Chapter Four: Diagnosis and Choice

Chapter Four of The Gamblers

Ace felt pain everywhere, it seemed so small and insignificant now though, after Toxin’s torture, he tried to move, despite the pain and found he was in a bed, soft sheets surrounded him, he was warm, alive, and comfortable, much to his surprise, he groaned as he tried to sit up but a hand rested on his chest and kept him down “lie still, everything’s all right now” the voice was calm and soothing, it was a female voice. As he lay he could hear the woman’s footsteps, he could hear her doing things, Ace slowly opened his eyes, blinded at first it took him a while to adjust to the light, however, his vision was still strange, he could only see everything in pure red, he began to panic and the hand came down on his chest again “It’s ok, your vision will return to normal in a few hours, it’s just excess blood leaked into your irises”. The woman was about 25 to 30, tall with hair tied back in a bun, she wore a suit and tie with trousers and shoes, glasses adorned the end of her nose as she sat in the chair by the bed “who are you?” Ace found his voice raspy and weak, “here” the woman said “my name is Adrianne” she helped him sit up and take a sip of water, it felt cold as it ran down his throat, it hurt at first but it helped. “You’re in London, your mother has been informed of recent events and moved to a secure location, your friends and sister are all fine however you’re the first to wake up” Adrianne tapped a plate on the bedside table “eat up, it’ll help trust me, I just need to go through a few things with you before we can begin to explain what’s going to happen now” she said. Ace sighed and took a slice of orange from the plate “what happened to us?” he asked. Adrianne hummed as she flicked through a clipboard “do you want me to list of mental or physical injuries first?” she asked, Ace groaned “oh! I’m so sorry, I’m not used to this sort of thing, I can be a little insensitive sometimes” Adrianne crossed her legs “it’s fine, eh, physical if you please lass” he closed his eyes and just listened “well, you have two broken ribs, your nervous system is heavily damaged and most of your muscle fibres have been altered, we don’t know what that means for you but we know it’s probably not good, your hearing and sight however, both show incredible increase in sensitivity, your irises have been stained red by blood so I’m afraid that’s permanent”.

Ace controlled his breathing, every deep breath he took hurt “you also have a fractured jaw but we’ve managed to patch that up, do you want the mental assessment?” Adrianne looked to him as he took another slice of orange “if you please” he replied, Adrianne sighed “as far as we can tell, your brain has been… in layman’s terms, rewired” she said, Ace managed to sit up and rest himself against the bed rest, “what do you mean?” he asked, “well, the doctors had no explanation for it, besides the fact that your all neural pathways have been rewritten, as if someone reached inside and unplugged everything and forgot which order to plug it back, it’s a miracle your even alive” Adrianne said. There was a knock on the door before it opened and a doctor walked in “oh good! He’s awake, we’ll take him through to examination now if you don’t mind Miss Taylor” he said, Ace reached out and grabbed her hand “no!” he wheezed, “it’s ok! These are good doctors, your safe” Adrianne said and Ace let go but said nothing, he had already hated doctors well before Doctor Toxin, but now he feared them as well. Ace was wheeled through the building, he couldn’t tell if it was an office building or a medical facility, or both! Ace was wearing a black overalls type of pyjamas, like a onesie, he was first stopped at a bathroom so he could take a much needed session in there, before stopping in a large room, there were four other doctors and a nurse who stood around a well-lit table “oh gods, you couldn’t have made it like a bed or something less dissection table looking” Ace rasped, he felt a hand pat his shoulder “it’s fine, look no straps, we’ll move the pillows onto it as well so you can lie comfortably” said the doctor. Ace was then moved onto the table and the onesie was removed, now laying on the table wearing only a pair of boxers the doctors began to run tests, most of them didn’t hurt, the worst it got was a poke or a needle as they took scans, blood samples and asked him questions “alright, well everything seems to check out so far” said one of the doctors, he seemed to be in charge “alright, so these next questions may seem a little weird but please answer them to the best of your ability” the doctor said.

 Ace nodded and he took out a clipboard “ok, so, imagine you got the chance for revenge on Doctor Toxin, what would you do?” he asked, Ace looked at him as if he was stupid “your trying to determine whether or not I have homicidal tendencies after being tortured” he guessed, the doctor chuckled “very astute Mr O'Connor, we’ll skip them for now” he sighed “alright, next question, there is a number written in a large red box on this page, can you tell me what it is?” the doctor seemed very serious and the rest of the room fell quiet “how? Your all the way over there I...” for some reason, he could hear the doctor whispering “25”, he was looking right at him. “Eh… 25?” he asked, the doctor took a deep breath “very good, it is indeed 25” he smiled, “how… how did I know that? You weren’t even moving your lips!” Ace tried to sit up but it hurt to much, the doctors moved him off the table and back into the bed so he could sit up “I repeated the number over and over in my head, it’s a simple test for telepaths” the doctor said, Ace fell silent as the doctor showed him scans of his brain. “Your entire neural chemistry has been rewired, we suspected you may have some telepathic abilities because of it, according to our scans your brain is accessing far more of it’s potential than before” the doctor pointed to areas of the brain that showed lots of activity, “so you’re saying I’m using 100% of my brain?” Ace asked, “well, not exactly, maybe, we can’t really be sure, but we do know that your mind was severely altered by Toxin’s experiment, we’ll get back to you on it later” the doctor turned to the opening doors “for now however” he rushed over and helped the others wheel another bed in “Brother!” Penny waved. “Penny! You’re alright!” Ace beamed “little doctor man did not kill penny or friends! Is funny now, little man made Penny stronger!” she laughed as she swept her feet out of bed and got up, the doctors around her panicked as she began to jog on the spot, the others came in on beds too, Ben seemed ok, but Isabelle, “wait, what’s wrong?” Penny asked as she sat on the bed and was moved next to Ace.

Isabelle sighed “it’s no big deal” she said, she was too crowded by doctors for anyone to see, “alright! Enough! Everyone settle down and give the girl some space, she said she’s fine” said the doctor in charge, Isabelle was revealed as the doctors moved away, her skin was pale as alabaster with large black spots all over her, one big one covered her left eye, her hair was now striped black and white and her eyes here mismatched blue and gold, gold being on the left side. “Isabelle!” Ben sat forward “ugh, it’s nothing, I think it looks cool actually” Isabelle said as she held up a mirror, “how am I the only one who can barely move” Ace groaned, everyone turned to him “Ace! I remember you didn’t black out, what happened?”, Ace and the doctors worked together to explain what had happened to him and the others, they explained how the girl Tina was dead before the experiment even ended, and how Ace now had telepathic powers. “So, we all have powers now?” Ben asked, he looked down at his hands “woah” “we can’t tell for sure” the doctor said, his name was Melvin Hale, Adrianne was also present now, along with another man, but Ace couldn’t properly make him out behind the doctors “but we do know that Penny has enhanced strength and agility, we’ll need to run extensive tests on all of you, however, we have some rather bad news” the doctor said, Adrianne stepped forward “I’m afraid, for your own safety and the safety of your families, until we can find and capture Doctor Toxin, we’re going to have to keep you here” she said. Ace rubbed his brow “what? No! You can’t do that!” he coughed “please, try to keep calm” the doctor said, “yes we can” said a voice “and unfortunately we must, you are all targets of Doctor Toxin and his goons now, and so are your families, that’s why we’ve had them moved somewhere safe” the man Ace couldn’t see properly stepped forward, in front of Adrianne and doctor Hale, Ace recognised him, the man from the park “you!” Ace heaved himself upright “you were at the park when we were kidnapped!” Ace’s eyes flared and the room shook “Ace, calm down, we can explain” Adrianne stepped towards him, “No! This is your fault! You helped Doctor Toxin kidnap us, torture us!” it was indeed Jensen, and now he was on his knees clutching his head “Ace? What are you doing to him? Stop it!” Ben shouted, the room was shaking as Penny got up and slapped him.

Ace’s focus snapped and the room fell silent as Jensen stood up “what?” he rubbed his cheek “brother was hurting little man, is my job! After little man explains deal!” she said, Jensen sighed “Yes, I did help Doctor Toxin capture you, but no, I didn’t want to, I had no choice, which was why I called Captain Cutter and informed him immediately after the helicopter left, I’m with the British secret service” Jensen said, Adrianne put a hand on his shoulder “we both do, Jensen is my father, he works in MI5, I In MI6, we’ve both been working to find out Drellora’s plans, but we could never be sure of anything until now” she said. Ace sighed “you mean to tell us you were spies pretending to work with Doctor Toxin?” Jensen nodded “I had no idea how far along his plans were rest assured the British intelligence services and the heroes will not rest until he’s found and brought to justice” he explained, Penny flexed “good! Little man can hire me! All of friends have powers now, we heroes too” she stated and sat down on the bed. Jensen shook his head “you might have powers or you might have side effects of a fatal experiment, you could still die, we have no way of knowing so early on” he said, Hale nodded “indeed, Penny, besides, you kids aren’t heroes just because you might have certain new abilities, heroes are people who dedicate their lives to serving justice, who have trained for months before even beginning hero work” the doctor said, Ace sat quietly and listened as his sister and friends argued the finer points of heroism until he could stand it no longer “enough!”. Ace sighed “enough, I don’t care if we have powers of not, I don’t care what happens to Toxin, I want to carry on with my life, can I or can I not do that for the foreseeable future?” he asked, Jensen shook his head “not until Toxin is behind bars” he said, Penny and his friends looked to him as he massaged his temples, they knew Ace well enough to know when we was considering things, things that wouldn’t normally be ok.

“Alright, doctor, Taylors, if after your tests it does turn out we have powers, would it be possible for you to train us in their usage?” Ace asked, Jensen and the doctor talked for a moment “yes, there Is a branch of the British government dedicated to aiding new meta beings, we could train you how to properly use your new powers, if you have any” Jensen replied, Ace closed his eyes “would you then consider training us to use those powers for combat?” he asked Penny sat forward as Jensen and Adrianne talked quietly “if you decided you wanted to train in combat,  you would have to agree to work under orders from the secret service, but if you did, the likely hood that you would be able to return to a normal life after that would be slim” Jensen explained. The four kids looked to each other “well I for one don’t have that much to go back to, I’d be happy to help take down Doctor Toxin, I’ve always wanted to be a super hero” Ben said, Isabelle nodded “so long as I at least get to visit my family every now and then, that’s fine with me too, I live on my own anyways” she added, Penny looked to Ace “I stay with brother, what brother decides, I do” she said, Ace closed his eyes for a moment. “We don’t need to make a decision that big right now, let’s just get through these tests and learn how to use our powers first” he said, Jensen nodded “a smart idea, We’ll begin meta skills testing tomorrow, for now, I want you all to get some rest, we’ll answer any questions you have and there’s plenty of entertainment in the lounge, Ace however, you need to stay in bed, unless you agree to having an aid”. Ace nodded “alright” Jensen nodded “we’ll just run a few more tests on you all to make sure nothing’s wrong and we’ll show you around” he said, “where are we by the way?” Isabelle asked, “You’re in MI5 headquarters infirmary wing, we would ask that you try not to overhear anything you shouldn’t, if and until you become agents yourselves, which would be what your combat training requires”.

The four were shown to their own living space, there was a lounge, kitchen, five bedrooms and two bathrooms, this was where they would be staying, they of course had access to any positions they had left behind in their old homes and the internet and a subscription to sky TV, Ace was assigned a nurse to help him get around until he was better, everyone else was fine, sore, but fine none the less, he was stuck in a wheelchair and the nurse had to help him into the bathroom or into bed. Ace sighed as he sunk back into the bath, the nurse was stood outside “when you want to get out, call me in, don’t try and do it yourself” she said, Ace rolled his eyes “I think I can manage getting a towel around myself and moving into a wheelchair” he said, “alright, but if you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask” she replied, Ace hummed and slid further in. Everything hurt, but the heat was quickly helping his muscles relax, the tension slipped away as he stared at the ceiling, his vision was still soaked red but it was beginning to fade, spots of clear vision were beginning to appear as well, but he was still concerned about permanently having devil’s eyes “guess I’m just lucky I’m not polkadot skinned” he mumbled. Once he was done in the bath Ace unplugged the bath and let it drain before wrapping a towel around himself and struggling into the wheelchair, the nurse helped him onto the bed in his room and left him to get changed, hopefully he would be strong enough to get around on his own again soon, he thought of what lay ahead, he wanted justice for what Toxin had done to them, to anyone, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to commit his entire life to being a hero… perhaps just this one time, to take down Toxin, and if that means switching to a job in MI5 or 6, then so be it, at least he would be able to visit his family.

With Ace contemplating the future and the villain roaming free, how long can he afford to wait before making a move to stop him? As we speak, the sick mind of Doctor Toxin is digging a grave just for Ace; can he risk not taking combat training? Will he choose between a normal life or a life of crime fighting? He must decide, soon, for darkness stirs, even within himself.