* * * 1 * * *
Late night traffic was light. A police car very slowly drove north toward his location. Obviously the officer was not looking up. What a nice surprise this will be... he said to himself.
Then he began the mind state. He had to concentrate intensively upon his feet and shoulders. They should float like foam rubber in an vast ocean. He began to rise...
It was a matter of will. He had a strong ability to focus his will upon certain tasks. This wasn't his first time out of the nest. He knew this feeling - this mind state - as well as he knew the feeling of walking or speaking. The black and white police car stopped just below him. He willed down and over, and immediately he was able to swiftly move himself down toward the street. The officer turned on his blue lights and cracked the door of his car, never looking away from the strange sight coming down at him.
Before reaching the car, the aeronaut swooped up at a hard arch and floated in front of the officer, who stepped out of the car and stood up. He had blond hair and blue eyes and was apparently speechless. The officer had not reached for his gun nor made any demands. He just stood there like Nordic, blue-shirted statue.
The aeronaut waved to the officer. "I'll see you again soon, sir." The officer cocked his head slightly, then looked over each shoulder and reached in the car to turn off the blues. The aeronaut used this opportunity to depart.
Home, he thought. And he rose up through the air in a standing position. The clouds were low and thick. He avoided them by flying nearer the ground, down, over the grass of the Eastern Promanade, then skimming just barely over the low tide waters and mud flats of Casco Bay. He looked down through the shallow water of the nearly drained channel leading into Yarmouth's Royal River and saw a light under the waves seemingly following him. Adjusting his flight path, he was able to bank to his port side and flash past the "red nun" and "green can" channel markers, which bobbed behind him in his air wake.
The right side of his face seemed to have something on it. Trying to wipe it off didn't work. Then as he thought about his face, the whole right side of his body became heavy. His flight slowed as he pondered the sensations. Floating there in the air, about midway up the river but not yet far enough around the bend to see the boats moored in Yarmouth Harbor, he felt his powers of flight draining out of him. It was a cool summer night. The starry sky now poked through the clearing clouds. He stared hard at outer space and when he looked back down towards the earth, the horizon - once in the distance - was now gone and below him only a brown churning void could be seen.
Thinking carefully about the situation, he discovered that he must have been dreaming. It seemed the rest of his body was in bed, apparently lying on the right side. He concentrated and felt the pillow against his cheek. Yes, he was still in the dream! This unbelievable thought caused the stars above to fade, with calm darkness closing in around him. He closed his eyes in the dream.
When David opened them again everything was bright. The familiar bedroom seemed unreal now somehow. Obviously he'd been dreaming again. Same theme as the last two weeks worth of nights--every night. He felt so comfortable lying there, with this natural narcotic buzz massaging the muscles of his body. As with all the other mornings, he felt the strong desire to use the power he found in what he called "the aeronaut dreams" to raise himself out of the covers and off the bed in the real world. He tried, but no luck. He had to laugh to himself out loud, "...things just don't work the same way here."
Outside the window he heard a couple of women laughing and shouting things at each other. He reached down and pulled each of his legs out from under the covers. He grabbed his leg braces and quickly snapped them on and heard them operating normally. He had worked for a long time on perfecting these braces. Pressing two large black buttons with his palms--one on each hip, the braces smoothly straightened his legs, raising him to a standing position. By simply leaning slowly in any particular direction the microprocessors in the braces would completely take over; each brace communicating with the other wirelessly to coordinate their robotic efforts. In this way he was able to walk around the house; even take the bus and walk around down town. The braces very good at their job. He looked almost "normal" out in public. Only the sound of the machinery could be heard beneath his pant legs. He walked over to the window. Three neighbor women were on his front lawn below pointing at the widow's walk above him. "Do you see that, Dave?" one of them asked him from below.
"What?" he asked back as he raised the screen and bent outside to look up.
"There's a light or something shining above the roof! We thought it was a fire, but......"
He strained to sit up on the edge of the window sill, but still could not see anything. "Just a minute. I'll be down."
He had sensation in his legs so he really could feel his own legs moving inside the braces, but his naked legs were not able to hold him up without the braces. In his mind the braces nearly completed the illusion of having healthy muscles. They were just a bit noisy. In the same way he willed himself to fly in the dream he only needed to provide a small measure of direction to the braces and they did the work of moving him where he wanted to go, through super-accurate sensors that red what his legs were trying to do. His braces had "learned" about him and adapted over the last year to anticipate his actions. He trained them to recognize the way he moved and, in a sense, even the way he thought.
He got to the open door of his bedroom and stepped out into the hall. Moving as quickly as he could down the stairs, he opened the front door and walked out on to the lawn, joining the three women by the old maple tree.
"Right there!" Dawn - the oldest of the three - pointed. The rising sun was behind them as the looked up.
He saw what they saw. "What.......the..." It shown with a flickering of scattered colors--as if a rainbow were passing back and forth in front of a small sunlit window. Just above the widow's walk, it rotated slowly in the air. The four of them watched it, looking at each other occasionally, dumbfounded. At times the orb seemed to be like a mirror reflecting the eastern sun and at other times scintillated with richly colored rays.
Joyce, the youngest of the three women, spoke up first. "It seems to be pulsing..." The light's rays alternated between shimmering sets of the bright colors and golden blasts of what had appeared to be similar to sunlight.
Brighter and brighter, the flashes became, and closer together with each pulse. Eventually the golden light was all that shone and it illuminated the driveway, trees, fence and several nearby houses, more brightly than the sun. It was a permeating glow, filling every nook and crevice. The brilliance appeared to emanate from all directions at once, not just from the light, but from the very air itself. The four observers could still see the source of all this wonder - the orb itself - with no trouble.
The third woman, Melinda, gasped and pointed. "LOOK! ...on either side..." The outline of two androgynous bodies - one on the left of the light and the other on the right - appeared, and they each faced the other with the light in between them. Only the fronts of these beings could be seen. Where the light shone on them they were visible. But in what could be called the shadow of their backs, only the blue sky could be discerned behind them. They could only be seen when near the light.
The two beings slowly looked down at the small party of observers, who moved back slightly out of shear instinct. The light pulsed deeply, nearly disappearing and then inflating to twice the size it was before. There was a tremendous thud, as a compression wave moved down through the house and into the ground. A surge of intense violet light blasted out of the orb sweeping over and through David. Then, instantly, the light was gone.
David nearly fell over. Joyce stepped over to steady him, "Oh my...are you OK?"
The small neighborhood seemed none the wiser. No one else had come over to David's yard. No cars had driven by. No preschool kids had come out into the street. Only David, Dawn, Joyce and Melinda had witnessed this amazing scene.
Joyce began to cry, quivering and shaking, and went to each of her neighbors, hugging them emotionally, repeatedly choking out, "It's a message from beyond...A message from beyond..."
Dawn looked down at Joyce and said, "Yes, it's the Second Coming!"
Joyce turned quickly back to Dawn and said, "No! That's not what I mean."
Melinda interrupted, "Maybe it was some kind of mass hallucination..."
"Didn't you see it yourself, Melinda?" David asked impatiently.
"Yes. Of course. But things like this happen. I read about them all the time."
Dawn stepped in front of Melinda with a smile on her face. "Melinda, you can't even acknowledge a miracle when you see one?"
"Wait a second..." said David, "I'm not sure I would go that far, Dawn..."
"It IS!" she protested happily, looking to Joyce for support.
Joyce wiped her eyes, seeing the potential to calm things down, and looked at each of her neighbors saying, "It was definitely something real. I don't believe we imagined it." David nodded his head. Melinda turned and rolled her eyes. Dawn looked up at the morning sky, clasped her hands together and said "Thank you, Jesus!"
David checked his watch. The hydraulic systems and electrical servos of his braces clicked and buzzed, as he walked back to the front door. Come over tonight ladies if you'd like and we can discuss this. I have an important meeting to get to.
* * * 2 * * *
When the bus pulled into the laboratory parking lot, David took a deep breath and stood up, holding the handrail above the seats. The high pitch of the bus brakes filled the air with their characteristic piccolo song, slowing the bus to a stop. The doors opened and he carefully stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Hearing the doors close behind him as the bus pulled away, he could think of nothing but the front yard event only a couple hours earlier. But he had to pull his shit together if he was going to interest investors in his engineering projects. The braces specifically were something he was very proud to have developed. They were certainly useful to him. Now he had to share their utility with other people who were bound to wheelchairs or otherwise disabled.
It was a beautiful day. The sky was filled with puffy white clouds and the air was dry--with no trace of humidity. "If I could fly up to you," he told the sky above him, "I would spend the whole day there." For the hell of it, he closed his eyes and tried to get into to the aeronaut dream mind set. He lifted his shoulders and imagined his feet lifting off the pavement. Nothing happened, except that he felt a strange confidence come over him.
He checked his watch again and realized he was over forty five minutes late. It was the worst possible day to be late. But he had just had the most incredible experience. Surely these guys would understand?
When he entered the board room upstairs from his lab, his boss Andrew - the Facility Director - was in mid-stride, pacing around the large table at which two men and one woman sat as patiently as they could, fidgeting with their laptops and mumbling to each other. Andrew turned when David walked in. "Dave!"
"I am SO sorry! An amazing thing occurred this morning! I can tell you about it later."
"Dave..." Andrew smiled but did not look happy, "...what 'we' really want to see is the CAD animation and specs on the braces. Oh, and by the way, these folks are, from left to right: Tim, Carla and Ali, from United Medical Associates." The three looked up at David; only Ali smiled.
"Yeah...yes I have memory sticks for each of you." David smiled, reached into his blazer pocket, swaying from side to side, while the faint sounds of his braces clicking and humming filtered out from inside his pant legs.
With his hand in his pocket, he cautiously peered up at Andrew who had been looking relieved until seeing David's face. "No..." said Andrew, pulling up a chair and sitting down.
"I know where they are..." David saw everyone's attention turn to him. Then he observed the three visitors passing around a condemning glance.
"You HAVE to be joking, Dave." Andrew looked down at the floor as if his next reaction might be scripted there.
David smiled widely. "But I know where they are."
"You know where? That's fantastic, Dave!" Andrew sharply sniped. The smile was falling off of his face.
"Yeah," said David, raising and lowering his eyebrows, "they're in my other pocket." He winked at Andrew and reached into his other pocket, pulling out five small black thumb drives.
Andrew audibly exhaled. "Dave, you know I love ya' bro, but you do realize I have a weak heart?"
David tossed the drives on to the table. Each of the three investors grabbed one. They immediately plugged them into their laptops and began look at the files. A grin appeared on Ali's face as his eyes darted back and forth. "It's all here," he said.
Carla looked over at Ali's screen and then back at her own and she smiled too. Tim got up and walked behind both of his colleagues, carefully viewing each of their screens. "Great stuff... great stuff... I think we have what we need here."
Andrew seemed elated. "Wonderful!"
"Better copy the files by midnight," David offered, "or they will self-delete."
"Already done!" said Ali.
Tim walked over to David and shook his hand. "We brought a little advance for your lab." He turned and picked up a sealed envelope by his laptop, handing it to David, who in turn handed it to Andrew. Tim continued, "This should take care of your initial investment and give you some extra resources to build a self-programmable consumer version."
"Thank you, guys!" Dave could tell Andrew was tickled pink. The three visitors closed up their laptops, fit them into their briefcases, and filed by David then Andrew shaking each of the men's hands before walking out. When they had departed Andrew tore open the envelope. David drew up close and looked over Andrew's shoulder...
"Thirty thousand...?" Andrew looked surprised.
"That's good right?" asked David "It is a partial payment...right?"
Andrew sat down with the check in his hands, staring at it and then reading the lab invoice. "No David."
"Whaaa... why?"
"It was supposed to have another zero at the end."
David sat down beside his boss. "So it's just an accounting error right?"
"Um..." Andrew had a faraway look in his eyes. "Not necessarily."
"What do you mean?"
Andrew held up the invoice. "It... ah... looks like I gave them the wrong amount."
David grabbed the invoice out of his hands. There it was in black and white: "Full Balance for Development $30,000.0"
"Andy...?"
"Yes, Dave?"
"I think I'm going to kill you."
Andrew suddenly laughed. "This can be just a partial payment, like you said." He fished out his iPhone tapped the face and held it to his ear. "Tim! Good, good... You made it out of the city before rush hour? Great! Hey... ahhh... Listen man... I think there's been a mistake... Well, no... I know the check is cash-able... The problem is, Tim, it is ten times less than what we'd discussed. OK................... You're right, we never discussed it in person......... only.... right... only by email..."
David watched Andrew's facial expression change from one of dread, to a smile... then back to dread again.
"OK, we'll wait to see you tomorrow morning same time - 10:30 - and we can take care of this then. No, no...don't worry we won't deposit it until we speak to you tomorrow. OK. Um... OK... Bye..."
"What did he say?"
Andrew tapped the phone again and looked at it for a moment. "Tim said, they had been discussing the twenty thousand dollar range yesterday and thought they were giving us a bonus at thirty..."
"Oh shit..." David said resignedly. "We can't let this info go for less than what we need."
"I know." Andrew fiddled with a pencil on the table. "So, ah, what happened to you this morning? Why were you so late?"
"It's hard to explain."
Andrew looked up at David. "Try."
"I know you are probably going to laugh..."
Andrew looked very serious. "Try..."
David sat down across from Andrew. "I saw a vision...a light...this morning."
"Are you serious? A 'light'?"
"It wasn't just me. A few of my neighbors saw it too. It was right over the house... and... " David's words trailed off as he thought about how to describe the orb.
Andrew looked annoyed. "You've came to work all last week talking about these flying dreams--which are obviously based around your subconscious desire to move around without your braces... and now..."
"Wait a second. They're more than that... What are you my psychoanalyst now?"
"Dave, I have to leave."
"It was something paranormal, Andy; the light"
"Dave." Andrew looked intently at David. "We've been friends since college right?" David nodded. "You've talked about your crazy dreams for years. They mean something to you, but they just bore me. Sorry bud."
"It's Okay. But I'm not crazy. And, the light wasn't a dream."
"No, no, I said your dreams are crazy, not you..." He looked around the room.
"Andy, you're my friend, not just my boss. I tell you stuff, because I have no one else to confide in."
"I appreciate that, Dave... I just feel like we could have handled this situation better if you and been here right before they arrived. You would have caught my error. Besides, I'm not good at small talk, damn it. You know that..."
David pulled up a pant leg and adjusted one of the straps. "We each have our own talents, Andy. I'm a developer...an engineer. You are an administrator..." He reached down and pulled the pencil out of Andrew's hand; "a pencil-pusher." Andrew shot him a wounded glance. "But we are team, Andy. We need each other." Andrew shook his head smiling.
"Yes, right..." he said.
David smiled, "You a magician with business affairs. That is why you're the boss and I'm the lackey. Oh, except for those pesky decimal points." They both laughed.
"We'll get it all worked out," Andrew stated confidently. He looked down at his phone. "Damn! I'm outta here, bro. I'm about to be late myself."
* * * 3 * * *
A bus pulled into the lab parking lot every fifteen minutes, picking up shift workers and dropping off others. David climbed up the stairs of the 4:30 pm bus after it had emptied out. He slid his card over the swiper and walked to an empty seat.
The braces were irritating him. They were so hard, tight and uncomfortable by the end of each day. He couldn't wait to get them off and just rest on the couch. The bus dropped him at a stop by the end of his street. He always walked the quarter mile or so down his block. Upon his approach he was startled to see a group in front of his house. His neighbor Joyce was talking to a reporter from WGME. When her interview was over, Joyce thanked the reporter and camera man, and then walked over to David.
He hugged her. "So, Joyce, what's all of this about?"
Joyce looked a bit sheepish. "Well, after you left this morning that light returned. Dawn called me from her car as she was passing by your house and I went right over to your yard. In fact, I guess I've been here ever since--all day, actually."
"What happened to the light?"
"It shone for a while this time--a couple hours. Judy - you know with the two kids down the street? - saw it and came over with the kids for a while. We watched it. She brought over lawn chairs and Josh, her eight year old, climbed up the maple tree to get a better look. At about that time WGME showed up and the light disappeared while they parked. It lasted a while. No 'angels' this time--as Dawn calls those people in the light."
The two spoke in front of Joyce's house. David had no intention of getting near his own house, nor talking to the press, who had parked their minivan on the other side of the street, apparently to camp out there for the night.
"I can't go home," David said. He looked at his watch. It was almost 5:30 pm. "I'm gonna go have a beer." He was quite frustrated now. It had been a long day of ups and downs. His legs were hurting but he couldn't even relax now with the local news watching out for him.
He slowly made his way back down the street past the playground and the library to Roman's Half Full Pub. He entered and sat down in a booth. The place was empty. The server who was stacking glasses beside the table greeted him. "Hi Dave! Want a beer?"
"Hi Jill, yeah, please. Just a PBR draft. Thanks."
She smiled. "No problem!" On her way across the room she asked, "Did that earthquake wake you up this morning?"
"Earthquake? Nope, I don't think so." It took a moment for David to recognize that Jill might be referring to the thud that the light had made when it pulsed.
"Wow!" she exclaimed from behind the bar. "It was loud, early this morning; sounded like an explosion right in our neighborhood, but it made the ground shake."
"Did anyone report damage?"
Jill returned with a frosty glass of beer and a coaster. "No, but the gas company sent a truck around and the fire department examined a bunch of places.... So... start a tab?"
"Oh, no thanks, Jill. I'm gonna head home soon, just need to relax for a few minutes."
"If you want, Dave, you can take your... ah... things off..."
"My braces?"
"Yeah... I'm closing up early tonight. And, you can just hang out here if you want?"
David thought for a moment. "Okay, that sounds like a good idea. How nice of you!" He stood up and pulled down his pants. Jill giggled and turned her head, with her hand shielding her eyes, but peeking between her fingers.
"It's OK, Jill, I'm not shy."
"Well, maybe I am!" she joked, "...sometimes..."
David pushed the big black buttons on either side of him, a series of clicks unlocked the straps of the braces and then the unit unlocked and powered down. "They're really supposed to be worn on the outside of my pants. But people stare."
"It's really amazing what you've done, Dave! Did you get money to produce them yet?"
He carefully lowered himself back down to the seat, standing the braces up beside him in the booth. Then he sighed heavily and looked up at her. "Almost, Jill...almost." He raised his beer like a toast and took a big guzzle.
"Looks like your only 'Half Full' Dave, Roman would never approve."
"Ha! You're right. Let's start a tab after all."
Jill laughed and took off her waist apron, tossing it onto the bar. She pulled two glasses out of the freezer and filled them both with Pabst, then turned off the neon "OPEN" sign, drew the shades and locked the front door. She came back to David's table, sliding him one of the beers and then sitting opposite him with her own frosty draft.
She looked very pretty tonight. He remembered she had once said she was Taiwanese. Her black hair was falling out of its barrette in back. He watched her slender fingers adjusting the coaster, then scratching Chinese characters in the frost around the outside of the glass. He glanced at her almond shaped eyes. They were light brown, with specks of green--stunning. He'd wondered why he'd never really noticed her beauty before. She looked up from her glass and caught his stare. They smiled at each other. He guessed she was about ten years younger than him. There were worse things he could be doing on a Monday night than hanging out with a beautiful young woman like Jill, in his underwear!, drinking beer.
"Jill, you don't have to hang with me."
"Oh, I don't mind! We never get a chance to just talk." She reached out and held his hand. "I don't know much about you."
"You're very sweet, Jill. There's not much to know. I'm a robotics engineer with legs that don't work... and I have... crazy dreams." He drew her hand up and kissed it on the middle knuckle, then laid it back on the table releasing it.
"You're more than what you do, Dave. We all are. For example, I'm just a scared little girl outside of this place. I work because I feel comfortable here, not because I'm a waitress." She took another swig of beer. "Tell me about these crazy dreams."
David looked back down at her hands while he thought for a moment. "I fly in them."
"You mean like superman?"
"Well...kind of..."
"My mother used to have many flying dreams. In her dreams she would always be near her childhood home in Zhouzhuang. She said she would fly around the canals and then return to her bed. Even after we moved off the mainland to Taipei she said she would go back when she dreamed and visit her home--fly around there. I think she still does it every now and then."
"Really? Wow. Mine often happen where I grew up too! I've had these aeronaut dreams before in my life, but now they're coming every night... They seem so real. Well... I should say 'every morning,' just before I wake up. This morning I dreamed I was in Portland and flew back towards my own childhood house in Yarmouth..."
"Did your house look the same as you remembered it?"
"I never made it actually... I woke up." David took a drink. After swallowing he said "...and then something strange happened this morning... You know that earthquake you asked about?" Jill nodded. "Well, I think I might have witness the thing that caused it."
"Really? What was it?"
"There was a light - a light above my house - a few neighbors saw it too--Dawn Bowman, Joyce Case and Melinda Bradley... I think that's her name? Before it disappeared something came out of it, a colored ray, that was after it pulsed. That's why the ground shook; the pulse."
"A UFO!"
"No...I don't think so. It was pretty small. The three women with me each had a different interpretation. Of course Dawn thought it was a miracle from Jesus..."
"Ha! Of course... What did you think it was?"
David sighed. "I had no idea. But when I got home from work WGME was interviewing Joyce in front of my house. Apparently the light had returned, appearing in the same place again during the afternoon. In fact, come to think of it, at 10:00 pm there will probably be something on Channel 13 about it. Their van is still parked across the street from my house when I got back there."
"Is that why you're here?" Jill pointed down.
"Ha, ha! Yes, you got it. I guess now I have to sneak back to my house."
"You don't have to. Come home with me. You can sleep on the couch tonight if you want?" She raised her eyebrows innocently. "It's just me and my mother."
As appealing as that sounded at first. He thought it might be awkward to be at Jill's with her mother around. He did like the idea of being with Jill for as long as possible, but he just couldn't accept the offer. "That's very generous, Jill. But I just can't impose on you. And, I have another meeting in the morning."
"I understand. Suit yourself." She smiled and then tossed back the rest of her beer.
Believing he may have missed the opportunity of a lifetime, David hasted to add... "I would very much like to meet your mother sometime though and ask her about her dreams."
Jill perked up a bit. "She would love that! She likes to talk about her time growing up in China too." Then she suddenly jumped up and ran over to the bar clock. "Speaking of my mother... She wanted a ride to the pharmacy tonight. I'm sorry, Dave! I have to leave. Roman is out of town until tomorrow night. You are welcome to stay as long as you want. Beer's on the house! Just lock up when you leave. Oh...and remember to put your pants back on!"
"Thanks, Jill. I won't be here too much longer." David watched her grab her coat and keys. She had a kind of grace that he wanted to see more of; something he made a mental note to do. "Oh... Jill?"
"Yeah?"
"Ask your mom if she ever became aware that she was dreaming when she flew."
"Um... Okay. I think she said she always knew it was a dream, but I'll ask her." She unlocked and opened the door, locked it again from the inside and stepped out into the night, clicking it shut behind her.
David ran his hands over his legs. They felt cold. He reached over and grabbed one of the braces. He held it on his lap. It was quite an amazing little gadget. Still, even now he wished he didn't need it. That old childhood feeling of "being different" reared up inside him. His frustration with the universe for doing this to him had never really faded. He had to admit to himself that things had gotten better. He was no longer confined to a wheelchair. He had a good job and his invention was set to help millions of people. He simply wished he wasn't alone all the time. Being with Jill reminded him of that. He had 'desires' just like any other man. Maybe he was too old to attract a woman like Jill? But he thought that there just had to be someone out there for him. Or, maybe it didn't matter either way?
He checked his watch: 10:06. The News! Scooting to the edge of the seat, he clicked on each of the braces, which clamped around his legs. They raised him up to a standing position. He walked over and behind the bar picking up the remote and turning on the TV along the way. He entered "1-3" into the remote and heard the reporter's voice...
"...That was the scene here earlier today outside and above a Mr. David L. Vogel's house. Vogel has not been home since going to work early this morning. We hope to get a comment from him later tonight or tomorrow. Again, a strange light was seen in Portland today for two hours over a house near Deering. I'm Lexie O'Connor reporting for WGME Channel 13 News. Back to you Kim." He poured himself another beer behind the bar then went back to the booth and sat down. The rest of the news was typical and local, so he turned off the TV.
He felt sleepy but didn't want to go home. A short nap might be good. He turned the lights off, went over to the couch by the window, removed his braces and laid down. He put his beer on the floor by the foot of the couch and rested his head on the low arm.
[Please continue on for the conclusion in Parts 4 and 5.]
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