CHAPTER TWO
It was an hour later when Adam'd beaten the bag to a pulp. He gave it one more spinning kick for good measure before deciding it had had enough. Adam pulled his sweatshirt over his head again and reached in his bag for his keys. He found them, and his fingers ran over his phone. That's right, he thought. Someone tried calling during class. He fingered the phone and pulled it out, glancing at the screen.
ONE MISSED CALL. It was an Angel Grove number, but not one he recognized. Frowning, he ran his thumb over the screen and touched the little phone icon. He dialed the number back and waited. It rang a few times before someone answered. Before he could say anything, the person on the other end of the line hung up, leaving Adam listening to silence.
Weird. He put the phone back into his bag and shouldered it. Adam walked over to the lights and turned them off, then locked the dojo door behind him. It was dark outside, but the streetlight on the corner gave him enough light to get to his car-a black Camaro. He wasn't one to splurge, but he'd discovered a while back he liked fast cars. The Camaro was his baby, black paint, chrome stripes and hubcaps. He tossed his bag into the passenger seat and put his key in the ignition. The car roared to life, classic rock coming in through the expanded sound system.
He was sitting at a red light a few moments later, still thinking about the phantom phone caller. He took his hand off the wheel and unzipped his bag partway, searching for his phone again. The light turned green as he found it, and he made a left turn while thumbing through his contact list. Finding the person he was looking for, he hit SEND and waited.
A few moments later, someone answered. "Hello?"
"Hey, Billy. It's Adam."
"Hey!" Billy Cranston, or Doctor Billy Cranston, Adam reminded himself, sounded surprised to hear him. Adam wasn't surprised. The members of the old group (or as Rocky called it, 'our old band,') kept up with each other periodically, but then, they all had lives. And hadn't someone said once that high school doesn't last forever? Adam smiled a genuine smile when the smartest man he knew picked up the phone. "Been awhile, man. Heard you put on the colors again."
Adam grimaced. Maybe it hadn't been the smartest move, but one didn't refuse a request from the Sentinel Knight of all people-spirits? He still hadn't figured that one out. He'd thought he'd come back in Green, he hadn't been expecting coming back in black. He'd thought the Power Coin's power was shot, after all, it'd almost killed him that day in the park with Carlos. He'd been leery the first time he'd echoed "It's Morphin' Time!" in almost fifteen years, but whatever Sentinel Knight had done to play with the Power, the Mastodon had performed just fine. "Yeah," he replied. "Thanks for the suggestion to find Alpha to put the Morphing Grid back on track."
"No problem. I love a challenge. Thanks for bringing him back in one piece. Speaking of….to what do I owe the honor of this conversation?"
"Me calling to tell you about my ride in a 'Zord again isn't enough?" Adam grinned.
"Glad you enjoyed it. Like riding a bike, right?"
"A very large, very high-tech bike," Adam replied. "Pretty sure even Desert Thunder wasn't as advanced as the thing I was driving in San Angeles."
"Adam, Desert Thunder was basically a glorified minivan," Billy teased.
"Thanks for that reminder," Adam grimaced. Honestly, when he'd turned the Turbo powers over to Carlos Vallerte, he hadn't felt bad at all giving him Desert Thunder…
"Well, someday you're gonna have to tell me about suiting back up again," Billy said, "but I'm guessing that's not why you called."
"I wish it was just a social call-but speaking of that, we need to hit Ernie's sometime. Anyway, I was wondering if you still had your tracing software on your computer?"
There was a pause at the end of the phone. "Pretty sure it's still floating around there somewhere," Billy replied. "Who're you trying to find?"
Adam rattled off the phone number that had called him earlier, then explained what had happened. "I'm trying to find out who belongs to that number," he said. "I think it's an Angel Grove cell."
"So just so I have this clear," Billy said slowly, "you want me to hack the cell towers and phone companies to find out who your mystery caller is."
"You got it," Adam said.
"You realize it would be much more effective to simply call the number back?"
"I thought you loved a challenge."
Billy laughed. "Touche. All right, man, I'll see what I can come up with. I'll give you a call tomorrow."
"Thanks, man," Adam said. "It's good to talk to you again."
"Likewise," Billy replied. "Catch you on the flip side." Adam heard him chuckle. "Do people even talk like that anymore?"
Adam shook his head as he pulled into his driveway. "Only if they like-how did Tori put it-to 'kick it old school.'"
"Is that what we are now is old school?" Billy asked.
Adam sighed. "Apparently it's more cool to call it 'retro,'" he replied. He'd picked up the word from Kira. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," he said, and hung up the phone.
He shut the engine off and looked up at the house. Adam Park…this is your life. The house was a single story house on a quiet side street. The house was white, with a small porch in desperate need of staining. The car looked very out of place in the driveway-a brand new car and a pretty beat up little house.
He pulled his bag across the seat and got out of the car, locking it with the remote and making his way up to the front door. He let himself in and flipped on the light. The car had been a worthy splurge, albeit at the cost of the rest of the place. He'd always had intentions to fix everything up, but between a soccer team, the dojo, and several rounds of evil space villains bent on Earth's destruction or takeover, the only thing he'd really had time to do was tear out the carpet in the kitchen and buy a decent television.
But if the outside of the house was a mess, inside, the place was spotless. Even though the furniture was older, the house itself a fixer-upper he'd bought straight out of college, Adam kept everything in order. He was neat to a fault, he blamed his heritage. His mother had drilled it into him at an early age that cleanliness was next to godliness. So the green, black and white throw on the back of the couch was folded neatly and hung straight over the middle of the couch. The glass coffee table had nicks and dings in the legs from when he, Tommy and Rocky had hauled it into the house, but the stack of Inside Kung Fu and Car and Driver magazines was neat on the corner, and he noticed he'd left a glass on a coaster on the table. His collection of movies was alphabetized on the entertainment center, and there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere in the room.
Adam paused as he walked past the entertainment center. On the middle shelf were four photos. The first was Adam, his mother, and father before he'd passed away. An eight year old Adam was holding up a trophy from a junior karate match, and his mother and father were smiling proudly. Adam enjoyed that photo; it was one of the only family photos he had that had his father in it. It'd been one of the confident moments of his life that he'd used on Goldar's Mirror of Regret that day in the park all those years ago.
The second frame was from another tournament, but this one was cut from a newspaper. It was a color photo of Rocky, Aisha and himself in high school, right after they'd won the Team Ninja competition against the team from Angel Grove. Adam had mixed feelings about that day-they'd won the competition all right, but that'd drawn the attention of Zedd and Goldar, who'd kidnapped the three of them along with their high school science teacher. Zedd had wanted them to use their skills for evil, but the three had refused to give in. Tommy, Billy and Kimberly had saved them soon after, revealing their identities as the current team of Power Rangers. Rocky still hated snakes to this day-a fact Adam exploited every birthday. Rocky had a short memory, he never saw it coming.
Picture three was a photo of Rocky, Aisha, Adam, Tommy, Kim and Billy together in their skydiving gear, right before they'd jumped out of a plane. That had been such a rush. All six of them were smiling, laughing at something stupid that Bulk and Skull had done. Their jumpmaster had snapped the photo at just the right time.
The final picture was of Adam and Rocky in front of the window at Path of Light. The logo was on the window, and a large SOLD sign was behind them. It had been one of the last times that the five Zeo Rangers had all been together before going their separate ways, celebrating their friends' success at getting the dojo. Rocky was holding the keys, a big grin on his face, and Adam had his hands in his jacket pocket, embarrassed at being in the photo. He hated getting his picture taken. Soon after that, Tommy apparently had gone to college for a doctorate in paleontology (Adam still couldn't wrap his head around that-the die hard racer ended up a dino doc-and a ranger team mentor/ranger again), Kat had returned to Australia on a dance scholarship and Billy had left for a study abroad course in Switzerland, coming back some kind of engineer that Adam couldn't hope to pronounce doing science that went above and beyond his mental capacity.
He also thought of her, and shoved her memory from his thoughts.
Others of his friends were gone now, off doing who knows what. Jason Scott was off seeing the world. He'd always had an adventurous streak. Rumor was that Kimberly was with him again. Jason sometimes stopped into Angel Grove to see family, and the guys would get together. Aisha was still in Africa, keeping in touch, albeit sporadically. The last email he'd gotten, she was embedded with some wildlife preserve, still protecting the animals that she had traded in her morpher for all those years ago.
And then there was Tanya…his mind kept coming back to her, no matter how much he wanted to forget.
Adam got up from the couch, hitting the lights as he went. He went up to his room on the second floor and sat on his bed, rubbing his face with his hands. He reached over into the nightstand drawer and pulled out another photo. This photo used to reside on the entertainment center as well, but now…now it was too hard to look at it.
It was a photo of him and Tanya Sloan. The photo had been taken at a high school dance, so it was an older photo, but it had always been one of his favorites. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and his favorite black jeans, while Tanya was in a yellow sleeveless dress. Adam had his arm around her, and Tanya was laughing. He remembered that Kat had told Tanya her dress kind of looked like a banana peel.
He closed the drawer and put the photo away, but Adam couldn't get her off his mind...
"What time's your flight leave, Tanya?" Kat asked.
The six of them were sitting in the park. Tanya's suitcases were sitting beside her. She and Kat were sitting on the grass, Justin was sitting cross-legged on the bench next to Adam. Rocky and Tommy were both sitting on the back of the bench.
"A couple hours," Tanya replied. She shivered. "I'm really scared you guys. I've never done anything like this before."
"You're going to be amazing." That had come from Adam, who said it so seriously and decisively that it made everyone turn to look at him. "Tanya, nobody has a voice like you. You're going to blow those record guys away." Impulsively, he leaned down and grabbed Tanya's hand, giving it a quick squeeze. "And I'm gonna be the first in line when your first single comes out."
She'd blushed. Kat had wrapped an arm around her friend's waist. Rocky and Tommy were both looking at Adam with knowing smiles.
"We should probably get you to the airport," Adam said. "You've still gotta check your bag."
Tanya nodded. "Right." She stood up, and the others gathered around for a group hug. "You are all the best friends a girl could ever want." She reached down and ruffled Justin's hair. The youngest of their team was trying not to cry. "Even you, pipsqueak."
Justin tried to smile, but it wavered. Tanya wrapped Justin in a hug, holding him for a few moments. The others waited, giving Justin and Tanya their time.
"Come on Tanya, you can ride with me." Adam said after a moment as he hefted her bag. "I'll see you guys later," he said to Rocky and Tommy. He put Tanya's bag in the trunk of his car and then held the door for her as she got in.
"Let's go, kiddo," Tommy told Justin. "You can ride up front with me," he offered, with a gracious nod from Kat.
The ride to the airport was quiet. "So do you go pitch your song, and then they give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down, or do they make you come back and then call you later?" Adam asked. He didn't know how any of this worked.
Tanya was quiet, staring into the fading sunlight. "Adam…." she said after a moment, still staring straight ahead. "Adam, I'm not coming back to Angel Grove."
He almost slammed on the brakes. "What do you mean?" he asked her.
She looked at him, biting her lower lip like she'd used to when she was new in school. "Adam, the fact is….even if they don't like me, I'm not going to give up. I'll pound every door in Los Angeles if I have to. And if they do say yes, it's going to be a lot of paperwork, it's going to be promotion and interviews and studio sessions…."
"Yeah I know that," Adam replied. "But they've gotta give you a break sometime, don't they?"
She didn't say anything, and Adam's heart sank. "Oh. I see. I know where this is going." He took his eyes off the road long enough for Tanya to see the hurt in them. "You can't have any distractions. Including me."
"It's not like that, exactly," Tanya began, but Adam shook his head.
"No," he said. "No, you're right. Tanya, this is your dream. You shouldn't ever give it up or quit chasing it for anything."
"Adam-"
"It's okay," he said. "I understand." He didn't, but he didn't want her to feel upset. "Tell you what," he said. "If you ever need someone to talk to, or if things ever go south, or whatever," he said, and he looked over at her again, "Call me. Anytime. Day, night, whatever."
He pulled up in front of the terminal and left the car in park. He popped the trunk and got Tanya's bag. She was already out of the car, her arms wrapped around her midsection. "You take care of yourself, okay?" he said, and gave her a hug. She returned it, squeezing him tight. "I'll miss you, Tanya Sloan," he told her.
She was crying now. "I'll miss you too, Adam. Thank you, for everything." She stepped back and brushed away the tears with her thumbs. Then she picked up her bag and he watched her walk through the sliding doors to go check in for her flight. He saw Tommy and the others pull in behind him, but he didn't stop. He couldn't. He didn't want to be there to see her get on the plane and fly out of his life for good.
She always did give the best hugs.
Adam wondered why it hurt so bad to think of her. That was a decade and change ago.
She never called.
You loved her, he though to himself. And it was true. Aisha had been his best friend, but Tanya had been so much more than that. And there hadn't been anyone else since her. He rolled over in bed and flicked the lamp off, staring up at the white ceiling in an attempt to clear his mind.
His mind formed a picture of Rachel Connors in his mind before he drifted off to sleep.
Author's Note: Ah, the obligatory information dump chapter...