Chapter 2: Enemy

Cynthia finds out that her and Eugene aren't the only people with powers.

Chapter 2: Enemy

Cynthia:

                After I had left my room, I wondered through the hallways, dodging nurses and doctors while scanning every sign I could find. I managed to evade everyone and make my way to the security room, only to find that, of course, a guard was there. Stereotypically, he was reading a magazine, not interested in the slightest in the content on the screens. I suppose that was for the better.
                I began debating in my head how best to distract him, or if it came down to it, knock him out. Once again, I flicked my hands and urged fire to come, that maybe I could start a fire somewhere and draw him out of the room. Still no luck.
                “D****t.” I muttered under my breath. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.” I looked through the window in the door, trying to find anything I could use against him. Suddenly, his phone began to ring some sappy song about bleeding love or something. He picked it up casually and spoke into it before springing up and moving for the door. I quickly shrank behind it as he slammed it open and ran down the corridor. Without hesitation, I snuck into the security room and closed the door behind me, making sure to lock it.
                Pulling up a seat, I began to sift through the footage in my room before finding the footage from that day. I right clicked to delete it before stopping. I looked back at my hands and back at the screen. Before, I was able to use the powers, but now I can’t. Maybe there was something in the video that could show me exactly how I had triggered the powers, and I could get them back. It was my best bet. Opening the video, I began to skim through it, looking for any movement from my bed that would signal I was awake. Instead, I saw something else.
                About halfway through the video, a bald man in a black suit came into my room, his back to the camera. He looked at my mom who had stood up, obviously upset at the intrusion. He simply waved his hand in her face, as though it would calm her down. The weirdest part was that it did. She smiled at him like an old friend and stood there transfixed as he spoke to her. She nodded several times before standing up and heading towards the door and leaving. Dumbfounded, I continued to watch, hoping for a glimpse at his face. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out what looked like a syringe, holding it up within camera shot to flick the needle before injecting it into my arm. Almost instantaneously, flames began to shoot out of my eyes (larger than the ones beforehand), my back arching upwards as though I were in pain. The man remained calm and looked down towards his chest, probably writing something down on a notepad or speaking into a recorder. After a few seconds, he took out another needle, this one filled with a bright green liquid and injected it into my arm again. The fire stopped, and I fell back down to the bed, back into my coma. He looked back down to his chest again before turning around to leave. When I saw his face, my jaw dropped in disbelief.
                It was Charlie Redman, CEO of Coda Labs.
                I was so stunned into silence that I didn’t hear the lock being picked behind me. As I began to delete the file, I turned to see a black kid with short hair, roughly my age, standing in the doorway, wearing a patient’s gown. We both stood there in silence, staring at each other until I spoke.
                “Who the hell are you?” I asked.
                “I’m Rodney. Rodney Peters.”

 

Rodney:

                Alright, that’s enough. Move over, Cynthia, it’s my turn to tell the story.

                Alright, so let’s move back a little bit. I was in the explosion too, and I got powers from it just like Cynthia and Eugene, as well as others who you’ll meet later. What happened to Cynthia was similar to what happened to me as far as waking up. When I woke up, it was sudden and filled with fear. I remembered very little about the event, but I remembered that I had tried to save someone before I was hit by the radiation wave. As for who that was, I didn’t remember yet. All I knew, was that I could feel the technology around me. And not like reaching out and touching it, I mean I could feel the electricity and wavelengths of every single piece of technology in that hospital. Within the first seconds of me being awake, I had access to pretty much everything.
                Transfixed by my new abilities, I looked around the room to find a test subject. My eyes finally rested on the TV, something simple and easy. I willed the channel to change, pushing out the waves that I felt in different frequencies and patterns. The channel changed without a delay. I exhaled a breath of surprise and flopped back down into my bed. I began to flip through the programs over and over until I felt it become second nature, effortless even. Laughing, I rolled my eyes around the room, finding something else that I could toy with before they ended up on a security camera. My heart instantly stuck in my throat. I then calmed down, because after all, I had access to every piece of tech in this hospital. Erasing footage shouldn’t be a problem, right? Except it was. The system was locked by an impenetrable security wall, one that I couldn’t budge. I decided to do it manually. I closed my eyes and used everything I could to find webcams, camera phones, anything with weak protection that I could hack into and get a fix on the location of the security room. Eventually I found it. Unfortunately, there was someone inside. I hacked into his cell phone and began snooping, before I found pictures and emails of him and his 8-month pregnant wife. After I found what I need to distract him, I began snooping through his voice mails, so I could figure out the exact wavelength of his wife’s voice. Needless to say, I found it. After being impressed with how quickly I had mastered my abilities, I simply faked a call from her saying that she was going into labor with her voice. He was gone instantly, and I was free. Or so I thought
                After I had made my way to the room, I tried to open it only to find that it was locked. I walked over to the nearest nurse’s desk (which was luckily empty) and took a paper clip. It wasn’t the best way to pick a lock, but it was all I had at the time, so… Yeah.
                That’s when I opened the door to find this pale girl with long hair, down to her ribs. The tips were dyed red, giving into black hair and then eventually blonde. She wore a hospital gown, just like me, and she had a look of confusion and fear in her eyes, just like me.

                What? What do you mean don’t tell them how you looked? Oh boohoo, you’re a blonde, it doesn’t mean anything. Sheesh. Women.

                Anyway, we both stood there silently until she spoke.
                “Who the hell are you?”
                “I’m Rodney. Rodney Peters.” I choked out. My voice still felt rusty from its lack of use.
                I looked behind her at the monitor; it was frozen on the Redman guy from Coda, standing in a room with a comatose patient that looked an awful lot like the girl in front of me. In his hand was an empty syringe, freshly used.
                “What are you doing here?” she asked.
                “That’s none of your business. Who are you?” I countered. She glared at me for a few seconds before opening her mouth to answer.
                “The name’s Cynthia.” she said. “Now why are you here?”
                Whoever this Cynthia girl was, I couldn’t indulge all of her questions with answers. As far as I knew, the guard had already found out that his wife wasn’t going into labor after all and was heading back to his post.
                “I don’t have time for this.” I said. While most of the monitors in the room had been upgraded to LCD, there was a CRT monitor plugged in in the corner. Painfully, I channeled the small amounts of radiation and hit her with it. At the time I didn’t think about the repercussions, only that I needed to save my own skin. Besides, we were already in a hospital; she’d get treatment immediately and maybe survive. She began convulsing before falling on the floor, pounds of sweat beginning to form on her forehead. She looked up at me, hatred and fury in her eyes. I tried my best to look away.
                Pushing her to the side, I looked for the footage of my room before realizing I didn’t even bother to check the room number. I found the folder containing the footage for that entire day and deleted it, instead. Better safe than sorry. After removing the file, I turned to see the girl slowly standing back up. How could she even do that after getting hit with nearly 50 Gy of radiation at once? I decided to ignore her and quickly make my escape. She could take the fall for deleting the footage, so long as I made it out alive. I rushed out the door and back to my room, not bothering to look behind me. God I was such a prick.

 

Cynthia:

                After ditching me to some of the most gruesome pain I had ever felt in my life, Rodney managed to make a clean getaway. Mine was not quite as simple. He exaggerated a bit when he said I was able to get up. It was more like pushing a 500-ton weight away from me while feeling my insides rip themselves apart. I barely managed to make it a few inches off the ground before another wave of pain hit me like a truck and slammed me back onto the floor. I began to try and crawl my way out of the room. Maybe I could make it back to my bed before anyone saw me. It was a stupid fantasy, but it was all I had at the time. I made it about 2 feet from where I was hit by the radiation before becoming dizzy and falling back onto my side.
                “D****t!” I mumbled. “There has to be another way.”
                Another wave of pain washed over me, this one less painful than the others, but still excruciating. After arching my back from the pain, I fell back to the floor, my arms outstretched in front of me. I didn’t know if it was the radiation sickness or not, but as I looked in front of me, I swore that I could see my limbs glowing orange. My confusion was resolved almost immediately as fire shot out of my hand and into the wall, blowing a hole in it. The pain was gone altogether after that, as though the random blast had expelled the radiation entirely and had brought back my powers in the process. I didn’t take the time to care about the why or how, especially since now there was a fire alarm blaring throughout the building. Whoever that Rodney guy was, I’d find him again. And when I did, the outcome would be different.

                

Yes, Rodney, I’m going to tell them about how I kicked your a*s. Well you deserved it!

             

After I had made it back to my room, I crashed on the bed and took a deep breath. Not only did I manage to survive death by radiation twice, but found someone else who was apparently like me and Eugene, someone that could potentially misuse their powers for self-gain. I debated telling Eugene about my powers and going back on the whole “don’t be a hero” rule I set for him. If there were more people like us that were willing to abuse their powers, there would need to be someone else to level the playing field. And that someone would be me.

Author's Note

I appreciate the reviews and critique's I've been getting. As for the lack of interest that the nurses shared in Cynthia's waking up from a coma, that's actually an element for the plot that will be brought up later. Don't worry, most of what I do is usually intentional.

Reviews

[Jacob Clifford]

I can see the story starting to unfold. This chapter has a nice mix of mystery and progression.