**
When he woke up the next morning Hugo discovered he had a text message.
‘Are you alright? Do you want to talk about it?’
It was from Dr. McFadden. He deleted the message. He didn’t want to talk about it, he wanted it to go away.
When he went into work he made a point of avoiding the medical wing.
She had said she could help Ted with what he had given her, maybe having more information would help. According to Maggie’s files, there was one other test subject that was still alive, Dr. Martin Kimble. Charon. The one who could control diseases. He was being held at the Alaska facility, so he’d need permission to visit him first. He had to wait a few minutes, but eventually Mr. Hansen saw him.
“Hugo, come in. What can I do for you?”
Hugo shoved his hands in his pockets but he felt strangely calm, “I need to see Charon. His current files aren’t in the medical records here. He’s incomplete.”
Mr. Hansen folded his hands together on top of his desk. Hugo couldn’t see it on his face, but the man was collecting himself. Charon had been the first test subject. He had been a healer before the experiments, but his ability transformed into a talent for creating and destroying diseases. He’d become obsessed with over-population and had become more interested in creating than eradicating them. They had confined him to a research facility in Alaska. Apparently after that, they all got better at killing the monsters they’d created.
“Of course,” the delayed response eventually came, “I’ll arrange everything. I’ll let you know when the helicopter is ready.”
Hugo inclined his head toward Mr. Hansen, “Thank you, sir.” And he left the room.
Needing to keep his mind occupied while he waited, Hugo went downstairs to watch CJ practice in the labs. They’d constructed a room full of lightning rods just for her, and some of the rods had already been reduced to slag. One of the lab technicians also watching the arching form of lightning leaned towards Hugo.
“Her power output is going up by a surprising rate. It’s amazing!”
The statement slowly digested, and then Hugo turned towards the technician, looking at him carefully, “Is that abnormal?”
“Well, we’ve seen powers expand, but never this much this quickly. We think maybe she might be eating electricity without even realizing it. But it’s not a testable theory so far." The technician looked thoughtful, "Why don't you ever come down to the labs, we have very limited data on your abilities.”
Hugo looked back through the observation glass, “I’ve been busy, but I’ll try and make time.” In reality he didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing what he was capable of, as unimpressive as it was. Especially Mr. Gideon. He should probably check his apartment for bugs, not that he knew where to look. What if they’d heard the conversation with Maggie? Hugo tensed. But if that were the case, Mr. Hansen would have updated his file with the extra ability, but the only modification there had been was to his personality profile: ‘demonstrates a natural curiosity and a resistance to taking things at face value’
“Great. I heard you could create small vacuums. That would be incredibly useful you know.”
Hugo smiled politely, “Ok. I’ll see what I can do.”
“What are you going to see if you can do?” CJ asked as she strolled out of the testing area.
“Test my abilities in the lab.”
“Yeah, you should, its lots of fun. They let you break anything you want.”
“We’ll see. For now, we have work to do,” Hugo replied, inclining his head towards the door.
The Sound of Wind Page 32