Previously...

A familiar figure stepped into view, and Jim took an involuntary step backward.

“All subjects are reporting as predicted, Sir,” a young woman said, handing the man a clip board.

And then Medico looked directly at Jim, and his vision faded again.

Chapter Eight

The next time Jim opened his eyes, he was staring at Trixie. Guilt and confusion wracked him at the sight of her obvious concern.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“We were hoping that you could tell us,” Win said, stepping into his view.

Jim forced himself to a sitting position and swung his legs to the side of the bed he’d been placed on.

“Not so fast,” Brian warned, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.

Jim tried to glare at his best friend, but a stabbing pain had him groaning and pressing his fingertips to his temples.

“Open your eyes, Jim,” Brian commanded.

Jim obeyed, and the pain was less than he had anticipated. He was still sorely tempted to bat the mini flashlight out of Brian’s hand when he flashed it in his eyes, though. “Cut it out,” he ordered. “I’m fine, and I need to get out of here.”

Brian shrugged and slipped the pen light into the pocket of his white lab jacket. “No permanent damage that I can see. I’d take it easy, though.”

Jim glared at him. “Take it easy? Take it easy!? Medico is doing to the same thing to our students that he did to Mom! Don’t tell me to take it easy!”

Win squeezed his shoulder. “We don’t have any proof of that,” he reminded him.

“But I saw—” He stopped. What had he seen? And how could he have possibly seen it? Jim frowned, even though the slight movement sent a fresh burst of pain to his eyes.

“I saw his lab.”

The room went silent.

“Medico’s lab,” Jim continued. “I saw it.”

Win sat beside him on the bed. “You mean that you remembered it? From when we were there?”

Jim shook his head and tried to ignore his irritation at the careful tone his dad was taking. “No. I do remember it, but I wasn’t remembering it. It was the same place, but different.”

Brian patted his lab coat and quickly located a thermometer, but Jim waved it away.

“I don’t have a fever and I’m not delusional!” he protested. “When Brian started talking about the students’ bodies being manipulated, my vision started to blur. When I could see again, I was seeing Medico’s lab. There were lots of scientists, and they were all busy monitoring information coming in via computer. Medico was there, and he looked the same. Older, but the same.” Seeing the sceptical expression on Brian’s face, he concluded, “It’s true! I really did see it!”

“What were you thinking of just before you saw the lab?” Win questioned, drawing Jim’s attention away from Brian.

Jim looked down and stared at the freckles on his hands. “I was thinking about the similarities between what happened to Mom and what’s happening here,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean—”

“No, it doesn’t mean that it was your imagination, or a break with reality,” Win agreed.

Jim felt a surge of relief. He didn’t feel crazy, but he also couldn’t explain how he could have seen what he did. Knowing that his father wasn’t fitting him with a straightjacket helped him more than he wanted to admit.

“You said you saw Medico,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “Did he see you?”

Jim frowned and tried to remember. Medico had looked straight at him, but hadn’t seemed to recognize him. In fact, it had almost been as if Medico had looked straight through him. “I don’t think so.”

“You should describe what you saw to Diana,” Win decided. “She can sketch it, and maybe it will help us make sense of what’s going on. I’ll go get her.”

Brian followed Win from the room, but Trixie stayed beside Jim on the bed. “Your power originally manifested itself in Medico’s compound,” she said, thinking out loud.

“Yes,” Jim said shortly, unwilling to go over how traumatic it had been to suddenly be able to see like an eagle. He had been able to see what was happening to Katie, but hadn’t been able to get to her in time to save her. Some gift, he thought derisively.

“I wonder if the same thing is happening again,” Trixie continued. “Maybe you’re developing or strengthening your gift because of this new threat.”

He shrugged. It was a good theory, but there was no way to tell if she was right or not. Gifts manifested themselves when they chose. Some gifts made sense, others didn’t. Some gifts improved the life of the mutant, others gifts created problem after problem. At the school, they taught that each gift was exactly that—a gift. But when he watched students struggle to adapt to the changes to their bodies and lives, it was sometimes hard to hold on to that belief.

As if sensing his thoughts, Trixie tucked her arms around him and pressed her face to his chest. “We’ll get through this, Jim. See if we don’t!”

He nodded and held her close, doing his best not to crush her. It was times like these that he just wanted to hold on to everything that was good in his life and never let go.

But he was constantly having to let Trixie go.

With that thought, he loosened his grip and kissed the top of her head. To his surprise, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she held tighter and gave him a kiss of her own, only pulling away when Win and Diana entered the room. For the next thirty minutes, Jim described what he had seen. Diana sketched, asked questions, erased, and sketched more. When she handed the tablet to him, he saw a perfect replica of the lab.

“That’s it!” Jim exclaimed. He’d seen Diana work as a sketch artist many times, but she’d never drawn anything that he’d described. It was a little unnerving, but fascinating at the same time.

Win took the tablet. “Let’s pay Luke a visit,” he suggested.

Trixie jumped up eagerly, and Jim was reminded of how hard it was for her to sit still. As frustrating as her impatience could be, it really did make the time she had just spent with him, sitting quietly, that much more precious.

Just outside Luke’s room, Trixie asked for the tablet. “I’ll go in,” she volunteered. “He wants to talk to me, remember?”

Jim bit his lip to keep from protesting.

Win nodded and handed over the sketches. “You know what to do. Just try not to lose your cool.”

Trixie groaned. “That’s a terrible pun, Professor.”

“I thought you’d like it better than me telling you not to set anything on fire,” Win retorted.

With a quick grin over her shoulder, Trixie opened the door to Luke’s room. Before it swung closed behind her, Jim caught a glimpse of the young man lying in bed, awake but pale. Luke’s eyes skittered to the door, but he didn’t seem to register or care about the crowd waiting outside. Jim waited, growing more and more antsy as each moment passed without Trixie joining them. When she finally did join them, she didn’t look happy.

“It’s Medico’s lab,” she said. “He says this is exactly how it was set up the last time he saw it.”

Jim swallowed hard. Apparently his gift had mutated, and he now could “see” even further.

“Did he tell you what Medico has been developing?” Win asked.

She nodded, her blue eyes troubled. “We should get everyone together for a meeting,” she said soberly.

Win nodded and left to gather the others. When they were all together in the lounge, he motioned for Trixie to brief them on what she had learned from Luke.

“Brian, you were right,” she began. “We are dealing with a common virus. It’s what’s causing it that’s not natural.”

Brian nodded. “I suspected as much. How were they infected? Was it airborne? Ingested?”

“No,” Trixie said impatiently. “You’re not listening. It’s not through any natural cause like that. Medico is manipulating actual cells within bodies just by using his mind.”

The glass of water Jim had been cradling cracked, creating a pool of water on the table. Honey immediately threw napkins on top of the growing mess, but Jim kept his attention on Trixie.

“He’s causing illness just by thinking about it?” he recapped, his insides knotting.

She nodded solemnly. “At least, according to Luke.”

The room was silent as they each weighed Luke’s trustworthiness.

“That would explain why Luke was so nervous, even here at the Academy,” Win said thoughtfully. “He knew, or at least believed, that Medico could manipulate his body even from a distance.”

The thought of Medico making the innocent students at the Academy sick was making Jim sick.

“This isn’t good news,” Brian said, his normally dark complexion pale. “The virus itself isn’t life-threatening, but the fever accompanying it is dangerous. I can’t bring down their temperatures with drugs, and if he’s manipulating the illness from the inside, I doubt that external applications like cold baths are going to help either.”

“He wouldn’t really let them die, would he?” Diana asked. Fear caused lines to form on her forehead, but worry made her even more attractive.

All eyes turned to Dan, who turned away uncomfortably. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I haven’t worked with him. I do know that he’s been okay with collateral damage in the past. This, though…” His gaze tracked to the row of rooms housing sick students. “This seems extreme. It’s more likely that he’s trying to get our attention.”

Win nodded. “I agree. He wants something. Whether that’s actual aid from us, or just to prove that he’s in control, I’m not sure.”

“What could he possibly want from us?” Trixie asked. “He’s proven that he can cause sickness. Do we have something that could increase his power? And why would he target mutants? Do you think that maybe his power only works on mutants, and not humans?”

Brian shrugged helplessly. “We have no way of knowing any of those answers. Humans and mutants share many of the same characteristics. In the past, he’s limited his experiments to humans. If I had to guess, I would think that he perfected his technique of causing illness in humans before trying it on mutants.”

“Why this school?” Dan wondered. “He had to know that you would figure it out and trace it back to him. If he was really just looking for guinea pigs, why didn’t he choose homeless mutants? There are certainly enough of them in the city.”

“He wants something from us,” Jim said, his voice tight with strain. “I can’t see any other explanation for him targeting the school.”

“Or, did he target the Academy because we brought Luke here?” Trixie asked, troubled.

Jim could see the guilt gnawing at her and reached for her hand, but she crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself without seeing his gesture.

“If anything, I would say that Luke was a plant,” Win decided. “An unknowing plant, but a plant all the same. I think that we were meant to find him in that alley, and that we were meant to bring him back here.”

Trixie’s eyes flashed. “I don’t like being manipulated.”

Mart, who had remained uncharacteristically silent through the discussion, tossed his sister a weary smile. “Perhaps you’ll be gifted with an opportunity to do some, ah, damage before this incident resolves itself to its natural outcome.”

Trixie snorted and nudged Dan, whom Jim was chagrined to note was seated beside her. “You’ll get used to him,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

Dan shrugged. “Could be worse. At least he doesn’t have a snooty English accent.”

Jim closed his eyes against his growing anger. How could they joke at a time like this? His head began to ache. Deep down, he knew that Trixie was coping with the situation in her own way. When it came to mysteries and crime, she was probably the most serious out of all of them, with the possible exception of Win. And even when his father was focused on a case, it didn’t consume him the way it did Trixie. Consumed to the point of excluding everything and everyone else.

He rubbed his eyes and pushed the thoughts away, but when he opened them again, he didn’t see the lounge. Instead, he saw a convoy of black vehicles on a stretch of familiar highway. The SUVs came into sharper focus, and suddenly he was seeing inside the vehicle, and into the eyes of the man he had watched steal the last breath of life from his mother. The image faded almost immediately, and Jim found himself staring into the confused faces of his friends.

“What did you see this time?” Win asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table.

“Medico is on his way here. With back up.”

“How far out?” Mart questioned.

Jim shook his head to dispel the sharp pain in his temples. The pain wasn’t as severe as when he had seen the lab, and it seemed to be lessening sooner. “Twenty minutes. I saw a highway marker.”

“How much does he know about the school?” Dan asked. “Has he ever been here? Does he have a working knowledge of the staff and students?”

“I’m sure he has complete files on the staff members,” Win said. “Information about the students’ identities and gifts are guarded closely. He’d have to be very determined, indeed, to have spent the necessary effort to uncover it. As for the physical building, I’d say that yes, he’s familiar with it. He was one of the original instructors here.”

“And people wonder why I keep to myself,” Dan muttered.

“He left the school twenty years ago,” Win continued, “but the building hasn’t changed much since then. If he’s determined to break in, he stands a better chance than the average burglar. But that’s why we have security measures in place. It’s unlikely he’ll get in unless we choose to let him in.”

“Which is exactly what we’re going to end up doing,” Brian said, sounding weary and defeated. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to know exactly what he’s done to the students. There’s nothing I can do to help them; I just hope that he knows how to fix whatever it is that he’s done.”

Trixie’s eyes flashed. “I don’t want him in here.”

“Trixie...” Brian began.

“No! How can you even suggest it? This is the man who killed Katie Frayne!” She bit her lip, obviously embarrassed by the insensitivity of her outburst.

Jim felt some of his anger dissipate in the face of Trixie’s righteous indignation. The tight band around his chest loosened at the show of support, and he found himself sending her a grateful, though brief, smile. She returned the smile, and he felt his ability to focus and think clearly return.

“We have to do what’s best for the students,” he decided. “Brian, are you sure that you need Medico’s help?”

Brian ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair. “I could probably figure it out, given enough time, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I don’t know how much time those kids have, and I’m not willing to put my ego ahead of their health.”

“Then we’ll invite him in,” Win decided.

Diana tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture and reached for Mart’s hand. “I don’t like this,” she admitted, her violet eyes troubled.

“None of us do,” Win said grimly. “Diana, I hope that you’ll be willing to help facilitate our discussion. He has an agenda that I haven’t figured out, and having you involved in the talks may help us to draw more information out of him.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “Of course.”

Win checked his watch. “He’ll be here any minute. Dan, you and I will meet him at the gate.”

Everyone looked at Win in surprise. “With any luck, seeing Dan here will throw Medico off his game. He knows Dan, and has actively worked to recruit him. The fact that he’s with us will give him something else to think about, and hopefully he’ll let down his guard. This will work to our advantage.”

Jim pressed his lips together, but didn’t argue. Even though it felt that way, he knew that his father wasn’t trying to replace him. Even if he were, he doubted that Dan would be interested. After all, the newcomer had “lone wolf” practically tattooed on his forehead.

Trixie fidgeted impatiently. “What are the rest of us supposed to do?” she demanded. “Sit here and wait, and hope that Medico doesn’t lose his temper and give both of you the magically incurable flu, too?”

“She’s right,” Honey agreed, moving to stand beside Trixie. Her face was drawn and pinched from a night of little to no sleep, but she stood straight with purpose. “You’ll be careful, Dad.”

Jim winced. He’d lost one parent, but Honey had lost two. Though she usually covered it well, he knew that it still bothered her to see her adoptive father put himself at risk.

“If Medico had wanted to make all of us sick, he would have already,” Win speculated.

“He doesn’t play fair,” Diana reminded them. “There was no warning before he infected the students. We have no reason to believe that he’d give you, or us, any special treatment.”

“Or was there a warning?” Trixie wondered out loud. “Was Luke a message that we didn’t figure out in time?”

“No. Medico isn’t the type to give advance notice,” Win said. “Which is why he’s showing up here unannounced. Dan, are you ready?”

Dan’s form flickered briefly even as he smiled grimly. “Let’s go meet the good doctor.”