The Human Xenocide

Chapter Six - I can Control You

The three doctors sat around a circular white table. The room was brightly lit and the windows were all closed and covered.  Several stacks of papers lay out on the table.  After a week at the hospital Lilly suddenly decided she didn’t need to be there anymore and all the charts  indicating she was healthy they had to let her go. What had they discovered about her phenomenon? Just about nothing.  She  could see well—she had a hawk’s vision.

She could run fast, teleport somehow, and had abnormally good hearing.  But all this lead up to nothing, no major breakthroughs, and brain scans were impossible without her consent.  She refused to allow them to take the scans for some reason. So they learned exactly what she could do, but had no clue how. They were at a crossroad.

She was the most amazing thing to happen in medical history and they couldn’t do a thing to keep her in their grasp.  The only thing they had left was inclusive samples from a sack of blood taken while she was unconscious.  The blood led them nowhere, nothing seemed different in it, or if there were differences, the tests hadn’t picked up any abnormalities. They needed to run more sophisticated scans but couldn’t, because very recently the blood vanished, the entire sample was gone; someone took it and hid it, and they couldn’t figure out who or why. 

As for the black smoke, it had been hard to analyze, it was some element that shouldn’t exist; they weren’t sure what it was.  Its components were so unstable it became invisible to the human eye in seconds and deteriorated in less than an hour, it too was gone.  They had nothing. Nothing except useless data, what she  COULD do but not how or why she  could do it. 

Dr. Hemaz was hiding something, but his colleagues found it impossible to pry any information out of him. He  had been with the girl for the longest, he should have a lot more data, but he denied its existence.  What] happened to him? They had gotten friendly, Lilly and Hemaz, then suddenly hours passed without any records.  What went on during those blank hours?  She’d been at the hospital for a week: the first two days she was asleep, then five days of studying her. 

They had everything on the first day after she awoke, her eyesight, running, endurance, teleportation.  After that  her abilities continued to grow but the paper trail thinned,  then completely vanished.  Had she been able to influence Dr. Hemaz to  conceal or remove the data?    Was that influence another ability she mastered that  hadn’t been recorded?

No matter how hard Dr. Saltz and Dr. Jermamy tried to get the information out of him they  lost their friend to this girl. She somehow got the upper hand on him, beat him.  Hours of harsh argument dragged on but they got nothing from him.  Dr. Hemaz was another case of sudden amnesia according his colleagues.  And they couldn’t do a thing about it, he was after all the head of the department.

He claimed they didn’t do anything in those blank hours, they ‘talked.’ Dr. Hemaz went in depth about her life, her past; it was like he was her therapist.  He dragged on and on about pointless boyfriend crises, crappy friends, and a terrible father. But all it was useless information, he was lost. That data wasn’t going to find itself again, if it even existed anymore.  A lot of critical information that could have cracked the case of Lilly was gone, and Dr. Hemaz seemed to be the guy sitting on top of the void of data—his blank face smiling back.

***

                She appeared in her bedroom.  Crime scene tape surrounded her bed and there was still blood along the wall.  She took note of several knocked over books and bloody footprints on the ground where the rescue team barged in, tore up the room, and left with her.  She would have to clean up her room later.

 She could hear something downstairs.  It was most likely her mother, watching TV.  She debated going downstairs but decided it best to leave her mother alone, at least for now.  Instead, she rummaged through her dresser to find a pink low cut shirt and tight blue jeans that didn’t feel right anymore.  She needed a change in her wardrobe, all her older stuff looked, useless.  She looked at a still working digital clock that must of fallen to the floor and saw it was Saturday.  Instead of bothering to deal with her mother now, she decided to head out to the mall to pick up something new and fresh for her new mood—for the new her. She could easily convince her gullible mother that nothing happened over the past week later.

She thought of the bathroom stall she always used at the mall, then shivered.  Teleportation had gotten easy, she didn’t need to concentrate and focus on her clothing much. She just had to remember what she had with her, not every detail about it.

Once in the bathroom she walked out of the stall, lucky no one happened to be using it.. It was time for some new clothing. She passed by a few of her old favorite stores.  The shops were covered in pinks, yellows, whites, and blues.  She shook her head, not anymore.  Over the few days working with Dr. Hemaz she noticed her skin was sensitive to sunlight.  She got burns after being outside for only ten minutes. She wanted something to cover her entire body, something darker to block out the uncomfortable sun she had to deal with.

Lilly stopped outside of a store with blacks and blues covering the walls. Bingo.  Dark colors..  She walked into the store and checked a few items, the prices were high but she liked the outfits.  She needed money. 

Lilly left the store and turned around to see its name, Eleries.  A small skull and crossbones’ at the end of the name appeared to substitute for a period.  She gave the store one last look and wandered around the mall. Finally, she spotted a perfect target, a guy walking alone. Quickly she glanced over him. He was about as tall as her, and had tight black pants on, a tight shirt, and short brown spiked hair, she could see at least a four-pack protruding from his shirt and figured he looked like the sort of guy who would walk into the darker store. Perfect.    She strolled over to him and stopped, blocking his path; he looked surprised. “Well, hello,” she started, trying to force herself upon him. Her eyes stared innocently into his as he drew a blank expression. “Hi, I’m new here.” She cracked a smile,  “Can you show me around a bit?”

“Uh, I’m supposed to meet friends here,” he forced a smile back while not losing eye contact. Despite what he said he didn’t budge, his brown eyes sinking into hers.

“They can wait.” Lilly grabbed his arm.  He allowed her to drag him over to Eleries.    Once at the entrance of the store she leaned over and pushed up against his abs, her face pressed close against his ear, “What’s your name cutie?” She could feel her cool breath running down his skin and watched him let out a slight shiver. 

He gasped, “James.”

“Let’s go here James,” she led him deeper into the store and he followed like a puppy followed its master.

“Okay…”  she never let go of his hand as she picked out several items, two pairs of black jeans, dark blue pants, a pair of thin black jackets, two black beanies and topped it off with a gangster-style top hat.

Once she picked out the items she moved in close up to his ear once more, “You know what to do lovely,” he shivered again and they rushed over to the counter, this time he led.  The items were rung up.

“And your total comes out to be three twenty-three forty-five,” the lady at the cashier glanced over the couple.

James handed her his credit card. “It’s my girlfriend’s birthday. Women are expensive.”

“Wish my man bought me things,” the lady smiled as she swiped the card.  After packing all the things into signature skull and crossbone bags and handing them to Lilly the lady smiled. “Happy birthday.”

Once out of the store Lilly reached up to James’ cheek and gave him a quick kiss, “Thanks cutie!” she took off back to the bathroom leaving him behind smiling with a blank expression.

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