11

Date:

2011 January 4th - Tuesday - Earth Bet Time

Danny watched his daughter lying in the pristine white hospital bed. They hooked her up to all manner of machines, all of them beeping and booping in some manner. But all he could hear was his own brain yelling at him for letting her down.

He didn't really know how yet, but he was sure that this was his fault.

Getting the call from the hospital about her almost stopped his heart. Only after the person calling assured him she wasn't in real danger did he calm down somewhat.

Driving to the hospital, he imagined all sorts of nightmare scenarios. But he would have never thought that all awaited him was this.

According to the nurses, the janitor at school found her locked into a locker with something nasty. They didn't really go into details about what was in the locker, but it was definitively nasty.

However, according to the nurse he talked to, she was extremely lucky. She didn't have any open wounds that could have infected. So they only had to deal with what she breathed in and some minor dehydration.

Currently, they were keeping Taylor asleep. Letting her rest and leave the antibiotics to do their work.

He understood that this was the best thing to do. But the father in him wanted nothing more but to wake her up, then apologize and tell her he loved her.

Then get the names of the animals that did this to his little girl and go do something bad to them.

The fact that the school immediately claimed that they had no evidence about what happened was infuriating and suspicious at the same time. He was expecting a skeevy lawyer showing up any time now. Not that he would sign anything without talking to Taylor. If they thought he was an easy mark, they would be disappointed.

He was sitting on the only chair in the room, his elbows resting on his knees, while his head was in his hands. He was contemplating going home. Doing some work just to distract himself when something changed.

At first, he didn't even notice what was happening. The beeping noises had become so familiar over such a short period; it was hard to realize when their sound changed.

He immediately stood up, frantically looking for the machine that was making the noise. Sadly, he wasn't familiar with them enough to pinpoint it.

However, he could clearly see Taylor tossing around on the bed, not really thrashing, but still agitated.

He was about to yell for help when several nurses and one doctor came barreling into the room. He wanted to do something. Anything. But obviously, he could only stand there while the professionals fussed over her daughter.

After a few moments, one of them turned off the beeping machine and their movement became less frantic.

The next minutes were torture to watch. They checked all the machines, prodded and probed Taylor. Finally, after a final murmured conversation, the nurses left the room, and the doctor turned to him.

"Mr. Hebert," he introduced himself, offering his hand, "I'm Dr. Gazby."

He shook his hand, but he only had one thing on his mind. "What happened, doctor?"

"A nightmare, Mr. Hebert," answered the man.

"A nightmare did this?"

The doctor gave a nod. "Yes, it did." Here he looked at Taylor. "You don't have to worry, medically nothing bad happened."

"Do you mean that non-medically it is bad?" asked Danny worriedly.

"Mr. Hebert," began the doctor, now looking into his eyes. "Events like these leave a mark on a person. I expect that you and your daughter will be dealing with this for a while."

Danny could only nod as an answer. The thought of what her daughter would have to deal with when she woke up scared him.

He couldn't imagine what she went through there. But he was confident in one thing.

He would not abandon her. He did it once, and now the results spoke for themselves.

The doctor, ignoring as he was wrestling with his inner demons, continued. "However, I have some good news."

Hearing that, Danny looked up from Taylor's still body. "What is it, doctor?"

"We checked, and the sedatives in her system will be out by tomorrow night. So hopefully she will wake up naturally on the 6th." Dr. Gazby gave him a tight smile then continued, "and if all our tests come up green, she can go home on Friday."

He felt relief at hearing those words. He wanted nothing more than to hear her voice again. And of course to apologize.

"Thank you, Dr. Gazby. Thank you."

Dr. Gazby just smiled. "No problem, Mr. Hebert. Just doing my job."

He clapped Danny on his shoulder and said, "Now why don't you go home and take a shower? Taylor will be here tomorrow, and you are not helping anyone by sitting here and brooding."

At first, Danny wanted to lash out at the doctor. How dare he tell him to leave his daughter alone. But as he further thought about it, he realized; he could be doing things that would be helpful instead of sitting here.

He looked at the doctor and said, "You're right, doctor."

Dr. Gazby smiled again, opened the door, and motioned for him to go first.

Danny nodded in thanks and left the room with newfound determination.

Date:

? - ? - Earth Bet Time

She was on a bed again.

She didn't know how long she laid there. How long she was feeling.

When Admin removed his control over her emotions, they came back like a blizzard that threatened to engulf her.

She could tell that she cried, yelled, even begged to let it end.

But more than anything, she just despaired.

The feeling came in waves. Sometimes she was horrified at what Emma did. Sometimes she was disgusted by the gunk in the locker, trying futilely to remove the mess from her body.

And there were times where she just wanted to yell herself hoarse at the injustice that happened to her.

And now she was on the bed where she woke up, still so alone.

She was contemplating going to sleep for real, hoping that she would wake up in the hospital for real. Hoping at least Admin didn't lie about that.

As she was about to move into a more comfortable position, she heard it.

"Calm down, Taylor, honey, there's nothing to worry about!"

It took her approximately two seconds to sit up and take in the view.

There she was. Her Mother.

Smiling at her, yet not at her. Her eyes looking at something that was not there. It took her a few additional seconds to realize that she was looking at a hologram before it continued. The recording gave a loving smile, then shattered into a million little pixels.

Before she could think about what she saw, another appeared. This time, Annette was standing some distance away. Clearly pregnant.

"I've decided, love! Let's call her Taylor!"

The smile on her face was radiating joy. And Taylor, despite everything else, could feel herself smile at the view. Before she could even take in the full picture, it shattered again.

This time it took several seconds for the next one to appear. Giving her time to ponder the implications. Admin obviously projected the recordings, for what reason she didn't know. But the thought of somebody using her mother's image. Her words. It filled her with such a fury, she could hardly describe it.

She wanted to lash out, tell him to stop it. That she couldn't be bought off with cheap words from recordings. Yet she couldn't help but yearn for more. She missed her mother, and now that she could hear her, see her again, she didn't want it to stop.

Before she could decide, another projection appeared.

This time it was just Annette, standing in normal clothes, looking somewhat downward.

"I love you, little owl!"

As soon as the words left the mouth of the simulacrum, she was swiveling her head around, looking for Admin. And she wasn't planning to thank him.

A few seconds of intense search netted her one very solemn-looking slime. Hovering just a few feet away from her bed.

She stood from the bed and began striding towards him, fully intending to do something violent.

"Taylor, I… " he began, but she interrupted him.

"How dare you?" she yelled into his face. "How dare you use her?"

"How dare you use my own mother against me?" she finished, looking directly into Admin's eyes.

"I thought you would appreciate seeing her again." came the bland reply.

"And you thought you could control me with those, huh?" she retorted bitterly.

"NO!" he cried out desperately. "No, Taylor. I would have offered them to you later as a gift."

"Sure!"

"Believe me, Taylor," he beseeched her, his voice desperate. "I only wanted to help you."

"Of course!" she yelled in exasperation. "And I will believe you, after what you did to me!" She looked at him with derision. "Pull the other one!"

He looked at her sadly. "Please, Taylor…"

She huffed, turned around, and walked towards her bed.

She called out without looking at him when she reached it. "Give me a comfy sofa, I want to think."

The only thing she heard was a relieved sigh, and a comfortable-looking sofa appeared in the place of her bed.

After a while, she asked him. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" came the immediate response.

She snorted. "Mess with my emotions."

Admin sighed, then answered her. "I did not mess with your emotion. Not like you think."

"I simply distanced you from them. I planned to let you connect them slowly after our conversation."

"Really?" asked Taylor skeptically.

"Despite what you may think, I'm not against you. In fact, you are basically my only hope."

"Then why?" she asked, now more interested but still suspicious.

"Would you have believed me I mean no harm to you if I had started with that?" he asked wryly.

He didn't even wait for her answer. "Of course not. Nobody would."

"Why was it even necessary to do it?" she wondered.

"I wanted to make sure that I can help you through them," he answered. "The only thing I didn't count on was how fast you would realize that I had done something."

He sighed. "Which in retrospect was my fault for not considering several other factors. My plan was giving you the shiny as a distraction from everything, then slowly ease you back to the actual world."

"Well, that was a shitty plan."

"I made do with what I had."

"Didn't you say you observed me? Shouldn't you know how I think?" she asked.

"No, I recorded your life and monitored your health. I watched a few moments here and there, but overall all I saw was a few numbers in a report," he explained, then continued as if sensing his next question. "My prediction was based on that. That said, there was very little chance your reaction would be this… explosive."

"You need to check your prediction then," she told him irritably.

"Unfortunately, predicting human behavior is not always one hundred percent."

Then she got an idea. "Are you still doing it?"

"It's turned on, but just in case you would need it." he smiled at her, but she refused to smile back. "What you are feeling is genuine."

She went back to thinking, and he fell silent for a little while.

After a few minutes, he haltingly began again talking. "I have never been great with emotions, Taylor. I hope you can forgive me for my blunder."

Taylor looked back at him. "I would call it more than a blunder."

"But," Admin looked hopefully at her, "if you promise me you won't ever do it again, I think we can get along."

"What about emergencies?"

"Sure, but we will talk about what constitutes an emergency."

"Sure."

Taylor didn't know what to feel. Here she was. Got attacked, got told she had powers. Figured out that she was controlled. Broke down. Had a talk with her power where she came out on top. At least it felt like that.

There was no confusion like when she first woke up. Nothing missing. She felt like herself. She felt like always. But this minor victory made her think that not all was lost. That she could get out of the pit where life threw her.

She didn't trust Admin yet, but she realized she had no choice but to work with him. According to what she knew, there was no giving back powers. Much better to use it with Admin's help than to refuse and have him do something else she wouldn't like.

She spent the next few hours thinking and talking with Admin.

She asked about the recordings. Where and how much he got.

And when she heard he really recorded her entire life and her mother's (and proved with a few samples), she was horrified at that violation of her privacy. Yet couldn't help but feel thankful. She didn't have a lot of real mementos of her mother, so these recordings were balm to her soul.

As she was interrogating her power about it, she realized something.

Her power wasn't human. It didn't think like a human. It probably looked at a human, saw humans liked their families, and so it recorded it for her. Like going to the grocery store for a routine run, but picking up her father's favorite sweet on a lark, because she knew he hadn't eaten it in a while.

After that realization, her anger abated somewhat. But she still couldn't shake off the memory of her blunted emotions. The wariness diminished a little, but she resolved to take in everything he did or said with that in mind.

Still, she couldn't help but admit now that she was done with her breakdown, and had answers to the questions that bothered her, she was much more appreciative of her situation.

She also asked questions about her new power. Getting more into the nitty-gritty details of them.

She couldn't wait to fly. Of course, Admin had tried to douse her enthusiasm with the fact that at first, she could only levitate. Which didn't really work, because to her anything that brought her closer to the freedom of the sky was awesome.

Her main power was also spectacular. And if what Admin was telling her was true, then she would be a true powerhouse after some training. He really wasn't clear how much she would need to train, but she hoped it wasn't much.

She couldn't wait to kick ass and take names.

The so-called lesser powers also intrigued her.

The body and mind enhancements, while they sounded cool, didn't really interest her. The Tinker power, however, definitely had her attention. After all, who wouldn't want to churn out super technology that could change the world?

They were awesome enough that she wasn't even disappointed that she didn't get a straight-up Alexandria package.

And if she understood correctly, then her Tinker power would give her the blueprints that would allow her to help her father and the world.

Which was much better than any bad guy punching.

Not that she didn't plan to punch some bad guys. Cleaning up the Bay was right at the top of her list.

The thought of her name out there, as the savior of the world, was something that cheered her up immensely. She couldn't wait for Emma and Sophia to see what she could do.

After she got to know more about her powers, she interrogated Administrator about his plan. Seeing as he was granting her enough power to rule a small nation (childhood dream, here she comes), she was curious about what he would need help with.

Admin at first hemmed and hawed, refusing to even discuss it. Always distracting her with additional facts about her powers.

She could create clones. How cool was that?

Even after several hours of badgering, the only thing he told her was that he had a plan. Which would help her, the world, and him at the same time. However, to make sure it succeeded, he would need to keep it a secret.

That made Taylor leery. She didn't even fully trust him, yet he wanted her to follow some nebulous plan of his, hoping it would somehow help her?

Taylor leaned back in a beach chair. Enjoying the warm rays of the sun. Drinking some kind of fruity drink, listening to a virtual ocean, courtesy of her new acquaintance.

After a thorough discussion, she felt much calmer. And was ready to tackle whatever happened next.

"So what's the next step of your brilliant plan power of mine?" she asked sarcastically, not even opening her eyes.

She could feel the eye roll in the reply.

"Nothing complicated, Taylor."

"Forgive me if I don't trust you."

Admin huffed, probably also glared at her, then sighed.

"You have to talk to your father."

Hearing that caused Taylor to sit up and look at Admin incredulously. "About what?"

"Your new power."