FIREWALL: Playing With Fire

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

Mike's Apartment, the day after the attack

"You what?" Mike exclaimed loudly. "You rammed into her?"

"Look, it wasn't because I wanted to," Oscar replied, "Louis and I followed her for a bit but when we saw that she was filming you, we knew that we needed to do something."

Mike looked at Louis, "she was recording us?"

Louis nodded but Oscar answered, "she recorded the whole chase scene, we believe, but what would have been the most interesting thing in the video would have been you using your powers to tear the roof of their vehicle off."

Mike paced up and down the room, "what happened afterwards?"

"We stopped and helped her out of the wreckage. She was unconscious, so she didn't see us using our powers, her phone, luckily, was not completely written off. We managed to delete the video. Then we drove her to the hospital and left before they could ask us for our details." Oscar explained.

"Is she still at the hospital?" Mike asked.

"Yeah."

"Do we know if she sent that video anywhere?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, about that, we don't know." Oscar said quietly.

"So the video can be anywhere?" Mike groaned and stayed silent, deep in thought.

"What are we going to do next?" Oscar asked quietly after a small silence.

"You and Louis need to start looking for the third terrorist that escaped. I'll go see what she remembers of the whole chase." Mike explained, he went to the door, and turned back to them, "lock the door when you leave."

XXX

Charley's Hospital Room

Charley woke up with a startle, she tried to sit up, but couldn't because of the sharp pain that invaded her mind and chest. Her body felt heavy, like she had been asleep for a while. For a bit she didn't realise that she was in a hospital room, but when she heard the heart monitor beeping and realised the white surroundings of the room, she connected the dots.

But she still couldn't remember what happened to her.

A grey-haired man peeked in and smiled. Charley noted how abnormal the grey hair looked on a young man's looks, but she didn't say anything about it.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hello." The man said, walking into the room. "I see you're up."

"Yeah I guess, but I can't remember what happened to me." Charley explained.

"You were in an accident, your car crashed into a telephone pole." The man explained as he took in the sight of her hospital room, "I managed to get you out and get you to the hospital, well, my friends and I did."

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Charley started, "it feels like I've seen you from somewhere."

"I'm so sorry, the doctor did mention you hit your head quite badly, my name's Mike. I just moved to LA and I happened to be there when you crashed." Mike explained. He believed it was safe enough to leave her with his first name since she doesn't remember anything that happened. "When my friends and I got to you, you were holding your phone, was that what caused you to crash?"

Charley felt like Mike was ridiculing her, "for your information, I am a fantastic driver!" She winced at the pain that that exclamation gave her.

"No, I don't mean it like that, I was just wondering, why you would have your phone out." Mike explained himself.

Charley thought in silence for a bit and a picture of the terrorists popped up in her head, she remembered that she was a hostage at the First Republic Bank of America and that they had left. "The terrorist attack..."

At the corner of her eyes, she noticed that Mike tensed up a bit, but she ignored it.

"Yes there was a terrorist attack yesterday." Mike said.

"Yesterday?" Charley asked, a bit too loud for her comfort, "how long have I been out?"

"Over fourteen hours, you needed a couple of stitches on your head and you had some rib bruising," Mike explained, "but what about the terrorist attack?"

Charley focused at the image of the terrorist leaving the bank in a van and her rushing over to a stranger's car. That must've been the car she crashed in. "I think I was recording where the terrorist went. I can't remember any more than that."

"Guess who's here?" Marty exclaimed as he dashed through the doorway, Sandra following behind him. They noticed Mike already standing next to Charley, "who are you?"

"He's the one that found me." Charley explained.

Mike put out his hand to Marty who shook it cautiously, "Mike."

"Marty."

Then he shook Sandra's hand, she was more friendly than Marty was, "Mike."

"Sandra."

Mike got back to the point after the introductions, "Yeah, anyway, I just explained that I moved to LA recently and I witnessed the aftermath of the crash."

"You just happened to be there when the crash happened? That's a bit convenient." Marty murmured.

"Marty!" Charley exclaimed again, and once again winced at the jolt of pain. She lightly clutched her chest.

"It's okay." Mike said, he put on a friendly smile.

Charley's doctor, Doctor Mullen walked in and paused for a bit, "wow, there's quite a lot of people here." He turned his attention to Charley and looked at his chart.

"Well, all that we could find at this point is there isn't a lot of things broken in you. I've explained to your saviours that there seems to be some ribs bruised and that knock on your head gave you quite a bit of a concussion. Do you remember anything at all?"

Charley cleared her throat and thought hard. "All I can remember is that I was late for work yesterday morning and I was out recording a story with Marty and then that's it."

"So you know that you got brought in yesterday?" Doctor Mullen asked.

"Yeah, Mike told me." Charley pointed at Mike.

"I see." Doctor Mullen took a look at Mike, "were you one of the people who brought her in?"

"Yeah, but I spent most of the time trying to find a car park, I was driving." Mike explained.

"I see that you've suffered some memory loss, hopefully, once you've recuperated enough, the memories will start to come back bit by bit." Doctor Mullen explained, "You'll probably be alright to be released today, but I'd like to keep you in for the night, just to make sure that your concussion won't act up. So try and get as much sleep as possible."

Doctor Mullen turned and said to Charley's visitors, "don't be too long," and left.

Mike shifted and started to walk to the door, "well, I better head off, I was just here to do a quick check up on you."

"Thanks," Charley said, "for everything that you and your friends have done."

"It's fine," Mike smiled at her, then waved at Marty and Sandra.

Mike heard Sandra's voice, "Look at you, all beat up!"

Charley's words repeated in his mind as the fake smile disappeared from his face.

Mike walked out of the hospital and was joined by Louis.

"She doesn't remember about what she actually recorded, she believes that she was recording the terrorists running away. But we need to make sure that she doesn't find a copy of the video at all then hopefully she will never remember what happened to her."