CHAPTER 7

May 5th, 2008

I see my father. He looks like he hasn't eaten in a few days, he no longer wears his suit but instead a short-fit black t-shirt that says "UP YOURS" with two hands flipping off everyone and everyone emblazoned on it alongside a pair of khaki shorts. He's on a city sidewalk, I don't know where, but it's a few months after Jack threatened him. People pass by him in their everyday manner, I hear some people whisper "Dude's on drugs," before laughing it off and walking away forever. I want them to stop. I want them to stop talking about him like that. It isn't right, it isn't-

He moves along still, walking, walking towards something. He reaches the end of the street and turns the corner. I rush up to follow him, the crowd doesn't slow me down one bit as I walk through them since they are only a memory. Not my memory, granted, but to all the same effect.

I follow my father to a large building, not quite skyscraper level or anywhere near the height of the Republic Plaza, but that doesn't mean it isn't big itself. I'd guess around fifteen floors. Maybe he finally made it to New York, and this is that eastern branch of the freelance group that I keep hearing about? Maybe I'll get to see my mother. My mother who...apparently cheated on my father, right. It's okay, I'm okay. She's dead now anyway, they both are. Nothing to worry about, I just gotta learn what I have to and get out of here.

My father walks through the front door, not unlike that of a zombie, I must say. I follow him inside and notice that we're the only two who seem to be around. Er...he's the only one that's around. The entrance is decorated with all kinds of tacky paintings that scatter the wall that are all probably hundreds of years old alongside a very cheesy red carpet that makes me feel like I'm walking down expecting to get photographed.

He stumbles over to the front desk, looking like he's about to collapse. He reaches over the side of the desk and picks the phone up off of the dock and presses the "Intercom" button. "Yes, will a Mrs. Lorraine Daniels come to the front desk to help her husband get their son back?" He hangs the phone up and leans up against the desk, breathing heavy.

The next minute feels like an eternity. I see the elevator doors at the end of the hall open up, and inside stands a finely dressed woman with curly blonde hair. She wears a look of shock as she exits, quickly moving to my father. This must be my mother, I don't recognize her at all.

"We're in trouble," my father says.

"Well, I can see that, where the hell is Gavin? Why'd you come here? Where's-"

"Please, not a million questions at once, I feel like a train hit me and then went in reverse to finish the job. Can I get something to eat and something to wear? I've got a lot to tell you."

"I thought you didn't want to see me anymore," she says.

"I don't care about that, current matters supersede my personal feelings towards you, Lorraine. Now please, may we go upstairs?"

"Yeah, I'll gather the others to come and help also."

"Good, we'll need their help." The vision fades once more, changing shape.

A few weeks seem to have passed, my father sits alone at a desk as he works furiously, writing something down at a breakneck pace. He's out of the non-fitting clothes and back into a look more like him, a fancy suit which makes him look like he's about to seal a business deal.

"Greg," I hear a voice say, I'm unsure of who it is.

"Not now, I'm working."

"I know, but it's-"

He looks up momentarily, I see a short haired woman standing close to him, her suit look about as sharp as her eyes.

"Samara, I really can't afford to not be working right now."

She walks over and places a hand on his, "Listen, I know it's hard losing your son the way you did, and I know Lorraine's as torn up over it just as much as you are, we all here feel for you."

"Thank you, Samara," my father says.

"But the reason I came over here is because I've got someone up front who said that he knew you, you want to come and confirm for a second?"

"Okay, sure. Sorry about snapping earlier."

"It's okay, I understand you're under a lot of pressure to figure out how to stop Jack, we all are."

My father stands up and nods his head, "Yeah, if I could just figure out the nature of his healing factor, that's my main setback. I don't have any updated samples of his blood, so I have no idea how much he's changed in the past few months."

"I understand it's a tough situation, I believe we'll find a solution, all of us, together," she says, motioning her arms, "Shall we go greet our guest?"

My father nods his head, "Yes, let's." They head past the cluttered array of desks inside the new place. Well, new to my father.

They find the staircase at the end of the cluttered room. In some weird trade off of roles I felt the need to scold my father on his organization, like he would have of me.

Downstairs I see a familiar face waiting in nearly the same spot I had seen my father crumpled over, it's Mason.

"You're here!" My father says, walking over and pulling him into a hug

"I could say the same about you, old friend," Mason says, almost choking from the intensity of the hug.

"So I'm going to assume then you two do know each other," Samara laughs.

"Yeah, he's from west coast," my father laughs also. He turns back to Mason, letting go, "Where's Kate?"

"Safe, she's actually back at the hotel we're staying at. I have to ask you, though. Jay mentioned that you'd be waiting up for us, what happened there? I stopped by your place and it was completely empty."

"Jack happened. The day after Jay talked to me about leaving Jack showed up at my place with no warning or anything. I didn't ever give him my address, Mason! He said he's been seeing things and needed to take me out of the equation. I couldn't tell anyone or else he would have killed Gavin."

"I see. That about lines up. Greg, he's gotten stronger, more out of control," Mason says.

"Well, okay, why don't we head upstairs? You can meet the rest of the skeleton crew and tell us all about it. I hope you can spare some time?"

"Yeah, of course, Kate's ordering room service and got a lineup of movies on the pay-per-view."

"Huh, come into some money, Mason?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Well, if we're going to go, I'll call everyone to the meeting room. I'm Samara, by the way, Samara Knight," she says, extending her hand to Mason.

"Well, it is definitely nice to meet you under better pretenses," Mason smiles.

My father looks towards Samara, "What does he mean?"

"Well, I mean I didn't know who he was at first and everything's been so stressful lately and so...well,"

"She said I better not be with Jack unless I wanted to be neutered like a dog," Mason laughs.

My father laughs, "Neutered? That's like the least threatening way to say that."

"I'm not good under pressure with people, never have been, doubt that will change anytime soon."

"At least you're at terms with it," Mason says.

Samara nods her head, "Well, gentlemen, what are we waiting for?"

My father looks toward Mason and then nods his head towards the staircase they descended from, they quickly begin walking towards the staircase and up even further.

The meeting room is on the second floor, a small square room that looks like it's been hit with the budget-cut hammer. It's got a small rectangular table fit better for a church benefit than an official meeting room with small fold up chairs scattered about.

"Uh, nice place," Mason says, looking around.

"Yeah, it's small, but it works."

"Is this really what Valhart is funding? I think there was more put into a children's birthday party"

"Well, they don't study isotopes of human genomes at birthday parties," Samara jokes.

"Hope not, that'd take going to the swimming pool to a whole new level," Mason laughs.

Samara and my father stare at him, not getting it.

"Gene pool guys, come on."

My father look to Samara, "I forgot to mention, he does that sometimes."

"Make bad jokes?"

"I think that's an insult to bad jokes," My father says.

"Okay, okay. Let's skip the part then where I pull out the real jokes and get on with this," Mason says, looking a tad attacked.

"Right, I'll be right back, stay right here," Samara nods, walking out of the room.

There is an awkward silence in the room for a couple of seconds. If I could I would break the tension by making a stab at Samara since she left the room or something similar. Actually, that's untrue. If I could interact with this world right now I'd hug my dad and go hug my mom and pretend none of this ever happened.

"It's good to see you, Mason," My father says

"You too, Greg. I'm sorry I didn't find out sooner about you and Gavin, if I'd known I would have done something," Mason says.

"I know, and I would have found a way to call you guys if I had the opportunity to."

Mason nods, "I know, we're going to find a way to stop him, I promise."

I see the door behind them swing open, just barely clipping the chair that sits right in front of my father.

I see Samara on the other end walking in, two older guys and my mother walk in behind her.

The first guy is big, like, really, really big. I'm sure he would smell like fish if I was actually there. His hair bunches up around the side of his head, inconveniently leaving a bald spot right on the top of his head.

The second guy is more lean, gelled up hair and I'm pretty sure the police would have to confiscate it on the grounds of a deadly weapon. Maybe he can share some of his hair with the other guy.

"Okay, everybody, this here is Mason...uh," Samara begins.

"Radica," Mason finishes.

"Hold on a second, I thought you were familiar," the gelled guy says. "You were a part of Just Cause, weren't you?"

Mason looks closer at Gel-Guy and I can see his eyes widen. "Barry? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you. Looks like the good old US of A don't care of the returning vets, huh?"

"Does everybody here already know each other and I'm just out of the loop?" Samara asks.

"Navy Lieutenant Mason Radica, he served with me in Panama back in 1990," Barry says.

"And Army Captain Barry Rainwater, you almost got your leg blown off near the Marriott Hotel,"

"Guys, I'd really love to hear you catch up on old times, but we have more pressing matters here," the big guy says.

My father mouths to Mason, "You were in the Navy?"

He nods tersely.

"Okay, Barry here is our head engineer. If anything goes wrong with our equipment he's the guy you go to. He's a real whiz with electronics," Samara says. "And this is is Sal, he is our lead on microbiology."

"It's good to meet you, Sal Muhn as in moon, please don't mispronounce and confuse me for the fish," Sal says with a heavy middle eastern accent.

"And it's nice to meet you as well," Mason nods.

"And I'm sure Greg's told you about me," My mother says. "I'm Lorraine," she extends her hand.

"I've heard you were really smart and good at what you do, Mrs. Daniels," he shakes it. This seems to make her smile, if slightly.

I can see my father smile a little too.

"I'm here from the western branch same like Greg because of Jack Adata, I presume you've gotten everyone up to speed so far, Greg?" Mason asks.

My father nods.

"Excellent," Mason says.

"Yeah, that slimy ass-clown is going to be buried six feet under if I can get my hands on him," Sal says.

"Right, well, that will be a little hard considering any injuries he's sustained in the past year he's been able to heal at an accelerated rate. His body suffered a fourth degree chemical burn when all of this started and came back like it was a mosquito bite, we cannot under any circumstances take that lightly," Mason says.

"Okay, and you mentioned earlier that he was getting stronger, mind explaining?" My father asks.

"Yes, this compound, Radical-9, we named it after the elements that melded together before they exploded out: Radium, Dicoberene, Calcium, and Lantrate. These four created the monster we know as Jack Adata today. When he first was irradiated we didn't know the scope of what he would become...almost."

"Almost?" Barry asks, "What do you mean, almost, Mason?"

"Greg, when we took Jack to the hospital and you were in the room with David you told me about this feeling you had, correct?"

My father nods his head, "Yes, I was in there and I felt absolutely crippled from head to toe. For ten or so minutes it felt like all of Jack's anger and despair was pouring out of him and into my soul. I still remember how cold to the bone I felt."

"I believe that this was the first instance of his enhanced psyche reaching out. That ability to project emotion onto others like that, it's astounding," Mason says.

"And come to think of it, it was after that moment that Dave started acting strange, as if he had been Jack's right hand pup," my father says.

"Maybe whatever you felt he did too?" Sal asks. "Maybe it hit him harder and he got scared."

"It's possible," My father says.

"Then there was the freak out in the lab," Mason begins. "Jay, our friend back in Denver was asking Jack if he was all right, he was acting strange and paranoid, so it seemed okay to ask. Jack nearly had a meltdown and threw a glass canister from his side without even touching it. Later on he used this ability of telekinesis to rip away chunks of a wall inside of our building to find a room hidden away on everything but the blueprints."

"So, it's more than just what you imagined in the beginning," Samara says.

"Way more. That was after a few days, mind you. Let's take it a year after, his body is dying, plain and simple. It cannot handle the Radical-9 that is in his system, much less than the fact that it seems to be multiplying at an exponential rate. The more that multiplies the stronger his abilities become, the stronger he becomes the scarier he is, the less like himself he is. The less his body can handle it,"

"Okay, so then the solution just seems to be to wait it out, right? Eventually it will be too much and he'll just keel over, am I right?" Barry says, leaning against one of the chairs, supporting his head up with his right arm.

"Initially that is what I thought too, but there is a big problem with that," Mason says.

"What's that?" My father asks.

"Radical-9 is a very reactive compound, as we've seen first hand, Greg. If his body shuts down from all of it in his system he will become a makeshift bomb."

"What?!"

"The concentrated amount of Radical-9 in his system all thrown together in someone as big as him would be enough to go nuclear. Just think of how badly we were hit with the very minimum of what this stuff has to offer."

"So basically our options are to wait and die or attack him and die," Sal says.

My father runs his hands through his hair, "No, I'm not letting that happen."

"He isn't either. Jack knows about this possibility, I was the one that helped him find it, in an effort to see if he would allow me to find a cure."

"Did he?"

"Hell no, I'm here now, aren't I? He scrapped my project and began researching ways to prolong his life rather than fix it."

"Do you know any of what he is doing with that?" My father asks.

"I left before any of it came together, but I think he may be using the kids for something, Jennifer, Andrew, and I would assume Gavin as well now that you're not there,"

"Use them for what?" My mother asks.

Mason hesitates, "I think he may be testing on them. He had me work on these...they looked like metallic pods, sort of like something you would freeze somebody in, I left after that, but I think that he might be adding in controlled doses of Radical-9. He might be testing and irradiating them with the compound."

"Why would he do that? That's insane!" My father yells, and then realizes he did.

"I don't know why, but I have a guess, but it's pretty far out there," Mason says.

"I think we left far out there when this guy started moving shit with his mind," Barry says, crossing his arms and pacing the room.

Always the antsy one, it seems.

"I think...he might try to go one step further with projecting his emotions out. He might be trying to project his consciousness onto an heir of sorts," Mason says.

"You're right, that is out there," Barry says.

"You mean like take over their bodies?" Lorraine asks, visibly horrified at the thought.

"The kids have Radical-9 in their system, we had that checked, I looked myself. It's much less than the amounts in Jack and even you and I, Greg. I believe he might think that means they are suitable to have the perfect amount gassed into them so they can have the power that he has without the drawback of physical decomposition."

"If that is the case then we need to do something. We need to find a way to stop him without triggering that reaction inside of his body, and we need to find out how to get the kids safe from him," My father says.

"How do we do that?" My mother asks.

"That's the question of the century, now isn't it?"