Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Sixteen

Tommy thought about Sam as he paced the two blocks back home.

It's amazing what 40 or 50 years can write in a single human life.

In his mind, Tommy saw the lean, hard, irresponsible young hellion he'd met in 1971. He compared that youth to the astute, thoughtful, and responsible man of wisdom he knew today. It was always a wonder how much humans could change in a single life. Sam could still get the devil in him sometimes, but Tommy realized that his friend had found greater insight and clarity in a single lifetime than Tommy had in a hundred.

It's amazing. It's like he is my big brother now.

And Sam was right. Tommy couldn't sit on the bench. It wasn't how he was made. While reminiscing with Sam, even before he'd learned about Amy, Tommy had formed his resolve. He refused to give up his life with Rhonda. Refused. But he wasn't going to hide under a rock while good people were disappeared into a government rendition program, taken away without warrant or trial to be imprisoned, tortured, or worse.

Least of all, he wouldn't let it happen to Amy Lascar. He owed her too much, far too much.

When he got back to the apartment, Rhonda already was snoozing away in bed. Two beers were her limit. So, he gave the apartment a thorough cleaning, starting with the kitchen and working his way to the sunroom where the three had sat and laughed. He did everything but vacuum. Afterward, he let himself out of the apartment, went up to the fifth floor, and busied himself at his shop for a few hours before crashing on the couch he kept there.

The fifth and top floor of their building was a small warehouse and workspace dating from Prohibition. It was big enough to work in and had a small kitchenette and bathroom. Tommy had lived there for some years before meeting Rhonda, and he sometimes went there even now when he knew his girl needed space. It was a good place to think.

He thought now about how much trouble he might bring into the lives of Mueller and Thomas if he asked them to run Amy's name through their systems. Not much, he hoped. But he'd let them decide.

He thought also about Elliot Langford and Maxine Seifert, two young civil servants to whom a mutual friend had introduced him in the mid-1980s. The pair had been GS 12s at the time, with the Department of Defense's Defense Intelligence Agency. Tommy had sworn off government entanglements after Viet Nam, but the two had managed to convince him to help with several projects the DoD and State Department were pursuing in South Asia and Africa. They were sort of the Mueller and Thomas of that time, albeit a bit more chair-bound and chubby. Tommy had gotten a very good feel from Elliot and Maxine. They'd been honest and competent public servants, and everything he'd done for them was off the books, or so they'd assured him.

A newspaper article mentioning Maxine had caught his eye five years before. She still had been with defense at that time, something of a minor heavyweight in that federal department. He hoped he could find her or Elliot, and that they might provide some insight into what had become of Amy and the others.

Mostly, though, Tommy spent that time thinking of Amy.

For much of the last 35 years, she'd been an important part of his humanity, one of the few people who'd kept him human. She understood instinctively what few of his confidantes over the ages ever fully grasped, the great truism of his life: everyone dies.

Everyone, he thought deep within himself. The thing that separated Tommy from his fellow humans wasn't his great strength, his tremendous speed, or his vast arsenal of Gifts. It was the fact that everyone died, while he lingered on.

Such thoughts conjured her words to him in a Phoenix hotel room many years before: "If you can't love and be loved, if you live every single day in such fear of losing someone that you wall yourself off—well, you might as well just turn in your membership card to the human race."

And become what?

Of all the people he'd ever known, she understood.

Well, one day he would lose Rhonda, and he would even someday lose Sam. He would deal with that pain when it came. But no one was going to take any of his friends, Amy, Rhonda, or Sam, before their time. Tommy would find her, one way or the other.

Until then, he looked at his phone. Rhonda wouldn't be up for another two hours or more. He began dialing the first of the numbers Sam had provided for Amy's friends. Sam was smart and thorough, so it was unlikely he'd overlooked anything, but it didn't hurt to find out. He hit send and waited for the line to pick up.