The Ghosts

[DeletedUser]

The warm cup of tea still in his hands, Pal got out of the rocking chair on his front porch and walked into his home. The screen door made a harsh clattering sound, as in banged closed behind him, it startled the pair of thieves in the tree outside, and made them drop their bag of sunflower seeds to the ground, they probably shook their fists at Pal, but he was already out of sight and earshot, standing in his small but well appointed kitchen.

Pots and pans hung from the walls, sat on counter tops and stood guard above the stove, where Pal occasionally made soups. A salad bowl, filled to bursting with lettuce, tomato, cheese and spinach, sat next to the stove, where he had sat it this morning. Pal focused on washing the dirt from his hands in the kitchen sink, before drying off with a towel that had the picture of a duck sewn into it.

Pal sat down in his breakfast nook and used a remote control to flip on a small television that sat atop the fridge, which was at an 80 degree angle from him, sitting in the nook. Pal liberally applied ranch dressing to his salad, before, in the midst of a mouthful of his lunch, flipping through the ten channels you got with bunny ears out here. Pal paused and listened to a news story about a terrorist attack in Minsk, his heart sunk for all those that had lost their lives. He stared at the table for a moment before he flipped the T.V. forward a channel, settling on a cartoon about a Big Red Dog.

It took Pal about half an hour until he was satisfied. He shook the rest of the salad into a plastic bag, before sitting it in his fridge until dinner. Pal walked back to the sink, and was in the process of washing the salad bowl, who's sides were covered in ranch dressing, when he, by chance looked up and saw three people dissolve out of the woods behind his home and approach his back door.

Pal sat the bowl down in the sink and left the water running, before drying off and heading out to meet his guests. Pal still had the towel in his hands, as he opened his back door and looked out onto the gathering in his back yard.

"Hello, my friends, Herbert Palerne at your service. How may I help you?" he asked, with a smile upon his face.

 

[Deleted User - 819397]

Remembering that he was supposed to take the initiative here, Trace stepped forward. "Good day, Mr. Palerne. How does the day find you?" They exchanged pleasantries for a moment, Trace watching for any sign of recognition in Pal's eyes. They had decided Eve wouldn't go poking around in his head while Trace was trying to naturally get Pal on their side again, so he had to be looking for it without having an inner access to his head. However, he didn't find anything, so he went ahead with the plan that he had thought of while approaching Pal's residence. "Mr. Palerne, my name is Trace Dresden (Dresden being pure fabrication...normal people have last names). I am something of a computer expert, and I'e heard rumors you are rather good with cultivating and preserving living things. In fact, my research shows that you are one of the leaders in this field, although rather than flaunt it as many would do, you have chosen a quiet, secluded life. I too, do not flaunt my talent, as there is a particular former Boss who does not wish me to join the workforce at large. Perhaps there is a similarity in your story? Because if there is, Mr. Palerne, I am afraid to tell you you are in very real danger. This Boss is currently involved in tracking down those who are...special...in a field. I believe I remember you at the facility where I worked under this...Boss. Could I be correct in my thinking?"

Trace's plan was not to beat around the bush, but rather to see how intact Pal's memories of the brief time they had been escaping together were at this point. If they were intact, Pal would recognize him, and all would be well. If they were less than ideal, Eve might have to use her stuff on him...although Trace had a backup plan...he figured it was possible to force the memories out of hiding...but he hoped it wouldn't be necessary, as it required him to go to his own darkest memories...

 

[DeletedUser28032]

Jux looked up at the man that had greeted them, he'd only met Pal very briefly but he was pretty sure that they'd found the right man. Taking off his sunglasses Jux smiled up at the former ghost and made his introduction along with Trace "I am Justin Baxter its a pleasure to meet you again" he said lightly dropping the hint into the conversation, his bright violet eyes quickly studying the mans house.
It looked nice, it actually seemed that one them had managed to make life for themself after the military, Jux had tried but hed never been able to completely relax, he'd always been so paranoid about being discovered.
He listened quietly as Trace spoke to Pal, the context of his conversation deeply hidden but impossible for somebody to follow if they knew what he meant, although how successful this was had yet to discovered, perhaps a more direct approach would be required.
"Could we come inside Mr Palerne, we've had a rather long journey and could do with a sit down....also we have some matters to discuss with you" Jux asked politely, the privacy of Pal's home would allow them to speak more openly, also Jux was beginning to get paranoid again, he didn't like standing out in the open for too long, it'd be far too easy for someone to listen in or take your picture, there were enemies everywhere, even in sleepy little towns in Oregon.

 

[DeletedUser25825]

Eve remained in the background as Trace, and then Jux spoke to Pal. She remained quiet, as she regarded the pacifist. After Trace and Jux made their introductions, she said, "I'm Eve. My companions are correct. We really should go indoors to discuss a matter of fairly high importance. If you don't mind, of course." After saying this, she nudged the other two forward as she began walking up toward Pal's porch.

___________________________________________-

Ejona listened to Willy's suggestions, and squeezed an eye partially shut in uncertainty. She said, "I don't know about shimmying down a rope. I'm not exactly very athletic, and think I'd be falling off of this before I made it to the dock." She frowned thoughtfully, and looked along the length of the vessel. She pointed down at a small gangplank that had been lowered for garbage and supplies to be off or on loaded.

She said, "There doesn't seem to be American officials watching the crew." She looked at Willy, and shrugged. She asked, "What do you think?"

 

[DeletedUser]

Pal was still smiling, until he picked up on the subtle hints in the conversation, then his smile faded, as if pulled from his face by a team of Clydesdales. His heart sunk, as he came to the realization that he hadn't hidden well enough. He looked around quickly, poking his head out of his house, before kicking the door open with a sandal'd foot and motioning them hurriedly in.

The three prototypes stood in Pal's kitchen, until he shooed them into his breakfast nook "Sit down, I'll get some refreshments." Pal opened his fridge and extracted a pitcher of iced tea. He sat the tea down on the table, before taking a few cups down from an overhead cupboard. He sat them on the table, in front of each of the clones separately. He then walked over to his sink and leaned forward on it, trying to compose himself. Pal's faced crunched up, as if he were about to cry, before he choked the tears back and took a deep breath.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Pal turned and looked at the three sitting in his breakfast nook. "You are by far the most well behaved catchers I've met. What have I done to anger my former masters so that they decided to send the goons to mop up?"

 

[DeletedUser28032]

"We come to help him and he calls us goons" Jux chuckled quietly, taking the ice tea from off of the table "Pal old buddy, we're not here to drag you off to Dreamland, quite the opposite in fact...we're here to save you" the three of them told him of Jaunt's vision, of how the Boss had kicked in his door and abducted him, leaving his office a smoking ruin, they also explained that it was through this vision and their own unique abilities that they were able to track him down.
"...So in short we would like you to join us, we won't force you but we feel it would be in your own best interest if you did" Jux finished his ice tea whilst he waited for the all the information to sink in, gods knew it took him a while when Eve came to recruit him. In teh top corner of the room teh small TV still chattered to itself as it showed yet more images of their fallen brother's handiwork, another problem they that would require their attention.
Turning his attention back to Pal , Jux asked "So have you any questions for us?"

 

[DeletedUser13682]

Willy considered Ejona's idea for a moment, then facepalmed himself for thinking everybody in the world had the strength and endurance of supersoldiers. "Right, that works better. I'm forgetful of the present too much. Sorry. Come on then, we don't have all day." Willy started to head off in the direction of the garbage chute, motioning Ejona to follow him. When they got to the dock, and away from customs officials, Willy stopped. "Alright. We have to contact the team. Let's see, if I remember correctly, there's a guy that can monitor the internet. Maybe, we can use the proper search terms on open internet access to get their attention."

 

[DeletedUser25825]

Eve accepted the offered beverage with a pleasant smile and nod. She sipped it as she listened to Jux explain that they were the good guys in all of this, and waited a few moments as she watched Pal absorb all of the updated information. She then commented, "Pal, we need you to help us in our next endeavor." She nodded toward the television that was finishing up on covering the terrorist attack in Belarus. She said, "I know you're against violence, and I respect that. But, these people don't. I don't know why Boss is there, or why he did these things, but he's only part of the problem. As long as this program exists, there will always be reason to look over your shoulder. You already know that. What we want, is help with destroying the program once and for all." She sipped her tea, and waited.

___________________________________________________

Ejona nodded as Willy talked about sending a message. She said, "I actually can contact your friends as soon as I can get to a computer. Maybe this internet person you are referring to already contacted me, and gave me instructions of a way to alert him if I ever needed help." She walked along the sidewalk with Willy, looking around like a tourist. She was truly, as she'd never been to America. She nodded toward a coffee shop, where she read internet was available.

After they entered, she ordered a coffee and a laptop. She asked Willy to pay, and moved to a table. She sat, and sent herself an email with the subject line "Help". She looked at Willy and said, "I don't think we need contact information do we? I have no idea how your friends operate."

 

[DeletedUser]

Pal sighed heavily. He leaned around the corner into his living room and moved a pile of books and magazines off of a wooden chair and sat it down in the kitchen. Taking a seat, Pal's eyes were sorrowful, he had so wished he'd disappeared from everybody's radar, he'd been gone so long that he'd assumed everyone had forgotten about the nonviolent prototype whose existence had been covered up for so many years.


He looked across the faces of the three in his kitchen. He focused on Trace. "I remember you." he said, pointing a finger.

"I have a patient here who's leg is destroyed. I'm slowly putting it back together, but it will take time to go unnoticed, if you all will give me an hour, I can fix it completely, it will hurt him, but nothing will occur that is life threatening. Then, I will go with you. Is this suitable?"

 

[DeletedUser25825]

Eve nodded immediately and said, "More than reasonable Pal. We'll just wait here with you if you don't mind." She smiled a disarming smile, and settled back against the cushion of the couch as she sipped her beverage. She said, "With any amount of luck, once this is over, you'll be able to heal people without that ever looming fear of somebody hunting you." She looked around the humble setting as she continued to talk, "Of course, I'm still planning on doing other things with my talents even after this is over, for the good. There are a lot of people that we can help, without having to wait for the next catastrophe to bring them."

 

[DeletedUser13682]

Willy stopped at an ATM before they entered the store. He didn't want to come back to America, but the thought never escaped his mind that he might have to, so he took precautions, like transferring some of his money from the Ghosts to a secret account. He had only gotten a few hundred though, and he took all that out, closing the account. After they had sat down, Willy shrugged. "I don't know how they operate anymore. I wish I knew, but I don't. I really honestly don't know how they get contacted if at all." Willy noticed he was thirsty, and went to get a coffee. When he returned, he had maybe come up with something. "Like I said before, we can use search terms like Ghosts, Dreamland, super soldier, stuff like that. I don't know if it will work though."

 

[DeletedUser]

Pal nodded to the prototypes in his breakfast nook. "If his mother is home she will call me when he starts to scream. Answer the phone and tell her to feed him something and to take his mind off the pain. Tell her that it's normal for it to be incredibly painful the second day for a break as severe as her son Walter's."

With that, Elliot took an ice tray from his fridge, the television remote and a tray of breakfast muffins and sat them down on the table. "This should hold you for an hour."

It was always difficult to concentrate with others in his home, but Pal knew he could not tell them to come back in an hour, they would suspect a trick and stay. So, Pal was forced to work through the aggravation brought on by his old life having surfaced, the sorrow at having to leave his home for a time and the regret that so many would be hurt without his being there. He did however, he visualized the entire world in his mind as a tremendous floating blue orb. Then, he slowly started to shrink that orb until it was no larger than the head of a pen. By that time, he was deep in his meditative state and he began to reach out across town, to Walter's house.

Sure enough, at the first painful sob, Walter's mother called the house, but Pal was too far into his trance to hear it. He just focused on the snarl of broken bone in the boy's leg. He stretched the bones out in his mind and slowly pressed them back together. Pal forced the poor boy to flex his leg, which brought an agonizing pain forward, one that Pal could have heard even back in his office across town. Laying in his bed, a discarded video game controller next to him, Walter kicked with his good leg and sobbed into his pillow. Pal felt for the boy, but he pressed on, working the displaced muscle, bone and tissue, back into normal condition. By the time Pal's work was finished, the boy's leg whole again, Pal was bone weary, the kind of tired people get after working a triple shift on a loading dock.

He didn't walk so much as drag himself back into the kitchen, where he sat wearily on his chair and hoped none of the prototypes would interrupt a brief nap he would take sitting right in front of them in his chair.

 

[DeletedUser28032]

"Sure Pal, do what has to be done there are some things we should look at sorting out ourselves" Jux said looking down at the napkin the problem is that its flat I need a ball to write on....one where i can write on the inside as well as the outside....this is going to get complex isn't it he thought dejectedly to himself as the tray of muffins was palced in front of him. Taking a muffin from the tray Jux made some quick alterations to the map before stuffing it into his pocket there was little point him going any further with it, he would need a computer or something to get it working the way he wanted it to. It was as he was thinking of using a computer that another thought hit him....the video's.
moving over to where Trace was Jux decided to voice what he'd found back in Chicago whilst on the laptop "Trace i've just remembered...we're on the internet...video's of us fighting the Boss back in Vegas...I was just thinking could you get rid of them or something?" when he'd first seen them he'd decided that it would pointless to remove them afterall who would believe them let alone take them seriously. However with images of their brothers rampage in downtown Minsk all over the news Jux didn't like the idea of them being around lest someone joined the dots and worked out who they were, or worse where they were.

 

[Deleted User - 819397]

Trace had remained mostly quiet while Pal had slowly agreed to join them, but when Jux commented about the fact that there was likely video from the fight with Boss, he frowned. "I hadn't even thought of that..." he looked up. "I can destroy any copy that's online...however, if someone saved a copy on their hard drive and they aren't connected to the internet I won't be able to find it, let alone destroy it. If they're online, I can access their computer and take it out though." He sat down, cross-legged on the floor and broke his mind into four pieces. As always, one piece remained where it was, his touchstone. He sent two of his mid segments after the videos, finding and destroying all copies of it they could find. The fourth fragment wandered the world wide web at random, looking for anything that may be relevant to events that were going on.

His mind eventually locked onto an email that the girl from before, Ejona, had sent to herself. He instantly kicked himself mentally for not checking immediately after Boss' rampage...of course she'd be involved somehow. The email was blank, with the subject "Help" However, the mail was several hours old. Even though it might be futile, Trace sent another email to Ejona, asking for contact information so that they could be brought out of harm's way. The sections of mind dedicated to the removal of the video had finished, so Trace recollected himself and stood up. "It's done...also I should have a lead on Willy soon..."