Call marker

I stumbled upright again, panting. “I, uh.” I peered down the street. “I’m not really sure.”
Michael looked in the same direction I was, frowning. He pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“You don’t see that, do you?” I asked.
“See what?”
I squinted. Took off my glasses. Cleaned them on a corner of my shirt that wasn’t covered in sweat. Put them back on and checked again. It was still there. “If you could see it, you wouldn’t have to ask that.”
He nodded seriously. “Tell me what you see.”
“That homeless guy on the bench?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I took a breath and said, “There’s a big yellow exclamation point floating over his head.” After a brief pause, I added, “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.”
Michael sat back a little on the bike’s seat and rubbed at his beard pensively. He missed the reference. “Hmmm. Odd. Does that bring anything to mind for you, personally?”
I snorted. “Yeah, it’s what every NPC in every MMORPG ever looks like when they have a quest to give you.”
“There were a great many letters in that, and not much that I understood,” he said soberly.
“Video games,” I clarified. “When a game character has a quest for you, that’s how the game shows you where the quest begins. A big floaty exclamation point over their heads. You go talk to them and that’s how the quest starts.”
Michael barked out a laugh and gave the sky a small smile and a shake of his head. “Well, then, Sir Waldo. You’ve just had your first Call.”
“My what, now?”
“Your first Call to a quest, I suppose.”
I blinked. “Uriel talks to the Knights through video-game symbolism?”
“As far as I know, Uriel talks in person. The Call comes from higher up.”
“What?” I asked. “You mean, like … God? God speaks video game?”
“When the Almighty speaks to men, He always does it in voices they can understand,” Michael said. “When I felt the Call, it was always a still, small voice that would come to me when I was in prayer or otherwise quiet. Sometimes I’d have a very strong impression of a name or a face, and a direction that I needed to go.” He nodded toward the transient. “Apparently, you have been Called to help that man.”
“Put like that, it does seem to be fairly obvious.” I swallowed. “Um. I know we’ve been training pretty hard, but … am I really ready for this?”
He reached into the backpack, withdrew an old leather messenger bag from it, and offered it to me. “Let’s find out.”


Brief Cases, Day One, Page 356-357