~Truman~

Arizona. Deep in the desert. A building. Not just any building. Shelves. Shelves and crates. A blue man with glasses. A name: Donovan. A bed and breakfast. And... A football?

…

"Truman!"

Michael jerked awake. His pencil was stuck to his face and his entire English class was laughing. Dr. Sweeney was staring daggers in his direction. "Sorry." Mike replied sheepishly. "Just... Resting my eyes."

"Well, rest them later. Now..." Dr. Sweeney droned on. Something about symbolism or some other pile of literary crap. Mike wasn't listening. He thought about the dream he just had.

This happened a lot to Mike. He would have a weird dream about random things. Once he dreamed about getting beaten up by a giant lobster. The strange thing was that what he saw in his dreams he saw in real life. It had been years since Mike ate at that seafood place, which sucked because they had great shrimp.

Arizona, a blue man with glasses, and a name among other things. What did all those things mean? Mike lived in California in a dorm at UCLA. Arizona was quite a ways away. Mike didn't know anyone who even resembled the man with the glasses. Much less anyone blue. Then there was the name. Donovan? Mike didn't know anyone by that name.

Class ended 10 minutes later. Tracey was waiting at the door. "Hey, Mike." She paused. "What did you do?"

Mike laughed. Tracey seemed to always know when he did something wrong. "I kinda fell asleep in class. I had another one of those dreams."

"What did you see this time?"

Mike thought for a moment. "Nothing important." He didn't feel like boring her with the details. They were meaningless anyway. "So, you wanna grab lunch?"

Tracey smiled. "Definitely. How about Jimmy's?"

Jimmy's was Mike and Tracey's usual hangout spot. It was a two-minute walk from the campus and had the best grilled cheeses in Los Angeles. Today there were only two people in there besides them. Some dude with a crewcut and a black shirt on and a guy with a tank top on and a tattoo of a flaming pit-bull on his shoulder. The crewcut guy had something purple hanging out of his back pocket.

A few minutes later, Mike was face deep in grilled cheese. "Mmm. Oh, God, this is great!" Tracey was eating a small salad and was clearly jealous. "Hey, it's not my fault you're on a diet." Tracey was currently trying to get rid of the dreaded Freshman 15, and was failing epically at it.

"Shut up! You're happy I'm not eating anything good!" She wasn't wrong. A couple of weeks ago Tracey would've been going after the fries Mike got with the sandwich even though she would say she didn't want fries. It annoyed him to no end!

The waiter came back to refill Mike's water. At that point the man with the pit-bull tattoo got up. He pulled something out of his pocket. A flash of light glinted off of the sharp metal point as he raised it behind the waiter. "Look out! He's got a-"

It was too late. The man came down with the knife and jabbed the waiter right in the back of his neck. He screamed in pain and went down. He was dead. The man pulled out the knife and looked at Mike. Mike stood up and ran for it, but the man was quick and blocked the door before Mike could escape. He slowly inched toward Mike, knife in hand. Mike backed up, grabbed the only thing he could reach, and swung it at the man's head. The glass flower vase shattered on impact, some broken glass scratched the man's face. He yelled out in pain, but quickly recovered. He raised the knife and...

ZAP! A blast of electricity came out of nowhere, hitting the man and sending him to the ground unconscious. The man with the crewcut stood up, a strange looking gun now in his hand. "Sorry about taking so long." He said. "I couldn't get it out of my pocket." Mike saw that the man had dropped his knife. He bent down to pick it up. "Don't touch it!" Mike pulled his hand away immediately. The man with the crewcut pulled out the purple things in his back pocket: a pair of gloves. He put them on and gingerly picked up the knife, dropping it into a shiny bag. A short burst of light came out of the bag before he zipped it shut. "William Fairbairn's knife. Sorry about that."

Tracey stood up. "What the hell was that?!" She exclaimed. "That guy nearly killed my friend! And who are you?"

The crewcut man said nothing and pointed his strange gun at her. He pulled the trigger and a blast of lightning hit Tracey square in the chest. "Dude! What are you doing?!"

"Sorry about this." Crewcut guy said. "Good thing you won't remember it, though." He fired at Mike. Mike hit the floor, and woke up a few minutes later, the memory of his encounter with Agent Steve Jinks erased from his mind.

…

Mike was glad to be back in his dorm room. The exam in Bio had been tough enough without it being an essay test. Mike was drained completely. As he relaxed on his bed, his phone rang. He answered. "Hello?"

"Open the door." The person on the other end hung up after saying that. Open the door? Mike pondered those words for a moment, then shrugged and opened the door. No one was there.

"What the heck?" He muttered as he shut the door and turned back to his bed. He jumped in surprise as now, sitting on his bed, was a girl.

She had short brown hair with a small purple streak in it. She was dressed in tattered jeans and a purple t-shirt with a brown leather jacket. "S'up?" She said casually.

Mike stood there in shock for a moment. "Who are you?" He asked. "What are you doing here?"

The girl stood up. "Michael Truman," the girl said, "my name is Claudia Donovan." Donovan. "And what I'm doing here is to give you this." She handed him a folder. Mike took it and stared at it.

"What is this?" He asked.

Claudia smiled. "A ticket to endless wonder." She paused. "Man, I have been so looking forward to saying that!"

"But how- Why- What-" Mike stammered.

"You will report to the coordinates in the file I have handed you in one week. You will be given all other information once you arrive. And don't worry about your classes. I've arranged for you to take an online course while you work."

"Work? But-"

"Sorry, but that's all I can tell you right now." She walked towards the door. "One week." And with that Claudia Donovan was gone, leaving a confused Mike in her wake. He opened the file. Inside was a map with latitude and longitude coordinates in one spot on it. In the corner of it was where the coordinates were. Arizona.

Mike was beginning to think his dream wasn't so meaningless after all.