“C’mere Timmy,” she rasped. “Take this.”

I held out my hand. I felt her place a cold, glass tube in my palm.

“Thanks, Gram .What is it?”

“The thing that saved the world… but killed me in the process.”

“I don’t want something that killed you.”

“It didn’t kill me. It made me a powerful source of good so evil wanted me dead. Take it Timmy. Just one last favor before I die?”


“What do I do with it?”
“I don’t know,” she answered and then her eyelids drooped. “I’m old. I don’t remember.” Gram struggled to speak. “Charles,” she said, “tell him for me. Show him the Power. When the time is right.”
Then a teen swirled in from the up heaved darkness of my memory.
“It will be an honor to be his Messenger.”
With tears streaming down my face, stinging my eyes, I didn’t think to ponder further about who Charles was.
But then she smiled and it fills my heart with happiness that she died smiling peacefully. She fell asleep… and slept forever.

The tube is the specimen. I’ve been experimenting with it for as long as I can imagine. When I graduated college and became a scientist it became my life focus. No one had seen anything like it before so bravely going where no one’s gone before, I’m figuring it out.

But now. Now I realize I’ve been doing it wrong all along. Now that it’s in my body I can feel it and I know it’s not from anywhere on earth. Being a scientist I’ve looked at it in a scientist’s perspective. This stuff is unnatural. It’s a different kind of science than I’ve been trained to do.

I need to get outta here! I feel strong. Don’t lock me in a cage! I feel energy pulsing in every fiber of me!

I stare at the fogged-up window. I see free people. They have the whole world to explore. I have this boring, white room. Just need to get past the window.
If I can break the door I can break the window. Plan ahead! Plan ahead! I need a rope to get down from this high.

I take the bed sheets and tie them into a knotted, plump rope. Well, kind of. It isn’t long enough to go down all five stories. That’s fine, there’s a ledge every story.


I pump my fists and shatter the glass. I drop the handmade rope down and push the top under the bed. It comes 3 feet shy of the first landing. It’ll do.
I shoot through the window and shimmy down the rope. Y’know what?
It’s easy!


Or at least it was! The nurse ushers my daughter and wife into my room and what do they see?

I hear two gasps as loud as thunder, roaring in my ears. My wife and daughter are seeing me break out of a hospital like a bandit! The nurse is on the phone now dialing some numbers. I see them like they’re engraved in my head. I see every part of the sleek, white phone in immaculate detail. I saw her claw-like, pink (not white) fingernails punching in the numbers: 911!

I keep going.

I reach the first landing and pull the rope from under the bed. It slips out easily.

I wrap it loosely around a window arch. One story down; four more to go.


I scramble down the rope again. Three more to go. Then I look down. The pit of my stomach churns uneasily. My feet dangle in midair. There’s just empty air below me. Just empty. One mistake and I’ll be falling… falling… splat.

I carefully hug the rope and inch down. I’m stronger now. I’m changed. But I’m still a weak, nerdy scientist in the head.

I’m still me and that’ll never change. I’m still really scared and that’s the problem exactly.




Beep! Beep! I almost drop the rope to block my ears from the deafening noise. The world flashes red and blue on my frightened face.

From above I can see an ambulance screeching to a halt next to the sidewalk and police spilling out.

I hear the roar of a fire truck. The fire truck streaks around the corner and parks next to the ambulance as firemen pile out.


The fire truck unrolls its ladder stretching up to my neck. They’re going to help me climb down as if I were a cat in a tree and then probably return me to the hospital. No!



I keep going… and bam! Two more stories to go.


There’s an audience now. Pedestrians stare at me as if I were an alien from another planet. I guess They’re right I am. Not just an alien to them but to myself.


I feel hot breath on my shoulder. A firelady is next to me, straddling her legs on the ladder. “What are you doing, young man? You should be sleeping in your hospital bed, not climbing out a window!”

“ Just pretend you’re scared of me. This is only an act.“ she whispers as silky silent as the moon.

I twist my body away from her.
“Go away.” I screech, “I’m just human. Just like you.” Even as I say it I don’t believe it. Could I really be considered human anymore? “You don’t need to put on some act. Whatever you’re doing!”


“We are only trying to hide you. We know you have the Power.” She whispers.


It’s the first time I hear that word. Some thing in my head clicks. My body roars with intensity. Her arm stretches forward to grab me and pull me down. I don’t think twice. I spring down off the second story platform. Voices scream in my head as I hurdle down onto the ground. Peoples’ faces twist before me in a mash of colors, staring at me with horror… But then I land with perfect ease on all fours. People cheer!



They don’t know me, I expect. But they care for me at that moment and I feel a powerful connection to these people witnessing my escape. My body tingles with happiness. I’m safe on the ground. Out of the &90^%*$###@)!~”& ing, white hospital room with the whole world ahead of me.
But I don’t know where to go next… From this moment I know nothing will ever be the same.

“Did you see that hospital turd, Miggers?”

“Yes sir, Dr.Jackson!”

“Did you see that supernatural glow in his eyes? The way he moved with ease like an alien from another planet? Did you see his Power?”

“Yessireee!”

“Well that’s what I want you idiot. That’s exactly what I want!”

Dr.Jackson turned his hideous scarred up face. “I’m gonna get it and you’re gonna help me…and if you don’t...”He shot his perfidious glare in Migger’s face, “If you don’t... let’s not go there...”



Dr. Jackson laughed, beaming with triumph as Miggers backed up, shivering, into a corner. The power he had to scare others! Amazing! Power gave Dr.Jackson energy. The power flowing through his veins made him feel special. But power was his drug now and he wanted more! He just had power and the hospital idiot had Power.


“You better not fail me, Miggers!”
Dr.Jackson leaned close and Miggers could feel his sour breath and his hungry eyes.

“I’d never fail you! Never! Never! Never!”


“What’s the plan, Miggers?”


“Uncover the enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them.”


“That’s what I like to hear!”


This time his scheme was going to succeed.






*



*


*

I was all over the news. I’ve always wanted to be in the news but not in this way. I wanted to be in the news for creating a cure for autism or discovering some disease. But for escaping a hospital building, I’m considered almost infamous.





*


*


*

It’s been weeks since the hospital. I feel quite normal. People have dropped the subject on me. Just another new story that adds up to nothing in the end. Doctors have concluded I’m perfectly healthy now. I’m even going back to work next week.


Early in the morning I stroll over to the supermarket to buy some formula for my baby girl, Josie. G-d bless her rosebud complexion and cute little smile. G-d bless her smile that could only be compared to this cool, morning sunrise.


The sun rose in a soft, pastel blend of soothing chartreuse intermingled with a deep blue of early morning.


It would be nice but not for long. There is one bad neighborhood I have to get past to get to the supermarket.
My body shivers and cringes as I make my way through a muddy sidewalk strewn with shining candy wrappers and styrofoam fast food soda cups, murky brown soda spilling across my feet. The wind almost knocks me off my feet. A piece of mildewed, drab paper hits me in the face.
It advertises a new kind of gun.



Then I see a poor schnorrer sagging against the side of a graffiti-stained brick building. His wiry hair is a gray whirlwind of trash. He sits there staring at me, just staring at me... and the whole world as it passes him by. A few coins clink in the plastic cup he shakes as his eyes plead for more. I’m worried if I just give him money he’ll use it to buy drugs, alcohol or something he doesn’t need.
I can’t bear to just walk away. I hold out a tuna fish sandwich lunch. I don’t like tuna so the sandwich lacks fish but that’s okay.



The man yanks my hand. His grip is like steel. He twists my arm and cackles like a lunatic. He’s surprisingly strong. But I’m stronger. Instinctively, I slash him across the face with my other hand, blood spurting from his lip. I stare at the fresh blood oozing down my hand. I don’t want to be violent. I don’t want to. But I don’t want to die either. I latch my hand on to the thing closest to me to pull myself up: his beard. It feels… synthetic. I jerk at its artificial fluff as I hear the screeching of the adhesive being ripped off his skin. I jump to my feet. The beggar screams with agony. His eyes glare with portent, more alive than the sleepy slits I saw before as he leaned against the rundown building.


“I’m not who you think I am,” he seethes. “I’ve got you under control for your sympathy and love is your greatest weakness!”




I kick him in the balls. He holds them, whimpering and then dancing around like a chicken.


Then he just laughs, “You may have the Power and brawn on your side but I have technology and preparation on mine.”



He jumps aside and runs. The ground beneath me rumbles with thunder.
A precisely cut circle with about a three-yard diameter underneath me begins to lower. Suddenly it streaks down with a jolt of blurry speed. My veins pumping with adrenaline, I shoot up like a bullet. In midair I twist so my body is a lined up to grab onto a pipe running down the wall.
I cat hold off it and pull myself up to a window ledge and… BOOM!
I roar with anguish. My head explodes like fireworks. Searing pain charges from head to toe. My back spasms.

“You got him good, Miggers,” I hear someone say.
I strain to hold on. But my grip is loosening. Then dusk engulfs me. In my last seconds of consciousness I feel my hands slip as I fall, my head screaming, down… down… down… into an abyss of torture that seems to just keep going forever.

The first thing I feel was my back rubbing on something hard. I open my eyes. A huge glass vial circles around me, shining like crystal. But no, it’s not crystal… like metal bars on a prison or a monster’s gleaming eye as it opens its mouth to devour you. I put my hand on the glass. It’s pretty thick. Who cares? I raise my fist and pound it at the glass. My fist roars with pain. I cringe letting the pain pass. I stare at the glass. Nothing! It’s as good as new… or should I say, as bad as new.

I glance past the glass vial I’m contained in like some sort of specimen.
The vial is in a giant lab constructed of a metallic, silver material like steel. There are various monitors, steel closets, assorted chemicals in jars, and other odd doodads and equipment, but my eyes are drawn to the office where a man is sitting with his back turned to me, typing into a computer.



He turns to me sneering, “ So I see you’ve met your match, Houdini. The hospital is for wimpy beginners. Can’t get out of my cage, can you?”

He pauses for effect.
“ I asked a question, Fox. Answer it!” he roars.

“It seemed like it was meant to be a rhetorical question to me,” I counter calmly.


His head turns bloodshot and explodes, “Okay Fox. No nice guy for you. I’m doing it right now. I’m copying and taking your Power.”


WHAT??? My world is upside down!


“MIGGERS!!!” he bellows. A man cowering in the shadows of the steel room tiptoes forward.


“Yes sir, Dr.Jackson,” he answers, his voice trembling.

“Hook it up. I can’t convert the Power. But I can copy it.”

“Yes, sir!”


Miggers presses a shiny, red button. I hear a beep and then my head feels heavy. A thick cloud of smoky chemicals swirls around my body. I feel my feet slip from under me and its blackness once again.

My head swims. I feel my burning eyes open. Purple vapor drowns my eyes encircling me from head to toe. The mist rises in the air like ghosts shrouding my view.


“He’s waking up, Miggers. Go get Zombie. Then off to ready positions!”
I feel through the cloud of mist more than the crazy scientist Dr.Jackson. I feel
a magnetic pull to him, a similarity. I feel the Power pulsing in him. We both have it now.


Miggers stares at Dr.Jackson.


“Move it! I have the Power! You really wanna die!??”


Miggers trembles. His voice is shaking but he manages to speak. “If you’re so Powerful can’t you just do it yourself???”


Dr.Jackson’s head explodes again, his eyes bulging like giant eggs and his inky, black pupils so dilated he looks like a monster, which he, in my opinion, is.


“Listen here,” he roars. “That’s not the question. The question is: if I’m so
Powerful WHY do the work myself??!!!!!!”


“Yessir!”


“Good I wouldn’t want to have to do to you what I did to Hammy!”
Miggers scampers off.
I stare at Dr.Jackson. He stares back.



“It looks we both have the Power now! But I’ve won. You’ll be dead soon. I’ll
be the only Powerful one left!”


Miggers runs straight through followed by a skinny man, brown skin peeling under moss and dotted with fungus.
“See here, Fox, this is my Frankenstein, Zombie. But my Frankenstein is a success. Just wanted to let you know before you die how successful I am and how easy it will be from here to rule the world.”

So downright cocky. So full of himself. Too much confidence. He’ll never succeed.
Anyway how does having this Zombie help him take over the world?


Zombie runs to a switch and Miggers to another. “Any last words, Fox?” sneers Dr.Jackson.


I stare at him. Really this is a nightmare. This is like in a comic book. This isn’t real. Someone would kill people to rule the world? A real human? My species? My race? Is this guy human?


“Fox???”


At least he’s allowing me my last words. Maybe to show off or maybe because deep inside him he has a little heart, a little human- enough that he’s allowing me this. These last words I can use to be me. Because I’m Timmy and everyone must call me that. You can call me Fox and I know you’re trying to talk to me but I also know you’re only talking to the Fox in me. The Fox that screams to call me Timmy. People may try to make me someone else. So many people want me to be altered by who they call me… and it almost works. Almost. When Hannah calls me Dr.Fox sometimes I’m almost ready to accept it. But then I come home and I see my daughter, my Rosebud Josie giggling, lighting up like the sun. I see my wife Elizabeth playing Peek-a-boo with her and I remember I’m also a father. Or maybe I see some kids swishing that rust-orange basketball into a hoop and I remember I’m also an avid Knicks fan and I love to play basketball. I realize I’m not just Dr.Fox. I’m not just a Doctor. I’m also a father and basketball player and a husband and so much more. Timmy encompasses it all.
I’m Timmy Fox, not Fox, and you call me Timmy because that’s who I am.

“Alright, no last words, Fox. Lets go!”

“Call me Timmy!” I scream.

Dr.Jackson just stares at me perplexed, “I thought your last words would be a little more complicated ‘Timmy’, like a scientist.”

“No,” I respond, “No. That’s the point. With the name Dr.Fox people just look at me as a Doctor. People like you expect that I’m a mad scientist or a nerdy geek. I’m not like you. I’m not just a Doctor. I’m a father and I’ve got love in my heart for my little daughter Josie and my beautiful wife.”

“Okay that’s enough. Kill him Miggers.”

“One more thing. I don’t believe you’re as Powerful as me. Do you have a wife that loves you?”

“Shut him up.”

“Dr.Jackson, I want my last words to be to my wife.”

“No.”

“If you’re so Powerful show me-“

“Okay, Miggers, hand him the phone.” That’s all it takes? Questioning his ego and Power?
Miggers quivers with fear as Dr.Jackson looms over him with menacing Power sniggering like a hyena.


Miggers strides over to a sleek metal button and presses it. Then he places a metallic Iphone encrusted with gold and diamonds in a slot. It travels over the dome, hovers as a hole in the top of the dome opens up as softly as clear liquid. It drops in my hand.



“I have an Iphone of gold and diamonds. Machines and slaves to do all my work. Now you see who’s Powerful?” he jeers proudly.


“That’s what you thinks power?” I murmur.


I feel the Iphone slide against my hands, smooth. Glints of diamonds shine like grains of salt.


I weigh my options. The Police station is a few blocks away. Would Dr.Jackson be able to monitor what I say? Would he kill me before they came? Could they stop him? It’s my only hope. Go for it!


You never saw me dial so fast! My fingers fly across the touch screen. 9-1-1.
I cover up the numbers from Dr.Jackson as I dial. I hear a gruff voice in the distance,” What’s going on?”


“I’m captured by-.”

“Huh,” he interrupts. “This is Dr.Jackson’s number.”


He understands immediately. He whispers, “we’re coming.”
That’s all it takes.

“Y’done talking, Fox?- I mean ‘Timmy?” asks Dr.Jackson prominently moving his lips extra as he pronounces the word Timmy.

“I just gotta a hold of her.”

“Hurry up.”


I hold the glossy, polished Iphone against my ear and pretend to talk.
Just need to stall him a little more.

“Okay, I’m out of patience. Miggers, just kill him already. For real this time!”
Miggers doesn’t move. His face just pales.
Then he tentatively moves forward. He pulls a trigger.

Dr.Jackson shrieks, “Wrong button, Miggers!”

“Not for me.” shrugs Miggers with newfound confidence.


A hole appears in the dome, spreading out like goo. I feel renewed as puffs of fresh air slice my face. The air from outside. The air of freedom.
I dash out.


Dr.Jackson is strangling Miggers with his newfound Power.

Miggers eyes bulge. His mouth is wide open. Dr.Jackson’s eyes glitter. He laughs.

“This is Power!”

My heart almost stops. Would he really do this? Would he really kill someone?... and with pleasure? Like it’s an amusing game?

I spring onto his back, clawing on his shirt.

I swing over his head and punch him in the nose. He drops Miggers and staggers back, holding his nose.


All I can hear is Miggers rasping in the corner beside me, his lungs heaving in and out. All I can see is his ruddy, gaunt face with fresh blood streaming down gashes on his face.
His eyes pleading for help… from me… even though they’re shut.
So I pump my hands on his chest and feel his lungs gasping for breath. I sit with him and I pray it’s not the end.


Bam! I’m in the air. I feel Dr.Jackson’s cold hands wrapping around my neck like tentacles, sucking the breath out of me. My scream is caught in my throat but I hear it still, ringing in my ears. I fight desperately to tear away his arms clinging at my body now. But Dr.Jackson thrusts me up. Time slows. For a few seconds I’m spinning wildly in the air. Then I plummet down…down… and I hear the earsplitting crack of my head smashing on the cement floor. Surprisingly I’m not unconscious. Power guards my life like a plump mattress cushioning my fall that should be death. Before I can move Dr.Jackson wallops me on the jaw. “Well, Fox. It looks like you lose anyway. I hope you’re not a sore loser.”
He reaches for my throat.


A bullet streaks through the air landing on his back. I know for someone with the Power it probably feels like only a poke or a tap but it’s enough to distract him. Dr.Jackson turns. The police are here. Finally! I don’t wait another millisecond. The window of opportunity is short but I’m fast. With Dr.Jackson’s back to me I jump up. He turns back to me. I slap him cleanly on the jaw. He grimaces but fires his hand in my stomach… but I don’t just block it I snatch it and flip him over. His head splats spurting blood on the floor.
He lays on the ground motionless and I think… and I hope he’s out for now.

Later the police lock him in the cell he built for me. They know he has the Power. They know I have the Power.


“How did you get in here?” I ask Chief Clancy, who’s slouching against the wall. Chief Clancy is lean and brawny. His muscles bulge like rocks wrapped in stretched tan skin that seems too tight for him.

But with his hands out in his side and his soft, blue eyes staring at me attentively people know he’s not a just some jerk trying to put on a tough show with his rock-hard muscles. He’s a hero. He’s amazing. No gangster can escape from his police force.


“He doesn’t actually have much protection around his lab. He doesn’t need it. No one wants to come in and experience his wrath. He’s too horrible a person. He’s too cocky to think anyone could steal from him. He’s right no ones brave enough. There wasn’t anything of much value there either... until you came. Then there was you and Power.”


I gasp. My eyes pop.
That’s when I learn that they know I have the Power.



Chief Clancy shrugs it off, “We knew you had the Power the first second we saw you down from the hospital. We had to put on a show that we were trying to rescue you though.”

I remember that police lady. Just pretend you’re scared of me. This is only an act I’m so incredulous I almost faint.


But what he says next doesn’t even compare.

“I know,” he whispers. ”I know because I’m Charles.”

My head lashes back to ages ago. I’m staring in wonder through young, emerald irises. I’m nine-year-old Timmy and there in front of me is Gram dying. I remember like a flashback in a movie. Gram struggles to speak. “Charles,” she says, “tell him for me. Show him the Power. When the time is right.” Then a teen swirls in from the up heaved darkness of my memory, “It will be an honor to be his Messenger.”


I stare at teenager Charles with wonder and then the pixels of light swarm away like bees, fading and I’m left gawking at the muscular but kind Charles he is now.



Charles understands that I understand.
“Timmy, I knew your Grandmother well. I’m one she saved. In her time she was a heroine. She saved people from fires and murderers. She brought me to her home whereas before I was an orphan on the street. Your mother was like my sister.”

He stopped.


Because he saw the tears trickling down my cheeks. I know I’m a cry -baby. I don’t care. My mom who my grandma saved - she died. She left me before I was three because of breast cancer. All I can remember about her is that I loved her. I’d suck my thumb and pull her shirt and I loved her.

“ Gram taught me about the Power. I thought it was a myth but it was to teach you when you were old enough and you are. So I’m gonna teach you. Here it goes.


Along time ago almost every human being had the Power. The Power had rained down from the sky like a shooting star and there was more than enough for everyone. Some got their hands on tons of it but having more than enough Power did nothing. You only need a little dab of a tiny jar for its full effect. People were insanely greedy. But your great, great ancestor put just a little on herself and stored the rest in jars and tubes. At her deathbed she gave them all to her son. He used one. When all the other Powerful people died her son was the only one left with the Power. Her son gave the rest of the jars to his grandson and his grandson gave them to his granddaughter and on and on and on to you.


We waited to tell you until now so you wouldn’t open it up as a little kid who wasn’t ready. When it’s ready it gets to you anyway it can. For you it spilled on you. Some are never ready and Messengers like me have to search for another one to be the Protector of us all. A new Powerful one. The Power has to make sure it only falls into hands that are responsible, honest and will strive to protect the world. It’s learned from the past when greedy ones got hands on it. What you have to understand is it’s not just golden gunk. It’s supernatural gunk and it doesn’t just have Power. It is Power. It can do anything. If it sees there’s something it can’t do it will evolve to do it in a mere couple of days. It’s amazing. Soon it will figure out that Dr.Jackson got his hands on it and bust itself out of there. “


I nod. Even though this isn’t plausible at all, it’s plausible for me after what I’ve been through. I feel the responsibility of protecting the whole world weighing down on my hefty shoulders. The whole world? G-d dammit! “Protect us all?’


Then with shock I gasp.

“What about the next tube for my daughter Josie? I only got one? Do you have the rest?”

He sighs, “You got the last. After all these decades our family has finally run out.”



Then I glimpse Dr.Jackson frowning in his cell and a realization pours over me.
He copied my Power. I’ll copy it for Josie. This will be how our line of Power runs forever. I’m a scientist and finally I’ll figure something out that will benefit the world. People will never know that I did. I’ll never win the Nobel Prize, but I’ll do it.

Somehow I’ll copy what Dr.Jackson learned.


Then I stand up and I whisper, “Thank you,” something I never thought I’d say to Dr.Jackson. He stares at me with his face cringed and his fists clenched and I repeat, “Thank you. You don’t know it but you may just have saved the world.”