Extracted - Chapter 25 – Slings and Arrows of Being a Quack – Part 2 of 2

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 25 – Slings and Arrows of Being a Quack – Part 2 of 2

 

“I heard a rumor that you’ve been going to work with your father,” Wanda said to Stephen once they had a chance to sit down alone together.  “How did that happen?”

“I guess they needed some help, and I was home doing a lot of nothing.  Too much nothing.  I did learn to shoot baskets with a basketball though.  I’m not exactly very good at it yet, but it gives me something to do sometimes.”

“What kinds of things are you doing for your father?” Wanda asked him.

“It’s supposed to be just filing a bunch of stuff that the people who work there couldn’t seem to be bothered putting away.  Geez!  You should see that place.  It’s a bigger mess than my room was when I first got there.”

“A mess?”

“Um…the other me was…a slob!”

“Really?  I haven’t seen any kind of problems like that with her at all.”

“Mom.  Really.  Would you allow her to make that kind of mess and not clean it up?”

“Not on her life!”

“There you have it.”

“Wanda reached over and hugged him.  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

“Me too!” Stephen told her.

“Have they decided what to do about school for you?”

“Yeah.  They hired this guy to kind of tutor me.  I’ve only met him once so far, but he seems nice.  Other than that, they enrolled me in this online school so I can try to catch up.  It’s supposed to be something where I can work at my own pace, whatever that means.”

“All that sounds pretty reasonable.  In fact, quite good.  I’ll tell Agatha though to let me know if they need money or anything at all that we can help you with.”

“Mom, I’m just a kid inside this huge body, but I still get the impression that we’re pretty well off.”

“Mm,” Wanda agreed.  “He is the Philadelphia D.A.  That’s got to pay at least a reasonable salary.  Agatha also said she likes to throw dinner parties like I do, so I’m sure there’s money there.  I just don’t know how much.”

“I’ve only seen them hold one party so far,” Stephen told her.  “I know things have been pretty busy for them.  Just not for me.”

“Except you’re a little busier now,” she pointed out.  “Since you’re doing some filing for you father.”

“Yeah, except I’m not doing that much filing.  I spend more time now looking up things for the other people who work there than doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Looking up things?  Doing their jobs for them?”

“Believe it or not.  Dad says if I can do it, that it’s more important than putting things away where they’re supposed to be.”

“How do you feel about that?” Wanda asked him.

“I actually like it a lot better than trying to put everything away.  In fact, it’s interesting.  Sometimes, really interesting.  The people who work there seem to appreciate it when I can help too.  I like that.”

“So they’re nice to you?”

“Real nice.  I kind of like it.  I hope I can keep doing it.  Maybe I can be a lawyer someday and work there, or someplace like it.”

“Who knows,” Wanda told him.  “I just want you to be happy.”

“I wasn’t before, but things have kind of changed this last week.  Going to work with Dad.  And then after work we’ve been running together too for exercise.  I like that.  Dad…my dad.  My real dad…”

“Yes?”

“He never did anything with me at all.  There were a lot of times when I wished he would.”

“I’m sure,” Wanda replied, both troubled to hear that, and happy for her child because he was having a better relationship with this father than her real father.  Still, it bothered her.  She promised to have a discussion about it with Mike.  Maybe he could find something to do with this new Nancy so she wouldn’t feel quite so abandoned.

 

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While the others were spread out through the house, Mike took Henry down to the basement to play some pool while they talked.  Once downstairs, Henry looked around.  “I’ve got to get back to finishing off my own basement.  This is nice!”  He noticed the one thing he never expected to see in a basement.  “You’ve got a dance floor?”

“You mean you don’t?” Mike joked.  “It’s turned out to be the perfect accessory for down here.  I put it in for the girls to practice their dance lessons, but there’s been more than a few times when Wanda and I have used it too.  Send the kids to bed, then a little wine and dancing and…”

“Have you got your bedroom down here too then?”

“No,” Mike told him.  “Sometimes it sounds like it might be nice to have it close to the dancefloor, but the reality is that it can get pretty noisy and chaotic down here sometimes.  Especially with two girls in the house.”

“I can imagine,” Henry told him.

Mike selected a pool cue and Henry did the same.  While Mike racked the balls, Henry asked, “What did you think about what Mr. Curmett had to say?”

“Mm,” Mike mumbled.  “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you afterwards.”

“I take it you didn’t like something.  It all seemed, I guess reasonable would be a good way to describe it.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly reasonable,” Mike agreed.  “It’s what he didn’t say that bothers me.”

“Like what?” Henry asked as he lined up his first shot.  A moment later, the tightly grouped balls were scattered all over the table.

“When a study like what I think they were doing takes place, there should be conclusions and recommendations that come out of it.”

“Come to think of it, you’re right.  Curmett didn’t say much along those lines at all when he talked to us.”

“No, us either,” Mike confirmed.  “There had to be further conclusions other than that somebody did it and it could be a national security problem.  It’s too vague.  There’s no details.”

“And as you said, there should have been recommendations with that study as well,” Henry said.  “I wonder if there were any.”

“Right!” Mike agreed.  “Now that the study is concluded, what are they doing about it?  I’d like to know.  My daughter is involved.”

“And my son,” Henry reminded him.

Mike nodded.  We’re…you and me…are right in the middle of what’s happening, but they’re not telling us squat!”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed.  “I’m the District Attorney.  You don’t think I can’t tell bullshit when I hear it?  He could have handled all that with nothing more than a phone call, if he even needed that much.  But what can we do about it?” he asked.

Mike shook his head.  I’ve been a congressman for a while now, and I think I’m doing pretty well.  Making a name for myself.  But I already know that if I go to the President, or even back to Curmett, then I’m going to get stonewalled.  The silent treatment.  They’re going to play whatever game they’re cooking up close to the vest.  In fact, if I had to bet, I’d say that whatever they’re doing is going to be rated so top secret, that the next President of the United States may never even hear about it.”

“Can they do that?”

“Henry, it happens all the time.  Even I know that.  A new president comes into office, and a few years later, something happens and the secret bees in the system have to catch him up on what he was never told.”

“Yeah, it would be like that,” Henry realized.  “Yeah, it makes perfect sense.”

“Curmett is smart,” Mike told him.  “Really smart!  And he’s good at his job.  But he’s also the President’s lacky.  Still, the President seems to listen to him, which is mostly good.  There have been a few things that I know about that have gone on between them that I’m not real happy about, but I guess the same thing goes on between the President and most of his advisors.

“Wouldn’t that be the case for all presidents?” Henry asked.

“Absolutely.  Still, I trust Curmett, but…I don’t trust him.”

“What are you getting at?” Henry asked.

“What aren’t they telling us?” Mike said.  “And why won’t they let us know why they’re keeping it all from us?  Are we in danger?  Our kids were kidnapped and their minds raped like no one has ever been raped before.  That’s unconscionable!  And they’re still keeping us in the dark.”

“Are we in danger?” Henry asked, concerned not just for himself but his entire family.

“We could be,” Mike admitted.  “They targeted us to try out whatever kind of system they created.  Not just us, but more specifically, they targeted our kids.  That’s got to mean something.”

“Maybe we should ask the government for protection,” Henry suggested.

“Except the one biggest thing, in fact the only thing that Curmett really said, was that they don’t want anyone to know what really happened.  They don’t want us doing anything that might let anyone know what’s been going on.  Having guards around us all the time would raise too many questions.”

So what do we do about it?” Henry asked.

“To get the answers?  Nothing.  Nothing you or even I can do right now.  Except…I can try to do something, but we’re talking years down the line.”

“What’s that?”

“I can run for president.”

 

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It was Saturday, and for a day off, Christopher Faucet had done little but think about what he had learned at Judith Rameriz’s house.  They had ripped…stolen!…two souls from the people they belonged to, and stuck them into the wrong bodies, with no concern about what might happen.  Neither Judith nor Ben had any idea what would happen to those people.

It was unreal.  But then so was the ability to remove someone’s very soul in the first place, especially doing it without killing them.  But evidently, removing the soul left them in a coma with no chance of waking up, until that soul, or someone’s soul, was there to occupy the living body.  It was the psychological equivalent of Armageddon!

He hadn’t slept since he had learned about it.  He hadn’t been able to focus on anything since he had learned about it.  But the problem was, what should he do about it?  It seemed like someone ought to know.  Someone ought to do something.  If for no other reason than that those two kids deserved to have their lives…their souls…straightened out!

But of course, there was the same old question he had been asking himself since he had first heard Judith and Ben’s story.  Who would ever believe him?  It was too unbelievable for anyone to believe.  In fact, that was part of his own problem, he had heard their story, but he was having trouble believing it himself.  And if he didn’t believe it, how could he ask anyone else to believe it?

Still, it seemed like something ought to be done.  Someone ought to know.  But who?

He remembered there had been an FBI agent in his office telling him about the girl up in New York who thought she was the boy here in Philadelphia, but did he want to call the FBI?  He didn’t have the woman’s phone number or any way to reach her.  He supposed he could reach out to someone else in the FBI and see if they were interested in listening to what he had found out.  But would they believe him?  It was back to the same old question again.  It was unbelievable!

So not the FBI.  How about the police?  He vaguely remembered that there had been someone from the police with that FBI woman, but the policeman had just been there without saying anything.  If he called the police, would they listen to him any more than the FBI would…or wouldn’t?

What was he supposed to do?

In desperation, and knowing he had to do something, he picked up his phone.  To call…or not to call.  That was the question.  Whether it was better to suffer the slings and arrows of being known as a complete quack, or try to do something good in his life.  Quack…or hero?  Or both.

Knowing he was most likely going to be labeled a quack, he called the local police office.  It took some talking to a few different people, but he passed on that he had some information concerning the abduction of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s son Stephen.  And if anyone wanted to talk to him about it, to please let him know.  Someone he talked to promised that someone would get back to him.  The police officer on the phone had sounded serious about it.  Faucet wasn’t sure if anyone would bother calling him or not.