Save Her

Natalie - Chapter 4-2

“Tell me about the Amber alert,” Agent Love says.

“No!” Her outburst surprises both of them. “No, Agent Love. I need to know that Livia is safe. Reassure me.” If they can’t prove Livia is safe, then Natalie can go sit in her room quietly and peacefully and ignore all the rest of their questions until the day she escapes, or her baby enters the world. “Tell me she’s alright. Prove it. Videotape her today. Show me the video before we’re done. I’m sure your company can do that, what with technology so easy these days, and with all the powers I know you’re capable of.” Agent Love stares. She’s deciding what to do. “And it’s not like you don’t already have somebody following her in case Drayden pays her a visit. Agent Love looks up to the camera above me and nods to it. Natalie continues: “The boy had been snatched right out of his mum’s arms in broad daylight. I think it might have been Florida, come to think of it. Yes, that’s right. It was Florida. Somebody saw a man take the kid and put him in a blue van. The man who took the child was strung out, Drayden later told me, and probably thought he could get some money for the kid, and he most likely was going to use that money for drugs. Half the day was gone already, and the police had had no luck. So Drayden — poof! — fragged to Florida and floated high above the area, searched all the blue vans fitting the description, and then found the bad guy asleep inside his van.

“Poof?”

“Well, it’s much more scientific than that, and Reginald was the brains behind discovering that possibility and then the remaining limitations, but my Drayden is quite brilliant as well! He used his programming skills to write a bunch more algorithms to do the things he can do now.”

“Have you ever teleported with Drayden?”

“Ha. You want to know if it’s possible for him to steal me out of here.” Natalie leans forward as if it’s a secret just between girls. “Yes, it is. Shhh,” Natalie says, putting her index finger to her lips and nodding over to the pane of mirrored glass to her right. “But I’m not supposed to talk to you about that quite yet. Not until I see Livia, you know. The little boy was only four and was all wrapped up with duct tape so he couldn’t move. His mouth was covered with tape as well, and he was terrified. Drayden said he had never seen a look of such pure fear. That poor kid. The guy woke up, and Drayden punched him in the face but didn’t mean to actually—” Natalie stops herself. A moment passes before Agent Love realizes Natalie is not going to continue.

“He killed the kidnapper?” Agent Love asks.

“I didn’t say that,” Natalie says. She looks up to the cameras, aware of every shred of evidence they’re collecting, and knows much better than to give them absolutely everything they want. “He saved the boy. That’s what matters. He untied him and brought him back to his mother. What happened to the kidnapper? Who cares. I don’t know because I wasn’t there. You’ll just have to ask Drayden, I guess. But thank goodness he found that boy, right?”

Agent Love nods her head once, almost imperceptibly. “You said Drayden floated high above. Explain that.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I’m not trying to be difficult, but that really is over my head. Ha! You see what I did there?” Agent Love gets it but isn’t amused. “Nothing? Nothing at all? Tough crowd. I’m funnier when you get to know me better. Anyway, I know that the nanos make it possible because of the way they fused with his cells, but he can explain it much better than I, I assure you.”

“Please try,” Agent Love says.

Natalie sits forward quickly. “Please? Oh, Agent Love! I’m so happy. That makes me so so happy! I will do a lot for a good please. Okay, so he found one of Reginald’s papers on the subject and took it to another level. He explained it once, and it got very quantum mechanic-ey and dry very quickly. Quantum-something. Quantum-engagement? No, that’s not right. I’ll think of it. Basically, there’s a whole energy shift that the nanos inside his cells, or tissues, or wherever they are, are able to harness at the same time they calculate the algorithm to go from here to there faster than the speed of light.” Natalie bangs her hands on the table. “It’s instantaneous. So fast. When he appears out of nowhere, it’s like he was right there in front of me all along. Really trippy stuff. He was excited about that part — I mean the energy part — but he was really excited about the algorithms he knew he could manipulate to go faster all over the world. He coded for so long on that, just trying to speed up his fragging times. He can be here here here and here!” Natalie says while pointing all around the room. “All as fast as a—” Natalie snaps her fingers once. “Drayden said Reginald’s research was incredible. It started with Reginald researching teleportation of atoms. That’s been possible for a while, but Reginald was trying it by entangling — that’s it! Quantum entanglement! — he biologically entangled the atoms with nanos into larger and larger tissues and then finally into living tissue until he had success. You know what he teleported successfully the first time? Can you guess? Wait, do you already know this?”

Agent Love shakes her head ‘no.’ She’s very curious. She leans forward.

“Oh good,” Natalie rubs her hands together. “Makes me feel good I’m not just blabbering about stuff you already know. Okay, well it’s small — tiny — and it can jump, and it bites—”

“A flea,” Agent Love guesses.

“Yes! The first several hundred fleas didn’t fare so well, but then he got it right. The nanoarchitecture fused the right way with the flea’s DNA. He excited the energy, and voila! Flea teleportation. Or, to use Drayden’s way of calling things, flea frag!”

“Why a flea?” Agent Love asks.

“Maybe you should have asked him that before murdering him.”

Agent Love opens her mouth as if about to respond but stops. Natalie’s was a blunt call-out, and Agent Love chooses better than to deny it. They stare at each other for a long twenty seconds.

“After he saved the boy. What happened then?”

Natalie releases her tension and thinks back to the night in question. “Oh right. That’s where we were. I’m sure you guessed that Drayden came back.” Natalie doesn’t try to contain a small smile. She might not have been able to repress it even if she wanted to. “That night — no, that entire day — was magical for me. I had no doubt that I was in love with him. I know that sounds young and immature to say, but I knew. It was what it was. His presence made me comfortable, made me want to lean into him, to match his adoring smile, to touch his hand again and feel that surge of electricity throughout every part of my body, even the parts that had up until that night been hidden from every other man.” Natalie waits because she wants Agent Love to ask her the question.

“You were a virgin?”

“Uh huh.”

“Did he know that?”

“I told him later, but we were already going to go forward with the deed, regardless of my history or his. He was already touching me, and my body was already responding the way it always does whenever he gets so close. I long for him, and he longs for me. I mean, not to brag or anything, and please don’t take this literally, but you really should see us together. It’s quite something to experience, the way we are one when our clothes are off and when our mouths are connected, and our lungs are breathing hot over the other’s skin. He takes me so willingly, never talks or asks me anything because my body tells him everything it has to.” Natalie pulls back from the thoughts because she’s too involved, and that’s unhealthy without Drayden in the same room, and it’s wrong to share such intimate feelings with cameras watching and speaking to a woman who looks like her heart had been destroyed long ago by a man, or possibly even a woman. Natalie suspects it’s a man, though, because of how Agent Love didn’t blink a single blink during her short summary of passion. “But I told you this started with my parents and Livia, so let me get back to that. I practically skipped home to tell Livia everything Dray and I had talked about, and how he had asked if he could see me again! As I neared my residence, I saw my father’s Bentley and slowed to a full stop. Oh my, I can tell you that seeing him was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to be a girl in love! I wanted to think about Drayden! The only thing worse would be if Mother came also, and as if on cue, they opened their doors and got out at the same time. I smiled like I always did when I saw them, and properly ran to them to give them their proper hugs and cheek-kisses, but all I could think about was the mystery man who ran from cops and made my heart feel skippy.

“‘What a wonderful surprise,’ I said to them, worried they would ask why I wasn’t in class.

“‘Darling, you look absolutely stunning,’ my father said.

“‘I agree,’ said my mom as if I had just sprouted my boobs and my cutesy, young woman butt. ‘You are radiant. Glowing. Isn’t she glowing, Hon?’

“‘You are,’ said my father, suspiciously. ‘We were hoping to surprise you after your morning class,’ he said. My mom looked at her watch when he said this.

“‘And how is school?’

“‘Same. You know, study-study-study. That’s all I seem to do,’ I said, feeling my mother’s eyes scanning me.

“‘Do you think you can tear yourself away from all your books to visit us this weekend?’ My mom looked down at my empty arms when she said this.

“‘Yes, I’m all caught up,’ I lied and tried to smile. Any update on the car? Will it be all fixed up soon?

“At this, they smiled. My father nodded to my mother, who used her cell phone to call somebody.

“‘What’s funny?’ I said.

“‘Okay, Livia. It’s time,’ mother said on the phone.

“I turned around towards my building expecting to see Livia coming out or looking through the window or something, but I had turned the wrong way. My father redirected my shoulders to face towards the far corner of the street where a slow-moving car had turned cautiously, leaving much too much room on the side of the curb, ignoring the pace of normal traffic completely. It was this incredibly gorgeous Bentley convertible that was taking forever to arrive. It was as sexy as it was expensive. As frosty white as a cream popsicle. Mind you, I’m not a car person, but this thing was just… wow. On top of the windshield was the tiniest of pink bows. Through the windshield, I saw Livia. She peered around her more terrified than I’ve ever seen her. She coasted closer and closer and then lurched it to a sudden halt over ten feet away from where I was standing. She opened the door quickly and got out and sighed anxiously. It was too beautiful to be a present for me, but that’s obviously what it was. Something to replace mine that had hit Drayden. But I liked my little BMW! It was cute and had pick-up, and it blended in with the type of normal society I longed to be a part of. This new thing was so beautiful — too beautiful! — but it was a behemoth, heavy, weighty, bulky — not me at all, and not at all who I wanted to be.

“‘The other one wasn’t up to our standards,’ mother said.

“I stepped slowly towards it. It’s funny, but I thought if I had hit Drayden with this poised and polished monster of a vehicle, surely he would have died. If the impact from the blow didn’t do it, then certainly running him over with this weighty mammoth would have squashed one of his beautiful parts. Oh my god, they got me a Bentley. They were determined to make me them if it killed them.

“‘She’s speechless,’ my dad said proudly. ‘Do you love it?’

“I turned to them. ‘Dad, it’s lovely, it is truly, and thank you, but I’m kind of… I love my little hipster BMW. This is beautiful, and I’m sure it’s a dream to drive—’ At this, Livia shook her head ‘no’ so that only I could see her. ‘But the Beemer is just more… acceptable? Is that right word? I want to blend. In that, I can’t blend.’