Crumbly Writer’s Stories
		“Normalcy Is Harder Than It Looks”
		Book 3 of “The Catalyst” Series
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Chapter 17:  A Few People Get Some Bad News

           

After the events of that afternoon I drove the girls home, mainly so I could give Mr. Hart his evening session. When we entered he watched me carefully, but he waited until I started work before he said anything. After I’d finished he wiped the fluid off his own chest and sniffed it, then he put his finger to his lips and tasted it.

“Hmm, doesn’t seem to be much more than a little antiseptic and water. You know, I had some people ask around the campus. Seems there currently aren’t any professors at SIU that have any issues with abusing their student’s trust. Now I suspect such things happen at many facilities, there aren’t any general complaints at SIU at the moment.”

I stopped what I was doing and just looked at him, trying to measure his intent by continually yanking me around.

“You seem to enjoy continually testing me. I’m not entirely sure why you feel the need to do this, other than simply a desire to control things which are beyond your ability to manipulate, but I owe you nothing. Once again, I’m not a paid employee and I’m not legally obligated to keep you apprised of my personal history.”

“I know, which is what makes me curious as you’re a bit of an oddity. Anyone else would be asking for favors, but you hide your identity for no apparent reason. It makes me wonder just what you’re hiding.”

“Look, I can just as well do the necessary research on someone who doesn’t think so highly of himself,” I told him.

“Hah, you’re almost done anyway,” he informed me.

“You know,” Allison said, contributing to the conversation, “can’t you cause additional scarring as well as reducing it?” she asked.

I liked the way her mind worked, and it led in the same devious direction I’d been thinking.

“Actually, I can. Not only can I increase the scarring, I could actually destroy the skin. To such a degree, in fact, you’d need transplants of skin tissues, as well as muscle tissue to support it with.” I could see him sneer since he didn’t consider my wild claims to have any basis in reality, so I continued. “But I shouldn’t do that. I’m doing this to prove this compound has beneficial properties. I was asked to include you in the initial tests, but I’m thinking that was probably a mistake. No, I’ll wrap up your treatments, but you should really consider where your priorities lie in this manner,” I told him as I finally finished up.

As I turned away to walk out, I accidentally tripped, falling a little and catching myself on the bed. Standing up again I excused myself.

“Sorry about that. Guess my shoes were untied. Just like a science geek, huh?” And with that Allison and I left the room. As we made it into the hallway Allison was quick to ask me what I’d been up to.

“Oh, that? What, can’t a young teenager be clumsy? I wasn’t doing anything. However, I suspect tomorrow morning Mr. Hart will have a newfound respect for my privacy. He won’t have any reason to suspect me personally, after all, how could I possibly arrange a common hospital complication, but the similarities between what I just said and what is going to happen to him will remind him to watch his manners.”

“Alex! Just what did you do to him?” she asked me in an excited tone, though I wasn’t sure whether it was a disapproving tone or one of encouragement.

“Let’s just say you should ensure his nurses give him a throughout check-up tonight. It’s surprising the complications which can develop if you don’t keep on top of things.” That was the last I’d say on the subject, though, so Allison would have to wait to find out any more on the topic.

---

Because of my dalliance with the girls earlier I was too late to make it home for dinner, so I stopped and grabbed a quick snack on the way home. I got home just shortly after everyone else finished cleaning up, so I still wasn’t too late, though the surprises from my anticipated quiet day hadn’t ended yet.

Nikki cornered me as I sat on the couch with Cate trying to do some reading for school which I hadn’t managed to do earlier. She sat down beside me and began.

“Alex, I’m so happy to be here, you have no idea how great it is to be amongst our own kind.”

“Hey, watch it,” I laughed. “As far as anyone, including us, knows, we’re still human.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, fending me off. “You know what I mean. I’ve been busy talking to Shani and Anh and the others. One of the things that occurred to me is we have a new sense to add to the basic five senses, actually more, if you count all the various permutations there are to it, but there’s no way to record it yet like there are for the older ones.”

“Yeah, so…?” I prompted her.

“So, we’ve all decided we need to work to preserve it just like they used to work to preserve knowledge in olden times. Meaning we’ve got to record everything we’ve each experienced by remembering it and sharing it with each other, over and over, until it’s ingrained in our cultural heritage.”

“Let me guess, you were studying Anthropology in college?” I chuckled. She pouted unhappily that I didn’t immediately jump on board. Cate looked up from her own homework, intrigued by the new topic Nikki was suggesting.

“No. But seriously, this is important, Alex,” Nikki protested. “Now I want to go through a set of exercises with you to try to preserve your memories. Your memories are the most important, because you’re the central focus of everything that’s been happening. If we can preserve your memories, now that we all have the ability to do telepathy without you, we can save each of your memories of the events.” I thought about what she was saying and could see her point.

“Does this include Cate?” I asked.

“No, I’m sure she’ll be interested in the effort, but she can’t participate in it since she can’t communicate telepathically.” She glanced at Cate apologetically, but Cate just shrugged. Apparently it didn’t bother her that much. Nikki glanced at me again and I nodded that I understood, and she continued.

“Good, now just lie back and relax,” she instructed me. That was easy because I’ve been led through this whole ‘lie back and relax’ process several times before by Cate. “OK, now I just want you to focus on your first sightings of each of us, one at a time so I can remember them, then I’ll share them one on one with each of the other Sisters. I also want to share with you how you first appeared to each of us, and how they see you now, just so you’ll have a comparison. That first initial sighting is our only visual of the human Alex, all our other relations with you are of this mighty glowing spirit who looks out for us, so it’s important that you understand the difference.”

“Man, I wish I could see that. I’ve always been intrigued how they perceive you,” Cate commented.

Despite the fact I always got nervous whenever they started to speak of me in those mystical terms, she was making a lot of sense. I’d never bothered trying to share images of myself through their visions before, so it sounded insightful.

“It’s too bad Cate can’t participate,” I added. “As the only artist in the group she might have a better chance of recording some of it.”

“Ha, I’m hardly an artist. I haven’t done any art since we first got to New Orleans,” Cate told us.

“Still, we don’t have any artists among us. But I guess it’s pointless to discuss since it would be so hard to illustrate. However a representation of it would be better than nothing,” I observed.

“Yeah,” Nikki firmly told us. “There’s no way to convey the images, the aura colors, or the sense of majesty which you present when one of us sees you. And there’s no way of recording it unless we can better understand where it comes from and can find some means of capturing it. Maybe someday someone will find one, like the experimenters of the late 19th centuries who discovered how to record photographs with Daguerreotypes. That’s where Cate and Becky’s abilities lie. We’ll have to preserve these memories until then, though.”

So Nikki and I went through each of our images of each of the Sisters. She was still amazed I had no vision abilities of my own. She’d expected I could somehow see into their very souls. But I was amazed with their visions of me. There really wasn’t much to see. It was just this brilliant white glare that overshadowed everything, but it was easy to see just how overwhelming it was to everyone, even viewing it second hand. Though they couldn’t convey the feelings of power they told me they felt.

After we’d finished, Nikki shared our visions with the other ladies, both those present and remote. This took quite a while, so Cate and I went back to our studies while Nikki sat beside us and continued going through the images one at a time with each of my girls capable of sharing them. Cate and I briefly discussed how useful this would be, and how it would allow them to remember what I looked like long after I was gone, when all of my children would want to remember me. She was excited about the possibilities, and even more enthused about the limitations regarding recording their visions. She agreed it was an important endeavor, but she got positively giddy when she thought of the idea of recording the visions. That would certainly guarantee a Nobel Prize, she was sure.

“Of course we couldn’t ever publish them while you’re still alive,” she told me firmly.

“However, that brings up another issue which I’ve been dreading discussing with you,” she said, broaching a whole new topic.

“What do you want to discuss? The last time you started talking like this you told me I’d have to start producing bunches of babies. And what were we talking about? How I’m not going to be around forever?”

She didn’t say anything and just stared at me. I realized that was, in fact, the topic of discussion, so I steeled myself for whatever she might tell me.

“Hey, what makes you think I’m not going to be around?” I asked her. She just rolled her eyes.

“First of all, men traditionally don’t live as long. Secondly, we don’t know of all the possible physical side-effects of exposure to this energy. For all we know it may extend the normal life span.”

“Or shorten it?” I countered, causing her to frown.

“Alex, that’s exactly my point. The various Sisters have only been exposed to relatively low levels of this power source and for a short period. While they can see it, you are perpetually bathed in it. While it may or may not have a long term effect on your women, it’s definitely going to have a profound effect on you, and I can’t see how that strong a dosage for an extended period is going to work out to your benefit. We’re all preparing ourselves to only have you around for a short time.”

Wow, talk about negative news. I thought I was prepared for bad news, but I wasn’t expecting this. Apparently everyone in the family was already planning my death. No wonder they were so focused on having me save my sperm right away. I’d have to really think about things after this. Not only would I have to consider my own mortality, but I’d have to put a premium on getting as much done as soon as possible. I’d have to travel extensively, trying to reach as many women as possible to try to maximize my reach before anything could possibly happen to me.

“You’re actually convinced this is a possibility?” I asked.

“Alex, there are more than a few clues. Look at how you eat continually, and how much you eat at each meal. You can hardly go several hours without eating something. The first thing you do when you get home is eat.

“You eat before bed. You eat after any activity. And frankly, I doubt Darrell eats as much in one sitting as you do. That high caloric intake indicates your brain and body are using up energy at an extremely high rate.

“Then there’s the gray hairs,” she continued. “Alex, it’s not normal for a 17-year-old to be turning gray. That’s happening because your body is being stressed and is already aging prematurely. The problem is the strain of radiating so much energy, and especially the work of each cell of your body trying to channel it. It’s stressing your entire body, and it’s likely the individual cells will start failing. It would then be a question of how long it would take for the damage to accumulate to the point of a major organ failure. And that’s despite the supposed health benefits this energy gives you. Whatever improvement it’s making to your health is more than made up by the damage it’s inflicting on you.”

“Do Mom and Dad know about this theory of yours?” I asked.

“Of course, I told them as soon as we all discussed it. I figured they had a right to know immediately.”

“And how’d they take it?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“As well as can be expected. No one likes to hear their only son is likely to die young. But they’re proud of what you represent, what you’ve achieved, and how well you’ve handled everything. I guess they justify it by weighing what you’ve already achieved against what most people achieve over a lifetime. But I suspect they’re just trying to put on a brave face for the rest of us. Mom cried for quite a while after I told her, though. I think your girls already suspected it, so they weren’t quite as surprised.”

“And what about the others, do Becky and Melinda know as well?”

“Yeah, as soon as I informed Mom and Dad we called them. That’s another reason why they’re so anxious to help you, and why they want to travel with you this summer.”

“And Chalise and Kitty?” I continued to press.

“Actually we were afraid to mention it to them, for fear they’d tip you off about it before we were ready to present it to you. We hope they won’t be as impacted as the rest. Teenaged romances typically don’t last very long. Chances are they won’t be around when it eventually happens, although the knowledge you may not live long may actually exacerbate matters by making them pull away from you unintentionally. Needless to say, this is pretty delicate ground to navigate. So no, I haven’t told them yet. I wanted to, but I didn’t think they’d handle it very well, so we thought we’d wait until after we told you. I’ve just been waiting for the right time to tell you.”

“But how can you really know this form of energy is dangerous?”

“It’s not a question of how dangerous it is,” she answered. “It’s a question of the intensity. You know how worried people get about exposure to power lines over their houses? You have the equivalent of a major nuclear power plant in a quarter inch space inside your brain. There’s virtually no way that couldn’t have a major impact on your lifespan. Maybe it’ll take a while, maybe it’s just a matter of years. We’ve no way of knowing. My guess is the reason Melinda found no evidence of anyone else with your abilities is because they’ve all died before they came of age. We still don’t know why this power only appeared recently. Did it just start, or have you always had it and simply didn’t know it because you never traveled before? In short, we have no idea how long you’ve been exposed to this level of energy.”

“Man, this is a lot to take in. I just wish I had some clue just how long I might have.”

“We all do, Alex. This is painful for all of us to speak about, but we’ve all been speaking of it a great deal. I really shouldn’t say this, but a couple of the girls have stopped taking their birth control. They plan to get pregnant before you leave after school. The others will stop as soon as you leave, and plan on getting pregnant once you get back. They’ve been working on a schedule so they can manage all the babies. They’ve decided they should each have a single baby by you, and then try to find a normal guy to marry so they can have some average kids to see which traits get passed on. Everyone is hoping to produce an heir of yours which has their own abilities, but their main aim is to further your line by having at least one child who possesses your abilities. The chances of any of the children being like you are remote, but it’s the only chance we have, so we’ve got to grab onto it as tightly as we can. Besides, they each want a baby of yours whether there’s a chance it’ll have any abilities or not.”

“We?” I asked. “Does that mean you plan on getting pregnant by me as well?” She blushed a little, which I thought was a sure sign of guilt.

“Actually, no,” she told me, “although the idea occurred to me. No, I’ve got too many plans for my future, for your future I should say. Becky and I need to do whatever research we can to see if there is some way to either limit this damage or further your mission somehow. I’ll leave it up to the others to get pregnant. I also assume everyone will want to sample your sperm as soon as you’re gone as well, so you’ll have to make quite a few more deposits.”

“Wow, this is hard to accept,” I replied, and sat there in silence for quite a few moments while Cate simply watched my reactions to see if I’d panic or not. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer.

“I think I’ve got to get out on my own to think for a bit. Let everyone know I’ve gone for a walk,” I told my sister. Luckily she didn’t feel the need to insist I take someone with me. I guess she knew the impact news like this would have on me, and that I’d need some solitude to consider it. The last thing I needed was to be reminded of my responsibilities. I knew as soon as I was out the door Cate would have the whole house in a tizzy with everyone worrying about me, but I also knew they’d let me have my space and solitude, at least this once.

I walked for a while and contemplated life in general. Having a premature death sentence handed to you tends to put things into perspective pretty quickly. I thought about my life, both past and present, as well as my future. I thought about my parents and how they were likely projecting all their hopes for my future into my role in this whole fiasco. I realized they’d try to justify my untimely demise by rationalizing it was for a noble end, and that I’d achieve a lasting memorial if I could achieve a small measure of success. I certainly couldn’t take that away from them. Although nothing was definite, I really couldn’t see many avenues which would prove Cate wrong. This kind of unknown ability, and the raw energy the girls saw pouring out of me continually, had to have some kind of cost associated with it.

I thought about Chalise and Kitty and all my potential future loves, most of them ultimately unknowable due to the unknowable limits on my foreshortened life. Like each of my girls wanted, I’d see the current romances all the way through. They were short lived anyway. I’d be off for significant portions of the summer, and they only had a limited amount of time until college would take them away to the remainder of their lives. Luckily they were still young and, if they started to cope with it now, hopefully my eventual demise wouldn’t sidetrack them that much. But my girls were another issue. While Kitty and Chalise might grieve for me, there was no doubt my other girls would be devastated. Their whole lives, their whole renewed reasons for living, would be yanked from under them.

No, I’d have to ensure they still had a mission, and that my life wasn’t just a flash in the pan. I had to ensure my own mission continued, even after I was gone. It wasn’t just for me, everyone around me needed my mission to help them carry on after I was gone. It was strange, in order to ensure the future of the girls and the viability of their new race, I’d have to activate as many of them as I could. However it now looked like I had a limited amount of time to do it in. That meant my life would shortly be reduced to my becoming a screwing machine. I thought I was already being spread too thin. How could I love any of them enough when I didn’t have enough time to spend with them?

Which brought everything around to my spreading my sperm around. I had to activate and train as many potential Seers and Watchers as I could, while also trying to create someone who could take up my task after I was gone. The training aspect was largely immaterial, since Cate and the others could handle that aspect, but I also recognized it would mean much more to everyone if I was the one to reveal what their lives now entailed.

No, each of my girls deserved a mission. My own mission had to enfold each of them. I had to make sure they each had their own tasks, and we could work together for however long I had. But a big part of that was also the genetic component. It was true the girls’ lives might be shortened just like mine would end up being, but at least if we could keep these new genetic traits going then at least the movement wouldn’t die out.

I was on the threshold of a major leap forward in the evolution of humanity, and it all depended on my achieving as much as I could before I died, however far that might be in the future. I had to include as many as I could, I had to step up the outreach and the training missions, and I had to start making a bunch of damn babies in the hopes one of them might carry the genetic sequence which made me so unique.

It was all quite hard to contemplate, and all this thinking certainly didn’t lighten the load on my heart, but I felt refreshed for having taken this walk. At least now I had something to aim for. I couldn’t afford to wallow in self pity. I had an important mission ahead, helping not only my girls, but saving the entire new branch of the human race I was creating. I couldn’t afford to fall apart at this point. There was simply too much riding on me now.

I also considered the value of my existence. My life since spring break was certainly a lot richer and more valuable than it was before. If I could only have it for a limited period of time, I still wouldn’t trade all the new changes, even if I could. I’d never had such confidence in my life, never had such certainty in what I was doing and who I was doing it for. Before, I was just drifting until life forced a decision on me. Now I knew what needed to be done, who I needed to do it for, and what the ultimate cost of those decisions would be. It was all pretty heady stuff for a young man who just a few hours ago thought he was as invincible as any 17 year old believes themselves to be.

Finally, I figured I’d been pondering dark subjects long enough and returned home, still contemplating them all the way back. When I came home I was welcomed by several women, each one at a time. No one seemed to want to talk though, all fully aware what I’d been dealing with and wanting to give me personal space to deal with it in. But each demonstrating that they’d gladly share any portion of my load I’d care to offer them.

I guess the girls noticed my preoccupation, so Brooke of all people spoke up. She’d stopped by since she so rarely got to spend time with me.

“Alex, I know you don’t believe in it, but I think you need to accept that this is planned. I think that God has a plan for you, and it’s just for you to figure out what it is he wants you to do.”

I glanced at her, not sure how to take this advice.

“I was thinking you had all started doubting your faith based on what I’d said about not being an angel,” I told her.

“Oh no, we still have our faith, although we’ve had to reconsider it. It isn’t the same as what it was before. We still get together to pray. We pray for each other, for you and for your mission. Since we’ve become somewhat disillusioned by the church, we mostly just gather on our own. We’ve tried to keep it private, since we knew you didn’t believe in it yourself, but—”

I cut her off here. “Brooke, I don’t object to what others believe. I’m hardly rabid about my beliefs. What I believe is my own faith. I have no more evidence of it than anyone else does, but it’s what I personally believe. What someone else thinks neither makes my own faith any stronger, nor does it diminish it. You praying in front of me won’t offend or bother me in any way.”

The other girls were all starting to sit up now, obvious intrigued by this newest bit of information.

“It wasn’t so much we were afraid of offending you, we just didn’t want to throw it in your face,” Natalie tried to explain.

“Please, if it makes you feel better, then pray whenever you want to. I figure that’s between you and God. I don’t play a role in that communication whatsoever.”

“Maybe not in prayer, but that’s what we’re trying to tell you,” Brooke told me. “While we know you don’t believe in God yourself, we still do. What’s more, we all feel God is directing you in this. We think the sheer number of odd events gives credence to that belief. That coin throw you made to determine who was going to lose their virginity first was just one of the pieces of evidence. The fact that Clara is the only undesirable person you’ve met is another. Just think about it, why have you not met any fat, lazy and unhelpful people? Everyone you’ve met almost seems to be hand chosen to help you in your mission, even when you didn’t realize what your mission was.”

“She has a point, Alex,” Shani said, jumping into the discussion. “That also feeds into our disillusionment with the church. We’ve all concluded the fact God would select an avowed atheist to do his work shows he’s lost faith in the established church. If you look at everything the church stands for, it’s almost all reactionary. The church mostly reacts negatively to any advancement in people’s thinking over the years. They stood against most major scientific advancements, for slavery, against the existence of souls for Native Americans. As he found with his son, Jesus, the established church is only going to stand against whatever you, or anyone, proposes, since they are only interested in protecting the status quo.”

“That’s also how we view the situation with Clara,” Natalie said, making me think they’d discussed this topic before. “She’s a message to you to not trust the church. They crucified Jesus, and they’ll do the same to you. Clara shows that you can’t trust those who believe too completely in the established church, because they’ll react just as negatively towards you as they’ve reacted to everything else.”

“You know, I’ve always thought that about the church,” I said, giving them my own views about the matter. “For as much as Jesus says about all the world’s evils, all the religious figures now point to obscure text to condemn homosexuality, all the while ignoring the very things Jesus spoke most venomously about, which is usury. That’s what got Jesus in trouble with the Pharisees. They were charging money for their services, and he thought they had no business doing that. What’s more, the bible has long held that all debts are to be forgiven after seven years. However, now there’s not a single Christian leader who will say anything about charging struggling people 27.99% interest on their credit cards. They have no problem condemning loving people to hell for something Jesus had no opinion on, but they ignore the very issue he was most concerned with.”

“Exactly,” Allison said, “that’s why none of us goes to church regularly anymore. We figure you are the next movement in faith, at least for us. We think God put you in this position, and that he’s directing where you go and what happens to you. That’s why every time you pass one of his tests, he rewards you with an increase in your abilities. Why else would everyone you make love to gain in abilities?” Here Cate started to say something, but she kept on with her thoughts rather than letting Cate derail them.

“But the point is you need to follow Anh’s advice and trust whoever is responsible, whether it’s God, unknown spirits, or simply the fates, since they seem to be guiding you. Like we’ve been telling the sorority girls, trust your intuition, because you seem to know what to do. Every time you’ve acted instinctively you’ve chosen the correct option. But when you stop to think about it, like when you wanted to reach out to Tony, or discuss things with Mike, you get bitten. Sorry Cate, but Alex, if you want to get ahead, you’ve got to spend less time thinking and more time responding without thinking things to death.”

Everyone seemed to agree with this, though, including Anh and Cate. I’m not sure it helped much with my falling asleep that night, but at least it gave me something to think about other than my limited future.

---

The next morning Cate and I were up early, since I had to stop off at the hospital again before picking up Chalise. I had managed to put most of my dark thoughts from the day before behind me. They’d continue to pop up at unexpected moments, but there really wasn’t anything I could do about them, so there simply wasn’t any reason to focus on them. I instead focused on the here and now, and insisted on fixing breakfast for everyone as well as giving everyone their kisses as we all left for our various daily tasks. The thoughts of my early demise rose again when Cate had me treat her lab animals again. I felt similar to the rabbits, essentially just a short term research project. However I quickly got over that little bit of morose thinking and got moving. Anh had managed to pick up more accounting duties from Gail and her friends so she would be busy as well today.

My girls offered to take Cate to school, but she said she’d be fine waiting for me in the lobby. She even brought some science books she could read while she waited. We didn’t talk about the elephant in the room on the drive, and I never mentioned the problems I was having with Adrian Hart either. I figured it was too inconsequential to mention.

When we entered the hospital’s lobby Ryan was there waiting for us, standing beside Allison who was looking apologetic.

“Alex, what the hell did you do?” he asked me, fairly upset but still trying to keep his voice to a whisper.

“What do you mean? I was at home all evening. Honestly I was. Why? What happened?” I asked him.

“You know very well what happened,” he told me, leaving Cate wondering what was going on. “Mr. Hart is a very important patient. I involved you in this, thinking some exposure to a few select well-known people would help your projects—”

“No,” I countered. “You did it hoping to capitalize on my abilities which you couldn’t openly announce. You’re hoping to attract those selfsame individuals, anticipating they may reward you with a development grant if they’re successfully treated. However you haven’t been very careful in monitoring who you picked. Instead of someone who’d be pleased with the fact I was saving his multi-million dollar career, you found someone who couldn’t keep his nose out of someone else’s private business.”

Ryan looked exasperated, but he also knew I had a point. “Highly intelligent motivated people tend to notice things and ask questions,” he pointed out. “Besides, we’re still protecting you. No one has mentioned your name, or given him any way to identify who you are. You’re still an unidentified student researcher.”

“An unidentified student researcher who doesn’t attend the university and who doesn’t know any of the current professors,” I corrected him. “Anyway, I didn’t do anything. I can’t be held responsible for anything that might happen to belligerent patients after I’ve gone home.”

“Alex, we both know what you’re capable of doing. With what you did with Mary it doesn’t take much to—”

“Excuse me,” Cate said, interrupting him, “but could someone tell me what you are all talking about?”

“It seems Mr. Adrian Hart had to have a toe removed,” Allison informed us. “It seems when the nurses were checking on him last night, they noticed a sizable portion of his pinky toe was black and lifeless. Out of fear of possible gangrene or some other complications they decided to remove the entire toe. It really won’t impact his life much, but he’s certainly likely to remember his time here at the hospital for a while.”

“Ahh, I see,” Cate said, giggling lightly.

“This is NOT funny,” Ryan told us all. “This is a serious breach of trust.”

“As is asking your gift horse what his history is,” I reminded him. “I warned him bad things could happen if he kept sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. There is no one who would ever associate what befell him with anything other than simple bad luck, but it’s sure to make him remember his manners the next time he decides to throw his weight around.

“You should also have thought of that when you involved me without first discussing it with me. I don’t mind you’re using my abilities to help your hospital, but not if it compromises either me or those I care for. I’ve got more important things to focus on than you’re being able to perform a particular type of surgery here. If someone threatens me, I’ll either walk out, which I tried to do, or I’ll take action. Which, under the circumstances, I think was very constrained.”

“Besides, what happened to him should never have involved the removal of the entire toe. I suspect the damage was restricted to only the tip of the toe. If he chooses to overreact to a given situation then you can’t be held responsible for that.”

Ryan sighed before explaining. “It seems Mr. Hart called in his own experts when they discovered the problem. Not wanting to be accused of not being proactive, they insisted the only safe option was to remove the entire thing to ensure they eliminated any possible causes.”

“There, no one can blame me or your hospital for his overreacting to a simple problem.”

Ryan grunted but didn’t have any comebacks, so he led us off very quickly to Mr. Hart’s private room, as if afraid I might take offense of some random patient in the hall and do something terrible to them.

When we entered Mr. Hart’s room he watched me carefully, but said nothing at all to me. I quietly did as I’d always done, simply spraying the ‘prepared’ lotion on his chest, and left again without worrying about what he thought about me.

“You are so bad, Alex,” Cate chastised me when we made it a safe distance away from the room. “Why didn’t you tell me he was giving you a hard time?”

“There was nothing to tell. It didn’t impact you and it barely even impacted me, so I didn’t see any reason to bring it up,” I told her.

“Alex, anything which affects you impacts me. You know I not only worry about you, but that we also try to run interference for you if we can. Allison, I’m surprised you didn’t say anything either?”

“Hey, what can I say? As Alex already told you, nothing happened. Besides, ‘he be me boss, man’, I just do what I’m told to do,” she told Cate in a very bad Jamaican impression. She certainly never learned that from Shani, or else it would have sounded much better.

Nothing more was said, and we continued on to pick up both Chalise and then Kitty.

---

When we picked up Chalise she was ready and immediately sprinted out. However Caroline was watching her as she ran out of the house and I couldn’t resist, so I got out and walked up to her.

“Listen, Caroline, this is a little difficult, but I’m going to be giving Chalise some bad news today. I’m sorry I can’t tell you what it is right now, but I’m sure you’ll hear all about it when you see your daughter tonight. I’d have found a better way to present it to you, but I just found out, and I don’t want to spring it on you tonight, since we’ll have a lot of other things to discuss. Anyway, I’m sorry for the trouble it’ll put you through, and we’ll talk about it as soon as I get a chance. OK?”

She looked concerned at my words, but merely nodded and said she’d help Chalise with it, whatever it was. With that out of the way I ran back to the car.

“What was that about?” Chalise asked me when I climbed in the car and fastened myself in.

“Sorry, can’t tell you until we pick up Kitty. It concerns you both,” I told her.

“Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. You’re not adding another girlfriend are you?” she asked playfully. When neither Cate nor I either answered or would look directly at her, she began to sense the importance of the news.

“I guess it’s too serious to joke about, huh? Are you breaking up with us, or is it about you, Alex?” she asked, trying to figure out the direction the news was coming from.

“Look, I know it’ll be a long drive waiting for the information, but I really can’t tell you anything until I have you both here in the car. It’s pretty serious,” I said.

“Don’t blame Alex for being melodramatic,” Cate told her, turning around to address her directly. “I surprised him last night with some unsettling news, and he’s still a bit shell shocked about it. You’ll understand once he explains it, but you’ll also understand why he doesn’t want to play 20 questions trying to figure out what it is.”

“Uh, OK,” Chalise replied hesitantly.

“Hey, on another topic, you’ll never guess who I just met?” Cate asked as a way of distracting her.

“Am I allowed to guess?” Chalise asked, still a bit gun-shy. Cate just looked at her so she got over herself.

“OK, who?”

“Adrian Hart!” Cate told her excitedly. “Alex has been treating him following surgery at the hospital.” I hadn’t known Cate was such a big fan. We’d both watched most of his movies, but still.

“No shit? Alex, how come you don’t tell us important information like this? Did you get an autograph?”

“Sorry, but you know how I feel about talking about people,” I told them both.

“Yeah, I know, but this isn’t gossip,” Chalise informed me. “This is just telling us you saw somebody famous. So is that a yes or a no on the autograph?”

“Frankly, after what Alex did to him yesterday,” Cate said, turning around in the seat to fully explain herself. “I don’t think he’s going to be anxious to do Alex any favors. However, he’s also not likely to cause him any more trouble, either.” They might not consider this gossip, but they were enjoying talking about it just like it was. I guess it was fair game since it concerned me.

“Look, it’s OK to talk about this, but don’t say anything about it to anyone. It’s a secret he’s here, and neither he nor the studio wants anyone to know he’s been in the hospital. That’s vital. So no discussing him to anyone but us, OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Chalise told me. “So what did he do to piss Alex off, and what did Alex do to him?” she excitedly asked Cate, my upcoming bad news already forgotten about. Well, maybe not forgotten, but at least shelved for the moment, which was fine with me.

They both talked about everything they knew about it, which really wasn’t much, but it kept them occupied until we stopped by for Kitty. Just before we reached her, Chalise remembered her own news. It seemed Caroline had insisted on visiting her son Brandon the previous evening. He had been quite unpleasant about it, openly berating her for favoring the boy who had destroyed his career over her own son. In a surprise move, Rodger had supported Caroline and told Brandon everything was going to be nearly as it was before. Chalise’s mother took this new attitude to heart, and was sure her husband was going to try to make amends with me over dinner tonight. Chalise had her own doubts about her father’s ability to change mid-stream, but she was willing to hold her tongue until she saw how he dealt with me one on one. She said that both she and her mother had decided on how they wanted this evening to go. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I figured I’d learn it in good time.

Once she climbed in the car, and even before she had a chance to say or do anything, Chalise spoke up. “OK, Alex, what’s this terrible news you have for us?”

Kitty looked up at me, looking anxious midway through putting on her seatbelt. “You have bad news?” she asked.

“Cate told him something she’d apparently been hiding, and he’s both upset and afraid to mention it to us,” Chalise told her.

“OK, buddy,” Kitty told me, “it’s best to get it out as soon as possible, so don’t waste any time dithering about it.”

I took her at her word, so I took a deep breath and began. “Fine. It turns out I might not have much longer. Cate tells me she suspects the energy everyone sees coursing through me is slowly killing me. Apparently that’s the reason for the gray hairs you found.” I immediately glanced in the rear view mirror and they both looked shocked.

“Damn,” Kitty whispered.

“Man, I thought you were going to say something about another lost girl, or that our weekend outing was cancelled,” Chalise replied. “Are you sure about this?”

At that I simply turned to Cate, who immediately took the ball and ran with it.

“As sure as we can be. There’s a lot of supporting evidence, but we’re guessing living tissue can only hold so much of this energy at one time. Apparently, wherever Alex is getting this energy from, it’s too much for the cells in his body to handle so he radiates much of it away. That’s why his girls see so much of it. However, as his cells try to process it, it takes a toll on them. Now as you know, the energy has major health benefits, but we suspect the toll on his body is too much even for that. That’s why he always eats so much and why he’s always on his feet and pacing around. His body is burning up energy, the normal kind this time, as he’s trying to dissipate the energy coursing through him.”

“Wow!” was all that Kitty said.

“So how much longer do you think he has?” Chalise asked Cate.

“We have no clue. Alex’s body seems to be handling it pretty well now, but we’re talking the equivalent of enough energy to run an aircraft carrier in a quarter inch space inside of his brain. It could be anywhere from a couple months to several years, but I’m guessing it’s definitely less than a decade at the outside. Frankly, Alex is the only person to ever suffer from this problem, so there is absolutely nothing to judge it on.”

“If you don’t know, then there’s also a chance you’re wrong on this,” Kitty suggested. “Or, if you aren’t, then at least there’s a chance the good the energy does him could counter balance it?”

Cate just sighed heavily at this. “Since I can’t tell you definitively what’s happening, or quote you an explicit timeframe, then I’d have to say it’s entirely possible. However I think it’s highly unlikely.”

“Well then, maybe it’s really not so earth shattering,” Kitty replied, completely ignoring what Cate had just told her.

“Kitty, I think it’s easier to assume it is, and to plan accordingly,” I firmly told her. “Now I’ll understand if this is too much for the two of you to handle, or if the two of you want to postpone tonight’s dinner, but I’m going to stop wasting time and start focusing on what needs to be done. This is a wake-up call for me, and there’s a lot I need to get done if I’m operating under a shortened timetable.”

Neither Kitty nor Chalise said anything, just sitting there looking shocked. What I’d told them wasn’t entirely true. I hadn’t actually started doing anything yet. I hoped I’d be able to do something positive with the information, but right now I was just telling myself stories. I’d have to see how I dealt with this over the coming weeks. I could do one of three things. I could either fall completely apart, I could try to refocus my life, or I could fall into denial and avoid doing anything. However two of those options might result in destroying not only those I loved and any hopes they had for the future, but also meant the end of both what we all hoped and any promise my existence might have had. I hated to think I’d waste all of that.

The rest of the drive was filled with a very quiet question and answer session with Cate and me over what this meant, and in their trying to wrap their heads around what it entailed. When I finally parked, it took both Cate and I to get them moving towards the school building, but once they started moving they managed it on their own, although they looked like a couple of zombies looking for their next meal of brains. Finally Cate stopped them and had a few stern words for them. After that they both looked a little more alert as they glanced back at me. I don’t know what she said, but it seemed to have gotten them moving at least. We’d see how they dealt with it over time, though.

           

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