Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tommy ended the call with Sam and walked into the kitchen. It was past dark, and he needed to leave.

"Linda, thanks for everything," he said.

"No, thank you. I haven't felt this confident in months."

Tommy looked her in the eye. "You have my number, and you have Sam's. Call or text if you learn anything new, or if you just want to hear an update."

She threw her arms around his torso as she had when he first arrived and squeezed. She let go and led him toward the door with no further fanfare.

"Travel safe," she said with another brief hug. She opened the door, and Tommy began hoofing it to the road.

He'd thought about just taking off from her back yard, but even people who knew about the Gifted sometimes quailed at the reality.

Besides, he warned himself, best to walk a few miles. Someone could be watching at a distance. You don't want to bring that woman further grief.

About 20 minutes later, a small field, wedged among some trees, came into view. He took a long look around as he approached, momentarily distracted by the divine beauty of the crisp and clean evening. The place was ideal, and there was no one about for miles.

After another careful look around, Tommy shot into the air and headed northwest. There was all night to travel to San Fran, so he decided to treat himself and fly over Vegas, before heading due west to the coast. From there, it would be simple to follow the coast north to the Bay Area. The airspace through which he would pass once had been a highly sensitive military region, but even the most sensitive radar couldn't track a target as small as a single man—or, at least you hope.

Just to be on the safe side, he again rose to about 20,000 feet, below the flight level of standard commercial aircraft but above the flight ceiling of most private planes. Yet, the air was clear, and he could see for many miles. Several waves of giddiness struck him. The temptation to drop down and buzz a mountain lake or razz a herd of cattle nearly overcame his common sense a time or two. But he managed not to do anything foolish.

After an extremely pleasant flight, he approached San Francisco several hours later. By that time, he was about a mile out to sea and soaring silently up the coast at around a thousand feet. The air was still clear, but it was dark. No one would see him.

He came to a stop and hovered opposite the city at the same elevation at which he'd been traveling. About a mile's distance, all cloaked in darkness, still separated him from the coast.

Flight, Tommy long ago had discovered, was two distinct Gifts, hovering and soaring. Hovering, as he now did, took virtually no concentration, and though he was certain it consumed energy, he felt not the least exertion as he did so. He could hover as he was at that moment, completely relaxed, as long as he liked. And while he did so, no force he had yet encountered could budge him.

Moving while in flight, "soaring," as he called it, was different. While in motion, Tommy could soar with his own weight and just a little over 1,200 additional pounds, with absolutely no effort. A single gram over that weight limit, and he couldn't fly at all.

He leaned back and enjoyed the view and the simple pleasure of hovering. The only nearby sound was his growling stomach. A quick glance at a restaurant App he used frequently in NYC located an all-night diner about a mile and a half from Ms. Mettouchi's office. That would be a wonderful place to fill his belly and to wait until business hours rolled around.

The phone he used belonged to some corporation that ultimately was owned by an offshore holding company managed by his lawyers. It wasn't connected to Tommy in any discernable way. But it tickled him momentarily to think of what anyone monitoring his phone's GPS history would make of his current location, or of any of the locations in which he'd been while travelling the last 24 hours.

He tucked his phone away and relaxed, allowing the wind to sooth him and the distant sound of the surf and the sea life to lull him. Over the years, Tommy had mimicked dozens of Gifts, just as he had the Gift that shrouded his appearance. That Gift was always on—sadly, Tommy sometimes thought. He couldn't turn it off.

There were other Gifts over which he had great control. Gifts enhanced all his senses: seeing, hearing, touch, smell, and even taste. These he could adjust and regulate at will, as he had when tracking young Tiffany days earlier. He'd never used that Gift to track a lost child before and was surprised he'd been able. A three-day-old scent in a country field would have been challenging for him to follow, but through a smelly, crowded city? It was miraculous and would have been impossible had the rain showers that bathed him and Camille Thomas that day come but a few hours earlier.

It's a shame you can't use that to find Amy.

His stomach again growled.

The beach and city were full of interesting things to watch, even at that late hour. With the slightest effort, he brought into focus the faces of folks patronizing a beachside eatery. The place looked posh, and it seemed to be near closing time. With greater effort, he could make out the writing on a menu laying on an empty table. Even at that angle, and a mile away, it was crystal clear.

Jesus, $79.99 for lobster bisque? Who would advertise a price like that? he thought chuckling. And at that price, why the .99 cents?

He found himself laughing aloud.

Realizing hunger perhaps was making him addled, Tommy started looking for a place to touch down near the café at which he intended to wait. There was no place nearby. San Francisco was a brighter city, with fewer dark rooftops, than New York. Even at that late hour, about 3:00 am, it took some time to find a place free from prying eyes on which to alight. He decided on a wooded area on the Presidio, a location that brought his first meeting with Sam to mind.

Five minutes after touching down, Tommy emerged from the woods onto a side road. A few steps further brought him to a larger thoroughfare, where he hailed a cab. Ten minutes later, he was sipping a drink and going over the late-night menu of the Café Justice—pronounced zhooztees, according to a note on the menu.

The condescending atmosphere and pretentious décor didn't detract from the food in any way. It was very good. Not wanting to be biased, Tommy settled on breakfast, lunch, and dinner, followed by a second breakfast. His waitress, a young Spanish exchange student named Lourdes, insisted he deserved a fan club for such a heroic effort. She attempted several different and subtle ways to elicit his name and phone number. He smiled, chatted, and turned the conversation to innocent subjects.

Rhonda called about an hour before daylight, claiming to have remembered something funny "Mark" had told her. Tommy suspected she just wanted to hear the sound of his voice, as he so often did hers, but he'd always found such moments extremely moving.

Mark was a name shared by Rhonda's older brother and by her late husband. So painful had been the trauma of her bereavement that she'd been unable even to speak of it when he and Rhonda first had met. Now she spoke of her late husband freely and lovingly, often so casually and with such recency that Tommy couldn't always discern whether Rhonda spoke of husband or brother.

His girl also had a way of delivering up the punchline first, and she so thoroughly mangled Mark's joke that Tommy couldn't help but laugh anyway. It was never clear which Mark he had to thank for the tender delight of those 10 minutes.

After Rhonda's call, the hours passed quickly. He finished eating, adjourned to the restroom to relieve himself and to clean up a little, and returned to his table for a final cup of coffee. At about 7:30, a smiling and waving Lourdes bid her fond adieu to the man who, just three short hours before, she sincerely was convinced would father at least a majority of her children.

Out on the street, Tommy was in no hurry. He found himself strolling through Lower Haight toward the Fillmore District, where he had his 8:30 appointment. He'd always enjoyed San Francisco and had lived there several times over the years. The city still had a great deal of its charm from older days, but, sadly, a great deal of that charm had come to have a corporate, manufactured feel about it—like a middle-aged socialite using Botox to sooth wrinkles.

Don't hold too tightly to the past, came a warning from the depths of his mind, but it wasn't clear for whom that caution was intended.

A corner kioskbeckoned. After another cup of not-so-fancy coffee, and a few blocks of walkingand perusing the Chronicle, Tommyreached his destination.