[hr] [center][color=lightblue][h3] Mike Stafford [/h3][/color][/center] [center][img]https://www.liveabout.com/thmb/4wZA_WMVBmRyu2v_Y0zwF-0_DlQ=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/hitchhiker-night-57c7423e3df78c71b6178bf6.jpg[/img][/center] [hr] [center][b][color=lightblue][i]I am the night. I am Silence. I am one of billions, lost in billions. No man can hear me, for I do not speak. No man can see me, for I live in the shadow. No man can smell me, for my mind is clean. No man can touch me, for I am not real.[/i][/color][/b][/center] [hr] That was the precise kind of thing that Mike was [i]not[/i] repeating to himself, mentally or verbally. That was the precise kind of thing that made you obvious to anyone who wanted to see you, the kind of mantra that had echoes an experienced opposing agent could hear. It was not in his mind, being nobody. Because he wasn't nobody, and you could never be nobody. He was Mike, instead. Mike was an electrician's apprentice a few years ago, who had taken a shining to his job but simply hated the man teaching him. The big fat oaf had enjoyed making Mike do the pointless, shitty jobs, for no good reason - and it's not like he wasn't aware that the apprentice is the guy who gets those jobs, it was just especially malicious in this case. Ever since then he'd decided to skip town and see if he could make any money from the skills he'd already learnt... without telling the IRS. Mike was a nice enough guy, reasonably bright, with a decent heart - but he hadn't gotten any work at all, and he'd ended up pawning his car for money to keep him fed. Eventually his old boss had called the cops on him. Something about stealing valuable tradesman's tools. Never happened. But hey. It had been a couple months now, going from hostel to hostel, bussing it cross-country. He'd been through five states, Illinois being the latest, just doing the odd job here and there, hiking when he couldn't afford the bus any more. It was lonely, and cold, and poor - but he was free. Mike held freedom pretty high up as an ideal, honestly; he wasn't political, but the whole 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' thing really struck a chord with him. Oh, speaking of striking chords, Mike also played guitar. He wasn't superb, but he had the right kinds of hands for it. Shame he'd had to sell that too. Mike wasn't really thinking about this either, of course - not repeating it at the very least. He didn't need to. You don't think about your life's history every day, now do you? He'd been hiking it - like, properly hiking it, camping and shit at night, crossing the country and avoiding roads - for the last... well, couple weeks probably. He'd slept rough the first few nights before he eventually bit the bullet and bought a tent, something small and collapsible that fit discreetly into his backpack rather than being obvious outside of it, no big poles or anything - just a flexed wire frame and a couple short pegs; and before he'd been doing his woodsman thing, he'd been hitchhiking it once his bus fare ran out. He'd met some interesting characters doing that. There was a little girl he'd been seeing around, recently. A scruffy, unwell little thing, pale and sick. She kept her cigarettes in a redbull can and had a thing for duct tape. Couldn't be more than 15. Mike had been quite careful not to be seen by her more than once - though he'd considered giving her some of his cash. It looked like she'd been doing this for a lot longer than he had, and he had the skills for it more than she did. Poor kid. [hr] Mike sighed. He was searching the chocolate in the gas station for something halfway decent - after all, it was time for his one treat of the week - with a bacon sandwich and a coke tucked into the crook of his arm. He hadn't intended to be in here when that kid he'd been unintentionally following arrived, but he'd managed to always be in the other aisle to her and he didn't reckon she'd noticed him - at least not as if he were a person. To be totally honest he also hadn't really intended to 'follow' her this far, or at all - but then he also didn't know why he was still walking. If he'd been acting normally, he'd have gone to ground in a medium sized town a little while ago. He had enough to keep him right for a little while, by which time he'd probably know more about who - if anybody - was following him. But he wasn't. Instead he'd made the trip all the way from Langley, Virginia, to Brightwell, Illinois. He hadn't known he was going to Brightwell in particular until half a month ago either - he'd just known there was a direction he needed to go in, even if sometimes it meant not seeing people for a while. It was a curious kind of pull, like little hands grabbing at your heart. Mike was very tired. Sleep never came easy to him. He'd tried to see his doctor about it but didn't have the insurance to cover the costs - and that was while he was still an apprentice. As he paid up - in cash - and left the gas station, tucking his things back into his backpack, he turned and gave a glance to the kid. She was talking to some tall motherfucker in a coat, who'd been there when Mike went into the gas station in the first place, backed up by a sedan's worth of creepy addict-looking punks. He was surprisingly unworried about the kid, mostly because human traffickers are usually better at blending in, but he definitely still made a quick mental note of the man's features as he turned away, placing a hand on a pocket inside his parka where he was keeping some loose cash. It was a curious thing, feeling something cease to exist. Ten dollars left his palm and arrived without incident in the kid's back pocket, crumpled up like she'd just forgotten it. It was probably enough for a cheap hot meal and maybe a shower - though Mike knew he'd skip the shower and see if he could get a beer instead, in her position. She'd find it eventually, probably in a couple hours or whenever she next sat down and felt the disturbance. Just a way to remind himself he was still human, and not something he'd done for her before. Well. Maybe a couple times. Only a couple. Just enough that she felt a little lucky sometimes. Not enough that she'd notice. Mike still had enough left for himself, which was all that really mattered. His plan was to go find wherever this little niggling feeling was leading him, and find the person who'd been resourceful enough to get his cell number and kind enough to not turn him in. Just another tuesday for Mike Stafford.