(old) Anomaly 207 (shelved for now)

==Chapter 4==

Lee parked his car on the driveway in front of the garage and grabbed a heavy-looking bag from the seat behind him. We entered through the kitchen door, where Mom was preparing lunch. "You're back!" She squealed when she saw me. Then she saw the bag Lee was carrying. "What's that?" "Nothing. Just some parts for a new project of mine." I replied
Mom looked at me with a concerned look on her face. "Back to inventing already? Don't you think it's better to first get used to having one arm?" She said. "No," I shrugged. "I'm already pretty used to it. I think I can handle it." "Okay, if you say so."

Mom made some toast for Lee and me and after eating we went to the basement. "Your mom makes the best toasts in the world," Lee said, still eating away at his sixth. "I know," I said, turning on the lights.
In the five weeks, I had been gone, my equipment had been collecting a layer of dust. I sighed. "It's good to be back." Lee emptied the bag on my workbench. "This is everything you asked for."
I looked at it all, pulling up the blueprints I had made. "Then let's get building."
We spent most of the afternoon building the arm. We were almost a quarterway done when Mom came down with a shocked look on her face. "James, you need to come up here right now!" Confused, I followed her, Lee right behind me.
She led us to the living room. There, on the couch was a man, all dressed in black and wearing sunglasses. "Ah. James Mercury?" He said as he got up.
"Yes," I replied carefully. "And who are you?" "I am Agent Avior. I know that this is all very confusing, but there is something important I need to tell you."
I took a seat next to Mom. "I'm afraid that your friend will have to leave first." The man said.
I looked at Lee. He nodded and went back to the basement.
"So what's so important you have to tell us?" Mom asked.
"This," Agent Avior said, placing his Holon on the little coffee table. A hologram shimmered.
It showed a photo of me, with text underneath it.
It said, "Anomaly 207 Name: James Mercury Age: 19 Last known location: Tish Hospital, New York. Search and Eliminate."
I looked at the man, confused. "What is this? What does 'Anomaly 207 mean? And what about that 'Search and Eliminate?" Avior put his Holon back in his pocket. "This message was intercepted three hours ago. It comes from an organization called the Syndicate. We have been tracking this organization for years now."
"And who exactly are 'we' if I may ask."
"We are a kind of anti-syndicate," Agent Avior explained. "But where they seek to destroy all Anomalies, we try to protect them. We are also known as Sector Seven." "What do you mean with Anomalies?" I asked. I was trying to wrap my head around all this strangeness.
Avior looked at Mom. "You didn't tell him anything?"
I also looked at mom. "Told me what?" Mom sighed. "You are... special. You can do things that others don't. We should have told you earlier, but we didn't want them to find out."
I looked at her skeptically. "You are going to have to be more specific than that."
"You can move objects with your mind. You still do it sometimes by accident, but you don't even notice it." I looked at her in a mixture of disbelief and anger. "Why didn't you tell me anything?"
"Your dad found out when you were only five. He is special, like you. He can sense if somebody is telling the truth or not and even just straight up make you tell the truth. You were playing in the backyard and you made all kinds of things float through the air. Little rocks, your stuffed animal, even a chair if I remember correctly. I totally freaked out when I saw it, but your father stayed calm. He told me about his gift and that he wasn't the only one. He had once met four others. Three of them have been killed, and the fourth is still on the run I believe. We didn't tell you anything because it was too dangerous."
"How didn't I find out about this earlier? And why does this 'Syndicate' want me and add dead?" I pressed on. "The Syndicate believes that your kind is unnatural and a mistake of nature. We at Sector Seven believe the exact opposite. We believe that your kind is a sign that humanity is capable of more." Agent Avior explained. "So, what now?" Mom asked.
"You will be under a watchful eye from now on. Twenty-four-seven guarding." Avior replied. "Even if I go to the university?" I asked.
"Unnoticed of course. We will not interfere with your personal life unless it is necessary." The agent assured me "Any questions?"
"About a million, but for now only one is important. Is the Syndicate behind the attack on my father?" "We are not certain, but we indeed think that they were behind it, yes. Any other pressing questions?" "No."
I got up and went back to the basement.
As I went down the stairs I heard mom say goodbye to the man.

"What was that all about?" Lee asked. "Nothing. They just asked questions about the attack onDadd. I told them I didn't really remember anything." "That was all? I got the sneaking suspicion that you're not telling me everything." Lee said. "It was nothing special," I said stubbornly.
"Okay. If you say so," he shrugged. "Shall we continue?"
"No. I need some time alone." my reply came out harsher than I had intended. Lee grabbed my shoulder. "Are you sure that it was nothing important?"
"Yes." I pushed his hand away. "Okay. See you tomorrow at the university then."
He got his bag and left, leaving me alone. I sat down next to the workbench. "DELTA? Can you pull up the image that that man showed us?"
"Right away sir." A hologram flickered and a 3D model of the living room hovered above my soon-to-be new arm. It zoomed in to the picture above the table and I took another good look at it. It was a pretty recent picture of me, taken for a magazine, so not so hard to get.
I looked over to the mirror hanging on the wall. My appearance had drastically changed after the incident, to say the least. I had a scar running through my right eyebrow and I was missing a piece of the tip of my right ear, and I could swear that my hair had gotten a more grey-ish tint to it.
An idea popped into my head. "DELTA, search for security footage that clearly shows me jumping in front of that bomb," I instructed. The hologram changed, now showing the stage in Times Square. I could see myself, frozen in the air. "Zoom in on me and the bomb," I ordered.
The hologram zoomed in. "Now play it at point five frames per second." The scene started to move in slow motion. With a flash, the bomb exploded. "Freeze," I said. "Now zoom in a little further." I looked at the explosion.
Just centimeters before the ball of fire hit me, it got disrupted as if it had hit a rounded object.
"They were telling the truth," I whispered.
Another idea came to mind as I remembered that I had been wearing my Neurotransmitter at the time. "DELTA? Can you pull up my brainwave signature of the exact timeframe the bomb went off? I was wearing my neurotransmitter, so it shouldn't be that hard to find." "I'm sorry sir, but all the brainwaves were unreadable." I frowned. "What do you mean, 'unreadable'?" "At that time your brain activity was off the charts, sir. Quite literally"
I sighed. "Of course. Nothing ever goes the way I want it to go."

I decided to do some research on the subject of telekinesis. Telekinesis: The ability to move and manipulate objects with the mind. The word telekinesis comes from the Greek words, Tele, meaning far or distance, and kínisi, meaning movement. an article told me. By means of an experiment, I pointed my hand at a wrench that was lying in my toolbox on the floor and imagined it flying right into my hand. Nothing happened. I tried again. First nothing, but then the wrench moved a little. I tried again and again, but with no success. Eventually, I gave up and went to bed, ready for the first day of my second semester at New York University.