The Boy You Knew

I

MATTHEW SULLIVAN

VANISHED: FEBRUARY 24TH, 1980

Matthew eased his head back against the wall and heaved a sigh. His mind was racing with wonderful things that had fallen into place; the theory of relativity, biology and genetics, calculus and trigonometry, advanced literature and Shakespearean plays all molded into the genius that was his brain. The thought of it made him smile, and he found himself actually looking forward to his monthly check-up in Seattle. He had never gotten to go into the big city much otherwise, even though he wasn't too far from it in the little town of Renton. He figured that his parents must have been something like the gypsies he read about, because in a period of four years, he found himself a resident of Wenatchee, Spokane, Yakima, Bellingham, and Vancouver, too. He hadn't really known it before he was taken, of course. The knowledge had come into his brain after he had been returned.

"Matthew Sullivan?" a singsong voice asked. He arose and nodded slightly, and she ushered him quickly into the room.

"Matthew Sullivan. That's right, I remember that handsome face. Have you been experiencing any head aches? Any unusual thoughts, abilities...?"

He couldn't help but find the interrogation a little humorous; everything about him was some kind of miracle, some kind of unusual process that had occurred. He couldn't really remember how he had acted before being taken, but he remembered not having the ability to communicate. He remembered knowing faces, but he didn't know what their relations were to him. Upon his return, it seemed the fact that he had been born severely retarded had melted away, and the doctors of Homeland Security thought that it was some kind of miracle. They hadn't given credit to his captors, though--they shook the report of his suddenly non-existent retardation as nothing considerable, especially since reports were beginning to escalate of other 4400 who could heal people and animals, and of people with such incredible strength that they should cause people's skulls to literally fracture and break.

By comparison, Matthew's abilities were miniscule and much more tame. It was one of the reasons he had not been so subjected to questions by reporters who were expecting something big and miraculous from him. It was almost as if they wanted him to have telepathic abilities to boot.

"No. No unusual thoughts, abilities, circumstances at all. I'm feeling fine, really...can I go now? Foster mom's waiting for me in the car."

"You'll have to hang on for a little bit, Mr. Sullivan. We told you when you came back that we couldn't locate your parents. Apparently, they moved out to Alabama. They died together in a car accident five years ago."
"I almost expected as much. I figured that if they knew I had lived, they would have come for me."

"But we have located your twin brother. James Sullivan is living here in Seattle now, he's married to his first wife, Rebecca, and they have two daughters. Your brother is forty-one-years-old, Matthew. You vanished in 1980, didn't you?"

Matthew lowered his gaze to his torn-up sneakers and his ratty KISS t-shirt. James had gotten that shirt for him earlier in the year, before he was taken, after he went off to a KISS concert--it was funny that at the time, Matthew had never been aware of that T-shirt or where it had come from. He hadn't known his own name, his age, or even what state he lived in--yet upon his return at Mount Rainier, it seemed that a mass of intelligence and knowledge just suddenly accumulated, and he remembered all of the goings-on of the special help programs that he had been enrolled in. It had been a futile effort, but no one could imagine that someone in such a dire shape could suddenly return to Earth with more-than-average potential and intelligence, almost as if he had left the planet in the very same condition. He looked up to the doctor and heaved a sigh.

"You found my twin? Hasn't he known about me? When is he coming? Do my foster parents know that he's coming?"

"We told your foster parents and they've agreed to hand over custody to your brother and his wife. Though legally, you don't need a guardian at all. You turn eighteen...or, well, forty-two, technically, next week. After that, you're on your own! All grown up. And it sounds like you have a very promising life ahead of you, Mr. Sullivan. Your intelligence quotient is well over one-hundred-thirty. Harvard is willing to give you a full-ride into the career of your choice, aren't they?"

"Yeah...yeah, they are. I've got quite the future ahead of me, but I never even gave it any thought--I didn't even know it existed--until three or four months ago. Did you say when my brother is coming to get me?"

"Well, I think he's just in the other room, signing a few papers. Hang on, let me go out into the hall to get him."

Matthew turned in his chair and watched as Dr. Morgan sashayed out of the room, her curvaceous form vanishing behind the closed door, though she left it just cracked. A quiet conversation ensued, obviously as hushed as possible because the adults feared that it would somehow upset him to hear the horrible truth. Matthew could just see it in his head: "I'm sorry, James, but it appears that your brother is one of the 4400 freaks who has suddenly returned after being missing in action for twenty-four years. Twenty-four years that he has no recollection of existing in."

"James, your little brother wants to see you."

Matthew winced at the mentioning of being 'the little brother.' He had been born nearly half an hour before James, yet he had been the only of the brothers to have severe mental problems. James had been diagnosed with mild autism as a boy, but it seemed he had outgrown it by the time the two were teenagers, or so it had seemed. Yet by all means, Matthew Sullivan had been intended by God's hand himself to spend his days in a stupor, unable to distinguish reality from the imaginary worlds he cultivated in his damaged mind, unable to develop intimate relationships with family and friends as a result of the fact that he hardly even knew their names. Language, before being taken, had been nothing but grunts, groans, and mimics of people who had spoken just a few seconds before. Matthew's fragile mind had been unable to take note of knowledge, and so he had been a virtual vegetable for the first seventeen years of his life, having no bearing whatsoever on society. He had been an overlooked burden for the family, a shame and a regret for his parents, who, much to his sadness, sometimes spoke of how accidental Matthew's birth was to his very face.

"You think God wouldn't be so cruel," his mother had remarked to his father one morning. "You think he wouldn't make people like this."

"Well...we see how he's suffering, May. Maybe the Lord will have mercy and take him home."

Matthew wasn't sure if it had been the 'Lord' who took him home, but somebody took him to a unique place in the stars to live for twenty-four years. He was shaken from his thoughts, however, when a rather cumbersome, large man with big brown eyes stepped into the room and managed a huff.

"That's him. That's Matt!"

"...It's me. Hey, little brother."

Matthew had hardly stuck his hand out for a shake when James recoiled in horror, his eyes wide, his hands at his chest. He violently shook his head and turned to Dr. Morgan.

"That ain't my brother. I don't know what they've done to him, but that ain't my brother."

"James Sullivan! Please settle down and let us explain. We've been receiving reports on many of the 4400 having certain abilities. Some people have remarkable regenerative abilities, others have a sixth sense, others can levitate, and still furthermore others have strange abilities to manipulate what happens on the television. Some people can teleport objects, people, things...others can travel through time. Your brother was perhaps given the most incredible gift of all: the chance at a normal life."

"My brother ain't one of THOSE freaks. When you people called me, I was expectin' my forty-one-year-old brother sitting in a wheelchair, shaking and mumbling. You people didn't tell me nothing about him being one of the 4400 freaks, and you people sure as Hell didn't tell me nothin' about him suddenly not being retarded anymore. I don't want one of them freaks living in my house."

"Mr. Sullivan, he is your BROTHER. Just a little different, of course."

"I don't care who or what he is. He's not the boy I knew. God damn devil worshipper or something, is what he is. I don't want no freakish alien nuts circling my house. Don't call me and sure as Hell don't force them papers on me. He ain't my brother."

In a brisk movement he slipped out into the hall again, his heavy work-boots echoing all the way down the hall. Matthew stood and hurried out into the hall after him, watching as the heavy form of his brother slipped further and further away.

"James!" he cried. "...James!"

A door opened and shut, and Matthew found himself separated from his twin again for the second time in twenty-four years. He sank to the floor and clutched his head, tears pouring down his cheeks, and for once in his life, he knew he had been given a present that had unfortunate consequences. Delicate intelligence had been garnered with the knowledge of what it felt like to be hurt.

And it felt like he had just been stabbed.