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  The Road to Round Mountain

  Part II

  The Alliance

  BY

  C.G. Roberts

  To my friends and family, who tolerate my strange sense of humor.

  Keep your friends close,

  But your enemies closer-

  Michael Corleone

  An Alliance with a powerful person,

  Is never safe-

  Phaedrus

  1

  Frankenstein, that’s what I felt like, the Frankenstein monster being chased from town. I don’t grunt frantically when I see fire, nor do I have bolts sticking out of my neck. The townsfolk of Astoria, Oregon did not chase me with fiery torches, but they might as well have. They left that task to the Sheriff, not the torches part, but the kicking me out of town, saying I was too dangerous to stay. That was two weeks ago and it still hurts, being told to leave your home town.

  Upon reflection, and trust me when I say that after walking for two weeks, you have nothing but time to reflect and I do understand why I was told to leave. When you either blow up or catch over a third of the town on fire, people tend to be a bit testy.

  I couldn’t help what I had become. I didn’t choose to get hit by lightning. I didn’t have control over lightning shooting out of my fingers. I am getting a handle of my other power, gift, or curse, which ever you prefer. I have a strong telekinetic power which with a little focus, I can move anything, and I do mean anything.

  The hardest part of these recent events was the loss of my parents. They died by the same lightning that hit me and caused our overgrown pine tree to

  catch fire and land on the roof of our house, burning it to the ground.

  The best part of these events was Jenny Harrison; she was a new nurse at the hospital I was at. We became an item during my stay in the Hospital. We are

  a strange couple with a strange relationship to be sure. Jenny rescued me from some FBI people who said they wanted to help me, but only to find out they were going to sell me to an outfit in Round Mountain, Nevada. I was to become a test subject of some sort to enhance my powers, or so I was told. She is 21, I am 17 and even though she is older I don’t believe she should be classified as a cougar, albeit a beautiful cougar.

  I spent an entire week trying to elude the FBI people that were after me . They came after me and if it meant collateral damage along the way, so be it. I got lucky in a way and was able to kill them before they killed me. On the top of that list of people killed was the Director of the FBI, John Jacob Gable.

  So my journey continues, as I try to figure out how long it’s going to take me to get to Round Mountain, and I need to do it before they can get to me, and judging from their earlier attempts I knew that they would keep coming after me. I have something they want, and need; but while I’m still alive, I’m not letting them have it. That would be me. My name is Billy Speer, and this is my story.

  2

  During my two weeks of solitude on the road I occasionally find my sanity

  wavering to an almost extinct level. Some of that is pure paranoia stemming from all of those FBI folks that were and I’m sure are still, out to get me. If I hear the ocean breeze rustle up along the hills I quickly turn to see who might be behind

  me.

  After being told to leave town and never come back, my mind went into

  overdrive. I was dropped off on Highway 101 heading south from Astoria and it occurred to me that since my hair had turned all white from getting hit by lightning, that I was a walking bull’s-eye. If anyone was to come after me I’d be

  easier to find than scratch off tickets at a convenience store. Common sense took

  my journey off the main road and onto the beach. I was tempted many times to take my shoes off and enjoy the feeling of the sand on my feet during my quest, but since the two outside toes of my left foot blew off when I got hit I figured that I would make a rather unique track in the sand and easy to follow (oh well).

  My second day off travelling via the beach, I noticed this older lady waving at

  me. It turns out she was motioning for me to come over to where she was. Mrs.

  Miles was how she introduced herself and before I could tell her my name she

  said she already knew who I was. News travels fast as she recognized me from

  the description provided by the local news.

  I would guess that she was well into her seventies with a short crop of grey

  hair, not quite as white as mine, but close. Mrs. Miles was barely five foot tall and

  Rail thin due to her nonstop smoking I’m sure. I did join her for a couple of smokes as we made our way to her beach house.

  I had explained to Mrs. Miles my reasoning for walking the beach instead of

  the road and she rushed me inside and before I knew it she had me in the

  bathroom wearing a plastic smock. I wasn’t sure what she had in mind until she came back in with a box of some hair color that she was saving for her daughter

  but decided that I needed it more than her daughter did.

  In less time than it takes to get a pizza delivered, my white hair was now

  back almost to its original color of dirty blonde. I must have thanked her a dozen

  times but she said she just wanted to help because she just couldn’t believe that I hurt those Federals, as she called them, on purpose; technically that was true for if they wouldn’t have come after me, I wouldn’t have hurt them.

  Mrs. Miles tried to give me some money to help me out but I refused and thanked her anyway. She finally gave in, but insisted on a hug before I went. I couldn’t resist a hug from such a nice lady. During the hug I Felt something a little odd as I was sure that she was grabbing my ass. Nice lady, yes she was, a cougar, most definitely. I recanted that remark later when I found out that she had just slipped a fifty dollar bill into my back pocket. Mrs. Miles had regained her title of nice lady, although I still think she just wanted to cop a feel (The old ran dy minx).

  My sanity would come back and my loneliness subsides when I got my nightly

  text from Jenny. She gave me this phone so we could keep in touch until I

  finished my quest to find Round Mountain and put a stop to their existence. It

  was a harsh way of putting it, but they started this murderous mess, not me.

  The phone she gave me has a GPS device in it so that way she feels better, knowing where I’m at in case something was to happen to me; she was smart that way, a lot smarter than me. I had never owned a cell phone so she had to show me the quick version of how it works. I was hoping to find Grand Theft Auto where the games were listed. Evidently that game takes up more memory than this phone came with.

  We agreed that on Friday nights we would actually talk on the phone which was great because I sure did miss her. Jenny thought that it would be smart for me to try and stay in motels most nights, but especially Friday nights. Her reasoning was that if more people were looking for me, talking on the cell phone might be an easy way for them to track me so I stayed in motels on Fridays and use the landline phone in the room. I had to remember to stay relaxed while on the phone so not to fry the phone or kill t he connection with my extended reserves of electricity still taking up residence in the body of one Billy Speer.

  I’ve been doing well at resisting the temptation of using my powers on my journey. I could easily stop a car in motion using my m
ind and have the driver out of the vehicle before they realized that the idea to leave the car with me was their idea, at least that’s what I’ll tell them to think. Jenny insists that I’m too nice a person to do something like that, although she will agree that I’m a smartass. So I

  guess a nice smartass shall be my moniker in the interim. It would be nice to

  catch a ride for a while instead of walking, but I figured it would be safer not only for me, but for the person offering the ride in case they turned out to be someone that was after me and that would make me angry; they won’t like me when I’m

  angry. Sorry, couldn’t resist throwing in a Hulk reference.

  It was Friday morning, August 8th, and if you ask anyone from the Northwest, they will tel l you that late summer is the perfect time of year to walk along the

  coast. Most days the temperature ventured into the upper 70’s, sometimes low

  80’s with a nice refreshing on shore breeze which kept things nice and cool .

  Normally I would stay close to the beach but since it was Friday and I was in a hurry to find a hotel, I hoofed it on Highway 101 heading south. I was still about 6miles north of Lincoln City and I figured that would be a good spot to get a room, clean up, relax, grab some food and wait for my phone call to Jenny.

  The Air was filled with the scent of pine trees, a smell I never tire of. Occasionally you would get a whiff of rotting fish that had washed up to shore. As my Dad would say, “Sushi for the Seagulls”; sarcasm, it was his true medium. There had been minimal traffic on Highway 101. For the most part I was still shaded by the trees from both sides of the road which was okay since it was at least seventy degrees out and you do get a bit hot when you’re constantlywalking.

  There was a slight ocean breeze whistling through the trees when I felt a sharp pain in my upper back on my left side, about shoulder level. As I turned my head, there must have been at least twenty seagulls shooting past me, and I duc ked as quick as I could to avoid any more pain, as I’m sure what I felt was a suicide seagull attacking my backside. I did feel like I was in a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s, “The Birds” , but alas there was no phone booth to hide in. Whatever

  scared those seagulls, it chased them straight back out to the ocean. They disappeared from view within a few seconds. I continued my quest for Lincoln City as the pain in my shoulder started to subside

  3

  Mr. Baily looked around his office, got up to close the door and answered his phone on the third ring. “I take it, that you got off a successful shot”. There was silence for a moment followed by, “Sorry boss had to wait for this bit of traffic to

  pass, and yes I caught him square in the shoulder, so you should start getting pings on his location within a minute or two”. “Very good Carlton, that news pleases me, and you’ll find a more practical monetary form of my appreciation waiting for you back at the compound”.

  “I take it that you d on’t want me to follow him”? “That is correct Carlton, he is much too dangerous, even more than he realizes, so we’ll utilize the tracking device that you shot into him, and await for a more opportunistic situation; I’ll be

  in touch”. Before Carlton could say anything, the call ended abruptly. He shook his head, slid the phone back into his pocket, picked up his case with the Barrett M107 that he uses for such long distances as in this case. One small modification on this weapon allows him to shoot extremely small dart like bullets into his target and the impact implants a GPS device, half the size of a standard thumb

  tack.

  Carlton walked down from the hill where he was perched at and got into his Forest green Jeep Wrangler. A little gravel and a bit of sand shot out from his tires as he quickly made his way back to Highway 101 heading south. He passed Billy Speer less than two minutes after he shot the GPS into his shoulder; he did not look over or acknowledge his existence, as his wrangler accelerated quickly after passing him. Billy paid no attention to the Jeep.

  4

  I had just passed a road sign that read Lincoln City 5 miles, followed by a larger sign that read, be sure and visit Chinook Winds Casino. An invitatio n like that is hard to pass up until reality came slapping at my face reminding me that I had a few years to go before I would be old enough to even get in the door. I would have to take them up on their invitation some other time, I had some walking to do, then find a room and look forward to talking to Jenny.

  The ocean breeze had picked up a bit which was fine by me as I was starting to get a bit warm. A few birds were chirping. A hearty whistle was coming from one of the local fishing boats in the distance, as I heard a car coming up from

  behind. The engine sounded as though it was straight out of NASCAR, but as I

  turned, it was just a rusted out POS (piece of shit) as my dad used to say. I’m not good with older cars, but this one was at least 35 years old. On the side of the car was a small emblem that read Impala.

  It was a car in the academic sense, it did have a running engine, but it appeared that the rest of the amenities had long ago rusted away; one of the hazards of having a car this close to salt water. It may have been some shade of blue years ago, but most of the original paint job had been eaten away by the hearty appetite of the Pacific Northwest weather; a veritable buffet for Mother

  Nature.

  The POS Impala was not going very fast as it got closer. When it finally passed me the driver hit the brakes to a short squealing stop. There were three people in the car, two in front and one in the back. The passenger side window creaked and clattered until it finally reached its destination deep into the bowels

  of the door.

  A dark haired man stared at me for a moment as I returned the favor. He

  didn’t seem to be much older than me, but his eyes dictated otherwise, with

  massive bags almost black in color surrounding his eyes almost to the point where

  he could get pass for a raccoon.

  “Where you headed”, the dark haired passenger asked?

  “I’m headed for Lincoln city”, I responded while pointing towards Lincoln

  City. The dark headed passenger asked, “What happened to your arm, you’re bleeding”? I turned my head in vein like I could actually turn my head that far around but replied, “A flock of seagulls came zooming by and I guess one of them tried to take me out”, as I smiled. He did not return the smile, perhaps lacking a healthy sense of humor.

  The dark headed guy seemed more interested in my arm more than I thought he should. “If nothing else, we could take you to Lincoln City and get that shoulder looked at”, the dark haired guy stated. I had to think for a second, because the last time I trusted people that quickly, most of Astoria ended up on fire.

  “No I’m good, but thanks for the offer”, as I started walking and gave them a

  cordial wave. The Impala crept up on me again, but I continued walking. I heard the dark haired guy say, “You know you can get to Round Mountain a lot quicker if you get inside”. That stopped me in my tracks as I turned back towards the Impala. The dark haired guy pointed to the back seat as the door opened up, but there was no one next to the door, just another guy with long blonde hair in a ponytail sitting next to the far side door.

  “Okay, how do you know about Round Mountain”, I inquired in a semi-stern

  voice? The three of them had a quick chuckle and replied almost in at the same time, “Dude you’re one of us, we’ve all been targeted for Round Mountain, and

  One of us has actually been there, but he’s back at our place; he’s a home body, doesn’t like to get out much”.

  I tried to take in as much facial expression as I could, to see what I was

  dealing with. I made a little statement by closing the door with my mind. It made

  a loud thud.

  As soon as the door shut, it immediately swung open again. “Look, if you want to stop these people from coming after you, you might want to get in and help”. That sounded rather confusing, “What
is it you want my help with”?

  “We’ve seen what you’re capable of

  . The three of us are not that strong with our

  powers, with the exception of Vargas who has monstrous level powers, and we

  could use your help when we go down to Round Mountain”. I stood there for a

  moment staring at the open door when the dark haired guy said, “You in, or not”?

  I took my back pack down from my shoulders and set it between my feet as I got into the back seat. “I guess I’m in”, I replied as that brought a round of smiles from all concerned.

  The silence in the car was deafening. The driver was checking me out from the rearview mirror as he slowly got the impala up to speed. I’m not sure why the silent treatment but was glad to be sitting for a change. My left foot still gives me

  fits with pain and throbbing, but usually towards the end of the day after I’ve

  completed a full day of walking.

  The dark haired guy with the raccoon eyes spoke first. “My name’s Brad, that’s Miles behind the wheel and Gary is riding shotgun”. That was a start, “I’m Billy Speers and”…….. As Brad interrupted, “we know all about you, probably more than we should, but for now what can you tell us about your shoulder; when did it happen”?

  “Maybe less than a minute before you guys pulled up” . Brad was motioning with

  his hands, “Turn and face the window so I can have a look at it”. I did as

  instructed. Brad was pulling the left sleeve of my shirt and stated, “Let me be the first to say that this was not seagulls. You’ve been GPS implanted my friend”. That took a moment to sink in as it came to me, crap, here we go again!

  “So what, like I was shot, because it felt like a glancing smack to my shoulder;