Average Joe

by Peter Sargent

Twenty years after he last saw her, Hal encounters his high school crush stumbling down a frozen stretch or rural Indiana highway. Disoriented and wearing nothing but a t-shirt in falling snow, Jenny is headed toward the 50/50... a massive scientific experiment buried deep beneath the Great Plains. Hal holds vigil over her in the hospital, but his motives soon turn darker. Jenny lays unconscious and Hal digs into her past. He discovers that she was on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that would change the broken world in which they live. Once a promising young engineer, Hal now finds himself unemployed, disillusioned and mentally unstable. He once coveted an unobtainable woman. Now he covets we life's work, an achievement that is no less out of Hal's reach. He considers stealing Jenny's discovering and claiming it as his own, bringing upon himself destructive forces that he never before imagined.

27 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 22, 2015