Chapter 24

Thursday, January 20th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

John Walker Sr. looked like an old school banker or mid-century businessman, if you didn’t look at his eyes. His clothes presented staid confidence and competence, but the bags under his eyes said he hadn’t slept well in quite some time. He was a man who appeared to be in his early 60s with a full head of white hair. He had a wool coat over one arm and a hat in his hand that matched his suit.

I started to stand and said, “Excuse me, I’ll give you some privacy with your son.”

He waved me back into the seat and said, “There’s no need for that. Please stay. I don’t believe we’ve met, are you a friend of Junior’s?”

I shook his hand from the chair and said, “I would have liked to have been, but no I just met him today. I have a rather complicated interest in your son’s situation. I heard of his condition and have been contemplating some possibilities. Nothing that would affect his prognosis I’m afraid. I’m not really in the medical field.”

He nodded as if he understood and looked at his son again. He said, “Do you know anything about the recent change?”

I replied, “I was actually here when it happened. His breathing changed and I could see him struggling against the ventilator. I called for the doctor and they found he could breathe on his own again without the machine. I had thought it was a very positive sign, but as I said, it’s not my field. From what they tell me, it didn’t really change anything.”

He nodded again and said, “That’s what I was told, but I had to see for myself.”

He gently took his son’s hand and told me, “It’s all my fault you know. I’ve pushed him all his life to live by certain standards, to make something truly impressive of himself. Preferably to take over my business when I retired. I pushed too hard to get what I wanted one too many times. All of his life, I’ve been obsessed with leaving a legacy, nothing else would do. I’ve come to realize that the strength of his wishes never had a chance against my ego’s towering obsession and my drive to have things my own way. Would you believe that he left me a note, apologizing for failing me. The failure is mine. Mine entirely. I’m nothing but a damned fool.”

I said nothing, allowing the man as much privacy as I could offer. After waiting in silence far longer than was comfortable, I reached for my bag to go and it broke him out of his thoughts.

He said, “I’m sorry, you said you had a complicated reason for being here? Please explain.”

I had given this conversation a good bit of thought and had drafted a few ways it could go. I was thinking of visiting him another time, perhaps at his home, but with that opening, I opted to move forward and take the direct approach.

“Mr. Walker, as a businessman I assume you are familiar with the concept of a non-disclosure agreement, would that be correct?”

He said, “I am, but I am not prepared to sign anything without it being reviewed by my legal team.”

I replied, “I am speaking of the concept sir, not words on a piece of paper. What I wish to propose is that we come to terms on a non-disclosure agreement in principle. I will accept your word on the matter.”

“Interesting, what terms do you propose?”

I said, “It’s pretty simple really. There are things that you need to hear and understand to make an informed decision. Those things need to be kept secret. I need you to agree to keep those secrets, regardless of whether you agree to move forward with my actual proposal or not.”

He asked, “And how are you going to enforce my keeping of those secrets if we do not have a legal agreement?”

I said, “Honestly, I’m not worried about you breaking your word. If you tell me you are willing to keep the secrets, we can move on to the next step. If not, I’ll move on to another candidate when I find one.”

He said, “Very well, I agree to keep your secrets.”

I nodded my head and stood up, freeing the only chair in the room and said, “Please have a seat sir, this might take a while to explain.”

Walking over to the door, I released the latch that was holding it open and allowed it to close. Then I turned to him and said, “I need to demonstrate a literally unbelievable talent I have. You would not believe me if I didn’t prove it to you, so I have to start there. How is your health sir? Please be specific in your answer.”

He blinked, surprised by the question, but soon replied, “Overall very good. I need to use reading glasses for clearly seeing anything closer than my arm’s reach away, but my distance vision is fine. Probably the biggest thing I’ve had to deal with is that I had an ulcer once and have been diagnosed with GERD, but a couple pills a day alleviates those symptoms as long as I keep taking them. My doctor warns me to watch my high blood pressure and I have the usual aches and pains anyone my age deals with. Why?”

I held up a finger and sent, [Carl, picture him ten years younger as far as skin and muscle tone are concerned. Keep the hair and face largely the same. Otherwise let’s make all the internals perfectly healthy.]

I saw it take effect and asked, “How do you feel now?”

He said, “I feel great.”

He stood up and walked around the room, then went into the bathroom to look in the mirror for a minute. As he made his way back to the chair he said, “This is amazing. I look a little better, but I haven’t felt this good since I was back in my 20s. How is this possible? What have you done exactly?”

I said, “I told you it was unbelievable. I have healed your body. Internally you are effectively a young man again. There was a minor cost to the procedure, for me, not for you, but it is simply something that I can do. Call it magic if you want, it’s close enough to the truth. Before you ask, yes, I’ve already tried to do it for your son. I’m the reason he came off the breathing machine. His body is already as healthy as I can make him. I’m afraid he’s just not there anymore sir. At least, there is nothing more that I can do for him.”

He slumped back into the chair as I finished speaking.

He said, “He’s not coming back, is he?”

I said, “I don’t think so sir.”

After a moment he said, “Well, I thank you for trying to help him. What was it you wanted to propose to me? Certainly I owe you a debt.”

I said, “You owe me nothing sir. I could not heal your son, and what I’ve done for you is my gift, regardless of your decision on my offer. There is more for you to understand before you make that decision. You see, I have another ability I have not shown you yet.”

Carl was ready for it and took the cue to transform my head to John’s.

John Senior’s face went slack as he looked at me in shock.

“What I propose is that you move your son to a truly private facility, perhaps even to your home, and you might hire someone to care for him in secret. We would work together in pretending that he had an amazing recovery, and then I could live on as your son to the eyes of the rest of the world.”

He asked me, “Why would you want to be my son?”

I explained, “I am not the man that you met a few minutes ago. That man is actually a friend of mine. I am impersonating him because I can not be who I was any longer. I was once someone else entirely, but that person died, and I had no choice in the matter. This is my life now. I didn’t ask for it, but I have to live it. I can impersonate almost anyone I want, but I can’t have a past if I’m not willing to kill someone and steal their life. Which I am unwilling to do.”

I gestured to the bed and said, “Your son is my first opportunity to have a real life again. I don’t know whether or not my offer is of interest to you. I thought you might want to see him live on, even if it wasn’t the way you first imagined it. Even if it wasn’t quite real. However, as I said earlier, if you are not interested I will move on to other candidates. It is entirely up to you sir. I am not interested in trying to influence your decision in any way, beyond making the offer itself.”

He said, “So are you offering to run my business the way I wanted?”

I replied, “Well, no. I’m not interested in doing that. I would be willing to work with you to make any transition easier if we had to, but that is not the life I want to live. Not that I know what I want to do with it yet, but I fully intend to figure that out for myself. Besides, with your newly improved health, you will be able to run your own business for a long time. I think your retirement has been pushed back a long way.”

He paused, then said, “I hadn’t considered that. This is a whole lot to process.”

I said, “I understand, and I don’t want to rush you. But there is one last thing for you to consider. The reason I was not worried about you keeping your word is that I have one more ability. Have you ever seen Men in Black? In the movie they had a device that would make someone forget everything that happened in a certain period of time. I can effectively do the same thing.”

“If you choose not to take me up on the offer, you won’t remember even meeting me. You’ll wake up wondering why you are sitting in that chair after just walking in the door. I’m sure you will also be curious about why you feel so healthy. You can take all the time you like, but the longer you take, the more time you will lose if you choose that route.”

He said, “It seems to me there are a lot of details that have to be worked out.”

I replied, “There are, but they are minor details. I think you have all of the information you need to make a reasonable decision. The details can all be worked out if we agree to the main plan, and there is nothing to work out if we don’t agree to it. Do you have any questions for me that we haven’t touched on?”

He asked, “What if Junior wakes up someday?”

I said, “Then I promise to hand his life back to him and move on. It would be a pain in my ass, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. Any hassle would be worth it.”

Mr. Walker held out his hand to shake mine and said, “I agree.”

We shook hands and Carl jacked in and flashed me his image.

I said, “I order you to always tell me the truth. You will never try to reveal my secrets in any way. You will make an honest effort to help me get started in my life as your son and you will not try to manipulate me in my choice of careers.”

He asked, “What are our next steps?”

I said, “Talk to the doctor about your options for long term care. Take whichever one you are most comfortable with. We will work out a plan for me to step into John’s life once we know what our options are. Actually, we might benefit from her expertise in staging his recovery too. See if you can get her to visit for a consultation.”

I shifted my head back to Brad’s, then he stepped into the hall and headed for the nurses station. He returned in about ten minutes with the doctor in tow, and Carl flashed me an image of her being jacked into.

I said, “Doctor Winslow, I order you to trust and believe me. John, please step into the hall and close the door behind you. I need to speak to the doctor alone for a minute.”

He did and I said, “You will always answer any of my questions honestly and completely. You will not have any qualms about assisting me in things I ask you to do, even if something is unethical or immoral. You may be reluctant initially, and you should raise any concerns you have, but they will not stop you from actively assisting if I insist. You will keep any and all secrets you might learn about me to yourself. You will never try to reveal them in any way. You will consider yourself on my team and look for ways to be useful. Do you understand?”

She said “Yes, how can I help you?”

I said, “First, I need to explain my powers. Essentially I can manipulate flesh and bone however I wish. I can heal with a thought. I can change fat into muscle. I can change myself or even just parts of myself into another person’s likeness. I can send orders to people, like I have just done with you. I can make someone forget or believe whatever I wish. There are some limits to my powers, but that’s the gist of it. We will need to work together at some point to experiment and explore my powers more specifically at another time. For now, please ask Mr. Walker to join us again, and we will discuss our needs and plans.”