Chapter 8: Brace For Impact

Puzzles were for the most part, temporary, insignificant, niggling things for Julie. With a little effort she could shake the meaning out of most mysteries. That is, unless there were people involved. People strongly resisted definition. She understood the celebration going on around her of course. They had just won a great victory. Julie did not consider the credit to belong to any one person alone as the need for the effort of all involved here had been impressed upon her at an early age. They had only seconds ago seen an impossible seeming victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. In the space of a few heartbeats Terry Grissom had bested the most dangerous super villain in the world. She moved toward her office on legs she did not feel. The shouts of her co-workers - her family seemed to be in another room, another world. Something was there at the edge of her attention, beckoning. Some fact or detail, some overlooked item, the kind which her mind, usually alone could see. She entered the office and without knowing why, she reached out and adjusted the setting of the office wall changing it from transparent to opaque white from the outside, and from the inside, a display of the Caribbean exhibit at the nearby Shedd Aquarium. She usually found the colorful sea-life to be calming but she was not at all certain if her current state could be described as calm or not. Shock, yes, it was likely that her present emotional detachment was attributable to a classic case of shock. The unexpected victory to the equally unanticipated fight was not itself sufficient to explain why she would feel the need to protect herself from her own thoughts. She sat in her chair and continued to evaluate the problem. Terry. Terry had been at the center of her thoughts. She was trying to discover the reason why Terry had the ability to affect her judgment so much more strongly than anyone else.

Reality crashed in on her as if the walls of her office could have ruptured and spilled the 90,000 gallon aquarium on top of her. She was in love with a man who stood almost no chance whatsoever to survive her. She would at some inevitable point in the future see on the giant screen in the control center his untimely and gruesome death. The telemetry would report to her instantaneously the very last beat of his heart. She crumpled forward on her desk and sobbed inconsolably. There was no possibility she could prevent the impact of that loss by loving this man less, as she knew already it was too late. At this very desk she had read the file containing Terry’s qualifications, before she had even opened it she had noticed the file size was geometrically larger than the others in the list. Knowing only his name she was filled with a calm hopefulness that she had found the man she wished for with such desperate need. She had considered him to be her savior. The man who would save her from the ultimate loss. Which would be that no effort she made would make the life’s work of every person she held dear, useful at all to the outside world. There was no way to step aside from this oncoming heartbreak. She did not believe she would if she could. She knew that many people here took deliberate risks to their own lives, but that seemed far less daunting to her. She had survived the death of Travis Winter, whom she had known from childhood. but still he was no closer to her than any other person employed by the RMF. She had in fact mused while touring the museum with Terry that she had felt a separation from him. An emotional distance. And still his death haunted her. Travis winter was at peace. It was she who would need to find a way to survive. She considered the chance that she could bear to watch the death of a dear loved one to approach zero. While everyone outside her office was celebrating, Julie braced for the impact of her certain upcoming loss. It would happen there, seventy-five feet from where she now sat. She imagined she could see across the short space and hopefully long time an older version of herself standing staring fixedly at the viewscreen. Would that woman still carry that fear with her at all times? Would her older and presumably wiser self feel jealous of her, would she envy her the moments she had yet to come. The vision did turn her face to today’s Julie then. In her eyes she saw only sorrow and loss. She saw no accusation, only her profound wish to have those moments never end.

Vermin. Everywhere Brandon Keller looked he saw vermin. Sub-human scum. The television in his office displayed channel after channel of the dregs of humanity. Shows that promised “baby mamma drama.” He was sickened by what he considered the lower races and their filthy, repugnant behavior. The T.V. would not be on at all if not for the recent re-emergence of Rocket Man. Keller surfed the channels for more news about the new occupant of the armor. He was certain he knew exactly who this man was. Looking down at the photos on his computer screen showing a Marine Major who he had attempted to kill using a discrete colorless laser. The laser had successfully heated the aircraft up to the ignition point of the fuel it contained, but the man was able to eject from the jet before being immolated with it. The inventor of the device had promised the aircraft would be instantly, and untraceably destroyed. What did not go to the careful plan was the part where the explosion would happen too quickly for the pilot to eject. The nature of their target was the entire reason to kill him. With a vacancy in the Rocket Man program it would be all too obvious a choice to recognize the truly superior being that Terry Grissom was. Having failed to recruit him to their cause, the old leaders had decided to let him live. This was a giant mistake. While the former council had the idea that any accomplishments that Terry earned would further the glory of the Master Race, Keller did not believe it would be so. Grissom was stolen property. If the scum and weaklings could count on the perfect beings to protect them from themselves, there would be no impetus to be any more than the dead weight they were.