**
They had found some interesting equipment at the school hospital. Most of it was in the chem labs and the medical wing. There were chemical compounds that were still being analyzed and the security team had one laptop with several files they were struggling to decrypt. They had also inherited the other 20 comatose patients that Octavia Preller had been experimenting on. He’d have to talk to Dr. McFadden to get information on the patients and the chemical compounds, and he wasn’t quite ready to face her, so he started in the security office.
John and three other guys Hugo identified as their systems analysts, were in the office. John was hunched over the desk glaring at something. He straightened wearing an unenthusiastic smile, “Hi Hugo.”
Hugo dipped his head, “How are things coming along?”
John sighed. “Poorly. There are absolutely no paper records of what that lady was doing down there in the basement, and the laptop we recovered is heavily encrypted.”
“But her equipment…”
John nodded, “Would suggest that she had benefactors, and if it wasn’t the school, than who was it?”
“Dammit,” One of the computer technicians grumbled under his breath, pushing away from the desk.
Hugo took a few steps into the room, lowering his head, his voice quiet, “Can I take a look?”
The technician shrugged, standing up, “Be my guest. We’ve been working on this thing all night.”
Hugo slowly sat down at the console and watched the log for several seconds as the decryption program ran. He chewed on his nail; something was off. He checked the code of the program, commented out several sections, fixed them, and then recompiled the program. He realized belatedly that the technician that was looking over his shoulder was exchanging an irritated glance with his coworkers. Hugo jerked, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have- I didn’t mean to…there was a small problem…I’m sorry. I should have asked first.”
His apology was met with a long silence that was eventually broken up by a short, unenthusiastic, “It’s fine.”
Hugo looked at his hands. All attention turned towards the laptop as the decryption program finally did its job. Hugo pulled the laptop to him and started reading.
The encrypted patient files included treatment regimens of the inhibitor, and known abilities. Project Burnout was a project designed to remove abilities; so far they’d met with limited success. They could dampen the abilities, but not get rid of them, and they required such high levels of the chemical compounds necessary, as to be near-lethal. Coma had been induced in all of the patients to prevent them from acting once patient zero, Hermes, had united them despite their physical isolation. Hugo made a copy of the files for the doctor.
There were hints that Octavia had been getting input on her project, but there were no names or faces to go along with the data. Whoever else was involved in the project was very well hidden. So how was she getting the information to her benefactors?
Hugo took his burned DVD, but decided he really needed to smoke and have a coffee before he actually walked to the medical wing. It was dark out, when had that happened? Hugo pulled his phone out to check the time. It also reminded him that Thanksgiving was tomorrow. He’d missed a call from his mom letting him know what time dinner would be. He’d missed another call from his brother about when he’d be by to pick him up. Hugo ran his hand over his face, sighing. Could he pretend he was sick and just not go? The thought of seeing his mom after he’d…he needed to get the DVD to Dr. McFadden; he quickly walked back into the building.
She was in the chemistry lab bent over a microscope, tucking a dark strand of hair behind her ear. Her brief surprise at his appearance dropped to concern as she walked over to him.
Before she could say anything he handed her the disk, “Here, this has all the patient files, plus treatments; thought you could use it.”
Her blue eyes lit up for a brief moment as she took the disk, then her excitement subsided and she slipped the disk in her lab coat. She touched his elbow and steered him out the door, away from the other chemists in the room, “I think we need to talk. How are you?”
Hugo stiffened, “I’m fine. What did you want to talk about?”
The doctor glanced down the hallway. They were alone. “When you were at my apartment, you said a few things; I thought you might like to discuss them.”
Not really. He didn’t want to discuss anything, especially anything that involved recalling the last three days. But he had to know if she’d figured it out, and if she had he had to explain that he didn’t want anyone to know about the visions. She, of all people, should understand that. “Ok. Wanna go for a walk?”
“Sure, let me just get my coat,” she responded.
They remained silent as they walked outside of Gideon Enterprises. The doctor aborted several attempts to start the conversation, while Hugo shoved his hands in his pockets, regretting the lack of his own coat. He watched the ghost of his breath hang in front of him in the dark.
“Uh…” The doctor glanced around them, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “Well…can you see the future?”
Hugo cringed a little. He’d really hoped it hadn’t been nearly as blatant as he’d thought he’d made it sound, but obviously that had just been self-delusion. Well, she’d been straight-forward, he might as well be too. “Yeah. I can’t control it, and sometimes it’s the past. But I see things.”
“Oh.” She tilted her head towards him, “What kinds of things do you see?”
He looked to the side, sighing a little. People dying, terrible things that kept him up at night, the explosion, “I saw you save me.”
Dr. McFadden stopped short, her mouth slightly open, “What?”
“The person who tries to shoot me, I saw you there, you stopped the bullets. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, because you’re obviously trying to hide your abilities, which I don’t really understand, but I thought I’d try and respect that. But I wasn’t really thinking about what I was saying just now and brought it up anyway. Sorry.”
The doctor was still just staring at him, mouth slightly open, eyes wide. Eventually she closed her mouth and clasped her hands in front of her, smiling just a little. She started walking again. “I save you?” She asked softly, an awed edge to her voice.
Hugo nodded, smiling alongside her, “Yeah. It looks pretty awesome, actually.” The woman giggled a little as they approached the pig in the ghost of Pike’s Place Market, a collection of shadows in the dark. The doctor walked up to it, running her hand along the metal curve of its back.
“Why are you hiding your abilities? You work for a company full of people with them, people you could possibly…trust.”
She’d wandered away from him, so it was hard to see her expression when she turned towards him, stopping her tactile examination of the sculpture, “It’s… complicated.”
But he wanted to understand, wanted to know why she hid. “I won’t tell anyone. Just, controlling magnetism isn’t your only ability, is it?” Her expression told him he should have kept his mouth shut. She was still holding onto the sculpture.
Softly the distance between them was breached by the sound of her voice, “What do you think it is?”
It was just a hunch that had seemed slightly more plausible when he’d finally realized for certain that she did have abilities, but she was being kind enough to let him guess. “I think you can heal people. I think you saved Mr. Hansen, and I saw you doing something to Ted when I first met you in the hospital.”
Her expression told him he was right, she didn’t need to say anything, and for a while she didn’t, just stood there, at the sculpture, watching him in the dark. The wind rushed around them, briefly flattening the grass. This was what she was scared of, people finding out she could heal. She didn’t want to be used.
She wouldn’t be used. He wanted to tell her he’d never let that happen, but nothing came out.
“You’re right. Please don’t,” she said softly
, her voice broken.
“I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
She nodded once, “I promise the same. I won’t tell anyone you can see the future. I understand how that could…cause problems.”
Hugo breathed a sigh, “Thanks.”
The doctor took the few steps to negate the distance between them, hesitantly holding out her hand, “Would you…?”
Hugo’s face went red, “I-it doesn’t always work, but I can try. What do you want to know?”
She shrugged, smiling up at him, “It doesn’t matter.”
Hugo pulled in a deep, nervous breath. He prayed it wouldn’t be something depressing, then slipped his hand into hers. Her hand was warm and she was young, sitting at the antique piano that leaned elegantly against a wall. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had a white dress on. An older woman was sitting next to her on the wood bench, nodding appreciatively as the girl’s fingers contacted the keys. It was a simple version of Moonlight Sonata, but she was giving it due justice. Crysta’s mother came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She leaned against the frame of the door, eyes closing as she let the music take her. Sunlight fell across them all as they smiled, content in the music. Hugo let go of Dr. McFadden’s hand as the image faded.
He was still blushing as she stared up at him expectantly, expression curious, “Did you see anything?”
Her grandmother was dead. Her parents were dead; should he say anything, or just pretend he’d gotten nothing? Dammit, he didn’t want to make her relive painful memories. He shouldn’t have seen that, that was private. Damn visions. “Nothing exciting, but you were pretty good at the piano when you were a kid.”
The woman looked surprised for a brief moment, then her expression softened into a smile, “I’ll take that as a compliment coming from a concert pianist.”
“O-only when I was younger. It’s not a big deal. I was ok.”
She shook her head at him, then looked briefly startled and checked her watch, “Oh! I didn’t realize how late it was. I need to check on the patients.”
“I’ll walk you back.” They walked back towards the building in a much less awkward silence. As the doors to Gideon Enterprises slid open for them, Hugo finally remembered the other reason he’d needed to talk to the doctor. “Oh. I was supposed to ask you for a list of recommended reading for Chemistry. Mr. Hansen wants me to help out with the investigation of the inhibitor and he thinks gaining some relevant background would help.”
“Of course. I’ll create a list for you when I get back. You can borrow the books in our library. I must admit, I’m a little jealous you can cover material I spent years learning, just by reading a few texts.”
“I’m…sorry?”
The doctor laughed, waving dismissively, “Oh don’t be. I’m just a little jealous, and it’s not exactly something either of us has control over. Right?”
“Yeah. Uh maybe…after I’ve done some more reading I could…um…help? Maybe?”
Dr. McFadden clapped her hands together, “That would be great!”
Hugo blushed again, looking away, “A-alright.”
He could probably learn a lot from watching the doctor, and he was really interested in finding out more about the inhibitor.
The Sound of Wind Page 48