Project Archangel Book One: The Conspiracy Project

Chapter 1

Michael Wydic was never one of those quiet kids. He came from money and had a lot of friends. Everybody loved him, even the teachers. Anything he did wrong, they would always look the other way, and everybody wanted to be his best friend. I remember, once in elementary school, the class was required to give a report on what their parents did for a living. Michael told everyone how his scientist parents owned their own pharmaceutical company and made a lot of money.

Sometime, about halfway through 5th grade, he just disappeared. He suddenly stopped coming to school, and no one ever heard anything else about him, not even the teachers. He didn't appear on milk cartons or in newspapers. It was almost like he had never existed. He was just gone. His parents, when they were home, would tell people their son had gone to boarding school, yet none of his friends' letters or emails ever received a response. After about a year, they vanished too, but they never sold their home.

Then, on the first day of my senior year, I walked into homeroom to see a thin, dark haired boy slouching in a seat at the very back of the room. His black hair swooped to cover his eyebrows and he was dressed in a plain black t-shirt over a pair of washed out black jeans that were almost gray now with a pair of expensive high tops on his feet. No one had ever seen him before, making him the talk of the classroom. Those of us who remembered Michael were shocked when the teacher called out the name "Wydic? Michael?" and he answered with a mumbled "present."

I had never really been particularly close with Michael, even though we had been in the same class since kindergarten, but this guy was nothing like the boy I remembered from elementary school. As he moved silently through the halls between classes, seemingly unseen by every other student but me, he didn't talk to anyone or make eye contact. His friends from elementary school didn't bother to speak to him. He just glided along on his own, nearly invisible.

On my way to my second class of the day, which was way out in the portables, I happened to see Michael again, standing out back and smoking a cigarette. I briefly contemplated approaching him and telling him smoking wasn't allowed, but he probably already knew. Besides, if any teachers said anything, he'd probably just buy their permission. I decided to just pretend I hadn't seen him and continued walking to class.

I wasn't surprised to see Michael walk into class and sit down in the back corner about a minute before the bell rang. He didn't say anything and simply laid his head down on the desk. It was so strange to see this silent and mysterious guy, knowing he had once been a spoiled little rich boy with all perfect grades and an extremely active social life. Now he just slept through class and smoked outside of the cafeteria. What had happened to him in the last six years to make him into this antisocial creepy kid in all black?

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Following second period was lunch and my friends and I were all excited to see each other again. Naturally we all had stories from our crazy summers to share. Brenda had hooked up with a guy at the beach; Sammy had gone to an anime convention; Bradley had met a boy who was visiting from Sweden; Sarah had gone to several poetry conventions; and Shawn had gone to a horror themed amusement park in California. Compared to them, my story of sitting on my couch or visiting the library all summer seemed pretty lame, but we hadn't really been able to do anything cool this year with them cutting my mom's hours at the daycare. My dad had to work a few more hours to make up for it, and we couldn't afford a fancy vacation.

We jumped from topic to topic until Michael walked by and everyone started talking in hushed whispers. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and disappeared out the door.