Chapter 4 "Control"
We all feel like our lives are not entirely in our own hands. That feeling makes us insecure, afraid. How much of our lives do we have a say in, and how much of it is already decided for us.
- Michael Mules, Journal Entry
Within the next week, May began, and Michael continued to work in secret with his abilities. While in school, he concentrated on the work as best he could to ensure him graduating in the following months, and then he would be in the real world doing - what exactly? Even with these growing powers, he still didn't know what he was going to do.
Joining the circus or some acrobatic show popped into his head, but that idea didn't seem appealing to him. Before all this had started, he had been thinking of working fulltime and saving up for a world tour; that still seemed like the best idea he had thought of.
Focusing on in the present, he still had to get ready for his driver's test, study for finals, get the nerve to find a date for prom, and he also had to keep dodging Wendy. The girl wasn't quitting on getting some sort of explanation from him. She had gone as far as waiting outside his classes when he got out and she even tried following him home.
"That Wendy chick asked me for you cell number," Mark told him in the lunch line. "She said you owed her an iPod after breaking her old one."
"You didn't give it to her, did you?" he asked, holding his breath.
"No, but you know what, without all the black makeup, she's not bad-looking." Mark poked his elbow at Michael's arm. "She clearly has the hots for you and since prom is three weeks away . . ."
"Don't even joke," Michael said as he slid his lunch card through the register's computer. "Even if I liked her, a girl like that wouldn't be caught dead at a dance."
"Didn't you say you would find a date by all means?" Mark pointed out.
"I'll worry about that later." The two sat down at their usual table with Mark's usual group of friends. "Today I'm taking my driver's test, again."
"Third time's a charm," Mark remarked and he started talking to one of the guys on his other side, his back turned to Michael.
A few hours later, Michael was exiting his car with his examiner at the DMV. His face had a large grin on it.
"I passed," he told his mother who was waiting at the entrance, as if it was no big deal.
"Congratulations." Angela had a set of keys in her raised hand. "The car is officially yours."
The second the keys dropped pm his hand, Michael felt a sense of great freedom. The sky was the limit now, at least for him, partially.
"I suppose you'll be going to meet your friends after you drop me off at home," Angela said.
Not really, but he was definitely going to cruise Los Angeles for a few hours. So he drove back to the house and his mother went inside alone, after advising him not to return home late, even if it was a weekend night.
Driving down the street, Michael stopped at the intersection in awe: a man was standing in the middle of the crosswalk He was dark-skinned and balled, with a stone-face expression.
"Hey man, it's not a good idea to be standing there," he said through his opened window.
The man didn't move, he just continued staring at him. Suddenly, Michael was feeling a pierce of pain on his neck and his sight was becoming blurry. What was happening to him? As his sight began to blacken, he turned his gaze outside of his window. There was another man approaching his car. He was in a suit and had horn-rimmed glasses.
"Hello Michael," he said coolly. "I'm happy to meet you."
When his eyes opened, there was just a blur at first, then it cleared into a ceiling of pale-blue. Once his thundering head ceased, Michael tried to move, but he couldn't; he felt like he was trapped - no, he was trapped. He realized that his body was lying on a hard mattress and long-thick belt were strapped on his arms and legs.
What was going on? How did he get here? Who was behind this?
A man came into his view - the man with the horn-rimmed glasses, standing beside him with a stone expression on his face that made him so intimidating.
"Glad you're awake, Michael," he said as if he was a doctor, caring for his sick patient.
"Where am I?" seemed like the most logical question to ask.
"Don't worry, you haven't been harmed in any way," the man assured him.
Only now did Michael hear the beeping sound of a heart-monitor. He saw that there were several lined-pads attached to his chest and head; one of his arms was also hooked to a tube that led to a bag of fresh-looking blood - his blood.
He also noticed the same bald-headed man standing behind his fellow kidnapper. "Who are you people, and why are you doing this?"
"We're just interested in what you can do," the horn-rimmed glasses man told him.
"This is kidnapping," Michael blurted as he pushing at his restraints, trying to break free. "Let me go and I won't tell anybody about this."
That was pointless, Michael knew it before he even said it.
"We will let you go," the man with the horn-rimmed glasses said. "Now I'm going to put your phone to your ear so you can listen to what a friend of mine is going to tell you, which is to tell your family that you're going to be home late and not to wait up."
"Or what?" Michael snarled to her.
"Or nothing." He took out his cell phone. "You are going to do what she tells you to do without question."
The man with the horn-rimmed leaned down to him, Michael's distraught face reflected in the lenses.
"Don't worry, within a few hours you will be back home, safe and sound," he told him. "You are special to us, Michael. So we'll be watching you."
Michael swallowed hard. He didn't like the sound of that, not one bit.
"Michael. Michael, wake up."
"What - what - what's going on?" Michael awoke on his bed with a serious headache fit for a hangover, only he had never touched any alcohol in his entire life, and had sworn never to touch it.
"Michael, it's close to one in the afternoon," his mother said from outside his door. "What time did you get in last night?"
"Last night?"
He tried to recall, but couldn't, and not just what time he had returned home, but he couldn't remember anything. As hard as he could, the last thing Michael could recall was leaving his mom at the house after passing his driver's test.
What was that about?
His bedroom door was knocked on multiple times, rapidly.
"I'm up!" he shouted.
"I've got lunch ready," his mother said. "It's on the table."
As Michael heard her loud and aching footsteps disappear, he tried even harder to recall what in the world he did last night after passing his test, to no avail. Giving up for now, he changed out of his cloths from yesterday and went to the kitchen where his sisters, Irene and Missy were sitting down on the table eating grilled-cheese sandwiches, while their mother was washing dishes.
"About time you woke up," Irene said, shaking her head. "You went wild o the first night with your license."
"Shut up." Michael sat down in-between them where his plate was set and took a bite out of his sandwich.
"Oh my God. What is that on your neck?" Missy poked at the back of Michael's neck without warning.
"Quit it." He pushed her arm away; as always, one minute with his sisters and they already got on his nerves.
Missy wouldn't quick moving her gaze away from the back of her brother's neck to examine whatever she was seeing. "At first, I thought it was a hickey, but it looks like two lines - or an equal sign."
"What do you mean, Missy?" Angela came up behind Michael and looked at where her daughter was looking at. "Michael August Mules, did you get a tattoo?"
"No, I didn't even know it was there until Missy saw it," he protested.
"I hope this washes off," she said, licking her fingers and desperately rubbing her them on the thing.
"Mom, stop, please."
"Let me see," Irene said. She grabbed Michael's head, trying to turn the back of it in her direction.
At this, he jumped off his chair, waving the three women away. "Just stop, okay." He leaned out to the table to grab his sandwich and then walked out of the kitchen. "I'll take care of it."
When he was gone, Missy said bluntly, "I worry about that boy."
Michael rushed to the bathroom and locked himself in. At the mirror, he turned his head and darted his eyes to the side, spotting the small mark with great difficulty. How had this gotten there, and from where did it come from?
Is this why I can't remember anything from last night? he wondered.
This was getting more and more strange: first Michael has these new-found powers, now more than half a day is gone from his memory and there's a strange mark on him.
He considered this being connected. Considering it? No, it had to be put down as a fact, really. That fact, of course, could also mean that he was in trouble - real trouble.
For the rest of that weekend, all Michael could think about were the missing hours in his memory from that evening, or possibly the whole night. Where could he have been? Why didn't he remember? How did he get that mark?
On Monday during lunch, Michael was sitting with to Mark during lunch, when he thought to ask something. "Did you and I hang on Friday night and drank something spiked or something."
Mark looked at him in bewilderment. "No. Why do you think we did that?"
He hesitated before he explained to Mark about his lost memory.
"Are you sure you didn't get dunk?" he asked Michael.
"You know I made an oath never to touch the stuff."
"Why don't you just put your mind on prom," Mark suggested. "Eighteen days and counting."
"Have you got a date, Mark?" Michael groaned.
His friend didn't answer. The first thing that would have been on Michael's mind - if he wasn't working on his powers and trying to remember a forgotten night - would be prom. Maybe that was a good thing. If he had time to be concerned about acquiring a date, he would just be enduring harsh rejection from girls, like all the other times a pursued one.
The bell rang, Michael said bye to Mark and left the lunch area. Walking through the courtyard in the crowd, he spotted Wendy standing perfectly still, except for when people brushed passed her inconsiderately┘ She didn't take her gaze away from him, even when people blocked her view.
Stopping to stare back at her, Michael debated his options. Sighing, he slowly approached her once the crowd of students was thinning out. If this girl wanted to talk, okay then. When he came within two step from her, he asked her, "So what's your reason for being interested in my - abnormality?"
"Because for once, there is something amazing going on here," she answered him. The sincerity in her voice touched Michael.
"Alright then. You want in, I'll tell you everything that I know," he said.
For the first time in what Michael thought might possibly be a long time, she smiled brightly.
That afternoon, Michael drove to a place Wendy was directing him to from the passenger's seat. They left the public street into an alleyway of an old-looking warehouse. Michael had the impulse to get out here, out of fear of being tricked by Wendy and getting attacked by her group of smoke-for-brains.
"Wait here, this will be a good place," she said. Getting out of his car, she went to a large door and slid it open enough for Michael's car to go through.
He drove inside and Wendy pushed the door closed behind him. The warehouse was pretty much a wide space with square pillars going from the floor to the ceiling high above. Bright light came from the connecting windows at the top of the walls and there was a maze of catwalks twenty feet above them. Other than that, it was completely empty
"This place is completely abandoned," Wendy told him when he got out of the car. "If you want to train with your abilities, this is the place."
"How do you know about this place?" he dared to ask her.
The girl hesitated a moment, then she explained, "I come here sometimes when I don't want to get caught doing things."
"Okay then." Michael wasn't going to ask for anymore of an explanation. "I guess now is as a good a time as any to get started."
A grin formed on Wendy's face. She took his hand and pulled him over to the middle of the warehouse.
"Stand right there," she instructed him. "Give me your keys - don't worry, I promise I am not going to steal it. I would just beat you unconscious than go though this much trouble."
That sounded relatively funny, except it was aimed at him. He gave Wendy the car keys and she ran back to it. Getting inside, she started the engine and the tires began to spin but the car start moving at first, then it shot off from its parking spot, straight towards Michael.
At first he was panicked but instinct took over a miller-second before the car reached him; his knees bended and he shot off the floor, barely avoiding the collision with his own car.
Before Michael's very eyes, he saw the floor become more and more distant, raising his gaze, he saw the catwalk right in front of him before being pulled back down by gravity. Rather than swinging his arm and legs in fear, his body got into a crouch, landing on the floor with a light clank.
"Cool." That was the word that seemed to fit. Wendy came out of the car and ran back to him.
"Amazing," she said in excitement. "Simply amazing. You were like Spider-Man, or something."
"How did you figure trying to run me over would help?" he asked her.
"You said you hadn't managed to do it since the first time," she explained. "So I figured maybe a sense of desperation was what you needed."
Now Michael laughed, lightly. "Well . . . Good thinking."
They were silent for a moment before Wendy blurted, "This is the start of something . . ."
"But of what?" Michael asked. That question had been dawning on his mind since all this had started.
His eyes met with Wendy's attentive stare that showed wonder and excitement.
"Of something important."
We all want control over our livs, to make things how we want it, but that isn't always possible, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. New and important things can come to us out of what we don't see for ourselves. Also for the parts of our lives we do have control over, we had better hope we are managing it in a good way.
- Michael Mules, Journal Entry
To Be Continued