Chapter 18 A Messed Up Situation (1/2)

Laz was in love. This feeling of the wind hitting him while riding down the road. There was little traffic and with the small mirrors on the handle bars, he could keep an eye out behind. He would always move over when a care came, but otherwise he was able to soar down the road.

He noticed the bike could do over 70 mph based on the speedometer, but he kept it somewhat lower than that. He never really realized how much more you could feel the road and the wind when on a bike as opposed to a car. Although it was liberating, for his first time he took it somewhat slow.

The other thing he noticed was that when he got used to the ride, although he would stay alert, his mind would sometimes start thinking back to the last few days. The conversations with his grandpa and Grandpa Bill were the things that came up the most. Times to come, changes that were happening, even about things like Tony and his grandpa's 'business' deal.

He knew that his grandpa was probably doing it for his sake but Laz had always been someone who would walk on the side of the law, so he still had questions in his heart.

As he rode, he would constantly be scanning the surroundings with his vision and focusing his hearing. Although the sound of the bike was loud, he found that with practice, he could narrow down what he heard and block out what he didn't want to.

He realized that practice makes perfect, even with something as strange as this.

He found himself pulling into the parking lot of the apartment shortly before 3pm. Driving in the car would have made for a quicker ride and he could have gone faster, but it felt like he would connect more when he rode slower and used his enhanced senses.

It was a type of training he made up for himself. Losing focus on a bike was far more dangerous than in a car. So to keep his concentration while also observing and listening ended up causing him to expand a lot more brain power. The reward seemed to be worth it though. By the time he parked the bike and shut off the ignition, he was able to have one part of his mind focus on that while the other part was scanning the surroundings with his hearing.

He started to wondering if this was kind of like echolocation. He could practically build a 3D image in his mind based solely on the sounds he heard.

Pulling the key out, he looked at them somewhat absentmindedly. Two keys, one for his bike, one for his apartment. It felt strange. He was only 14 and yet he already had his own place and his own ride. He didn't know for sure. but he felt like there probably wouldn't be a lot of 14 year olds who could compare with him on this.

Since he had parked on the far side of the lot, away from the entrance, he had to walk along the walkway for the lower apartments. As he was passing by Joey's apartment, he was still using his hearing and building the 3D image. It was like everything was blank outside of the circle radius until he got within range. If you could imagine exploring and mapping terrain inside of a game, it would be somewhat similar.

He paused for a moment as his mental image came into focus. He could practically see the inside of Joey's apartment and what he noticed disgusted him. The place was a mess with trash everywhere, practically piled up with flies buzzing around. The area around his computer was the only open area in the place. Focusing more, he could tell Joey was in his bedroom.

He also noticed he wasn't alone.

If something didn't make a noise and wasn't close, it wouldn't come into Laz's mental image but luckily, he had his eyes as well.

He focused his heat sensing vision at Joey's place and was able to tell a few things.

The first thing he noticed was that it was much warmer inside than it was outside.

The second thing he noticed was there was a large, roundish heat signature that must have been Joey, standing in his bed room and moving around like crazy.

The final thing he noticed was there was another heat signature that was many times smaller than Joey that seemed to be in a horizontal position in the bed room as well.

'What the?' Laz found this to be somewhat odd. He didn't think this guy would have friends, much less a girlfriend.