Super: Underground: Book 2 in the Super: Series

by Palladian

  Lex nodded and swallowed, feeling her own eyes get misty.

  “Oh, don’t you start crying, too,” Riss said with a smirk.

  Lex had to smile in return, blinking rapidly. “OK, OK. Do you have anything else to add to what Casey said?”

  “Yeah. Publicly, it seems that MSI accepts the story that we died. We’ve been marked as deceased in their computer systems. I was surprised to see some press coverage of three unnamed consultants able to thwart the arsonist and clear the burning buildings, and the story of our tragic deaths at the second scene. From what I’ve been able to tell by monitoring communications at several MSI facilities, though, they’re not sure we died because of George’s story. Since he doesn’t have any proof to back up what he saw, they haven’t done much to search for us it seems, aside from having some of their private army out looking for us in typical spots for a week or two after we disappeared. I did notice that they circulated our general descriptions to the regular police as ‘persons of interest’ in the arson case and told them to pick us up if they saw us. The contact numbers go back to MSI if we’re found, of course, but I don’t think that’ll be an issue since by the time we get out of here, weeks will have gone by. Plus, well,” Riss continued, looking Lex in the eye, “we don’t all look the same, anyway.”

  Lex felt a little sinking in her stomach as Riss confirmed what she’d been expecting. “OK, this is what I’d like to do. Give me a little idea of what to expect before you help me walk to the bathroom. I’m guessing there’s a mirror in there?”

  Riss nodded in response. “Yes, a full-length one on the back of the door. Well,” she continued after a pause, “after a few days of being sick, all your hair fell out. You were bald for a little while, but it did grow back. It’s not the same color, though. I’m not sure what happened to your eyes. I think that’s what everyone was looking at, because we haven’t seen them much for the past month.”

  Lex waited for more, but that was all that Riss said. “So, other than that, I look pretty much like I used to?”

  Riss nodded and moved over near Lex, her laptop abandoned in the corner. “Thinner, though. Are you ready?”

  Lex nodded, and then swung her legs out. She bit back a gasp when she saw two bony legs poking out from under the covers, and Lex looked up at her arms, realizing that much of the muscle she’d become used to seeing was gone. Steeling herself for anything, Lex leaned heavily on Riss’ arm as she got up. Getting to a standing position hadn’t been bad, but the first few steps forward were not happy occurrences. Her muscles felt almost like they had been asleep for a long time; they seemed twitchy, uncertain, and prone to unexpected movements. With Riss taking charge of her IV pole, the two of them slowly made their way down the hall to the bathroom. Once they got there, Lex found herself feeling absurdly thankful that the room she’d been in was the closest.

  “Are you OK to go in on your own?” Riss asked, clearly uncertain.

  Lex tested herself for a moment and realized that she already felt a little surer on her feet. She nodded and went into the bathroom, then pulled the door shut behind her, seeing the full-length mirror on the back of the door out of the corner of her eye. Realizing that she’d nearly closed her eyes as the door shut, Lex took a deep breath before opening them.

  She began by looking at her bare feet, which appeared almost skeletal. Lex brought her gaze up her now-skinny legs, then began to raise the hospital-style gown up so that she could see her torso. Taking another deep breath, Lex watched as her almost concave belly moved with it, and tried for clinically detached observation of her jutting hipbones and ribcage.

  It could have been worse, she told herself, looking at the floor again. It could have been much worse.

  Finally, Lex forced her gaze to her face, and then just stared a moment, having a hard time recognizing herself in the mirror. Her cheekbones had become so prominent that they threatened to take over her face. As she stepped closer to the mirror, however, Lex gasped.

  The same eyes—amazingly bright, spring green lace shot through with forest green—stared out of the mirror at her now, not just from a dream where a woman warned her. Lex put a hand to the mirror to support herself on now-shaky legs as she realized that had been no stranger, especially as her eyes moved to her hair.

  It was a very short cap on her head now, and Lex gently touched the strands as if to assure herself of their reality. No color existed in her hair now; it shone pure white and felt fine and silky to the touch.

  “Are you all right in there?” Riss’ voice sounded from behind the door. “Don’t lock the door or anything. Casey would kill me if anything happened to you.”

  “I’m fine,” Lex replied, trying to keep out of her voice the sound of the tears that had sprung up. “I’ll just be another couple minutes.”

  Lex allowed the tears to leak for a minute or so as she continued gazing into the mirror, then rubbed them away as she carefully made her way to the sink. After she splashed cold water on her face, Lex looked herself in the eye once more as she toweled away the excess.

  “What’s done is done,” she muttered to her reflection. “You are still alive, you know, so get back out there.”

  Once Lex had gotten back to her room, with a good deal of help from Riss, she ate miso soup and oatmeal with maple syrup that Casey brought. Although Lex couldn’t eat all the food, she found that aside from lots of growling, her stomach seemed to be able to handle it.

  “That was excellent, thank you,” Lex said after she’d eaten all she could.

  “Well,” Casey replied as she cleared the dishes away, “I hear they fed miso soup to the survivors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I figured that maybe it would do OK for you, too. Also, the oatmeal is pretty mushy, so I thought that might go down easier than rice. We can try some in a few days, though, if you like.”

  Lex shrugged, suddenly feeling sleepy. “That’d be fine.”

  She vaguely sensed Casey arranging the pillows behind her so that she could stay in a mostly sitting position as she fell into a doze. Lex’s dreams felt somewhat confused, her mind still sensing danger, but somehow her sleeping world felt friendlier than it had in a while.

  After what seemed only a few moments, Lex awoke with a gasp, feeling as if something around her had changed. She glanced about to find herself still in the same room, but now it looked like night. A feeble light shone from a bare bulb overhead, and Lex blinked a couple of times to clear her eyes. After a moment her eyes tracked all the way to the side of the bed and found that she had a visitor.

  “Mr. Chen,” she said excitedly.

  He bowed his head. “Hello, Lex,” he replied.

  Lex studied him for a moment, thinking that he looked older than the last time she’d seen him, tired and drawn, and something about him appeared more broken down than Lex could remember seeing before.

  She cleared her throat before continuing. “Are you all right? You look tired.”

  He smiled at her then and it almost reached his eyes. “Casey told me the minute you woke up you started worrying about everyone else. I’m fine, I’ve just been worried about you.”

  “I’m really sorry to have worried everyone—”

  Mr. Chen cut her off with a wave of his hand. “There’s no reason for you to apologize. That’s what I came to say to you, now that we can speak freely. I wanted to apologize. I knew about the things they were doing at that facility all along.”

  Lex frowned momentarily as she considered his words. “I guess that makes sense. I know Lily works at the main lab where they take everyone once they can’t show us in public anymore, so I guess you would know.” She looked up at Mr. Chen and waited for him to continue.

  “I am sorry I didn’t say anything to you about it. I should have tried to help.” He stared at the far wall as he spoke.

  “How?” Lex asked, looking at Mr. Chen with her brows pulled together. “I can’t think of any way, other than what we managed because we have the biggest computer genius I know in
our group. I don’t think you would have been able to let us know without all of us getting found out. I guess they would have just put all of us in the lab for the rest of our lives, then.”

  “But—”

  Lex cut him off with a shake of her head. “They probably would have shut me away if they got wind of it, so that I wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

  She stopped there, a number of considerations running through her head. Lily working at the facility. The fact that they weren’t experimenting on her. The fact that Mr. Chen was working for the same group and had been for some time. The fact that Lily was like the other women on the team who weren’t in the service. The fact that Lily had a son. Lex started to nod as everything fell into sequence in her mind.

  “I think I see. Someone found out about what Lily could do and they’ve made you work for them since then. I always wondered why you closed your school, since I’d heard it was a big success. They told you that as long as you work for them, they won’t experiment on Lily or your great-grandson. Is that right?”

  Mr. Chen turned halfway back a moment later and nodded. Lex glanced away then, embarrassed because she saw the tears he’d tried to hide.

  “I don’t blame you. I’d probably do what you did if I had a good family, too. I’m sorry you’re in such a crappy situation, and I wish I could do something to help.”

  “You shame me with your kindness and generosity.”

  “Shame you? Your whole family is at risk for us, and you saved my life. Thank you. I can’t do anything to help you right now, except to try to get all of us out of here as soon as possible, but if I ever figure out a way to help you, you better believe I’ll do it.”

  They both fell silent for a little while, and finally Lex chanced another look at Mr. Chen. He gazed back at his student and they both nodded.

  “I’m so glad you came,” Lex said happily, smiling again.

  Mr. Chen briefly covered her hand with his, patted it once, and then brought his hand back in his lap. “I’m very glad I came, as well.”

  Lily arrived then, cutting the conversation short. Lex asked Mr. Chen to stay as Lily ran through some short tests, and then Lily nodded, as if confirming something to herself.

  “You were very lucky to be in such good physical shape before your event,” she said, still nodding. “I think that you had a big reserve and that was one of the things that pulled you through. I think having Casey here helped a lot, too.”

  Lex nodded in response. “I agree. By the way, I was able to eat today. Casey made some miso soup and oatmeal, and it went down fine.”

  “Good choices,” Lily said as she made some notes on a clipboard. “There was one thing I forgot to ask earlier, though. When you were ill, did you go through a trial?”

  “What do you mean?” Lex asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

  “Well, a lot of people who came through their body events reported that while they were sick, they experienced…well, I guess you could call them dreams, that they were going through some sort of test. Some of them went through mazes, or worked through a puzzle, or competed against other people for some sort of prize. Many who survived their body events remember something like that, and they were usually successful, to some extent. Do you remember anything like that?”

  Lex thought for a few moments, trying to move from being sick in the train station to what happened next. After closing her eyes and massaging them, she remembered a flash of fighting with her father. As she opened her eyes, the rest of the details started falling into place.

  “Yes,” Lex said, nodding to Lily. “I had to fight my father.” She turned to Mr. Chen as she continued. “He looked just like he did when he was teaching me when I was a little girl.

  “I fought him three times. The first time I held my own for a while before he beat me soundly. The second time I managed to fight him to a draw. Somehow, I felt that it would be the end if I didn’t beat him the third time, since I kept getting more exhausted from each fight. But I did beat him. I didn’t have to kill him and I didn’t injure him permanently, but I had him kneeling before we finished the fight.”

  Lily looked to be busy trying to make notes on what Lex had said, so Lex turned to her teacher.

  “Mr. Chen, were you here at all when I was sick?”

  He looked at her curiously, and then nodded. “I came as often as I could. This building is owned by my brother’s family, and I normally visit here regularly, so I took advantage of that to come downstairs and see you.”

  Lex nodded. “I knew you must have been here. Lily told me Casey was here pretty much all the time. In my dream, the two of you helped me. I finished the form you asked me to put together in order to defeat my father, and I beat him because you and Casey helped me. I just wish that I was strong enough to show it to you now. At this rate, I doubt you’ll ever see it.”

  Mr. Chen smiled broadly at her in response. “I had no doubt that you would complete it, and that you’d do well. The most important thing for you to do now, however, is to get well.”

  “Can you recommend some exercises for me so that I can get stronger faster? I’m worried that the longer we stay here, the more danger you’ll be in.”

  “Grandfather,” Lily cut in, her voice in the tone of a warning, “don’t push her too fast. I can’t be sure that she’s going to remain stable. We probably won’t know for certain until the end of the week.”

  Mr. Chen narrowed his eyes a bit as he looked at her, then answered in another language. Lily glared at him and then the two were arguing and almost yelling. Finally, Lex raised her voice to cut in.

  “Please!” she said, looking at the two of them. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to cause a disagreement. I don’t want to push myself too hard, but I need to get back into shape so that we can leave and get you all out of danger. Every day we stay means more risk to you and your family. I’m grateful beyond words that you saved my life. I can never repay you properly, but I figure the least I can do is to leave as soon as I can.”

  The two of them continued to stare at each other for a moment, then turned away. Lily’s face looked angry, but also hurt as she turned from her grandfather. Mr. Chen’s expression seemed hard and mostly unreadable. He nodded at Lex.

  “I’ll write something up for you and have it sent over tomorrow,” he said. “Be sure to take it at your own pace, and if you get too tired or have any pain, stop right away. Make sure that you have a friend with you when you start working on the exercises.”

  Lex nodded. “I will. Thanks for your help.”

  Turning to Lily, Lex continued. “Lily, thanks again for everything. I promise I won’t work too hard, and I’ll be sure to let you know if anything out of the ordinary happens.”

  Lily looked up from her clipboard and nodded. “Be sure to do that. Are you having any pain, or any odd sensations?”

  “No,” Lex replied, shaking her head. “All things considered, I feel pretty good.” After glancing up at Lily for a moment, Lex continued. “Should I assume that everything that changed will stay the way it is?”

  Lily looked back down at Lex, staring into her eyes for a moment. “Most likely. Usually, if someone is unstable after their event, another change will show up within the first twenty four hours after the patient first starts to improve. So far you seem to have settled. I’ll check back in with you tomorrow to follow up, and we can be fairly certain then, if everything’s remained the same.”

  Lex nodded, suddenly starting to feel sleepy again. “When do you think the IV can come out?”

  Lily shrugged. “Let’s wait at least a week to see how your digestive system does. Just because you were able to keep food down today doesn’t mean you’ll be able to digest it. Let’s see how it goes.”

  Unable to answer due to a huge yawn, Lex nodded again. Mr. Chen stood then, and Lex glanced sleepily up at him.

  “Do you have to go so soon?” she asked, trying not to sound whiny.

  He smiled briefly at her. “I should, but I
will send the plan for you tomorrow. Sleep well, Lex.”

  The two of them left the room then, and Lily turned the light off behind them. Lex blinked her sleepy eyes a couple of times, focusing on the dim strips of orange light coming in under the blinds, but despite her best efforts to keep them open, her eyes finally fell shut again.

  To her annoyance, Lex found that she slept a lot in the next couple days. By the end of the second day she’d gotten to the point that she could get in and out of bed unassisted, but Casey wouldn’t always allow it. Lex was careful to let the blonde spot her as she worked through the exercises that Mr. Chen had sent to build her strength back up, and Casey watched her like a hawk while she did. They actually argued a few times about it because Lex worried that she wasn’t working hard enough to get her strength back quickly.

  “Listen,” Casey finally told her, “you’re up now, and you’re doing a lot more than anyone expected you to do in the first few days since you woke up. Don’t push it. You don’t know how sick you were. Everyone else expected you to die.”

  Lex was about to say that she’d gotten an idea of how bad off she’d been, even in her fever dreams, until she saw the look on Casey’s face. Her insides twisted at her friend’s expression, the same sad, haunted look Casey got every time she talked about Lex’s body event. Lex fell silent then and put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. Casey seemed to come back to herself at the contact and smiled at Lex.

  “I didn’t, though. I knew you’d live; you’d never die over something like that.”

  Lex laughed. “Thanks. You helped, you know. I don’t think I ever thanked you yet for helping me pull through.”

  Casey looked at her with an eyebrow raised, as if to say she felt she hadn’t done much until Lex explained how the two of them had worked together in her dream to fix her form so that Lex could defeat her father. Casey laughed. “Well, I wasn’t really there, you know.”

  “Oh? So, you’re saying that I didn’t pick up on the fact that you were here the whole time? And the only other person who showed up in my dreams was Mr. Chen. He said he came to see me, too.”