simple, nothing that will require any action or change my schedule. I’ll just call Susan Carlson at the FBI and warn her of what will happen.”
“You haven’t done that yet, have you?”
Jake knew that Nate sometimes got confused how the back-tracking worked.
“No, of course not. I don’t know enough yet, but if I had, then the attack wouldn’t have taken place. At least the Senator wouldn’t have been killed.”
“Oh,” Nate said. “I thought maybe you could recall telling her, and they are pretending so they can see who reacts.”
“I don’t think they would have allowed the drones to damage an important place like the Ritz,” Jake pointed out.
“I suppose,” Nate admitted. “I wondered if maybe they were unable to stop them, even if they had relocated the people out of the area.”
During the next few days, Jake gathered what information he could. When he back-tracked and called Carlson, he wanted to have as much information as possible. Most of the time was spent with Nate, Zack and Cheryl, and Nate’s new girlfriend, an attractive oriental woman named Brenda Fong. While the others knew of Jake’s ability, Brenda didn’t, which limited what they could talk about in her presence.
Jake had almost forgotten what it was like to be around people he was so close to. It had only been three months since he’d seen Nate, but was sneaking up on a year since Zack and Cheryl had uprooted and moved to Idaho. The last fourteen months had seen a lot of changes for them. He and Karin had gotten married just over half a year ago, and the opportunity her real estate firm had offered her had resulted in their own move to San Jose. Nate was the only one of the old gang who still lived in Reno, and during their occasional phone conversations, Jake could tell his old friend missed the old days.
“Have you been back-tracking a lot?” Cheryl asked during one of those periods when Brenda wasn’t around.
“Hardly at all,” Jake admitted.
There was another thing that had changed. When he’d moved to California, he’d left a lot of his special gun collection with Nate. California took a dim view of many of the items he had, and Karin wasn’t entirely comfortable with some of his activities either. He’d finally made her realize that when one considered all the moral aspects of the problem, was it more moral to allow a number of innocents to be killed, or to end the life of the single bad guy? Fortunately, the situation had changed significantly when Susan Carlson, the FBI agent with whom he’d worked to save Atlanta had figured out who he was, and secretly came to him for help. After that he had a friend, and when things came up, he could usually simply call her and she’d see that the matter was dealt with. A few simple, and usually local matters, which he could deal with without violence, he’d handled on his own. Nate knew about Carlson, but he hadn’t seen the others in the months since she had surprised him with the telephone call. He told them about his new arrangement.
“You really have her personal number and can call her whenever you want?” Cheryl asked.
“That must make Karin happy,” Zack added. “She was always very uncomfortable with what you were doing.”
Jake nodded. When Karin had found out about his ability and how he used it, the knowledge had almost ended their relationship.
“I’ve sent a number of warnings to her in the last six months,” he explained. “All of them were dealt with. I’m not sure how she explains them to her superiors, but that’s not my problem. We use a phony identity whenever we talk, although she figured out who I am some time ago. Only twice have I needed to help her out personally, and both times I was able to do so without revealing to anyone besides her who I am or what I could do.”
“So what do you do while Karin is busy running the local office?” Cheryl asked. “I sure wish she’d been able to come with you?”
“I’ve got a special game coming out in a couple of months,” Jake replied. It was going to be his masterpiece. He almost wished he had brought along some of the code so he could demonstrate it to his friends. “Oh, and Karin wanted me to ensure everyone was still planning on the week in Yosemite this June. We can all catch up then.”