school equivalent of the neighborhood bully.

It was after a football game, and I was just hanging out, because I had nothing better to do. The bully, who was also a lineman on the football team, found me after a particularly bad game on his part, and decided to take his frustrations out on the new guy. "Relax," he told me, "every new kid has this coming to them."
One of the football players with him was Apollo. He wasn't with them, although he was watching. He was curious to see what the new kid would be made of, I guess. Apollo, I noticed throughout high school, stayed in the shadows, in the background, letting others expose themselves. Let's just say that he was in training for his choice of profession.

So, back to the fight. There were three of them, but this guy, number seventy-seven, was the only one who was going to do anything.

I came back, after his opening statement, with something clever like "blow it out your ass," or "go fuck yourself," either one didn't leave him with a good taste in his mouth.

When push finally came to shove, I humiliated him. He charged me, and I let him hit me. He didn't move me, though. Eventually, I pushed him down, and when he got up and took a swing, I casually dodged the punch and threw one of my own, right in the chest.

Instantly, the breath left his lungs. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. I leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Don't ever talk to me again, or else I'll do something worst than that."

He didn't.

Apollo was laughing. I looked at him, definitely in a mood that wasn't conducive to someone laughing. He stopped, but came over to me.

"Nice one," he said and slapped me on the back. "I don�t' think he'll bug you now."

I looked at him with a look that asked him not to talk to me every again or else you will get more of the same. He shrugged it off, though.

"I'm Apollo, and you are?"

I didn't say anything, though. That was the start of our beautiful friendship.

Actually, he was my only "friend" in high school. We would talk, hang out, do homework, things like that. When I wasn't with Jenna, I was probably with him.

When I left, I made sure that I kept in contact with him. He would be a good source, if I ever needed it. See, he was the son of a very influential member of the Greek community in Detroit. It was rumored that the family had ties to the local mob, something which I knew to be true, only because I knew Apollo. I could tell he was a very cool, calm and calculating individual. He was someone that I needed to get to know.

Throughout the last ten years, since high school, I would call him, sometimes, if I knew he was going to be in town, where I was, I would surprise him. Keep the contact, I said to myself. It will come in handy.

And today was that day. It was time to put all of this Jenna stuff behind me, or at least on a different shelf, and get down to business. The hockey game would be the first part of it. After that, well, things had changed a bit since I learned that Gibson was in town. I'd just have to be more careful, that's all.
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