Installment 2

            I meant to get back sooner. Sorry about that. Of course, you might be thinking that that wasn’t a long time at all, but seeing as how I don’t have any guarantees of how long I’ll be able to write anything, I have to do this as quickly as possible.

            I’m writing in a Starbucks right now. I have one or two hours, thanks to my lovely travelling companion. We’re three states away from where we were last time, and apparently he has some connections here. Anyway, he left me to keep myself from getting killed for a couple of hours, so I figured I’d head in here, since they know that I hate coffee. Well, hate coffee I may, but Starbucks has wi-fi, so…

            Anyway, I’m digressing again, and I promised myself that I would get started today, so here we are.

            The funny thing is, I’m not sure where to begin a story that started before I was born.

            It started two months ago. It was my birthday, actually -- or close enough. I don’t actually know my birthday. No one does, since I don’t have a birth certificate. Neither of my parents are alive to tell me, either. Nobody knows how they died, but they did, and apparently they gave me up before they died, because they knew that something would happen to them. At least, that’s what I figured -- but then again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

            So it was sometime around my birthday when I came home from school to find policemen sitting in my living room. Needless to say, I was startled -- but I didn’t say anything.

             One of them stood up and put his hands behind his back. He inspected me carefully, as if I were some product he wanted to buy.

            “What’s your name?” he finally asked.

            “Nathan,” I replied, looking him up and down. “Nathan Dalton.”

            The other two cops glanced at one another in surprise. One of them piped up. “T?” he asked. “Nathan T. Dalton?”

            I shrugged. “Does the initial matter?”

            The first policeman looked back at his companions. “Apparently. That is, it might. Where are your parents?”

            “Dead.”          

            This obviously took him off guard. “Then where are your guardians? Or guardian?”

            “They’re not here?” This didn’t really surprise me. They weren’t normally home on a Tuesday night, but since the cops had gotten in, I had assumed that they had been let inside the house by someone.

            Apparently not.

            “No, they’re not,” the policeman replied. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Larson -- Drew Larson. And I’d like to ask you to come with us to the police station.”

            This definitely surprised me. “What? Why? Are you arresting me?”

            Larson shook his head. “No, this isn’t an arrest, though it probably should be. We need to ask you some questions, but if our lead proves correct, then I’m afraid that you are in deep trouble.”

            My first thought was of Mike Mallory. (No, that’s not his real name; though if there’s anyone I would want to get in trouble by spilling their name on here, it would be him.) I had already gotten in trouble once that day for toppling Mike Mallory’s little kingdom at school -- I was certain that somehow, the police had found out about it.

            After the initial reaction passed, I realized that there was no way that I would get taken to the police station for something like that. Besides, the teachers wouldn’t turn me in. They made a show of punishment, but really, I knew that deep down, they were on my side.

            “Is this about the conspiracy?” I asked, just to be sure.

            “What conspiracy?” Larson inquired, raising his eyebrows. 

            “Mike Mallory?” His face was blank. “This has nothing to do with my school?”

            He shook his head. “No. Please come with me, Mr. Dalton.”

            I know what you’re thinking. I did some sort of drop kick on him, ran out the door, met some girl named Clara, and went off to save the world or something like that.

            I went with them.

            Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s what happened. But I’ll tell you one thing. If I hadn’t gone with them, I probably wouldn’t be around to write this.

            I can’t tell you where I lived, but I’ll say that it wasn’t a very large town, and it didn’t take very long to drive to the police station. I was trying to figure out why the policemen had come to my house and were taking me to the station. I couldn’t think of anything I had done, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

            “So,” I said finally, if only to start some conversation. “Am I allowed to know what I’m being accused of?”

            “You aren’t being accused of anything,” Larson replied. “That is, not by us. We’re just taking you in for questioning.”

            “Aren’t you legally required to contact my guardians?” I mentioned casually.

            “Not in a case of national security.”

            I was about to ask why -- if this was so important -- they hadn’t arrested me, when the words national security resonated in my head.

            “National…national security?” I repeated.

            Larson nodded. “Don’t ask any more questions. I can’t say any more. We have to let him talk to you.”   

            After a few more minutes of silence, we reached the station. I got out of the car and followed Larson inside. The building wasn’t very impressive -- like I said, my town wasn’t a big city or anything. But it was clean, well kept, orderly, and the cops were all trained professionals -- with guns, a fact that I was painfully aware of as Larson led me toward a door down a small hallway. He opened the door and gestured for me to enter the room.

            In the back of my mind, I was expecting a medieval times torture chamber. But no, apparently not. It looked like a doctor’s waiting room, with chairs lining the walls, and a table with a few thick books on it. Upon surveying my surroundings, I noticed that there was a man sitting in one of the chairs.

            His hair was dark -- not quite coal black, but too dark to be called brown. Not particularly tall, but not short, either, his build was wiry. I wouldn’t call him scrawny, but neither was he terribly strong-looking, either. The instant he spied me, he sprang up from the chair, a light dawning in his eyes, which were the same color as his hair. A crooked, half smile spread across his face.

            “Nathan?” he said slowly, as if tasting the word. “Nathan T. Dalton?”

            “Nathan Dalton,” I repeated. “That’s me.”

            “Nathan T. Dalton,” he corrected. I got a strange feeling from this young man that I couldn’t quite identify.

            “I don’t normally use the initial,” I informed him, keeping my hands behind my back and my expression guarded.

            “Don’t use the initial?” he said in a voice that suggested I was planning to blow up the White House.

There was the feeling. It was a feeling like he knew me from somewhere, which I couldn’t explain, seeing as how I had never before met the man in my life.

Then, his expression changed from borderline horrified to grave, although I still saw a small twinkle in his eye. “I have a question to ask you.”

            I plopped down in a seat. Already I had started to become bored of the whole situation. Don’t ask me why, but I react differently to things than other people do. Where one person is excited, I’m bored. Where one person is happy, I’m bored. Where one person is scared out of their wits…you get the picture. Not that I’m bored all the time, you see -- I just get bored at strange times.

            “Sure. Go ahead. What’s the question?”

            “How did you hack into my system?”

I have to stop writing now. I think I just spotted someone outside Starbucks…

            I’ll be back.

            I hope.

-Nathan T. Dalton