ORIGINS, Miller

“The structural integrity of that bridge would be as shaky as an Irishman waiting in line for a pint on St. Patrick’s Day. Wobbly, I tell you.” The professors all crinkled their brows in confusion. “What I’m saying is, that sucker won’t be upright for very long. Look at the key point. We know it’s made of inferior steel, and the thickness should be 25% higher to compensate for high traffic at rush hour. If we changed nothing from these blue prints and built a bridge to these specifications right now, it’d be like a frat boy holding a fat girl on his shoulders at a rock concert. He won’t collapse right away, but as soon as the band plays a rocker, he’s going down.” 

The professors looked at the data, conferred with themselves, and all agreed that the engineering student was right. “How did you see this so quickly, Miller?” asked the department head. 

Miller shrugged.  “My brain can’t turn it off,” he said as he also thought to himself, “…unless I’m drunk or getting laid.” Miller spoke, “any other questions, professors?” The university consortium shook their heads and congratulated Miller on his excellent work.  He walked confidently out of the room knowing that he understood engineering better than every teacher he’d ever had. 

Proud of himself, Miller went to a shitty little pub in a seedy part of town for a quiet pint. The bartender served him, then grabbed dishes and walked back to the kitchen.  He was alone at the bar with the exception of a patron who sat a few stools down from him reading a magazine.  Miller enjoyed some suds and lazily gazed at the pages of a newspaper, chuckling lightly at one of the articles.

“Something funny?” asked the stranger in a friendly conversational tone. 

Miller pointed to a picture in an article and said, “these fools are gonna demolish a perfectly good building in the name of green design, and to add insult to injury, I guarantee you that they’ll destroy that parking lot next door in the process. They’ll have to refinish the whole thing. That’s an easy million in collateral damage, minimum. To hell with these assholes saying it’s ‘sustainable building’ cuz they’re full of shit.”

The stranger smiled.  “Why do you say that?”

“Because the greenest thing you can do is recognize the immense amount of energy that has already gone into building the structure in the first place, then simply renovate it with intentional design to save money.  In this case, just adding insulation to lower heating and cooling costs and using LED lighting to lower electricity usage would make this building a prime location to buy for any business owner with half a brain.  That’s way greener than spending five million dollars on a new building, while also having to fix your neighbors parking lot on top of that!”

The stranger nodded in appreciation as he took a drink from his own pint. In the distance, a squirrel eating an acorn got nervous. 

All of a sudden, two masked men came sprinting through the door holding hand guns yelling, “everyone down, this is a robbery!” In a split second, Miller grabbed his own pint glass and chucked it at the forehead of one of the gunmen. Before the mug had hit its target, Miller had grabbed a random salt shaker on the bar and flung it at the second gunman. Their bodies collapsed on the floor with a loud FUCKY! 

The scene was over as quickly as it had begun. 

Miller sprinted to the fallen bodies and kicked their guns away. He looked up and saw the stranger at the bar holding a very large military issued hand gun pointed straight at him. “That was impressive,” said the stranger in a very calm voice. 

Miller and the stranger simply looked at each other in several seconds of silence. Miller broke the awkwardness, “with all due respect, what do I have to do to get you to not point your gun at me?”

The stranger looked Miller up and down, then holstered the gun inside his jacket. He casually asked Miller, “mind telling me where you learned to do that?” 

Miller dropped to one knee to check the two gunmen for concealed weapons. “To be honest, I simply reacted. I’ve never done that before or even thought about doing something like that.” He stood up slowly. “ I actually have no idea why I even thought to search these guys for other guns right now.”  He contemplated and answered honestly.  “This is pure instinct.” 

The stranger simply nodded in acknowledgment. “I believe you.” He slammed the rest of his pint and said with a calm scowl, “cops usually come in here about now after they get off shift. We’d best be going. Care to join me for another drink at a different location?”  The stranger dropped a twenty dollar bill on the bar and added, “oh, and take their guns, please.” 

Miller collected the weapons and put them in his pockets. It didn’t feel weird to have the weapons at all even though he’d never owned a gun before. He stepped over the two unconscious bodies and felt badly for the bartender who would discover these two men crumpled up on the floor in an empty bar. He turned around to see the scene one more time. The stranger kicked each of the unconscious robbers very violently in the ribs. Miller should’ve flinched, but he didn’t.  He felt no pity for these men, almost like he was cold inside.  It was an unknown new sensation, the feeling of justice.  He and the stranger quickly walked out. 

“You can call me Speck,” said the stranger. 

“I’m Miller.” 

“Hell of a way to meet you, Miller. I’m a U.S. Army Ranger, special ops, based out of D.C. That watering hole is one of my favorite spots to get a quiet drink in this town, until tonight. Now I can’t go back there. The bartender will ask too many questions. My cover is blown.” 

“Cover for what?” asked Miller as he started to breath heavily, trying to keep up with the fast walking military man. Miller was clearly still processing what he’d done in all the action that just went down. 

Speck spoke matter of factly as he answered, “I’m undercover trying to take down some corrupt city politicians. They’re in bed with organized crime. You know that picture in the paper you were showing me? Well, that soon to be demolished building is rumored to have a black box hidden in one of the walls somewhere with evidence from a string of crimes a decade ago that could bring down a lot of dirty politicians. It’s why they’ve passed the motion to demolish a perfectly good building.” 

Miller’s mind went on overdrive. He spoke quickly as he tried to keep up with Speck. “I could find that box in less than an hour without even stepping in the building if we simply had an ultrasonic scanner. If I combine that with any high intensity x-ray photos that we’d take at night to ensure no one got x-ray exposure, then run a quick harmonic resonance scan, I’d have that box in your hands before breakfast.” 

Speck stopped dead in his tracks and breathed in the crisp evening air. Miller continued, “that is, of course, assuming that there was actually a box hidden in the walls to begin with. Piece of cake.” 

For the first time all night, Speck smiled. He nodded and said, “kid, you’re hired.” 

Miller got no sleep that night as he used high tech gadgets provided by Speck to do everything he’d spoken about. The following day, Miller watched a video feed on a screen as Speck walked out of the building with a team of Army Rangers. Speck was holding a black box as he got into the undercover van. 

“Miller,” exclaimed Speck enthusiastically, “you’re a man among sheep. If you wanna work with our outfit full-time as our top engineer, the job is yours. We need a master engineer, and it helps that you’re not too shabby in conflict situations too. We’ll make a real soldier out of ya. Whaddya think?” 

Miller grinned to himself and simply said, “I always wanted to own a Beretta M9 hand gun. If you can get me one of those, I’m in.” 

Speck smiled and simply said, “you gotta go through sniper training first, kid.”