A Hero's Calling

It was a warm Tuesday morning like most of them were, and like most mornings, I take a shower first thing to get ready for the day. My now fiancée Jane and I live in a little white house at the end of a road, in a nice pleasant community. The house reminds me of a psych ward, with white padded walls and floors, more and more each day. The kitchen and living room were combined into one room, and next to the kitchen was a door that leads to the office, which used to be a bedroom at one time, but now is our office. Then there was a flight of stairs near the front door that lead right straight to the bedroom, and in the bedroom was the bathroom. I pushed back the curtain since I normally leave the bathroom door open.
"Jane, can you get the mail for me please?" I called out to her. I can hear her moving around in the bedroom. I heard nothing until five minutes had pass.
"You have a letter here from your Uncle Gray. Would you like me to hold on to you or throw it away?" she said with resentment. My uncle never got along with Jane. He told her that if she didn't treat me right, someone would kill her. We had just started dating five years ago, recently getting engaged just this past month, but it seemed that no one in the family liked Jane. It was just something she would have to endure, I hoped.
"Just leave it on the end table." I responded back.
"I haven't heard from my dad's side of the family in years." I thought as I got out of the shower, and grabbed the towel hanging on the back of the door, and wrapped it around me before I walked into the room and downstairs to the kitchen.
I picked the letter up from the table, and opened it so I could read the letter. I guess Jane must have noticed the sorrowful look on my face because she asked.
"Sweetheart is everything alright?" she said holding my waist.
I finished the letter, put it back in the envelope, set it back on the end table, and glanced down at her.
"Uncle Gray says that mother has been missing for almost a week now and he needs my help to find her because he has no idea where she could have gone, he also wants us to come out to meet him."
I started back up the stairs and into the bedroom and I grabbed my nice clothes from the closet and went back into the bathroom to get dressed. No one really wore nice clothes to work, but seeing as I was the Assistant Manager for my floor, it was mandatory. Bio Games Inc. was a large company, but we didn't see the desperate need for a dress code when all we did was make video games. I’ve worked there for two years and have made my way up to making around twenty six thousand a month.

Breakfast was ready for me when I got downstairs. My usual was coffee and toast, but this morning Jane had made me some scrambled eggs to go with.
"So are you going to go help your uncle find your mother?" Jane questioned as I sat at the table.
"I have vacation timed saved up from last year and I know you could use a vacation yourself." Jane was a journalist and hadn't had a vacation for a year and a half. Grabbing my coffee cup, she went to go refill it. "Where does your father side of the family live anyway? You never told me."
"Romania, well at least my Father's side of the family does." I replied, taking a bite out of my toast. "I don't really like the place."
Jane raised her eyebrows. "I see."
"He said to call him when we get the letter and let us know if we want to help or not."
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed the number from the letter into it. As the phone began to ring, I felt my nerves tense up. It had been so long since I had talked to my uncle, and the last conversation didn't go so well. When it finally stopped ringing and a voice came over, my nerves settled.
"Uncle Gray?"
The man cleared his voice. "Hello David. So I take it that you got my letter and now I need to know what have you decided, are you going to help me or not?"
"I have decided that I will come out to help you find mother, only if Jane can come along as well, and did mother say anything to anyone before she went missing?"
"Yes she can tag along and no your father called and said that when he woke up that morning she was nowhere to be found."
There was a long silence and then he asked, "When are you able to get here, so I can pick you two up?"
I thought for a moment before answering, "Jane and I will be flying out tomorrow afternoon, should be there Friday morning at the latest. Do we have somewhere to stay or should we get a hotel room?" I asked.
Although my Uncle was the richest man I knew and owned his own small jet, I wasn't sure if he would let Jane and I stay at his house.
"You and Jane can stay at my lake house if you'd like. No one has been in it for about two years, but I’ll have it cleaned out before you get here."
"Okay. Thank you. I'll call you when we land."
"I’ll have a car at the airport waiting for you." he replied back.
"It’s alright. I’ll see you soon. Good-bye." I said as I hung up the phone. I turned to face Jane.
"We head out tomorrow afternoon." I told her.
I looked at my watch. I had fifteen minutes to get to work. I stood up, kissed Jane on the cheek, and ran up the stairs and quickly got dress, then ran back down stair to have Jane tie my tie. I walked out the door as soon as I got to the car, I realized I had forgotten my keys so I turned around and walked back. Jane was waiting by the door with the keys in her hand. She looked so beautiful. Her long black hair blew behind her and her dark green eyes glistened. She was tall, but skinny. She had tried to gain some weight, but her metabolism was so high that she couldn't.
"What would I do without you?" I asked as I kissed her.
“Nothing, but I still love you though.” Jane replied.
“Very true, and I love you too beautiful.” I said as I took the keys from her hand.
She just smiled as I turned and headed back to my car. I had just gotten a 2012 blood red Camaro a couple weeks ago to drive to work even though it was only a few blocks away. Moving away from New York City to Nashville had been hard, but it had turned out for the best so far. Jane loved it here and that's all that mattered to me.
When I got to work, I found a parking spot out in front. I parked my car, and started walk to the building.
"Hey! Dave." I turned to see who the hell was talking to me. Mike stood by the building doors with his hand up, almost like he was trying wave. I smiled and waved at him. We had known each other since we we're in kindergarten and were really good friends.
“Hey Dave you got anything for that game you’re working on.” Mike said as I got to the door.
“You know Mike that “The Time Keys” is the only thing I've been working on since I started working here.”
I replied to him has we got into the elevator. He tapped floor eighth floor button; which was the floor for Game designing. The first two floors were for hiring and management, floors three through five were for gaming and tests for the game about to head out, floors six through eight were for game design, and the ninth was for meeting and what not a like. “Ding” the elevator ring, has we got to the eighth floor. I walk half way around the building to get to my cubical. Mike's cube was across from mine.
“Hey!” Mike whispered from across the hallway. I looked over to him, “What do u need, Mike.” I replied back. “Here it comes.” Mike said looking all serious like.
I peak around the corner to see that the boss man was head this way. “God I hate him, all he cares is about himself and golf.” I thought to myself. He started to walk over to my cubical.
“Dave, does u have those specks on, TIME?” he asked while hovering over me. I kind of did and kind of did at the same time. It was more paper and drawings then 3D figures and graphics.
“I'll have them emailed to you at the end of the day Jim.”
“Good man, I'll be looking forward to seeing something good come for you.”
Jim turned and start walking back down to is large office at the other end of the building, it was kind of unfair that I thought I have working here long then him, and he gets the large office and I'm still stuck in a cubical. When I first started where I thought I would be going places, like CEO, or at least having my own company. Anyways I’m fine with what I got best not fight it.
I started to feel a bit slow after typing up twenty pages of story line for the game that Jim wanted. Still had more to type, so I hoped up and headed for the lounge to grab a refill of coffee since I drank the coffee from home hours ago. As I was heading there my cell phone buzzed, I took it out of my pocket and looked at it, and it was Janie k. I was the only one that called her that; I smiled and picked it up.
“Hey, you just caught me on my five minute break, kind of funny don't you think.”
“It's because I know you way to well sweetheart.” Jane replied back.
I could tell by the tone in her voice that she was smiling, and working at the same time since I could hear the clicking of keys in the background. I always loved it when she called me sweetheart, for some reason it made me feel like I was the only one she ever wanted in her life.
“What is it that you needed, because I know you just don't call me for just anything?” I said with a little bit of sarcasm. I smiled and opened the door to the small lounge and head for the coffee pot, and as always it was empty so I had to make more.
“Hey! Don't make me come over there. You know I’ll kick your ass.” she replied back. I always thought it was kind of funny when she said that, even though I knew she wouldn't.
She continued, “but, anyways, when you get home do u mind seeing about what to pack for the long ass trip we are about to take.”
“Yeah, sure I don't mind helping you. Maybe we can pack a few other things, if you get what I mean?” I said forwardly.
“You ass, okay fine but only if he has a hot tube there.” she said laughingly
She continued, “Okay, I got to get off the phone with you, Caietlyn is calling in and I want to talk her into going with us so I’m not alone there while you’re out looking for your mother.”
Caietlyn and Jane have been good friends since High school and now college, and would probably be best if Jane did take Caietlyn along. I would hate to see Jane all alone in the lake house. I would ask Mike to go along with, but his wife and 3 kids would miss him too much.
I chuckled a little bit. “Okay, but we are not having any threesome okay, I’ve been there and it sucks.”
She started laughing, “Ha, you wish you asshole, but I love you and I got to go, bye.”
“I love you too.” I said as I hung up my cell phone.
I walked over and sat down I lifted my watch to see how long I had, I only had 2 minutes left so I grab my hot coffee and headed back to my desk. Once I got back to my desk I sat my coffee down and began to type up some of the characters for Time and some of the dialogue for the game as well. Time was about a normal guy who discovers he can past through time without changing the past or future, but when the government finds out he can do this, they try everything they can to overtake his special abilities.
It was about five o’clock by the time I was done writing the dialogue, so I sent in an email, what I had wrote as well as some of the artwork to Jim, and punch out for the day.
By the time I was heading to the elevator, mike was waiting for me.
“Hey Dave, you want to head over to Dragon's tooth for some beers.”
Dragon's tooth was one of the best bars in town or at least the closest one to my place. It was a fairly decent joint, it had a couple of pool tables and had live bands come in and play. Me and a few of my close friends would go there every Wednesday night and just have a few beers and talk about how terrible our bosses are and other guy stuff.
“Sorry Mike, I will have to do that some other time, I’m going to be on vacation for a couple of months, and won't be back until before the wedding.”
I could see the smile on Mike’s face get bigger every time I would say wedding since he thinks I don’t know about the bachelor’s party he wants to throw me. Even though I’m not much of a party person, and hated drinking. I never really like wine or beer, and never really told Mike that I’m not into drinker, so normally I had to make up an excuse, so as to not hurt his feeling I told him that I need my rest for the plane ride in the morning. Even though it was true and I really had to get as much sleep as possible, because I’m not much of a morning person so heading out the night before and go out with friends and drink the night away would be very stupid of me to do. Plus with Jane she would very pissed that I did that, I laughed to myself. I opened the car door and started to put my foot into my car when I got the sense of someone watching me, I quickly looked around to see if anyone was watching me and the parking lot was almost empty. So I continued to get into the car and shut the door when I noticed a not on my windshield stuck under my wiper, I got back out of my car and grab it and put it in my pocket and got back in.
I was in too much of a hurry to read it, I had to get back to the house to finish packing so that way Jane didn’t do all of the packing herself and make me look bad. I started to pull up to the light that was just two blocks from the house, when my cell phone started to ring. I quickly scattered through my jacket pocket for it and picked it up.
“Hello.” I answered.
“What time you gonna be home, I thought you were going to help me finish packing.”
It was Jane so I sighed a breath of relief, and try to calm down a little bit.
“Well, I’m just down the road from you; I’m kind of stuck at a red light right now. I’ll try to hurry and get there to help you out.” I replied.
“Well, hurry your ass up because I’m almost done with your crap, and I still need to pack my stuff.”
I laughed a little bit, “Why are you packing my stuff for, I can do that myself.”
“Well you know how I am, I like to have everything all nice and neat, and every time you pack you just throw everything into a pile and it ends up in to a big mess.” Jane kind of yelled through the phone.
I could tell she was starting to get very stress out just by the tone in her voice.
“Green light babe got to go, love ya.” I said very quickly
I don’t really like being on the phone while I’m driving and Jane knew that. Well at least I hope she understood.
“Well you better love me if I’m doing all this for you.” She said while laughing.
I hung up the phone and set it in the middle console and hurried before I started pissing off the people behind me. Jane had already put some of the suitcases on the front porch. So I tried to act like I had been there for a while and graded the suitcases and put them in the trunk of the car, and quickly ran into the house. I the as soon as I got to stair case and looked up to see Jane tapping her foot with her arms crossed and had the cute angry expression on her face. I smiled as I looked up at her from the bottom of the steps.
“What.” I said to her.
“So where have you been this whole time?” Jane quickly replied with the same look on her face. I laughed a little bit.
“I don’t know, I’ve been here for five minutes already, and I’ve already put the suit cases you had on the front porch in the car.” Trying to make it sound like I was doing things for a while even though I had a feeling she knew I was lying since every time I try to lie, I end up laughing.
“Well I know your lying, and you should probably eat something before we take off for the airport.” Jane smiled and turned around then headed back to the bedroom to finish packing. I thought to myself what to make for me to eat. I headed for the kitchen and started to look through the cabinets for something small to eat.