North Hills, PA

2010

Xander stomped his way through the bookstore doors, shaking off the excess rain water from his sopping wet hoodie. After catching his breath from his jog through the storm roaring outside, Xander walked through the bookshelves in search of a new tale to captivate his imagination. Upon aimlessly strolling through the fiction section, he arrived to a paperback version of the Little Prince. The artwork and thin text behind its cover showed that it was a children's book. He did not know the story, for he never had anyone to read it to him as a child. His eyes fell into a sullen gaze upon one passage.

"It's a little lonely in the desert...

It is lonely when you're among people, too,"

            The passage pierced Xander's heart as if it was an arrow ripping its way through his chest. He didn't know what it was like to be loved. He raised his eyes to the shelf where so many books he had read stood. He looked over for a brief moment the characters he had joined on their adventures and the places he had gone in those stories. But in reality he remained standing in a bookstore, wet from the rain and awestruck by his own admission of loneliness. His hands quivered slightly as he retreated within himself. But then he saw a figure out of the corner of his eye – a man in an Irish cap entering the same aisle as him. Xander shook off his emotion and started playing the role of the casual observer. 

            The man inched his way towards Xander, starting to browse the section closer to him. A voice came from over Xander's shoulder.

            "The Little Prince. That's one of my all time favorites," the voice noted from behind him.

            "Yeah I was thinking about reading it," Xander responded, turning to face the man in the Irish Cap. The face that stared back at him was Colonel Jack son Hardy's. He was no longer in his military formals, rather dressed in a rough khakis and an unbuttoned forest green cardigan.

            "Why read other people's stories when you haven't written your own?" The question stung Xander to the core. He had reviewed the limited amount of information regarding Project Sparta from the folder given two weeks prior. The program had just started, but Xander's indecision precluded him from pursuing the program. Xander looked onto Hardy and knew that he was there for another recruitment effort.

            "You know they have really good coffee here." Xander suggested cryptically, causing a smile to come over Hardy's face.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            A few minutes later, Xander and Hardy were seated at the corner table before a large window showing the stormy street, sipping on a mug full of steaming coffee. Xander spoke quietly but direct at Hardy.

            "What do you want? Are you following me?"

            "You didn't show up for orientation." Hardy said plainly.

            "No I didn't because being a spy...isn't me," Xander pleaded over an uncertainty gathering in his throat. 

"Then who are you?" Hardy again remained straight and narrowed in on Xander's eyes.

"Eight years ago I was in a car crash with my parents who unfortunately died on that day... the doctors said I hit my head pretty hard. So hard that it wiped my memory clean, but the funny thing is that head trauma also gave me a photographic memory from that point forward. And it just so happens that as I trace my memory back as far as it goes, it seems to start with you. My first memory is you visiting me in the hospital and reviewing my test results. I've been meaning to tell you congratulations on the marriage, Colonel Hardy... " Hardy spun the wedding band around his finger with his thumb. 

"The question is not who I am, you already know that. The question is who you are.... The formals you wore when you came to recruit me two weeks ago were real, but they were tight on you, meaning they are old. You also had twenty-three medals eight years ago, what kind of active military officer goes eight years without being handed some kind of medal. They hand those things out like boy-scout badges to you officers don't they? I figure you're ex-military but not currently field active. In fact, you haven't been field active for a while. My first guess would be that you're CIA. But then again the CIA recruiting teenagers out of high school? Sounds like the start of a conspiracy theory to me. So you tell me..." He spoke through a vacuum of rushed breath, trying to keep up with his thoughts.

            "Are you done yet?" Hardy chuckled, keeping a superior posture and an air of calm to put the moment at ease, a move even the most genius savant could not master.

            "Yeah I am." Xander caught his breath with a huff.

            "We are government contractors. We can do whatever we want. We have brokered a deal with the government to allow an inordinate amount of funding. We are starting the first training program of its kind... Nothing is as it seems..." Hardy tiptoed through the minefield of Xander's emotions. The last words struck Xander as they were in the last line of the Project's Credo he had been given.

            "Cut the cryptic talk. Just tell me straight already...." he pleaded.

            "Xander, you have been selected to participate in Project Sparta. In order to properly craft you, we first must erase you from this life. You will be completely off the books. You will live and train in this program until you are ready for re-entry into the world. At that point you will be an active clandestine operative and you will not exist..." 

            "Why should I go with you?"

            "Because you're a genius and you know it. You know how valuable you can be to the safety and security of America if you're trained properly. You know that if you solve some math theorem at Harvard, only four people in the country will be able to understand it and won't really help anybody. You know that if you come with me.... You will matter."

Xander eyes were lost in the distance. The moment settled on a silence as Xander retreated to his thoughts. The freeways of his mind churned with blinding lights of thought. He had considered the possibility and was intrigued by it. His focus shot through alternatives and analyses most minds could not dream to perform. He remained deep within himself for some meditative time.

Xander peered out the window as the storm began to pass. His thoughts fell sullen, as he recalled how he never fit in and was always different. He remembered the times as a child where he would cry to his foster mother, explaining that no one understood him. He remembered knowing every answer in class without knowing how. He knew that he didn't have many friends.

            In many ways, I already don't exist.

Xander brought his index finger and thumb up to a necklace under his shirt. Ms. Baker had given him the necklace to help him in his decision – on its end hung a sterling silver crucifix about an inch by an inch. After twirling the crucifix through his shirt, Xander's gaze settled on the man before him asking for his trust. He gave him one more look-over, as if sizing the man up.

       "Okay. Let's go..."

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