Paranormals (Book 1) (14 page)

Steve did as he was told, his brow furrowing as he struggled to master this first step. He pictured how he’d always seen thermal vision in the movies — "Predator" in particular leaped to his mind. Heat traces, glowing in the dark ... After a few seconds, the eye-band
beeped
, and Alan pulled it away.

"Now keep your eyes on me," Alan said as he walked over to the door, then grinned and added, "no pun intended." Steve smirked at that and allowed a slight groan to escape his throat, which made Alan grin even bigger. He flipped the light switch, then stepped over and drew heavy drapes across the windows, plunging the room into darkness.

"You can still see me?"

"Somewhat. My eyes adjusted immediately, but I really can’t see you that much better than I would have before."

"For the moment," Alan said. "Think ‘thermal’ again. Don’t just say it in your head,
push
it, like before.
Thermal
."

Steve focused.

Thermal ... thermal ...

At first, nothing happened ... then, suddenly, his vision sort of
pulsed
, and he could clearly see the different heat sources in the room — Alan shone like a bonfire.

"Oh, wow," he chuckled. "I can see you
now
."

"Excellent."

Steve was really grinning for the first time since his accident. For the moment, his woes were far from his mind. He gazed at the incredible light show, then laughed and mimicked a punctuated sound effect.

"What are you doing?" Alan asked, chuckling himself in confusion.

"Oh, come on, Alan." He repeated the sound effect. "Didn’t you ever watch ‘The Six Million Dollar Man?’ "

Alan gave one of his half-grunts. "Believe you me, young sir, those eyes cost
a lot
more than six million dollars." He reached for the light switch. "Think ‘standard’ to return to the normal spectrum. You’ll find that a bit easier than switching to thermal; it’ll also work if you think ‘default,’ ‘regular’ ... whatever you prefer. Whatever means ‘normal vision’ to you — your eyes will find a broad, basic concept like that fairly simple to read. It’s the
specials
that require more specific programming."

Steve complied as Alan turned the lights back on and reopened the windows. "How exactly
are
they programmed?"

"Your eyes are controlled cybernetically, but they
cannot
, of course, read your actual thoughts. What we did earlier was train them to recognize the impulses of your brain for your concept of ‘thermal.’ You could just as easily have chosen ‘ice’ as your trigger and pictured a snowy day, if that’s what you’d wanted — I had them set to your infrared bandwidth, so the implants would have thought that was how you saw the concept." He grinned. "For simplicity, I’d recommend you keep the training as
literal
as possible."

"So they now recognize what I think of as ‘thermal,’ and respond accordingly."

"That’s correct. The process isn’t really all that different from how a polygraph test works ... although much,
much
more sophisticated. Some of the implants’ abilities don’t
need
to be trained, such as the glare protection." Alan chuckled as he seated himself in the guest chair. "You’re the only person alive who could look straight into a nuclear explosion without being
blinded
."

Steve grunted at the irony. He was looking at his hands, clicking his thermal vision on and off. He could even see the cooler temperatures where the IV fluid first entered his hand. "What other tests do we need to run?"

"That’s all for the time being — I merely wanted to confirm the implants were properly aligned before we proceed any further. You’re being released into our care tomorrow. Once we’re safely on
Davison Electronics
property, we’ll initiate and test some of those weapons we discussed." He hesitated a moment, then said, "It’s
your
company now, Steve."

Steve turned his attention to the older man. "What?"

"It’s in your parents’ will," Alan said gently. "Joseph told me once. You’re still subject to the rules and regulations of the PCA merger, but otherwise, it’s yours. It was originally intended to be split between you and your brother fifty-fifty, but ..." He cleared his throat. "The will hasn’t been read without you, of course, but I thought you’d want to know. Everything is yours."

His family had died, but now he was rich.

For a crucial moment, Steve thought he was going to vomit.

PCA

A couple of hours after Alan left, Steve grew restless. Now that he could see again, his hospital room suddenly made him feel claustrophobic in a way that even his temporary blindness hadn’t, and he decided to go for a walk.

Pulling his IV stand along with him, he stepped into the hallway. Although he’d been transported via bed and wheelchair through here several times, this was the first time he’d actually
seen
the place. When he first noticed the nurses’ station to his left, his impulse was to saunter in the opposite direction so as not to be noticed. Then he realized that he wasn’t under any orders to stay put, so he headed that way after all. Maybe he could strike up a conversation with his evening duty nurse — and find out what she
looked
like at the same time.

As he made his way down the stretch of corridor, he slowly became aware of a fairly animated conversation already taking place.

"... be so
proud
of him, Maggie!"

"Oh, I
am
, believe me! Why do you think I brought this in today?"

"Does he realize how
important
this is, or is he just glad he got out of all that extra homework?"

Three women, all huddled around something below the counter level. As Steve drew closer, one nurse — "Maggie" — glanced up.

"Oh, Mister Davison!" The others backed off and spontaneously became interested in various other paperwork.

"At ease, ladies," Steve soothed with a grin. "I won’t tell."

All three relaxed and returned his smile. "Can we get you anything, Mister Davison?"

Steve now recognized Maggie’s voice —
she
was his PM duty nurse. Until now, he’d only known her as "Nurse Lawrence," a title labeled to a disembodied voice. He now saw that she was a very real, not unattractive woman perhaps ten years older than himself. Staring into her dark brown eyes, he shrugged. "No, not really. I’m just stretching my legs, fending off a little boredom ..." All of the sudden, Steve realized why he’d headed in this direction after all, and the words flowed right out of his mouth without any further consideration. "I, uh ... I wanted to
apologize
for my behavior the past couple of weeks. I know that I’ve been a little ... cranky."

"Oh, Mister Davison," she said with deep empathy, and he saw her eyes moisten. "Please, don’t think anything of it. You’ve suffered a
terrible
loss. I wouldn’t have expected anything different. You have nothing to apologize for, Mister Davison."

"
Steve
," he insisted.

She smiled. "Steve, then. I’ll bet you’re happy to get the bandages off. And you must be so
relieved
."

It took Steve a moment to remember the story that Alan had deliberately circulated through the regular staff: Upon further examination from a series of specialists, the wounds to the tissue of his eyes had been far less
severe
than originally thought — the surgery a week ago had merely been to insure there were no complications along the natural healing process.

"
Very
relieved," Steve assured her, allowing his heartfelt comfort that the mechanical implants had actually
worked
to seep into his voice. "It sounded like
you
were pretty pleased about something before you noticed me."

"Oh! Oh, yes!" Her abashed chuckle seemed both embarrassed and proud. "My son, Jeffrey, wrote an essay for his fifth grade class near the end of the school year. He’d had the chickenpox, and his teacher let him do it for extra credit. His teacher praised it then, but I just received notice that they’re going to have a special PTA meeting when school starts again, just to discuss the issues
my son
wrote about!"

She was so
proud
. For a brief moment, Steve remembered how his mother would take his and John’s report cards to the beauty salon ... but he pushed the thought from his mind, lest his gloom return just after he’d made amends for it.

"That’s very impressive," he told her. "What did he write about?"

"The paranormals," she said. She then hesitated before adding, "I have a photocopy ... well,
several
photocopies of his essay here with me. Are you seeing well enough to read?"

Steve started to pretend that he wasn’t, but then he realized that he was honestly curious about what little Jeffrey had to say. "Sure. Can I have a copy?"

"Of
course
!" Maggie beamed as she produced the stapled pages from the stack in front of her. Steve accepted it with a smile, thanked her, and returned to his room.

Situating himself on the bed, Steve turned his brand-new eyes to their first task of reading. " ‘The Paranormals,’ " he mumbled aloud, " ‘by Jeffrey Lawrence, fifth grade — Miss Wallis ...’ "

When he finished, Steve lay his head back, closed his mechanical eyes ... and seriously contemplated little Jeffrey’s words.

TAKAYASU AND SHOCKWAVE

An awed, almost
comical
hush fell over the whole office when Ensign Takayasu entered with Shockwave in tow — Michael had to bite the inside of his cheek to hold his neutral expression.

Westmore, predictably, waltzed in only a few yards before acknowledging their audience. "What, you’ve never seen a half-Jap and his wacko partner before?" He clapped his hands sharply. "Back to work, people, back to work!"

With an equally amusing stutter, the PCA regional headquarters resumed its normal bustle. Michael led his associate to their double desk near the back.

"What’s this?" Shockwave grumbled. "No private office, secretaries? You’re an
officer
! Ain’t that good enough to get your own—"

"Park it, Mark."

"Whatever." But he did sit down.

Only strict discipline prevented Michael from gloating at the watchful eyes around him. Upon calling one of his Academy roommates over the weekend before he first met Westmore, Michael discovered that a
betting pool
had begun that they were talking about in every district in the region. According to Jamie, his new co-workers were predicting all kinds of results for his first day with the infamous Shockwave.
Prompt-request-for-transfer
and
resignation
led the gauntlet — there was even a small table offering odds on a fight ending in his
death
. Every outcome imaginable ... except
success
.

So Michael — never one to back down from a challenge, behind his back or otherwise — sat down and thought long and hard about how to make things work. He was an amiable guy, and reasonably sure that he could get along with any difficult personality with time and effort, but that wouldn’t cut it now. He wanted to prove himself, in every possible way, and how better to start than by taming the rebel without a cause?

But that was a good question —
how
? After all, striking superior officers wasn’t exactly on the resume of your run-of-the-mill jerks. So what did that say about Mister Westmore? Problems with authority. Loner. Renegade. Probably wouldn’t take to patronizing psychology, and sure as hell no pulling of rank. He liked attention, though, or he wouldn’t have been able to reign himself in for the PCA this long. And there was also the notable fact that Westmore had
not
gone rogue, even when rogue was in vogue.