Unwanted Power

Statement

Heather landed next to Kaleb, which gave him a start. She tried not to smile. He could look up all he liked. Heather could wait till he was not looking. "You ready for my statement now? Or would later be better?"

Kaleb was quick, recovering from the start. He waved over at a wall, the other side of which Heather knew was the door to the roof.

"Look. I said I was to be here alone. No cameras. Just me. No one listened. Not my boss. Not my Coworkers. Not the damn reporters. Most of all, not the goddamn Feds. I didn't tell them we were meeting up here. They have all been watching me like hungry hawks. They'll figure out this isn't a bathroom run fast. There are about to be a ton of people up here. But I want to get your statement..."

There was some banging over at the entrance to the roof to underscore Kaleb's warning.

"Have a pad and pen on you?" Heather asked.

"Yes. I'm here to take a statement." Kaleb sounded a little offended.

"Then how about we go someplace where they can't follow?" Heather suggested

"Err. Right. Where would that be exactly?"

"Come with me. From what I can see, your downtown has a lot of roofs we can use. I suspected this might happen and have a spot picked out." Looping a large shoulder under one of his arms, the way she carried Billy to the tire store, she lifted the pair into the sky and left the soon-to-be encroaching people behind. By the time they arrived, Heather and Kaleb would be spots in the sky.

Heather headed for downtown and landed on the roof of one of the taller buildings. She had scoped this one out before she came to get Kaleb. It is tall, and it had no security camera's on top of it. The general assumption probably being burglars don't break into skyscrapers from 60 stories up. A newer building would probably have them anyway, but this building was older. Never retrofitted with roof cameras.

They landed smoothly. "Ok. Good. It should take them a while to figure out how to get to us here. Assuming they were able to see from there where we landed. They probably could. I am guessing they have to find the right people with keys to the roof on these buildings. I hope. At the very least, they have to drive from there to here and come up. We have a few minutes."

Kaleb was looking a little green. He bent over, hands on knees, and breathed heavily. "Give me a sec... OK? Shit... Warn a guy."

"Sorry. People were pouring onto the roof, on the other side of the wall. Like you said. I assumed you wanted a statement more than you wanted me to take off. Take off without you, in any case." Heather waited for him to recover his composure. "You OK?"

"I will be..." he said. "Not a thing one expects. To be flying. Like... way up there. That people look like ants thing you always hear? Bullshit. You can't see the people. All you can see is the cars."

"Normal for me. I live up in the sky. A lot more private up there."

Kaleb looked up, still bent over. "An angel in the clouds, eh?"

"Clouds are not as comfortable as they look." Heather said.

Kaleb stood up. Collected himself. Squared his shoulders. Heather could see his official self reassert.

"We're trespassing up here, you know. I did not want all those people on the roof of our building, but I sure did not get permission to be on this one." Kaleb stated. "Let's just go downtown."

"Where all the people that did not listen to you last time about no pictures and no interviews are? No thanks. We may be trespassing, but we are just talking. I am trying to cooperate with you on a statement you cannot use, but I draw the line at being a spectacle. Judging by what I saw coming at us? Half those people were reporters and photographers. I will not be photographed and put in the paper. Humans do not understand privacy, from what I can see. It does not mean I have to have mine broken. You said some were Federal agents. You have no idea how much I do not wish to talk to them. They are nosey and intrusive. Federal authorities think they have rights over me they do not have. Two seconds after they open the conversation, they'll be trying to figure out how to weaponize me. No. Not going to happen."