Franky Is Lucky

I sat for a few hours the anxiety taking me over and then I felt a wave of exhaustion take hold of me. I hadn’t slept in forty eight hours except for the brief period of unconsciousness I had suffered from earlier in the day. I tried to take control and combat my circadian rhyme but it was no use. I drifted off into sleep.

It started softly at first but I could hear the music wafting through the air. It was unmistakably my favorite song Something Corporate’s My Konstantine.

Andrew McMahon’s voice slowly joined the piano…

“I can't imagine all the people that you know and the places that you go
when the lights are turned down low. And I don't understand all the things you've seen but I'm slipping in between you and your big… dreams. It's always you In my big dreams.”

And then I heard another voice join in on top of the music.

“And you tell me that its over. Wake up lying in a patch of four leaf clovers and your restless and I’m naked. You gotta get out you can’t stand to see me shaking. No could you let me go? I didn’t think so. And you don‘t want to be here in the future so you say the present is just a pleasant interruption to the past. And you don‘t want to look much closer because you are afraid to find out all this hope you sent into the sky by now had crashed. And it did because of Me….”

The voice was low, sad and gravely. It hit all the right notes and it wrapped around my heart so slowly and delicately, I almost didn’t notice the tug from inside my chest.

“And then you bring me home… afraid to find out that your alone oh and I’m sleeping in your living room but we don’t have much room to live.”

I felt the tear trickle down my face and I opened my eyes and saw where I was. I was looking up at the night sky next to the big bridge downtown. This was one of my favorite nightly haunts. I rolled my head in the direction of the voice and realized that I was laying on the hood of a car and sitting inside the drivers seat of the car was Brent. He was the mystery singer.

I jumped off the hood of the car and looked at him hatred burning. He reached for something and the music subsided.

“Get out of my head Brent!” I yelled at the front of the car.
“You need me in your head Franks. Besides, you seemed to be enjoying the moment.” He crossed his arms of the steering wheel and placed his head on them like a puppy. He looked at me with his lip pouted, like I had just denied him something and he wanted it.

I didn’t move. I stood there with my feet planted and my fists clenched. He leaned across the red chargers leather seats and opened the passenger side door.

“Let’s go for a ride Franks. Come on I won’t bite. It’s just a dream.” He beckoned me with his finger.

“Wake up Franky. Wake up! Wake UP!” I closed my eyes tightly shut. And then I opened them. He was still there the charger’s engine idling.

“Come on, we don’t have all night.” He said mockingly. Jerk. There was no getting out of this. I trudged over to the vehicle and sat in the passengers seat shutting the door behind me. This was a dream so at least he couldn’t hurt me.

“Good choice.” He backed out of the clearing under the bridge and headed up the steep incline, the car never whined once. He pulled out onto the street. There wasn’t a single car insight. Oh yea this was a dream.

“What are we doing Brent?” I had my arms crossed over my chest and I was starring out the windshield.

“I have some things to tell you Franky. Things that you need to hear.” He said. I looked at him; he was driving with his right hand lazily draped over the steering wheel. He was wearing his letterman’s jacket and from what I could see of his face, it was aged but it was unscarred. He looked like he should have looked if he was alive and twenty-one like me.

“Like what?” I said, “Your plot for world vengeance. Maybe how you will end up killing Amy? What do you have to say Brent? I am all ears.” I was done with his games. Done with his lies, I was just done in general.

“I can understand why you are angry. I haven’t really expressed myself the way I should have.” He was morose and regretful.

“Damn straight.” I said with a huff and a turn to the passenger side window.

“I want you to know that in life I was fascinated by you. If things had worked out differently I am sure I would have become wrapped up in the mystery of your sorrow, and then things would have ended similarly.

You know I heard this song the other day. I think it was by one of those indie bands you are always listening too. Guster I think it was. Anyway, they say in there ‘Honest is easy, fiction is where genius lies, cause it’s easier sometimes not to be involved somehow I make you believe’ There was so much truth in that. I feel sorry that I hurt you by coaxing you into something you never wanted to do. Especially, since I knew that even if you said no AGH would still take Amy. Seeing you together was all they needed in order to snatch her. She was all they needed to get to you.

I am astounded though that you managed to escape from the headquarters and also inflict a powerful message on the establishment, which was that you are not going to be easy to catch. But I do have to say that you are making some huge mistakes. They are not foolish or sentimental. They are ruthless and apathetic. They do not care if you live or die because they will have what they want either way. You can run, or you can fight both are options that have risks. They think you are weak because your heart is strong, you need to prove them wrong. You have to be ruthless and unforgiving. You can not let them take you.”

I sat there and stared at him for a moment.

“Why did you possess Amy and what does that guy Garrison know?” I starred down his profile as he watched the road. He was still handsome even in his aged version of himself. He was what I thought he should have been and I hated him for making me see that.

He let out a sound of contempt sounded like “Pshh.” and then he started talking. “Amy. Amy, Amy, Amy you know she is so noble. A lot more noble then you I am afraid. I knew that you were in trouble. You see I have this thing called common sense that you seem to lack and well I had to save your dumb ass so I did what I had too. Are you really that angry?”

I looked at him “Yea I am actually. You could have killed her.”

“Could have being the operative word there. I could have killed her. She is fine by the way. She is just exhausted.” He looked sideways at me trying to make out what this information would do to me. I stayed stoic he couldn’t possibly know that for sure. He wasn’t a blood test after all.

“Well you have your opinion and I have mine. Now about Garrison. What does he know? Why is he important?”

He paused for a second “Garrison is one of many cogs in this machine known as Aster Grant and Hughes. He was a computer tech with the company for years and then when they caught him hacking into company files to find out about his brother they made him into what they call a Project Operative. This was probably he worst punishment for a guy like Garrison. He had to start a strict diet, undergo rigorous training and give up his pride. He went from being the free agent genius to the puppet in a matter of minutes and he turned his hatred onto you. He was not aware at first of who you were. He did not have all the pieces to the puzzle but I took care of that. You can thank me later.” He nodded.

“You told him!” I interrupted him with my yelling. “You told him! Why would you do that?”

“Listen yelling will get you no where. I told him because we needed a weak team so you could infiltrate your own home and he knows things and since AGH has the whole place on lock down and they could see me I couldn’t get answers in the building. Now calm the hell down.” His hands were tense on the wheel.

I took a deep and ragged breath. I needed to calm down. I needed him to tell me what he knew or else I would have to find out for myself.

“He is just a pawn but he is also an angry pawn. He knows about the blood and about the databases of people like they are keeping. Potentials they call them. They plan to inject your blood into these people. Aster wants to know if it would work on someone of similar evolutionary qualities, like advanced brain function. He wants to find out how to make a duplicate of your parents a lower dose of you. His plans are more for world domination and power than anything else. But Grant and Hughes are who you really have to worry about. They are conspiring against Aster because they already have a marketable use for your blood and currently there is very little of it. They plan to use what you are as a biological weapon and they already have buyers in mind. First however they need to find you and make sure you cooperate.”

I gapped at him for a moment and realized what he was telling me. I was a wanted woman. They wanted me for money, power and destruction. And they didn’t need me alive for all those things. I just sat in thought until Brent spoke.

“Franky it is time to wake up.” As he held onto the wheel he reached over to the passenger door, opened it and then shoved me out. Before I hit the pavement I gasped back into reality.

I was back in my living room. I looked at the clock, from the calculations in my head I could divine that I had been asleep for roughly thirty minutes. I looked around the room as I got my bearings on reality back. I had to take a moment and breath. I had to finish this but first I needed a plan.