by Abbey, Kit
William yanked the sheet off his head and looked up at the twin figures of Mr. Grey and Nobody. They were standing with a severe looking black woman, whose overall air of professional decorum was negated slightly by the hot pink frames of her glasses. The girl hovered nervously behind them, and William was relieved to see she’d lost the needle. She had gained a blush to her cheeks, and was staring rather intently at his lower half. William quickly yanked the hospital gown down, and tried to stand up. Trying being the key word. His legs were not yet ready to admit that their holiday was over, and they promptly deposited him back on the floor. With led to more blushing on the girl’s part, and more frantic gown rearrangement on his.
Mr. Grey and Nobody did not seem to find anything funny in this display, which only further proved to William that they were not like other people.
“Leave us please, Dr. Eagle, Miss. Walsh” said Mr. Grey. “I would like to talk to Mr. Black in private.”
“Of course Sir,” said Dr. Eagle (and damn if that wasn’t the coolest name William had ever head), “if you could alert me when you’re done? He’ll need his meds.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Grey.
The two women left the room, leaving the three of them alone. “How are you feeling?” asked Nobody.
“Alright, I think,” said William, feeling quite awkward on the floor looking up at them. He gripped the bedsheets and managed to awkwardly pull himself back onto the mattress.
“No headache?”
“No, not really. I’m hungry though.”
“No Headache?” Mr. Grey repeated. “That surprises me, Mr. Black, given the feats you performed.”
“Feats I performed...” William trailed of as the memory of what he had done slammed into him like a little kid slamming into a glass door they’d thought was open. (Not that William had ever done that. Honest).
“Those men,” he said with rising panic, “I killed them! I didn’t mean to! But I did! I killed them all!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Grey.
“Quite convincingly so,” said Nobody. “The clean-up Crew has placed a plague on all your houses.”
“But,” said William, “they’re dead. Because of me!”
“And Rowan is not,” said Nobody, “also because of you.”
This calmed William somewhat. “Rowan’s ok?”
“She is enjoying perfect health,” said Nobody.
“Unlike yourself,” said Mr. Grey.
“How long’ve I been out for?” William asked. The adrenaline was beginning to drain away, leaving tiredness in its wake.
“Three days,” said Nobody.
“And you are experiencing no head pain at all?” asked Mr. Grey.
“I told you, no!”
“Remarkable.”
“Yeah, remarkable,” said William, who had more pressing thoughts on his mind. “Am I going to jail?”
“Whatever for?” asked Mr. Grey.
“For killing those guys!”
“Of course not,” said Nobody. “Have you forgotten who you work for now?”
“Mr. Lin and his companions forfeited their lives the moment they attacked Grey Corp,” said Mr. Grey.
“And we are very pleased by the way you performed,” said Nobody.
“Indeed, yes,” said Mr. Grey.
“Very pleased.” Said Nobody.
William’s head was spinning.
“Your exertions have left you weak Mr. Black,” said Mr. Grey. “This is understandable. Someone with years of training would be hard pressed to replicate what you did. What you did, Mr. Black, with no sign of damage to your brain.”
Something here penetrated William’s rapidly tiring mind. “Is that what the headaches are? Brain damage?”
“I know of only two others who are able to use Illuding to heal,” continued Mr. Grey, ignoring his question.
“And it’s been many years since such an impressive display of Illuded violence has been seen,” added Nobody.
“It makes us wonder, Mr. Black,” said Mr. Grey, suddenly crouching down to his level “what else you are capable of.”
“We wonder,” said Nobody, who remained standing, “and we will find out.”
“Um,” said William.
They both stared at him intently with identical, unblinking eyes. “Rest,” said Mr. Grey. “Regain your strength.”
And together they left the room, leaving William alone with his troubled thoughts.
Chapter 24.
When William next woke up he was back in bed, and another day had passed. He knew another day had passed, because Chris and Jeff had bounded in only moments after he’d opened his eyes and informed him the fact.
“How you feeling man?” asked Chris.
“Hungry.”
With a grin Jeff reached into his thick dark coat (William had noticed that Chris and his crew were never without heavy items of clothing. It was a little weird, but he supposed it was a bit chilly inside of the Grey Building, and he’d never actually seen them outside of its walls to know if their fashion quirk remained when the sun was giving its all). After bit of rummaging he threw a Snickers bar in William’s direction.
William grabbed the chocolate eagerly, but before he could even begin to tear off the wrapper it was snatched cruelly from his hands by Dr. Eagle, who’d popped up out of nowhere.
“Damn woman,” said Chris, “you’re worse than a ninja!”
She glared at him. “You know better than to come in here giving food to my patients, Christopher Humson!”
Chris grinned sheepishly. “Aw come on Nina, have pity on the guy. Poor thing, he hasn’t eaten in days!”
“He’s a growing lad,” added Jeff, reaching around Chris’s body to grab the Snickers from her hand.
She yanked it back out of his reach. “And he will eat appropriate food, not this trash!”
She waved the Snickers bar in their faces, and stalked towards the door. “And don’t you go over exciting him either!” she yelled over her shoulder as she left.
Chris rolled his eyes, and with a conspiratorial wink Jeff reached back into his coat and pulled out a Mars bar and a packet of Freddo Frogs. Chris turned out his pockets, dumping a bag of gummi worms and four Kit Kats onto the bed.
“I think I just fell a little bit in love with you both,” said William, snatching up a Kit Kat. He quickly unwrapped it and jammed it into his mouth before Dr. Eagle came back.
Chris laughed. “Hey man, we’ve all ended up in here at some time or another, we know what the food’s like!”
“Yeah, you’re not a really a part of Grey Corp until you’ve forced down a plate of Nina’s boiled vegies,” added Jeff.
“So,” said, Chris, “what happened?”
“Mmmph?” asked William around a mouthful of chocolate.
“Yeah,” said Jeff, “how’d you end up in here?”
“You don’t look hurt,” said Chris, poking him, “a bit pasty and underfed is all.”
“Nah, he’s always looked that pasty and underfed,” said Jeff.
This was a bit rich coming from these two, who were both so pale polar bears would dim next to them.
“Ahovermph,” William attempted to explain. It probably would have been easier without the four Freddos he’d crammed into his mouth, but he was not at that point prepared to test the hypothesis.
“Clarissa and me and Jacob and Jeff saw you come in,” said Chris. “We were hanging out in Albert’s room waiting for the rest of the lazy buggers to get downstairs so we could head out to work.”
“It was pretty wild,” Chris continued, “we heard Rowan come screaming around the corner in her ‘Stang, she didn’t even bother with the underground parking, she brings it right up to the doors and gets out, and damn she was a sight-”
“All covered in blood and shit,” interjected Jeff.
“Yeah, like, she was red from head to foot with the stuff, and she looked crazy! I mean, Rowan al
ways looks a little crazy, but she looked crazy even for Rowan!”
“She comes into the entrance room,” said Jeff, “and she spots us and she’s yelling, ‘where’s Mr. Grey? Get him! Now damn you, you handsome bastards, especially you Jeff we should really hook up some time-’”
“And we didn’t move quick enough for her I guess,” said Chris, shoving Jeff, “’cause then she starts just yelling abuse at us, telling us the hurry the fuck up, and next thing she like, I don’t know, Illudes the air or something to send Jacob flying towards the elevators, so he takes off to go and find Mr. Grey, and then she’s yelling at the rest of us to come and give her a hand, so we go out to the car and there you are on the back seat-“
“Thought you were dead!” said Jeff. “Honest to fucking God, I thought you were dead.”
“You were pale man. I fished a dead guy out of the river once, and he’d been down there for a week and a half, and you were paler than him!”
“And you were covered in blood, like Rowan, and flecked with all this other stuff that looked a hell of a lot like brain and shit from where I was standing,” said Jeff.
“And so anyway, we pick you up and we carry you into the entry room and we lay you down, and Albert was having a bit of a messy day so he was dripping all over the place but it didn’t really make a whole of difference, ‘cause you were already a mess, and then Rowan comes in and she looks fit to kill-”
“Which was a worry because we were the only ones within range.”
“And then the elevator opens and we look over expecting to see the boss, but it’s not, it’s-”
“Jones!”
“Yeah, Jones, and he just stands there, taking in the scene-”
“Calm as you like, as though it was just a simple carpet replacement he was observing-”
“And Rowan just looks at him, and he looks at her, and then he walks over-”
“And Clarissa was in his path, so he shoves her out the way-”
“And so of course she’s more in love with him than ever-”
“And he looks down at you, and he looks like he’s about to say something, but then the elevator dings-”
“And it’s Mr. Grey!”
“I haven’t seen him in years! He hasn’t changed at all-”
“And he looks at us, Mr Grey does, and he says ‘Mr Humson, Mr. Davis, please leave’ and then he spots Clarissa on the floor and says, ‘take Miss Dilanti with you.’”
“And I guess we didn’t move fast enough, ‘cause Jones, he growled!”
“Fucking growled!”
“And so we grabbed Clarissa and got the fuck out of there before he did worse than growl.”
Chris and Jeff appeared to have reached the end of their epic tale, and they paused to catch their collective breaths. William reached over for the gummi worms, but Chris slapped his hand out the way.
“No more treats for you until you tell us what happened,” said Jeff.
“Yeah man, seriously!” said Chris.
William quickly gave them the barest outline of events. He tried to gloss over his own role in proceedings, but there’s really only so much glossing one man can do when his role in proceedings involves exploding four people with his mind one minute, and bringing a woman back from the brink of death the next.
Jeff and Chris starred at him with wide eyes when he was done. William took advantage of this and nabbed the bag of gummi worms out of Chris’s lap.
“You made them explode?” asked Jeff.
“Yeah,” said William. “Accidentally, but. I mean, I didn’t want to kill them. It was an accident.”
“But you made them explode?”
William sighed. “Yeah.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
And he didn’t know. The feeling of absolute and perfect clarity was gone. William could remember the peace he’d felt, the way that everything had suddenly clicked into place and understanding had been his, but it was like remembering a dream. The details were gone to him now, all that remained were vague images and memories, and these as well were fading rapidly. William honestly didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing.
“How can you not know?” said Jeff.
William shrugged. “I just don’t. It all happened so fast.”
“That’s fair enough I guess,” said Chris, although he looked thoroughly unimpressed at William’s lack of recollecting skills.
“I can’t believe you saved Rowan’s life,” said Jeff. “She owes you one.”
“Maybe she’ll actually be nice to you now?”
All three burst into laughter at the absurdity of Chris’ statement. William starting picking through the empty Freddo wrappers, trying to find one that still housed chocolatey goodness, but his search was cut short by the reappearance of Dr. Eagle.
“Out!” she yelled when she saw the mess of empty wrappers on the bed, “out, out, out!”
Laughing and calling good-bye to William over their shoulders, Chris and Jeff fled the room.
Chapter 25.
By the next day the only thing wrong with William was that he was sick of being in bed. He told Dr. Eagle that he felt fine, but her long winded response boiled down to pretty much, “tough titties, you’re staying.”
It wasn’t so bad, Chris and his crew all rocked up after lunch (which, as Jeff had predicted, was nasty tasting boiled vegetables) to keep him company. They played round after round of uno and poker, and one short lived monopoly game, (it ended abruptly when Jacob discovered Barry stealing 500 dollar notes from the bank). The girl, Miss Walsh (her name was Jill, she was Dr. Eagle’s apprentice) played for a while. Although William suspected that she had been sent to spy on them by Dr. Eagle, and make sure they didn’t sneak him any more chocolate. They didn’t ask him too many questions about what had happened, for which William was grateful. But Chris and Jeff had not been exaggerating; her brush with Jones really had left Clarissa more in love with the man than ever. A large portion of the afternoon had been devoted to trying to get her to shut up about how awesome he was.
But eventually night came (or at least that’s what the clocks said. His watch insisted it was early). Chris announced that it was time to get to work, and the seven of them headed off into the night to collect whatever it was that Grey Corp needed collecting.
William did not want to be left alone. The moment there was nothing to distract it his brain returned to what had happened, like a maverick cop returning again and again to a crime scene, desperate for clues.
Those men were dead because of him. Because of him! Had William not been at that car park, then they would still be alive. And the real problem was not so much that he felt guilty for killing them, (although he did feel guilty. He couldn’t stop wondering what kind of families they’d had, if they were missed. He obsessed over the idea that they might have had kids, kids who might now get shunted off to neglectful family members all because of him). But isn’t this why he had come to Grey Corp in the first place? To be the one with the power. To be, for the first time in his whole life, the one in control. He didn’t particularly want to end up feared like Jones, or apathetically psychotic like Rowan, but if it was that or go back to his ordinary life... Well. It wasn’t really a choice, was it?
His thoughts moved like this in a continuous loop until finally, he drifted away into sleep.
Chapter 26.
Four more days passed in the much the same fashion before Dr. Eagle grudgingly admitted he might be well enough to leave the medical ward. Jill looked rather upset at this news, and she quickly made an excuse to be somewhere else.
Unlike Miss. Walsh, William was overjoyed at the prospect of leaving the glaring white walls behind. He was actually looking forward to getting back out on the road with Rowan, although he didn’t know if he’d go as far as to say that he’d missed her. (Although, he did think, she could have come and visited at least once during his incarceration in the ward. He
saved her life, and she couldn’t even pop in and say ‘hey, cheers for that?’)
His legs were still a bit wobbly, but other than that William felt great. Take me to my room, he thought happily at the Eastern elevator.
No, came a very clear reply.
Yes, he thought more firmly, take me to my room. Please.
This was the first time an elevator had actively argued with him. Normally if they didn’t feel like going where you wanted them to they just meandered about for a bit. Still, it wasn’t enough to dent his good mood.
You are not to go to your room William Black, Mr. Grey wants to see you.
That, however, was.
Chapter 27.
William found not one but two men waiting for him when the elevator spat him out into a cozy little room. There was a fireplace, cushy armchairs and another painting of the thin, tall and mist shrouded trees.
“Hi,” he said to Mr. Grey and Nobody. “The uh, the elevator said you wanted to see me?”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Grey. “We are awaiting further guests.”
There was a comfy looking chair by the window, and without asking William went and sat in it. He was wiped. Simply riding the elevator had taken it out of him, (maybe Dr. Eagle hadn’t been making him stick around just for the pleasure of his company). But to be fair, it had been a long ride. William suspected he was currently in one of the restricted upper levels, but the room’s only window was covered by thick curtains, so he couldn’t be sure.
Mr. Grey and Nobody stood the fireplace which, as it was the middle of summer, sat empty like a gaping mouth. There was a coffee table in the centre of the room, holding a pitcher of water and a plate of lamington squares. They looked tasty, very tasty, but William figured he’d have to wait for the guests to get there before he nabbed one. The only other thing on the table was a silver ball, completely smooth, about the size of the orange.
It wasn’t long before two more people entered the room. The first was a tall, lanky man with balding hair and a nervous face. He clearly had even less of an idea than William was he was doing there. William felt a bit bad for him. The other entrant was Madeline. She looked around the room and made a disgusted noise.