After I’d finished the beer, and had a glass of water to follow it up, there was a knocking at the door. When I answered it, there was a skinny Bigfoot, if that is not a contradiction in terms, wearing a teeshirt, jeans and a leather biker jacket at the door. Tablet and charger in one hand, a bike helmet in the other, He? She? Came in. They Shuffled the helmet and tablet to the same hand, and stuck the other hand out. The deep voice of a young man came out, then he flicked the hair out of his face with an extra confident upward toss of his head, like it was a habit, both hopefully nailing the gender for me. Good handshake, l like that.

“Hi Joseph, I’m Ts'emekwes, but everyone just calls me Wes. Mom sent me over to hookup a facetime call for you. As soon as that’s done, I’m to swap Uncle Gar here over from his old computer to this. It’s my old tablet, from middle school, not sure why he wants it.”

Chuckling, I waved Wes inside. “Dude, come into the kitchen, you have to see the -Dinosaur- he was logging in with. That thing will be light years of improvement. Just be ready for tech support calls, trust me on this.”

I walked in and in a gesture like a stage magician, reveled Gars old Luggable.

Wes busts out laughing, “Holy crap dude, you were not kidding. That thing has the big floppies and everything.” Wes moved around till he was sitting in Gars seat and started tinkering with the dino and writing things down on a paper napkin.”

After a moment, he looked at me, “I like your jacket man, Very Ike meets Mash, but why the whole monochromatic thing?”

I leaned back and smiled. “Ms. Agatha hooked me up, instead of just say a pair of pants, I got all this as one boon, “a uniform”. Apparently, I got shanghaied by Recruiting, and bypassed training altogether. At least I have a full set of clothes to take to Devona. I landed with workout shorts t-shirt and a robe.”

Wes slid the tablet over to me and replied. “Yeah, mom said you were going to Devona too, my Sister Momo and I are taking our practicals out there soon. Practical’s are our last step before qualification for field work, rolled in with summer vacation at the same time, wander, get a feel for how things work boots side, and fix bugs along the way. Maybe we’ll see you there? I’ve got the tablet all set to call your sister, just open the facetime app and hit call. It’ll go to my parent’s bill and everything. I’m going to go watch TV in the living room, so I don’t wind up in frame and freak your sister out. When you are all done, let me know and I’ll shift It all over to Uncle Gars info.”

I looked Wes in the eye, “Thanks a ton man, you don’t know what this means to me.”

Wes just waved it off as he stood up, “No biggie, mom filled me in on that part, I’ve got two sisters, I get it. Take your time on the call, we’ve got the unlimited plan.” Wes moved on into the living room and started channel surfing.

I pulled the tablet in front of me, and took a few deep breaths, and hit call.

In a few rings my sister Jodie popped up, 25, she was the kind of skinny that’s more than waifish, it’s frail. Her normal golden skin now sallow. Her hair still a beautiful black, but just a short frizz from her last round of chemo. Despite it all, still brimming with a bucket of sprit and personality. The features that looked Meh on me, fitted on her perfectly, “Hey bro what’s up! where you been all day? Why are you dressed like that? You starting a new hobby? Moving to a missile silo in Montata?” Her eyes sparkled as she teased me.

Trying to school my face to relaxation. I began to tell my sister the cover story, such as it was.

“Look Jod, that’s what I’m calling about. I’m about to tell you some super weird shit. It’s not going to make any sense. I need to you turn off your disbelief and listen to me. It’s life or death important. I promise.”

Jodie shrank in on herself, looking sick again now hat her spark was extinguished, “Okay Joe, you are starting to scare me.” She said, her face fully serious for once, her tone confused.

“First off, I’m ok. I’m going to tell you some very strange things. I’m into some dad level shit here, I can’t tell you everything, for security reasons. I need you to promise to be chill. Ok?”

“Shoot bill, bullshit detector offline. You’d better not be about to introduce me to your blind date coworker though.” She said with a laughing smile that made her truly beautiful. That’s my girl, can’t keep her down.

I laughed so hard I shook the whole tablet for a second. “No Jodi, much weirder than that. I’m going someplace I can’t tell you about. I’m going to be there for a long time. I’m not sure how long. But really long.”

Jod’s eyebrows knit together and her eyes got soft. “Joe you are freaking me out.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“It’s going to get worse. First off, I’ve been sheep dipped, all identifying marks gone. The people I’m working for, they are going to fake my death. Decoy body with the marks and everything. I need you to refuse to Id it. Say you are too freaked out. Let mom handle it, ok? Don’t say it is, don’t say it isn’t. Then I need you to act like I’m dead. You get the house, insurance, retirement, my car, everything. This is all according to plan. You can’t ID the body in case I make it back, so insurance can’t come at you.”

Here voice was even softer and smaller? “In case you come back? Joe who’s going to take care of me, my next round of Chemo starts soon.”

“We’re working that from this end. For now, you need to use that money to get by. Keep paying for Cobra when my job lets me go or whatever. We’re expecting that money to cover you for at least a year. We are working on after that. Okay? Should be several years’ worth in my 401k as long as you keep insurance up.”

I noticed the TV had stopped making noise. I looked up and Wes was in the doorway. He was tapping his ear and then pretending to tap a button on the tablet.

“Jod hang on, I need to put you on mute for second, I’ll be right back.”

Wes spoke after I laid the tablet against my chest. “I forgot to tell, you Mom is calling in a favor, My Uncle Isatai’I White Eagle is going to come help with your sister while things are up in the air. She can just call him Iz or White Eagle. Mom said Iz was big in ‘the Medicine’ thing back in the day. Tell her Iz is a small old native guy, Commanche I think? One of the “C” ones… He’s going to smell like pot. Frankly he smokes a -lot- of pot. If I had to guess, ‘Big into the Medicine’ might be mom speak for ‘Pot Smoking Hippy.’ He’s a complete blast to hang with though, he’s got the craziest stories. If she needs to prove his identity, The password is “sun” and the response is “dance”. Ok?

“Sun dance, got it.” I’ll tell her. Tell your mom thanks for me, and Jodie, okay?

Wes nods at me, “No prob, like I said, sisters… back to your call”. Then he wanders back and I hear the TV again.

I move the tablet so I could see the screen again, un muted the call. “Okay Jode, my employers have arranged for a caretaker for you. Old Native American guy named Iz something White Eagle. Wes says he’s small, old and smokes a lot of pot. But he’s a good dude. Used to be into natural cures and shit. Ok?”

Somehow, Jodie was getting smaller and frailer while I watched. “Okay Joseph”.

Crap she only called me Joseph when shit was bad. “One last thing before I go. When you meet Iz, you say to him ‘Sun” and he’ll reply “Dance’ got it, sundance, like the movie festival. Sun, dance. Okay, I need to go now. I don’t know when I’ll be able to contact you again. I love you and I’m going to do all that I can from my end. Ask Iz to pass me a message if it’s important, ok? You can do this.”

“Joseph, are you in some kind of trouble?” I was suddenly seeing her 6 years old in my head, or maybe it was my heart.

“No Jod, I can promise you, I’m not in legal trouble, I’m not going to Jail, Everything I told you is true. I just can’t tell you everything. I need to go okay. Remember. You get everything. Use it to take care of yourself. Pretend I’m dead. OK?”

“I’ve got it Joseph, I can handle it from here. You go do whatever it is you have to do and get home safely.”

“Understood, I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best. Bye Jod, I love you. ” I hung up and folded my arms on the table and put my head down for a while. Wes left me to it the TV blaring in the other room. I could hear him puttering around in there, looking at the stuff on shelves.

A while later, when I’d gotten myself back together Wes came back in and started puttering on the tablet.

Soon he plugged the tablet in, and set It on the table. After a few moments. Wes spoke. “Hey Joe, I have an idea for solving that monochromatic problem of yours?”

Mildly interested, having accepted the clothes as a blessing already, I said “okay hit me.”

Wes gestured towards himself, then back to me. “You and I need to trade jackets. I’ll be gearing up afresh before I leave on my practical, and yours is a cool jacket. Even swap. Don’t tell anyone but I snuck a couple pairs of Uncle Gars clean socks it to the pockets too. I’m told a couple extra pairs of socks is a blessing in the field for guys like you who have to wear shoes. Even without the studs and chain, the leather jacket will give you more protection, and better warmth. I just Oiled the crap out of it, so it’s even waterproof for a little while. Sure, you’re going to look like one of the village people, but honestly, you’re doing that already. It’ll just be a different one.”

I laughed a little at that and said, “That’s mighty generous of you. Are you sure?”

“Dude, no problem, you are super hooking Uncle Gar up. It’s the least I can do.” We swapped jackets, his soft leather jacket feeling better on me than the M65 fatigue jacket I was wearing, even with the lining. Oddly the green did look better on him than the black had. It made his shoulders look massive too.

Wes leaned about clearly judging me sartorially, “No, not quite there yet. Put the hat back on for a second” I did as I was asked. “Oh hell no. Wait here.” In 30 seconds, he was back with a black knit watch cap. Handing it to me he said. “Try this on instead.”

I stood and twirled sarcastically after I put it on. But Wes just said. “Yeah, much better. You don’t look like an extra in a 70s porn film anymore. You’re still a bit Portland. Toss me your old hat, I’ll hang it up to replace this one.”

He strolled back into the living room, and then went to the door. “Okay man, it was nice meeting you. I’ve got to go. I’ve got a hot date and I need to show off this sweet vintage jacket.” he said sporting a huge grin, all while grabbing the cloth over his pecs in his fingers and plucking it up for a second like an OG. “Say bye to Uncle Gar for me.” He nodded good bye and left the apartment.

I wandered back to the kitchen table, and picked up my empty beer bottle. I started to try to figure out how to ID it. Games like this is modeled after, always have some kind of ID item mechanism.

Eventually, after much squinting, moving of eyebrows and facial expressions, I got a popup [Bottle, beer empty, summoned, will disappear in 12 hours].

I decided to wander around Gar’s house, identifying everything, just to get my skill trained up. Wait, no skill number values. Practiced up, I guess? Either way it was something to do other than sit and mope.