Chapter Nine
A balding man with a rotund body and beady
eyes entered the room and introduced himself as Dr. Richard Hu. "Travis, I'm
sure you have questions, but--"
"Doc, I thought we agreed not to tell him
about you know what?" The suited man that Travis assumed was Agent Anderson
asked.
Oblivion was right. What else are they hiding
from me?
A cobra of anger reared up inside him. "No! I
want to know what's going on." The windows rattled, and the adults turned to
him with concerned expressions.
Jenny approached him, speaking in a babyish
voice. "Travis, calm down, or we'll have to sedate you again."
Glaring, he balled his fists. "Tell me about
Project Hellfire, or I'll burn this place to the ground." As he spoke, his
clothes smoldered. The adults looked at each other before nodding their heads.
Agent Anderson took the lead. "Project
Hellfire was a clandestine operation that studied your abilities after they
manifested when you were two years old."
Travis's mind reeled. "You mean to tell me I
had powers as a baby?"
Agent Anderson shook his head. "From what I've
gathered, your powers activated following a traumatic event of which I'm not
sure. But afterward, the military got involved and . . . experimented on you,
for lack of a better term."
How can this be true? I would have remembered
it.
Travis wracked his brain, recalling his
earliest memories, but everything before The Fire was hazy. He remembered the
first time he met his grandparents and going to Sunday School, but not much
else.
Could this be true? And if so, how could my
parents have allowed this? No. They have to be
gaslighting me.
However, part of him knew that was a
lie.
"What did they do to me?" he said, a tinge of
fear creeping into his voice.
Agent Anderson scratched his head. "Doc knows
more about that than me."
Dr, Hu, face red and eyes watery, stepped
forward and sighed. "We tested your abilities by having you incinerate various
materials . . ."
Travis saw a flash of woodchips bursting into
flames. He shook his head. "What else did you do to me?"
"We . . ." Dr. Hu cleared his throat. "We
tested your healing powers, first by shocking you with cattle prods. Next, we
stabbed you. Then we shot you with rubber bullets before graduating to regular
ammunition."
Jenny whacked Dr. Hu. "You monster. He was
just a child!"
"I was only following orders."
An argument broke out between Jenny and Dr. Hu
that stopped when Travis asked them about The Fire. "Did that happen the way I
remember it or . . ." He let his unspoken question hang in the air.
"I think Travis has had enough excitement for
one day. How 'bout we let him rest?" Agent Anderson said. Dr. Hu concurred, but
Jenny insisted they uncuff Travis first. Agent Anderson looked at her sideways
a moment before handing her the keys.
Once he was free, Travis worked the kinks out
of his arms and legs. "By the way, what's that clear crud you got me hooked up
to?"
Jenny hesitated a moment before saying, "It's
something to calm you down."
"Does it have a name?" he said, rolling his
eyes.
"Ketamine."
"You put me on horse tranquilizer?"
Worrying her bottom lip, she nodded. "It was
the fastest way to keep you calm while we figured out what to do with you."
He side-eyed her hard. "And what are you going
to do with me?" He'd be damned if he let them turn him into some science
project again.
"We're still working out the details. Why
don't you go explore outside while we talk?"
He folded his arms, scowling as his anger
threatened to boil over. "Don't you think I should get a say in what happens to
me?"
Jenny ran her hand through her messy brunette
hair, sighing. "Just do what I said, okay?"
"Fine."
She capped off his IV and showed him the way
out.
***
The outside of Dr. Hu's cabin was decorated
with topiary shrubs shaped like bears and other circus animals, along with a
rock garden with black, white, and silver stones. The cabin sat on twenty acres
and had a pier that led right onto Otter Lake. Travis walked to the edge of the
pier, took off his shoes and socks, and dangled his feet in the water, cringing
at the shock of the cold.
As he acclimated to the water, He thought back
to his conversation with Oblivion. He'd been straight with Travis, but could
Travis trust him? Then again, could he trust his parents or Grams? What else
might they be hiding from him? And for that matter, what was Prometheus hiding
from him?
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Jenny
called him in for dinner. After washing up, he joined them at the dinner table,
where they had grilled burgers and bratwursts. As he ate, Travis noticed Jenny
and Agent Anderson sneaking glances at him.
"You decide what you're going to do with me?"
he said, and all eyes turned to him.
"We'll discuss that after dinner. Pass the
ketchup," she said.
Travis grumbled under his breath. Why
do adults treat me like a kid when I'm smarter than eighty percent of them?
He finished dinner in silence, not letting on
how shocked he was at picking up snippets of their thoughts. Jenny was nervous
and scared for and of him while Agent Anderson thought Travis would be his
ticket to a corner office. As for Dr. Hu, his mind was abuzz with fears of
something called "Day Zero" and the location of guns he'd cached around the
cabin.
Initially, it was cool being able to read
people's thoughts, but then things turned awkward when he picked up on Agent
Anderson's salacious thoughts toward Jenny, and when he attempted to shut out
those thoughts, he found himself trapped in Agent Anderson's mind.
"Something the matter, sweetie?" Jenny said to
him.
"Just a little tired. I think I'll go have a
nap," he said, rushing back to his room. Distance helped, but he still had
Agent Anderson's thoughts in his head. As quickly as his fingers would go, he
grabbed the book on meditation and looked up how to shut out thoughts.
He skimmed the section, ready to hurl at Agent
Anderson's thoughts, and paused when he came to a bit about warding your mind
to others. It was a lot of New Age word salad, but he had nothing to lose.
Closing his eyes, he saw through Agent Anderson's eyes. Before he was carried
deeper into Agent Anderson's mind, he pictured a door leading back to his own
mind and walked through it, locking it behind himself.
While he could still hear Agent Anderson's
thoughts, they weren't as loud. Travis next imagined walls surrounding his mind
from others, and bit by bit, the voices in his head disappeared. When he was
done, he could barely keep his eyes open, so he crawled into bed and fell
asleep.
Travis awoke the next morning to Jenny and Dr.
Hu standing over him. They spent the next several hours drawing blood samples
and running tests on him. Dr. Hu said his colleagues at a lab he used for cases
like Travis's were discrete and would keep the results secret. Meanwhile, Jenny
told him they'd come to a decision.
Agent Anderson would feed his superiors false
information to buy them time while they worked out a long-term solution. The
preliminary test results revealed several anomalies, such as the lack of key
amino acids and enzymes, and the presence of an unknown substance in his blood,
prompting further testing. While they waited for the results, Jenny and Dr. Hu
monitored his condition and give him injections for the enzymes and amino acids
he lacked.
No stranger to injections and hospitals in
general, Travis took in this information with detached interest. He did ask
them what they would tell the police and his parents.
"The incident at St. Michael's will be treated
as a terrorist attack. This way, no one knows the real reason, and the police
can save face. As for your parents, Jenny suggested we tell them you have a
novel genetic disorder, and Dr. Hu, being the world's foremost expert on such
disorders, has agreed to treat you pro bono."
He nodded, not paying attention until Agent
Anderson mentioned his hair and eyes. "What about them?"
"Apparently, when you get mad or excited, your
hair turns red and gray, and your eyes turn red and green. We'll try getting
you colored contacts to hide them and dying your hair. But you gotta be careful. Just to be on the safe side, you should
start wearing these." He handed Travis a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. "One
slipup, and it's game over for all of us."
Letting out a big sigh through his nose,
Travis said, "Why are you helping me? I get you're sprung over Jenny, but
still--"
"How do you know about that?" he whispered.
Rolling his eyes, Travis tapped his head.
"Duh. I'm telepathic."
"Stay out of my head."
Travis gave him a dirty look. "It wasn't by
choice."
They parted ways, and Travis sat on the pier
meditating. Then he tried to use his powers until Dr. Hu called him in for
breakfast. After he ate and did the dishes, it was time for another round of
tests, starting with his vitals followed by testing his reflexes, recall, and
other mental faculties, then his stamina and strength by timing his laps around
the cabin and how many times he could lift a three-gallon jug of water over his
head.
This continued for a week until they sat him
down and told him they had something serious to discuss with him.
The way they're acting, you'd think I was
dying or something.
Dr. Hu breathed on his glasses and cleaned
them. "There's no easy way to same this, so I'll just dive right in. Your
latest test results arrived today, and after speaking with my colleagues, we
all agree you have a severe case of genetic instability. What this means in
layman's terms is, if you don't develop several forms of cancer first, your
body will shut down due to being unable to produce the enzymes and amino acids
it needs to function. Furthermore, we were unable to identify the substance in
your blood, though we think it might have something to do with the extra DNA we
found in your genome . . ."
The rest of Dr. Hu's words were lost as Travis
shut down. I'm dying? Why me? What did I do to deserve this? I haven't
even lost my virginity--hell, I've never kissed anyone. Ugh. Fuck my life!
Glass shattering broke him out of his pity
party. In his angst, he'd inadvertently broken one of the windows
with a telekinetic blast.
"I know now it's the best time for this, but
that's coming out of your pocket," Dr. Hu said.
"Yeah. Whatever," he said, trudging away to
the pier, where he sat watching the water until the sunset, and Jenny called
him in for dinner.
He picked at his plate, moving around the food
until he asked to be excused.
***
The next morning, he returned home and sulked
in his room for two weeks, only leaving to use the restroom and shower. It
rained every day those two weeks, adding to the malaise that hung over Travis.
He barely ate or slept, and when his parents asked what the problem was, he
told them it was his genetic disorder acting up.
He would've stayed brooding in his fortress of
depression had Jenny not shipped him off to Dr. Hu's cabin. He humored her,
going through the motions as she and Dr. Hu ran more tests on him.
They were moving into May, and warm weather
was on the horizon. Though, he didn't see much cause for celebration. He was
dying and knew it may well be his last summer.
Little did he know that summer would change
his life forever.
Author's Note: Since last chapter was so short,
I figured I'd post this one right away. I hope ya'll enjoy it.
Next chapter finds JJ going to court and learning
his punishment for starting the brawl that injured Travis.
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