Chapter 13: Getting Over It All
A few hours had passed since Marcus and the four boys had got back home from London's main city area in Trafalgar Square. Stan, Cartman & Kenny were enjoying playing a little bit of pool and even snooker in the games room part of Marcus' home whilst Marcus and Kyle were both sitting in a fairly small study-like room. Marcus was sitting down in one of those huge brown, leather rotating chairs whereas Kyle was more like lying down on a flat-based chair that you'd see in psychologist's offices. Marcus was near the end of asking Kyle a long series of questions for his Child Psychology course; even though he wasn't even doing the course or even at college any more.
"Alright Kyle, these are the last few questions I'm gunna ask yer'." Marcus spoke with a huge pad and blue pen in his hand.
"Sure dude, but why do I have to have this big black blindfold on!" Kyle replied; rubbing his hand across the thick black sheet of material that completely covered his eyes; virtually making him blind to seeing anything at all.
"It just helps for yer' to concentrate Kyle. Just means that you're giving me a full, honest and focused answer when talking."
"Oh……right, whatever."
"Right OK, question 46; do you ever feel that you're alone……as if no one understands how you feel and how you think?"
"………Yeh, I feel like that pretty much all the time."
"Question 47; do you ever have the urge to unleash all or any negativity out on someone, because of what they've done or said to you?"
"Totally……on Cartman all the time!"
"Alright, 48; out of these two, who would you prefer to be friends with; a guy who has loads of cool things but isn't as friendly…or someone who doesn't have a lot to offer but is really friendly?"
"Errrrrrr…the second dude; the more friendly guy!"
"OK, 49; do you feel that you're in control of your own actions? Or do you feel that you're being controlled in what to do and what to say?"
"That I'm controlled. I feel as if someone or something is forcing me to do what I usually do."
"And finally, Question 50; on a scale of one to ten, how happy would you say you are at this present moment in life?"
"Errrrrr……probably about……eight and a half."
"Alright that's it, that's all 50 questions asked. Yer' can take off the blindfold now."
Kyle removed his blindfold; blinking multiple times in order to get use to the light in the room again. With that done, Kyle left the room; leaving Marcus by his office desk. Marcus opened out a side cupboard and placed the pad and pen in the cupboard. However, one small piece of a photo slipped out and calmly floated down onto the red carpeted ground. Noticing it, Marcus picked it up and looked at it. Marcus was now looking at half of an old photo of him at an earlier age with his mother; both smiling in what seemed to be a very big structured building. However half of the photo was missing; having been ripped off for some unknown reason.
Suddenly, a flood of memories came rushing back into Marcus' head. Marcus leaned back in his leather chair and looked up at the brightly lit ceiling. A flashback of a past event in Marcus' life had already begun replaying itself in his head.
Within the flashback……
The year was now 1999, Marcus and his mother Liz had just about finished moving into their new larger-sized home; having already lived in a smaller detached house in London for about six months. Liz was watching his son from a distance as Marcus was getting trained in a huge but empty metallic-like room. There were about three people situated in different areas stood around Marcus who was stood in a focused position in the middle of a mat. Suddenly, the three older adults began rushing to Marcus simultaneously; all engaging in a series of close-combat controlled fights which Marcus most of the time managed to defend himself against. However, the strain took its toll and eventually, Marcus was hit back onto the distant ground.
"Come on Marcus, you have to focus your abilities whilst fighting. You can never lose focus on your enemy. Lack of focus means lack of ability. And lack of ability means lack of power." An official spoke.
"Sir, can we take a break please from this. We've been doing this for about 3 hours now."
"Alright Marcus, we'll pick up where we left off tomorrow."
As Marcus made his way over to a water machine in his lightly coloured vest and shorts, the official walked over to Marcus' mother.
"I must say Mrs. Kane-Bridge; your son is doing ever so well in all his training courses here at MI6."
"Well I knew he could do it. Although I was a bit worried about how he would feel about all this; what with him still trying to get over his father's death and all. Please don't push him to do what you want him to do. I don't ant him to feel pressurized and stressed about all this."
"Yes, we understand. But you must know that Marcus seems to be the only one who can help us now with this current problem. But I'm sure he'll become a great asset to both yourself and MI6. He seems to have some kind of gift that I just don't understand."
"I know what you mean. Up until his father died, Marcus seemed to love both playing and making music. But ever since, his emotions have changed. Maybe it's just part of him growing up, I don't know."
"Well don't worry Mrs. Kane-Bridge; we're proud at what Marcus has achieved so far. He's already gained numerous levels of knowledge in all areas of his training; both physically and mentally. His computer skills have increased three-fold and his abilities at self defence, combat and agility movement have increased dramatically. It won't be long before he's ready for his first ever mission. But there is still plenty to teach him."
"SIR! SIR!"An MI6 officer shouted as he rushed into the training room.
"What is it Jones?"
"Sir, we've finally received new information regarding the four subject targets."
The MI6 official turned to Liz. "Excuse us Mrs. Kane-Bridge. We have some important work to go over." The two MI6 guys stormed out of the room and down a fairly dim lit corridor. "So what do we know as of this point then Jones?"
Officer Jones passed the document's folder to the official. "Well, our spy satellite that's been hovering over the Central American region for the past few months has sent back numerous pages of data regarding the four subject targets."
"And……"
"Ermmmm, yes, well……readings have now confirmed the classification of all four targets. They are as follows……Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman & Kenny McCormick."
"Do we have any visual or semi-visual references?"
"No visual reference yet, but thermo-tracking and radio-ray readings tell us that all four targets are based within a small mountain town within the central based state of Colorado called 'South Park'."
"How long will it take until we can get a proper visual reference of what these four look like?"
"It may take some time sir. MI6 agents are finding it difficult to get onto American soil. I mean we can't take any picture shots from the satellite; it's all the way up in the bloody sky! But we're still working on it."
"Good, once we find out what these four look like, we'll be able to begin some more thorough research into them. We need to gain as much knowledge as we can about them before we do anything about our current situation. Head back to the main research wing Jones, continue with your work."
"Yes sir……oh wait, sir." The two guys stopped as they were about to go down separate corridors."If you don't mind me asking, what has that kid Marcus got to do with this anyway?"
"That's none of your concern Jones. You just stick to the job at hand. Marcus has got a huge role to play in making sure everything regarding this huge mission going according to plan. You understand?"
"Yes sir!"
With their conversation over, they both resumed walking down separate corridors.
Meanwhile, back in the main training hall, Liz had already walked over to her son Marcus.
"I hope this isn't all getting to you Marcus."
"No, not at all. Why would yer' say that?" Marcus replied; sipping down a plastic cup full of ice cold water.
"It's just I don't want you thinking that their pushing and forcing you to learn all this. Remember, they picked you because you knew the pain that you were going through. Besides, you enjoy it, right?"
"Yeh, it's just……with me doing this, there's no time for me to be out there y'know……being with friends, going places, hanging out with different people in the city. I can't do any of that because of this."
"Well you can still do your music thing that you like."
"Actually…I've lost focus on that now. It's left a really bad taste in my mouth if you know what I mean."
"Marcus…look, don't start thinking that it was your fault that your dad died. You had nothing to do with it. You shouldn't beat yourself up over something you didn't do. It was nobody's fault. (Well except for that stupid driver who crashed into him)" Liz put her arm around her son. "Look son; don't let this whole thing with MI6 get in the way of what you want to o in your life. Besides, I bet you'd sound really good playing that guitar I bought you for your Christmas."
"Yeh but I've hardly practiced with it."
"Well there's something you can do with your spare time then. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Besides, you'll probably get back to loving all the tunes you like to make and play."
An MI6 training official came walking through another set of double doors. "Marcus, your agility training starts soon. Meet me in the Beta Training room upstairs in 10 minutes." He quickly walked back out again.
"Right, I better make my way up slowly upstairs then. See yer' in a little while mum." Marcus spoke as he slowly made his way to the second set of double doors.
"Good luck son, I know you'll make me proud." Liz thought to herself; as she watched her son walk out of the large, dark training room.
Marcus' flashback ended and he slowly moved forward again whilst still sat down on his huge brown leather chair. He opened out another part of a side cupboard and looked at a broad collection of awards and certificates that he had received when he was younger. In one pile, there were all his musical awards that he had won whilst he was young and then in another pile, there were loads of MI6 certificates; clarifying all the skills and abilities that Marcus had learned while under training at MI6 for all those long years.
"That's it." Marcus spoke. "I'm not gunna let this get to me. I'm going to do this my way and my way only." He stood up and made his way to the room's door. "I just hope everything turns out alright in the end."
Marcus made his way to another basement room of his house where there were loads of gym and training equipment in the room. Marcus was in what seemed like a corridor built within a machine. Marcus was brushing up on his agility and acrobatic abilities; dodging and avoiding fake infra-red lasers by doing multiple impressive moves such as front flips, back flips, running up walls and dodging every laser with some tight and quick-reacting moves.
With about half an hour passed, Marcus made his way back upstairs; going through a secretly hidden door which was hidden in the wall of one of the house's main corridors. Brushing the sweat off his face, he made his way to the games room where the four boys were now playing snooker.
"What the bloody hell are yer' doing?" Marcus shouted in a humorous fashion; as he noticed all four boys standing on the top of the snooker table.
"Errrrr, we're like…playing snooker." Stan spoke in his neutral toned voice.
"Yeh, but you're not supposed to stand on the actual table. You're supposed to stand on the floor while hitting the balls with yer' cue."
"Oh……right!"
"Sorry Marcus, we just got a bit confused since it looked nothing like a pool table." Kyle replied; carefully slipping down back onto the room's floor.
"Yer' see guys. This is why Kyle sucks at things like this! Jews can't play snooker."
"You don't know anything about Jews fat-ass!" Kyle shouted.
"Oh yeh, well like I've said multiple times before, I went to see the movie 'The Passion' and the movie showed you Jews as being a selfish, lifeless weak cruel bunch of liars. And if it says that, then it must be true." Cartman spoke in his usual cocky and smug tone of voice.
"Wait a minute; you guys have been to see 'The Passion'? THAT MOVIE WAS CRAP!"
"Yeh, that's what me and Stan said!" Kenny spoke.
"Well ANYWAY, I'm done with my notes and questions, so I'd just to like say thanks for sitting through all that and answering all those questions." Marcus walked off into the living room to watch some telly; whilst the others resumed their game of snooker. But as Marcus was about to sit own on the sofa, the phone next to it began to ring. Marcus picked it up.
"Hello?"
"There are two kinds of people in this world; those who admit to their beliefs and paths that they follow, and those that cower from it in order to protect themselves from the truth."
"Alright, who the f--- is this? This is the forth bloody time you've rang me now both here and on my mobile."
"Only those who hide from the truth will suffer from the truth."
"Are you like from one of those call centres from India or Japan? Coz' you're really starting to piss me off now."
"I can sense and even understand what you're thinking……MARCUS!"
Suddenly there was a cold stabbing feeling in Marcus' body. "How the f--- did you know my name! WHO IS THIS?"
"Some truths are meant to be hidden!"
The caller hung up and the call ended. Marcus placed the phone back on its stand in an even more confused state than he already was in. He sat back down and turned on the TV to a sports news channel.
"Our top stories tonight; England have once again embarrassed us in all sports by getting beat by other national teams. In football, England were beaten 3 -0 by Denmark. In Rugby, England lost 3 – 462 to New Zealand at Twickenham. And in Tennis, British Number 1; Zgloveia Macheckaleckadingdong; a guy who isn't even British but still lives in this bloody country was beaten 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 in the First Round of the French Open."
"OH…GOD!" Marcus groaned as he pressed a pillow up against his face and started punching it in a slightly humorous fashion. After which, he began walking to the outside area of the house and into the garden. Without warning, Marcus began walking up to the swimming pool and just like that; he seemed to just walk into the water; falling into the pool and creating a fairly big splash. The four boys were slightly confused at why Marcus had just done what he had just done, but they quickly got back to playing their seemingly long game of snooker within the games room. Even Marcus was baffled at why he just did that, but he knew he needed to do something to cool himself off; even if it meant getting his clothes wet. (or in this case, soaking wet)