Stunt? That was just a stunt? He hadn’t intended to drag me? If that was true then Alexis certainly knew how to motivate people. Wait a second, did he say “everyone he put through this?” How many people has Alexis done this to? As I was trying to process that piece of information he continued to speak to me as if he had been speaking about a trip to the grocery store. “Now I’m fairly certain you don’t know where Dempsey lives. But I’ve been wrong a time or two before so if this happens to be one of those times just nod your head.”
As I was trying to convince him that he should stay my execution I figured honesty would be in my best interest. Besides, this would be a very stupid thing to lie about as he would quickly discover my deception. I shook my head. “I figured that, fortunately for you I do know where he lives. I just never had a reason to bother with him until now. He has no idea what I am capable of, which is probably one of the reasons he was hoping someone like you could kill me. To be honest, I was perfectly willing to just leave him alone for the most part. However now I’m going to make him wish you two had never met. Before you have a conniption fit, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do exactly, but the most likely scenario is that I’m just going to pull him out of his house. And since that’ll take me all of a minute or two I’ll just leave you in the bed of my truck. So I’m going to tie your leash to my truck to ensure your safety, as well as your continued presence. I’m sorry if that bruises your ego, but that isn’t my concern. For now just sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery.”
With that the headset was ripped from my hand and pulled back through the wall of the cab, once more leaving me in silence. Letting my head sink as far as it could I began thinking that I have definitely been in worse spots, for instance waking up in Dempsey’s freezer. But instead of watching the sights as Alexis suggested I set my mind to work on what I had seen, or more accurately, felt him do with his “forging” as he called it.
How had he managed to stop the bullet? That feat had been on my short list before I ever entered Alexis’ home and witnessed him do it. Now that I knew it could be done I was desperate to learn how it worked. Before today I had never given the problem a lot of thought. Before today I had never needed to give it a lot of thought. Now, I certainly knew just how useful it could be.
As I started trying to unravel the puzzle at hand, I couldn’t help thinking of Kevlar. But the problem with that was Kevlar, while it certainly would provide protection from bullets, offered little to no protection from bladed objects or arrows. No, if I was going to tackle this issue I wouldn’t rest until I found something that would protect me from everything, well most everything. I had briefly thought about layering my protection, Kevlar in conjunction with something else, but that just seemed too unwieldy. Whatever the solution was I knew Alexis had cracked it; he had a more complete, maybe even a totally complete form of protection, and he didn’t need body armor to achieve it. So how did he do it?
I just needed time to piece everything together. I took a deep breath and replayed the assassination attempt in my mind. After I had pulled the trigger I watched the bullet fly through the air until it came within a few feet of his head, where it stopped. What had he done to stop it like that? Was it even done through forging? Then I thought about how he had managed to hogtie me so quickly and completely. Could the answer for both be related in some way? At no time tonight had Alexis actually touched me, he was never even close enough until I was already secured. Even then he had been careful not to touch me, almost as if he thought I was diseased or something.
Was he trying to show off his superiority with forgery? Scratch that, he was clearly superior to me, there was no need for a show. But there had also been no line of sight, so how had he located me so quickly? I rubbed my wrists as the memory of my binding washed over me. Neither my bonds nor whatever stopped the bullet were visible, it was as if he had wrapped them up with nothing but air. Wait, could the answer really be that simple? Is it even possible? I almost laughed as I thought of the simple solution. Had Alexis somehow managed to learn how to forge air?
I considered the possibility. Air was technically made up of molecules just like everything else. But I had always thought they weren’t dense enough to manipulate. Did he manage to do it by dealing with one molecule of air at a time? Is this how he had managed to affect things at a distance? Air does connect everything together. Could it really be that simple? No! It had to be something else; there was no way the answer could be that easy.
But what if it is? After all, the best magic tricks were always deceptively simple. It was a rule of the universe, the more complicated you tried to make something, the more spectacular the inevitable failure. Am I right? I had to test my theory. I concentrated on my left hand and pictured a marble, about the size of a dime that was made entirely out of air, condensed air. But when I tried to fuel the transformation nothing happened. What am I missing?
Before I could try again the truck pulled to a stop. Did the two of them live that close together or had I just been so absorbed with the puzzle that I hadn’t noticed how much time had passed? As I tried to stand I abruptly came to the end of my leash and stumbled ungracefully back into a sitting position. How did he manage to fix my leash like that while driving? Wait, dumb question. Apparently, he could do anything.