One More Day pt. 4

Peter kneeled down to the little girl's height observing her carefully. He exchanged a confused glance with Rachael. "What're you doing out here by yourself, kiddo? This isn't a safe place."

"If I told you wouldn't that mean I was talking to a stranger?" The girl asks shyly, looking down at her shoes, her brown hair falling in her face.

"Well, yes..." Peter responds.

"And you wouldn't want me to get in the habit of doing that, would you?" The girl smirks.

"No." Peter answers confused.

"Because you like to protect people." The girl asks.

"Yes." Peter nods, Rachael placed her hand on his shoulder as he crouched in front of the girl.

"So maybe it's time someone protected you. Maybe it's time someone helped you." The girl smiles.

"You don't understand...it looks like there's nothing anyone can do to help me. I'm at the end of my rope." Peter sighs standing up.

"Hah! You haven't even seen the rope. But I can show it to you. I know where it is." The girl says turning away from them and starting to walk.

"What are you-" Rachael asks.

"Do you want to save her or don't you?" The girl asks stopping and turning towards them for a second.

"I-" Peter says confused.

"Then come on." The girl says walking away again quickly and smugly. They both follow after her confused. "I don't have a lot of time. You have even less. And her...the one you're trying to save, she has no time at all."

"I don't think you should- that is where are your parents?" Peter asks the young bright eyed girl, who looked oddly similar to Rachael and himself but he ignored it.

"Oh...they're around, but they cut me a lot of slack because I'm very smart for my age. I take after my dad that way." The girl sighs.

"That so?" Peter asks, as they follow her.

"Yeah...but frankly I'd rather take after my mom. She's beautiful." The little girl says looking at the ground sadly.

"Well, I'm sure you'll grow up to be very beautiful." Peter says trying to make the child feel better, exchanging a confused glance with Rachael.

"And what if I never grow up?" The girl sighs sadly.

Rachael opens her mouth to say something but the girl's sad demeanor quickly changes to anger as she turns around to face Peter.

"You know what your problem is? You're selfish!" The girl shouts angrily.

"Woah...hang on-" Peter says putting his hands up defensively.

"You're selfish and you're self-involved and you always put your pain at the center of the universe! As long as you can go to sleep with a clear conscience, you don't care who else has to pay the price for that good night's sleep! The whole world has to answer to your pain, and you know why? Because making the pain big, makes you big, makes your revenge big, makes you feel big!" The girl yells, Peter took a step back his eyes widening. Rachael looked down at the girl curiously she could have sworn she'd said almost the exact same thing to him a few years back, during one of their break ups.

"Those are awfully big ideas for a kid." Peter says.

"Never mind, you're just an idiot. You're just what everyone always said you were." The girl says to him angrily shaking a finger at him, looking like she was ready to bolt. She quickly wrapped her arms around Rachael's waist in an embrace, before turning and running away. "I shouldn't have said anything, that's not why I'm here...I should just take you to the next step and let go. It's time for me to let everything go!"

"Everything?" Rachael whispers shocked and confused by what she had just witnessed as girl ran down an alleyway.

"Wait...you shouldn't go down that alley, it's not safe!" Peter yells after her. "Wait!"

They both ran over to the alley the girl had ran down finding it empty with no trace of the child.

"Can I help you?" A male voice comes from behind them. They turn to see a man reading a book on a bench, outside of a nice looking apartment building.

"There was a girl just here..." Rachael says worriedly feeling a strange connection to the child.

"Oh. Yeah, her. That's just how it is. She's here one minute and the next she's gone." The man says, seeming familiar but neither of them could place their finger on it.

"So you're?" Peter asks.

"Oh well. I mainly work in software design and testing. Computer games mainly...first person shooters, space combat games, super hero stuff. Yeah, kinda fell into that right after high school." The man explains but didn't really answer Peter's question.

"Well, That sounds like it must be a fun job." Peter sighs.

"You know why guys like me get into games like that?" The man asks. "Because there's something missing. We look around at a world where there used to be a chance of being a hero, of being important... and it's just not there the way it used to be. You can't just pick up a gun and become a gunfighter, or go off and explore for a new world, or pull a sword out of a stone, or save a damsel in distress, or- So we play games and we read books because the world we got isn't the world we thought we supposed to get, the world we thought we'd been promised by somebody. Because things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to. So we go to somebody else's."

"But those places don't really exist." Rachael says.

"Yeah, well nothing's perfect right?" The man sighs.

"If I could do any of those things in real life, really be those things, a hero, somebody who could change the world, save lives...I guess, I guess I'd be the happiest guy on earth. I'd never ask for anything else. Wouldn't need anything. I'd be grateful. Because the rest of the world never gets that chance." The brown haired and brown eyed, middle aged man says.

"Yeah, well, I... this isn't going to help us get any closer to finding that little girl before she gets into trouble and-" Peter sighs.

"Excuse me-" A male voice that was oddly familiar came from a red futuristic looking car, pulled over on the street. "I think I saw the person you're looking for. Get in I'll give you a lift."

—

"Quite a ride you've got here. Any gadgets you don't have in this thing?" Rachael asks looking around.

"Warp drive. My mechanics are putting it in on Friday, while I'm at the office." The man say, who was very familiar to both of them but they shrugged it off just assuming he was making them think of Tony by his attitude. "Would you like a drink?"

"I can't." Rachael answers before quickly changing her answer. "...I mean, no thanks."

"What about you, son?" The man asks taking a drink if champagne from a glass he had previously.

"No thanks...it's not that I don't drink, it's just I choose not to." Peter answers.

"Yep, I used to be the same way. Funny, where our choices bring us, isn't it." The familiar looking man says. The car drove past Midtown Science as it made its way down town. "I️ came from this part of town. Went to school here. Got beat up practically everyday by the other kids. They hated me because I was smart, because I wasn't like them. Never wanted to be them. They got the glory, the girls, the applause on the football field, the prom queen...and I got the boot. Then I started inventing things...all kinds of things. Thirty patents by the time I was nineteen. Made my first million that year. And ten times that then next. And all those kids I went to high school with? Most of them work for me now, in one way or another. The rest are janitors or gas station attendants. And they still hate me, but at least now I give them a reason."

"Even so, you must be happy now that you've got everything you ever wanted." Peter says.

"No not everything." The man sighs, sadly. "There was a young woman I once knew from high school. Beautiful. She was all I ever really wanted. I lost her." He says staring into the liquid in his glass and they both could have sworn they could see the outline of the woman he was talking about.

"This is where we get off." He sighs opening the car door and getting out of the back seat. They both got our as well looking down the alleyway he had brought them to. "What you're looking for is right down here. I'll show you I could use a walk."

The three of them begin to walk into the alley. "You know what's funny? I live in a ten-thousand-square-foot penthouse apartment in Manhattan overlooking Central Park, I have every piece of art, every toy, all the CDs, all the DVD's and plasma screen TVs anyone could ask for. I have a dozen woman on speed-dial who'll come at any hour of the day or night to make sure I'm not alone. I have everything I've ever wanted. And I'd trade it all for her. For just one woman, who truly, honestly loved me. Not for the money but for what I can do...just for me. And I'll never ever have that." The man says almost like a warning.

"That's a nice sentiment." Rachael smiles softly at him.

He smiles at her fondly like he new something she didn't, like he loved her. "End of the line, for me at least." The man said stopping and turning his attention away from Rachael. "She's waiting for you in there."

"Umm...I don't think this is the right..." Peter says looking around a strange gold trail of some sort of magical mist floating around them, the man gone when they looked to where he had been. "Hello?"

"I'm right here. I've always been right here." A strange woman in a red dress speaks seeming to appear out of nowhere.