Author's note: I don't consider this a strong story by any stretch of the imagination; I could go on about its flaws for paragraphs, but you'll surely discover them for yourself. I think of this more as a writing exercise, my first experiment in the tropes of The 4400 and my first foray into writing canonical characters. Please do review and critique, but with that in mind!

ooooo

Air time.

Keith Sawyer cleared the gap between buildings with total ease, his sneakered feet soaring a foot or more above the lip of the next apartment's roof. He touched down upon the surface with a crunch, and immediately tumbled forward in a tight roll, falling harmlessly across his shoulder and coming immediately back to his feet.

Three other young men followed immediately behind, executing the same move with varying amounts of grace. One let out a long, exhilarated breath. "Phew! Good run. Want to trace back, or just drop down from the fire escape?"

Keith looked hungrily toward the next building. "No. I'm going one farther."

"Are you suicidal? That's like, half again as far as the one we just did."

"I can make it."

"You're a newbie traceur, not an Olympic long-jumper! First rule: don't try anything you're not ready for, outside of the gym. Remember?"

Keith grinned. "Hey. I'm chosen, you know? Nothing's gonna happen to me. Just watch." He peered down over the front walk of the apartment at a companion bearing a camera. "Jenn! Get ready to shoot me clearing the next gap."

"Roger!"

And before any of his friends could object further, he dashed to the far side of the roof, and leapt.

ooo

The three photographs Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris examined on Nina Jarvis's desk clearly showed a before-during-after montage; the backdrop, sky as seen from a ground-level vantage point between two apartment buildings, remained nearly identical from one to the next. What showed against the backdrop, however, made the pictures worth seeing. The first and third depicted a lanky young man in mid-flight as he jumped the gap between buildings – liftoff and landing shots, respectively.

The second picture stood out from the others, though. Rather than a college-aged youth, it showed a bright ball of light like a miniature white sun, surrounded by an electric corona.

"That looks like the comet. The vehicle the 4400 returned in," remarked Tom.

Diana stared at the picture, fascinated. "Do we know this isn't a hoax?" She looked up at Nina. "I don't know, somebody Photoshopped over some images from the news footage of the comet, or took a picture of a ball lightning, and thought it'd be funny to play a joke on NTAC?"

Nina tapped on her desk. "This came in Monday morning, and our analysts have been all over it since then. As far as we can tell – from a close digital scan down to the fingerprints on the photos themselves – it's really what it looks like. This young man went roof-hopping and instead took a glide… in the form, you could say, of a ball of light." She cocked an eyebrow. "Of course, that's why I've called you in. The next step is to see if the story checks out at its source."

"And what is the source?" asked Tom. "Where did this come from?"

Nina slid another document out onto the desk. "A note sent with the photos lists the address of a dorm room on the University of Washington campus. Not coincidentally, it's the current location of one of our returnees: Keith Sawyer, disappeared in the summer of 1988. Seems that all of this was a gift to us from one of his concerned friends at the university. Of course, now he's not picking up his phone."

"Seems as straightforward as any of these things ever are," said Diana, looking at Tom. "Let's go knock at Mr. Sawyer's dorm room, shall we?"

ooo

The UW students, many of whom were out enjoying the crisp, clear day, while alarmed to see federal agents flashing their badges on campus, were happy to point the way to the right building and floor. Sawyer's door sported a picture of an athletic black man and a white marker board. Scrawled on the whiteboard was the warning, "Do Not Disturb."

"So much for that," remarked Diana, and knocked.

No answer came. "Think he's out at class?" asked Tom.

Diana put her ear to the door. "No, there's someone in there." She spoke up: "This is Diana Skouris and Tom Baldwin from NTAC. We'd like to speak with Keith."

Silence lingered for a moment, but just as Diana was about to speak again, a thin voice sounded from the room. "No… I really don't think you do."

Tom and Diana exchanged puzzled looks. "Keith," said Tom, "you're not in trouble. We just want a minute of your time."

"Can't help you, man."

Diana frowned. "I don't think you understand. It's our job to have this conversation with you, whether you'd like us to or not, especially if something's wrong." She tapped once more, meaningfully, on the door frame. "I'd prefer not to have to talk through this door the whole time, and I know how brutal room damage charges can be, so I don't think either of us wants things to go that way. Just let us in for a second, okay?"

A low series of curses drifted out, but after a moment, slow footsteps approached the door. The NTAC agents could hear a slippery fumbling with the lock of the door, and it swung in.

Before them stood the young man from the photos – but something was horribly wrong. He looked… melted. Though his build was slim and wiry, flesh hung from his face in flaccid loops, and his abdomen sagged unnaturally over his hips.

Keith looked down at his right hand, some of whose skin had fallen entirely away, revealing raw red muscle beneath. "You, uh, might not want to touch the doorknob on this side," he said mournfully.

ooo

"It's bizarre," said Dr. Max Hudson of NTAC Medical, "and the prognosis isn't good. I've never seen anything like it."

"We knew that much already," said Tom. "What's happening to him?"

"The proteins in Keith's body are breaking down – unraveling, from the outside in. Our tests haven't detected any enzyme or pathogen activity, though; the amino acids are just separating of their own accord. His body temperature is over 105 degrees Fahrenheit from the heat given off as the chemical bonds give up their energy."

"No pathogens – so it's not contagious?" asked Diana.

"No harmful bacteria, viruses, or anything of the sort, beyond the usual mostly-harmless student cocktail. So you can rest easy on disease vectors this time."

"Is there anything we can do for him?"

Dr. Hudson shook his head. "We've placed him in a cold environment, as cold as we can without hurting him further, and that seems to have slowed the breakdown. But without knowing the cause, we can only guess wildly at treatment… and without an effective treatment, soon, he will die."

"We'll figure it out." Diana pursed her lips. "Let us know if you come up with anything, Max. We need to pay a visit to our brain trust."

ooo

"Okay." Marco rubbed his face thoughtfully. "So this guy can, or at least did, transform into a ball of light and back." He sketched a little diagram on the theory room's transparent marker board: stick figure squiggly circle stick figure. Tom shook his head; Diana kept him silent with a brief glare. Marco continued, "Maybe we've got some kind of matter-energy conversion going on. A weird sort of energy, one we don't really know how it works – but then, modern science didn't count on telekinesis or precognition, either."

"Matter and energy?" said Tom. "You're talking Einstein, right? E equals m times c squared."

"Point to Mr. Baldwin. Sure. Matter and energy can be thought of as two forms of the same thing, and we convert one to the other all the time. Coal-burning power plants are maybe the simplest example. Only, we don't have this step." He tapped his marker on the second equals sign, with the stick figure to its right. "Couldn't even if we wanted to."

Diana stared. "Okay. Go on, why not?"

"Because conversion between types of energy isn't ever perfect. Extra crap comes out of the process, stuff we can't use." He struck through the two equals signs. "So it's never equal anyway. Or it is, but it's only equal when you account for that missing crap."

"And you think that happened with our roof-hopper guy?"

"Well, I don't just think that happened, I know it. After all, he didn't just become mystery energy ball and become roof-hopper again. He also gave off, at the least, visible light, or he wouldn't have shown up like that on camera." He shrugged. "Whether that's why he's melting back in Medical, I couldn't say. Maybe some of the glue holding him together ended up exposing that bit of film."

Diana looked at the odd diagram on the board and shook her head. "So what do you do about a problem like that?"

"Well, that's the Holy Grail of the age, isn't it? How do you get as much energy as possible out for your input? Engineers in the energy industry are always working to make the processes more efficient. Hardly helps our kid, though."

Tom looked thoughtful. "Maybe he just needs more practice."

Diana raised an eyebrow. "Practice?"

"Yeah. Some of the 4400 have abilities they use involuntarily, right, and others use them at will. Some start off with accidental abilities that they later get the hang of, though, like Shawn. At first he would accidentally 'drain' people in fights; now he heals as and when he chooses."

"That's very understanding of you, Tom." Diana smirked. "Last time the subject came up, you were quite bitter that Shawn waited until the eleventh hour to help Kyle."

"You forget I've had an extra eight years to think about it."

"Right. But you were saying. Practice?"

"Yeah. This Keith probably didn't quite know what he was doing when he triggered his ability. If he'd had some time to work on it, maybe he could have figured out how to shed waste energy from less important matter of his."

Marce smiled strangely. "Could have?"

Tom looked at him. "Hmm?"

"Well, you just said it," said Diana, catching Marco's look. "You had eight years…"

Tom looked at her sidelong, and a faint look of horrified realization crept onto his face. "Uh-uh. No way."

ooo

Alana looked apprehensive as Tom led her through the stark corridors of NTAC Medical. "I… don't know if I can do this, Tom."

He put his arm around her waist. "It'll be all right, hon. I'll be here the whole time, waiting for you."

She gave him a sharp look. "Of course. It'll just be a few seconds, for you. But who knows how long it'll take from my perspective?" Her face softened, but sorrowfully. "I don't want to be away from you, so soon, not like this—"

Tom stopped and looked into Alana's eyes. "You're in control this time, Alana. You know how it works, and you can leave whenever you need to." He paused. "Maybe you were meant to do this."

"I was meant to stay with you and be your strength. They said that."

"'They' didn't tell us everything. They never do, never have." He kissed her on the forehead. "They're too distant for that. So maybe you shouldn't do this for them. Do it for the boy who's dying in there – and do it for me."

She gave him one last look of anguish, but without saying anything more, she continued to Keith's emergency cold-room.

In the sterile medical chamber, Diana waited by Keith's side, wearing a thick sweatshirt against the refrigerator-like air of the room. The young man had clearly gotten worse in spite of this measure, however. He looked like a wax sculpture exposed to heat, his body spreading sickeningly under its own weight on the hospital bed. Odd bulges of skin at his cheeks and on his hands appeared where flesh had sagged too far from the bones. But he was awake and breathing, his watery eyes roving sluggishly about.

Diana met Alana's wary look with an expression of sympathy. "Whenever you're ready."

Alana nodded and, shivering slightly, walked slowly to Keith's side and rested her hand, ever so gently, on his arm. The boy's eyes closed; Alana's remained open, but darted about rapidly as if in dream-sleep.

Several seconds passed, then Alana shook her head and looked around the room, blinking. She focused on Tom, then fell into his arms with a sigh. "I missed you," she murmured.

While Tom embraced his beloved, Diana bent over the ailing youth. "Keith?"

He opened and closed his eyes, slowly, and tried to sit up, but slumped (or rather, oozed) back down as his muscles failed him. He looked over at Alana, smiled faintly, and transformed.

The room filled with blue-white light as the Keith-sphere, a rippling ball of energy half a yard in diameter, rose up from the bend and drifted toward the door. The bed sheets seemed to have disappeared. Tom and Diana stared in wonder.

With a burst of air and another flash of light, Keith reappeared at the door, looking whole and well once more. He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of Tom, Diana, and Alana in turn.

"Thank you all," he said in an airy voice. "Especially you," he added, his gaze lingering on Alana. "But now… now there's something I have to do."

"Wait!" said Diana, alarmed at the tone of his voice. "We need to—"

But with another whoosh of light and air, Keith had taken ball lightning form again. Almost lazily, the sphere drifted downward and sank into the floor, passing through the infirmary tile as if it were so much air, and vanished.

"What the," murmured Diana. "What's down there?"

Tom blinked. "Dirt? Bedrock? The Seattle sewer system?"

"Damn." She blew out a long breath, vaporous in the cold room. "So we saved him, but haven't learned anything. Here's hoping we can find him again."

"We'll keep our people on the streets watching for him. And in the meantime, look for 'ripple effects'?"

"It's hard to watch for ripples when you don't even know what puddle your rock got tossed into. But you're right. Can we get out of here now?" She looked meaningfully at Alana, still pressed against Tom. "I think you've got an unfair advantage when it comes to body heat."

With that, they left to make their report to NTAC, one more puzzle solved, but the purpose of the abductors as inscrutable as ever. For now, they could only wait…

fin (for now)