PRL Serials

The man and his friend Jessica are on the road to the Pacific ocean, but before they reach it, they spend a day in Phoenix, AZ. The two spend the night in another hotel room after leaving Albuquerque, NM together. The two of them have only known one another for a week, they met in Amarillo, TX where the man had worked as a mechanic at an auto shop, and the man traveled with Jessica to Albuquerque because she had friends there. They had driven pretty much nonstop from NM to AZ because Jessica has a job as a teacher in TX that she must return to, but she wanted to see the man to the end of his journey that had started in NC where he was born, and would eventually take him to the Pacific coast that he’d decided to travel in search of. 

In AZ, the man is looking for the backdrop he’d seen in the pictures of a friend from back home. He’d known a man named Ivan whose family was originally from Mexico, though some had settled in the state of AZ. He’d seen picture of Ivan’s family when the two worked on a project at the local library, and the man had enjoyed the look of the desert behind them at various sites. He can’t remember where they lived though, and he isn’t sure if he has come to the same desert, but he appreciates it nonetheless. It is similar to the beauty of NM and when he and Jessica finally stop at a hotel, they sit outside eating while the man enjoys the view. 

“I was wondering,” Jessica says, “would you do that thing you do for money? If people thought it was just a trick, you could pretend to be a magician or something. I’m just asking because we could make some money to fill up the gas tank.”

The man had always kept his ability to bring things from his imagination to real life a secret, but he’d showed Jessica by accident when they were drunk in NM. He isn’t broke, he’d spent enough time working in Amarillo to save a good amount of money, but the trip to CA would probably break him if he didn’t earn money some other way. But his life on the road to this point has made him even more reluctant to share his gift because of the unintended consequences.

“I don’t know. You think people will believe that I’m a magician?”

“How else will they explain you making stuff appear and disappear?” Jessica says. “You don’t have to, but I just thought I’d ask.”

The man reluctantly agrees and the next day, before they are back on the road to Long Beach, CA, the two go into downtown Phoenix and set up on a street corner.

“I don’t really know any magic tricks.” The man says.

“Just pull things out of the holes in your face and I’ll talk you up to the crowd, follow my lead.” 

The man stands nervous behind Jessica who yells to the crowd like a ring leader at a circus, “Step right up folks. See the Amazing Kevin perform magic tricks that will blow your mind.” Soon a crowd gathers and Jessica tells them about the Amazing Kevin’s doves. “He has a whole family of them that live in his nose.”

A young girl from the crowd jumps up and down excitedly and Jessica calls her up to inspect the man’s nose. “Do you see them up there? There’s a mama and a daddy and all of their children.” The man kneels and the little girl inspects careful.

“I don’t see anything.” The little girl says.

The man stands and turns his face up to the sun, and just as he imagines it, a trail of doves seem to fly from his nose and into the sky. The crowd explodes with applause as they watch the doves fly up and away.

“Where are they going?” The girl asks and the man looks to Jessica who shrugs. 

“They’re coming back. They do live in my nose, after all.” He says and imagines a new set of doves flying back towards his nose and then disappearing, only he has never imagined something disappearing, usually things just cease to exist on their own. As the new set of doves dive down towards his face, he closes his eyes tightly, hoping that it will work, and sure enough, the illusion is completed and the crowd explodes with applause once again.

The two make good money in downtown Phoenix and the man is thankful for Jessica who has given him a way to earn money and keep his secret safe.

The man does not know this, but there is a Dr. Thomas Eakran on his trail. Eakran is tracking the man because Eakran’s alien technology, a beacon device, is telling him that there is alien technology from Eakran home planet on the planet Earth that Eakran is not familiar with. Eakran is from a planet that is an unfathomable distance from the planet Earth and he believed himself to be the only one of his kind on Earth. But maybe this new technology his beacon is tracking will lead him to another alien from his planet who may be stranded on Earth somehow.

Eakran does not know that the alien technology that he is tracking is actually embedded in the body of the man, but Eakran can see it leaving the city of Phoenix and he follows it, hoping to catch up to it soon. He does not need to sleep as much as the humans of Earth which allows him to get closer to the technology he is following that seems to be traveling away from him, headed west to the Pacific. He thought that he would catch up to it in Phoenix, but the drive in Earth cars in much longer than he’d expected and just as he was arriving in Phoenix, the device was leaving the state of AZ. He keeps driving though, it is only a matter of time before he is on top of it.

The man and Jessica arrive in Long Beach and they sit on the sand looking out at the ocean. It is a beautiful day and the man wants to stay there forever.

“Was it worth it?” Jessica asks.

“Of course,” the man says. “It’s amazing.”

Jessica laughs, “Not as amazing as Amazing Kevin. We made like $400 yesterday, and we were only out there for like thirty minutes. You wanna help me make my rent for next month?” 

The man agrees and they stand on the sidewalk to gather a crowd. Before the show can start though, there is a loud car crash on a nearby street that sends one of the vehicles into the air and rolling in a nearby clearing of grass. 

“They’re still alive in that car.” Jessica says, and she follows the man when he rushes over in the direction.

The man can see them through the window. One of the children in the back seat is conscious and he struggles to get out of the door. The front of the car on his fire and the man knows that car could explode any minute. He imagines himself covered in a metal suit of armor that makes him strong enough to rip the doors from the car. He manages to rescue everyone inside before the suit of armor disappears and he is standing there before a shocked crowd of people that are stunned to silence. Eventually, they explode in applause, just like the crowd in Phoenix, and he notices a few people in the crowd recording him with their phones.

He imagines a jetpack that allows him to fly and he grabs Jessica. The two take off far away from the crowd. They land a on secluded section of the beach.

“You did an amazing thing.” Jessica says.

“I did a stupid thing. It’s gonna be on TV and then my parents are gonna see. They’re gonna be so worried.”

“Go see them. Tell them what happened. They’ll understand.”

“They’re gonna get mobbed, Jessica. Everybody’s gonna be all in their business now, they’ll probably have to move.” The man knows that he did something good by saving that family, but his actions will change the lives of his family forever and there is no way to know if it would be for the better.

Jessica moves to hug him, but before she can put her arms around him, she shrieks and the man sees her face twist in agony. She falls into him and the man holds her in his arms. He feels her blood on his hands and he lays gently her on the sand. When he looks up, there is a tall man pointng a gun at him. He is speaking in language that the man has never heard before.

The man with the gun is Dr. Thomas Eakran and his beacon led him to the man. When the man did not respond to him in the language of Eakran’s people, Eakran says in English, “What are you doing here? You told that human about yourself?” Eakran slowly. “Tell me who you are and why you have come here. What is this technology agitating my beacon?”

“Why did you shoot her? Who the hell are you?” The man asks as he stands again.

“I am Eakran, I am of Druont, just like you. And I thought that I was the only Druinte on this planet. Who sent you here? How did you get here? And how did you save those people from that car? What is the device you have?”

“What the hell are you talking about? What is a Druinte?” The man yells. “You killed her! You killed Jessica!” The man yells and he is overcome with rage. He imagines the suit of armor from before and then charges at Eakran, knocking the gun from his hand. Eakran’s beacon device shatters when he falls. Eakran engages his own suit of armor that assembles from his belt buckle.

Eakran wonders if the man he is looking at is actually a human like he says he is. He looks like a Druinte in disguise, just like himself, and it makes sense. Why else would his beacon have led him right to him?

The man attacks Eakran again, this time aiming to take his head from his body, but Eakran is fast and throws the man into the sand. Eakran holds the man down and demands answers. “Tell me who you are. What device do you have? How did you get it?”

Before the man can make another move, his armor disappears and he feels the metal boot of Eakran’s armor on his chest. It is heavy and he worries that it will shatter his chest. The man imagines a flash of light and puff of smoke, and he manages to free himself from Eakran. The man disappears, unable to avenge the life of the woman who had helped him meet the end of his journey.

Months after the incident in Long Beach, CA, a man named Kevin walks into an auto shop in Tacoma, WA. He is a tall man, and his skin is dark brown. He has lot of experience with cars and the manager of the shop is nice enough to give him a try. Before he arrived in Tacoma, he’s spent time in a few other cities in Northern CA and Oregon where he made enough money fixing cars to move on to the next place. Kevin has decided to be a man in the shadows. He never stays in one place long enough to make a real impression and he never tells anyone his name that doesn’t need to know it. In Tacoma, he rents a small motel room and when he turns on the TV, he sees a news report about a mysterious man who had saved the life of a family in Long Beach, CA after a terrible car accident. There was video of the man in a suit of armor that disappeared with no explanation, and then the man is magically wearing a jetpack that allows him to fly away. Kevin sees himself grab Jessica in the video and his heart breaks that he was responsible for the death of another person. The reporter on the news explains that investigators are still searching for the man who was wanted in the apparent murder of a woman on the same day of car accident. 

Kevin turns off the TV. He isn’t the man in the video anymore. Yes, he still has his preternatural ability, but he plans to never use it again. Unless he sees the man who shot Jessica on the beach that day. Then he will do everything in his power to make that man pay for what he’d done to Jessica.