Invisible Justice

by Kim Jewell

  He glanced around the room quickly, and thanks to his new acute sight, he saw - through the ceiling and three aisles of non-fiction books - Leesha sitting at a table in the far corner of the second floor study. He headed up the stairs, around the non-fiction section and met her eyes as she looked up.

  He heard her think: “What’s that smirk for? Almost like he’s got a secret…” His grin widened into a full smile.

  “Well,” he said, “it won’t be a secret for long.” He watched her eyes pop open in surprise.

  “No way!”

  “Way.”

  “You just read my mind?” She tried to muffle her surprise into a whisper, but it ended up being louder than she wanted, trying to be discreet and all.

  “How long?”

  “Since yesterday morning around 10:30. Here – here are all of my notes,” and with that, he pivoted his laptop her way and she was silent for a good twenty minutes as she read and re-read his electronic log.

  “Okay,” she started, “it looks like your flashes are ramping up.”

  He interrupted her. “Do you think they’re done?”

  “There’s really no way to tell, at least none that I know of. We’ll know they’re done when you stop getting them. But it’s a good sign that your abilities have hung around this long. So… You’ve detailed your sense of smell, sight, hearing, taste and the newly acquired cognitive sense.”

  “Cognitive sense?” he lost her.

  “Yeah, kind of like ESP. Extrasensory perception. It’s kind of like a sixth sense. It would totally make sense – no pun intended – if you had a sixth sense! The one area you haven’t explored at this point is your sense of touch.” She tapped her pencil on her notebook, pondering.

  “I’ve noticed that things feel… How do I explain it… Stronger? Like right now I can feel everyone walking on the floor through the soles of my feet. I can feel the floor moving, bumping. I guess I’ve been too caught up in everything else to really pay attention. But in Lexi’s car the other day, I thought the motor was going to shake my insides as we sped down the road. So, yeah, that’s heightened too.”

  Leesha was still processing all of this. “Okay, Sam. Here’s your homework. Continue logging everything like you have been, but what I want you to do is pay particular attention to your sense of touch. Not only what you can touch on the surface, but on a peripheral level as well.”

  “Um, peripheral?”

  “Well, you know how you can block out sounds and sights and move your ability further and further from you?”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “See if you can do that with your sense of touch as well. Start by temperatures. See if you can feel heat or cold from an object that isn’t necessarily in your hands or within your reach.”

  “Okay,” he agreed. Then his head snapped up in shock.

  She continued, not even noticing “And then I want you to…”

  “Shhh.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Shhh. Let me listen,” he said shortly.

  Leesha sat there quietly and watched Sam’s eyes as he scanned the room.

  I didn’t know that I can’t find the person unless I know the voice… Where is that voice coming from? Wait. There he is!

  “Leesh. You see that guy over to the right?” She looked to the right. “Sorry, my right, your left.”

  “The one in the gray sweatshirt?” she asked.

  “Yes. He’s gonna swipe that lady’s purse on the floor. I just heard him think it.”

  Leesha’s eyes opened wide, and without thinking about it more than a second, she concentrated on the purse. In the blink of an eye, it moved from the floor to the chair next to the owner, safely tucked under the study table.

  The guy rounded the table, dropped a piece of paper near where the purse was originally set, and looked puzzled that it was no longer there. The woman turned to glance at him, so all he could do was pick up his paper like it was an accident, and keep moving.

  Sam turned to Leesha with one eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face. “Justice! Nicely done, partner!”

  “I think we just lowered the crime statistics in the city!”

  They gave each other a quiet high five and just sat there for a moment, smiling.

  “Okay,” Sam continued, “you were saying… What else do you want me to be working on?” And suddenly his green eyes popped open in horror. This time Leesha noticed the change in his expression.

  “What now?”

  “It’s gone.” He was totally deflated. Just when he had done something good with his abilities, they were stripped away from him. He put his head in his hands.

  “Sam… Don’t worry about it. You know it’s just the way the flashes work. They will come and go – but your abilities will eventually stay. They’re already getting stronger!”

  “I know,” he said miserably. “But…”

  “Look at it this way,” Leesha continued, trying to be positive. “You’ll have more experiences to log, so we’ll have more to research. I’ve already got a bunch of notes on things I want to read up on before we meet next. And when the next flash happens, your homework is to work on your sense of touch. We’re getting somewhere. Really, Sam, we ARE!”

  “Okay, okay. You don’t have to remind me. I’ll be fine,” he reassured her, half-heartedly. “So when do you want to meet next? Next Saturday again?”

  “I can’t next Saturday. It’s my birthday, and my grandparents have reserved the whole day for birthday festivities.”

  Sam’s face popped up again. “It’s your birthday next Saturday?”

  “Yep.”

  “Which birthday?”

  “My seventeenth. Why?”

  The color drained out of his face. “It’s my seventeenth birthday next Saturday too.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Her expression stayed blank for a moment, and then Sam saw the recognition and curiosity put a spark in her eyes. “We have the same birthday?”

  “I guess so. You suppose it’s a coincidence?” Sam knew where her mind was going.

  “I can’t imagine that it is… What town were you born in?”

  “Right here. I’ve never lived anywhere else. You were born here too, right?” Sam tried to search his brain through the background gathering conversations they typed back and forth over the last week.

  “Yep,” Leesha continued. “Which hospital were you born in?”

  “Sartori.”

  “Me too.” Sam could see the wheels in Leesha’s head turning. “It looks like you’ve got some more homework then, Sam. How good are you with a computer?”

  “I can hold my own. What do you need me to do?”

  “Think you can hack into a hospital’s record system?” The left side of her mouth turned up in a crafty half-grin.

  “I’m not sure – I’ve never tried hospital records before – but I’m willing to give it a shot. Once, in eighth grade, I was getting a D in Spanish class, so I hacked into my school’s online server to print out a bogus report card for my parents.”

  “Eighth grade? Impressive,” Leesha commented. “Did you get caught?”

  “No, my conscience wouldn’t let me keep the B I plugged into the system. I basically printed out a report card for Mom and Dad, and then changed it back to the original grade. No one knew. Then I worked my butt off to bring my grade up the next period. All that work, and my parents ended up disappointed that my grade fell to a C!” He laughed, remembering.

  “Nice… Okay, more homework. Can you handle it?”

  “Yeah. What do you want me to do?”

  “We already know you and I were in the same hospital at the same time when we were born. I want to find staffing records of who was there at that time – nurses, doctors, residents, janitors – you name it, I want to know. And then patient records too. Not just the OB wing, but everyone. Think you can handle that?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot. I’ll see what I can find first online. If I can’t hack th
rough first by computer, I’ll go on the premises and research in person. I’ll find a way.”

  “That’s good, that’s good. Hey, with any luck, you’ll have another flash and be able to tap into your abilities to help somehow!”

  He sighed, still disappointed he was in the dark again. “Yeah, right. I’ll do what I can. I’ll keep you in the loop with what I can throughout the week. When do you want to hook up next?”

  “Are you free next Sunday?”

  “Sure, in the afternoon.”

  “Perfect,” Leesha grinned. “Let’s meet at 2:00 at Mo’s Grill on Main. The lunch crowd should be done by then, so it should be a quiet place to meet.”

  “Not back here?”

  “Let’s keep our meeting places different for now.”

  “Smart,” Sam agreed. “Mo’s it is. I’ll see you next Sunday. Call or send me a note this week if you need something sooner.”

  “You got it,” and with that, they packed up and walked out of the library together. They never noticed the pair of eyes that watched them, and had been trained on them for the last twenty minutes of their meeting.

  Sam went through the motions of school and classes, but his heart definitely wasn’t in it. He ended up getting an A- on that history exam, which surprised his teacher much more than it did Sam.

  In his free time, both at school and at home, he put his efforts into trying to compile records and information from the homework assignment Leesha gave him on Saturday. By Monday evening, he managed to completely explore the hospital website, even hack into their intranet, but he found out very quickly that the records they kept online were only from eight years ago, so that wasn’t going to do any good.

  He did manage to find the birth and death records on the local newspaper’s website for the year he was born, and narrowed down the entire list of names to the week before his birthday through the week after. He expected that many of the names wouldn’t be connected to Sartori Hospital, but it was a least a start.

  Some of these people would have been in some hospital, right?

  He printed the records and put them in an unmarked manila envelope that he kept under his bed for now. He’d turn it over to Leesha when he saw her this weekend.

  His next flash happened in the middle of the night Monday night. He sat up in bed, both cringing in pain, and celebrating that his abilities were back. He noted the time from the red numbers on his alarm clock, and found he was too awake from the combination of the burn, the brightness of the room, and the excitement that came with it to go back to sleep. His alarm was going to go off in another hour and a half anyway, so he booted up his computer to log the details in his cyber notebook.

  The burn was definitely lighter this time – just a nagging buzz all over his body. As he felt the sensation, he wondered why his whole body hurt, when he recalled that Leesha mentioned her flashes were concentrated only to her head. He noted the question in his log – something for the two of them to discuss and explore as they continued their research. He backed up his notes, shut down his computer and headed towards the bathroom to shower.

  Lexi will be happy that I’m done with the bathroom by the time her alarm goes off! I wish I didn’t share a bathroom with a teenage sister that needs a whole hour to make herself presentable for school…

  By the time Sam ventured downstairs, his parents were both downstairs having their first cup of coffee, and his dad was reading the morning paper.

  “Morning Sam,” his mother greeted him. “You’re up early.”

  “Yeah, I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

  It’s not entirely a lie…

  “Sam,” his dad started, “don’t forget we’re headed over to Uncle Andy’s tonight to help him grind and clear out that old stump of his.”

  “Right, Dad. I remember – I’ll be here after school. We can drive together, okay?”

  Crap. I forgot that was tonight… I wanted to go over to the hospital to snoop around. I don’t know how long this will last… Maybe I’ll just have to ditch after lunch and get it done this afternoon.

  “Sounds good pal,” his dad responded. “I’m taking off early, since it’s getting dark earlier now. I’ll be home at 4.”

  “Okay, Dad. See you then.” He sighed.

  It’s not like the darkness will be a problem for me…

  And with that thought, he grinned, and then turned to fill his cereal bowl.

  Sam went to school that morning, had lunch with Ty, and then prepared his departure for the rest of the afternoon. He didn’t normally see Lexi in the afternoon’s set of classes, so she wouldn’t detect his absence and rat him out. He forged a note from his father (his mother’s handwriting was way too elegant to imitate), excusing him from the afternoon for a dental appointment. He felt a twinge of guilt about doing it, but he knew this may be his only opportunity to get over to the hospital and use his senses to glean whatever information he could.

  Once he was in his car, he made his way over to Sartori and parked in the visitor lot. He compiled a list of things to investigate earlier that morning – first and foremost was find out if the old staffing records were filed by paper somewhere on the property, or if there was a separate database, either connected through the current web, or housed on another server somewhere. He also wanted to try and get a couple of different physician names and ID numbers from badges, which he knew he could capture visually and note on the little pad of paper he stashed in his back pocket. His thought was perhaps he would need some sort of clearance to access other fingers of the intranet he wasn’t able to tap into on his first attempt.

  Where to start? I guess maybe I’ll head to the cafeteria. I need to look like a visitor, but appear like I know where I’m going. I’ll head to the food first. Surely I can find something on the way.

  He read the sign inside the door which directed him to the café, and also took note of the floor and wing of the Obstetrics area, along with the ER and ICU. The OB was definitely first on his list – he wanted to tap into the minds of some of the nurses and other staff there – but he’d make his way around as much of the hospital as time allowed him.

  Along his stroll towards the cafeteria, he passed a man in a lab coat who looked like a doctor, took note of his name and badge number, and wrote it down on his pad. He also paid attention to where the elevators were so he could find them when he backtracked to head towards OB on the third floor.

  In the café, he wandered aimlessly through the line, trying to appear as if he were checking out the food selection. He picked up a bottle of water, paid for it, and went to take a seat in the back corner of the dining area. A quick scan of the room showed plenty of tables of visitors, but Sam triggered right into a table of four people in business suits – three men and a woman. All of them were wearing staff badges.

  Score! Hospital management… The woman’s badge says Public Relations Manager.

  He took note of her name and badge number, and then stood to walk around the table of suits, appearing to throw a napkin in the trash. He found the Director of Hospital Administration and noted his name and badge number as well.

  Next, he walked out and headed towards the elevators. Feeling like he had enough names and ID numbers for now, he aimed his sights on the staff of the OB and neonatal department. As the elevator doors closed, Sam noticed that he was barely able to see through the thick metal doors. His vision was blurry, as if the metal was a filmy substance that shielded him from seeing clearly, but he was definitely able to see through the metal as the elevator ascended to the floors above.

  Awesome! More progress. I’ll have to tell Leesha later. Also about the burn sticking around longer. Maybe this will be the last one. Hopefully…

  He got to the front desk at OB and made a note of the physicians on staff from the sign on the wall. He figured there would have been quite a bit of turnover in the last seventeen years, but this was somewhere to start. He saw an elderly nurse standing behind the computer and decide
d to try his luck.

  “Hello ma’am,” he started politely. “I was wondering if perhaps you could point me in the right direction.”

  She looked up from the computer screen and her eyes narrowed when she saw him. He knew she was thinking he was just another pesky kid, here to interrupt her already busy day. “What is it I can do for you?”

  “Well, I was thinking about college – I’m only a couple of years away. Anyway,” he looked down at the floor as if he were trying to pull off the personality of a gawky, shy, self-conscious teenager, “I was thinking about med school. But before I commit to any particular field, I was hoping perhaps I could volunteer at one of our local hospitals.”

  Her expression changed from suspicious to pleasantly surprised at his, albeit fake, generosity. “Well, aren’t you quite the young gentleman! You’ll want to see the human resources department – they are located down one floor, on the east wing in the business department. Just take those elevators down one level.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he turned as if he were immediately going to take her direction, but he wasn’t quite done with her. He turned back around to speak again. “I was really hoping they might have something I could do… You see, this is the hospital I was born in seventeen years ago.”

  “Really?! I’m sure I was here back then – I’ve been here for twenty-eight years this December.” Her expression went soft, reminiscing.

  Bingo. Now I’ve got her. Like putty in my hands…

  “You don’t say? That’s incredible! You may have helped deliver me! Wow…”

  “I very well might have. Huh… What a small world. Well, I guess it’s not ALL that small. I’ve helped deliver a lot of babies here – I’ve always been a nurse in OB, my entire career here.”

  Sam gave his biggest toothy smile, appreciating the fact that she was eating this up. “My mom’s told me the story over and over. I don’t remember my doctor’s name, at the moment… Who was on staff around then?”

  “Oh, let me think… I guess at that point we had four doctors on rotation at the time. Doctors Hart, Blevins, Smith and Goldman.” Her memory was perfect. He knew he’d struck gold.