Nathan Returns Read online

  I, Hero—Nathan Returns

  by Jason Zandri

  Published with the authorization of Jason Zandri, Connecticut 06492, United States of America

  Copyright ©2015 by Jason Zandri

  All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

  The example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred.

  In the place where a real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended, the ownership and copyrights of those aforementioned subjects remain with those owners.

  PROLOGUE

  The morning sun rose over the horizon and heated the crisp morning air.

  A middle-aged woman sat on a park bench with a small, mixed-breed dog on a leash. The dog sniffed around at the grass to the left rear of the bench, and the woman turned her back to face her dog.

  Smartphone in hand, she wore ear buds in her ears. Through them, she listened to music while an older gentleman with white hair, dressed in a long suit coat, came along. He moved alongside the park bench in the grassy area off the paved path. The smaller dog immediately tugged on the leash to see the other dog.

  The woman casually lifted her hand to her ear, dropped the ear bud out of it, and glanced over at his pure-bred Labrador Retriever. “We might as well be having that affair we’re always accused of, meeting up like this as often as we do,” she said quietly without taking her attention off her dog.

  “It’s better that the talk is of an affair that we’re not having than what we’re actually doing,” the man replied, and turned his back towards her and allowing the dog to move him a couple of steps away. “Status and update?” he asked.

  “We still have no way to track him,” she said and got up from the bench to pick up after the dog. She took the opportunity to scan the area for other people. There were none. “His powers … change, for lack of a better description. We’re following a given signature, and then it disappears entirely. When it does come up again, it registers differently. We track that for a while, and then he just falls off the radar.” She dropped the small bag into a nearby pail and walked her dog near his so they could sniff each other. “Generally, he seems to head west before he drops out of sight. We’ve eliminated California, Oregon, and Washington because of the number of occasions he disappears heading east from those states. Intelligence is liking Nevada, but it’s still too loose and just a guess.”

  “Do you think it’s deliberate? Do you think he knows we’re trying to track him and is masking his movements?” He tugged at his dog’s leash.

  “I can’t know for certain,” she said and looked up at him with a slight smile. Then she reached into her coat pocket to make sure her identification badge was still there. “His movements are too casual; if I had to guess, I would say ‘no.’ He’s young, not skilled or trained, and he trusts easily. Why his signature disappears and then shows up differently is something we haven’t figured out. It does repeat; there are times it matches prior signatures, and we have a catalog of nine distinct ones to date, but why they constantly change is another unknown. We also see no detectable pattern in the changes. It appears random.”

  “We know Senator Kelly is the direct link between Nathan and the President; have we had any luck with that route?” The man looked directly at the woman.

  “No. He’s tight-lipped, won’t budge, and has to be the cleanest politician I’ve ever seen. We can’t even find anything to leverage on him,” she said and looked at the ground with a frown.

  “Everyone has a closet, and there are always skeletons. I don’t want to have to go that way with him, but if I have to, I will, even if I have to fabricate something. We need to figure out what’s going on. It’s a matter of national security,” the man said and looked over at his dog, as it did its business in the grass.

  The woman glanced over, and then tended back to her dog. “I’ll put some more people on it, but eventually it’s going to leak. The people like Nathan; once it gets out that the CIA and Homeland are trying to track him, it’s not going to be good.”

  “The CIA and Homeland are not tracking him,” the man said.

  “Yes, two rogue groups within each organization are, without authorization, and without Presidential backing. That will go over so much better with the public,” she said with an eye roll. “Is it such a smart idea to engage tonight on World News with Mark Daniels?”

  “America’s Roundtable is the place for a discussion like this.” The man turned and stepped over to her, near the edge of the paved walkway. “The top thirty-five most populous cities in the United States, with a total population that exceeds forty million souls. Offshore, shell companies, and foreign interests, all buying, leasing, or otherwise occupying property in the dead center of each of those cities. We’ve been stymied on just about every legal front in trying to gain access to some of those locations. Others that we have been able to access haven’t produced anything worthwhile to date.”

  She looked up at him with a steely look in her eyes. “I am as much a patriot as you are. Have you ever considered that there is no conspiracy there? Even if there is one, how can you be so sure it has to do with him? Nathan has no income that we’ve been able to detect. We have no idea where he lays his head at night. As far as food goes, there are millions of families that would offer him dinner, if he even needs to consume food anymore with respect to the powers he has. He just doesn’t have the means for anything nearly as grand as what you’re assuming, based on all of our intelligence.”

  “You’re naïve, Jane,” the man said in a stern tone. “His capabilities are unmatched. There are governments that would pay a fortune to exploit them. He has a commodity that no one else can provide in his abilities.” The man tugged at his dog to bring him out of the grass and onto the paved path. “Everyone has a price, and everything can be bought.”

  “Said the man who has brokered his share of said deals,” Jane Parker said. She pulled the other ear bud out and put the unit in her purse.

  “It is exactly because of that, I know something is going on. I will get to the bottom of it,” he said as he took a couple of steps away from her.

  “If you’re right about this, then hopefully the people will understand the need for some of the illegal activity—” Jane said.

  “We’re covered under the Patriot Act,” he said, stopping his departure abruptly.

  “That’s a load, and you know it, but if it helps you sleep at night, so be it. Sooner or later it’s going to surface, whether we want it to or not, Congressman Johnson, and I hope you’re ready for that.”

  “I’ll be ready because there is just no way I’m that far off base on this. Those properties in those cities … they all tie back to Nathan somehow, and I’m going to figure it out. All that power he has, and it’s not enough. Now he’s involved with something in the middle of all those cities … all those lives. I will find out what that is.” He turned to walk away.

  Jane turned back to where the Congressman had exercised his dog. “You going to pick that up?” she asked.

  “The park has paid caretakers; they’ll tend to it,” he said without turning around.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Adia Santiago closed the apartment door behind her and sighed. As she stepped into the kitchen, she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She momentarily set it down on the counter to pull her ponytail tighter. With that done, she shook off a loose strand of her long black hair,
and then took the phone again. Nearly eight o’clock, and a new text message had come from her roommate, Melinda, “out with the boyfriend, don’t wait up.”

  She smiled, dropped her purse on the table, and walked over to the couch. Once she’d flicked the television on, she set the remote down and took off her shoes, tossed them aside, and lay down on the couch.

  “… World News with Mark Daniels; thank you for joining us for this special edition of America’s Roundtable. With us tonight …” Adia stopped paying attention, sat up, and grabbed the remote. She was about to change the station, when she paused when the topic grabbed her attention.

  “… hero or menace? With me to discuss the implications of Nathan, his powers, and his impact, good and bad, on the people is tonight’s distinguished panel of guests.”

  Adia set the remote down and fixated her attention on the television.

  “To my far left, we have U.S. Senator Mackenzie Kelly from New York, who is now serving his third term. To my near left, we have General Kevin Westmartin, the most senior member of the US Air Command. On my far right, we have Congressman Patrick Johnson from Texas, who is now serving his sixth term in that office. To my near right, noted scholar, Professor Rebecca Farnsmith, who is the head tutor of the Folklore and Mythology department at Washbury University. Welcome, everyone.” He looked around to the four people who sat around him. “And welcome to everyone at home, tuning in this evening for this special, live broadcast.”

  Adia continued to watch as the view on screen changed to smaller news feeds along the right edge and the lower portion of the display. The overall video feed shrank to the upper-left two-thirds of the screen to accommodate the data streams from the network.

  “To remind everyone here and the viewers at home of our format,” Mark said as the camera view focused on him. “This is an open, roundtable discussion. Technically, it can be on any topic; obviously, the major topic this evening is Nathan and his extraordinary powers, but the conversation is free to go anywhere. We will only interrupt the discussion if we cannot maintain some semblance of order, which I am sure we all can agree, is needed to have a discussion.”

  Mark smiled and looked over to Professor Rebecca Farnsmith. “Let me open the discussion with you, Professor Farnsmith. There has been a lot of speculation regarding Nathan’s powers. While they seem to equal, or in some other manner, mimic the fictional characters from EarthWorld comics, there has been a smaller discussion, mainly from your current and prior students, as well as followers of your work, that they are rooted in the characters from Greek Mythology.”

  The camera panned past Congressman Johnson, who had a look of disbelief on his face over the comment, and stopped at Professor Farnsmith.

  “Thank you for the opening, Mark. First, let me say that the beings from Greek Mythology were not ‘characters,’” she said, turning casually and propping her seated position. She wanted to have presence but didn’t want to insult or dominate. “We believe, from our studies of the writings and records, that these beings existed here on Earth for an extended period of time.”

  “Oh please,” Congressman Johnson said in a burst of contempt. “I thought we were going to discuss this man Nathan and his threat to our society; not sorcery, or some such, from two thousand years ago.”

  “What’s harder to believe, Congressman?” Professor Farnsmith responded quickly and turned towards him. “That there are powerful beings that once visited us from another realm, where they once lived among us, and the people of that time thought of them as gods. Or is it easier to believe there is a man flying around, with the powers of the fictional character of Mister Atomic, helping dissipate wildfires by breaking down the molecular bonds of oxygen and thereby removing one of the required fuel sources that feed it?”

  “Is that how he helped with the southern brush fires in your home state of Texas, Congressman?” Senator Kelly asked with a smug look on his face.

  “Look,” Congressman Johnson said with his hands open in front of him, and his southern accent became more pronounced. “I do not deny that this Nathan has done a great many things that have helped a great many people. There are so many issues and concerns with his powers. Where is his allegiance? What is he working on for the President? Or other nations, for that matter?”

  “I can tell you, unequivocally, Congressman Johnson,” Senator Kelly said. “And you good people at home, the young man we all know as Nathan is extraordinary not only in the powers he wields but the level of discretion under which he uses them. Or doesn’t, as is sometimes the case.” Senator Kelly moved in his seat slightly and continued quickly, concerned that he might get cut off. “We, the United States Government, have asked him for help on occasion on matters that I cannot discuss fully here. When it was applicable, and he was able, he helped. When he felt it was too high a level of interference, in a gray area, where a sovereign nation was concerned, and we would not contact them to explain our incursion, he would decline to help us.”

  “And who is he to question the Commander in Chief?” General Westmartin said loudly.

  “He’s an everyday citizen,” Senator Kelly said. “He does not serve as an enlisted American, and as such, he has every right to decline something. At best, he’s working with us like a consultant might for the FBI or the CIA. And just like them, if he feels there is something off, he simply declines.”

  “So what is he working on?” General Westmartin asked. “I haven’t been in the loop on much of anything, and yet I should be, more so than not.”

  “Obviously, General, I am unable to comment on that,” Senator Kelly said.

  “And yet.” General Westmartin pointed his finger. “It’s only you and the President with those special little phones to call him. Now, why is that?”

  “Well, the choice of the President having one is pretty self-explanatory; if anyone is going to need to pull a major ripcord and need the help of a superhero, it would be the President of the United States.”

  “Fair enough,” the General said and shifted in his seat, leaning forward. “Then why do you have the other one?”

  “Because he trusted me with it,” Senator Kelly said, still leant back in his chair and relaxed.

  A brief lull followed, which the Senator took advantage of and turned back to Professor Farnsmith. “Professor,” he said. “You commented before on your beliefs and studies of the Greek gods, Zeus, Hera, and so forth. Can you lend more of your knowledge? I am quite interested in your theories.”

  “Well,” Professor Farnsmith said. “We believe these beings existed on another plane of existence, where the laws of time, nature, physics, and perhaps some others, like magic, apply differently than in ours. For instance, it’s been hypothesized that those beings were few in number. There were not millions or billions like the number of us as we exist here on Earth. They may number in the hundreds, or even less. That is a theory as to why they can tap into the powers they have. They are connected to their version of nature and their universe at such a level that they can tap into the very energies around them and channel those for directed use.”

  General Westmartin said with heavy sarcasm, “Zeus and his thunderbolts.”

  “We harness electricity with machines and technology; why couldn’t a highly evolved being channel it through his body with nothing more than his will?” Professor Farnsmith asked. “We have Earth; we theorize that their Mount Olympus is where they reside. Because they were around for many centuries, it is assumed they either live for a considerable time or that time moves differently on their plane of existence. Or perhaps it is both.”

  “So those beings could be alive today?” Senator Kelly asked in a serious tone.

  “They could,” Professor Farnsmith said.

  “Woo!” Congressman Johnson said loudly. “That blasphemy is going to cost you some nice votes come next year.”

  “First off, I never called them gods. Having said that, who said aliens have to be green and arrive on spaceships?” Senator Kelly gave hi
m a cool look. “Why couldn’t they be ‘alien’ beings, but rather than coming from another world far away, they instead live on another plane of existence?” Senator Kelly made finger quotes in the air.

  “Exactly,” Professor Farnsmith said. “In the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, the Book of Joshua, the Book of Job, and the two Books of Chronicles, to name just a few ancient writings, each mention a number of people that lived well beyond four hundred years of age. They were the few; the exceptions. If we are to assume those as correct ages of beings on this world, it supports that the same could also be true for beings in other planes of existence. Additionally, if time moved differently there, where years here were days or hours there, they would seem to be immortal and seemingly live forever.”

  “That’s an interesting theory, Professor,” General Westmartin said. “You wouldn’t happen to have any concrete proof to back any of it up?”

  She held her ground, “I have as much proof to my beliefs as you might for whichever ones you hold. As with all ancient texts, there are possible mistranslations from text to document, document to parchment, and so on. It doesn’t have to be egregious; even a minor one can throw something off. A decimal in the wrong place … that sort of thing.”

  “So even your own hypotheses and theories are suspect?” General Westmartin said.

  “Of course.” She nodded and smoothed her skirt. “I believe in the work I do and the topics I study but I am limited to the data and information I’m given to review and work with.” She paused for a moment, and then continued, “I do believe in it whole-heartedly. And if Nathan has been given this gift by them …” Professor Farnsmith paused and turned to see Senator Kelly nod slightly. “Then it stands to reason that he is tapping the same energies that other heroes have in the course of history.”

  “Helen of Troy? Hercules? Perseus? I think that if any are going to be somewhat household names, those would be it,” Congressman Johnson said loudly. “I might have to consult my grandson for some of the new-age fiction ones.”