Trying- Tales of Jacob Moran

     Jake looked into the sky as he walked along the street with a newly-purchased deli sandwiches in hand. He saw clouds beginning to roll in. The sight excited him. He checked the weather reports on his phone. Today was supposed to be overcast over the northern portion of the state for a great deal of the day. Jake called Thomas as he walked faster back to the apartment feeling pumped.
     "What's up, Lovechunk?" Thomas answered.
     "I told ya not to call me that anymore, Sweetheart." Jacob responded and carried the joke on.
     "Whatever you say, Babe." Thomas compromised.
     "Dude, have you seen the sky?"
     "Uhhh...there's some clouds out the window."
     "Yeah! And it's supposed to be overcast all day! Grab Alice and let's go on a hike in the canyon."
     "I thought you said you were givIn' it a rest for a while."
     "I don't know, I just feel it right now! I'm givin' it another shot."
     "Alright, you got me that pastrami?"
     "Yeah, I'm like at the bottom of the stairs. I wanna go as soon as Alice can dig her keys outta her purse." Jacob climbed the stairs in record time. As soon as he got in the apartment he threw Thomas's sandwich at him and started filling a backpack with water bottles and energy bars.
     "Alice! Got your keys!?" Jacob yelled as he zipped up the backpack.
     "Why are you in such a hurry?" Alice's voice came from the bathroom. Jacob hurried over to see her using a straightener on her hair.
     "Seriously!? We're going on a hike!" Jake pulled a bandana from off the counter and began stuffing her hair into it while tying it in a knot "C'mon, it's you, Thomas, and me. Who are you trying to impress?"
     "What are you!? Jacob! Have you ever seen a girl with her hair remotely like that!?" Alice slapped his hands away only seconds after they began troubling her hair. "What are so excited about anyway!?"
     "I feel it this time! It's gonna work this time!" Jacob said with fists clenched from his pent up joy. "Now c'mon! You can take care of your hair in the car, I'll drive." Jacob said this as he was digging through her purse.
     "You know how many times you said it was gonna work before?" Alice questioned
     "Thirty-seven. Got the keys! Tommy! Backpack! Yippee-ki-yi-yay!" Jake shouted as he started out the door.
     Jake drove the car faster than other drivers on the road appreciated. They went a ways up the canyon until they came to the trailhead. Jacob lead the way the entire time they were hiking. Alice and Thomas stopped him on occasion to get a water bottle or energy bar out. Jake knew they would stop him often enough that he could refresh himself when they summoned him to halt. Thomas and Alice were once again arguing over something of no consequence.
     "C'mon, think about it. Thunder-twisting, that's just the coolest name you could give it." Thomas attempted to make Alice see his point of view of making something sound cool.
     "But it hardly has anything to do with the lightning, it's about the metal. I don't even twist the metal, it's a pull if anything." Alice argued towards what was most correct, as she always did.
     "Yeah, yeah I've heard it all the time already, metal has a sea of electrons, the lightning takes control, blah blah blah. Here's the other thing, how much easier would it be to give it a name rather than having to say shape that piece of steel with lightning? See what I mean?"
     "If want to give it a name so badly then think of a name that actually describes what is done. Anyway, you don't even understand what happens so-"
     "Hey! Lookit the clouds! They're right here!" Jacob interrupted them to alice's relief.
     "Kay, jus' don't try climbing on 'em ya psycho. Neither of us can catch you when ya fall." Thomas answered.
     "Like I could! Heck, I'll be happy to trip over some as long I know I did something." Jacob replied. Then he suddenly felt that familiar anxiety again. "...you comin'?" Jake asked as he faced Thomas and Alice.
     "C'mon, you know you gotta do it alone the first time. You don't want me up there to screw up the reaction, and he doesn't know how these work at all so he's staying away for this one." Alice answered. "You'll make it happen this time."
     "You got it bro!" Thomas's short words were almost always more effective than any speech. Jacob walked into the clouds where the peak was.
     Jake took some breaths and rolled his shoulders to relax. Every time he tried it still felt like he was reaching into thin air. Reaching into thin air actually wasn't far off from what he was attempting. Jacob's goal was to reach into thin air, then take a hold of it. He didn't feel any energy of any sort coming from the clouds. He only felt the familiar depressing feeling of no guidance while he is about to feel like a fool as he attempts to command the clouds. Jacob exhaled and closed his eyes. He reached his hand out into the the fog feeling nothing. He concentrated and put all his will into condensing the clouds into his palm. He could nearly feel it and slowly curled his fingers to grip the what would soon be there. With all his will and might he knew it was going to happen. His fingers met his palm and he dropped his arm limp to his side at the wasted effort.
     "It's all good, round two." He said quietly to himself to keep his spirits up. A different approach this time. Clearing the fog was his goal. It was going to be thin and then part. He focused his vision on a line he drew with his mind before him. He lifted his hands to meet the line. He thought of his hands sinking into the thin mass ahead of him. They pressed forward and he flexed his arms and hands with the effort. With all his strength he pressed the imaginary line apart to part the fog. He slowly widened his hands and arms to pull it apart. Pressing with his might his arms widened. But nothing changed. The clouds continued to gently roll along the mountain peak.
     "Third time's the charm, third time." He said out loud with a hope to make this last attempt work. He watched the clouds roll along. He oriented himself to face the oncoming clouds. He knew they would yield to him, they had to. As they came to roll his way he lifted his hands up to his shoulders. A wall, they were going to meet a wall. He was the wall. He exhaled again and closed his eyes. He clenched his hands and released. He slowly pressed his hands forward. They felt a slight resistance. He flexed and pressed harder. They wouldn't move. He pushed harder still. He hands wouldn't budge.
     "Son of a-!" He yelled and opened his eyes to see his hands pressing into a perfectly white mass. "Wow." Jacob was impressed. He glided his hands across the mass. It was smooth. He never knew of anything that smooth. He pulled a hand back and punched into the wall. It softly stopped his fist and sprung back to the shape it first was. As he was marveling at what he had finally accomplished he began to feel what Alice and Thomas told him he would feel, especially when he first made it happen. He suddenly felt drained of strength and energy. He felt so drained that he lost his balance and fell against the wall made of a cloud. The cloud gave way and he was on his knees.
     "Tommy!...Alice!" he shouted for them to come where he was. They came to him and looked at him with glad awe.
     "Ya did it!?" Thomas asked with a confident smile.
     "Yeah..." Jacob answered breathing deeply.
     "How do ya feel!?" Alice asked as she was bouncing on her feet with joy.
     "Like crap...haha...wooo! That, that hits hard." Jacob answered.
     "Yeah, first time sucks bad. Feel alright to get up?" Thomas asked as he put out his hand to lift him. Jake took the hand and staggered to his feet, with some trouble balancing.
     "Maybe...maybe just over somewhere...somewhere to sit down for a while." Jacob told Thomas said with one hand on his head.
     "Haha sure, hey ya did it! That's worth somethin'." Thomas replied as they walked to a spot where there was a fallen tree to sit down on out of the fog. Alice watched as a this trail of the cloud pealed off of Jacob's feet. She smiled and thought to herself "I knew he could do it."

Rainy Nightmare

     As I jumped down from the fence I came down to my knees which sank into the mud a little. I got up and looked towards Annie and moved my hand to beckon her down.
     "Keep on your feet when you get down, it's slippery." She descended and her feet slipped as they met the ground. Out arms met and gripped one another for stability. 
     "Alright, gotta keep on goin'." I told her as I looked ahead and was glad to see there was some lighting to get us through the darkness along the side of the building. We walked down trying to stay quiet as to not be heard and to listen for anyone else. We went inside the first opening into one of the warehouses we could find. After climbing through the window, we found ourselves in a small room with a desk in the middle. Light was coming from somewhere past the doorway of the room.
     I whispered to Annie that I would take a look to see who was there, but wouldn't walk away. She agreed and sat down in a corner. I put my head past the doorframe and looked around to see a single hispanic thug sitting in a chair and looking around, somewhat bored. He looked at me and I froze. He squinted down the hallway. 
     "Hey! Don't move!" he shouted as he raised a pistol and walked toward me. I let one foot out the room and put my open hands where he could see I was unarmed. I looked at Annie who's face bore fear as she stared at me.
     "Who's with you!?" The man demanded as he pushed me into the room with his unarmed hand. 
     "Just me." Annie spoke up as she stood up in fear. Both of us had the idea not to cause any more trouble than was already going on. All we wanted was to get out of here. He studied both of us for a moment then put the gun to his side. 
     "Alright, follow me." he told us as he walked back towards where the light come from. We followed him past where he was sitting and over to where most of his gang was. The gang members spoke to each other in spanish. They gestured towards us and outside the building occasionally. I leaned up against a stack of wooden boxes near the loading bay door. 
    The steel retractable door banged and rattled when something from the other side struck it. Annie and I hid behind the boxes for cover. I saw the gangsters raise their guns and one of them pressed a button to partially raise the door. They all opened fire. All I heard was gunfire and shouting. It all stopped suddenly, but the gang members kept their guns trained on what they were firing at for some time. One of them spoke to another in spanish. Two went to investigate what they were shooting at. The same one who first found us came over and took me by the wrist and walked me to the rest of the group, Annie followed. I glanced at what the other two were doing and saw them dragging a black furred creature by the hind legs. The one who pulled me over turned my arms over to look at them and showed them to the others. Then did the same to Annie. He pointed at a dull mark on her inner right forearm and spoke to the others of the group in spanish. They looked at the mark with wide eyes.
     "You gotta keep goin'. You need to get there." The one who exposed Annie's mark told us. "You want this." He told me as he put his pistol into my hand. Another surrendered his pistol to Annie, who thanked him. 
     "Thanks, we'll be going." I told them. They wished us luck, then regrouped to investigate the thing that was now dead. We left out a door opposite the door where the firefight broke out. The rain was letting up. We walked up to a grassy field to the side of the warehouses. The moonlight let us see that we could keep on this grassy area rather than the mud. We liked the ability of being able to see around us more than the lack of mud, so we preferred it for two reasons. We kept walking in the fields for a couple hours until we came by an old farmhouse by an old road. We saw a light inside that seemed to flicker when we saw it from a distance. 
     When we came closer we saw that there was a lantern on a table and a person moving around inside. The person inside cast his shadow on the window as he past. He didn't seem right. We stood and watched for some time. The man was shivering, scratching himself, and twitching. 
     "let's keep going." I urged Annie as I stepped onward. She hesitated, intrigued by the man in the shack. A loud noise came from the man in the shack. It made us shudder. It wasn't a yelp, howl, growl, screech, or anything one would expect. If anything it was like a raspy and threatening belch. We darted away then stopped at the sound of breaking glass. The man, or what was the man, was hanging out the window on it's torso. It's dark face was looking at us with bared teeth. We raised our gifted pistols and opened fire. I fired out of fear until the rounds were spent. Then ran before knowing if the beast was living or not. Annie was sprinting at my side. She slipped on the wet grass. 
     "No!" I yelled out in fear as I went down to lift her up. 
     "Sorry, I'm okay, let's keep going!" she told me between hurried breaths. I looked back and saw the old house in the distance with the thing still hanging out the window, it was limp. 
     "Look, it's not going to chase us. We're okay." I told her and pointed at the shack. 
     "I wanna get out of here!" Annie whimpered and I took her in my arm and walked through the field. She shivered with anxiety from everything that was happening.
     "We're going to make it out of here. I know it." I told her. I told myself "We have to." Both of us kept going on in the field. It seemed longer and farther. I wondered if this nightmare would end. Would we escape? Can we keep going? 

Beginning - Tales of Jacob Moran

    Everything was black. The blackness rustled and opened into a clouded night sky. Jake laid looking up when a strangely familiar face leaned over and took him by the hand and lifted him up. Jacob stumbled out of the box he was standing in and onto snowy ground. That man with a familiar face steadied him as he had trouble standing. Jacob looked around and found himself in a snowy field of sorts. Trees were planted here and there, the ground was not even. He felt terrible, like he hadn't gotten about for years. He suddenly felt extremely nauseous. He leaned over and gagged up terrible tasting fluids. The familiar face held him back up and put a coat around him. The man, still steadying Jacob, spoke to three others. He couldn't really make out any of the words. He saw the familiar face pointing at the long box. He guessed they were being instructed to deal with it in some fashion. Jacob really didn't care in his dazed and exhausted state. The familiar face turned to him.
    "Alright, we gotta get goin'. My name's Thomas, by the way."
    "Ok." Jacob looked him in the face and replied automatically. They walked towards a car sitting still with the engine running on a road in the field. Jacob wrapped his arms tightly around himself in the cold air as snow fell on him, softly but steadily. As Jacob sat down into the passenger seat he heard familiar music playing, music he knew well but that wasn't known well to most. Thomas drove off looking around cautiously. Jake sat back staring blankly out the windshield. It was then Jacob smelled something odd. He leaned his head over to learn it was himself. He really didn't care what was happening at the moment. Nothing felt real to him in his confused state.
   "Sorry we got off so quickly...you probably got a lot of questions running through your head. We got a good drive if ya wanna talk." Thomas told Jacob in a somewhat nervous tone as he was still looking around himself. 
    "No, no...I'm...really tired. Is it cool if I just go to sleep for a bit?" Jacob replied with his mind still in a fog.
    "Yeah! Sure...know yourself out." Thomas answered seeming to calm down a bit. Jake laid the seat back and fell into a dream nearly immediately. 
    He dreamt of walking down the street where he lived. It was a rainy night. He was following a dog that was wandering away. He called out to the german shepherd. 
    "Fritz! C'mere Fritz!" Fritz looked back with a playful look but kept going forward, but at a slower pace. Jake caught up to the dog and took hold of the collar. Fritz yielded to him happily. They began to walk back to Fritz's home. A distant sound of thunder made the dog shudder. 
    "It's alright, Fritzy, let's go." Jacob encouraged Fritz. They walked on. The rain didn't bother Jake, he liked a good storm, the lightning added to the good atmosphere. Fritz kept going along, he was more nervous than usual.
    "Fritz is a good boy, yes he's a good boy." Jake reassured the dog as he stroked its back. They began to cross the road when there was a loud thunderclap preceded by a lightning flash by less than a second. Fritz started to whimper and panic and sat down, resisting Jacob's pull in his collar. 
    "C'mon, Fritzy, it's ok." Jake continued to pull. Fritz resisted only harder and whimpered louder.
    "Fritz, you wuss, c'mon you're house is right there!" Jake rolled his eyes as the nervous dog dog resisted what was good for him. Fritz's whimper came to yelping, peaked with a bark.
    "Everytime! You stupid animal, this is your home!" Jacob pointed out towards a house with one hand. Fritz tugged hard and loosed himself of Jake's other hand. Jake fell onto his backside. There was a flash of headlights, his surroundings spun, a white flash flooded his vision.
    A bump in the road brought Jacob out of his sleep. He put the seat upright and looked out the window. They were in a parking lot. The car came to a stall and stopped. Thomas got out of the car and Jake followed suit. Jake stumbled and clutched onto the door for support as he remembered that he was having trouble moving and standing for some reason. Thomas came over to steady him again.
    "Doin' alright?" Thomas asked.
    "Good enough, I guess." Jake responded. They walked up a set of stairs and into an apartment. The walk brought Jake out of his daze a little and he Attempted to walk alone. He was successful, but slow. His senses then reminded him of the stench he carried for some reason, which he recoiled at.
    "Bathroom's that door, if ya want" Thomas informed him.
    "Right." Jacob answered as he went into it.
    He looked into mirror to see someone who looked like a mess. The reflection had matted hair and an unkept beard. He was also wearing stained and wrinkled formal clothes. Jacob took to removing them quickly as he found out they carried most the stench.
    "There's some clothes on the counter there for ya." Thomas's muffled voice came through the door as Jake looked over to see street clothes of the style he preferred. He didn't quite know what to make of everything, but it all felt like a dream anyway, so nothing seemed to matter. The warm water relaxed his stiff and sore body. Scrubbing himself down felt like a massage. He began to wake up as the moisture surrounded him and warmth brought vigor to his frame. Examining his frame, he found that it wasn't quite the same began stepped out of the shower and to the sink. He saw that was more physically fit, not that he was in bad shape before, but now his body was defined. He dried himself off and put the towel around his waist and began to marvel at things now. His face, he couldn't quite point out what was odd about it, besides that it needed a shave, so he did. Looking at his face again he saw his hair had grown out. He pulled it back and what he saw hit him hard. The face looking back at him was not only his own but also the face that belonged to Thomas. 
    Jacob swung open the door and looked at Thomas, who looked back, as he sat at the couch with a laptop, and a bag of fast food at the table in front of him. Jacob pointed at Thomas with his mouth agape and said
    "......WHAT!?"

Awakening - Tales of Jacob Moran

 Jacob awoke in a foreign room, in a foreign medical bed. His clouded mind wondered how long he had been under an artificial coma. He stretched his limbs and immediately recoiled at the pain of doing so. The pain reminded him that it was reality and not a dream where he was tactically neutralized by a prototype that would only exist by illegal means. He lifted his left arm to examine a gunshot wound where a round drove itself between his middle and trigger fingers within his palm. He was amazed at how accurate the device was. He had no doubt the wounds in his thighs broke both femurs.  
 "Oh! I didn't expect you to be awake this soon."
 Jake turned his head to the sound of the voice and saw a young, intelligent looking girl with black hair and pale skin deactivating a holo-pad. Still dazed, he simply studied her as well as the very comfortable, almost homelike room he found himself in. He noticed that although he was on a medical bed, the room he was in resembled a fine living module. 
 "Well, um, welcome to Phoenix Medical Pacific. My name is Aimee and will be your assistant during your time here. On you personal display you can follow a tour of-"
 "Hold on...Aimee...I've been...what is the date?"
 "Uh, February third, two thousand ninety three...why do you ask?"
 Jacob thought for a moment, moving the fingers on his left hand as he counted.
 "I have been unconscious for almost a week...except for...nevermind. Aimee, I am still under a huge amount of drugs. I'd really like to have a couple hours before we get to what you're supposed to tell me about this."
 "Yes that's fine! I'm still working on a lot of data, you're really something else."
 "Something else is right! "Jacob thought to himself. "They really have no idea what they're dealing with." Jacob retraced his last moments of consciousness to himself in his mind. "The sewing needle, that shouldn't have existed, that neutralized me, killed all the other members of the team except...Thomas! That's right! There was a white flash and there was Tommy running then...it went black. After that...the interrogation. Stupid prick thought I was a product of Phoenix. We 'shook hands' and now...they are gonna try to figure me out and fail miserably for years until...oh great! Now I don't know who knows who, what, and where I am! There's gonna be assassination attempts sooner than I'd like."
 Jake looked over towards Aimee. She looked very busy processing information. Jacob definitely is more than a handful to work with. Jake took to the personal holo-pad mounted to the bed he was on. It was programmed for patients and was therefore rather limited. Internet access, Phoenix Medical Pacific, Rising up stronger, media, information. Curiosity lead Jacob to "Rising up stronger." It was his "roadmap to recovery." Jacob then remembered that Phoenix's slogan was "Rise up stronger." Jake examined the medical report. Just as he suspected, three gunshot wounds. One to his hand, and the other two broke his thigh bones. Jacob cursed the abilities of the amazing "sewing needle" which is solely developed and is only supposed to be property of NGMC. 
 "Aimee, there aren't any estimated recovery times for the gunshot wounds, did I just arrive here?"
 "Well, no, you've been here for about three days while we've been running tests and normally we would have a recovery time, but your body isn't like anything anyone has ever seen, so we really don't know. All we do know is that you will recover as least twice as fast as any regular human."
 "Not surprised, so once I can walk will I have the freedom of going out to the island?" 
 "We're still deciding on how to work out keeping you secret, but also able to live a little, sorry about that." 
 "Still not surprised, so what's the plan? Do fluid and tissue sample testing 'til I can run, then comes performance testing, as well as analyzing everything 'til you all give up?" 
 "You're big news to medical science, but not impossible, everything is possible, and yes, we look forward to performance testing. I really wish you weren't shot...there isn't any chance you can tell me why, is there?"
 "Haha! Ow!" Jake flinched as his laughing tripped the nerves of his legs. "C'mon now they didn't tell you? I mean it's obvious that this is all a top secret project, and the jerk who interrogated me already told me I don't exist, c'mon you know that much don't you?"
 "I was told that you were a specimen to be researched. You were delivered by Phoenix Combat. I am part of the research team and at this point will be the only one you have contact with. All I know about you is that you're something entirely new to medical science and our job is to unlock the secrets in your strange DNA. I really don't know where you came from."
 "Huh, well there hasn't been anyone who popped in saying you can't know, especially since I don't exist. I am a soldier for NGMC. Lambda thirteen was the team that was on a information retrieval mission in a research base in Antarctica belonging to Phoenix. We Secured what we needed and there wasn't any signal of power in the entire facility. On our way out a ceiling mounted sewing needle popped open and fired as they are programmed. I was neutralized for information retrieval and the rest of the team was killed by headshots. There was an electrical discharge and that's the last thing I remember until finding myself in custody of Phoenix Combat. That sewing needle wasn't normal...the only thing that makes sense is if it was  also powered by biomechanics like other Phoenix Robotics products. Which was also illegal!...anyway I just said way too much. So what makes me so puzzling to the medical world?" 
 "Hold on! You're a soldier!? For NGMC!? Do you have any idea what kind of risk you're taking being a hired gun with the impossible body you have!? You're taking all that for granted!? You!...what is wrong with you!?"
 "I'm perfectly fine, and I don't need the lecture. Now the question I asked was what makes me so puzzling to the medical world?"
 "You're...a beautiful freak, to put it simply. After getting only a handful of results back a lot of things didn't add up. We tested to see how old you are but I don't know if that answered more questions than it raised. All the results say you're almost eighty years old but that's-"
 "Pretty close."

The Man Who Ate Dog Treats.

I came to Santa Barbara at night to an apartment which possessed a certain level of chaos. I learned I would be with an odd bunch of persons. My roommate whom I would share a bedroom with was an Aryan man from Texas with a strong build. Another was from Brazil, but his blood was Egyptian and Greek, he also spoke loudly and obnoxiously with an accent nobody could recognize. I was very glad to see Mr. Allphin whom was a great comrade of mine in Lake Isabella. Then as I walked out the bathroom I saw a young man who was sitting on my bed beside my open luggage. He had a handful of dog biscuits and was masticating at least one in his mouth. The strong Texan encouraged the behavior and asked for a review of all the varieties, he obliged with pleasure. Shortly thereafter, the man who ate dog treats left the building with Mr. Allphin to their own living space. I couldn't possibly think of a stranger person than he.
Time went on as well as my relations to the man who ate dog treats. There were times his nonsense drove me to violence as I projected a library key between his eyes and left a bruise for days. Still, the man who ate dog treats puzzled me. His demeanor was unique, even impressive. I spent time with him walking the streets of Santa Barbara along with a Canadian friend of his who once worked as a carpenter. Perhaps the strain of insanity that the man who ate dog treats was infectious. I saw myself introducing him to "Punching Trees" which were named so because of their cushioning bark made them excellent punching apparatuses.
Later I left to Simi Valley. The man who ate dog treats did not escape me. No, we spent times now and again walking those streets, I attended meetings he conducted when the occasion permitted, he stayed at my own apartment at certain times. The insanity never ended, mind you. He was elated to show me the wonder of bacon-scented soap, but saddened that the scent did not hold to the body. I carried a GPS with me that would moo like a cow whenever I passed a church or school, he approved with a smile. We both imitated the barking of dogs while in the car.
We parted ways. Duty and fate separated a friendship. Later, in my hometown in Utah I was married. I was glad to see the man who ate dog treats attend my reception. I introduced him to my wife as "bacon-soap kid." He told me that he left a gift for me and my wife. Of course, a pair of milkbones.