Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
It only took a couple of minutes to get to work, but it was glorious. We soared over rooftops and circled a park near Chinatown, where I used to play as a kid. A little Asian boy stopped what he was doing to watch us in awe. He tugged his mom’s sleeve and waved at us, and as I waved back, I thought, Maybe you’ll fly someday, kid. Or maybe not, and that’s okay, too.
When we touched down near SPAM’s employee entrance, a few people stopped and stared. Even in a world with superheroes, flying drew attention.
After we checked in and hung our lanyards around our necks, we walked to the elevators hand-in-hand. Sam’s lecture hall was on the ground level, but I was on my way to the top floor. He kissed me and said, “You’re going to do great.”
“So are you.”
The elevator doors slid open, and as I stepped inside, he called, “See you at lunch.” I tapped my ID with its new, higher security clearance to the reader, and then I smiled and gave him a thumbs up before the door closed.
There were butterflies in my stomach, because this was a total unknown. But I wasn’t really worried. I knew I could handle whatever was waiting for me.
A minute later the door slid open, revealing a small room with a guard and a scanner. After he checked my ID and scanned my palm, the guard hit a button to unlock a door marked Special Archives.
Inside, I was greeted by a smiling clerk, who stood behind a polished mahogany counter. “Good morning, Mr. Chen,” he said. “We’ve all been looking forward to meeting you.”
The next couple of hours passed in a blur. I was the interim replacement for an archival librarian who’d retired after twenty-four years on the job. I met the staff and was given an in-depth tour of the incredibly impressive archives before finally being shown to my office.
I paused to admire the beautiful view beyond the bank of windows before taking a seat at my desk. With a few quick clicks of the keyboard, I logged on to the computer and did a database search. I was looking for one item in particular, and it was right where I thought it would be.
At twelve sharp, I rode the elevator back down to the main floor and found Sam waiting for me. He gave me a hug and asked, “How was your morning?”
“Great. The staff is nice, the view from the top floor is incredible, and the archives are beautifully organized.”
It had been disappointing when I’d been told the basement archives weren’t going to be rebuilt. Someone way up in the SPAM hierarchy had decided physical copies of all those reports weren’t necessary anymore, since all the newer, most relevant stuff was available digitally. But when I thought about it, I wouldn’t have wanted to return to that isolated basement anyway.
“That’s awesome! I’m happy for you, Andy.”
“How about you, how was your morning?”
“I think I’m going to like the training program,” he said as we headed for the exit. “Maybe not the classroom lectures, which seem pretty dry, but the hands-on training sounds really cool.”
“I’m glad.”
“Something surprising happened. It turns out my instructor knew my mom.”
“Oh, wow. Did you get a chance to talk to him?”
“Yeah. We spent our coffee break together.” As we stepped outside, his voice wavered a little. “He, um… he was actually there when she died.”
I stopped walking and turned to him. “Oh my god. Are you alright, Sam?”
“Yeah. Or, I will be. It was painful to hear about her last hours. He didn’t have time to go into a lot of detail, so we’re going to have dinner later this week and talk about what happened. But here’s what I found out.”
He took a breath and tried to get his emotions under control before telling me, “She went against direct orders from SPAM to stand down until help arrived. Her handlers knew she couldn’t face off against a whole group of powerful supervillains, but they’d taken hostages and were threatening to kill everyone. Time was running out, so she made a decision. She went into that building and got all eleven hostages to safety before she was killed.”
Sam took another breath, and a tear tumbled down his cheek. “All this time I’d been looking for someone to blame, but SPAM didn’t order her to go into that deadly situation—just the opposite. She made a choice, and she died a hero.”
I grabbed him in an embrace, and he buried his face in my hair. After a pause, he murmured, “Getting answers after twenty years was obviously a shock. But now, I think I might finally be able to get some closure.”
“I’m here for you, Sam, any time you need to talk.”
“I know, and I appreciate that so much.”