Legacy

Will the real me please stand up.  I would if I could, by that I mean I’m not sure who is the real me  or how many of me  I am.

Recently I have been having very real dreams.  Unlike some dreams, the details in some of mine never vary  I’m thirty eight years old,   I’ve been married for fifteen years and a State Civil Service employee for twelve years.  My name is George Wesson, maybe.  At least that’s the only one I can remember.  I thought I remembered my teen years and early twenties correctly, even up to currently, correctly.

The confusion comes from a sudden partial recollections of a relatively current event. In my dreams I was contacted by a Man in Black just a few weeks ago.  He told me I had been given a mind wipe to forget I’d ever been an Agent in Training at a very exclusive remote school.  He went on to say I’d messed up when I went out on my own prematurely and compromised an on going mission.  I was good, one of the most promising they ever had, but, my wanting to show off had a costly effect, lives had been lost.  For that reason my training was terminated, I was given the boot, and a mind wipe.

He said that I, himself and one other had been outfitted with an anti gravity belt allowing us to levitate when certain muscles were flexed.  Each belt had been tuned to the bio rhythm of the individual and could not be used by any other.  He said a mission of such extreme gravity if failed was at hand.  The impact on the nation had dire potential.  I was needed.

I would be given an injection that would temporarily restore my memory to  what it was before the mind wipe that removed selected  memories.

I said are you nuts or what, scram, beat it you creep.  I don’t know what you’re selling but forget scamming me. The next thing I knew was someone grabbed me and someone shoved a needle in my arm.  Things were a bit fuzzy for a minute or so, then everything began clearing up.  I recognized those two men; they were my best friends while we were in training together.  I remembered every thing else also.  I said, does this mean all is forgiven and I’m back in.

They said with great sorrow in their eyes, no you are not.  This is a one shot deal wherein your participation is an unfortunate necessity.  That’s why if you recall is why we said, memory restoration is temporary.  In about ten days it will vanish again.

Always one to put country first and being very sad about having messed up and causing such collateral loss; I of course agreed to participate.

Meanwhile I started remembering many details of my teen years.  Unusual to say the least for a teen.  The first thing I recall that had been blanked out, was my introduction to Arterio, he was like an old Italian Godfather.  He didn’t seem gang affiliated though with gangs or mobsters.  He lived in a huge mansion size house on the East side.  He had a very large family and apparently more influence in more places than one could imagine.

It was Arterio that then introduced me to Detective John Jameson of the local police.  I became his protégé in a fashion and at age seventeen had a badge and a gun.  Big stuff for a kid.  Probably illegal as well, but at that time it didn’t cross my mind.

My detective work was off the payroll, but John would slip me a little now and then.  It was not a shoot em up type thing, I was more or less in the fact finding  scheme of things and would get information for John,  Not to sure what he did with some of it.

I didn’t care and I was getting pretty good at getting it.

All of this while still finishing High School. Now Detective John was apparently a little more than an ordinary Detective.  He introduced me to a Mr. X.  That’s all the name I was given.

Anyway, this Mr. X apparently ran a training center for very special government agents, so special that even the C.I.A. didn’t know of its existence. I was puffing up pretty good, that’s the nature of youth.  I was invited to train and become a very special type agent.  Of course I’d have a cover job to give me reasons for coming and going here and there.

Now my parents were totally in the dark about any of this, and were to be kept that way.  I understood why.  So I supposedly joined the local National Guard, to explain where I was going on my weekends.  Even had the uniform to put on when leaving or returning to the house.

All went exceedingly well, my trainers were impressed and that was one of the reasons I was outfitted with an anti gravity belt along with other appropriate items. Shortly after that the designer of the belts was killed in a car accident, and since all the know how was in his head and not on paper; no more belts.

My mess up was when in broad daylight I went up the side of a building using the belt.  Its use hadn’t been authorized on that mission.  My first mission, others had filtered in to the building by normal means.  But smart me, I wanted to reach the Pent House objective the quick way.  I was seen and that sounded an alert that compromised the mission and cost some fellow agents their lives.

Agreed I was young and dumb in some ways, to smart in others perhaps. I felt really bad about it all. I still think I should have been given another chance, but it wasn’t my decision.

Well some years have passed and that brings us to the mission that my memories were restored temporarily for.

Near the top of the Washington Monument there is a secret hollow.  Obviously no longer a total secret. Anyway, there are four sides to the monument.  On three of the sides centered a given distance from the top are three stones smaller than the blocks that the monument is constructed from and therefore easy to spot.

I’m being told now that each of those stones have to be pressed inward simultaneously in order for a small door on the fourth side to swing oven.  It blends with the monument.

Now those that secreted whatever is behind that door went to a lot of trouble to be sure it was never found. Ordinarily, one would have to know about the three smaller stones and what to do with them; but also construct unbelievably high scaffolding to get the job done.  Most likely the hiding of whatever, was done during the original construction of the monument.  I told my wife I’d be out of town a couple of days as an old friend was in dire need of help.  Not totally untrue, just a misdirection for prudence’s sake

It was certain that in broad daylight we couldn’t do squat, but under the cover of darkness we could.  The monument has spot lights on it at night to make it pretty.  Not a lot of light but too much for what we were going to do.  The lights were put out quickly by cutting a power line next to the monument.  That would be noticed, but anyone arriving to fix it wouldn’t be there for at least thirty minutes.  We levitated up the sides; I was a little clumsy at it as I hadn’t kept in practice like my two cohorts. Still we managed to coordinate our moves.

That is how we pulled it off.  What was retrieved was an old leather briefcase.  The leather had deteriorated a bit.  When back down and on our way back to my house and other places I guess, I asked what’s in the old briefcase. I was told they didn’t know and they were instructed not to open it, just deliver it to Mr. X.  Well that mission was accomplished.

I had still some hopes about being taken back and forgiven.  No such luck.  We shook hands as I was let out at my house.  They said as the memories start to fade it may be confusing, but they should be totally re erased in another six to eight days.  That was thirty days ago and I’m still getting fragmented flashbacks in my dreams.  It’s very disconcerting, I don’t know if I’m having dream delusions or what.  As if that wasn’t enough to blow my mind.

Last week my wife asked where I’d got the nice Black Suit hanging in the closet. I said I couldn’t remember.  She gave me the stink eye because she thought I was telling her in a subtle way to mind her own business.  I wasn’t, I was telling the truth, but I had some guesses I was making to myself.

At this point, all I can say is I’ve got the identity haunts and don’t know how to contact the Mr. X who might be able to help.  I guess I’ll have to live with it, maybe write a book, maybe not. its a hard thing to live with and I’d like to share it with my wife, but I don’t want her calling the men in the little white coats. Black Suits are hard enough to deal with.