by Andrew Peed
I closed my eyes and held out my hands. I visualized fire between my hands just like Silence said, but when I opened my eyes there was nothing. I got mad, furious, and started to fume. I clenched my fists so tight that my knuckles turned white.
Still nothing happened.
"What's wrong Grace?" Silence walked over to where I stood struggling, "That soldier would have killed you already."
"Oh, it's nothing." I looked away. I waited for my face to cool before looking back to him, "I'm just having some trouble."
"Really, What kind of trouble?" he asked, his tone turned concerned in a heartbeat.
"It's nothing." I wished he would just drop it and move on.
"Your abilities are directly connected to your mental well being. How long has it been since you used your abilities?" he demanded.
"I don't know, since we escaped." I turned away from him and took a few steps in the other direction.
He grabbed my arm and turned me to look at him, "Grace this is important, we need to get you checked out." he pleaded. I wrenched my arm out of his hand but I didn't know why I was all of a sudden so defensive. I realized quickly that I had overreacted.
Ronnie saw what was going on and rushed over to where Silence and I stood. He stepped between the two of us.
"I'm sorry. Did I hurt you Grace?" Silence looked at his still outstretched hand.
"No, no." I said, "It's just with everything, I'm just a little jumpy."
"None the less, I need to call Sam. You need to see the doctors."
"Is that really necessary, maybe she just needs to have a few days to find her abilities again or something?" Ronnie backed me up.
"No, Ronnie I think he is right." I gently pushed him to the side. He didn't fight me on the subject, but looked disappointed.
"So much for keeping it under wraps." he turned and walked away.
Silence returned to the tent picking up his shirt on the way. I felt that it was only a matter of time before they declared me normal and sent me packing.
I stood by the door chewing on my thumb nail. I tried to hear what was being said but Silence was very good at keeping his voice down.
He pressed a button on the screen of his phone and put it back in his pocket, "Sam will be up here to get you shortly. He would like the rest of you to continue to practice with your abilities."
I opened the cooler that Sam had unloaded from his SUV and took a bottle of water. Everyone followed my lead. Silence instructed everyone to return to practice. I sat down in a canvas folding chair and rested my head on my fist. I was so mad that my abilities weren’t working.
Sandy was holding back from the rest. She hadn't done anything to attack any of the targets, "Sandy, why are you hesitating?" Silence asked.
"I'm not sure how I would use my ability to attack people." she scratched her head.
"Well you possess the ability of metamorphosis, correct?"
"Yeah, how am I supposed to use that?" She said impatiently.
"I'm sure we can think of something." he stopped for a minute. "Try turning your hand into a knife or some kind of blunt object or something."
Sandy thought for a moment then closed her eyes. It took a few seconds, but her fingers started to close, and then mold together into a point. Her hands began to stretch out and flatten; they changed from flesh to what looked like metal. She opened her eyes surprised at how her arms and hands now looked.
"Very good." Silence patted her on the back, "Now, test them out."
Sandy ran as fast as she could swinging her arms at the head of a nearby target. She swiped it clean off. She turned back and smiled proud of what she had done.
"I wonder if I can use electrical power to form different objects." Ronnie looked at his hands.
"You'll never know until you try." Silence smiled.
Ronnie concentrated, as moments passed nothing happened. He got frustrated and sent a bolt smashing into the closest target.
"Don't get angry you may just have to practice. Just keep at it." Silence laughed.
~//~
"How do you feel?" Sam asked. We were heading back to the clinic.
"I feel fine." I put emphasis on the word fine.
"I understand that you feel fine compared to how you were before, but Aurora, they changed your body, and you may not be able to tell if there is something wrong on some of the new levels." he explained.
"What if I'm just normal now?" I turned to look out of the window, “What if I, like, used up my abilities? My eyes burned, but I forced my composure.
"It's not that easy. I know that you would like for things to return to normal but there is really no turning back now."
I smiled, and then flashed with embarrassment and the depression flooded in quickly.
"What?" he asked.
"You misunderstand. I don't want to be normal. I think that being here is a definite plus in my life, in all of ours. We have a chance at fitting in. I don't want to have to leave." I explained.
"Grace," He paused, "even if your abilities vanished, which I'm sure hasn't happened, we wouldn't just send you away."
I breathed a sigh of relief.
"It really is magnificent." Sam said.
We pulled into the clinic parking lot and parked near the front.
"We have a small medical staff here; at another facility, we keep more on standby. We have never had a need for a large staff." Sam said as we got out of the truck. I followed him into the building. We walked right past the waiting room into an exam room.
"Have a seat." he motioned to a table. He left me alone in the room and closed the door as he left.
It was cold, steel.
It reminded me of being back at Aurora.
Sam returned with two men in toe, he pointed to a tall man with blond hair that brushed his shoulders and thin lined glasses, "this is Doctor Timothy."
"Nice to meet you." Doctor Timothy spoke in a heavy English accent.
"And this is Doctor Ziefer." Sam pointed to the other man who was my height, messy hair, and glasses on the top of his head.
"You hit level six, right?" he asked extremely excited.
"Um, yeah." I leaned back on my hands.
"You'll have to forgive Ziefer, he loves his work. He is our expert on Kinetic brainwaves and mental health." Sam explained.
"He is your expert on mental health." I said bewildered.
"You'll learn to like him." Sam left the room to give us privacy.
"So, Grace, how do you feel?" Dr. Timothy asked.
"I feel fine. I'm always hungry."
"Does your head hurt a lot?" Ziefer asked.
"Sometimes." I said, "What was your name?"
"Ziefer, call me Z though."
"Well, let's do a physical work up, then a mental." Dr. Timothy said.
"Sounds good."Dr. Z said. He turned and joined Sam in the small waiting room outside of the exam room.
Doctor Timothy gave me the same exact exams that I had had the last time I went to the doctors before we had been abducted. I always felt extremely self-conscious but he made it as easy as possible. He was a hundred times more personable than my last doctor; who had acted like a car that was in for a tune up.
Doctor Timothy left the room with two samples of my blood that he had taken. The room was cold and the table was incredibly uncomfortable. I looked around at the posters on the walls. They were all the normal posters, except one. Mental health is key.
Doctor Timothy returned with a chart in his hands, "Well Grace, everything checks out perfect."
"Like I said, I feel fine."
"Maybe Doctor Z will be able to help you more." He shrugged. He left the room again. I was starting to think that they should have installed a revolving door.
Doctor Z came in and was very difficult to read as a person. He was a short slightly overweight man who was in love with his work. That much I could tell.
"I'm going to attach a brain wave monitor that we stole from Aurora and modified." Dr. Z jumped
right into the subject without any small talk.
"Is it going to hurt?" I recalled the Kinetic brain wave inducer.
"Nope, the modifications that I made make the process completely painless and the device is much more accurate now."
He placed a black plastic case on the table. Inside was a device that looked like a crown of the electronic junk king. He put it on my head, and then took out a tablet computer.
He activated the crown.
"This tablet will allow me to monitor everything that goes on in there in real time." he pointed to my head.
"Alright." I am at a loss for words.
He tapped on the screen a few times. "Alright, now try and use your abilities."
I closed my eyes and told myself that I wanted to light my hands on fire. I concentrated with everything that I had.
As with every other time, nothing happened.
"This is very interesting." he said.
"What?" I said.
"Do you mind if I ask Sam to come in here?" he asked.
"Sure, I guess."
He opened the door and motioned for Sam to come into the room.
"So, what's going on?" Sam looked from the doctor, to me, then back again.
Doctor Z pressed a button on the side of a monitor that hung on the wall. He pressed another button on the screen of the tablet. The picture was projected onto the monitor. Green lines on a graph shot all over the place.
"Explain this Doctor Z, please." Sam pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Moving from left to right is the time spent on the machine. Over here on the left is no Kinetic brain activity. Here is where I told you to use your ability." he pointed to a spot where the green line spiked from top to bottom. "It’s in the level five ranges. But this black area." he pointed to the area after the spike, "It is something new. So new, as a matter of fact, that the machine cannot read it. That is why it's just blank."
"So what do you think it is?" Sam asked.
Doctor Z pondered for a few moments chewing on the end of a pen.
"I think, and my theory is preliminary, that this is a mental block. Until she gets through whatever could be causing it, she may never be able to use her abilities again." He turned off the monitor.
"How can I have a mental block?"
"We have seen that in times of great distress one's abilities can be empowered, but we have never really dealt with someone that has had a distress caused by one's own abilities." Doctor Z said, “You can see that your brain waves do spike, but something stops the result from forming. I could be wrong but it would be the first time.”
Chapter 12: Observatory
Dr. Z wanted to look over the test results more so Sam took me back to the house.
"Do you think it's because I reached level six?"
"I can't pretend to know, but that could have something to do with it. I have only met one other person that had reached that level of power. His mind was stressed but for other reasons. He also had natural abilities not modifications like yours.”
"I wonder if it has to do with the people I killed when I destroyed the Aurora facility. I found out afterward from a report on the radio." I looked out of the window. I didn’t like thinking about what the reporter said, but the memory didn’t cause any significant pain.
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that we can work through what is going on." He pulled into the driveway and stopped the truck for me to get out.
"Are the others back?”
"No, not yet. They should be back soon. If you need anything hit one on the speed dial, the phone is by the fridge."
I got out of the truck and walked to the front door. I placed my hand on the pad next to the door. It clicked and I pushed it open. The lights came on automatically brightening the room.
In the kitchen I found something to eat, cooked it, and sat down on the couch in the living room, alone to enjoy the quiet.
I turned on the TV. It was tuned onto a news channel but there was nothing of interest, so I changed it to a music channel, and dug into my food trying not to spill anything on the clean furniture.
After a few music videos, the front door opened and the others filed into the house. They were so loud that I could not hear myself think. They attacked the kitchen like a herd of wild animals leaving nothing but disaster in their wake.
Ronnie came into the living room and sat down next to me, "So, what is the diagnosis?" He turned the channel on the TV without even asking if I was watching.
"Apparently what is going on in my head is something that they have never seen before." I picked up my empty bowl up off the table.
"And what's that?" He stopped me.
"They seem to think that it is some kind of mental block." I said simply. I wasn't really in the mood to talk about what had happened at the clinic.
Everyone piled into the living room and started to flip through the channels, so I decided that it was time for me to relinquish the room. I took my dishes to the kitchen, cleaned them, and then I went up to my bedroom.
I sat down on the bed. I was so bored and I didn’t want to just watch TV. Someone knocked on my doorway.
It was Rachel.
"How do you feel?"
"I'm tired and bored."
"Do you want to talk?" she seemed very concerned.
"I'm sorry, but I'd rather not right now."
"Alright, let me know if there is anything that I can get for you." She left letting the door shut as she walked away.
I felt alone and I didn't know who I wanted to talk to about it. I felt like I used to feel before we had been abducted. No one at the orphanage could relate because they all had groups that they could belong to and I was alone.
And now I was right back in that situation.
I listened for everyone to go to bed. I heard Ronnie stand outside of my door for a few moments, but I'm sure Rachel told everyone that I didn't want to talk. After a few seconds he left. I heard his hand slide off my door as he walked away.
I got up and left my room. After a quick stop off at the bathroom I left the house. It was dark out, the roads were empty, and I decided to just wander around the town. Walking through the downtown area, I just got the feeling that the place was so cookie cutter. The buildings were all built out of the same material; same basic shapes went into the design.
I knew, however, that I could eventually call this place home.
I made my way over to a building that extruded from the base of the tallest mountain. There was a sign that said Eastcroft Observatory. There were no lights on in the windows, and the doors were locked.
I wondered if they still used the telescopes or if they just used the satellite dish. I turned to walk away from the building but was startled by Silence standing behind me. I refrained from screaming but pushed him, "You jerk."
"I'm sorry." He said taking a step back.
"What are you doing?" I tucked my hands into my jean pockets.
"I have night watch and I spotted you leaving your house." he held out a jacket.
"So you thought you would follow me and catch me helpless." I took the jacket and put it on.
"No, I was going to talk to you, but I wasn't sure if you were still upset with me from what happened this morning.”
"No, I'm not upset." I started to walk back towards town, "I'm extremely frustrated."
"Are you interested in the observatory?" he remained planted in front of the doors where he had startled me.
"I was just wondering if it's still being used." I looked up at the mountain.
"Not since Fade left. She was the only one that cared about it. Well I did but I don't know anything about space observing."
"Do you know if it uses a reflecting telescope?" I had had an interest in astronomy for a while a few years back.
"It uses the kind you can look into the sky with." he grinned from ear to ear.
"Point taken." I turned again to walk away but he stopped me.
"Do you want to go up and take a look?"
I stood there for a moment thinking about going up to the top of a mountain. I did want to see what the town looked like from up there.
"Well?"
"I don't know. How long does it take to get to the top?"
"About seven minutes."
"Are we allowed?"
"Yeah, we just have to be careful."
He used a key to unlock the door and held it for me, smiling.
"Alright." I walked into the building.
We walked through the dark lobby, old florescent lights lit up as we walked through the room but most were blown. There was dust everywhere and the computers on the receptions desk looked at least ten years old. There was a bank of four elevators at the end of a hall.
Silence pressed the button on the wall between the doors. A set of doors opened and he stepped in holding the door open for me again. This elevator car was a little different than any I had seen before. Instead of just an open room there were seats around the walls that had harnesses mounted to the back of them.
"How do we get up so fast?"
"I don't know how it works." He said honestly.
I sat down, and Silence did the same. We both strapped the harnesses across our shoulders. He pressed the red button on the armrest of his seat.
I felt a humming in the floor, and all of a sudden the elevator rocketed upward.
"How fast are we going?"
"Around nineteen, twenty miles per hour."
"It seems much faster than that." The car shook like the plane had every time we had hit turbulence.
"It's fast enough."
~//~
The landing at the top of the mountain was in pretty rough shape. The damage that I had seen from the plane was nothing compared to up close view of the dilapidated buildings. There were two communication dishes, one of which was embedded in the ground below where it had once stood.
"What happened up here?"
"Not sure it was like this when I got here and they have never put any money into fixing the place. Plus Sam doesn't want the repair to bring us any undue attention." he showed me through to the observation deck.
There were at least twenty computers in the room. All of which were lined up so that one person could wheel to them all.