The Legend Keeper

It was hot. Radar Chandler felt the sweat dripping down his face, his back, even his legs. The sun was unforgiving in the desert, and the shrubs they were passing offered little shade. He paused a moment to wipe the sweat with the towel he had tucked into one of the side pockets of his backpack. The enormous pack didn’t help matters any. It had to weight close to fifty pounds, most of which was water bottles.
“You gonna make it?”
The voice seemed to come from a tunnel. He tried to focus on the person it came from, but his vision was fuzzy. He could see clearly in a five-foot circumference around him, but after that, all static. Like he was in a glass jar that was fogging up around him.
There was more than one form around him. There were four other people gathered just past his field of vision. He couldn’t make out any of their features past the fog, but they were all carrying packs similar to his and wearing hats to keep some of the sun out of their eyes. And it seemed like they were all talking at once. He couldn’t make out anyone’s voice, just a jumbled rumble as if he’d suddenly walked into a crowded room.
“Radar?” Now that was the one voice he could make out. He tried to focus on the body the voice had come from, but all he could make out was a rough outline. The voice was feminine with dark hair under a baseball hat. Her skin was tan and she was a couple inches shorter than his six feet. But other than that, he couldn’t make out any of her features.
The world started fading. Radar shook his head to clear it. He had to find out whom that voice belonged to. But even as he tried, the other voices he heard around him were replaced by a top-forties hit. The last thing he saw was a pair of sparking brown eyes.

He opened his eyes and realized he was in his apartment just outside of Washington D.C. The song playing was his alarm clock, informing him that it was a quarter to seven. He groaned and slapped a hand over the alarm. It silenced. He knew he had exactly seven minuets before it would start up again. Some people, actually most people, would roll back over and get the couple more minuets of sleep. But Radar was, and always had been, a light sleeper and now that he was awake, there was no hope of those six and a half minuets.
From the dresser across the room, his phone started to buzz. “Not even seven, I must be a popular person today,” he mumbled.
He threw back the covers and stretched leisurely, then swung his long legs over the side of the bed and sat up, scratching his head. Upon standing he scratched other choice areas. He wandered over to the dresser and picked up his phone right as it was buzzing for the last time.
“Chandler,” he aid with a yawn.
“Oh Radar did I wake you?” A feminine voice asked.
“No Bess,” he assured. “Just got up.”
“Oh, good.”
“What are you doing up this early?”
“Oh, Chris wanted me to come in early to make sure everything was organized for the Winston case.”
“They’ve got you working like a dog Bess,” he joked.
“I knew that was going to happen when I started my paralegal training. Anyway, one of your clients called the office a few minuets ago-”
“This early in the morning?” he asked. Even though he’d only been a lawyer for a few years, stranger things had happened.
“Yes,” Bess said and he could practically see the petite red-head rolling her emerald eyes. “And she wants to know if you’ve gotten her daughter’s hearing moved up.”
“I’ll call Miss. Benz when I get into the office,” he assured her.
“Sorry to bother you but she insisted I call you as soon as I could.”
“You’re never a bother Bess,” he said with a smile. Bess had done him numerous favors over the years including covering for him when he was “sick” and placating his clients when all Radar wanted to do was bite their heads off.
“I guess I’ll see you at eight.”
“Seven forty-five.” Radar said as he hung up.
He set the phone back on the dresser and walked in to the bathroom for his morning routine, coming more and more awake as he progressed. All of his roommates in college had deemed him insane for being able to roll out of bed and actually function like a normal human being. Radar blamed it on his overly-active mind.
He had always been a bright child. All honors and AP classes throughout his required education, high honor roll, and teacher’s pet status. Until high school, he had been the dictionary definition of a geek: bad acne, glasses, a pudgy body and high-pitched voice. But the summer of his freshman year, someone had smiled down on him and his entire appearance had changed. His acne had cleared up, he’d managed to talk his parents into contacts, and the weight around his midsection had stretched out over the four inches he’d shot up in three months. He’d been a soccer and baseball star and had offers from several colleges for full rides for his athletic abilities alone. But he couldn’t argue with the refs when something went wrong. He could however, argue anything in a courtroom. He’d barely had to try to get Harvard to accept him.
Radar frowned at his reflection in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. He actually hadn’t really had to try at anything in life. Everything had seemed to be handed to him once high school had started. There was no Calculus problem too confusing, no sport too demanding, no essay he couldn’t write…no girl he couldn’t figure out. As he’d gone on to college, and further law school, his good luck had continued. There wasn’t a professor that hadn’t liked him or a class he didn’t find easy…or a girl he hadn’t been able to sneak into his dorm. He smiled at that. He’d broken a few hearts in his time, but mostly just managed to brush a girl off after a few dates and a little fun. And, remarkably, none of them had held a grudge against him, even if some of his methods had been…less than gentlemanly. His luck was still being carried on now to his working life. Straight out of college he’d landed a job with one of the biggest law firms in the D.C. area, and their case success rate had doubled. The senior partners called him their good luck charm. He’d been with Peterson and Wilson for two years now
Which Radar didn’t mind one bit. He dressed more casual today-in a blue button down shirt with a navy blazer and black slacks-than he did on days he was in court. He ran a comb through his hair which he left only slightly long; he refused to conform to the shaggy hair most of his generation was still sporting.
He checked his phone to see the flood of emails and sighed. Like Miss. Benz they could hold until he got to the office. He grabbed the keys to his BMW, his briefcase, and his phone, and locked up the apartment at a quarter past seven.

Across the street from the upscale apartment complex, a brown-haired woman watched for the black Beemer to leave. She checked the phone in her pocket, then slipped it back into place. Considering how much she used it, it was just an expensive pocket watch which sometimes doubled as a paperweight. At seven twenty, the car cruised out of the underground parking garage. Well he was consistent at least.
She made her way across the street, concentrating on the workings of inside the building. There were thousands of moving, working parts, not even considering all the human minds. She focused on the structure of the building itself: the inner shell made of steel beams, the concrete, insulation, paint. She moved down, down, down the building to the parking garage which didn’t sport the last two elements, then felt up the walls for anything protruding. Cameras. She sensed the field of security cameras and then the scattering of cars and columns. For such an expensive building, it really should have more cameras, she thought as she entered the dark confines of the garage. She slipped to the right of the entrance and focused again, this time a little more specifically up in the security office on the first floor. The man sitting at the desk could have been cast as a Hollywood security guard: slightly overweight with a quickly receding hairline and a mustache. He had his feet propped on the desk next to the bank of monitors and he was eating…a donut. How unoriginal, she thought as she focused in on his thoughts. They included the scores of last night’s baseball game and how much money he’d lost on it, then went on to curse some pitcher for something he had or hadn’t done. Every now and then he glanced at the monitors, but he was pretty much absorbed in baseball and donuts.
She made her way along the back side of the garage, watching both where she was going and the thoughts of the guard. There was one spot where she had to make a jump from the wall to a column to stay hidden. She scrambled the signal of the camera focused on her for two seconds. The guard took notice and looked, but by the time he had the proper screen in focus, it was clear again and she was at her mark.
There were several more small leaps she would have to make to get to the elevator but the guard would get suspicious if all of the screens froze at once. She judged the distance between her position and the elevator. She took a moment to judge the position of the elevator: sixth floor, idling. What a lucky break this early in the morning. She brought it down to the ground floor and as the bell dinged, she took her phone out and called the upstairs office. She needed all of her focus to have everything going right at once; thankfully she had a lot of practice.
The guard got up to answer the phone that was across the room and she scrambled the cameras and made a dash for the elevator which doors were opening ever so slowly. She froze the camera in the elevator and dashed in just as the guard answered with “Towers Security”.
“Oh I am so sorry,” she drawled in her best southern accent. “I called the wrong numba. Sorry honey.” With that she hung up the phone and unscrambled all the cameras but the elevator camera. As soon as the doors shut, she didn’t even bother pushing a button. She looked up and the elevator climbed to the fourth floor. As the elevator came to a halt, she froze the camera in the hallway and upon exit, unfroze the one in the elevator. She made a quick check of the guard’s thoughts. They were focused on a second donut.
She walked briskly down the hall to 406. It practically oozed energy. She stared the doorknob for a moment, moving back first the basic latch, then the deadbolt. She opened the door as easily as if she’d used a key and made her way inside. She closed and locked the door again and unfroze the hallway camera.
She checked out her surroundings. Very male. The entire apartment was done in browns and tans. The furniture was black leather, the floors hardwood. It was clean-probably done weekly by a cleaning lady.
But there was no point in snooping about the apartment any more; she knew everything about Radar Chandler that she needed to know. Suddenly weary, she sat down on the long sofa. She hoisted the pack off of her shoulders and sat it on the ground, close enough that she could grab it if she needed it. She blinked once as her brain tried to black out. No, not yet. She pulled out her phone and set an alarm for 4 o’clock, knowing that Radar came home at exactly 4:30 every day. With that she sprawled out on the sofa and slept.