“Thanks.” Blake smiled and put the bathrobe on backwards, cinching it in the front.
When Arik and Miguel finished removing the restraints from their beds, they left the room and shut the door behind them. Victor followed them out. Blake noticed the armed guards were no longer standing outside the room.
Quinn walked out of the bathroom and pulled on the second hospital gown, covering backside from view. Then, he joined Blake at the window and looked at the scenery outside.
“They said things were levitating around us,” Quinn said. He turned around and extended his hand toward the chart in the footboard holster. “Rise.”
Nothing happened.
“You try.”
“Are you serious,” Blake asked?
“Just do it.”
“Fine.” Blake looked at the medical chart and extended his hand. He pictured it floating in his mind. “Go up.”
Nothing happened for him, either.
“Damn,” Quinn said. “Things moved around me, and the room temperature got hot and cold around you.” He whipped his head around and looked into Blake’s eyes. Then he reached out and grabbed Blake’s arms.
“How do you feel now? Are you hot or cold?”
“I think I’m fine, but the air conditioning in here is a bit on the cold side to me.”
Quinn dropped his hands. He made pouty lips and took a deep breath. “Yeah, it’s chilly in here to me as well, and your temperature feels normal to me.”
Blake turned and pointed to the medical whiteboards on the wall opposite their beds. “Well, according to our vitals, our temperatures are normal.”
“True,” Quinn said. “I just thought, maybe…”
A moment of silence passed before Blake urged him on. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe we got super powers or something.”
Blake burst out laughing. “Yeah, right.”
“Rise,” Quinn exclaimed, turning quickly and extending his hand toward the medical chart once more.
Nothing.
Then he turned back to Blake and whispered to him. “I know we can’t talk about it here, but something definitely happened to us. All that blue swirly stuff—it’s like in us now or something. Wait…” Quinn turned and looked at the counter space opposite their beds, under the whiteboards.
“You’re kidding,” Blake said, racing over to the counter with Quinn. Together, they stared at the device Victor had used on them. “What do you think it does?”
Quinn picked it up and turned it right side up so the writing wasn’t upside down. “Orgone Energy Detector,” he read aloud. “What the hell is orgone energy?”
“Beat’s me. Turn it on. See what it does.”
“Yeah!” Quinn flipped the switch and pointed it at Blake. The digital, three-inch band of thirty or so small LEDs spread across the top of the device illuminated from left to right, from green to yellow to red. Under the LEDs, printed labels offered the words Low, Concentration, and High. A larger LED above the word High flashed red.
“Oh, I get it. Low or high concentration,” Quinn said. He turned to the right, away from Blake, and all the LEDs turned off except the first green one.
“That’s weird.”
“What did it do?” Blake said, stepping next to Quinn to see the face of the meter.
“As soon as I pointed it away from you the little lights turned off.”
“Maybe it was booting up. Aim it at me again.”
Quinn aimed the meter at Blake’s stomach so Blake could see the lights. As soon as the meter’s sensor pointed at Blake, all the LEDs, including the big flashing red one, switched on again.
Quinn aimed the device at the wall; only one green light. He handed the meter to Blake. “Do me.”
Blake studied the face of the meter but it offered no further explanation of what it did. He took a deep breath and pointed it at Quinn. Once more, all the LEDs, including the flashing red one, switched on.
“Wicked,” Blake said, exhaling. “Does this mean we’re…full of ozone?”
“Orgone,” Quinn corrected. “I’d say yes.”
“Holy crap.” Blake set the device back on the counter and backed away from it. “What does that mean? Why does he have this meter thing and the hospital doesn’t? Is it like…radiation?”
“I don’t feel sick, so it’s not likely to be nuclear radiation. I think our innards would be turned to soup by now. Maybe it takes longer, I don’t know.”
Quinn pointed at the door. “If we were a radiation hazard, they’d be coming in here with yellow hazmat suits and all that stuff. I’m willing to bet Victor saw this same high concentration readout…but he didn’t freak out. So, we don’t seem to be in any foreseeable danger, not that I’d know what foreseeable danger accompanies this thing that happened to us.”
“Except now we’re full of this orgone stuff. If I had my phone I could Google it.”
“Should we tell our parents?” Quinn asked in a low voice.
“What, that we wandered into a mystery cave and got blasted with…orgone?” Blake whispered. “Heck no. I don’t want to be grounded for the rest of my life.”
“Right, and I don’t want to admit anything in here just in case our friend Victor is listening.”
A knock at the door startled them and they turned around. Blake turned around and saw Nadia’s face smiling at them. “They’re up. Go ahead and see your boys.”
She pushed the door wide open and Blake saw Quinn’s dads standing in the doorway. Their faces conveyed exhaustion, panic, worry, and Dad hadn’t shaved in several days. Daddio clapped his hands over his mouth as tears streamed down his face. Quinn rushed to them and they met in the middle of the room for a giant hug.
Blake smiled.
Then his parents, Stella and Ralph, walked in. His mother’s face looked worried, but his father’s face looked angry and annoyed. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his cargo shorts. When he made eye contact with Blake, he grunted and didn’t smile.
“Blake,” his mother said, walking quickly across the room. Blake took a few steps forward but stopped when she got to him first. She grabbed his hands and smiled through tears that threatened her mascara. “Are you all right? You look all right to me.”
“I’m fine, mom.”
“They told us you were struck by lightning, is that true?” Stella asked.
“I guess so,” Blake said, looking over at Quinn’s family hug. His mom pulled him in for a hug and kissed him on the cheek. She stepped back and turned to look at his father, who hadn’t moved from his spot near the door.
Ralph pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms across his chest. His eyes narrowed. “It’s Thursday. I’ve lost four days of work because of you. What the hell did you do to keep us…”
“I don’t know, dad,” Blake snapped, his hands balling into fists. “They told us we were caught in a thunderstorm and might have been struck by lightning.”
“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, mister. You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“There was no thunderstorm on Sunday morning,” Daddio said, redirecting the conversation. Quinn’s parents stopped their family hug and turned to face Blake and his mom. Daddio kept his arm around Quinn’s shoulders. “I kept telling the doctor that, but they couldn’t explain what happened to you or why your hearts stopped beating. They kept saying your symptoms were consistent with a lightning strike, with the exception of no burns on your bodies.”
Blake looked down at his arms and bare feet. No burns. That’s weird, our doctor agreed there was no thunderstorm on Sunday morning.
“What’s the doctor’s name again?” Blake asked.
“Doctor Kraze,” Dad said. “Sounds like an evil villain name, if you ask me.”
Quinn looked over at Blake with a confused expression on his face.
Blake shrugged. “Um, our doctor’s name is Amy Madison.”
“Yeah, today
it is. Dr. Kraze is off today,” Stella said.
“Oh,” Blake said softly. This is getting confusing.
“Could it have been food poisoning?” Quinn offered sheepishly, looking up at Daddio.
His dads looked at each other and shrugged. “We ate the same burgers and stuff you did, and we’re fine,” Daddio said.
“It’s a good thing other people were out hiking that day,” Dad added. “You could have been unconscious on the forest floor for a long time. We wouldn’t have thought anything of it until lunch time, or maybe later, when it was too late.”
“What were you doing in the woods?” Ralph asked, annoyance grating in his voice.
“We were following the hiking trail until we came across a bunch of fallen trees that went on for a while. We just decided to follow them out. When we came back, we passed out on the trail.”
“What a wimp,” Ralph muttered under his breath.
Dad shot him an angry look and shook his head.
A knock at the door turned everyone’s heads. Nurse Nadia entered, her face full of joy and a wide grin. “Hello, happy families.” In her hands, she carried two blue plastic bags that said Personal Belongings in large white text.
“It is a good day because you get to go home today.”
“Finally,” Ralph said, stepping aside to let Nadia through.
“These are the clothes you had on when you arrived. Mister Blake, your cell phone is in here, too.”
“Great,” Blake said, stepping forward to take his bag from Nadia. She handed Quinn his bag of clothes.
“But no cell phone for you, Mister Quinn. I hope it is not lost.”
“We have it in the car,” Daddio said. “He didn’t take it with him when he went hiking.”
“Oh, such wonderful news for you, Mister Quinn. I was worried it was lost.”
Blake found his cell phone and switched it on, but nothing happened. “It doesn’t work.”
“Battery’s probably dead,” Daddio offered. “We have your clean clothes in the car if you guys want those.”
“Nah,” Blake said. “These are fine. They don’t look dirty or anything. I can’t stand another minute in this hospital dress.”
“Me too,” Quinn said, laughing.
“All right then, you guys get changed and we’ll get you discharged at the desk.”
“There goes our insurance deductible,” Ralph said. Then he turned around and walked toward the door.
“Okay then, happy parents, come and follow me to the desk and we’ll get you ready to go home with your boys.” Nadia smiled at the boys and gestured with her hands for the parents to follow her out of the room.
When they had left, Blake tossed his bag on his bed and sorted through his clothes. Shorts, boxers, tank top, socks, and his sneakers. He pulled off his hospital gowns and pulled on his boxers. Quinn did the same at his bed, and the boys got dressed.
“This is all fucked up,” Blake said, pulling on his boxers. “I don’t understand why there’s so much lying and cover up in this hospital. Why did Victor pretend to be a doctor to our parents?”
“Unless he lied to us,” Quinn said, snapping the elastic waistband of his boxers against his abs. “Maybe he really is a doctor.”
Blake reached for his shorts. “Wearing a black suit and not a doctor’s lab coat?”
“Good point. What if everything he told us was a lie?” Quinn speculated. “What if Dr. Madison and Victor are in this together and they both work for that paranormal museum place?” He pulled on his tank top and sat on the edge of the bed to put on his socks.
Blake thought about the possibility for a moment and then reached for his tank top. “I think Victor was mostly honest with us, but not honest with our parents.” He sat down on the edge of his bed, facing Quinn, and reached for his socks. “I also think Dr. Madison was partly honest with us.”
“But they each had different stories,” Quinn argued. “Victor got to our parents first. If he really is part of some super-secret conspiracy theory, doesn’t it make sense that he did all the lying because he’s the one trying to figure out what really happened to us?
“Maybe,” Blake said, reaching for his socks.
“And look,” Quinn said, pointing at the orgone meter with the sneaker he held in his hand. “That thing is still there, and the hospital people haven’t bothered to notice it or remove it.”
“So?”
“Too sloppy. Victor didn’t accidentally leave it there. He purposefully left it there, knowing we’d play with it. He knew we’d be too damn curious about what it was once he used it on us. He didn’t answer any of our questions, and there’s a reason he wants us to know that he knows we went into that cave thing. I just don’t know why.”
“You think he’s telling us something?” Blake said, tying his sneakers.
“Definitely.
“Should we take it with us?”
“No,” Quinn said, smiling wickedly. “I think he expects us to take it. I say we leave it here and mess with his head this time.”
❖
Victor
Victor Kraze walked into the empty hospital room previously occupied by Quinn and Blake. He looked around, hoping to find something out of place or unusual.
Nothing.
His eyes landed on the orgone meter and he walked over to it, the corner of his mouth forming a smile. When he set it down earlier, the sensor faced the window. Now, the sensor faced the door, which meant the boys had played with it.
Excellent…
1-8 | Altered
Quinn
QUINN BLINKED HIS BLUE EYES IN the morning light and yawned. He stretched and then rolled over, refusing to get up despite the bright sunlight shining in his eyes. A knock at the door startled him.
“Time to get up, son,” Daddio said through the closed door.
“Yup,” he called out. Finally, things are back to normal.
He pushed the covers down to his waist. He felt wetness around his legs and torso when he moved.
What the hell?
He sat up, looked around, and realized he had sweat during the night and the sheets were damp and clammy where he had lain.
Gross.
He got up and pulled the covers back so the bed would air out during the day. Tomorrow was Saturday and he would be changing the bed anyway.
He dropped to the floor and cranked out his pushups. At fifty, he flipped over and worked through one hundred crunches. When he finished, he collapsed to the floor, his breath momentarily sucked out of him as his abs recovered. Since he hadn’t worked out in over a week, his abs burned and he struggled to breathe. He willed himself to sit up, bracing for the pain, but none came.
Huh, that’s weird.
Quinn pushed himself off the floor and flexed in the mirror over his dresser. Then he grabbed his towel from behind bedroom door and made his way to the bathroom across the hall.
Quinn relaxed his body under the hot stream of water, letting the hot water soothe his muscles. He closed his eyes and thought about the strange interview with Victor Kraze and the flurry of lies that surrounded what happened to them in the mystery cave and the Sunday morning weather. He became frustrated when his mind replayed and overanalyzed the events that put him and Blake into the hospital.
If only we never found that damn tunnel entrance.
Quinn opened his eyes.
What the hell?
In the shower, drops of water hovered in front of him as the stream of shower water continued to flow. He looked more carefully and watched as water droplets splashed off his body and the shower walls. Instead of falling toward his feet and the drain, they remained suspended in midair. He raised his hand and some of the droplets moved upward.
His eyes opened wide and his mouth dropped open. He moved his left hand to his body and some of the hovering water droplets, now collecting together into bigger drops, moved with him. With the fingers of his left hand, he flicked water off his chest and the drops moved away from him, slowing
to a stop and defying gravity.
Wicked. Am I doing this?
He looked at the flowing stream of water running down over his body and he moved his right hand toward it.
Bend the stream.
As his hand approached the stream, it bent where his hand was and angled away from its normal path.
No way…
He turned his hand palm-side up and the water reverse direction, spraying the tile ceiling above him. “Oh crap,” he exclaimed, dropping his hand. The shower stream resumed its normal path toward the floor. All at once, the floating water drops rained to the shower floor with a big splashing sound.
I don’t believe I just did that. How did I just do that?
Surprise and wonder filled his mind as he raised his hand again. This time, the water did not move.
Oh come on, seriously? Wait, I know…Bend the stream.
As his hand approached the stream, nothing happened.
Dammit! What the heck happened? Come on, Quinn, you can do this…bend the stream.
He stepped back and raised both hands to the stream. All at once, the shower stream redirected to the wall.
Yes!
He moved his hands and again the stream moved with him. He raised his right hand up and lowered his left hand; the shower stream curved between his hands before splashing near the drain.
Quinn thought about the floating water again and focused his mind. As the stream continued to flow in between his hands in a curve, floating water drops began expanding from the stream and all the water collecting on the floor of the shower stall floated upward.
Now, make one, giant ball of water…
As Quinn thought about it, the water began amassing at the center of the shower between his hands, the flow of water changing its course to fill an imaginary round container in front of him.
I wonder if I can Hadouken this water…but to where?
Quinn looked around the shower. Just a little push…to the wall.
He brought his hands closer to his body and the orb of water moved toward him.
Hadouken!
He pushed his hands forward a little and imagined a gentle blast of water moving forward. The water responded, but with more gusto than he anticipated. The giant orb of water exploded on the wall in front of him and splashed downward to the floor. Then, the shower stream resumed its normal course.
The Guardians Omnibus Page 8
