Jacob Miller
Snatching the mail from the box without pausing was a game,
a game that could break your arm if you didn’t pop the box door, swing it down,
grab the mail, and slam it shut before you rolled past in the car. A game he’s won every time until today.
The Urgent Care part of the hospital was packed tight,
shoulder to shoulder. He’d have walked
out if it weren’t for his left arm swinging uselessly at his side. The sick and injured we packed together like
sardines; if he left here without catching some type of disease, he’d be very
lucky.
A tubby bald guy about 50, pushing a cart with water
bottles, small snacks, stopped in front of Jacob. “Water,” he questioned in a bored voice.
“I’m fine,” Jacob replied, matching the bored tone.
“Would you like me to look up your position in the
queue?” Same boring voice.
“That would be great, thanks” Jacob said with dreaded
enthusiasm.
“Looks like you have five people in front of you, that’s
about 45 minutes.” Tubby turned and
walked off to the next person without pause.
50 minutes passed slowly, but the call finally came. Jacob saw Doctor Michael Strobe, M.D.
“Yep, it’s broken, let's get a couple X-rays and make sure
there aren’t any surprises. So, down
to X-ray, then stop by the Lab, we’ll
pull some blood, just to be thorough.”
“Can I just get it cast and go home?
“You're looking at just another hour; we need to know if
there are any chips or fragments that I can’t see without the X-rays. The blood draw is to make sure all the levels
are good with nothing out of line.” Doctor Strobe said, showing
frustration. “X-rays, Labs, then come
back up here and I’ll see you for two minutes, then straight to the cast room
and home. I promise!”
Two and a half hours later, Jacob pulled into his driveway,
giving the mailbox the bird as he rolled by.
……………………………………………
A week of being pissed off, ready to cut the cast off, with
five or more weeks to go. Jacob walked
down the driveway to the offending mailbox.
Normal junk with one letter from the doctor's Office requesting that he
see Doctor Strobe on Friday, the 9th, @ 8:00 am, giving him the
address, floor, and room number.
“What? Shit.”
Jacob left the house at 7 am, not knowing the traffic or
where he was going. The address was not
at the Hospital or his normal doctor's Office.
He asked Siri for directions and, 30 minutes later, was sitting in a
small parking lot outside of a nondescript building with only the address
numbers above the double glass doors.
Three stories of concrete turned grey from time and elements, small
slanted windows made the building look more like a jail than an Office
building. Walking to the double door, a
small sign taped in the middle of the left side's glass stated to press the
button on the wall next to the Office number you were visiting, wait for the
door to buzz, and enter.
“Oh, this is fucked.”
He pressed 207.
The door buzzed, Jacob grabbed the handle with his broken
arm. The pain was instant. “FUCK this is getting worse by the minute.” He pulled with his right hand. The door had locked shut. Louder, “FUCK ME!”
The elevator was in the center right of the small foyer,
which hadn’t seen a janitor in months, maybe years. Grime, leaves, and a few cigarette butts made
small piles in the corners. The walls
were bare concrete smoothed with a trowel.
Looking around, he made a decision: “Fuck this, I’m out of here!”
As he fought the locked door, the elevator opened behind
him, staying open. “Christ, I can’t
believe this.”
The elevator car smelled of ancient cigarettes and something
odd, like old dirty socks, with a hint of puke.
He could feel a gag response nearing as the doors opened, he jumped out,
nearly hitting the far wall. His face
inches from the sign showing him rooms 205 – 210 with a little arrow pointing
to his right.
Turning to his right, the hallway looked far longer than the
building looked from the outside. The
jail-like windows he’d seen were spaced along the outside of the hall to the
right, facing the parking lot. Still
narrow and spaced a little too far apart, it just didn’t look right, out of
sync with the universe.
“Geezzz, let’s get this over with,” through clenched
teeth.
Room 205 was twenty feet down the hall with no lettering or
signage, just plain numbers screwed into the door. Passing two doors without handles, he found
207 another 30 feet along the hall.
“Okay… where’d 206 go?”
Standing in front of Door 207, a small sign said “Please
knock.” The hallway continued
another 75 feet, by his best guess. Remembering the dimensions of the building
from outside in the parking lot, this building must connect to the next
building internally. Strange.
Jacob knocked gently twice; the door buzzed.
Stepping into a small space, a woman in a black pant suit,
about 50 to 80, totally ageless, with silver hair but with zero wrinkles,
greeted him and asked him to step into the next room. “The Doctor will see you in just a minute.”
Sitting down next to the Hospital bed, the room was equipped
with the regular doctor’s office equipment.
Small but larger than the normal examination room. Three plastic chairs, one of which he sat,
and two others, plus the normal black plastic-topped stool, filled in the
vacant area.
With a quiet double tap on the door, the Doctor stepped in,
introducing himself as Doctor Roberts. Two men in suits entered without
introductions and filled the two empty plastic chairs, large men, knees inches
from his.
“I thought I was seeing Doctor Strobe?”
“Doctor Strobe will not be joining us today. We asked you to meet with us today to discuss
some rather interesting findings in your recent Labs, specifically a special
quality in the healing properties. You
are a universal donor, did you know that?
Your blood can be given directly to another without worries of a
mismatch of any kind. That is remarkable
to say in the least.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about. I think this is something I’d rather talk to
my regular Doctor about.”
One of the large men placed his hand on Jacob’s knee,
squeezing it tightly.
“Mister Miller, your car has been taken back to your
home. We’re making sure everything is
secure, including your home. You will be
staying with us for a few days. Your work has been notified of a short
absence. You will be very well taken
care of while with us as we run a few tests.”
“I don’t understand, you can’t just kidnap me!”
“Mister Miller, let me explain how you came to us… the Lab had an accident while handling your
blood sample. A small drop of your blood
was splashed into a vial containing a sample from a person dying from
cancer. When placed under the
microscope, that person's blood had zero cancer cells living in the
sample. The technician then placed your
blood into another cancer patient's blood sample, and the same thing
happened. Your blood killed the cancer
cells nearly instantly. The technician
had once worked for us in his youth and called us immediately. You are now a special interest to the
National Security of the United States.
We’ve received orders to investigate this from the highest levels of the
Government. We can only ask you to
willingly participate with us for a few days.
This is of the utmost importance for our County.”
“I’m not a gunny pig for the Government, I know nothing
about what you are talking about. If you
want my cooperation, then let me talk to my Doctor, and we can decide what
tests we should do.”
“Mister Miller, Jacob, if the properties in your blood are
true, the first person you will save is the President of the United States, who
has stage four cancer. You may very well
be his last hope. This has been kept
from the people of the United States to this point; we are not in a position to
lose him at the moment. We are asking
you to give us just a few days to see if we/you can save him, then you are free
to go.”
“I don’t know what to say?”
“Say yes for a few days, We’ll give you a few minutes to
think about it.”
…………………………
The boom shook the building; the second dropped half the
floor by two inches. The door the Doctor had used hung at an alarming angle,
dust filled the air. Jabob's ears ringing he could hear voices; hands clawed at
the door edges. Pulling hard, the door squealed,
sliding to one side, Jacob crawled under the bottom into the adjoining room
filled with medical equipment.
“This way!” The rest was cut off by automatic gunfire; the
sound was close and deafening. He was
grabbed from behind, lifted, and thrown over an overturned cabinet. One of the suits peered down a hallway and
was met with automatic fire. Pointing,
he screamed Go that way as the door jam exploded. Running across one room into another,
throwing doors open, then slamming them shut, turning locks to slow the pursuit,
they found themselves in a laundry room.
“Down the chute!” The first suit climbed in and was gone. Jacob ran to the opening and looked down,
about five feet below, the suit was quickly going down with knees against each
wall. He looked up to Jacob. “Use your knees, come on!” Jacob followed as fast as he could without
falling.
Dropping eight feet into a laundry basket, the suit pulled
him to the nearest wall, short-barreled pistol pointing towards the laundry
room door. Suit two dropped into the
basket.
Pushed/pulled by the nap of his neck, he was thrown in the
back of a car. “Keep your head down, this is going to be shit!” “If I get hit
and we crash, you run for your life!”
Yelling over the roar of the engine. “Where’s your partner?”
“He’s slowing them down!”
Jacob was thrown from one side of the backseat to the other
as the suit took numerous corners at high speed, putting as much distance as
possible between them and the building. Then,
as quickly as it started, they slowed and matched traffic.
“Where are we going?”
“I have no idea, my phone got dropped somewhere. Right now, I have no idea where’s safe,
someone tipped someone off, and now you are a hot commodity.”
30 minutes of driving, taking numerous turns, backtracking,
making sure they are not being followed.
The suit stopped on the side of the road and scanned the sky for drones,
none that he could see.
“I’ve got a friend I think can help us, he’s about an hour
away, he’s got a sick daughter, so I know he or his wife will be home, and he’s
not closely connected to me or you.”
“Can I set up?”
“I think it’s okay now, jump up front.” “I’m special agent Thorne.”
Jacob shook his hand.
“Do you think your partner or any of them made it?”
“No.” Was the only answer he got. They rode on in silence.
………………………………
The house was down a fairly long driveway that ended after
making a sweeping left-hand turn. Agent
Thorne pulled the car around the garage and parked behind the house on the
lawn.
“Just park anywhere that feels good, Pete.” Laughing.
“Sorry, Brian, we’re kind of hiding. This is Jacob Miller. I’m
trying to keep him alive. I hope you don’t
mind us stopping by. We kind of need a
little help.”
“Mr. Miller, this is Brian Marks, retired Army Scout, Medic.”
…………………………….
The house didn’t look like much from the outside, but
stepping in, it was amazing. Completely
redone in a modern style, walls white, trim black, grays of different shades. Cozy modern came to mind.
Over lunch, Agent Thorne gave Brian a quick rundown on the day's
events. Brian immediately told them they
could stay as long as needed. He winked
and hinted that he had all the firepower they could use.
“How’s your daughter doing, with everything going on? I forgot
to ask earlier.”
“She’s not doing well. Jan has her at the Clinic doing another series
of IVs. It’s not looking good. We’re trying to keep our hopes up.” Brian was looking at his hands when a small
tear started down his face, but he caught it quickly.
“I’m sorry, Brian.”
Jan got home just before dinner with Amy from the hospital
and put her right to bed. Jan looked exhausted,
but started dinner right away.
Dinner finished, Jan brought Amy from the back bedroom and
sat her just to Jacob’s right. She was
eight but looked like she was eighty.
Skin gray, eyes sunken, she didn’t look like she had long to live. Dinner went quickly, conversation shallow and
short. Jan helped Amy back to bed.
“Agent Thorne, you heard what the doctor said. I’m a universal donor, possibly a super
healer… You know where I’m going with this?”
“Seeing Amy, the thought had crossed my mind.”
“What’s going on?” Brian
asked with eyes wide open.
………………………….
Brian and Jan were gone, talking for a long time. Jan stepped into the kitchen with swollen red
eyes, hands bright pink from wringing them hard.
“You're sure you can help?”
“No. I don’t know that.
I just found out today after being kidnapped by our Government, maybe
the same Government that is trying to kill me now.”
“Honey, it’s a chance, a chance we won’t get again. We’ve both agreed to try any treatment that might
have a possibility to help.” “We’ve tried everything they’ve got; nothing
works.”
…………………………
Brian had a medical pack from the Army in the basement. He had a hard time finding a vein that wasn’t
scarred from all the treatments Amy had gone through. Twenty minutes and Amy was back in bed,
quickly falling to sleep. We all sat in
the kitchen looking at one another. Two
drinks later, we all found a place to sleep.
………………………….
Breakfast came early.
Jan was the first up and made pancakes, bacon, and a huge pot of coffee.
“Let me get Amy up I’ll be right back.”
“Brian!” Jan's voice
from down the hallway sounded in a panic.
Both Jacob and Agent Thorne looked at each other. Dread filled their hearts.
Footsteps coming down the hall. Amy was in front, followed by her
parents. She pulled her chair out and
grabbed a hotcake. Jan and Brian just
stood in the doorway, mouths agape.
“Good morning, Amy, did you sleep well?’ Ask Jacob.
That broke the ice; both parents' tears rolled unstopped. Jacob poured syrup on Amy’s pancake until she
said “good”.
………………………….
The small Piper Cub taxied to a parking space feet away from
a large hangar. Stepping from the plane,
two men walked to a small man door to the right of the huge doors. Stepping in, a large jet filled the hangar,
leaving little space from wing tip to wing tip of the walls. The stairs going up to the open door were
steep and narrow.
“Hello, Mr. President.”
“Hello, I hear you're my guardian angel.”
“I’m hoping so, Sir.”
“Well, let’s find out, shall we?”
From the Ramblings
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