Abel Ladd - The Crying Child | Day 6 : 1582 words

The ping of the notification from his pda startled Neal awake and he turned to see the clock glowing “3:15” on the table next to his side of the bed, the pda glowing with the notification showing briefly on the screen. Rolling to his side he tapped the pda and it lit up quickly, sliding the notification to the front he slowly focused his eyes on the message.
“Tomorrow morning 8am corner of 1st and Pine next to the fountain”
Neal read it multiple times as he tried to picture the fountain in his still half asleep mind but soon found himself looking at the black of his eyelids.
After an extended blink his eyes opened and it took a few breaths before he was awake enough to suddenly remember. He rolled to his side and stared at the clock with wide eyes which glowed a bright “6:52” and he flopped back onto his back and his head hit the pillow in a puff. After a moment of shock he turned to look for Esme but her side of the bed was vacant.
Lumbering down the hallway he stopped at Abel’s still cracked open door and peeked in but saw no one in the room. He then heard the sounds of them in the kitchen and headed for their voices. He entered the kitchen and saw Esme holding Abel and he was fussily suckling as she tried to get him to calm down.
“I didn’t hear you get up,” Neal said as he stepped to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup.
“You were out hard and didn’t twitch to his cries so I let you sleep,” she replied as she rocked Abel.
Neal carried his full cup of coffee to the table and as he sat down said, “I got a reply at 3 this morning to the message.”
“Oh? What’d did it say?” she asked.
“Wants to meet by the fountain at First and Pine this morning at 8, but I don’t remember there being a fountain there,” he said.
“You don’t? It’s the giant fountain in the plaza atrium, you see it from the street pretty clearly with the giant glass windows,” Esme said with a tinge of disbelief.
Neal thought for a moment and he had to walk down the street in his mind before he was able to see the fountain. “Ahh, okay, now I remember,” he said finally.
“Be careful Neal,” Esme told him softly, “you don’t know who that is. It could be a trap of some kind.”
“A trap for what? If someone has information about Abel I want to know what it is, especially since he is the Crying Child.”
Abel suddenly started a coughing fit and spit milk up all over Esme’s shirt. She quickly headed for the sink and held him over it while he spit up more and it landed in the sink bottom. After a few more small heaves Abel was done and Esme turned to carried him back to his room to change him and herself.
“I’m going to the meeting soon Es, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Neal called to her as she carried Abel down the hall.
“Okay, be careful,” she called back.

 Neal stepped off the subway onto the platform for Pine street and made his way through the crowd of people heading to work, climbing the stairs to the street amidst the crowd. The subway entrance sat a couple blocks from the meeting spot and he briskly walked through the mass of people towards 1st street. The buildings overhead blocked much of the sunlight and the wind blew along the streets in a constant flow of air. Soon he found himself at the corner of Pine and 1st and the bottom of the massive TWI building, the fountain visible in the atrium inside. He paused a moment then followed the throng of people entering the building.
The atrium stood many stories tall and was filled with a vast array of various plants hanging from the walls. The large circle fountain with a statue of a winged cherub pouring water from a challis while a tall vertical laminar flow stream of water shot up to nearly the top of the atrium sat in the middle. A bench seat ringed the fountain but there was only one person seated around it. Neal stood watching the fountain for a minute as he tried to decide if the person was who he was to meet. 
“Screw it,” Neal thought then walked around the fountain towards the person seated. As he got near the person turned and Neal could see it was Doctor Stetler.
“Mr. Ladd, thank you for meeting me.” Grey said as he remained seated. “Sit,” Grey said motioning to the seat next to him.
Neal sat down and cautiously asked, “why are we meeting here? Why not the hospital or center?”
Grey turned to face Neal and said quietly, “Mr. Ladd, your son IS the Crying Child and he IS in danger.”
Neal’s heart sank as he listened and he quickly asked, “so what does that mean? How is he in danger? From who or what?”
“Don’t play dumb, you know as well as everyone else that the Diviners have spoken of the Crying Child for generations, ever since DAWN was mandated. Your son is the first child to be immune to DAWN,” Grey’s annoyance began to show as he spoke. “The world is well aware of his existence now, there was no way to keep the center from talking about him after his birth.”
“We’ve figured by now that he’s the Crying Child but what does that mean for him, for us?” Neal asked.
“Well, first thing is there are a lot of agencies that are very keen on ‘evaluating’ Abel to determine the mechanism of his immunity. There are agencies that are going to be extremely threatened by his very existence. Then there are those few of us that are aiming to protect him and to ensure he fulfills his part in the future of our world and our species,” Grey explained.
“His part? What part?” Neal asked as the waves of panic began to rise in his stomach.
“The Diviners have spoken of a crying child, the one that will be immune to DAWN and with whom the means will be isolated and refined in order to reverse the generations of harm that have been done by DAWN,” Grey explained. 
“What does all that mean for Abel?” Neal asked in exasperation. 
Grey sighed and said, “it means that your son could save the species. DAWN has lead top more problems with the genome than it has helped, just look around at society and you can see it manifest in every aspect of life. Pain is such an integral part of the life experience and the removal of it directly lead to the Great War.”
“So what does this all mean for me, for us?” 
“It means that you need to keep Abel safe and out of view of the world. There have been too many people asking questions already about him and his samples have been hidden in hopes of keeping him hidden. This is likely the most important task in your life so be cautious and keep him safe.” Grey’s tone was serious and his eyes pierced Neal’s.
After a moment of thought Neal asked incredulously, “so what, we treat him like a bubble boy and never let him out of the house?”
“No, nothing that extreme,” Grey replied, “just try to keep him from getting hurt and if you need medical care contact myself or Doctor Biggs. If you take him to any other clinic I can’t guarantee his safety.”
“I know it’s a bit of a ways out but what about school?” Neal asked.
“We should probably cross that bridge when we get closer. For now just try to keep him as safe as possible and the less time in public the better until he is older and less vocal,” Grey said. 
“I still don’t know what to think of all this,” Neal said as he shook his head. “Why us? Why couldn’t we just have a normal child?”
“Try not to worry, in the long run you’ll be much better off and have the chance to change the world.”
“Thanks, but that isn’t exactly comforting,” Neal replied still shaking his head.
“Change is never comforting Mr. Ladd, but it is necessary for life to evolve and that is what Abel will help us to achieve, in time.” Grey’s words trailed off and soon he was standing and said, “if you have any problems or questions you know how to contact us. Good luck Mr. Ladd.”
Neal sat in silence staring at the fountain for a moment before turning to look at Grey. “Thanks Doctor, I think.”
Grey nodded his head then turned and walked to the entrance to the building and disappeared amongst the masses of people filtering in and out of the main entrance. Neal sat and stared at the fountain for a long while before he eventually stood and made his way back to the subway. As he rode the line to his stop he swayed with the movement of the train and his thoughts were racing over what he had just heard. 
“I hope Es doesn’t freak out over this,” he thought as the train slowed to a stop at his station.