“You know, I saw her first. We had quite a memorable exchange,” Gavil smirked at the confusion etched across his brother’s face.
“If we’re done here, Gavil, I have to be somewhere.” Creed scowled, angry at his brother’s words, but absolutely confused by their meaning. He started cautiously backing away from the wicked grin on his big brother’s face, not wanting to turn his back on him.
“You really don’t remember, do you?”
Creed stopped.
“I thought you were faking—you know, to save your ass, but it’s pretty obvious, you have no memory of the last six months.”
Doubt clouded Creed’s peripheral vision.
“Look around you, idiot. What season is it? What’s today’s date? And once you figure out the answer to those two questions, ask yourself, what happened during the past six months.” Gavil laughed at the confusion on his brother’s face. “Or don’t. I’m sick of your good versus evil shit. Damn loser.”
Gavil turned to saunter away—arrogance and hatred dripping off him with every step. “Oh hey,” he called and turned once more to look at his brother standing, wooden bat still hanging at his side, “And just as a bonus question, after you figure out what happened over the last six months, ask yourself why Williams’ kept you alive. You may hate me. Hell, I hate you, but in the end, who the hell is our real enemy? Some pretty deep shit there, little brother. And about this,” he waved his hand to the bodies lying around, “consider this my way of offering you a wakeup call.” He jerked his head back tauntingly before turning and walking away, whistling an unrecognizable tune.
As Creed watched him disappear behind a grove of trees, he couldn’t stop himself from replaying his brother’s words. He couldn’t even remember the last time his brother just talked with him.
And there it was: he couldn’t remember.
Itching for answers, he angrily chunked the bat as hard as he could. It flew propeller-like north across the stream and over the electric fence. He watched mesmerized as it landed in a pile of green grass beneath a large English Oak tree, heavy with dark-green leaves.
Why hadn’t I noticed this before? He asked himself. What happened to autumn?
Creed spun, looking at the scenery as though for the first time. Everything was green. Not one tree was turning colors and the temperature was mild instead of the crisp chill it should be.
What the hell is going on?
A frown creased his forehead as he started running the short distance to the Research Hospital.
He had to find Sloan.
Realizing he only had forty-five minutes before he was expected in the conference room on the second floor, he dove into the shower and hurriedly cleaned before beginning his search for the child prodigy, Dr. Sloan Mor.
It didn’t take long to locate her. She was nose first in a high-powered electric microscope inside a sterilized laboratory completely encased in windowed walls. Too anxious to wait and running out of time, he knocked on the glass trying to get her attention. She didn’t move. Creed knocked harder.
The girl spun in her stool and peered at Creed over a sterile mask. Her brows furrowed for a moment before she slid down from her perch and walked toward the sliding doors that led to the scrub room. She was carefully removing her gloves, turning them inside out and inside one another when she motioned for Creed to join her in the room.
“Dr. Mor,” Creed whispered, continually looking around for prying eyes.
“Mr. Young,” she looked worried as she studied his face making Creed appreciate what it would be like to be the thing at the end of her microscope.
“I have a lot of questions, and I didn’t know who else to trust,” Creed blurted, feeling stupid even as the words tumbled from of his mouth.
She turned toward one of the many sinks and grabbed a disposable cloth, turned and handed it to the soldier standing before her, then lowered her mask.
He outweighed her by at least one-hundred-fifty pounds and stood more than a foot taller than her. He almost seemed like a different species, she thought. Her mind started to wander down calculations of possible events that may have occurred during Creed’s transition to metahuman to have caused his physique to have hyperdeveloped the way it did. Then she stopped herself.
One of the challenges she faced daily was being able to think on multiple plains of thought. Not everyone appreciated holding a conversation with someone who blurted quadratic equations and theoretical physiological metahuman calculations, algorithms and such. Not everyone thought like her.
Hum, she mused. As different as Creed is physically from me, I am different from others. Maybe I’m the different species.
“You’re still wet, presumably from a shower, Mr. Young.” The doctor motioned to his still-dripping face and neck.