Mimic

Chapter 10

Sean

"Wait, what do you mean watching us?" I ask, confused.

"Doctor Young activated the cameras in the room so that he could watch us Guide Emily," Beau explains. His arm wraps around her shoulders as tears stream down her face in silence.

"Why would he be watching us in the first place? Like, I get that he's a 'bad guy,' but I never really understood why he was that big of a deal," Liz tells us, glaring at Beau, who is typically reluctant with those kinds of answers.

I take the question, so that it will actually be answered in plain terms. "You remember how I said Doctor Young was a tyrant?"

The girls nod in reply.

"Well, he's also a murderer, something we kind of explained but mostly glossed over. He has killed hundreds of people, and those are only the ones we know about. A few people will find out a secret; they'll share it with their friends; and suddenly, when it causes even the slightest bit of doubt to be cast on himself, he'll have them all killed. Suddenly your best bud from Psychology will disappear after he was 'talking mad,' and everyone knows what happened." I pause. "Well, those of us who don't think that the Doctor's a perfect angel, that is."

The shock still registers on the girls faces, and Emily's tears seem to be coming faster than they were earlier. I hate that I had to put it so bluntly, but they needed to hear the truth before we went any further.

"So, hypothetically," I start, turning to Emily, "we could 'cooperate' with Doctor Young and just let himself study your powers along with us and not risk him trying to hunt us down or whatever else he has planned as a contingency... or we could do the right thing and keep it from himself as best we can because if he figures out how to replicate your multiple abilities," I pause, "he would only be able to control everyone with a tighter fist. We would essentially lose our free will if he were to get all of your abilities. It's up to you though, it's your powers and your life that's the most involved, so you get the final say in it all."

Emily slowly wipes the tears from her face and slides out from under Beau's arm. She paces the room and thinks it over for a minute or two. "Well, we don't really have a choice, do we?" she pauses in front of Beau before turning to face me. "We're bucking the system."

*** *** ***

Rose

"Hello," I say, signaling my entrance into Dr. Young's office where he asked me to come after our Guiding today so that I could update him on Emily's progress.

"Hello, Rosemarie," he addresses me, not looking up from his paperwork. "Any news on our subject?"

"Yes, sair. Sean helped her activate her Sixing today, but she didn't notice that you are watching her through the cameras."

"Are you certain?" he asks me doubtingly, as he stops doing his paperwork to make eye contact with me.

"Yes, sair," I reply shakily, starting to doubt myself as well. "At least, I don't think she saw them. She didn't act like she did, and she didn't mention it to any of us. She trusts me too, so if she did, she would've included me in the secret," I explain my assumptions.

"Come look at this," he says in an overly sweet tone as he waves me over to his computer. Something's not right.

I donner over to the desktop and see that he has footage from the Guiding Room pulled up on the screen. As I watch the clip he is looping, I see Sean when he activated her ability. I watch as the chaos of the next few minutes unfolds in fast motion. Then once her ability is stable, the video goes back to its normal pace, and I see her head tilt in the direction of the camera, and she looks up at it for a split second. The Guiding continues for another few minutes in fast motion, and at the end of the Guiding, the recording resumes normal speed again, and Emily and Beau get pure quiet while Sean, Liz, and I continue talking about the data we collected. Emily tries to act casual, but she talks with her body when she uses Telepathy. At the end of their silent conversation, Emily is nearly crying. I watch myself leave the room, oblivious to her in my rush to get to Dr. Young's office.