Chapter 3: Christopher Cage

6:30 AM

Christopher groggily hit his alarm clock next to his bed. He most certainly did not want to go to school this morning. But, begrudgingly, he had too.

It was his senior year, after all. And this was the first week of high school football season as well, a very big deal for anyone that happened to live in rural Pennsylvania.

He doubted that anyone outside of the state could point out Shanksville, PA on the map, but he was certain that everyone in surrounding counties knew of them.

The Somerset County Eagles were promised to be off to a good start this year, with some of the best players in the entire state attending his school.

And Cage, of course, was a wide receiver with high hopes to attend either the University of Tennessee in Knoxville or Virginia Tech. Either way, he would accomplish his goal of going to one of those two, then go for the big-league teams in the NFL. While he supported his home teams of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, he would always be a fan of the Greatest Show on Turf in the form of the St. Louis Rams. Their win over the Tennessee Titans from two seasons prior would always, at least in his humble opinion, go down as one of the best Super Bowls of all time. He knew what he wanted to be and what he wanted to do.

But if he was going to get anywhere with his dreams, then that meant he had to get his ass out of bed. His mom worked at the post office, and was already gone to work, and his dad was currently down at the local diner, having coffee with some of his fellow farmers. Though Mr. and Mrs. Cage didn't see each other often, or their son for that matter, they did care for the well-being of Christopher and all of his hopes and dreams. Rolling over, Christopher climbed out from underneath the bed sheets and got dressed for the morning. Maybe that one girl, Emily, from Biology, could be a potential date to homecoming this year. He had been wanting to ask her last year, when she had moved from Kansas to here, but she had fallen sick the week of the dance.

Christopher turned on the news, seeing the weather report and then pouring up a glass of orange juice to go with his bowl of cereal and banana.

It was the second class of the day, Biology, luck finally came to fruition for him.

The Biology teacher, a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Hiddles, announced to the class that group projects would be taking place, and she had announced that would be pairing students up into groups of two, and to his delight, he and Emily were paired together! Mrs. Hiddles then had the class break down into the groups of partners she had assigned and told them to get to it.

Just as the two were beginning to strike up conversation about the project, the school resource officer came busting in through the door, out of breath. Christopher's gut immediately dropped at the sight, thinking that they were about to experience a similar incident to what the poor souls at Columbine had endured just less than three years prior. Instead, all that the man said was, "Turn on tv. Something big is happening."

All conversations ceased in the classroom at that point as Mrs. Hiddles rolled in the television set on the mobile stand. What they saw chilled them to their bones.

Even though the volume was low, the television, tuned in to the local ABC station, had Peter Jennings reporting about a plane crash into one of the World Trade Center towers in downtown Manhattan. Their teacher abruptly broke down into tears, prompting one of the other students to go looking for help and to get assistance with their rather distraught instructor. When she returned just a minute later with the next door Trigonometry teacher, Mrs. Harper, she consoled their Biology teacher. Just as both teachers exited the room, Christopher looked down at the watch on his wrist.

It was two minutes after 9:00 AM.

When he looked up from his watch, Christopher saw something that caught his eye on the camera angle from the news helicopter broadcasting the footage.

What was that shape, and why was it getting larger by the second?

Wait, was that another plane?

Before he could even fully think of that second sentence, the plane shaped object disappeared.

The next moment, it was replaced by a ball of fire emerging from the second tower, now also engulfed in flames; shouts and cries of terror instantly filled the room.

The shock was also evident in the voice of the news reporters, now frantically commentating on the scenes playing out before them.

Christopher pretended that the shapes falling from the buildings weren't people, and were simply just furniture pieces from the gaping holes that had flames spewing out of them. That had to be it, right?

Right...?

All the girls, and more than a few of the boys had tears streaming down the sides of their faces. Christopher, while he did feel sorrow for those in the buildings whose lives were lost, mostly felt anger towards the ones who perpetrated these ungodly acts.

He heard sniffling beside him that brought him back to the present, and he turned to see Emily openly crying now.

About twenty minutes later, an announcement came over the intercom in the classroom that he needed to come to the front office. Before he did though, he gave Emily his house's landline number. "If you wanna talk about this, or anything, just call me okay? We're gonna be okay. That's in New York. We're safe."

Christopher Cage had no idea what would be in store for him in the following hours.

When his dad had come to pick him up, he told him about the reports that had just come on the radio.

A third plane had hit the Pentagon, and rumor had it that a fourth plane was either in the process of being hijacked or had been hijacked and was on the way to its target. The FAA had shut down all air traffic nationwide, and any and all planes still in the air either would land or stay up and be view as potentially hostile; Christopher knew that no sane pilot would stay airborne after that order had come down the chain.

Just as Christopher and his dad were climbing out of the latter's Chevy Tahoe, a loud sound could be briefly heard overhead. It almost sounded like the whining of a jet engine. But that couldn't be, his house was miles away from the Somerset County Airport. Father and son looked up in the sky to see a sleek shape descending, not from one line of sight to another, but directly down, barreling down onto the treeline just a couple of miles away. It almost looked like a passenger plane.

"Dad, is that..." Christopher began to ask, his father reaching up to grab ahold of his shoulder for both comfort and reassurance.

The unfinished question that was on his lips vanished with the plane as it impacted the treeline and a mushroom shaped cloud of fire and smoke formed, the shockwave of the blast coming just a couple of seconds later.

"Son, get in there and call the Sheriff's Department. Tell em... tell em we just saw a plane crash a mile down the road from the Wilkenson Farmstead." His father's usually relaxed accent from Tennessee transformed into a harder, more firm voice with a command presence. "You stay here, and you don't leave this property until me or your mother comes back here, you understand?"

"Yes sir," Christopher answered in a hollow voice.

Come evening time, Christopher could see the news helicopters flying overhead, hovering above what was now suspected to be United Airlines Flight 93's crash site.

His mother had returned home, but remained glued to the TV out of some horrible obligation to the events that had transpired that morning.

The phone rang, and Christopher, being the closest one to it, reached to pick it up. He didn't recognize the number, but he answered anyway.

"Hello?" Christopher answered.

"Chris?" Emily asked.

"Emily? Are you okay? What's going on?" Christopher questioned her.

"I'm okay. I don't know if you heard or not, but school's been cancelled for tomorrow. They dismissed us after the plane hit outside of Shanksville. Said it wasn't safe anymore." A few sniffles could be heard on the other end of the line. "I'm scared. What kind of sick person flies a plane into a building?" Emily asked in a pained voice.

"I wish I knew the answer Emily." Trying to think of ways to woo the girl that currently had his interest, and also to take his mind off of this fucked up Tuesday, Christopher then decided to ask her a question. "You wanna hang out? Go someplace? Just anything, really. It's gotta be better than sitting here watching replays of this morning."

"Yeah. Let me check with my mom and I'll call you back."

"Same. I'll be waiting for your call then. Bye."

"Bye, Chris."

After checking with his mother, who seemed to be in a trance like state over the news, she said it was okay to be out with a friend from school; she agreed that it would do them some good to do something that took their minds off of things.

When Emily called back, she gave Chris the instructions on where to pick her up, and when. He borrowed his mom's Ford Ranger and drove to go meet up with her shortly after.

The two high school seniors met up at a hilltop a couple miles outside of town, overlooking part of the crash site off in the distance. Even now, the fires, though small, were still smoldering and glowing.

"I still can't believe what all has happened," Emily said, devoid of emotion and sounding absolutely drained.

"Yeah. Me neither," Chris said. "Where the hell do we even go from here? I mean, do we even go to school tomorrow? Play football on Friday? I just don't know."

They were sitting on the back of the tailgate of the truck, passing a bottle back and forth between the both of them; Emily had apparently snagged it from her older brother's room, who didn't question why she was wanting his whiskey bottle on today of all days. Even a sober man that had recovered from alcohol addiction would kill to take a swig after the atrocities committed on what was promised to be an ordinary Tuesday.

Chris, feeling some of the liquid courage flowing through his veins now, decided to get onto a deeper topic then.

"You know, uh, I was wanting to ask you something today. Before all of this happened and changed everything," he said, slowly and still somewhat shyly.

"Oh yeah?" Emily turned to face him directly now. "What did you want to ask?"

"I was going to ask you to homecoming, actually," Chris said, scratching his head with his free hand before running it over the stubble on his face.

Emily had a small smile that began to take shape across her face. "I wouldn't mind that, Chris. If things go back to normal, I wouldn't mind that at all."

He smiled at her, and the two scooted closer to each other on the tailgate. Before long, Emily was resting her head on his shoulder, and they looked off into the distance, two pairs of eyes fixated on the site of the calamity that had fallen upon their community.

A memorial was held at school that following day before classes were suspended for the remainder of the week. Chris and Emily continued to hang out throughout that surreal time frame. Though it was never brought up in conversation, the two saw each other as an anchor to the life before the terrorist attacks, back when they were still two high school seniors paired together for a school project. That Friday, September 14th, had been declared a National Day of Mourning. Two days later, on Sunday, churches nationwide were filled to the brim and silent in reverence. It was also announced by the school superintendent, who also attended the same church as Chris and Emily, that school would resume the following morning.

Classes droned on as usual that next day, but football practice that afternoon was different. Helicopters were still flying overhead, and though the smoke from the fire had finally burnt out, a blackened crater in the earth remained. It would continue to be like this for several days, before days gave way to weeks.

Though nothing ever truly went back to normal, Chris and Emily did go to homecoming together, and Chris tried his best to make the most out of that entire event.

They won their game against the county rival, and he did it in front of a sell-out crowd at the stadium. Cage was even informed that a few college scouts were there to watch him, and a few others, play tonight. He caught two touchdowns and managed to throw a lateral back to the team's running back, who then proceeded to run it in for the lead with less than a minute left on the game clock. After the game, the dance was held at the high school gymnasium.

Chris had rushed back home from the game to get cleaned up and dressed, as did Emily, who was a cheerleader. Chris picked Emily up in his dad's Chevy Tahoe, dressed in simple khaki pants, a white button up and a blue bowtie. Emily was wearing a simple yet elegant blue dress that matched the bowtie he was wearing. Even though it had been almost a full month since the attacks, and fall break was around the corner, the tension of it all still hung heavy in the air. After the dance concluded, the two of them drove back up to that hilltop that they had shared a bottle on from the night of the attacks.

Still in their homecoming attire, Chris parked the vehicle at the top and turned to say something to Emily before she surprised him with a quick kiss. When they parted, he felt flushed and shocked; judging from the look on her face, the feeling was mutual.

"I'm sorry, I should have asked," Emily said quietly. "I've just been so overwhelmed with everything going on that I wanted to feel something else for a change."

"Is it bad that I kinda feel the same way and didn't mind what we just shared?" Chris asked in response, a nervous grin on his face. This wasn't the answer she had been expecting, as made evident by the blush and eyebrows raising in surprise.

"Maybe we should, um-"

"Yeah, I was thinking the same-"

Both cut off the other as they leaned in to kiss again, this time with fervor and the purpose to forget the events of the last month, this new world they were living in, and to just be two horny young people that wanted to focus on anything but what had been going on. Chris never took it farther than hands roaming and kissing with Emily, but the want for more was still there after they broke their series of kisses. Not long after their impromptu makeout session, Chris was dropping Emily back off at her place, but not before she gave him a goodnight kiss on the cheek goodbye.

Maybe life would return to some sense of normalcy after all, even after everything that had happened.

Chris thought back to all those events as his watch glowed orange and snow began to fall at Appalachian State. While the football life hadn't worked out that well, he did manage to find some peace and harmony working as a professor at the college. He had just gotten off the phone with his parents when his wrist vibrated and he saw the glow.

How many people were about to die or had already died for him to get activated? It had to be more than those that were killed on September 11th.

All he knew was that he was in a different position now that he was back then. He was a frightened high school senior that watched the nefarious plot unfold with his own eyes. Now?

Now he was an Agent of the Strategic Homeland Division; now, he was going to save what remained, no matter what. He went back to his apartment, grabbed his gear, suited up, and with his guns at the ready, went out to establish law and order.