A/N: I actually had this finished a couple days ago, but it was pretty late when it was first done, so I waited until the next morning (yesterday, Sept. 1). Again I had to wait until this afternoon, thanks to the server outage. Anyway, here is Chapter 14. Finally. Sorry it took so long, but real life has been bogging me down a bit. I'll try to pick up the pace from here on, though.

Chapter 14 – A Stranger in Town

December 22

It was well after midnight when he finally arrived, the well-lit streets quiet and almost completely devoid of life.

John tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the stoplight to turn, and at one point considered simply running it as there were no cops around, even knowing a traffic cam would almost certainly catch him in the act. But he wasn't here to get caught, or to attract any kind of unwanted attention. He was here on a mission and would see it through to a successful conclusion.

Once the light finally did turn green, he resisted the urge to jam his foot down on the accelerator, and instead coasted through at the posted speed limit. About halfway down the block was a large three-story building of the Williamsburg Inn chain – a series of reputable and generally well-maintained hotels with locations in every eastern state from Nova Scotia to Cuba – surrounded by a fairly expansive parking lot that was largely empty of cars. John turned in at the entrance and parked by the main lobby. He was not entirely unconscious of how cramped his arms and legs were after driving all the way from Maryland without stopping – except for a fill-up at a gas station in western Massachusetts – but by this point, he had learned to more or less ignore them. He briefly stretched upon getting out of the car, gathered his bags from the trunk, and went inside to obtain a room for his stay, however long that might be.

In this case, unlike his previous trips, money was no object.

Instead of using cash, which tended to arouse suspicion, he paid with a card that was linked to a private, untraceable account in Mauritius, made to appear as if coming from any one of a number of U.S. banks. For as long as he had worked for the Company, it had never failed him.

As soon as he had checked in, John quickly went to his relatively spacious room on the second floor and began unpacking. To anyone, including the sleepy and admittedly attractive young receptionist in the lobby (who probably wasn't much younger than John himself), he appeared to be nothing more than a tired twenty-nine year-old businessman simply looking for a place to stay the night.

So much the better.

With a population of just over twenty-five thousand, Rock Harbor was practically a small city, just large enough to blend in and keep yourself relatively anonymous, something John would need over the next few days.

As soon as he had – at least, for the moment – finished unpacking, he turned on the wall-mounted LCD and sat back in a leather easy chair, looking to see if any movies or shows playing at this hour were interesting enough to warrant his attention. Unfortunately, not much did these days.

Unable to find anything after five minutes of scrolling through several hundred channels, John turned off the TV, tossed the remote aside, and opened up his computer to review his orders yet again.

Observe and report aforementioned subjects. Avoid direct contact and remain anonymous. Do not attraction attention, if at all possible. Transmit full report over secure line within three days.

Fairly straightforward, and yet they had to be so damn cryptic at the same time. If John hadn't known who the 'aforementioned subjects' were to begin with, it would have made his job that much harder and nearly impossible to execute. The Company's so-called 'briefing specialists' were supposed to be top-notch former military officers that had received their discharges for less than honorable performances in the line of duty – for reasons few cared to openly speculate – and even a few genius civilian cryptographers snatched up out of college or high school a hairsbreadth before the CIA or NSA. Of course, such dealings were kept far from the public eye, and in the case of the government's own prying eyes, new recruits were hired through various shell companies to give the appearance that they were legitimately working for different competing businesses nationwide. There were a few semi-legitimate corporations with thousands and even tens of thousands of employees who unknowingly worked for and were on Company payrolls.

He felt his head slowly dropping, and his eyes began to close. A moment later, he managed to pull himself back from the brink of falling asleep right on top of his computer. John shook his head, but realized that it was a losing battle after being awake for nearly two days straight. Five or six hours of sleep could do him a world of good and would help him stay alert for the day ahead.

He shut the computer down, turned off the lights, and dropped into one of the queen-size beds without even bothering to change out of his day clothes.

Within a minute, John had already drifted off into unconsciousness.

He didn't dream like most. Instead, memories played out from a certain period in his life, just a vividly as the moment each one had occurred. This time, it was the events that had led to where he was now, in the employ of the Man and his Company.

A former Army Ranger, John had had been left a near-cripple after the First Cyprus War, in which he was caught in the blast from a Syrian mine outside Nicosia in September of 1984. After being evac-ed to the RAF base at Akrotiri, it was almost immediately determined that his injuries – while not life-threatening – would prohibit him from further military service. Hence when he finally woke from a month-long coma at Walter Reed Hospital, John was informed that he had been granted a medical discharge, and that following an indeterminate period of physical therapy, he would be returning to live with his mother and father in Carolina.

While he still loved his parents and was anxious at first to see them again after so long, John had just turned twenty-one at the time, and was quick to stress his own independence, despite having to use a wheelchair to get around.

After over a year of intense physical therapy, John was finally able to walk for brief periods on his own, enough to convince his parents to rent him an apartment (albeit under the condition that they were allowed to check on him every day).

Another two years went by, with his parents eventually limiting their daily visits to weekly visits when his condition appeared to improve. And for a time, he really did improve, managing nearly thirty minutes out of the wheelchair on occasion and even being able to use crutches instead of the wheelchair at times.

But in December 1987, he received word that a buddy who was also injured in the same explosion three years earlier had committed suicide. Shocked and saddened at first, he immediately offered condolences to the family and attended his friend's memorial service at the Virginia National Cemetery near Fredericksburg. Soon thereafter, and for reasons he could no longer remember, John had begun a downward slide into depression that peaked in the spring of 1989, when he was starting to have suicidal thoughts of his own. Army psychologists and counselors had tried to help him, but to no avail.

Seemingly nothing could be done to help him.

That is, until He had come along.

It was overcast that Saturday morning, the 29th of April, with a good chance of rain later in the day, as per usual, matching John's mood and serving only to make him feel even worse. John was in his tenth straight day without sufficient food, skipping breakfast and sleeping in on the sofa after watching TV all through the previous night. Upon waking, he saw that someone had slipped a letter under his door. It was nothing more than a plain white envelope, with his first, middle, and last name written on the front in a unique, yet legible hand. Out of pure curiosity, a desire to relieve his deep-seated boredom and the tension that accompanied it in any way possible, John had opened the letter.

It initially started out with the usual condolences for his situation – almost enough to make him stop reading right then and there, but something convinced him to go on – eventually turning into a sympathy and understanding of sorts. Whoever the writer was, he/she had suffered a terrible tragedy of their own in the recent past, and, not only did they want to establish a rapport with John, but they also wanted to offer him a job, it seemed. While not enough to make him pull a complete 180 turnaround, it did give him a much better alternative to the current situation.

His mother and father were thrilled at hearing that he'd gotten a job offer (and just hearing from him, period). They were a bit less enthusiastic, however, about the location: Arlington, in Washington D.C. It was at least a six hour drive from Charlotte, something John's parents – both of whom were in their sixties, with relatively poor eyesight to begin with – simply weren't up to any more. Unfortunately, his father was deathly afraid of flying, just as much as his mother hated taking the passenger train.

John went anyway, with their tacit approval (and only just), about a week later, with another of his old Army buddies accompanying him on the flight up to ensure he got around safely. They took a wheelchair-capable taxi van from Potomac International Airport in Maryland down to Arlington for John's interview. He initially insisted on using his crutches, so as not to appear completely infirm, but before getting even two meters, his legs nearly gave out on him. His lack of even miniscule exercise for over a year had greatly weakened his legs, to the point of never being able to use crutches again – at least, not for a very long time.

He almost gave up then and there, but his buddy managed to convince John that this was a big chance for him, a chance to make a living and truly get out on his own. Living off his parents and the trickle of income from his Army disability pension just didn't feel right. Like many young adults, John wanted his independence, and wasn't terribly keen on stretching his parents' hospitality too far into the future.

His interview lasted nearly three hours, and was certainly... well, 'unique' was one way of describing it. He found himself being grilled by everyone from nondescript guys in suits who looked like Wall Street bankers to other former Army vets, and despite his outwardly lethargic appearance, John's mind was sharp and focused, giving them an answer to every question.

Strangely enough, they had yet to mention what kind of position he might be filling.

The strangest thing about that interview, though, was the man who sat in the shadows the whole time, occasionally voicing his approval at and complimenting John's quick responses. Whoever it was, they obviously commanded the respect – and in some cases, fear – of almost every person who entered the room in those three hours.

Once it was over and the last interviewer was getting ready to leave, he was handed a business card with the Company logo and a phone number to call if he hadn't been contacted within a week.

After spending a few days with his buddy exploring the sights in DC – made possible for the first time since the early 70s by a fairly large and seemingly inexplicable infusion of cash into John's bank account – they returned to Carolina, after which it was business as usual for a time.

For several nail-biting days John waited for a call that never came, which left it up to him to follow through. The number he had been given was an East Florida area code, surprisingly enough, not DC or Virginia, like he'd expected. What surprised him even more, however, was the person who answered, and at four-thirty in the morning no less. Not a secretary or a receptionist, but the mysterious man in the shadows from the interview.

That deep, baritone voice was unmistakable.

Though the man still failed to mention what position John would occupy, he did give him a timeframe as to when he would start, and that was immediately. Within the next few hours, someone would arrive to transport John to down to Company headquarters in Jacksonville, EF. He was simultaneously ecstatic about having a job, and shocked at having to go so quickly, not to mention being informed that he was to cut off contact with his parents and acquaintances of any kind for an indefinite period. This only put an even greater air of secrecy around the whole thing than before.

Three men arrived soon after and quickly hustled him out to their vehicle, a dark-colored, wheelchair-accessible SUV with heavily tinted windows. Two of the three remained behind in the apartment, presumably to gather some of John's belongings, while the third – the driver – began the long journey south to Jacksonville. They weren't even a kilometer down the road when the flash of an explosion in the rearview mirror and the loud thunderclap that followed a split second later caught John's attention. Somewhere back up the block, tongues of yellow-orange flame and a column of heavy black smoke rose into the dawn sky over the state capital. Only some time later did he learn that it had been his apartment building, and specifically, his apartment where the explosion had originated. And since the body of a man roughly John's age had been found in the wreckage, he was presumed dead by everyone he had ever known before, including his parents, who were at the solemn forefront of a funeral service with full military honors at Virginia National Cemetery two weeks later.

But having cut off all contact anyway, John continued on the path he had started, unfortunately without knowing what had already transpired in his absence.

His arrival in Jacksonville a day later wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for, especially with having to go through what had to have been the back entrance of all back entrances – a low-ceilinged tunnel in the middle of some kind of field. One glance was all it took to know this was no ordinary field, evidenced by the multitude of rocket-launch gantries and huge glass building in the near distance.

That had been the point at which John finally began to feel as if he'd gotten in over his head. But no matter how he'd felt at the time, he was too far in now to get out.

Hell, that had probably been true as far back as when he'd agreed to the interview. In the present? It was a foregone conclusion.

John's first month as a Company employee was by now a blur of images, noise, and pain. The excruciating nano treatment that had restored his legs, rehabilitation – basically, learning to walk again – conversations with the Man himself, his first assignment, and the adrenaline rush of being back in action. While covert surveillance held its' own inherent dangers, such as the target noticing you and fleeing or notifying others of your presence, it was certainly nowhere near as endangering as open combat.

Still, keeping the Evans family under observation would probably be one of his easiest jobs yet.

After waking the next morning, John's first order of business was to hit up the local diner and introduce 'himself' – or at least, his persona of John Samuels, a friendly out of state businessman passing through on his way to finalize a major multi-company deal up in Halifax. This would give him a line on local gossip and hopefully some of the Evans family's day-to-day activities.

Lyle and Julia, the middle-aged couple who owned and ran the diner, were very personable people and took a near-instant liking to John, despite the fact that he was a complete stranger. He was given a very detailed description of all the best spots in town, from the diner itself to the local theater, and even the library, should he want to do any kind of research. Of course, the kind of research John might need would have to be done from the security of his laptop back at the hotel, and was probably a little beyond the purview of a simple municipal library, but he thanked them nonetheless.

He ordered a small, but well-balanced breakfast of eggs, toast, a small assortment of fruit, and, of course, coffee, the latter of which arrived first.

John took a sip of the brew.

Not bad...

It was especially so considering that various environmentalists (of all people) were predicting a collapse of the coffee industry by the turn of the century, what with the sudden and rapid climatic shift in recent years coupled with the spread of the Blight having decimated crops the world over. The League of Nations had recently begun spearheading an effort to discover just where the Blight had come from and how to stop or even potentially reverse it.

That was six months ago. And in that time, investigation into the Blight's origins or even the climate change had only served to bring about more questions than answers. Rumors abounded that someone knew exactly where both had come from, and refused to divulge the information, preferring instead to hoard it and wait for the right time to come forward, when the world had become so desperate for a stop to the chaos that the potential monetary windfall would be staggering.

John wasn't one to believe in something based on mere rumor, though he wouldn't be completely surprised were any of it true.

Already, books had been written on dystopian futures set in the 2000s or early 2010s, and they all had the same theme of a 'cure' for the unfolding climate disaster being held back by some no-name corporate bigwig looking to get rich off other people's misfortune. The latter happened quite often in the real world, only to a far lesser extent. Not that John could do much about it, anyway.

He had known for some time that the Company heavily utilized such measures, and had done his best to mitigate the damage. Once, he had been ordered by the Man to eliminate a business rival up in New York using any means necessary; instead, he faked the rival's death by sinking his yacht in Long Island Sound and sending him into seclusion on a ranch in North Texas. John's boss had fortunately been none the wiser – unusual for a person of his intelligence – and praised him for a job well done.

Unlike the many other Company 'agents' in the same position, John was by no means a cold-blooded sociopath, and did not revel in murdering innocents as if for sport. On the battlefield, in the heat of combat, you had little choice when confronted by the enemy. It was kill or be killed. There had been all too many who thought of a military career as nothing more than an excuse to do so. Such talk or thinking sickened him.

And yet I still work with those bastards...

Why?

Plain and simple, it was one of humanity's oldest of vices:

Money.

The Company had made him a wealthy man, and he wasn't about to bite the hand that fed him anytime soon.

John liked to think of himself as a 'good guy', but also knew that to the general public, he wouldn't be any different than the Company assassins he was forced to associate with. Recently, John had been trying as discreetly as possible to keep his distance from them, yet someone had noticed. Why else would he have been assigned a milk-run mission like this one?

Hell, they probably could have assigned Brandon this mission.

Then again, at least he hadn't been ordered to kill anyone this time. Explaining morality to the Boss would go over like a lead balloon.

Fortunately, the only thing that needed eliminating right now was the layer of fog in his brain, and the coffee took care of that rather nicely.

His breakfast arrived almost as soon as he'd finished downing the coffee, though the waiter was a bit shorter than he'd expected. It was a twelve year-old boy of relatively small stature, with short-cropped dark brown hair and heterochromia, giving him separate green and blue eyes. The kid gave John a slight grin as he set the food down on the table.

"So you're the out-of-towner my parents have been talking about, right?"

John hesitated for a second.

He'd rather this kid mind his own business and not get too nosy. John wasn't here to make friends. Then again, being friendly to a talkative rug-rat like this one just might work to his advantage. Kids tended to run their mouths and offer up free information, whether they meant to or not.

And in this line of work, you could never pass up free information, no matter the source.

He finally nodded in response.

"Cool. Where you from?"

"Maryland," John replied, not missing a beat this time, "a little ways north of D.C."

"Nice. You ever visit all the museums and stuff?"

"Back when I was a kid myself, sometimes we even made a whole weekend of it."

That was actually true.

"You're pretty lucky then," the boy replied, sounding a bit jealous, "the farthest I've ever gone was visiting the state capitol building on a class trip to Bangor earlier this year."

"Believe me, I understand. By the time I was your age, my parents had already limited my world to our hometown and if I was lucky, the county line."

The kid winced. "Ouch... Even Bangor is at least in a different county. Now I feel sorry for you, mister."

"Call me John."

"OK, John. So, what brings you here?"

"I'm on my way up to Halifax, figured this was a good a place as any to stop for a couple of days, get a break from the big cities and even catch up with a friend or two."

"Here?" the boy asked, sounding incredulous. "You've got friends here? In little old Rock Harbor?"

John nodded affirmatively.

"Who is it, then?"

"Only one I remember off the top of my head is Wallace Evans."

The boy's eyes went wide. "You know Mr. Evans?" he asked.

John nodded again.

"How?"

"I helped him get supplies for the hospital a couple of times in recent years. Thought I'd write him a letter or something, offer my condolences for his daughter."

A sad look spread across the boy's face and he nodded slowly.

"Are you okay?" John asked.

The kid shifted uncomfortably on his feet, and his gaze fell sharply. He remained quiet.

John repeated his question, and the twelve year-old finally answered.

"I'm sorry, mister... I have to go..."

A look of genuine bewilderment crossed John's face as the boy ran back into the kitchen, right past Julia, who was carrying a pot of coffee for refills. John raised an eyebrow, surprised that he'd elicited such a reaction from the kid.

Well... So much for that source.

Julia smiled apologetically as she poured him a new cup of coffee. "Sorry about that. Christian can get a little emotional sometimes. What was it you two were talking about?"

"I was just telling him how I know Wallace Evans and wanted to send my condolences for what happened to his daughter. I never got the chance."

Julia nodded. "Christian is friends with Wallace's older son, Henry. They're in the same class at school together. A lot of Henry's friends took Connie's disappearance pretty hard. She was like a sister to them, too."

"Pretty tight-knit community you've got here, then?"

"Hasn't changed a bit since I was a kid myself. Back then, there were maybe two thousand people in the entire area, and they were pretty scattered at that. But everyone knew each other. Even with how much this place has grown in recent years, that's still usually the case. And if not, they're usually travelers like you – just passing through – and a fair number of them on their way to Halifax, too. That, or Quebec."

"Popular stopping point, I guess," John casually remarked before taking a sip of the fresh coffee. "Explains the Williamsburg up the road."

"You wouldn't have seen any of this fifteen years ago, certainly not before they upgraded the main road and linked us to the Interstate back in '81. In fact, a big reason for it was the mayor and town council making the exact case that Rock Harbor could serve as a stopping point for people traveling on the 95."

"It appears to have worked."

Julia smiled wryly. "And then some. After that little quake last week, plus whatever caused it, we've had conspiracy nutjobs coming out of the woodwork."

"Not at all what you'd expect in a quiet place like this," John observed.

"True enough," Julia agreed. "Still, Rock Harbor's not as quiet as you might think. Small, yes, in comparison to cities like Falmouth or St. John, but small doesn't always translate to quiet. What with traffic buzzing in from the Interstate, the zeppelin dock out in the main harbor, and new people moving in seemingly every day, we're more like a small city ourselves. Speaking of which – new people, that is – what was it you wanted to know?"

John smiled inwardly.

She trusted him now. Hopefully, she wouldn't be the last, either.

"If you had any idea of how I could get in touch with Wallace, I'd very much appreciate it."

It circled far overhead, unseen and unheard by any living soul on the ground below. A cold, dark eye scanned the terrain like a bird of prey searching for its' next target, cataloging points of interest as it went. The drone was a standard Grumman Predator, at roughly three meters long, possessing a six meter wingspan, it was outfitted with the latest in aerial surveillance gear and a direct link to multiple tracking satellites. It was hidden from view using a blend of gray paints designed especially to mimic the gloomy New England skies and also doubled as a radar deflection measure; if need be, the Predator could 'escape' into the low-hanging clouds to avoid visual detection.

But Jenson, the drone's operator, anticipated no such problem would arise.

After all, this was home soil, not Cyprus or Syria. There weren't RPG-armed insurgents hiding in the forest or in the upper floors of the office buildings, ready to pick off the small aircraft should his attention wander. The only thing he was even slightly worried about was the chance – albeit a slim one – that someone might sight the drone, either visually or on radar, and report it to the FAA. That was why every twenty-four hours, the craft would be rotated out for an identical second that was to circle the town in a different direction, while the first was brought back to the abandoned airfield where Jenson was working from. This procedure would be repeated until the higher-ups or the agent in charge of the operation called things off, presumably within the next few days. Hopefully before Christmas.

Jenson would greatly prefer being at home with his girlfriend the morning of the 25th, rather than sitting in the decaying terminal building of a former municipal airport near Pittsfield, Maine, freezing his ass off. Not that he couldn't have turned the power and heating back on, it was just that doing so would attract unwanted attention, attention a covert op like this simply couldn't afford at any stage.

Being cold was a small price to pay for remaining undetected.

He yawned loudly and then sipped from a thermos of coffee. The caffeine swept away the last vestiges of sleep and sharpened his senses. Just in time, too.

An incessant beeping from his computer echoed through the terminal building, alerting Jenson of what he'd been waiting for for days now:

The Predator had finally located its' target subject.

Jenson sat up, rubbed his eyes, and began typing. Within moments he had confirmed the drone's telemetry and quickly began feeding live position updates to John. The guy, visible in the bottom left corner of the HD camera's field of view, had only just left the diner, and was casually strolling up Main Street, about half a block or so behind the target.

Lucky SOB, Jenson thought to himself. Probably had a nice hot meal and fresh coffee to boot.

Two day-old thermos coffee left something to be desired.

The target, a blond-haired twelve year-old kid named Henry Evans was accompanied by another boy, probably the same age, but with brown hair instead. That had to be Mark Evans, Henry's cousin from Arizona, who had flown in with his parents on a zeppelin two days ago. The boys appeared to be chatting back and forth as they turned the corner into an alley, completely unaware that they were being watched from above. A split second later, the boys disappeared from Jenson's line of sight.

He tapped his earpiece. It buzzed once, then twice before John answered.

"Update?"

"The blondie kid's got company, probably the cousin that flew in the other day. Careful not to spook them."

"I've done this how many times now?"

Jenson shrugged out of habit. "Lost count."

"Exactly. I can handle this. Anything else?"

"They ducked into an alley between the antique shop and the bookstore."

Jenson tapped his earpiece twice to hang up.

A moment later, as John casually strolled into the alley and out of sight, a loud squealing noise came from Jenson's computer that made him wince. It was the drone camera. The high-def panorama of Rock Harbor's Main Street had suddenly been replaced by the white-gray flicker of static snow.

Not knowing whether it was simply the camera or the drone itself that'd malfunctioned from some kind of power surge, Jenson bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. His anxiety fortunately remained unfounded, as the static cleared up within moments and the camera came back online. He hastily checked the readouts, and was relieved to see that the drone had not significantly deviated from its' course or set altitude, at least, no more than usual.

Perplexed, Jenson tried contacting John to inform him and suggest an earlier drone rotation, which might end up leaving them with a significant gap in coverage while the second drone got into position. Unfortunately, all he got was more white noise.

Heavy walls have been known to block comm signals before. Chances were actually pretty good that one – or both – of the buildings were built out of either cinderblock or concrete and rebar. Which meant that for now, John was unreachable until he left the confines of the alley.

Jenson quickly decided to bring the drone back in and check it for faults. He didn't like it any better than John or their superiors back at the Company would, but he figured that losing an hour or so worth of surveillance was better than losing the multi-million dollar Predator to an undiagnosed system error or flaw in the hardware.

Fully knowing that he would almost certainly have to take responsibility for the camera malfunction one way or another, Jenson took the drone off autopilot and set a course that would eventually bring it back to the airfield.

What he had failed to notice, however, was the readout showing that some kind of energy surge had occurred at the exact moment the drone camera had gone offline. And even when he did, Jenson failed to realize just what it meant.

Not knowing he had lost contact with Jenson, John continued into the strangely cold, dank alleyway, keeping a discreet distance between himself and Henry Evans, whose cousin seemed to have disappeared.

About a third of the way down the alley, the Evans kid stopped at and entered through a recessed doorway in back of the antique shop. John waited a minute or so before following. His orders had been to avoid contact at all costs, but here, he would attempt to gain information the same way he had tried with Christian at the diner, banking on the idea that all kids were blabber-mouths and hoping that Henry Evans was made of stronger stuff.

But from the moment he walked in that door, something felt very wrong about this 'antique shop'.

Dim, flickering fluorescent lights lit the interior, reflecting off the string of dirty mirrors that ringed the upper half of the walls. Tall, evenly-spaced shelves filled with what looked like enormous eight-track tapes, books, and all sorts of a paraphernalia occupied the center of the room. When John got a closer look at some of the stuff on the shelves, he cringed. This sure as hell was no antique shop.

It was an adult media store.

The Evans kid had stopped in the back, and was casually flipping through a stack of magazines labeled 'Playboy'.

Even as an adult nearing his thirties, John wouldn't be caught dead in one of these places, which made it all the more shocking (and revolting) that a twelve year-old could somehow get in.

John blinked his eyes at a momentarily bright flash from one of the fluorescent lights and felt the same strange sensation he had when turning into the alley, with the hairs on his neck standing on end.

A moment later, he found himself standing near the back of a clean, brightly-lit antique shop. An actual antique shop. And not three meters away stood Henry Evans and his cousin, Mark, both of whom were intently focused on a set of wooden animal carvings and excitedly whispering back and forth. John had to blink his eyes again several times to make sure he wasn't imagining things.

His surroundings had changed in the quite literal blink of an eye.

What the hell was going on here?

Somewhere Else...

Henry hadn't been entirely unaware of the strange man that had followed him into the alley. In fact, he had spotted the guy through his peripherals when walking into the store. It wasn't the first occasion that someone else had come in at the same time as him, and more often than not, he knew the person, typically using that fact to his advantage and essentially blackmailing them into keeping his secret.

One of those 'mutually assured destruction' type of situations, though most people Henry saw in here would never say a word to his parents, for fear of drawing undue attention to themselves.

But the guy that'd followed him in here today was completely different. For one, the man was an obvious stranger, someone Henry had never seen before. And then the look on his face when he seemed to realize that this place wasn't what he'd expected almost made Henry laugh aloud.

What stopped Henry from doing so, on the other hand, wasn't amusing in the least. The guy had started flickering like a broken TV screen and then vanished, just like the apparitions of Connie and Richard he'd seen a few days ago.

It was actually a bit nerve-wracking, which came as a surprise, and was just barely enough to completely block out the tiny seed of fear in the back of his mind:

What if this was all some elaborate plot to force him into a mental asylum? There was very little in this world that had the ability to scare Henry Evans, and 'those places' were one of them.

In any case, he was starting to feel as if something was amiss.

Henry certainly wasn't wrong.

A/N: Thoughts? Be sure to review, and let me know what you think of this latest installment. Questions and constructive criticism are also welcome.

Any ideas on what happened to John here? (Specifically near the end) I hope the events of his backstory are fairly plausible, as well, and that I didn't misrepresent his post-combat life.

This 'Grumman Predator' drone is fairly similar to the MQ-1 Predator of our world, only half the size and manufactured by a different company.