And the World Changes by A M Kirk (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

tumbling all about them. The stranger had seemed to just disappear into the crowd after the rescue.
Would she recognize him again? “Oh no, I was in such a state, what with the smoke in my eyes and everything, I never got what you might call a good look at him. But,” added Mrs Adams, “it was like magic!”
“Hmmm.” Roberts recalled where he had heard those words before. “Magic,” he mused. He checked the date of that report: November third. He knew from the secret surveillance reports that Mark had been in Carrie Jenkins’ house for the whole of that afternoon.
In Warrington that same Saturday afternoon, eighteen year old Jarvis Ness, a blackbelt in karate and a kendo master, and a diagnosed schizophrenic, had gone berserk in a shopping mall with a samurai sword. He wounded six people before a young man, wearing a long coat, appeared “like out of nowhere”. This young man apparently grabbed the sword from Ness, broke it into pieces with his bare hands, got close enough to the furious Ness to place a hand on his head, whereupon Ness suddenly calmed down and lost consciousness. The young man walked away and no one knew where he went. Security camera recordings offered no more than fuzzy images.
How the hell can you break a samurai sword with your bare hands? the Director wondered.
The list went on and on. Report after report. Individuals, groups, people in danger and a young man, usually wearing a long, knee-length coat, appears from out of nowhere to rescue them. Like magic. And no one can clearly describe what the young man looks like; and no security camera picks up his image; and the wounded people stop bleeding.
Chris Roberts remembered Mark Daniels’ words at the Southern General that afternoon: “Don’t worry, Sally’s all right now.” How could he have known that? This question unfolded itself in Roberts’ mind: did Mark Daniels do that too – did he somehow cause Sally to get better?
Another report told of a strange blight that was starting to affect illegal poppy crops in Central Asia. The government controlled crops, where the product went largely to the pharmaceutical industry, were untouched, but the drugs kings of Afghanistan were about to really suffer. For years the UN and NATO forces had been limited in their success. Now, it seemed, Nature was taking a hand in removing these warlords’ power bases.
In California the level of gang violence was soaring to a terrible high. As violence erupted between two rival gangs in Los Angeles, the youths involved had to resort to using their fists because their firearms, a mixture of sub-machine guns and automatic pistols had all – all – malfunctioned. Police were able to round up the gang members without a single fatality. The only explanation offered was that gang members ranging in ages from nine to nineteen would have little idea about properly maintaining weapons. Their weapons had simply jammed due to lack of proper care. Lucky for the police that day.
Yet another bizarre report commented on how Japanese whaling ships had been recently plagued with mechanical problems. Propeller screws shearing off or buckling, drive shafts becoming distorted… a whole set of things going wrong that pointed to serious design faults in the components or in the materials used to manufacture them. Two thirds of the fleet had been rendered inoperative and the rest of the whaling ships were being recalled for maintenance checks. How coincidental. And fortunate for the whales, thought Roberts.
Then a certainty moved in and occupied his mind: the boy, despite what he wants us to believe, still has the most incredible power. The aliens have made him more than human – superhuman. A serious misgiving followed: Mark is trying to hold on to an ordinary life, but he cannot not use his power, and he is trying to use it for good. If the world leaves him alone, he might get away with it; but it is only a matter of time before some journalist or investigator or intelligence officer makes the same connections. Mark is only a fifteen year old boy. Could a fifteen year old boy cope in such extraordinary circumstances?
“Or could he use some help?” Roberts mused aloud. He considered deleting the reports, but that would do no good. They existed elsewhere. But when it came to investigations concerning the Daniels boy… well, they were all channeled through Roberts’ desk. So if anyone else aired similar suspicions or tried to join the dots between these strange events – which, let’s face it, had rational explanations that did not involve ths fifteen year old boy – then he, Roberts, could nip curiosity in the bud. The media curiosity had been more or less successfully managed, after all.
Then again, it was preposterous that a young man could be behind all these separate things. Roberts stopped. A moment ago he had been sure. Now he was doubting his conclusions, his instincts.
Totally unbidden and out of the blue, as such things often are, a line from a song popped into his mind. The melody first. After a moment some of the words came. An old song, that he remembered hearing often way back in his childhood. Maybe he’d heard it earlier on the car radio. Or maybe he’d heard someone whistle it in the corridor outside his office during the day. Tunes often come into our heads like that – like musical infections. How did the wretched thing go? Ah, yes:
And the world…
… will be a better place.
How did the rest of it go? He hummed a bar or two. Then he thought he had it:
And the world…… will be a better place,
For you…… and me…
Just wait……and see.
Roberts smiled ironically. His suspicions about Mark were certainly preposterous, he told himself. The boy had been interviewed by experts, tested by lie detectors, secretly monitored. There was absolutely no evidence that he was anything other than what he appeared to be – a normal fifteen-year old boy. The evidence was clear – he had no special powers!
And yet…
He closed off the interface, glanced round the office before leaving it and made his way to the lift. Just wait and see, he sang to himself. Just wait and see.
He hummed the tune all the way down in the lift and said goodnight to George at the security desk. He hummed the tune as he paused in the car park before opening his car door. He looked up at the stars as he had done many times before. Situated on the outskirts of the city, the location of CIS HQ could on crisp clear nights like this one afford a fine view of the stars, not too polluted by Glasgow city glare.
It sure was a fine November night.
He paused a long while there, looking at the scattering of stars and revolving many memories and speculations. A silver streak appeared suddenly and briefly over the Kirkpatrick Hills to the north, across the river. A shooting star. Make a wish, he thought. With a wry smile, he made a wish.
“I think the world just became a more interesting place, Mark Daniels,” he thought. “Yes, I think so. I will watch your future with interest.”
Finally Roberts took a slow deep breath and opened his car door to drive home to his family still cheerfully humming the tune that would not let go:
Just wait…
…and see.


The Beginning…

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Text: Alan Kirk

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