“The Catalyst” Series
Chapter 42: A Quiet Relaxing Sunday
When I finally awoke I was groggy, it was dark outside and
the lights were on. It took me a while to focus and I realized I must have been
drugged again, since my head felt like a cotton ball. Although I seemed to have
slept well, no doubt aided by the drugs, I remembered odd little dream
fragments. One featured a little black girl poking her tongue at me, taunting
me with “You’ll never amount to anything, you’ll never be any good”. I had to
shake my head a little to get my brain to begin focusing.
“Ah, finally you’re up,” Chalise observed from beside me. It
was only then I noticed I had a bedmate on my small hospital bed. Chalise looked
comfortable cuddled up to me.
“Kitty had to go home,” Chalise told me, apologizing for her
friend. “She wanted to stay, but her father felt it was a bit much letting her
stay over.” I looked at her so she blushed a little, realizing she hadn’t
finished her explanation. “My mom stayed over as well. She went down to the
cafeteria since we didn’t know how long you’d be asleep.”
Looking around I saw Ryan and Jennifer, of all people,
talking together, while Cate, Becky, Dr. Avers Peterson and Dr. Edward Padilla
were deeply involved in a discussion in the corner. There were also a few of my
girls scattered about as well.
Anh walked up, alerted by Chalise, and gave me a long drink
from a glass to help me refresh myself. It was painful swallowing, but it
helped alleviate my dry throat, plus I was tremendously thirsty and hungry. As
if anticipating this, Anh handed me a large thermos she must have prepared at
home for me. Opening it I discover a thin but rich soup that smelled
wonderfully to a hungry kid.
“Hospital dinners too small for you,” she announced. “You
need to eat good to recover properly.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to stick to the IV
for now, Alex,” Ryan warned me, seeing me staring into the thermos. He got up
and walked over to me.
“So, how are you feeling?” he asked, checking me over and
waving his finger before my eyes to test my responsiveness. Rebecca walked up
from the other side and checked my vitals.
“He says he’s feeling fine,” Shani answered for me. “He’s
feeling groggy and hungry, but otherwise he isn’t too bad. His throat still
hurts, but the headache is mostly gone.”
“I’m not surprised with the way you heal. You’re looking
good, though.” As Rebecca told him my numbers he started to peel back my
bandages to examine my throat.
“Hmm, it looks good. As usual, it’s healing quite rapidly.
It was a clean through and through. There was no specific injury to any vital
organs, but there’s still significant swelling, so you’ll have trouble talking
and swallowing for several days. The surgery was just to ensure nothing was
damaged, and to sew the damage up in a more methodical manner. We’ll keep you
overnight, mostly for insurance purposes and to ensure you get a full dose of
antibiotics and IVs for hydration. After that you can head home if you want,
although I’d stay home from school for the rest of the week. Your sister tells
me you’re fully caught up at school, so you should be able to take a little
time off to recover. She also mentions you have your prom coming up and that
you have a few ladies expecting dances, so if you stay home this week I’ll
allow you to attend your prom. Needless to say, you were incredibly lucky. The
neck is very thin and holds a lot of important organs. The fact he missed them
all was amazingly lucky.”
Unable to say anything I just shrugged.
“He say we, his girls, believe he have someone watching over
him,” Anh said. “He mostly means me. I tell him about spirits from the spirit
realm visiting the earth. They all think I crazy,” she said smiling.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. Getting shot from that far
away, it’s amazing you weren’t much more seriously injured.”
“I’m sorry for having them keep you asleep so long, Alex,”
Cate announced, standing up and moving to my bed, “but I told Dr. Ryan to
medicate you so you’d rest. You kept holding court for so long you got
exhausted, and we were so worried over what happened to you Friday night that I
decided you really needed time to recover, even if it meant drugging you.”
I nodded, letting her know I understood. Cate smiled, seeing
from my expression that I didn’t object.
“He says he doesn’t like being out like that, but you make a
good call,” Anh explained for me. “He was having a hard time before he finally
fell asleep.”
At this point everyone congregated around my bed, but Anh
waved them back.
“He need stand up, move around. Let him get some exercise.” Anh’s
English was getting better all the time, I had to give her that much.
Everyone stood back as Chalise climbed out of bed and she
and Cate helped me to stand up. I was a little weak from having lain in bed for
so long, but it was nice to get up and move. They guided me the short distance
to a nearby chair where everyone had been in such deep discussions. Shani took
care of my IV stand for me. It was a short trip, but it was tiring as well, so
I sat down heavily in a nearby easy chair. There were chairs scattered around,
so everyone sat around me.
“Well, we’re glad you’re up,” Ryan told me. “As you’ve
probably noticed, Edward, Avers and I told the wives we’d be working late just
so we could talk with you. These two sisters of yours have been brainstorming
for a while, so we’re anxious to hear what new theories they have, but they
refused to share anything until they can present it to you first.”
I was going to grunt, but remembered just how painful it
would be, so I merely nodded instead.
Just then the door opened and Caroline, Allison and Natalie
entered and joined us.
“You know,” Ryan continued, “I’ve been sitting having a very
interesting discussion with Jennifer. Not surprisingly, she’s very interested
in oncology given her own history and what she’s been doing here with the other
cancer patients. We got to talking, and I mentioned that I’ve got a friend out
west that is working with a very poor community that is suffering from a high
cancer incidence. They think it’s from contaminated groundwater, but they can’t
afford testing equipment or new lines being dug. Thus my friend, Dr. Simon
Reinhart, is using it to study cheap alternative cancer treatments that can be
used in remote areas and third world countries that can’t afford chemotherapy
treatments.
“Allison mentioned that you are planning on heading west
after school lets out. Since you’re heading that way, I’d be obliged if you
could maybe stop by and visit him. He’s really concerned with his patients, so
much so that he’s spent a lot of his own money helping them. But he can’t
afford treatments for all of them. I’m sure he’d be willing to sacrifice some
of his testing for some real results.”
“Where this Dr. Reinhart work?” Anh asked.
“He’s in a remote section of Utah. If you made it as far as
Las Vegas I’m sure he could arrange to pick you up. He’s outside of Cedar City.
It’s a bit of a hike, but it would mean the world to him.”
“And these people are in bad shape?” Anh asked again.
“Yeah, since they can’t afford any treatments, and since
they can’t get clean water or improve their sanitation equipment, things are
very tough. He’s trying a variety of options to boost their immunity, as well
as a variety of native cures, but many of them aren’t showing much improvement.”
“Alex say he not sure how soon he could make it, but maybe
Jennifer would like to head out there, since she doesn’t have any appointments
here? She could check the people there, see if there is anything he could help
with. She could communicate with him over long distances. That way, once he got
there, he could see what he could do.”
Jennifer looked up at me, her eyes suddenly bright.
“Are you serious, Alex? I’d love to be able to help people
suffering from cancer. I know just how expensive it is, and how rough it is
even when you are receiving the best in treatments. If I could help some people
that aren’t getting much help, it would be really important. What’s more, I
could help you. I could search for other people like us out there where you
wouldn’t normally get to. I’ll be sure to stop at each of the towns. I may not
find anyone, since there aren’t a lot of people in that region, but they would
be people you wouldn’t ordinarily find.”
I considered this, which was made slower by my partially
drug addled brain. Finally I nodded to them both.
“He thinks it’s a great idea. He asked me if I’d do it for
him, and I think it’s a great opportunity to put my new abilities to use,”
Jennifer told him. “I’d love to be able to see what I can learn on my own,
effectively testing out what Allison has been teaching me the past week.”
“Great, so I can call Simon and let him know he’ll be
getting some assistance, then?” Ryan asked.
“Alex says to go ahead,” Allison said. “He can’t give you a
timetable for when he’s likely to reach there, but he’d be glad to help, as
long as it isn’t too far out of his way. Rebecca can handle his scheduling for
him, so have him contact her so they can work out when he should be in the
area. As you’re already aware from talking with Cate, he’s a little concerned with
how much time he may have available, so he’s a bit concerned with keeping
things in focus now.”
“I’m sure Simon will be willing to agree with whatever you
want. Having you there would be worth several extensive chemo therapy
treatments for quite a few patients, although it may throw his results off.
“But speaking of how much time you have, I’m very concerned
with what Cate and Allison have been telling me about you. I’ll do a quick
check, run several tests, but I’m guessing it’s going to be hard to determine
how your overall health is doing. If this energy surrounding you is stressing
your body, it’s also healing any signs of that stress, so it will be hard to
measure. There may be something that will turn up on standard blood tests, but
you are a very unique case. I suspect we’ll be recording what happens to you to
figure out how to handle cases like this in the future. I don’t think anyone
else has ever been in this situation before.”
I groaned, and it did hurt just as badly as I had thought it
would.
“Run the tests,” Allison told him. “It may not give us much,
but we should document where he stands at the moment.”
“Probably what we need is a stress test,” Ryan informed me.
“You know, one of those things where you get on a treadmill and run for 20 to 30
minutes and we see how your body reacts to it. I’m guessing that will be the
only thing to reveal anything, and if what Cate told me is true, it would be
equivalent to what you went through the other day.” I couldn’t help but blush,
imagining what Cate described regarding what we were doing at the time, but the
good doctor ignored my embarrassment. Ryan rattled of a series of tests for
Rebecca to run. She nodded and hurried out to find the necessary equipment.
“Now that that’s done,” Allison continued speaking for me,
“Alex wants to know what it is that you have been getting up to,” she asked
Cate and Becky.
Cate got serious now, and turned to look me in the eyes, not
glancing at anyone else but simply speaking directly to me.
“Well, before I begin, let me tell you about the tests I was
conducting this past week. You got shot before I got a chance to finish it.
When they first put you under I went home and caught up with stuff, as well as
bringing several things you might need, and I finished them then. It looks like
you didn’t cause Jennifer’s bones to shatter like you were afraid.
However it does look like it helped. The rabbits’ bones weren’t as
strong as the one’s you didn’t do anything to. I’d suggest that if you
try that treatment in the future that you drain the energy from the cancer,
then when it looks better you then try to feed energy back into the bone to try
to make up for what you took from them. I don’t know what effect that will
have, but it may prevent that kind of thing from happening again. But basically
it wouldn’t cause the bone to shatter on its own. Jennifer’s bones were already
very fragile when you began her treatments.
“Now, this newest twist of you doing something to Rakeem’s
brain made Becky and I revisit our previous theories. We think we have some new
ideas, but we wanted to pass them by you first. Are you sure you want everyone
here to hear them?” she asked me.
“He says they’ve heard most everything else, it would
probably be good to have them provide feedback on it,” Allison told her.
“Except this isn’t medical or even biological in nature, but
is mostly about alternative physics,” she warned. However, not having any idea
of the direction she was going to go in, I couldn’t do much more than shrug. So
far they’d kept my secrets, I’d trust them to continue doing that.
She seemed to accept that as well.
“Very well,” Cate told me. “So far, we’ve thought this
mysterious hole in your head was how the energy you radiate gets into your
head. We believed the similar one in your girls’ heads was simply a haphazard
method of building new brain tissue where there was none before. We had no idea
how it worked, but your girls confirmed that it seemed that was where your
energy was at its strongest, so it made sense. Now, however, we think it’s both
more complex and simpler than that. I think the reason why there’s a gap in
your brain isn’t because of what is coming into your brain, as much as what was
sucked out. This is going to sound crazy and completely unscientific, but let
me explain it first. I suspect you somehow opened a portal to another
dimension, and it essentially yanked the gray matter you had there out.”
Ryan edged closer and Alex started to say something, so Cate
quickly held her hands up, forestalling any arguments. “Let me get through the
initial explanation before you start discussing the finer points, as there are
several issues to get out. We’re well aware it sounds like a bad Sci-Fi movie,
but it’s our best idea on the subject.
“Essentially, we think you created this ‘portal’ to some
other, I’ll say dimension, because I don’t know how else to describe it. But
you somehow created a link that allows for instantaneous transmission of
thoughts, emotions, sensations and matter. It seems that it takes anything fed
into it and transmits it. That’s why it created a perfectly round hole in each
of your heads. That’s probably the dimension of the portal. The reason why
there’s no liquid or cerebrospinal fluid in it is because, as soon as it
enters, it’s transported out. However, for whatever is taken out, you also get
what is on the other end, which seems to be a boundless supply of this life
force. That’s why you have this radiating energy pouring out of you.
“Also supporting this theory is how there isn’t any signs of
scarring to your brain. Instead, it seems to be fully functioning tissue,
adapted to utilize your new abilities. Thus it wasn’t so much ‘ripped out’ of
your head, which would have caused significant tissue damage, as it was cut off
and transported, effectively separating it quite efficiently from the
surrounding tissue. If Edward could utilize the same technique when dealing
with brain tumors I’m sure he’d have a great deal of success, as it can
successfully remove tissue without damaging any surrounding tissue. The new
energy flowing in helped your brain form new connections to deal with those
lost to your creating this ‘portal’ that could take advantage of it.
“Now, let me just discuss the sci-fi aspects of it. When I
say ‘portal’, I’m not suggesting it’s actually a different dimension, since we
have no proof that those exist. All I’m saying is that you seem to be
transmitting material, energy and other things back and forth over incredible
distances with little effort. It could very well just be to somewhere we’re
unfamiliar with here in our own galaxy, but we have no way of knowing. However,
wherever it is, it seems to be a source of incredible amounts of this energy.
You should also note that the links in Rakeem and your girls’ heads doesn’t
lead to the same place, since they don’t have access to the same levels of
energy. I’ll get to why I think that’s so in a minute.
“This also helps explain why you can communicate
telepathically over long distances. Not only isn’t it limited by physical
distance or obstacles, we’re proposing that it doesn’t even travel via physical
space. Instead it’s somehow transmitted through linked portals in each of your
brains that Alex created. That would mean that you could travel anywhere on the
planet and communicate just as you are now. In fact, I’m guessing you could
travel to the moon and have no difficulty talking as much as you’d like in real
time.”
I had to sit back to consider all of this, despite my
brain still feeling cloudy. It was a lot to take in. It’s one thing to suggest
you have a weak ability to speak to someone, hardly shocking because it’s only
the equivalent of a cheap walkie-talkie, but it’s another to say I’m
teleporting both thoughts, energy and matter between dimensions, or whatever
they hell they were. I suspect Cate could see the disbelief in my eyes.
“Somehow, your unique genetic trait isn’t that you can
communicate telepathically, or that you can activate people, but it’s that you
can create tiny portals to other worlds. We think you’ve created one in each of
your girls, then used the energy you got from this other world to foster the
growth of sufficient brain matter to handle it. That’s why it took so long for
you to first be able to process your telepathy. At first you simply had a
connection, then you had to learn how to grow tissue to take advantage of it. I’m
guessing you perfected the process a little more with each girl you did it to. That
might also be another reason why you kept getting increases to your abilities,
you simply figured out better ways to handle your abilities based on the
increased experience you had with it. It seems you have so much energy because
your ‘portal’ either is closer to the source of the energy, or you simply
created a larger portal for it to travel through. If it’s the latter, it may
explain why it’s overwhelming you now. You may have unintentionally created a
larger connection than your body can handle. That’s something that would be
easy to do the first time you do something.”
“An alternate theory is that the portals you supposedly
created in your girls’ brains are actually linked directly to your own brain,”
Becky suggested, jumping in to offer a new variation on Cate’s theory. “That
may actually fit better, the reduced amount of energy they receive may be
because they are only receiving a small amount of your own energy. It’s a
‘neater’ theory, meaning it explains things a little nicer, with fewer
unexplained side issues. Unfortunately, the only way we’ll ever know is if you
were to pass on, then we could see whether your girls retained their ability to
communicate with each other. If so, then chances are their portals are similar
to yours, only smaller, if not, then they are likely tied directly into yours.
Unfortunately, there’s no telling what you did when you’ve been ‘boosting’
their abilities lately. You may very well have been creating a new portal in
each of them that serves as a communal portal. Otherwise you may have just
given them the ability to bypass your controls over your own brain. We really
don’t know which it is. So just be sure not to boost everyone’s
abilities, just so we’ll be able to figure out what happens after you, uh, pass
away,” she explained a bit nervously.
“Becky has a good point,” Cate suggested. “I’m guessing that
you somehow modified the girls’ portals rather than created new ones, though
we’d need new MRIs to be sure. For all I know, you may be able to create one
portal on top of another, since we don’t have any idea how these things would
function. If so we’d never find any physical evidence to support any of what
we’re describing.”
“However, it would also mean that Alex is just like the Apple
company is,” Becky said, drawing her own parallel, “he could potentially keep
coming up with new upgrades to his basic models every so often, boosting
everyone’s ability without having to do anything new to their brains. If not,
then he may indeed upgrade their ‘phone’, as it were, by creating a new area in
their brains’ many fissures and suslci.”
“We still have no clue how you figure out who can handle
such physical connections in their brains,” Cate said, again trying to steer
the conversation in a particular direction, “but somehow you do. But when
Rakeem was preparing to shoot you, you seem to have made a stab in the dark,
trying to defend yourself, and created a portal in his brain even though he has
no ability to utilize it. That’s why you are getting so much static now. He
can’t access the data, or direct it in any way, since he doesn’t even know what
he’s doing, but he nevertheless is sending it to you in a very unfiltered
format.”
I turned to Allison, frustrated at my inability to answer these
questions directly.
“He says that much might be true, since he’s continuing to
get random memories and images from someone’s life,” Allison explained for me.
“He’s seen black children, girlfriends, and many violent scenes. As you say, it
seems to be completely unfiltered, making little sense most of the time.”
“What we’d really need, then, is to speak with Rakeem and
find out whether he’s receiving anything from Alex as well,” Chalise suggested.
“We know Alex is getting things from him, however undirected. We also know
Rakeem is unable to answer, but we don’t know what, if anything, Alex is able
to communicate with him. That knowledge would certainly help you piece this all
together.”
“It certainly would, though I doubt he’d ever sit down to
talk with us,” Ryan answered, warming to the topic. “I’m also sure Alex would
never agree to tell him anything about us he could potentially use against us.
Luckily, if he tells anyone of any surprising symptoms he’s experiencing
they’ll just figure they’re due to his ‘stroke’.”
“Actually, strokes are the result of a loss of blood to the
brain, usually from a blockage or a hemorrhage. So technically it wasn’t a
stroke. However, there aren’t many terms for what happened to him,” Edward
explained. “It mimics the symptoms of a stroke, though the damage is much more
localized. Unfortunately, if he gets any follow-up treatment, they’re likely to
discover part of the real cause.”
“OK, that wraps up as much as we have,” Cate said, ending
her brief presentation. “You can all tell me how crazy my idea is.”
However everyone sat and pondered the idea. As stupid as it
sounded, it was about the only thing that made sense. As we’d found with Anh’s
theories, sometimes an idea that sounds completely foreign makes the most sense
and answers the most questions, even if it’s not exact and doesn’t fit into
your existing worldview. I was sure Cate would eventually refine her theory and
make it fit into a better framework, but it explained more than our previous
theories on the subject.
“I’m sorry, but this is just so far from everything I’ve
learned to believe in, that it’s hard to wrap my mind around,” Avers told us. “I’m
not telling you it isn’t possible, but it’s just too much to grasp without some
more information about it.”
“It may not be so crazy,” Anh suggested, entering the
discussion for the first time. “It fits in with my views somewhat. I first
suggested that Alex crossed over to this world from the spirit world. It would
make sense that, when he did, his spirit learned how to create such passages,
and that it is now using that knowledge to build these new abilities. It may be
that his spirit first crossed over in order to bring this new knowledge to the
people of this plane, and that he’s hoping to further the development of the
human race,” she explained, speaking in much clearer English since she was
running it by me to make sure she expressed her ideas more clearly.
“You know,” Cate replied, “as much as we like to rephrase
everything in our western ideas, you always seem to come up with good ideas,
Anh. That makes as much sense as anything else. Actually more so, since
otherwise we’d have to ask how Alex’s brain could ever figure out it was
capable of such things. Not to mention how controlled it’s been about it. So
far it’s been very controlled, only creating the one in his own brain, and only
creating enough in his girls brains to give them their initial abilities. If it
was completely random, you’d expect a series of trials and errors, which would
likely have made Swiss cheese of his brain. Sometimes evolutionary changes
prove more destructive than progressive.”
“Anh does this to us periodically,” Shani explained to the
newcomers. “She manages to explain much of what is happening to Alex using
ancient Vietnamese spirituality. None of us can accept the central premise of a
world of spirits floating around, but she manages to explain a lot of things we
couldn’t understand otherwise.”
“As if this isn’t hard enough to grapple with, with new
theories of physics that are completely unproven and unsustained by any
existing knowledge on the subject, but now you throw in a whole new belief
system on top of it,” complained Avers, holding his head. “This is just too
much to grapple with all at once. I’ve got to abandon everything I’ve learned
for most of my life in order to accept any of this.”
“You really don’t have to swallow the central premise, just
accept what it explains,” Allison suggested. “This gives us more information
than we had. Chances are we’ll never understand how it works, but if a far out
theory gets us closer to the truth, then it’s worth suspending our disbelief.”
“Alex says that, yes, it’s far out, but what does it tell us
that we didn’t know before?” Nikki asked. “Can it help him in his actions? Can
it be used to prevent the potential dangers he’s facing from this energy?”
Cate and Becky both sat back, seemingly surprised to be
asked such a simple question. I guess they’d been preparing themselves to
defend their outlandish position, but they hadn’t thought through what it might
mean in terms of how I should process it.
“I’m, I’m not really sure,” Cate hesitantly answered. “I’m
not sure it will help you at all, but it helps explain...” her voice dropped
off as she realized that, for the nice theory she had prepared, she still
didn’t have much to suggest.
“I’m afraid it won’t help your prospects any,” Becky
suggested. “If anything, it would suggest that the size of the initial linkage
is vital to the long term health of the individual, that would be you, Alex.
But we’d have no way of implementing such knowledge. You somehow instinctively
knew how to do it without any conscious thought, and it doesn’t appear to be a
conscious process. After all, as Cate observed, there was no process of
experimentation to perfect the process.”
“Has the process he’s used on his seers gotten any better
over time”? Chalise asked.
“Eh, what’s a seer?” Edward asked. Ryan leaned over and
whispered to him, supposedly explaining his own theories on the topic, since
we’ve never explained it to him. But he’s surely seen enough by now to have his
own ideas on the topic.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Cate replied. “After all, the girls
report similar energy signatures in each, and the girls activated later don’t
seem to function any more efficiently than the earlier ones.”
“From the few MRIs we did, we didn’t observe any substantial
differences between them,” Ryan pointed out.
“Speaking of real-world topics, what about items of more
immediate concern?” Chalise asked. “I’m still concerned with what Alex is
currently suffering from. What about the messages he seems to be getting? Is
there any more to them? Are they getting clearer? Anything specific getting
through?”
I had to stop and think about what I was hearing, largely because
I considered it as annoying background noise.
“He says it’s just a lot of garbage to him,” Nikki told
everyone. “It’s like static on a TV, just a bunch of random signals that are
all unconnected and unlinked. Without context it doesn’t make any sense. However,
certain things stand out more than others do. Like the image of the children.
Those seem to be more detailed, all the others are merely fragments. Nothing’s
very complete.”
“Maybe those are significant memories?” Avers suggested,
having finally found a topic more allied with his field of study. “Maybe they
have more importance to Rakeem than others?”
“I think you need to start recording the things you are
hearing and observing, like a dream diary,” Cate observed, focusing once more
on her scientific principles. If there was one thing that Cate knew, it was how
to record observations. “Note their times as well, as it may parallel what he’s
doing at the time. If it’s tied to his conscious mind, then the things that
occur overnight would be substantially different than what you receive during
the day. You can use your girls to pass the messages through, and each of them
can keep a notebook on hand to make observations with. That way you won’t be
tempted to simply ignore any you feel aren’t significant enough.”
“He says he’ll do that,” Allison informed everyone. “He
already has a list of several things he remembers, and he’ll start telling us
about new observations as well. But we’ll need a bunch of notebooks for this.”
Ryan had to excuse himself, while Natalie started out to
look for any available notebooks she could find, setting things in motion while
the others all sat back and considered the implications of what we’d discussed.
Rebecca, who had returned a short time ago, now came forward and started taking
blood for a series of tests from my arm, while Chalise and Cate curled up on
either side of me to help me relax. Seems Cate was still worried about me taxing
my system, and wisely understood that cuddling up with me would do more to
relax me than anything else. Actually now that I thought about it, a nap would
be a very nice idea.
The rest of the night and the next day were busy. There was
a series of tests and discussions, followed by fitful sleep. We decided catnaps
were the best way to go, allowing me to rest frequently, but also ensuring I
could make frequent updates to my ‘observation diary’, both nocturnal
observations and those taken while I was awake but supposedly the source of
those observations was still asleep. Frankly, the observations were so much
nonsense I doubted it would amount to much of anything. It was mostly just
random words, phrases and images, but the nighttime ones were more fanciful,
especially the ones I remember from when I slept, probably because my own
imagination was filling in details to make some sense of what it was
perceiving.
Most of Monday was spent trying to get out of the damn
hospital. Actually I wasn’t in such a hurry to get out, I was mostly
preoccupied dealing with the pain and the attention I needed to focus on the
ongoing discussions we held in the hospital room. Since we didn’t get out early
enough, we started to receive more well wishers. As soon as they opened, a
floral service delivered two huge bouquets of get-well flowers, clearly from
Adrian Hart and the studio. They were gorgeous, but what the hell was I
supposed to do with them? Jennifer suggested donating them to the cancer ward.
I thought that was a good suggestion.
The first visitors were all the nurses and hospital staff
that had been off over the weekend. They managed to stop by to see how I was
and to express their sympathies. I was appreciative, since it seems I was quite
popular throughout the hospital, but it made concentrating even more difficult
than it already was due to my continued pain and lack of sufficient sleep.
Diana Lane and Molly Bishop showed up together, along with a
couple of the girls I’d met from the sorority mixer. Apparently they’d been
spending time together talking about their new lives since last weekend. Since
they were so near, they arranged to stop by before anyone had classes, although
two of them actually skipped one class each in order to visit me. I felt bad I
hadn’t had time to speak any more with them, but I was hardly in very good
shape to do it now.
Kimberly stopped by again and showed us some of the
preliminary sketches she’d done while she’d visited us yesterday. She finished
them up since then and they were very good. Cate, since she had taken
the day off to watch over me – as if I needed it with only a dozen or so women
to watch over me – was forward enough to ask if we could keep it. Kimberly blushed
and told us that we couldn’t yet, since it was meant to serve as the basis of a
painting she was planning on doing, but that after she finished she’d mat them
for us so they’d look nice. In exchange I gave her yet another treatment,
although Cate insisted I keep it short, knowing I was weak.
Ryan told me we’d have to postpone the stress test he was
interested in. He wanted to be sure I was strong enough for it first,
especially since he was afraid of my possibly falling over or otherwise
reinjuring my wounds during the test. He said it would be fine doing it the
following weekend. He reminded me I had a couple of girls interested in my
being healthy enough to dance by Friday.
Finally we slipped out while there was a slack in new visitors,
and we headed home in a long caravan, since Cate went ahead and invited the
girls from SIU to visit us. Luckily she did it with the stipulation they
couldn’t bother me, since she expected me to be resting. Once we arrived at
home I crashed, exhausted by the morning. The constant pain wore on me, as did
the lack of sleep, both planned and because the constant static in my head
prevented me from relaxing. I also insisted on cutting the painkillers way
back. Although I approved of Cate allowing them when I was recovering on
Sunday, I felt I was better off without them, since I wanted to be ready to
deal with whatever might happen to me. For some reason I felt it was better to
be ready than drugged up.
I didn’t have to bother with anyone over lunch, luckily Cate
and Nikki brought me lunch when I finally woke up around two. Cate said she had
been talking to the girls, but she still wanted me to recover as much as I
could. Nikki jotted down all my new observations about what I was hearing in my
head. They grew stronger throughout the day, whether due to some natural
occurrence or just because I was more relaxed, I don’t know, but I was able to
better monitor what I was receiving. It gradually became more obvious I was
receiving them from Rakeem. They were slightly more coherent thoughts, mostly
consisting of how pissed he was and how he blamed me for what had
happened to him. Never mind that he’d been planning to shoot me, he blamed me
for messing up his life.
Gail told me that she’d managed a visit to the attacker’s
cell, where she’d been able to observe him. She brought down her uniform
precisely for this, so she wouldn’t attract attention visiting a prisoner in his
cell. She told me he showed no signs of having any of the Sisters’ abilities, nor
the brighter aura that the women shared. Apparently he had recovered enough he
didn’t need constant medical care, although he still had a lot of trouble
speaking clearly and with certain movements. She didn’t press him for any
information, obviously because he’d invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, and he
certainly didn’t volunteer any information, but those observations helped
settle our minds quite a bit.
We quietly debated why he wouldn’t be showing any of those
traits. Gail thought he simply didn’t have the genetic potential to be a seer,
although Cate insisted those abilities were strictly limited to females, so it
wouldn’t have made any difference if he had them anyways.
The various thoughts I was receiving from him were all over
the map. I guess I was just receiving various things he was thinking about
during the day, but without any central focus. I managed to identify comments
directed to his lawyer, various cell mates and the police watching over his
cell. However I was unable to overhear who had hired him or their motivations
for doing so. Still, I was hopeful that it would eventually be revealed to me.
All I had to do was wait, but having to pay attention to the constant stream of
information exhausted me even more.
I knew I’d have to eventually find a way to suppress these
random thoughts, otherwise I’d never be able to focus on my own thoughts, not
to mention all the thoughts broadcast to me by the various telepathic women in
my life. For now, though, I was willing to put up with it just so I could find
out any information that I could use. As a result I ended up taking short catnaps
throughout the day, and staying up listening and plotting through the night.
Once school let out Kitty and Chalise descended. Cate went
to pick them up. Caroline had been at the house all day, since Becky and
Melinda had driven her over and they’d been helping around the house. Cate
actually allowed both of my sisters in to see me, as long as they kept it
brief. However Kitty and Chalise brought most of my usual lunch time crowd, even
including Julia. I was feeling uneasy about that, until the other girls told me
that she apparently had stopped gossiping since our little discussion, and they
were all proud of her and kept congratulating her about it as a way of
encouraging her. In return they allowed her to talk with them about me. It
seems she appreciated hearing the information directly from the source better
than she did talking about it from the outskirts.
Brian asked me if I needed someone to help with my bandages,
since he had so much experience dealing with them on a daily basis. I threw a
pillow at him for his kind offer. Darrell picked him and threatened to throw
him out if he continued to tease me, but he laughed and said maybe he could
cover up that unsightly bulge between my legs as well. We all laughed at that,
even though laughing was still quite difficult for me.
Mia had almost given up on her Goth appearance. She wore a
colorful skirt and a t-shirt with a funny message, but she still wore her black
gloves. She did wear make-up though, which Nancy Thorn told me she’d
done just for me, as she had been doing each day for me lately. She thought
what I’d done for her friend was no less amazing than any of my other
miracles. Since everyone was invading my bedroom, as big as it was, I
eventually made it downstairs with a fair bit of help and held court in the
living and dining rooms. The girls kept busy feeding and entertaining everyone.
Although I hadn’t told them any more about myself since my
revelation of the previous Tuesday, there were enough new people wandering
around who weren’t sure who was in the know and who wasn’t, that they were
slowly beginning to piece certain things together. I was also sure they were
keeping each other informed. They each knew gossiping to outsiders wasn’t
allowed, but that I never objected to their talking amongst themselves,
although they still kept a lot of information from Julia, still not sure how
deeply she believed in her new ‘no gossiping’ pledge.
They brought both Cate’s and my homework for us, and I
worked on it while everyone set the dinner table and set up chairs and tables
for everyone. We had a giant dinner. I have no idea what they all told their
parents, but they all stayed until after dinner, when Cate calmly told them
that I needed to rest, as well as speak privately with “his women”. They seemed
to accept that as established law and cleared out, wishing me good luck as they
went. I got more than my fair share of hugs and handshakes on their way out.
Finally I sat with my family and my girls and discussed what
I’d learned from Rakeem, and what Becky and Cate had discovered from studying
my observations. They were encouraged I was getting better at listening to
Rakeem’s thoughts, but were disappointed I hadn’t learned anything specific
that might lead to us establishing a link between anyone. I finally went to
bed, too tired to observe just who was with me when I did. All I knew was that
I felt better surrounded by all my girls than I did trying to rest alone in my
large bed. I went to bed thinking about tomorrow. I had specifically not
mentioned it to anyone, but I was surprised that no one had said anything to
anyone. I assumed that no one else even knew, since I’d never mentioned it to
anyone, but I’d assumed that either my parents or my sisters would have brought
it up. Thus I was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. Still, I
wondered what tomorrow would be like.
To Be Continued...