The Sound of Wind

by Raegan Millhollin

  Chapter Twenty-Four - But He Wasn't on the List

  When he woke up in the same room a few hours later, he thought his situation had improved a lot. He also hadn’t dreamed at all, which was a bonus. He knew when Patrick was going to head over to Boris’ place to blow it up, he’d looked at his watch and he remembered the date, but how Patrick left Gideon Enterprises was an issue unto itself. Hugo pushed himself off of the bed and wandered into the hall. He was still at the Phoenix Foundation. He poked his head into the next room over to find the doctor was curled up on a bench. He put her jacket over her and then left in search of the cafeteria. He’d kissed her, that probably meant…Hugo’s face was red again. Well, it didn’t mean anything right now.

  Clem and CJ were in the cafeteria having sandwiches. He was starving.

  They looked up and CJ waved to him, “You’re awake! Again! How are you feeling?”

  Hugo nodded towards them, “Fine. I feel a lot better.”

  Clem smiled, “You had us all worried there. When Dr. McFadden couldn’t figure out what was wrong she kind of panicked and called a couple people from Gideon Enterprises over. They weren’t exactly helpful," he shook his head a little, "So, did you see something interesting?”

  Hugo grabbed a coffee and several sandwiches, then sat at the table with them, staring at the dark liquid for several seconds. How was he going to explain? A lot of it was personal and embarrassing. He wrapped his hands around the mug, “I know what causes the explosion now. Um…but it’s kinda weird. It’s a little mixed up, I…”

  “Wanna just show me?” Clem offered, smiling.

  Hugo immediately sat up straight, snapping his attention to the man. “What? No! No, I mean…I can…I’m going to explain. I just…yeah.”

  “Ohhhhh! Was it an embarrassing vision?” CJ wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

  “What? No! I don’t know why you’d think that. Just-”

  “What are you two laughing about?” Crysta asked as she entered, brushing strands of hair behind her ear.

  “Uh, nothing, can I get you some coffee?” Hugo offered, standing before Crysta could respond.

  She nodded a little, looking startled, but took a seat next to CJ, “Thank you.”

  “I was just about to explain what happened,” Hugo offered as he set the beverage down in front of her. He was trying not to get embarrassed again. He'd think about it later, they had more important things to worry about. “The explosion that I’ve been seeing, it’s not Mr. Gideon. Um…I still think he has something to do with it, but I’m not sure what. Boris, the head of the Russian mob, he has some contingency plan in the event of…his death,” Hugo took a sip from his coffee and then another. Ok. This was ok. He could explain it like this, if Clem would just stop grinning at him. “Patrick, and no I don’t know how he gets out, goes over to Boris’ place and blows it up. And then…Seattle is gone.”

  “That’s what took three days?” CJ responded, clearly disappointed.

  Hugo decided to ignore her, “There’s this…well…there’s this guy named Thoth-”

  “You mean like the Egyptian god, Thoth?” Crysta asked, her eyebrows raised.

  Hugo shrugged, “He had an English accent, but I think we need to find him. He can travel through time and in the…dream…we knew him and he helped…change…things. I’m not exactly sure how that works. But…yeah.”

  “So when does this happen?” Clem asked.

  “Three weeks.”

  “Ohhhhkayy! That gives us plenty of time!” CJ exclaimed, slapping the table with her hand.

  Clem frowned, “Wait, wasn’t the explosion supposed to happen nine months from now?”

  Hugo nodded slightly, chewing on his lip, “I know. Something must have happened, but I have no idea what.”

  “Does that mean we made it worse?” CJ inquired, raising her eyebrows a bit.

  Crysta put her finger up, “That’s not necessarily true. This may actually be good for us, because doesn’t that mean whoever is planning this, is in a hurry for some reason now? Maybe this gives us the opportunity to do something about it. Perhaps-” Crysta was interrupted by her phone. She looked down at it, “Sorry. I should take this.”

  She walked away from the table. Moments later, “What?” Everyone stood, startled. Crysta turned to them, her eyes wide, “Hugo, can you please take me to Gideon Enterprises, they’ve been attacked. Christian is-” She didn’t need to finish because the portal to the medical wing was open. Everyone stepped through into the flickering light of the hallway and the portal closed. Crysta immediately rushed down the hall to one of the side rooms, her heels clicking loudly in the empty hallway. Everyone else followed.

  Dr. Arliss was waiting for them. Crysta went up to the bed holding the marble man, an arm, completely broken off, lying by his side. There was a huge crater in his chest. His head turned as they entered, his eyes watching them with something unsaid.

  “Clem?” Hugo asked.

  Clem shrugged at him, “Already tried that. I can’t read him when he’s not squishy.”

  Hugo walked up to the bed, sucking in a small breath. Christian was going to think this was weird, but that wasn’t exactly important. He reached out, lightly touching the broken arm. John, another member of the security team, walked into the security office, a small smile on his face. Christian swiveled in his chair to see who’d entered, then turned back to the bank of monitors. John walked up behind him, and the super strong man grabbed Christian by the collar and flung him back towards the opposite wall. Christian hit the wall, then the floor as marble. Before he could stand, John kicked him in the chest with a large crack, and then as Christian hit the wall again, he struck him one more time in the chest, eroding the marble. As Christian tried to stand, John grabbed his throat, lifting him up and against the wall. With his free hand he slammed his fist into Christian’s shoulder. Christian swung the other arm, slamming it into John’s head, but got nothing more than a small nudge in return. John slammed his fist into Christian’s shoulder again and the appendage snapped off, falling to the floor. And then John let go, letting Christian drop to the ground.

  “You can’t stop us,” John offered, and then left the room, closing the door behind him. The lights went out.

  Hugo backed away from the bed. Crysta glanced at him, but she kept her hands on Christian’s chest. Hugo flicked his attention to Dr. Arliss, but Crysta shook her head, “It’s ok, he knows already. Do you know what happened?”

  Hugo frowned, “I think so, but there’s more.”

  “Go. I’ll look after things here.”

  Hugo nodded and left the room, CJ and Clem followed.

  “What does that doctor know? How is Dr. McFadden going to fix Christian?” CJ asked, trotting alongside Hugo as he walked towards the security center.

  Hugo glanced at her, chewing on his lip, “Have Dr. McFadden explain it to you later. Right now, see if you can restore power to the building.”

  CJ pouted a little, “Fine!” And then she sparked up and dropped into the floor.

  “Clem, can you tell me what the security team knows? I know that John did it, but he referred to an ‘us’, and he didn’t cut the power, so he had help.”

  “Aye aye, captain,” They continued towards the security center and then stopped. There wouldn’t be any security footage that they could use there, but Hugo wasn’t entirely sure where else to go. “Ok,” Clem finally interjected and started to lead him in the direction of the detention area, “After the power went out, someone let out all the prisoners.”

  Hugo stopped, “All of them? That includes Patrick? Shit.”

  Clem nodded, a slight smile on his face, “That does seem like a bad thing.”

  “Shit. Ok, we’ll deal with that later, I’ve got to find out who else is involved first," Hugo shook his head, "I just don’t get it, he wasn’t on my list.”

  “List?” Clem raised an eyebrow.

  “Of people who would try something like this.”

 
“Oops,” Clem shrugged. Hugo walked to the cell they had been keeping Patrick in and touched the doorframe. Nothing happened. He didn’t exactly know how to try harder, but he focused on the moment John would have been down there. A slight pressure built behind his eyes, and then he was watching John stride down the hallway towards the cells, that same small smile plastered on his face. He walked up to Patrick’s cell, even as the doors to the others started to open. Wait. The electronic locks would have run on the generator when the lights went out, so someone deliberately disabled them, but that person hadn’t been in the security center.

  John opened the door to Patrick’s cell, “Hello Patrick. Would you like to work for someone who appreciates your talents?”

  “Does it get me out of here?” Patrick asked suspiciously.

  John smirked, “It does. No one will stop you.”

  Patrick’s eyes lit up, “Sounds great then!”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Put this on,” John pulled something out of his pocket. It, ridiculously enough, looked like a white snap-on bracelet, and Patrick demonstrated that it worked like one.

  “What does this do?” Patrick asked, turning it on his wrist.

  John smirked, “Hides you from prying eyes. Let’s go.”

  Hugo turned his attention to Clem, shaking his head a little, “I think it’s going to get worse.”

  “Fantastic,” Clem said dryly.

  “I’ll have to check with Maggie, but this group, whoever they are, have some kind of shielding. Ok, I’ll try the-” The power flickered and then brightened. Several seconds later CJ popped back up.

  “There you are! I found something weird underneath the power roomy thing that they had me charge sometimes. There’s a big hole, like someone carved it out of the earth. But there’s no entrance to it, so I don’t know how anyone got down there."

  Hugo paused. Logically that made no sense, but people with abilities worked outside of logic. He searched through the database in his head and found a few people who could manipulate earth. Two were being held by the Agency and the third was part of some organization called The Lazarus Group. Ok. That meant The Lazarus Group was probably involved. They had a machine controller named Lucas, and if he was close enough to Gideon Enterprises… “Shit!”

  Hugo portaled to the database room, to find the computer was off. When he tried to turn it back on the hard drive made a horrible grinding noise, beeping shrilly several times before dying again. The database was toast.

  The door opened, and Hugo turned to find Clem and CJ had caught up with him, “Care to share?” Clem asked, leaning against the doorframe, CJ peeking in from behind him.

  “Organization called The Lazarus Group. They wiped the database, probably stole all the information from it first, and then unlocked the cells. John was working with them," Hugo stared at the ceiling as he brought up the details of the group's files, "They dislike Mr. Gideon greatly," he blinked several times, "two of their members used to work here.”

  “Oh that is interesting.” Clem responded serenely.

  “Can you guys let the security team know what’s going on? I’m going to check on Christian and Dr. McFadden.”

  “Alright boss!” CJ announced cheerfully, and then turned into electricity again and leapt for the wall.

  “I’ll make sure she says something intelligible,” Clem said with a sigh, and then walked down the hallway after her.

  Hugo headed back towards Christian’s room. Just as he walked through the doorway, a scalpel flew past him into the hallway, and then something slammed into the wall. He peeked around the door to find Crysta staring down at the man who had tried to kill Maggie.

  There was blood on the back of her shirt. “Crysta! Are you alright?”

  She turned towards him, finally noticing he was in the room. The man at her feet lay completely still. “I’m fine,” she said, glancing at him quizzically.

  He crossed the distance between them, “No you’re not. He-”

  She waved the rest of his sentence off with her hand, “Really, it’s healed already.” Ok. That shouldn’t be such a hard concept to grasp. The healer could heal herself. But he was checking the rend in her shirt anyway. The skin was completely smooth, if a little bloody. She put a hand on his shoulder, “It’s ok, I promise.” He nodded, but his heart was still trying to ram its way out of his chest. “I think he was in here after Christian. I just happened to be in the way.” He just wanted to ask if she was ok again. “What did you find out?” She prompted when he couldn’t get anything to come out of his mouth.

  Hugo turned towards Christian, his arm was reattached and the dent in his chest was significantly smaller than before, “John did this to you, right?” Christian nodded. “The Lazarus Group came in at the same time, stole the database, wiped it, and, obviously, let out all the prisoners. They took Patrick.” He could tell Christian wanted to ask how he knew all that, but that would require explaining he didn’t want to do.

  “Christian will be fine. I’ll just do a little bit more, and then stitch up the rest.” Dr. McFadden placed her hands on Christian's chest, but then listed several steps to the side before righting herself with the edge of the bed, “Oh. I think I overdid it.” She blinked a few times like she was having trouble focusing.

  “You need to lie down,” Hugo explained, sliding his arm around her to help prop her up.

  “I’ll just sit down for a bit, I’ll be fine,” she replied sleepily.

  “No, you need to sleep. Trust me.”

  Crysta opened her mouth like she was going to protest, but her eyes closed for a moment and she sagged against him, “Ok. You’re right.”

  He was already opening the portal. Hugo looked at Christian, then tilted his head toward the body slummed against the wall, “Can you take care of that?” The man nodded, so Hugo guided Crysta through the portal, closing it behind him.

  The moment he closed it, he had to adjust his arm around Crysta's waist to keep her upright. The wind of a new portal brushed past them just as he took a step towards it, guiding Crysta into her bedroom. He lowered her into a sitting position on to the edge of the mattress. She was fighting to keep her eyes open and she looked pale. Hugo frowned a little, letting out a slight sigh.

  The doctor’s body immediately started to list towards the pillow, but Hugo tugged her back up. “Wait a second,” he said gently, and started to push the jacket she’d been wearing off her shoulders. She sluggishly assisted him in sliding her arms out of the coat, and he tossed it onto the edge of the bed. She made a second attempt to lie down, he didn’t impede her this time, but quickly removed her shoes before she slid her legs under her blanket.

  The small black flats in one hand, Hugo pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. Her eyes were already closed, her breathing evening out into a slow, relaxed rhythm. He smiled a little and carefully set the shoes near the edge of the bed so that she wouldn’t trip over them when she woke up.

  He brushed strands of her dark hair off of her face, movements slow and careful so as to not wake her, then scooped her coat up off of the edge of the bed, draping it over his arm. He glanced at her again, the slight smile returning. He bent over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. A moment later he straightened up very quickly, backing up a couple steps, his eyes wide and blinking rapidly. What was he doing? He hadn’t meant to do that.

  He didn’t move for several seconds, but then shuffled backwards onto the roof of Crysta’s building. It was just past evening and the sky was a dark blue pierced with the first points of light from space. His eyebrows went up questioningly. This was awkward. How did you deal with a relationship you’d seen before it had happened?

  It wouldn’t work anyway, she was a doctor, refined, classy, and well, he was Hugo. Hugo blew out a breath and then his hand dropped to his side. This was ridiculous. He should just ignore it; they were going to stop the explosion, so none of that would happen. But he’d been holding her hand in the vision of Mr. Gideon’s presidential ral
ly too. His nose scrunched up, his eyebrows still drawn together. Then he was scratching the back of his head, laughing a little. This was ridiculous. He had no idea what to do. He shifted in place, then walked to the edge of the building, looking down. Crysta’s coat slid off his arm and he quickly caught it before it dropped off the side of the building.

  He tilted his head toward the coat bunched in his hand, then turned around, crossing the distance to the closet in Crysta’s apartment. He placed the coat on one of the hangers, brushing out the wrinkles he’d crushed into it when he’d almost dropped it. His suit jacket from the meeting with the Dragon was still in there. He left it alone. Then he walked over to the open door to Crysta's bedroom and very quietly and carefully shut it. He turned around and went back to Gideon Enterprises.

  Clem and CJ had let the security team know what was going on, and no one had found out anything new, so the three of them headed back to the Phoenix Foundation. Hugo needed to call Maggie.