Aaaand we're back to business as usual

So, the NaNoWriatus is over.  We are back to 5-Minute Monday!!!  YAAAAAY!!!!!

Ex. 248:  "After all was said and done..."

"After all was said and done, more was said than done."  That's what the poster on the wall says.  My job thinks it helps morale to have the funny versions of the motivational posters hanging around the office rather than the originals.  Steven Covey, I think they're by.  What management doesn't realize is that the posters are funny only because they are sadly true.  As I look at my watch and realize that I only have five minutes left of a lunch I was forced to forsake for a long, drawn-out board meeting where I don't say anything because all  my ideas get drowned out, I realize how true those words on the poster are.

I grab my lunch out of the fridge and decide I don't mind cold lasagna.  But I'm lying.  I hate cold lasagna.  I don't know anyone who loves anything cold that's supposed to be warm, from food to people.

NaNo Day 13: Part Two. The last section I worked on.

So, this section completes my NaNoWriMo posting for the year.  I finished my project at 18,370 words.  Just so close to 20,000.  But I just couldn't get my groove back after I got sidetracked at school.  Hope you enjoy!!  Next week, we will be back to our regularly scheduled 5-Minute Exercises.  Good Day all and have a happy/merry Christmas.

NaNo Day 13 part two:

You climb down the rope really feeling like you could use a drink right about now or a really strong drug.  “Alright.  Please tell me you have a plan that does not involve us living out the rest of our lives down here.”

Val scoffs at you.  “Please.  Do you know who I am?  I’m the alphabet man.  I got a plan for every letter of the alphabet.”  Val pushes a button and the brick wall moves.  This time when the wall opens, it turns a little, splitting the entrance in two.  Val rushes through the door.  You follow after him.  You can hear the door close behind you. 

“Val, let me ask you a question,” you say as you and val run through a series of curves and turns that makes you feel like you’re trapped in a never ending maze. “Why the hell do none of your doors open the same way?”

“It’s all about breaking up routine, buddy.”

Right.  Actually, you should have guessed that.  You know Val's philosophy on routine.  Routines are like coffins.  Only the dead use them.

After a few more curves you come to yet another brick wall.  You decide to take mental bets on how this one opens.  Would it swing towards you, fall into the ground?  Oh no, you got it.  It will completely dissolve and then reappear.  Val definitely left a lot to be desired in the sanity department; although, no doubt he was a god among geeks.

Valpatine dropped his bag on the floor and sat down next to it.  “Um, what part of the plan is this?” you ask val.

“This is the part of the plan where we wait. “  Val looks at his watch.  “We have about two hours and twenty minutes before it gets dark enough to travel under cloak on foot.  We wait until then, and then we go up, get my car that I’ve stashed in one of the factories, and get the hell out of dodge.  I say our best bet is to go to someplace well populated.”

“And you have that crazy ass idea because…”

“Because of how much they love to work in secret.  Geesh, haven’t you been paying attention to your own story?  Everything you’ve told me about these guys screams dark and mysterious.  I really don’t get the feeling that they would have pulled and bum rush stunt like they did up there had we been at the park.  They like to leave a few witnesses as possible; makes it easier to get rid of them.”

“Okay, I’m with you there; however, they have people everywhere.  So how is your plan going to help us?”

He looks at you and you know an insult to your intelligence is coming.  “You rode the short bus when you were a kid, didn’t you?”

You roll your eyes, drop your bag on the floor, and sit down across from Val.

“Sure, they got people everywhere.  But in order to get us in broad daylight and still feign secrecy, they can only send their goons one maybe two at a time.  And every time they do, we’ll be ready to take them out.”

Eh, that was an okay plan in theory especially when compared to the plan you had which was nothing.  You looked over at Val.  He had his head against the wall and his eyes were closed.  Sleep sounded nice and you felt sad for yourself that you thought leaning against a wall looked comfortable.  You looked at your watch.  You still had a couple of hours before nightfall. 

You wanted to rest your eyes, but every time you were in the dark or you slept, you had weird dreams and thoughts about you killing people.  It made you seriously uncomfortable.  You thought only psychotic serial killers mafia dons had dreams like what you were having.  And what tripped you out even more was that the thought were clear as if you were remembering them.  As if you had actually done the things you had been thinking, which you knew was impossible because you could account for your time spent during the day and night.

Even trippier was the fact that, whenever you told your wife about your dreams, she didn’t seem the least fazed by them.  “Oh, well, you know, people have weird dreams, honey.  They don’t mean anything.”  And then she’d walk off. 

Before you knew you had, you closed your eyes.  The only reason you knew they were closed was because you had a dream about you fighting a group of people.  The fight ends with you standing behind some guy and slicing his throat.  You jolt awake and stand up.  Because you bolted to your feet, val, who is never that deep in sleep, jumps up after you and pulls a gun.

“Whoa!”  You parry and disarm him before he can shoot you.  “Valpatine, it’s me.”

Once he hears your voice and sees your face, he relaxes.  “What the hell, man?  Are we under attack or what?  You can’t just be jumping up like that for no reason, son.  That’s how mo fo’s get shot…like you almost did.”

“Yeah, look, are we good?”

“Yeah, man.  Give me back my gun?”  He throws his hand out.

You drop the gun into his palm.

“Damn man.  What are you all jumpy for anyway?” he asks as he slams his gun back into its holster.  “Ain’t nobody gonna get us down here?”

“It’s not that it’s just…I have a hard time sleeping.”

“Then don’t sleep.  Shit!”  He sits back down, still scowling at you.

You give him a dry stare.  “Thank you for that advice, doctor.  Any other solution you want to present that could get me killed or turned insane?”

“Why the hell ain’t you sleeping anyway?”

You shake your head and start pacing the little space between the walls.  “It’s a long a story.”

Val looks at his watch.  “We got an hour and thirteen minutes.  And I’m awake now, so…”

You look at him and shrug.  It’s not like you got shit else to do anyway.  “I keep having these weird dreams that I’m killing people.  And not just killing them, I’m executing them.  It’s weird.  It’s like…like I don’t know.  I am not capable of doing the things I’m dreaming about.  So, either I watched the Bourne movies too many damn times or, I don’t know what the hell.”

Val gives you a dry stare.  “That’s it?”

“Um, yeah.” 

Val looks at his watch.  “That didn’t even take fifteen minutes.”

“Um…”

“I am disappointed.  I was really hoping for a story, not a Facebook update.  And anyway, how do you know you can’t do those things you’ve been dreaming about?  What you got some key to the possible and impossible that I don’t know about?”

You sigh and sit down in front of him.  “Listen.  How much do I love to fly?”

He laughs at you.  “You hate it.  I’ve never seen anyone break out into the sweats like you at just the mention of being on an airplane.”

“Yeah, and how good a swimmer am I?”

“Uuum, I’ve seen dead fish swim better.”

“Exactly.  In these dreams, I’m jumping off of rooftops, swimming like the thing that made Michael Phelps.  Like, I am not capable of doing these things.”

“Alright.  I agree.  So, you’re having wishful dreams.  So, what?  Why are you freaking out?”

“Because they don’t feel like dreams.  Man, I’m telling you, they feel like memories.  So much so that it freaks me out.”

Val looks like he’s trying to take this seriously; he actually seems to be thinking about what you’re telling him.  “Alright, look, let’s say you really are some bad ass assassin for some government run sheep herd.  On the one hand, that explains why these people are after you.  I mean if you messed up on a job, I’ve seen enough movies to know things ain’t gonna go well for you.  However, if you are pulling a John Wilkes Booth at night, wouldn’t someone notice?  Wouldn’t there be time you couldn’t account for?  Or your wife yelling at you, thinking you’re sleeping around on her?  You know something?  Some sign?”

“Yeah.  You would think.  And I’ve been asking myself those same questions.  And I got no answers.”

“Except for the fact these sons of bitches like to work in secret.  Alright, so even if you had been going around doing the knife and gun routine, there would be no way to verify it.”  He thinks for a moment.  “Unless, you recognize your victims in your dreams.  Then we could find out if they really are dead and how they died.”

“Yeah.  I thought about that, too.”

“And?”

“Nothing.  I have no idea who these people are or why I would even have dreams of killing them.”

“Oh, great. So, we got nothing.”

“Yep, and a whole hell of a lot of it.”

Nano Day 13: Part One

With one hand, valpatine reached up and pulled what looked like a handle down from the ceiling.  Val then pushed up and put his eyes to something.  “Hm,” he said.  “You are not gonna believe this shit, mate.”

He then pushes a button and you hear a noise like metal adjusting.  Val reaches for a latch and he pulls an over head door open.  As val does all of this with one hand while keeping himself hanging on that rope with the other, you come to a realization, val is one strong mo fo.  You make a mental note to never get into a fist fight with his ass.

Val climbs the rope some more and then sticks his head out of the hole.  “Ohhh, damn.  You need to see this shit,” Val says from a good 50 feet above you.  Val climbs back down the rope and lands in front of you.  “Go.  Hurry.”

You look at Val, then up at that rope.  It was high.  It was hella high.  And you were only going to make that with a running leap.  Not a little hop like your green giant of a friend here.  Damn it all straight into the belly of hell.  You take a few steps back, run, and jump.

The good news is, you grab the rope.  The bad news is, you also swing into that brick wall.  Val laughs at you as you grunt and groan.  But you don’t lose hold of the rope; you gotta love yourself for that.  Using only your arms at first you climb the rope as fast as you can.  You are surprised by how easy the climb is for you.  Yeah, you ain’t gonna lie.  It hurts like a bitch, but you move like it’s completely familiar to you.  You feel like you’ve done this a million and yet you can’t remember a single time beyond high school that you’ve ever climbed or had a reason to climb a rope.

Upon climbing what felt Everest made from dry grass, you stick your head up out of the hole.  The sight is astounding.  You can’t believe it and you’re seeing it. 

Turns out val was right.  They were after you.  Heavy.  And you know this from the abundance of dead bodies around val’s flaming house and buried underneath the debris.  There are black cars and vans that look like they were attacked by car bombs.  The whole area around val’s house looks like it was hit with blast of world war.

Damn it.  You know what this means.  Val was right.  Had you two waited any longer you would be…well, hell, you didn’t know where you would be, but you knew…actually, had you waited and gotten captured, you may have found out what happened to your wife.

Wait a minute, that blast beneath the tunnel must have more damage than you realized if you really believe that these people who can make you, your wife, bank teller, and a murder completely disappear in one are going to do anything to help you.  No, if you are going to get answers from anyone, it will not be them.  You think about jumping out of this whole, running to the scene, and looking for any survivors so that you can get some kind of information.  But then you remember the episode with your cousin biting into a pill that he knew would kill him.  Anyone, whom you found alive, would die before he told you anything, including his name and the name of the organization you all seem to work for.  All it would take for you get caught would be to start doing things without thinking. 

My New Book and NaNo Day 12

Alas!!! My first novel, The Demon Cleaner: Demons of the Guilded, is finally available.  There was a misunderstanding between myself, CreateSpace, and possibly myself so the title looks...um... backwards.  But no matter.  I'm sure it still reads the same.  If you would like a copy, you may go HERE or to the sidebar on your right.  Reviews are appreciated.

NaNo Day 12:

You place your fingers to the side of the man’s neck.  He has a pulse, but it is so faint, you do not really feel it is necessary to worry about.  However, you have a zero tolerance for error policy.  You slit the guy’s throat, then wipe his blood off on his shirt. 

Time is-a wasting.  You haul yourself down the hallway with that effing golden color and stop at a room.  You pull a key card from your pocket and walk in, making sure that no one sees you.  So far, so good.  You have to get to the bathroom.  You rush in, sit your black bag on the floor, and proceed to put your rifle together. 

Once the gun puzzle has been masterfully solved, you get to the next part of the plan.  You pull a heat identifier out of your bag.  You turn it on and can see that there is no one in the bathroom below you.  Not a problem.  You move to one of the other rooms, carrying your rifle and your heat sensor.  There, in the living, are six adult male heat patterns, your target and your target’s bodyguards.  You can’t tell which one is which.  Ah, well.  No choice but to take them all out. 

You hold up the rifle and choose which target would be best to go after first, knowing that as soon as you take the first shot, the guards are going to be on even higher alert than the stiffs already are.  You decide to take out the guy in the center.  Most likely, he’s your actual target.  The other oafs are just standing around him as if they can protect him from danger at all sides.  Too bad no one is looking up.

You hold the rifle and make sure you have a good aim.  Then you pull the trigger.  The long bullet goes through the floor, through the piping and then through the ceiling.  Once it pierces your target’s scalp and skull, it keeps going, puncturing other organs as it makes its decent to come out of his center and get stuck in the floor between his feet. 

It took a few seconds for the bodyguards to react.  Meanwhile, in the seconds it took them to realize that they were being attacked, you had already taken out three more bodyguards...no four more...nope.  All dead.  In seconds.  That’s why you get paid the big bucks.  Taking no time to pat yourself on the back, this was after all just a job, you took apart your gun and packed up your toys in your black bag.

You strapped your bag to your back and then climbed out of a window.  You dropped to the balcony two stories beneath you.  You kneeled down, unzipped your bag, and pulled out a crane.  You sat the crane down beside the bag, while you zipped the bag back up, and restrapped it to your back.  You picked up the crane and once you felt that you were ready, you climbed on top of the balcony railing and jumped. 

You pushed yourself off of the balcony as hard as you could.  You held your arms out to your sides and kept your legs shut.  You counted down. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.  Then you shot your crane to the neighboring building, the one where you were when this whole thing started. 

The crane shot out of your instrument like a torpedo.  It got stuck into the building’s cement.  You held fast as the string caught with such force that, had you not been the pro that you are, the instrument would have been yanked from your grasp and you would have spiraled to your doom.  However, once the string caught, the crane pulled you towards it at the same time that you were swinging towards the building.  To the casual observer, you looked like you were going to smack right into the side of the building and break something that you were really going to regret breaking, but you knew your timing.  You were confident, more confident than you remember being in your whole life.  This would work.  Just a little more and you would…

“Hey, man,” Valpatine yells at you, completely breaking your little moment and reminding you that you are in a dark deep tunnel, running for your life, and not some super assassin, killing people through floorboards and jumping off of rooftops.

“Yeah.  I’m fine.”  Suddenly, lights switch on.  Even though they are dim lights, they still hurt your eyes after having been consumed so completely by darkness.  You cover your eyes and rub them, trying to bring them comfort.

“I do not know where you head was just now, but we need to get moving.  Like yesterday.”  He holds the detonator up, hoping to remind you of how close you are to danger.

You nod your head and follow him as he runs off.   He stops at another brick wall.  This time the wall swings open from the ceiling and moves away from you.  Valpatine rushes through.  You follow him through with the same urgency.  As you run down this tunnel, following only your trust in your friend, there is a loud Boom.  Valpatine has detonated the bombs. 

The blast knocks you off of your feet.  You fly a few before falling to the ground and skidding into a wall head first.  Valpatine, who appears to be unaffect, probably because he saw the blast coming, runs to you to help you up.

“Damn it, val,” you growl at him.  “You could have warned me before you did that.”

He says nothing.  Once you’re back on your feet and he’s sure that you’re okay, he runs off again, saying nothing to you. 

Damn the bastard is fast.  It is all you can do just to maintain a visual on him.  It is a good thing that you weren’t so lame as to trip and fall in the middle of a sprint for life or you would be left behind to explode alone.

You and Valpatine finally stop running and hit another wall.  This time, instead of the wall opening, Valpatine looks up.  He looks to be searching for something.  It takes a few seconds, but Valpatine finds what he’s looking for.  He reaches up and grabs a rope.  He yanks on it a couple of times, probably to make sure it’s stable, then he jumps up, grabs the rope, and climbs up like he had done it a million times before, which knowing val, he probably has.  “Just for practice because you never know,” Val was always fond of saying.

NaNo Day 11: Part 3

Not a problem.  You use the momentum you already have built up and pin him to the wall.  You then take the opportunity to pull another blade and stab him in his side.  He grunts but he doesn’t yell.  You twist the blade as much as you can then rip the blade out.  You push yourself off of him and watch as he slides to the floor.  Not because you’re interested; you just want to make sure he’s dead.

Oh, Consistency, why did you leave me?

I don't know what the hell happened to my agenda of posting the rest of my NaNo story in the span of last week.  I got a head injury or something and forgot.  (In theory that is.)  I know what happened to my 5-min yesterday though.  My birthday was Friday (happy 29th to meeee!!!) in in the midst of partying, dancing, and hanging out til all hours of the night and morning, I forgot a very important fact.  I'm not as young as I used to be.  I'm still trying to recover and I hadn't even drank anything.

Welp, anyway, that's the latest update.  Aaaand here's the latest installment of this year's NaNo.

NaNo Day 11part 2:

“Um, we gotta go, slick.  Permanently.  I do not know why they haven’t come here yet to find you, but I sure as hell am not waiting around to ask them. “

Finally, getting yourself together enough to function, you ask valpatine, “Where do you keep the bags.”

He shakes his head.  “This is it, man.  There are no bags.  Just one bag.  I put everything I need in it.  And roll out.”

That makes sense.  But you remember that you have another bag that can be used for something besides money.  “Look, Val, I got a bag, too,” you grab the bag off of the floor and unzip it, revealing the money.  “I mean, we can put something in it.”

Valpatine looks in the bag.  “Daaaaaamn, man.  Who did you rob?”

“Ha haaa.  No one.  It is my money.  I withdrew it from the bank earlier today.”

“Really?  And they didn’t think that was weird?”

You think about it.  “Actually, no.”

Valpatine shakes his head at you.  “And you didn’t think that that was weird?”

You think some more.  “Um, no.”

Valpatine shakes his head at you.  “Wow.  You are slow.”

“Look, val, I was a little concerned about my wife being missing and my cousin killing himself.  I didn’t really have time to ponder the mysteries of the banking system.”

“Yeah, right.”  He moves to a wardrobe that he has along one of the far walls.  He opens it after entering a combination.  Inside there is a ton of explosives.  Plastique.  “”Boy, what the hell are you doing?” you ask him.

He gives you a duh stare.  “I’m blowing the place up, obviously.  Geez, maybe I had the voltage too high when I hit you.  If they did have a tracker on you, and they are waiting to ambush us, I do not want them having any more idea than they already do of what all goes on down here.”

“Aaaan if they didn’t, then you are blowing up your place for no reason.”

“Oh, I got a reason,” he says as he sets up charges on the weaker parts of the wall and beams.  “You ever hear of safe versus sorry?  That’s reason enough for me.”

You shrug and help him by setting up bombs directly on the computer tables, making sure that when the bombs detonate, that the hard drives are more fried than chicken at Popeye’s.

“Alright, man,” valpatine says as he moves past you to another wardrobe.  This one is full of firearms.  Valpatine gives you a few handhelds and some clips.  “Put these in your bag.”

“Damn man.  Are you planning for a revolution or what?”

“Hey, being prepared never hurt anyone.”  He puts his bag on his shoulders and grabs a detonator.  “You ready?”

“Yep.”  You start walking for the door that leads upstairs.

“Um, where you going, champ?”

“I’m getting the hell out of here before you get turn into ground beef…obviously.”

He lets out a noise that sounds like a tire going flat before he shakes his head and walks off to one of the far walls.  “Man, Jacob, please act like you’ve done this before.”

You give him a blank stare.  “I can’t because I haven’t.”

He lets out another flat tire.  “Come on, noobie.”

Exasperated and pretty much over this whole day, you follow Valpatine to a brick wall.  “Please, tell me that this is not the end of your plan.”

He gives you look that says he is not the new one here.  He then kicks the wall lightly in what appears to be random places near the floor.  Then he taps the wall with his fist in another random order.  You hear a rumbling noise that sounds like you are about to be caught in an earthquake.  You are a little nervous, but Valpatine doesn’t seem fazed at all.  In a few seconds, the wall moves to the side revealing a tunnel that you had no idea was there.  And you thought he’d told you everything.  Wait.  No.  No, you didn’t.

Asking no questions, you adjust the bag on your arm and walk into the tunnel.  After Valpatine enters behind you, you hear the door slide shut. 

It is completely dark in the tunnel.  You can’t even see your hand in front of your face.  in the darkness you begin to see things as if you are dreaming.  You see yourself standing on a rooftop.  You are covered in black clothing.  Actually, you look just like your cousin when you found him on the floor of your living room.

You have a rifle in your hands.  Cool wind is wrapping itself around you.  You walk to the edge of the roof and look over.  You are 50 stories in the air and you are looking down as if you’re planning to jump over the edge.  But you do not feel suicidal.  You actually feel strong, confident, as if you are on a mission.  You feel like a character in a movie or some comic book superhero.  You see your own face.  You look stern.  You realize that you aren’t just looking down, you are looking at a window in the next building.  But all you can see is the light coming from the window.  You are too high up to actually see inside. 

Seeming to have come to some sort of understanding, you back away from the edge.  You stop at the other side of the roof and strap the rifle to your back.  Oh, no.  You suddenly do not like the way that this is going because it looks like you are about to…yep.  You start running and before you know what you’re doing, you have sprinted off of the roof. 

You curl yourself into a ball to make sure you have good trajectory.  You are headed for the wall of the much taller building.  Before you make contact, you pull something from the sides of your clothes.  Right when you hit the cement, you stab the cement with your instruments and tack yourself to the side.  You release the instruments and fall two stories to the balcony below.  You climb inside the dark room through an already opened window.

You go to a closet and grab a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.  You now look like any regular guy in the city instead of like a crazy man who didn’t know Halloween was not for a few more months.

You grab a bag out of the closet and pack it full of things you’re going to need, knives, rope, guns, and your ninja suit, can’t forget that.  You walk out of the room, careful to make sure you’re seen little to no one.  You make your way down the golden hallway, and stop at the elevator.  You reach into your pants’ pocket and pull out a pair of soft black gloves.  It is cold out and you want to make sure you blend in.  You push the button on the elevator.  Going down.  The elevator dings when it is ready for you to climb aboard.  You walk in and hit the button for the 43^rd floor. 

Just as the elevator doors are about to close, a hand reaches in and stops the doors from closing shut.  The doors part to reveal a man dressed in a suit.  He smiles at you politely like a courteous stranger would.  You step aside to let him on.  With his back to you, the gentleman presses the button for the 42^nd floor. 

“Are you here for the conference,” he asks as he steps away from the button dial and stands parallel with you. 

You look at him.  Who the hell told this joker that you wanted to talk?  “Which one?” you ask sarcastically.

He chuckles as the elevators starts moving.  “Yeah, they do tend to have a lot of them here, do not they?  It is like an over-saturation.  It is almost as if they’re more interested in being an attraction than just a place where people can come to get away.”  He laughs to himself and you return to thinking about the task at hand.  Which at the moment, you are having a very hard time recalling.  What is it that you’re supposed to do?

You feel like you are on auto-pilot.  You know you’re about to do something very important, but you just can’t seem to remember what it is.  You decide not to question it too hard because your head is starting to hurt. 

The 43^rd floor greets you with a ding.  The doors open to reveal yet another golden hallway.  What was wrong with the designer of this hotel’s décor?  Did he really think the place looked any richer with his cheap ass carpet all over the walls and floor?  You wonder how much the designer got paid make the hotel look like crap.  Whatever it was, you could have done the same job for half the price.  You smile politely at the gentleman and proceed to exit the elevator. 

He smiles back at you.  “Have a good night and time at the conference,” he says.

You nod to let him know that you heard him, but you do not respond.  You do not know this man and have nothing to say to him.  You hated turning your back to people, especially when there were so close to you and you give you the creepy vibe.  However, you dared anyone to try something, including grinning creepers.  It would be a mistake of epic proportions…on their part. 

You hadn’t gotten two feet away from him when you hear a click.  Instincts taking over, you pull a blade as you turn around to face him.  He pulls a gun and prepared to shoot you in the head.  At the same time you use your knife to parry the barrel of his gun.  You rush him, and try to stab him, but he is prepared for that.  He pulls a blade of his own and parrys you.

NaNo Day 11: Part 1

“Ey, man,” Valpatine calls, jolting you from your thoughts.  “Come stand over here.”

You walk to the blue screen he has against one of the walls.  You smile and try to look like your smiling for the dmv camera, but there’s just too much on your mind.  

“Ey, man, smile,” Valpatine tells you.

“I am smiling,” you argue.  Damn it.  You were smiling.  And you were giving him a smile that in all honesty, you really didn’t feel.  What more did he want from you?

Valpatine shrugs and gives you and wait and see chuckle.  “Alright, man.  You are not getting a new one.”

Right after he says that, your face goes from a smile to a WTF.  And that’s when a bright white flash hits your eyes.  Valpatine falls over his desk, laughing at you.  “Aw, you bastard,” you say to him as you walk around the desk to see what your picture looks like on the monitor.  “Come on, man,” you say to Valpatine, who still has not stopped laughing.  “Are you really just going to let me walk around with my picture looking like that?”

“Look man, I told your sad ass to smile.  Next time smile.”  Wiping tears from his face, he reaches over and pulls a card out of a machine.  He hands it to you.  “There you go, Mr. Smith.  Enjoy.”

You look at the photo, glaring at it.  “I hate you,” you say to Val.

“Yep, that’s what she said.”  He has finally stopped physically laughing, but the joy is still in his voice.

Ironically, that’s when the answer hits about what was so strange with everything that has been going on.  “It is the silence,” you whisper to yourself.  

“I’m sorry.  You said what,” valpatine asks.

“It is the silence.  That’s what’s been so strange about this whole day…well, aside from the obvious.”  Valpatine seems to be taking in what you’re saying.  “Think about everything that’s happened today, even in the few hours that you’ve been with me.  There has been no mention of my wife, no mention of the cops looking for me because of what went on at my house, no mention about me killing Calvin…”

“Wait, that was his name?”

“Yeah, see, you didn’t even realize he had a name.  Not even Lindsey at the bank has been mentioned as a missing person or anything.”

“So, then you’re saying, if these guys are so powerful and are everywhere, why all the secrecy.”

“I’m wondering how powerful you have to be to create all the secrecy.”  You pace around the room as question upon question enters your head.  “What this really means is that they can kill me or anyone else, and when they do, it will be like I never existed and there’s no one who can stop them.”

There are a few minutes of stillness in the basement as you both consider what all of that could mean.  “That’s the craziest conspiracy I’ve ever heard in my life,” Valpatine says. 

“Yeah, me too.  The question is why?  Why all the secrecy for me and a bank teller?”

“What the hell have you been getting mixed up in in your spare time, chief?”

“I do not know,” you answer honestly.  You sit down and think.  You think harder than you have in your entire life.  “I can recount to you every single thing I’ve done in the last week.  I can tell you who I’ve talked to, where I went.  I can give you times and phone calls.  Everything.  There is nothing in my memory that looks even remotely like some spy shit.”

“Alright, well, let’s look at this from another angle.  Who all could do something like this, could make an entire series of wrongs disappear?  Vader?”

You chuckle at that a little.  Valpatine was a nerd to the core.  “I think it is a little more local than that.”

He scoffs.  “Please, kid, you can’t tell me this is some shit put down by the local pd?  Them boys ain’t that far up the food chain.  You talking about some shit like the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, hell, the effing El Presidento of the US of A’o.”

You ponder your friend’s words.  He’s right.  All of what he’s saying.  What’s happening to you is happening in secret.  And with all of the agencies out there that have authority to do something like this, finding the right one is going to be near impossible.  What is clear though is that what’s happening to you is happening with government approval.  Which means, “I’m not safe in my own country.”

“Wow,” Valpatine says.  “That has gotta suck.”

You shake your head.  “I can’t leave the country.  Not without knowing what happened to my wife.”

“Well, look, sport, it may be a good idea to get away from the problem so that you can get your head together and get a better look at the bigger picture.”

“I can’t help but wonder if there are other people out there going through what I’m going through.”

He chuckles at you.  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I really doubt that there’s a support group for people running from unknown government agencies for unknown crimes.”

“No, you fool.  What I mean is that, if there are other people out there running like I am, maybe we can work together and figure this out.”

He scoffs.  “And you call me foolish.  Slick, you’re talking about teaming up with unknowns during a zombie apocalypse.  You’re better off on your own.  Besides, if you have done some disreputable acts recently, like, I do not know, killed a few people, and you can’t remember, what makes you think some other sucker is gonna be in any better position than you are?”

“I do not know!!” you yell, snapping at Valpatine after having lost a goodly portion of your patience.  “I do not know.  All that I do know, is that I can’t just wait around here for them to come and get me with whatever it is that they have that I do not know about.  We do not know what they’re planning.  We do not know what they can do.  And I can’t figure this out on my own.  I need help.”

Valpatine seems to understand and has a serious look on his face, as if he is just now getting how important and jacked up things are.  “Alright, cousin, alright.  I’m with you.  You know me.  I’m always down for technological warfare.  So, I’ll run some checks and see who else has fallen off the grid in the last month.  With the way that they have perfected doing this to you, I’m sure you are not their first case of ‘failure’.”

“Alright, shit.  Where do we start?”

“Welp,” he gets up and grabs the defibulaters he keeps on his wall.  He turns them on.  You can hear the sound of the electricity powering up the life saving instruments.  “Come here,” Valpatine orders as he rubs the pads together.

You look at like Valpatine as if he has finally lost the last remnants of his mind.  “For what?  You’re not hitting me with that.”

“If we wanna catch the enemy, we gotta think like the enemy.  And if I were heading some secret organization, the first thing I would with my employees and make sure they were giving off electromagnetic pulses all over the place so that we could find and eliminate any defectors.  Now get your happy ass over here so we can stop that thing from transmitting.”

You look at him then at the defibulators then back at him.  Something in his eyes…he just looks way too happy to be doing this.  “Wait a minute, man.  Shouldn’t we check to make sure I have something in me before just jumping into this?  I mean, those things hurt.”

“Oh, yeah.  Like a bitch.  I’ve done it to myself a couple times.”

Well, that explains everything. 

“It is either this or you can walk around jumping through hoops like a trained animal while transmitting like a regular radio tower.”

Damn it.  Valpatine was making sense.  You hate it when he makes sense.  It is never a good time for anyone but him.  “Alight,” you groan like a child about to put to a task he doesn’t want to do.  “I’ll do it.”

“Of course you will because you are a man of reason.”

You walk over to the where Valpatine is standing looking armed and dangerous.  “Alright.  Sit in that chair, pancho.” 

You sit down in one of his many rolling swivel chairs, the anticipation is almost enough to kill you.  You eye the difbulators as if they are weapons of death and not things that are going to help you in your quest to find your wife.  “Alright,” you say.  “We do this on three.”

“That’s cool, kid.  Your count or mine?”

“Mine.”

“Alright.”

You take a few deep breaths before you count off in order to prepare yourself.  “Alright.  You ready?”

“For like the last year, sissy.  Hurry it up.”

You glare at him.  You remind yourself that you are doing this for your wife and whenever you found her, she was going to owe you big.  You never wanted to hear her complain about the car show again.  “Alright.  We’re doing this.”

Valpatine rolls his eyes with impatience.

“One…”  Before you even get to two, you are jolted across the room by what feel like a hammer crashed down on your chest.  You yell as you hit the wall at the other end of the room.  Then you fall out of the chair, grasping your chest and gasping for air.  You can hear some kind of screeching like a clown or something.  

Valpatine!  That little bastard was laughing at you.  And laughing hard, like he was part of the crowd at a Steve Harvey concert.  

“Oh, you son of a bitch,” you groan as he helps you from the floor.  “Can’t you count?  I said on three.”

“Oh, please, you big sissy.  Go whine to ya mamma.”

Valpatine helps you into the chair and then walks away.  Your vision is still blurry, but you can hear a lot of movement going on.  You hear him unzip something.  You want to ask him what the hell is going on, but you’re still feeling out of it and the jolt did nothing for your headache.  

“Come on, Magneto.  Pull yourself together.  We gotta go.”

Your vision getting clearer, you can now see Valpatine taking computer parts and shoving them into a bag.  “What are you doing?”