Chapter Three
Year 502, PC
"Hey, art kid."
Fox looked up from his textbook, looking over the rims of his wire-frame glasses at the person speaking to him, and sighed. Never mind that he was a black belt in karate. Never mind that he flew jet planes as a hobby, and sniped on weekends. Or that he was a 4.0 student and a member of the track team. Oh no. He was the art kid. The kid whose paintings were always displayed. "Yes?" He asked somewhat wearily. He knew who this guy was, he was a member of the football team, and as far as he had heard from his cheerleading friends, was a completely typical jock.
"You're in 2D Project Art, right?" The football jock sat down at the table with him, raising an eyebrow at the stack of books.
"Yeah. So?"
"I just got transferred there, and I heard that a research paper has just been assigned."
"Uh-huh."
"So I was hoping that…"
"I could help you? Sorry. No. But I'll be all too happy to direct you to some particularly wonderful websites or books to assist you on your chosen topic." He turned back to his book.
The jock looked at him, and saw a very studious junior in High School, wearing a polo shirt tucked into his khakis. "You trying to get into an Ivy League school or what?"
"No, Air Force." Fox replied without looking up.
"Oh really? Look, …Fox I know you're on the track team, but…"
Fox very calmly rolled up one of his sleeves, twisting so the jock could see his upper arm, and tightened his muscles. They bulged. So did the jock's eyes.
"You really shouldn't judge me on my appearance, you know." He rolled his sleeve back down absently, the whole time not taking his eyes off his book.
"This guy bothering you Fox?"
Now he looked up, and grinned, pushing his glasses up. "Hey, Falco. Not at all. Nothing I can't take care of."
Falco returned the grin, also sitting at the table. As usual, he was dressed in battered combat boots, worn jeans, and a black leather jacket. He had tied a bandana around his head like a skullcap, and it boldly announced his gang colors. He was notorious in school for his behaviors, but never did anything to get suspended, and actually was quietly doing rather well in school, even if he did always seem to be hanging out with his fellow gang members. He and Fox had been friends for three years now.
The jock took one look at him and vanished.
"Amazing what some stereotypes will do for a person, isn't it?" Falco said, picking up one of the books off the stack and looking at it. "Tennyson. Poetry, right? For advanced English class?"
"Uh-huh. I don't mind it much, actually. Though I do get a bit stared at when I'm muttering poetry verses while plinking targets…" Fox grinned and clapped the book he was reading closed. "Not only that, you wouldn't believe how much of an advantage it can be when it comes to the other gender…"
"I imagine. Lay some of it on me, man, give me a reason to read it." Falco kicked back. Another rumor that circulated about Falco was that he was very easy with the ladies. He was more then a bit, but he didn't notch his bedpost like some people.
"You sure? It's deep stuff."
"Fire away. I just had a cup of coffee, I should be able to stay awake."
Fox laughed, leaning his elbows on the table and pressing his fingertips together, looking at Falco from around his hands. "Heard a carol, mournful, holy. Chanted loudly, chanted lowly. Till her blood was frozen slowly, and her eyes were darkened wholly, turn'd to tower'd Camelot. For ere she reach'd upon the tide, the first house by the water-side, singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott."
Falco's grin had vanished by the end of this, and he looked thoughtful. "Man you could score some dates with that."
"You're welcome to use my wisdom, but frankly, I've got my eye on someone that WOULDN'T work on." Fox started packing his backpack. "Ah well, such is my life eh?"
Falco stood as Fox did. "Mind if I borrow this?"
"Don't ruin it." Was his immediate reply. "Hey want to go plinking with my dad and I this weekend? We'll pay your door fee."
"Yeah sure. I'll bring my Dirty Harry gun."
"You do that."
"Fox, come here."
Fox set down his brush and walked to where his art teacher stood, twenty feet away across the room, looking at Fox's painting. He crossed his arms and joined his teacher in contemplation absently, head tilted to one side. As usual, a small smear of paint had appeared under his left eye. It always ended up there.
His teacher, a mid-forties woman who was just a bit of a beatnik, pulled out a laser pointer and circled parts of his painting. "You're actually pretty good at doing surrealism, though you maintain a more modern tone. I just wanted to ask you, why do the colors gold and dark blue always appear? Even when you do landscapes they show up somewhere. Why?"
Fox frowned. "I couldn't tell you. It just feels right."
"Who am I to argue with the artist?" His teacher clapped him on the shoulder. "You told me you were doing a realism project on your own time…"
Fox walked over and picked up a rather large canvas, uncovering it as he walked over. When asked why he took project art, he just said he had an affinity with paint. Not that he wanted to be an artist for a living, no. He just liked painting. And no, for god's sake, he wasn't gay, now shut up… He sighed, remembering the conversations word for word, turning the canvas so she could see it.
It took her several minutes to process it because of the careful detail. It was a sniper in the brush, lying down with the gun aimed. In some ways, the gun was completely played up, in other ways, the soldier was. Though the soldier's face was obscured by shadow, the hands that held the gun were human, soft compared to the camouflage metal. Light gleamed off the telescopic sight and dimly off the military watch the soldier wore.
"Oh. Oh my… how long did you spend…?" She whispered, touching the painting.
"Not sure. I don't keep track of time when I paint. I just do." He shrugged. "What helped was I was able to go to an actual sniper course and photograph. And of course, I actually have that very gun…"
"Who modeled the hands?"
"I ran off my pictures or nagged my father into it." He grinned.
"What does your dad think?"
"He actually approves. Most of our hobbies we do together, he respects that one or two of mine are a private affair."
The other students by now had drifted over, letting off exclamations when they saw the painting.
"Another one in the display gallery for Fox, eh?" Laughed one of the girls.
"Actually I have a better idea."
Twenty minutes later, one of the boards in the gallery room had been cleared, Fox's painting centered high, and a sign hung below it announcing the title.
An Army of One.
"Saw that painting of yours." Falco remarked, watching Fox load his gloc, speaking to him through their headsets. They were wearing huge headsets as per gun range rules. "You really do have some talent. You should use it."
Fox snapped his arm up and fired all the shots. The target came forward and displayed a smiley face of holes. "I have more talent elsewhere I'm afraid." He kicked out the empty clip absently.
"Not bad." James remarked, sent his target all the way to the back, turned, and fired over his shoulder. The results were the same.
"Showoff." Fox grunted.
Falco rolled his eyes, bracing and firing. Falco only loaded five shots instead of six, always, and used hollow points. Even in the gun range, the thunder blast of the magnum filled the building, and the hollow point ripped a savage hole in the target. "Want to trade, Fox?"
"Yeah sure." Fox tossed his gloc to Falco, who put his gun back on an empty chamber and pitched the magnum to him.
"To think these things are mostly plastic…" Falco eyed the gloc, lifted it in classic gang-banger style—flat instead of up—and fired, missing the target twice. "Damage is less…"
"I don't load hollow points… oh, hell!" This was added when the magnum very nearly sat Fox down. James laughed. "Now wonder you don't do that grip on this gun!"
"I'm no fool. Some other idiot can get a broken wrist." Falco grunted. "By the way, I read all of that poem, Lady of Shalott…"
"You read Tennyson?" James looked at Falco.
"Only for the seducing rights… and as for Lady of Shalott, I can safely say that while it's rather romantic, I'm not at all sure what it's about."
Fox laughed.
"So who's this girl you've got your eye on?"
"Why do you care?"
"Well, none of the school girls seems to have caught your eye before… so I'm guessing she's another military brat…"
"Nooo…"
"When you say it like that it means yes. Ok, so she's a military brat or waiting to be a cadet. Probably Air Force like you, am I right?" When Fox didn't reply, Falco plowed on. "Not taller then you, probably. Probably about an inch shorter, maybe two."
"Jesus, how well do you know me?"
"All those hours playing basketball in the gym while the girls did their class separate paid off." Was the smug reply.
"Falco you need to come along with us more often. He never tells ME these things." James said.
"You're my dad, go figure." Fox shot him a look, taking a stance, then grinning. "Wicky wicky wild, wild west." He pulled off a few dance moves then fired.
"All right, I'm not buying you any more movies… nice moves though."
"So you going to fill me in on this girl or what?" Falco finally asked, looking at Fox.
"My private life stays that way." Was the cheerful reply. "Don't ask, don't tell policy."
"Need to know basis, and we don't need to know?" James asked.
"Correct." Fox stuck the gun in his belt, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops absently, then suddenly wavering as colors burst through his head. Blue, vibrant blue and gold. Panic. Anger. Resentment. Pain.
Then he was on the ground, looking up at Falco and James.
"What in hell just happened?" He very calmly asked, managing to sit up, rubbing the back of his head.
"You tell us, man. You kinda wavered and hit the ground flat out." Falco replied, helping him up. "You feel ok?"
"I feel fine…" He continued to rub the back of his head, trying to remember what happened. The colors, a fireworks burst through his mind, finding old pathways, reaching, desperate. Emotions, not his own, definitely not his own. He shook off, managed a smile for his friend and dad, and to prove he was ok whipped off another shot with the magnum, piercing the paper silhouette between the 'eyes.'
"Well, well. It's been a while since information reached us on this." Andross looked at the carefully prepared document on his desk. "So, tell me how you see it."
Rachel sat on the edge of his desk. "Well, one subject was assaulted. No long-term bodily damage, don't worry, but at the moment it happened, the other received the backlash of it and passed out, which is not in his medical history at all." She rubbed her chin. "We haven't had any evidence of the theory working for years until now. Perhaps we should live-contact them?"
"No, we've got some other things on our plate right now…" He knocked back some aspirin as the stress ate at him. He just wasn't appreciated anymore. He had other things to contend with, but he swore to himself that he would come back to this. And maybe once he could, there would be more information, and he would be able to do a live contact…
Fox sighed, rubbing a temple, allowing the marker he held to wander over the sheet of paper in no particular pattern, then capping it and picking up one of his metallic markers. Life went on, but he was still pondering what had happened earlier in the day.
God only knew of course. Heat perhaps, though it had never happened to him before, even in a weight room or sauna. No, he remembered this… from when he was little, from before his mom died…
He moaned. God his memory was so fuzzy… but he remembered lying awake at night, speaking, speaking to someone. Some else, an other… but not always with words. Emotions, pure emotions, able to exchange them and understand. Friendship. Love.
Love?
He looked at the picture he was drawing. It was a starburst of blue and gold, and he had begun to wrap it, hug it with deep green and silver, entwine the colors. He forced himself to cap the marker and drop it, looking at the picture.
Yes love. He remembered pure innocent love.
This just can't be normal. He sighed to himself, sitting back, idly spinning in his computer chair. He was wearing just a set of worn jeans, bare footed and shirtless. His stereo was set to a local slow-jams station, music he found it easy to think to. His room was a strange combination of military focus and art hole. Paints and poetry contested for shelf space with models and thick military books. And hanging above his bed was a very, very old finger painting he had done in preschool. For some reason, he could never bring himself to take it down. He stared at it, allowing himself to zone out, nodding in time with the music and sipping at a mug of coffee.
OTHER home.
He started as that clear slice of memory returned. Other house, other home. Someplace he had never been but was welcome to go. He moaned and tilted his head back, wondering just want was wrong with him.
His cell phone chirped the first bars of a recent popular song, and he picked it up, glancing at the caller ID. "Yo, Falco. Wassap?"
"Watching golf and drinking an import." Was the smartass reply. "Listen, you busy next Friday night?"
He looked at the calendar on his door. "Not yet. Why?"
"I'm going to set you up."
"You are not." He replied severely.
"In a thoroughly innocent, I just want to be helpful and selfish way. Listen, I landed a date with a rather interesting young lady, but she won't go out with me unless it's a double date the first time. So I thought you could find the number you need and ask whatever girl it is. Come on dude, we're just going to Club Dynamite."
Fox considered that. "I haven't been on the club scene for a month or so."
"Not a problem, the fashions haven't changed yet. Come on Fox, ASK her." Falco hung up.
"Egotistical bastard. It's so easy for him." Fox sighed once he had hung up, looking at the finger painting. Gold and blue. He shook his head sharply and sighed. Might as well try it, he supposed. What did he have to loose?
"Oh, man…"
"Is he even aware of what he's doing…"
Fox looked toward the girl track team members, who were hanging all over the bleachers and staring in his direction, and grinned, then pulled off his shirt. He felt arrogant today, so might as well.
"Well aren't we too sexy for our shirt." Falco said. He did field events sometimes, in particular javelin. He said it was because of early experience with a crowbar. Fox didn't question it further.
"Yup. Hey Bill, kamere. You too Scott." The two came over, and he propped his forearms on their shoulders. "You know that song Larger then Life? Backstreet Boys?"
"I'm more the Beach Boys sort, but sure." Said Bill. Scott also nodded.
"Ever seen the video?"
"Once or twice." Scott said.
"Every freaking day thanks to my sister." Bill replied.
"Good. Since our coach is stuck on the phone with the administrators for an undeterminable amount of time, I've got an idea…"
Falco leaned on one of the javelins and listened in to Fox's planning, laughing heartily. "Did we get sick of our art-geek label, Fox?"
"I'm feeling the need to strut and flex. You guys in agreement?" He looked at Bill and Scott.
"As long as you're center stage, you're the one who'd know the choreography."
"Good, come on." Fox strode toward the bleachers, Bill and Scott following, did a sweeping bow, and went into his own remediation of the Larger then Life video. Being he wasn't a choir student, his voice was just slightly off-key, but the girls didn't seem to care much.
It was toward the end of it that their track instructor arrived and broke it up.
Blue and gold…
Fox rubbed his temples, trying his damnedest to learn more about organic chemistry and finding it just impossible today. The back of his mind was completely flooded with the colors; which came from nowhere at weird intervals to explode across his mind and blast him with emotions. Loneliness. A questioning feeling. He tried to shake it off, knocked back extra-strength Tylenol and prayed to god the mental disturbance disappeared by seven. He had actually gotten up the guts to call and set up the double date, he didn't want to have to squeak out due to health issues.
He had just arrived at his date's house when the colors dimmed and feelings faded, as if they knew he was going to be busy. He shrugged it off and walked up to the door, pressing the buzzer.
The figure that answered the door was one he knew well, now greatly complimented by the club dress. He got a bit dazzled, then shook it off.
"So you're the great Fox McCloud, child prodigy of the Air Force." Fara Phoenix drawled.
He grinned and held out his hand. "And you're Test Pilot Phoenix. Not so bad yourself. Shall we?"
