“Wh- HOW is that.?” he grasps the frame, for fear of it crashing down. As Bryan’s eyes bug out, she steps away, leaving the feat of strength to his body alone. She applies almost no pressure at all, and the bed lifts like a sheet of paper. As we speak, your cardiovascular and respiratory systems are essentially backup generators you’re running on emissions that weren’t scientifically recognized last week.”īefore he knew what was happening, the woman takes him by the back of his hand, and places it under a lip of the capsule in which he had been convalescing. You didn’t simply survive the event the energy we lost control of superseded your physiology. He grinned with just his bottom teeth and gave the pair a tiny salute.īryan nearly blanked on everything the woman had just conveyed. More than that, you’re why we aren’t back at square one.”Īs she said this, someone very new swaggered into Bryan’s makeshift recovery room: Dressed in fluorescent green and baby blue, with a collar and beard of equivalent extravagance. We might have been looking at a termination of all our funding and projects, but you’ve pulled through. To know there wouldn’t be malfunctions,” she elaborates to a puzzled Bryan. But we had run enough simulations and smaller models, to persuade the city we were secure. Always heard people, like, died to that kind of thing.” “It was about this time last week that you were caught in an atmospheric phenomenon brought on by the meltdown of Trojan Labs’ greenhouse reactor.” “You’re going to ask me if I… I know my name. “Wait,” Bryan stops her as she clears her throat. Her staid face, and even the way she stood, was a veneer, hiding a dangerous avidity. The woman with the calmative eyes was there, like always. He was standing upright as well: an unexpected revelation. It hadn’t? Now that humming, which had plagued him every moment he could remember being here, was inside him. “It’s our job to keep him safe, not in the dark” Liz King asserts resolutely.īryan wasn’t sure how it had been hurting in the first place, but, whatever it was, it had finally dulled. “Easy for you to say, you were always the bigger man,” Greg King chokes on a laugh, and his wife lays one hand on his shoulder. “Forgiving yourself is a good place to start, Greg.” Christ I don’t even know how I’m handling this.” “… Can you appreciate… that I cannot and will not tell our son how he should be handling this? We know what… happened. Her husband’s interruption is indistinct, but only so in volume. “I was going to tell Chris that we think he needs to stay at home when he’s not at school, for the time being. “You didn’t finish mine correctly though.” Detective King’s fingers curl in and out of a fist on the doorframe as he watches his son. Chris’ parents approach the stoop uneasily. He manages the door and peels out down the sidewalk, in the direction of Hamilton Junior High. “I’ll be home on time! We won’t get into any more trouble, I promise!” “Going to school, being responsible!” contests Chris, one arm through the wrong strap of his pack, attempting to unlock the already-unlocked front entrance. King objects as he darts to various corners of the room, recovering his backpack and materials that had been dropped the other afternoon.

“I guess if that’s all sorted out, I can make it to class if I hurry.” “Well,” Chris pitches forward onto his feet.

The living room clock ticks incessantly throughout their still largely-unfurnished home. Chris puffs air behind his lips, cringing as he takes turns studying each of their expressions. And you’re going to be responsible, not looking for trouble. “But we know, now that you and your old friends have caught up, you’re going to be focused on things like, let’s say, your classes. King resolves, earning a fixed stare from his wife. “… is that you’re restless, moving back here,” Mr. “We… I didn’t do it to make you upset,” Chris explains sincerely. His father had not spoken since driving Chris away from the scene at Frannie’s place. Some strands loosened from her otherwise kempt hair, and the dark of her eyelids, betrayed the anxiety she was trying to bury. His mother sat forward on the couch, hands clasped under her chin. Did you forget that we are your parents, and we want to know you’re safe? Chris.”Ĭhris jolts out of his internal reflection. “It’s one thing to lie to us, it’s another to let your friend be a part of it. They say Roger told them he would be HERE for the night.” “We call the Dunbars and they tell us you aren’t there.

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