“Tina handled herself quite well. She got the girl under control and may have done Ben a great service as well. I think it's time you began to recognize the fact she is a necessary member of the team now. She deserves her own quarters, and her own office in the medical wing. I also think you need to speak with her mother,” Gene looked over his shoulder at Miranda, “for several reasons.”
Tina was shocked. Gene's statement hit Tina like another wave of pressure from Miranda, practically knocking her flat. What he suggested was her full emancipation. Something which all her briaunti friends had received after their metamorphoses well before the age of fifteen. They were all considered adults, and here was Gene saying she should be too. Tina had to keep herself from hugging him.
“No fair, hitting me with that after I've been run over by a bulldozer!” Angela replied waving a hand in Miranda's direction. “Aren't you supposed to help?”
“Yeah, like Gene could get you to sit still for that if you were fully operational,” Daniel chided.
Gene ran a scanner over Angela, then Daniel, “Take two morning-afters and call me in a couple of days. Until then, I'm putting you both on restriction.”
“You can't do that, I have work to do! This place doesn't run itself!” Angela whined.
“It will for a couple of days. Don't even bother trying to go to your office or inquire into operational status, I'm locking you out,” Gene said with an almost malicious grin.
“But! My staff will....”
“Be relieved that someone finally got you to take a rest,” Daniel finished and hustled Angela out the door.
Gene turned to Tina, he had a worried expression on his face. “Ben will be okay in a few days. What I want from you is... actually I need you to sit with Miranda, until she is coherent. I'd sit in shifts with you, but she doesn't seem to like me. I'd assign someone else to relieve you, but you and I are the only ones on the medical staff, with our particular gift.”
“Gift?” Tina was confused.
“We're deaf-mutes. I have come to the definite conclusion over the years that it is a blessing not a disability. In this case it means you won't disturb her and she won't flatten you.”
Tina looked into Gene's eyes; she read every nuance of his body language. He wasn't lying to her. He didn't think of her as a freak or a cripple. That made two- no three, if she finally counted herself.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ben woke up in the an observation room. There was a strange little gadget stuck to his head. It came off easily. The room was empty, and so was most of Ben's recent memory. He remembered having joined Daniel in the prep room before heading out to look for girl 22, and he sort of remembered his conversation with Archie- the Archie parallel guy. Come to think of it the more he thought about what he could remember, the more Ben did remember. There was the dark compound and... Miranda. They'd brought Miranda back. She was hurt. She started losing it, then wham. Things went black. He remembered waking up to darkness briefly, very briefly. Then he was here.
Ben shoved up out of bed, apparently there were no lasting effects. His legs felt fine. Heck his head didn't even hurt. Looking down to confirm his legs were fine, Ben did notice he was wearing a hospital gown. If he wanted to go out into the hall, which he did, he would need a robe. He started to look for one, only to be surprised by one hanging next to the door when he turned back towards it.
Wrapping it around himself Ben got close enough to the door that it should have opened, like many of the doors around here did automatically. It remained shut. So Ben tapped the activation panel, a simple thing to find just to the right of the door. It didn't respond. He knocked on the door, still nothing. “Computer, let me out.” There was no response.
A queasy sense of concern started tapping at the back of Ben's left eyelid. So did a lousy case of the 'what if's. What if Miranda were evil, and somehow she had gotten through the filters and... locked him up in the infirmary? Ben shook it off. He just wished he could talk to Tina.
“What the... where am I!” Tina exclaimed. Ben turned swiftly to find Tina standing behind him. She took some time to look around, then focusing on Ben she began to smile, “Mamma's little boy jumped at least a thousand points. I'm just so proud!”
“How did you get here?”
“You did it. Don't ask me,” Tina grabbed the gadget from off the bed. “I see you were thinking of stepping out. Personally, I would advise against it until I get Gene in here.” Tina walked up to the door, it opened for her without a problem and she strode outside. Ben tried to follow but the door snicked quickly shut behind Tina.
So he waited, but not long, because Gene rushed quickly into the room, Everett meter in hand. “Ben my boy, I am pleased to see you up and about so soon. I was worried it might be an entire week before you came out of it,” Gene seated the helmet of the meter on Ben's head and then began fishing through his coat for his pop-pad, “Miranda struck you quite a blow, yes quite a blow.”
Gene tapped the screen of the pop-pad and Ben waited to see what kind of sensation he would feel this time. At first he didn't feel anything. Then he felt a tiny tugging at the back of his thoughts which grew for the longest time, even after the helmet pinged and Gene removed it. Gene looked at his pad his eyes widened and his eyebrows made an attempt to climb all the way to his scalp.
“In case you want to know, it's over four thousand. A little psychic stretch was to be expected given what happened, but from this it looks like I should have done another hormone treatment on you before you went into the field. Wait here, I didn't bring a strong enough suppresser,” Gene stepped back outside and came back with what looked like an exercise sweat headband. Gene helped Ben put it on and position it carefully. “Even with this, you need to exercise some restraint. Whatever you did or were thinking when you brought Tina here, try not to. I need her to look after Miranda.”
Ben's guts knotted, “What's wrong with Miranda?”
“They tortured her, best we've come up with so far is that she spent time in a sensory deprivation tank. There was more. We don't know what, but there was more.” Gene felt the collar of Ben's robe, “Where'd you get this?”
“I guess I got it the same way I got Tina. It almost feels like my robe from back home,” Ben ventured.
“Hey, it's possible. You teleported Tina out of one shielded room into another,” Gene replied.
“How long have I been out? And how long do I have to stay cooped up in here?” Ben asked looking out the open door.
“You've been out for about thirty-seven hours, and you can head back to your quarters as soon as you like, but I want you to take it easy. You have the honor of joining Angela and Daniel on restriction. This time, whatever you do, don't hang out on the practice range. Read some books, watch some TV, and try not to use your abilities.”
“I'd like to head back now if that's okay,” Ben replied.
“Don't focus on that thought very hard, follow me,” Gene led Ben to the clinic transport booth and set the destination for Ben's quarters. “Remember, I want you to relax!”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Chapter 15
Sleeper
------------------------------------
Tina snapped into an upright position, something was wrong. Her ears strained to hear whatever it had been and her eyes crossed and uncrossed trying to find focus. She had to blink away the dry cottony feeling to see the clock, just a little past five a.m. Muffled moans and disjointed words tumbled from the bed. Miranda was talking in her sleep. It probably would not be long before she started screaming again.
Tina drug herself out of the chair to the cupboard. Where the universe was that alpha-wave modulator? Wait, hadn't she already applied it tonight? Tina tried to distinguish between that night and all of the other nights. “Some all, it had only been a week,” She thought to herself. Tina shuffled to Miranda's bed and felt around in the sheets for the modulator. Miranda snatched at her wrist.
>
“Don't let them put me back in!”
“Of course I won’t!” Tina reassured. She found the modulator with the fingertips of her other hand. Lightly she laid it on Miranda's forehead and activated it. Miranda's death grip loosened as the modulator eased her back into the proper sleep level. Tina activated the modulator's adhesion function and finished disengaging her wrist.
Tina shuffled back to her chair and pulled the blanket around her chin, but she didn't sleep. She couldn't. Miranda's plea haunted her. What had the dark done to that poor woman? Tina caught herself. She knew that poor woman was feasibly her absentee sister. For now Tina held that possibility at a distance. Only a gene scan could say for sure, but that would happen only if she ever returned to coherency, since Gene refused to do it without her permission.
Tina tasted the idea of having the sister she had always heard about. When she was little she had pretended, her sister hadn't disappeared. In her mind, Tina visualized Miranda's face in that imaginary sister's role: Miranda helping her reach the cookies. Miranda rescuing Tina from the tree Binny had stuck Tina up in. Miranda sticking up for Tina even through the teasing that Tina was more “tele-pathetic” than a human. Tina's eyes began to drift closed, and she smiled as she dreamt of Miranda sticking Binny to a tree in revenge.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Miranda awoke in a cold sweat; she got over her confusion only after the memory of her rescue seeped into her mind. There was a slight pressure on her forehead. She fingered it, and removed the device she found. Miranda threw off the blankets and set her feet unsteadily on the floor. She began a careful examination of the room.
The carpeting was comfortably warm and soft to her toes, which could only remember linoleum. The lights were barely on but to her eyes, they blared like daylight. Miranda noticed digital readouts on the wall behind the bed. She turned her head to the left and saw a wall with a door. Miranda tiptoed up to the door. It had no handle. She felt an instant of trapped fear until the door slid open revealing an efficient bathroom, equipped with a shower stall. She resumed her survey noting a screen inset in the wall opposite the monitors. Finally, her survey brought her around to the fourth wall that held a larger door, probably the exit. Miranda felt fear rise as she noted the absence of knob. Then she noticed the tiny sliver of a girl sleeping, curled up, in a chair near the door with a blanket wrapped loosely around her. That too frightened Miranda. She should have sensed the girl's presence immediately on awakening. Perplexed, Miranda tiptoed over and checked to see if the child was alive. At the slightest touch, the girl's eyes flickered open.
“Oh!” The blanket tumbled to the floor as the girl sprang to her feet, “You've woken up. I should, uh, call Gene. Ooooh, wait, you have woken up haven't you? You aren't sleepwalking are you? Oh my, maybe I should offer you some food! Do you need to use the toilet?” Despite the fact that the girl was blatantly excited, Miranda disturbingly could feel nothing from her mind.
“I am awake,” Miranda stated in a flat and cool tone that instantly silenced the girl.
“Is something the matter?”
“Do you even exist?” Miranda asked in the same disbelieving tone.
The girl's eyes widened into two bright little moons. Her mouth gaped open like a black hole holding in words by the force of gravity alone. A hurt little grunt finally did escape, and she turned to the door stepping quickly through as it opened with a hiss.
Instantly Miranda realized her mistake and thought to follow, except she awkwardly couldn't locate the proper apology. Her feet wouldn't respond without a plan, so Miranda stood there and watched as the girl disappeared through the darkened room outside. She waited for the door to close and visually cut her off from her offense, but it didn't, so Miranda continued to stand.
After a while the girl returned, preceded by an average looking man. He had a fairly strong and linear nose. That and the intelligent twinkle behind his hazel eyes were his only distinguishing physical features. The truly startling aspect of the man was that Miranda could no more feel his mind than she could feel the mind of the bedspread. That set her to think. Perhaps they weren't silent, what if she had lost her ability to hear them.
The man walked right up to Miranda and stuck out his hand, “My name is Gene, I'm the head doctor around here. We're operating under the impression that your name is Miranda, is that correct?”
“Yes, but how... How do you know me, and how did I get here?” Miranda asked trying to peek around the man at the girl.
“Ben brought you, what is the last thing you remember?”
Miranda paused and tried to focus on the answer. Everything was hazy. She knew she knew a Ben. The memory of him seemed strong. She knew she was Miranda. Focusing on her most recent memory didn't come up blank, it came up as nothing. She remembered experiencing the tangible form behind the concept of nothing. Before that she had been in a room; there she couldn't remember who she was. Prior to that, was the long and confusing haze of the sensory deprivation chamber. Truthfully nothing was clear, it was like searching a dark room for a black cat. When she tried she bumped into things, but she couldn't necessarily make sense of what they were. “I think I was in a dark prison compound, they had me in sensory deprivation, and there was a nothing. It's really hard.”
The man, Gene nodded, “We had guessed about the sensory deprivation. You've been complaining about sensory input. Do you remember flooring some of our people when you arrived here?”
Miranda tried, and did vaguely recall a too white room, Gene, the girl and some others. She had lashed out, but she had also been half out of her mind at the time. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay, do you recognize Tina,” Gene asked waving the girl back into view.
Miranda grimaced, “Yeah, I'm sorry about what I said. I just couldn't sense you; it scared me. Is there something wrong with me?”
Tina shook her head, “No, we're telepathic deaf-mutes. That's why I was taking care of you, cause you couldn't mess up my mind. I understand why you had to ask. I suppose hallucinations don't have a telepathic presence either. I was wondering if you would consent to a genescan.”
“Tina! That can wait till tomorrow,” Gene growled.
“I don't understand. What is a genescan, and why do you need one?”
Gene glared at Tina and began to answer, “It's a brief mapping of your genetic code. They are used to detect allergies, defects or abnormalities, determine species...”
“And family relationships,” Tina blurted out.
“Yes, a genescan can determine family relationships. That is what Tina is most concerned with. There is the possibility that you may be her sister, and she is bursting with curiosity at the prospect of finding out.”
“How long does one take?”
Tina pulled a small device out of a concealed cupboard, “Not long.”
“Then let's do it,” Miranda said.
Tina held the devise against the back of Miranda's hand. Miranda felt a slight prick, which was accompanied by the start of a flashing yellow light. Tina tilted the machine so only she could see the digital readout. The yellow light abruptly stopped flashing. With an unreadable look on her face Tina read the results. The device fell from her hands and hit the floor with a slight bounce.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ben used his mind to bounce his red checker around the board, and he teleported each of the black checkers to his pile as it leapt them. “King me!”
“Gene would not approve,” Angela pointed out from the window seat. She was sewing a needle point picture of the tree outside, minus the needle. Her telekinesis kept the tip of the embroidery floss together and firm enough to pass through the cloth.
“Yeah, like that's on his list.” Daniel grunted. He stacked a second checker on Ben's and examined the board for his next move.
“I'm relaxing aren't I?” Angela stuck her tongue out at Daniel. Ben had to laugh.
“I told you she wasn't so ba
d,” Daniel said, then he made his move. By the time Daniel was through, the only piece Ben had left on the board was the one Daniel just kingged.
“Go ahead, take those too. Maybe I'd have better luck with chess,” Ben reset the board, dealing the checkers into place with his mind like they were nothing.
Suddenly Tina burst into the room. She ran to Ben and flung her arms around him and squeezed. The distraction caused Ben to drop the last few checkers and upset the board with his knee. Carefully he unwrapped her arms and levered her back so he could see her face. It was covered in tears but lit with a frantic smile. “What the heck is that for, and why are you crying?” Ben asked.
“I had to... She, she is!” Tina jumped up and down, Ben could practically feel her excitement.
“Is what? Who? Oh my god! She's awake!” Ben leapt from his chair, knocking it over. He was just a few hairs from leaping up and down with Tina. “I've got to go! Where is she!”
“Gene talked her into heading back to bed. He doesn't want anybody bothering her. That's why I came here.” Tina blurted.
“Shouldn't you get some rest yourself?” Angela pointed out. She put her needle point down.
“Hey don't start the 'should be's with me! None of you should be using your powers.” Tina glared at the needle point and the checker board. “All I have to do is tell Gene and he'll put you on another week of restriction.”
Daniel stood up from attempting to gather the checkers back up, “In my defense, I've behaved.” Both Angela and Ben stuck their tongues out at him. “You two are perfectly childish. Don't you agree Tina?” Daniel addressed Angela and Ben then turned to Tina. Angela made a face at the back of his head when Daniel turned to Tina.
“More so than most children I've met.” Tina answered.
“Then how about the two of us adults go for brunch,” Daniel turned and made a quick face at Angela and then led Tina out of the room.
Eyes Love & Water Page 24
