**
He didn’t sleep at all that night. He’d just tossed and turned, and eventually gave up and continued his research into Gideon Enterprises. Their disaster relief efforts in New Orleans and Haiti were well known, and they were developing new treatments for cancer patients. It was really an astounding company. They’d only been operating for five years, and still the CEO, Alexander Gideon, was one of the wealthiest men in the world. He hadn’t found anything new however, so he’d gone to the studio the band was renting and played the piano. That had calmed him down, and then he’d substituted caffeine for sleep, and now it was 11 am. Maybe CJ wouldn’t show. Then what would he do? Maybe he could go over there by himself? But why would they want him when they could have CJ? She was much more powerful.
“Hey, are you always spacing out?” The rather enthusiastic question came from behind him.
Hugo spun around, almost losing his grip on the coffee cup, “Hey CJ.”
“Hey! Ready?”
Hugo nodded in response and then handed over a few quarters for the payphone. “Look, if they ask you what I can do, um, can you just not tell them about the seeing things? I don’t really want anyone else to know about that, yet.”
“Alrighty.” CJ set the card down on the ledge and referenced it to dial the number. When the phone picked up she held the receiver away from her ear so that Hugo could lean in and listen with her.
“This is Christian.”
CJ glanced sidelong at him, and Hugo nodded towards her, he definitely didn’t want to talk. “Hey, this is CJ. You gave me your card last night.”
“With the lightning.”
“Right. Wait. Did you give out a lot of cards last night?”
“No, just wanted to be sure it was you.” Christian’s tone was casual, but he was obviously interested in this conversation. “Did you want to talk?”
“Yeah, sure. But I got a friend with me here who wants to come too, is that ok?”
“A friend?”
“He can control wind and…uh…other things.” Hugo got another side-long glance, this one slightly apologetic. He smiled.
“Of course he can. When would you like to meet?”
Hugo shrugged at CJ’s look, “Today? Soonish?”
There was a brief pause. “I can meet you at the same diner at 1, if that’s soon enough.”
“Cool. See you then dude.” She slammed the phone down, grinning, “Mission accomplished!” Hugo smiled back, but he was suddenly really scared. What if these people were evil and they planned on blowing up Seattle on purpose? What if they found out he knew their evil plans and tried to silence him? Or maybe it was just an accident and he could somehow prevent it… “So, now we’ve got 2 hours to kill. Wanna just go in the diner and hang out? You can buy me lunch for helping you out and stuff.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. Thanks.” Hugo put out the cigarette he’d lit without noticing and followed the girl inside. Crap, hopefully no one would think he was some kind of child molester, she couldn’t be more than 16 and he was eating lunch with her and they were obviously not related.
He wanted to ask her about how she got her abilities and when, but that was pretty nosey and it seemed like he should start with small talk at least, “So…do you live around here?”
Long silence. Apparently that was the wrong question. “Um, kinda.”
Wasn’t it Wednesday? Hugo checked his watch; yes, it was. So shouldn’t she be in school? “Kinda?”
“Yeah. What, you live around here?”
Hugo reflexively glanced out the window, “Yeah, a few blocks from here, actually.”
“Oh.”
The waitress thankfully broke up the awkward conversation. Hugo ordered a coffee and CJ ordered a pancake breakfast. Hugo added some toast to his order.
“So…” He was no good at small talk and they still had an hour and a half before Christian showed up. Hugo stared at the table. How can you kinda live around somewhere and get away with not going to school? Oh. She was probably a runaway. And he’d let her sleep outside last night. Hugo slouched.
“Hey. So, when did you start doing the air thing?” The girl asked as she downed a packet of sugar. She kept drumming her fingers on the table and shifting in the booth but she didn’t seem nervous. Maybe she was just a little high-strung.
“Two months ago, I think. But I saw stuff first, I kinda figured out about the wind thing because of the visiony things.”
“Really? Me too! I mean, the two months ago thing. That seems about right, although I don’t keep track of time so great. But I remember because that’s the night I…uh…yeah,” she trailed off.
Probably the night she ran away from home. Had her parents seen what she could do and pushed her out? Maybe they were dead. What if she’d killed them on accident? “Is that when you left home?”
CJ’s eyebrows raised. “Did you see that too?”
Hugo shook his head, smiling a little, “Just guessed.”
CJ raised her eyebrows, “Hey, you’re pretty smart.”
“Not really. So, how did it happen?”
CJ chewed her lip. The question was too private, he shouldn’t have asked, but he’d thought-“My dad was being a jerk, my mom’s been gone a long time and I turned into lightning and then ran. My dad’s always been a jerk, so seemed like as good a time as any to get out of there.”
Hugo frowned, running a fingernail along the edge of the counter. “Where are you staying now?”
She shrugged. “Around. Here and there, you know.”
Hugo wondered if it would seem too child-molestery if he said she could stay at his place for a while. His face reddened at the thought of his friends finding out. But he needed to do something, he couldn’t just leave her.
He opened his mouth, but the food arrived so he shut it again. He’d worry about what to do with her later. Now he had to concentrate on staying awake and surviving this meeting. Why couldn’t he mind his own business? He used to be really good at it.
“So how old are you? I’m almost 16.”
He wasn’t exactly sure why, but Hugo hesitated before answering the question, “22.”
“Wow. Did you like go to college and stuff?”
Hugo picked at the edge of the table. “Kinda.”
“Ohhh,” CJ said knowingly, and then turned her full attention to her multi-plate meal. Hugo drank his coffee, neglected his toast, and stared out the window, watching rivulets of the sudden rain slide down the wide pane of glass. CJ cleaned off her plate before she gave him any more attention. “So I saw you at the hospital too. What were you doing there? You got family in the hospital?”
Hugo blushed slightly, chewing on his lip. How much could he tell her? “No, not exactly…”
CJ tilted her head to the side, “What?”
“You know the explosion at the docks? I…knew it was someone with abilities.”
CJ’s eyes widened, “Like you saw it? Someone exploded?” Hugo nodded. “Cool!”
“Gideon Enterprises took him,” Hugo said quietly, “and I don’t know why.”
CJ picked up another sugar packet and dumped the contents into her mouth. “Maybe they’re going to punish him for blowing up…or…maybe they’re going to reward him for blowing up…or maybe…” CJ’s eyes widened, “maybe they’re going to experiment on him!”
Hugo frowned, his eyes drifting to the rain falling outside the protection of the window. It gave him a good view when Christian showed up, wearing a standard black suit complete with black tie. He strode into the diner and though he hadn’t seen CJ, he spotted Hugo right away and came to join them. As the man sat next to him, Hugo realized too late that he probably should have sat next to CJ or picked a table. Now it was just a little awkward, for Hugo anyway, no one else seemed to mind at all. The Gideon Enterprises employee shook both their hands, introducing himself as Christian Williams.
“So what’s your spiel, Christian?” CJ asked, her attention grabbed for the moment.
?
??The company I work for employees people like you. People who can do impressive things. You’d get a salary and a safe place to test and learn to control your abilities.”
“But I can already control what I can do,” CJ said, her mouth a wide grin.
“We’ve found that over time peoples’ abilities increase and in some cases control becomes more difficult.”
The visions. What if they got worse? He couldn’t control them now; maybe they’d get stronger and he’d go into a coma or something and never recover. Could they help him control it, maybe teach him how to turn it off?
Hugo realized he must have tensed up because Christian had turned his full attention to him, his expression much less casual. Quick! He needed to say something. “Over time? You mean there are people who have been doing what we can do for a lot longer than two months?”
Christian nodded and immediately relaxed; now they were back to the more familiar territory of his sales pitch. “Yes. Some of the people in our company have been with us for five years, and we suspect there are those who’ve had their abilities for even longer. So I’ve seen your abilities in action, CJ, is there anything else you can do?”
CJ looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Anything else? Besides turning into lightning and shooting lightning and being awesome? Not really.”
Christian smiled, “That’s impressive enough. And you Hugo? CJ briefly mentioned it on the phone, but what can you do?”
It was ridiculous. He shouldn’t be embarrassed, but his face was getting red again and he had to look at the table; it was the only safe focal point around. “I uh…remember everything I see, I think, so far anyway. I can control wind kinda and um…I…uh…learned Japanese in a week?
“I see. Can you turn into, well…air?” Christian seemed slightly confused by his own question.
“No, I’m not that awesome,” Hugo smiled a little, eyes going to CJ.
“But he can knock over garbage cans!” CJ supplied enthusiastically.
Hugo stared intensely at the table. God he was so lame.
Christian shrugged, “Well, we could definitely use both of your unique skill sets.”
“Does that mean there’s no one like us at your company?” CJ’s eyes lit up at the prospect.
“Correct.”
“Did you hear that, Hugo? We’re awesome!”
Hugo just smiled in response, then turned his attention back to Christian, “So what kind of work would we be doing?”
“Recruiting, to start. Going out there and approaching others like us. You’d do that until we got a feel for what department would suit you best, and then we’d start your real training.”
“Oh? What do you think I’ll be good at?” CJ was practically bouncing in her seat. Actually, she was bouncing in her seat a little.
“I’d really like you on my team. I’m in charge of security. I’m not sure about you yet, Hugo, we’ll have to see what you can do.”
Hugo stared at the table. Great. He hadn’t even accepted the job yet and this guy already thought he was incompetent. He was probably right anyway.
“So, I’d get to zap bad guys? Awesome!”
Bad guys? Who would a research company need to fight with? Christian just smiled, unwilling to give an answer either. Hugo picked at a thread in his brown plaid pants, he didn’t like this, but how else was he going to find out what the company was up to? He obviously was already failing as a detective.
“So what do you think?” Christian asked, looking at CJ. But CJ was looking at Hugo, so he figured he should probably speak.
“I’m assuming there is a contract? Can we see it?”
Christian nodded and pulled two folded stacks of paper from his breast pocket. He handed one to Hugo and unfolded the other in front of CJ. Normally Hugo let Peggy read all the band contracts; for him the things were always wiggly with their language and ended up making little sense. This one was a remarkably easy read. The contract itself was unexciting, with the exception of a few clauses. One of which was a list of medications that were prohibited during employment. They were all chemical-altering substances. There was also a non-disclosure agreement upon employment and a completely separate one in the event that employment was terminated by either party. If he found out the company was doing something awful and told his brother, would the NDA make any evidence he provided inadmissible in court? He should probably look that up.
Everyone was looking at him. CJ hadn’t even touched her copy of the contract.
“So what do you think?” Christian asked as Hugo flipped the last page.
“Yeah, Hugo. Do we got a job or what?”
It did pay really well. He could quit the music store. The PTO was really nice…it paid really really well; he’d be able to rent the studio himself and maybe buy a new guitar. And he couldn’t think of a better way to meet Mr. Gideon and find out what was going on.
But what about CJ? If these people were dangerous he didn’t want to drag her into it. But with the salary she could easily afford her own place. They even offered boarding options at the facility itself. He wanted her to be there. He knew he could trust her, even though he’d only just met her and she was a freaking lightning monster, she could take care of herself.
“Yeah. Do you have a pen, Christian?”