Mutation (23 page)

Chapter 39

Often, when I teleport to a potentially hostile environment, I make sure to pop up phased so as to avoid injury.  In this instance, I thought I knew where I was headed – the Academy’s vortex gate – so I didn’t bother taking any precautions.

When I appeared, however, I didn’t seem to be at the school.  In fact, I didn’t see
anything
that I recognized, because there didn’t seem to be anything there to see except a massive windstorm that was blowing everything away.  In essence, the school was gone; my efforts to rescue Li had taken too much time.  Even worse, when I arrived, I was immediately and wickedly bonked on the noggin by some piece of metal debris, and at the same time I was savagely swept up into the storm.

I had trouble concentrating and felt blood starting to smear on the side of my face as I was swirled around so fast that I became dizzy and nauseous.  I phased, which released me from the grip of the tempest.  Now that I was still, I could see that the entire pull of the storm was in one direction:  towards the area where Manny’s Garage was located.  Everything was being sucked towards that area – towards the gravity well Mouse had mentioned.  Estrella.

My eyes fluttered, and I felt myself starting to become solid again.  I began to get pulled by the storm once more.  I shook my head and focused as hard as I could on staying phased, feeling relieved when the wind let me go.  Still, my eyelids felt heavy and I was having trouble concentrating.  Counting the fight with Estrella, I had just received several significant blows to the head in a very short time frame.  If I didn’t have a concussion before, I surely had one now, as my inability to think straight attested.  I needed to find the vortex
now
, assuming it was still open.

I knew that the storm had dragged me for a while before I phased, so I probably wasn’t anywhere near the vortex gate at the moment.  In fact, even switching my vision over to other wavelengths, I couldn’t find any landmarks that I recognized or reference points that were familiar.  The gravity well had pulled away everything but bare ground, and even that was disappearing fast.  There wasn’t even
–

There!

I saw a circular spark of light that seemed familiar off to my right.  It was the vortex!  It had to be!  I started to head towards it and immediately felt sick again.  My eyes started fluttering once more, and I felt myself losing the tenuous grip I currently had on my powers.

Mentally, I struggled as hard as I could, focusing everything I had on staying phased and heading towards that light.  It was no good; I felt myself slowly succumbing to the dark embrace of unconsciousness.  I looked towards the light - the vortex - which was becoming smaller by the second, letting me know that I was substantial again and getting pulled towards the gravity well.  I raised my hand to my chest, thankful to see that I still held Li’s core processor.  This way neither of us would die alone.  Then everything went dark.

Chapter 40

For just the second time in my life (not counting the day I was born), I woke up in a hospital room.  My mother and grandfather, who were in the room with me, immediately looked in my direction.  My mother had bags under her eyes, something I’d never seen before.  Moreover, her eyes were completely red, evidence that she had been doing quite a bit of crying.

She rushed over and gave me a hug.  Needless to say, she began crying again.

Gramps stood back, presenting a stoic demeanor.

he said, mentally. 

I smiled.  Despite the comment, I was aware of the deep sense of relief Gramps felt, just like my mother, knowing that I had apparently recovered.  As even more evidence of how he felt, he eventually shoved Mom out of the way so he could give me a hug as well.

“How long?” I croaked, my throat dry.

“Four days,” Mom said.  “You had two massive concussions, various cuts and bruises, radiation poisoning
–
”

“Radiation poisoning?” I asked incredulously.

“That’s what they said,” Gramps responded.

For a second I wondered how that could have happened, and then I remembered that stars give off radiation.  Therefore, it had to have been Estrella.  That also would have explained why I suddenly got nauseous while fighting her (although a concussion can cause that as well.)

“Wait a minute,” I said, snapping back to the present.  “Where am I?”

“Don’t worry,” Gramps said.  “It’s not a regular hospital.  It’s a place for capes.  Any secrets a super has when he comes here stay under wraps.”

I sighed in relief.  I should have known Gramps and Mom wouldn’t let me end up in just any hospital.  They were the ones who had always insisted on keeping my unique physiology a secret.

We visited together about an hour, with me insisting that I was fine – aside from being hungry enough to eat a horse.  During that time, the doctors and nurses came and checked me out.

“You’ve made a remarkable recovery,” one of the doctors noted.  “Your family wouldn’t authorize any conventional treatment – just an IV drip and round-the-clock surveillance.” He looked at Mom and Gramps as he said this, as if their concept of medical care included bloodletting with leeches.

“But your body seems to have done all the work and healed itself,” he continued, “even from the radiation poisoning – we were even able to take all of the bandages off yesterday.  Hmmm… I don’t suppose you’d consider being part of a study
–
”

“No,” all three of us – me, Mom, and Gramps – said simultaneously.

A short time after the last doctor left – and after I’d finally gotten some food in me – there was a soft knock on my door.  I looked up to find Mouse, Electra, and Smokey in the doorway.

“Is he up for visitors yet?” Smokey asked no one in particular.

“Sure,” said Mom.  “Come on in.”

“If we aren’t intruding, that is,” said Mouse.

“Of course not,” said my grandfather.  “I’ve seen enough of his mug for now anyway.  Come on, Geneva, let’s go get some coffee.”

Gramps and Mom left, but not before my mother and Electra gave each other a kiss on the cheek and exchanged pleasantries.

“What was that about?” I asked Electra as she sat down and took my hand.

“What?” she asked.

“You and my mom acting like old girlfriends,” I said.

“You didn’t know?” asked Mouse.  “Those two have practically been tag-team partners in terms of holding a vigil by your bedside.”

“Yeah,” Smokey agreed.  “One of them was always here.”

I looked at Electra, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze – she just lowered her head, smiling.  I thought how lucky it was that she had survived the virus
–

“The virus!” I shouted.  “What
–
”

“No worries on that front,” Mouse said.  “A friend and I were able to come up with a vaccine.  Everyone’s fine for the most part.”

I let out a sigh of relief.  But Mouse’s statement just brought up a million more questions.  Before I could ask them, however, a voice I never wished to hear again sounded from the door.

“Is this a private party or can anyone join?” asked Gray.

I frowned, clenching my fist in anger.  “What are you doing here, Gray?”

“That’s all I get – ‘Gray’?” he asked, walking into the room in his trademark gray suit.  He stopped at the foot of my bed.  “No ‘Mister’?  Youth today really have no respect.”

I repeated my question.  “What are you doing here?”

“I just came to check up on you.  After all, you know how interested I am in your welfare.”

“All I know is that you sent that maniac Schaefer to the Academy with an agenda to kill us all.”

“Mr.  Schaefer was attached to a humanitarian mission that went to the Academy to help battle the outbreak of a deadly pathogen.”

“No, he went there to
spread
that pathogen, because he hated supers.  I heard him admit as much.  He said they killed his family.”

Gray hesitated a moment.  “When he was young, Schaefer was with his family on a boat that capsized.  He spent six hours in the water and was being circled by sharks when a super rescued him.  They never found his parents, and over time he came to blame supers for not saving them.  However, that’s a long way from wanting to kill them all.”

Gray’s statement explained a lot about Schaefer, but not enough to excuse his actions.

“Look, you can’t sugarcoat this,” I said.  “Schaefer went to the Academy to deliberately infect students, and he was happy to kill people in the process, including my friend Adam.”

“It’s my understanding that your friend Adam Atom went crazy.  He killed another student, then broke out of his nullifier containment unit and destroyed a bunch of school property – including the vortex gate – before blowing himself up.  He was a maniac and a menace.”

“Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my head.  “Schaefer used the virus to amp up Adam’s power.  As far as I’m concerned, what he did to Adam was the same as cutting the brake line in someone’s car so that they have an accident that kills somebody.  Adam didn’t kill that student; Schaefer did.

“As to breaking out of that cell he was in, someone turned the nullifier off.  Adam blew the locks on his cell door and left because he could feel himself losing control.  He was about to go nuclear and he knew it, so he was trying to get as far from the Academy as possible.  He saved everyone in that school.  He’s a hero.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“Because I looked into his mind at the end and he told me.  He also didn’t blow up the vortex gate.  That was Schaefer, too.”

“My, my, you seem to blame a lot on Mr. Schaefer.”

“I blame him a lot because he did a lot.  He killed Adam on a whim, not because Adam had ever done anything to him, but because he was my friend.  That’s your lapdog Schaefer.  So believe me when I say that he’s dead, I’m glad he’s dead, and I’m happier that he’s dead because of me!”

That last wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t mind taking credit for it.  However, Mouse, Electra, and Smokey all went bug-eyed at the statement.

Gray just clucked his tongue and came around to my bedside, smiling.  He reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.  He slapped one cuff on my wrist and the other to one of the side rails of my hospital bed.

“What’s that about?” asked Mouse.

“Your friend here just admitted to killing a federal agent.  I already had a warrant to take him into custody, but now I get to arrest him for murder.  I need to make sure he stays put until the doctor says he can leave.” He turned and started to leave, whistling.

“Hey, Gray,” I said.  He turned back towards me.  I teleported the cuffs off my wrist and the handrail, then flung them at him telekinetically.  He flinched a little as they hit him in the chest, but he caught them as they dropped.

“You won’t need the cuffs,” I said.  “I’ll be where you can find me.”

He frowned a little at that, then turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.  Almost immediately Mouse turned to Electra and Smokey.

“Guys, can you give me and Jim a moment?” he asked.

Smokey and Electra nodded and left the room, whispering in hushed tones about what had transpired between me and Gray.

“Is there some special school where they teach you how to make any given situation worse?” Mouse asked when we were alone.  “Because the flair you have for it goes far beyond any natural ability.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but that guy just rubs me the wrong way.”

“Is it true about Schaefer?  Did you kill him?”

“Not exactly.” I explained what happened.

“Well,” Mouse said when I finished, “let’s make sure you tell it that way when you make your official statement – if it comes to that.” That last part made me feel that he had something in mind, but I asked another question instead.

“How’d I get back through the vortex?” I asked.  “The last thing I remember is trying to get to it, but I know I didn’t make it.”

“Alpha Prime,” he said plainly.  “That place started coming apart even faster than I predicted.  We couldn’t wait for you on that side any longer, but we kept the vortex tunnel open, hoping you’d come through.  We were getting ready to shut it down - it would have sucked the entire Earth through - when Alpha Prime came bursting in.”

“I guess it can’t be an amazing rescue unless the world’s greatest superhero is involved,” I said with derision.

“No, that’s not it at all.  Once he heard you were on the other side, we couldn’t stop him.  I even told him not to go, that he’d probably be killed if he did.”

I sat up.  “What?  I didn’t think anything could kill Alpha Prime.”

“I didn’t know if it could or couldn’t, but you have to understand something.  From what you told me, it sounded like Estrella was going through the life cycle of a star in record time.  Red giant, white dwarf…”

Red giant!

He trailed off in confusion as I started laughing, so I had to tell him about Estrella
literally
becoming a red giant.

“Interesting,” he said.  “That’s exactly what happens to a star – it becomes massively huge and red.  Hence the name red giant.  But at the time I arrived, I think she was in the white dwarf stage of the life cycle…”

As Mouse explained it, the gravity of a white dwarf is about 100,000 times that of Earth.  After that, the star explodes, going supernova.

“And at some juncture after that,” Mouse said, “a black hole forms, with gravity so strong that not even light can escape.”

“And if we’d been stuck on the other side,” I said, “we would have had to go through all that.”

“Now you see why I say he might not have survived.  In all honesty, I didn’t think he’d even be able to escape the gravitational pull of the white dwarf, and I told him as much.”

“But he came anyway.” I suddenly had a newfound respect for my father.

“As I said, once he heard you were still over there, there was no stopping him.  And somehow – against all odds – he found you and brought you back.  He saved your life.”

At that point, a nurse came and announced that visiting hours were over.  Everyone came around once more to say their goodbyes, and then I was alone with my thoughts.