xp_logs | Ahab: Interlude

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It's the wait that kills you.

The first thing Jennie became aware of was a constant, persistent beeping. She thought to roll over and shut off the alarm clock, but found she couldn't make herself move. Then she became aware of a slow, steady ache in all of her joints and a throbbing in-between her ears. There was a dull metallic taste in her mouth, and a sharp chemical smell that just made her head hurt more.

Consciousness was a slow time coming, and she drifted for a while before trying to move. She shifted uncomfortably, her arms were still outstretched and pinned down, and she was so weak she could barely flex her fingers. With some effort, she forced her eyelids to open. It didn't look like the medlab, or her room. Or any place that she was remotely familiar with at all. She shifted again and whimpered from the pain that caused.

A restraining strap across the forehead prevented her from turning her head, but from several feet away a familiar voice croaked, "Back with us?"

"Marius?" Jennie whispered, slurring slightly. Her mouth felt funny, and she coughed and wet her dry lips. "W-where are you?" she tried to shift again, towards the voice, but she was still securely tied down. Unable to turn her head to the left or the right, she lowered her chin and was able to at least look down at herself. Not much there, just her chest and her feet. There was some miscellaneous medical machinery beyond that. The diodes stuck to her chest stood out in sharp detail.

"By all appearances, strapped to a table a few feet to your left." The words were glib. The tone was not. There was a small, ineffectual sound as Marius tugged on his restraints; it revealed they were nylon, padded, and very, very effective. It also confirmed the stiff, sticky feeling on his immobilized arm was adhesive tape. Tape which held a needle in his arm.

Straps, fluorescent lights, monitoring equipment. Marius squeezed his eyes shut and had to breathe a moment before he managed, in a tone so deceptively calm he found himself amazed, "We may be in trouble."

"Oh my God," Jennie said tightly, in a voice that was higher than her normal pitch. "I'm not wearing any clothes." And at the absolute absurdity of this statement, she began to giggle. A hysterical giggle that ended in a strangled sob. Panic flooded her system, and she jerked at the restraints. Up, she had to sit up, she had to get up, where were her powers, the lines were all wrong and why weren't they working?

He could see nothing, but he could hear the sudden flurry of movement; almost feel it crawling up the skin of his naked arm as if the girl were right beside him. But through the pain, nausea and the almost pathological fear of sterile rooms and stark lighting screaming across every nerve of Marius' brain it wasn't the struggling that got to him, but the hitch of her voice. Crying. It's Jen that's crying, and Jen never cries--

"Jen," Marius said, the sudden urgency belying the hoarseness of his voice, "Jen, listen. No good comes if we lose our heads. She'll be right." Strapped to a table, needles in their arms, heads that pounded with every heartbeat. Around gritted teeth and an increasingly tight chest he grated, as if the force of the words could make it true, "She'll be right."

The girl struggled to regain her composure, shoving the hot, sick ball of panic down deep. She counted to thirteen in her head in first English, then French, then Greek. Hands curled into fists, and Jennie gasped at the sharp pain as her fingernails dug into her palms. That's not right either, what the fuck-- She forced her fingers flat, and herself to take steadying, shuddery breaths.

"It's okay," she repeated to herself softy, "It'll be okay. I'm here, you're here, we're alive, it's all--" something else registered. "Where's Kyle?"

"Don't so much know aside from 'not here'." There wasn't much chance Jennie would notice the conspicuous lack of classmate. Marius tried to fixate on the positive without thinking overmuch about how pathetically little it meant. "Look, let us not obsess. Crystal's safely away, an' I can't think that that doesn't mean somethin'. So let's just . . . let's stay on that, right?"

"Right," Jennie agreed, forcing herself to breathe slowly and evenly. "Right." Just the fact that Marius was there, a few feet away from her and talking was calming her down. She didn't know what she would have done if she had woken up alone. She also didn't mention the things she was starting to notice, now that she was fully awake. The changes. Just what is he doing to us-- no, no, don't think about that. Don't think. "Talk?" she said thickly. "It helps. Keep talking. Please?"

"Right. The distraction of discourse, that would indeed be a relief." Marius took a deep, shuddering breath. Restrained, chemical smells, white rooms, feeling . . . wrong. The nature of his mutation had given him acute knowledge of this scene. But the same memories that made him want to fill the room with screams and tear ligaments fighting the restraints were also the ones that meant he couldn't afford to do any of that. As bad as it was repeating this experience, Marius also remembered what it had been like to go through it the first time.

Maybe he didn't know how to comfort, but he did know how to talk.

"So," he said, forcing his tone conversational despite the faint slurring, "we now have enough evidence to allow extrapolation on the fieldtrip curse. A predictable pattern has emerged, that is, that the aforementioned curse attaches to only every other function. Consider: comas at the art museum, but a perfectly uneventful go of ice-climbing. Dinosaurs at the wildlife preserve, but Hungary? By all accounts refreshingly innocent. I find our teachers' unfortunate incident the other week not only firmly in support of this theory, but further evidence that the presence of students is not in fact a requirement. I feel it would be wholly irresponsible, nay, unforgivable were we not to share their observation with those in positions of proper authority. Should the pattern be divined perhaps measures can be taken. For example, a policy of selective cancellation. There is of course the potential that the curse is above such obvious attempts at subterfuge, but what can be lost?"

He was rewarded with a soft laugh. "Don't forget Seattle and the riot, and the one in Washington where Dr. Grey went evil. But there is always a silver lining with the curse, never even got in trouble for killing Wanda's minibar in the hotel, um, no coma, and with the dinosaurs-- I gave one a heart attack. That was kinda cool." Jennie exhaled and shivered uncontrollably for a second. "Too bad Jay never got pictures of Dr Gr--"

She never got to finish her sentence, the doors to the room where they were being held banged open. Both students jumped. Muffled voices were talking excitedly out of their range of vision.

"Success. It was a complete and total success."

"--amazed he lived through it."

"Should we start on the next one?"

"--Which one?"

"I don't know. Pick one. Flip a coin. I don't care."

"We should take the boy, leave the girl for last."

"--more valuable anyway."

"Take the boy." The words barely had time to register before Marius felt the needle in his arm tug. A hand on the IV, working the tubing -- the needle shifted painfully in his arm at the instinctive tense of muscle. Marius head jerked uselessly against the strap, futilely attempting to see what was being done to him, coldly certain he already knew. "Here, don't--" the protest faltered as his head began to go light and hot, separate us--

"No," Jennie heard herself begging. "No, please don't. Don't take him away. Please?" A head came into her field of vision. It was robed in surgical scrubs, with a cap and mask. The fluorescent lights glinted off the figure's glasses.

"Looks like someone woke up before they were supposed to." The figure said. "That's okay," Jennie could see him fill a syringe. "It'll be over soon. You'll sleep through the whole thing." He spoke soothingly, like to a small child, or a pet. There was a tug on the needle in her own arm, and an uncomfortable sensation of something being injected. Jennie had time for one more whispered "Don't" before darkness swallowed her whole.