Presumed Dead

"That Charles Heton?" Mitchell asked, heart stopping in his chest.

"Yes, that Charles Heton." The voice answered back over the phone.

Without hesitation Mitchell said yes. The name Charles "Chuck" Heton meant something to Mitchell. To everyone that was deep into 'The Culture' conspiracy theories, the name Charles Irvine Heton meant a whole hell of a lot.

Gunnery Sergeant Heton had been in the Marines for nine years when he was given a general discharge. That doesn't mean that he was a General or that he was discharged by a General or because of one. It just means that they were discharging him and that he hadn't been particularly good or especially bad, just kind of, fine.

He was more than fine. He had actually been far beyond your run of the mill Jar Head. Every PT score was perfect, all of them, no easy feat. For the duration of his enlistment he had been able to run three miles in under 18 minutes, bust out 20 flawless pull-ups and pump-out 120 crunches in less than two minutes.

He joined as a 0621, a radio operator. After being in the fleet for less than two years he had been given the opportunity to join MARSOC, the Marine Crops version of the Green Berets, this was before they were rebranded as the Marine Raiders Regiment. Special operators that were given an extreme amount of combat training and then sent out into the world to put into practice their training against those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the wrong side of the conflict. They would also be used to train their foreign allies, Iraqi and Afghan soldiers mostly, in the awful art of armed combat. Yes, like with Bin Laden but hopefully not again.

The problem with that was, he had just re-upped and discharging someone right after they signed over another four-year chunk of their life is something usually reserved for those that screwed up royally. The discharges for those were, generally speaking, dishonorable and often paired with some time in the brig. He hadn't done anything worth time in the brig. Nor had he done anything that was mild enough, but bad enough to earn a dishonorable discharge.

In fact, no public records or wikileaks document anywhere showed him to have done anything other than be employed by the government as an exemplary Marine and live the average life of someone in the digital age. Plenty of evidence showing activity on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the cursory Linkedin profile, staples of the ordinary person linked to his email account. Pottermore, some weird conspiracy forums, reddit and some other less common internet contact points also could be found to have been frequented by Charles.

People interested in the topic of Charles Heton liked to point to his usage of DNAncestories.com as the most likely reason for his unceremonious ejection from America's armed forces. It took some figuring out and lots of dot connecting but, for Mitchell's money, it made the most sense.

DNA had been submitted to DNAncestories.com by an email account allegedly belonging to Heton. It had then been resubmitted three times upon the websites request. The need for so many samples was because it had produced exactly zero matches. The DNA was human but not connected to anyone else on Earth. At least not anyone in their database but that's more or less the same thing, every human is connected to other humans. The lab tech couldn't be bothered to dig into it further and cataloged it as an error. The customer service rep decided three free samples was more than enough charity and sent a generic email with the content boiling down to, "It's not our fault your DNA can't be read, you can send in more samples but we will charge you for them." Following that email, the account was not logged into again.

A few weeks after the sample that theorist generally agree to have belonged to Heton found no matches, another batch of DNA was submitted and it had a single match. If you guessed the initial mystery DNA, you guessed right. A big advertising push over Christmas had brought a lot of new customers to DNAcestories.com.

Over the next few months more samples were mailed in that matched with the initial two. In total, during a span of less than nine months, six separate sets of DNA had been sent to DNAncestories.com that were determined to be first cousins to each other and have no discernable relationships to anyone else in the data base.

Everything associated with these accounts was leaked along with thousands of others when an unknown hacker obtained the login information of a company VP using a phishing scam. Evidence of messages exchanged between the cousins was there, the contents however would never be known, lost due to file corruption. Sadly, the names of the people were leaked out. Cesar Smalls, Victoria Jean, Edward Barndthart, Callum Salvatore and a set of twins, Wade and Delores "Del" Simions. Their DNA linked them, but also connecting them was their status as adoptees. Each of them were beneficiaries of the safe-haven laws active across most of North America. They had been adopted from a city within 100 miles of one small sovereign states belonging to 'The Culture'.

Within a few weeks of the leak, four of them were dead, car accidents took Barndthart and Victoria Jean, separate but shockingly similar, their smart cars sped into stationary objects. Salvatore was shot during a robbery gone wrong. Cesar Smalls was a specialist in the army and the sole causality of a drone strike called down on the wrong coordinates while deployed in Mexico. The twins disappeared without a trace, presumed dead by most.

None of this was public knowledge until amateur sleuths took an interest in certain aspects of the DNAcestories.com leaks, namely the mystery gene pool. The investigation into the mysterious group of cousins came up with nothing more than a handful of dead bodies. They dug deeper into the family, learning of their adoptions, their proximity to 'The Culture' and eventually connecting it to the only living person they could find, Heton. The mystery, the death, the DNA, the adoptions so close to "The Culture", it all added up to make a fairly compelling conspiracy. One linking the US government to hits spanning the globe, erasing people with possible connections to the little ally within their borders.

Within hours of his alleged email address being dug up and posted in the DNAcestories.com wikileaks, he was given his walking papers. Perhaps he wasn't killed because he had been such a great tool for the government, maybe it was because he'd never talked to the others, it could be that he had friends in high places protecting him. Some posit that he had leverage and others that he was the one that orchestrated the hits on his cousins and was allowed to live because of his complicity in the coverup. Whatever the reason, he was no longer an active member of the United States Marine Corps.

It was never officially proven that it was his email but there was enough evidence for the likes of theorist and his expulsion from the Marines made it a forgone conclusion, to them, that Charles Heton was the only person born within 'The Culture' living out and about in the world today.

The rumor was that Heton was quickly recruited by some faction of the government, the NSA, CIA, FBI, one of them. Or maybe one that even the most informed internet investigator didn't know of. Pictures of him all over the world were posted to the conspiracy threads, well, they were purported to be him. The ones that looked a lot like him could have been photoshopped, and many were. Most of them though were of such shitty quality that it could have been any human man the same height as Heton.

Mitchell had been one of those people, posting and reposting pictures of Charles Heton into the early hours of dawn. Talking and typing furiously about Heton's possibly connections to 'The Culture', about his involvement in the murder and disappearing of his supposed cousins. A significant portion of Mitchells life had been centered around the enigmatic man and it would be again.

Following his acceptance of the job sight unseen, Mitchell caught a flight across the country to California. As directed, he picked up his 2008 Honda Civic from Hertz rental car and drove himself several hours into the desert. He drove with sun fading in the distance, following directions down a narrow two-lane highway. Eventually he found himself in front of a dirty motel, The Helscion.

He sat in the sedan, knowing that if he drove around back and parked, he was in. He was in in. Like, deep in it. He took a deep breath, thinking over his entire life, everything that had led him to idle out in front of this motel. He slowly pulled around back, parking in the stop that declared itself "Employee Only" with a faded wood sign and a worn concrete wheelstop with a bit of rebar sticking out the side of it.

He turned off the engine and rolled down the window, hot humid air flowed over him. He did not like it. Hopefully the office had AC. He rolled the window up and made mental preparations for… whatever he was getting himself into before getting out of the car.

The passenger door opened and Mitchell recoiled, pushing himself against his own door and looking at the intruder. He panicked, he had no weapons, no plan and no real idea of what was going on. All it took to get him here was a phone call and a plane ticket. This could be a serial killer, it could be the government finally out to kill him, 'The Culture' looking to silence him. His heart pounded and he wondered if dying hurt.

For the first second or two, he could only see the top of a mans head, salt and pepper hair and broad shoulders filled his vision. Before he exhaled what he hoped wasn't his dying breath, the man settled into the passenger seat. The square jaw, hard blue eyes and buzz cut of a Charles Heton were turned fully towards Mitchell.

An exhalation that he hoped didn't sound as much like of a relieved sigh as it felt left the frightened mans body and he said, "Chuck, good to meet you in person."

He pressed his hand into his thigh, pushing it along his jeans hoping to wick away the sweat before he presented it to Heton for shaking.

The older man reached out and clasped it, firmer than the younger was comfortable with. Mitchell tried not to betray his confident façade and maintained eye contact, shaking hands until he felt the other man begin to loosen his grip, only then pulling his hand to safety.

"I'm very glad you've decided to join us." Heton said, wearing a private smile.

"Of course, I couldn't live with myself if I turned away from this opportunity." Mitchell gathered the excess saliva that his nerves had caused to pool in his mouth and gulped it down, telling himself that it was normal and that Chuck hadn't noticed.

"No need to be nervous." Chuck said. And that was it. He offered nothing else, seconds turned into tens of seconds of silence.

"I'm not nervous," Mitchell said, the lie obvious to both of them, "I would like to know what I'll be doing here and to what end. The deposit into my account was more than enough to bring me on board but if I'm going to do a job, I'll need to know exactly what that job is."

Heton took a deep breath, "Could you turn the car on and get some AC going? This heat kills me."

"Of course, of course! Sorry, I just thought-" Mitchell cut himself off and turned the car on. "Sorry about that, I hate the heat too." He paused and then prompted, "Um, you were saying about the job?"

"No questions about hours, health benefits, pay?" Chuck said, the lights that came on when the car started illuminated his face and in the light he looked older than Mitchell had expected.

"The money you put into my account was more than I've ever made, it might be more than I've made over my entire life, after taxes I mean. I'm here, I'm in. But, why me?

The older man closed his eyes and basked in the air conditioning. Slowing breathing in and then gently blowing out the cooling air. He opened one eye and looked over at his newest employee. He closed the observing eye and said, "You're the type of person that my organization needs. No attachments and a keen interest in the other, the unknown."

"There's a lot of people like that." Mitchell responded quickly.

"You want to know why you're special?" Heton asked, that personal smile that he wore at the beginning of the conversation returned.

"I wanna know a lot of things." Turning his torso towards Charles, he raised both hands in front of him curling his fingers into a loose fist.

"Why me?" He flicked up a thumb.

"What is this?" He opened his eyes wider than they had any heed to be and he raised a pointer finger.

"Who really are you?" He raised the next finger.

"Who are you working for?" Another finger.

"Why are we here?" Another

"What is The Culture?" The thumb on his other hand joined the rest.

"Why are they," He paused and narrowed his eyes, clearly thinking about how to say what he wanted to say and settled on, "I mean, what's their deal?" Another pointer finger.

"Are you one of them?" Another finger. He was quickly running out.

"What are they?" His second ring finger was now extended and he looked at his hands, he looked as if his entire body was the lone plug in a wall and if he gave another inch, a flood would burst through. He clenched his hands and his jaw.

Heton remained silent. Watching him impassively.

Mitchell opened his mouth to say something, he had no idea how the sentence would start or end but the mystery and the silence and the unanswered questions gnawed at him. He had to say something, he had to propel this forward.

Heton mercifully interjected before Mitchell could start up again, speaking with an unsettling even tone "You are uniquely suited to our needs, we have looked deeply into a lot of people and you are one of the few that fit the bill, that is really all there is to it. You have been recruited to be part of an observation team. I am really Charles Heton. I am working for the HPI, the Humankind Protection Initiative, an organization that aims to do what the name says, I have been told we're privately funded but the whole thing smacks of a government operation."

He took a breath and let go of the frown that had formed before continuing, "We are here, at this motel, to observe the comings and goings from 'The Culture'. 'The Culture' is made up of six plots of land, each one calling itself a Branch, part of the larger Life Tree Collective, their goals as far as we can tell is to remain unknown to most of humankind, grow their power out here in the real world and achieve self-preservation through any means necessary. They used their power around the turn of the 20th century to get into our government and control parts of it, they have agents in place to this day, in high positions, ensuring their safety. I was born among them, adopted at less than a year old and raised outside, I do not identify myself as one of them in anyway but genetically. They, myself included obviously, are something close to human. How exactly they came to be here we're not sure. Why they are here is unknown but they are here to stay. Oh, and to answer a question that you did not ask but should know, they have something that we would call magic. Some of them, not all, can do things like see the future, move things with their mind, create or dim light, plant suggestions with a power very near mind control. Those are just some of the things we've seen and know for sure, there is a lot we do not know."