Chapter 230: Recovery and Discovering a Loss

Tuesday, May 24 to Wednesday May 25, 2005

I woke up in a hospital, but passed out again almost immediately, something that happened several times. In the brief periods of lucidity I could feel myself getting better. My first awakenings were caused by particularly vivid delusions, but they diminished in frequency and weirdness. Along with my minds, my body felt better each time too, but still unbelievably weak. I'd fall asleep almost immediately after waking, even though I didn't want to.

For my first day in the hospital - not that I had any idea of the duration - I was almost entirely out of it. The basic treatment for dehydration is simple, but it took a while for my body to absorb the new water and salt, and to get it where it was needed, which was everywhere. While I was unconscious, my broken leg and fingers were treated. Too much time had passed for my amputated finger to be reattached, so they just treated the stump. Organ damage was a real possibility for many of my organs, so the hospital had to be right on top of that, with the first of many tests being performed as I slept.

As I hydrated, my risk reduced considerably, so I was moved out of Intensive Care after twelve hours. Prof wasn't moved out for another twenty four hours after me because he'd been considerably sicker.

Eventually my blood and cerebral fluids hydrated sufficiently that I could emerge properly from unconsciousness. I was surrounded by various machines going "beep", "ping", "tick", or whatever else they felt was appropriate at the time. I had wires and tubes running into and around me, which immediately made me worry about any devices that might be measuring anything about my mental functions. I was pretty sure that eight minds' worth of mentation wouldn't appear natural.

Lying still, I couldn't feel anything attached to my skull, so that was a good first result. I couldn't move my arms to feel my head manually, and I was reluctant to use NP to feel around in case summoning NP caused a mental-monitoring machine to register something. I wasn't centered either, and I was doing the bare minimum of internal talking out of the same fear. I rubbed my head on the pillow, turned it to each side to repeat the rubbing, feeling nothing suspicious. I was pretty sure turning my head from side to side would've let me feel anything attached to my forehead, so that was probably free of any attachments. That left the top of my head. Taking a risk, and ready to cancel it if any sirens went off, I centered and created an NP-fingertip. No sirens, so I quickly felt all over my head. I couldn't feel anything.

I was wondering whether there might be any measuring devices that could work from a distance of inches or even feet away, and how I could feel around for those, when I remembered the wonderful new function of light blobs. I hadn't gotten around to testing whether a zero radiance light blob could still see, but now seemed like a very good time to find out. I created one in front of my face, confirmed I couldn't see it with my own eyes, then I closed my eyes and tried to look at myself out of it.

It worked, and I looked a lot better than I had last time I'd looked at myself. My eyes, nose, lips and skin had looked appalling last time, but they were far better now. I opened my real eyes to recheck that the blob wasn't visible. Two super-imposed images were very awkward to deal with, but they were both stationary so I was able to confirm the blob was still invisible. I closed my eyes again and used the blob to look around my head, which was free of attachments. I looked around the room. I was in a private room, surrounded by lots of equipment, none of which appeared to be focused on my head. Good. I relaxed, which caused me to fall asleep again.

Next time I woke I used a "Sight Blob" (which is what I named a light blob with zero luminescence being used as a remote eyeball) to check around me again. All was as before. It'd be very nice to talk with someone, but the button to "Summon Attention" was out of my reach in my currently position, and I didn't think using NP would be a good idea, so I struggled to sit up so I could reach it. That set off several loud "Beeps", "Wheedles" and other such sounds.

A nurse rushed in, saw I was awake, told me, "Don't move. I'll get a doctor."

I took her "Don't move" as permission to slide gratefully back in the bed, as trying to sit up had been damned hard work.

The nurse returned with a doctor almost immediately, the doctor asking me, "How are you feeling?"

"Way better than last time I checked."

"Say ahhh."

"How's Prof Williams?"

"Let's check you first. Say ahhh."

"Ahhh. How's Prof Williams?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"One more than if I was asking you the same question. How's Prof Williams?"

I had to threaten to go on strike to find out that Prof was, "As well as can be expected." I got the sense that Prof was alive, but I couldn't get any other information.

The doctor seemed happy with me, ordering the nurse to do a huge list of tests while he was charting them. I recognized some of the words, and was pretty sure that the only part of my body he'd not ordered a test for was my toes. The nurse left, quickly returning with so many empty vials that filling them would require more liquid than I thought I had in my body.

As an interesting aside, I learned that it was even easier to determine the gender of females in proximity (this female anyway), as the 'image' of her body when she was intending to move her torso, or was moving it, included her breasts. That might be useful if a girl tries to fool me by wearing falsies, or - perish the thought! - a guy pretending to be a girl tries to flirt with me.

A couple of FBI guys came in next with a long list of questions. [Every time I woke up over the next few days there was an FBI agent or two with a long list of questions.]

Prof and I had previously agreed on our story. To paraphrase, it was: "We were abducted, woke up where you found us. We were kept chained up the whole time, and blindfolded and gagged nearly the whole time, only having them removed while we were interrogated. I only saw Boss and Goon at such times, although I heard a third guy sometimes. We were questioned and they tortured me to put pressure on Prof. After two or three days - it was hard to tell how long - there was some sort of fight when we'd been blindfolded, but I don't know what about." As a hint about the eyeball poking I would say, "The first I knew of the fight was when there were some incredibly loud screams; I think even louder than my screams when they were torturing me. Then there was some shooting, more screams, and then it went quiet for several days, until we were rescued."

Prof and I had agreed on a lot of other minor details, and we could probably talk for hours about the experience, but right now I didn't even want to talk for one minute. I was much more interested in finding out what the cops knew first, so I could make sure that nothing I said contradicted it. I recounted the bare minimum of the story, making myself appear visibly more tired as I answered their questions. I recounted our story very much as described just above, not even stating what we were being tortured for. Most of the agents' questions were about the third man, which was convenient for me.

I told them the bad news, "The guy I thought was the big boss was deliberately VERY careful. He was determined not to make any mistakes, including that he never let us get a look at him. He would ask from the next room whether the blindfolds were on before he came into our room. He always left the room before our hoods were removed for questioning. That's what I think happened. What does Prof say? Have you asked him? How is he?"

Unfortunately they only wanted to talk with me about my story. When I pressed them about how Prof was, they helpfully told me, "You'll have to ask the doctor."

I told them that the baddies hadn't used names, adding, "Except during the fight, then they kept yelling 'Tom'. Everyone seemed to be called Tom, which is silly. I was probably hallucinating that, because I sure had heaps of wild dreams." Tom and Dom being so similar, I thought this was a cute addition.

I described the voices and mannerisms of the three guys. I described Boss's and Goon's voices and mannerisms accurately, and the "Big Boss" as being quieter, speaking noticeably better, and not so involved in my torture (which was true).

Then I said, "I'm getting very tired. I want to see my family now."

"Just one more question. Do you remember anyone being with you just before you were rescued?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

The FBI needs to include mathematical tests in its recruitment process. I couldn't imagine how agents who couldn't count to one were going to find the Third Man. I dropped my head on the pillow and closed my eyes, amusing myself with thoughts of their arresting the First Man over and over again. They got the hint and left.

A minute later Mom came in. A six-foot proximity sense (measured from my toes in this case) gave me notice of her arrival. It was interesting that I recognized Mom instantly. The 'picture' was a lot more detailed and richer than the pre-merge version, but somehow the substantial increase in detail didn't confuse her identity.

Mom came in and rushed over to kiss me, hold my hand and look all slobbery the way females do. "They've only given me a minute, darling. How are you?"

"Pretty weak, but a hundred times better than I was and getting better all the time. How's Prof?"

A small frown from Mom, "He's still unconscious. He's improving rapidly, but he's much older than you so it's going to take him longer to recover. The doctors wouldn't let anyone else in to see you yet; only me until you're stronger, but everyone sends their love."

"I'm sure my recovery won't take long, Mom. Even the very brief wake ups I had before felt better and better. Where and when am I, by the way?"

"We're in Seattle. They flew you straight here from where you were found. It's Tuesday afternoon and you were unconscious for over 24 hours. You were very sick and incredibly lucky they found you when they did."

With FBI guys possibly outside the room - which I just realized I could check for with a sight blob - and quite possibly with a microphone to the nurses' station to help them monitor my condition, it wasn't time to go into any details about my rescue. I made light of it by saying, "Yeah. It was getting damned boring just having one old geezer to talk with. Actually I shouldn't say that. Prof was awesome the whole time. Beyond awesome. I always thought he was a great guy, but after this my respect for him has gone through the roof. I hope I can talk with him soon, I can't wait to tell him how much I appreciate how well he handled everything."

A nurse came in, standing to the side to watch us.

I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I needed to check. I asked Mom, "Why do the cops think we were kidnapped?"

Mom gave me a BIG frown. That was answer enough, but Mom made it official by stating, "Something to do with your winning so much in Las Vegas. When you're better we're going to have a SERIOUS talk about that. You know my opinion of gambling, and this has certainly proved me right."

I didn't think now was a good time to tell Mom that I hadn't been gambling. It was bad news that Mom knew about Vegas, but good news that the cops knew because it was easier for Prof's and my cover story if we could tell as much of the truth as possible, including all the details about why we had been captured. I'd been hopeful that the Vegas trip might've stayed secret - in which case we'd just say that the kidnappers were after our millions - but I'd known that hope was probably forlorn as the families were going to tell the cops everything that might help. I thought my abilities would have been kept secret, especially because divulging them wouldn't have been believed. The cops thinking we were a bunch of crazies might have hindered their search for Prof and me, plus I knew that the parents (four in 3B-land, two here) were very serious about wanting my special abilities to remain private - they'd several times warned me to be very careful about privacy whenever I used them. I wasn't going to ask Mom about my abilities being known while a nurse was in the room, and wouldn't have asked anyway because the room might be monitored. When I got a chance to do so very safely, I would check that my abilities were still secret. I also wanted to ask Vanessa or Julia what had happened about my fake ID, but that could wait too.

"Is Prof nearby?"

"He's a couple of rooms over," said Mom, looking to my left.

"Good. I'm looking forward to visiting him when I'm disconnected from all these machines."

"That won't be for a while, darling. There are lots of tests they have to do to make sure everything's recovering properly. What happened to you was very serious."

"I think I'll recover faster than they expect. Speaking of tests, I don't want any tests of my head. That's a complete no-go area, okay?"

"Ahh, they might have to Mark. They told me there's a possibility of brain damage."

"Let me check." I closed my eyes for half a second, reopened them, then said, "My brain says it's not damaged. It also resents the implication that anyone thinks it might be, and it says they're pooh-pooh heads. Hang on, I'm getting another message." I did the eye closing-opening thing again, then, "My brain's friend, the stomach, would like to know when the next mealtime is? It's hungry, and would particularly like roast chicken."

The nurse smiled as she said, "You're not on solids yet, and it's time to let Mark get back to sleep, Mrs. Anderson."

Mom complied readily, rising off her seat. I'd seen what my face looked like, and it was still pretty bad, which I guess made me "pretty unpretty."

"I meant what I said about my head, Mom. Make sure they know about it, and put your foot down about it too." Mom looked hesitant, so I added, "I don't want them trying to fix anything that looks unusual."

Mom didn't know what went on inside my head, but she knew it wasn't normal. The idea of anyone trying to 'fix' her son's brain was a scary thought, and she got the message.

"Okay, I'll tell them."

"Good. Make sure you tell them loudly and that they listen to you, otherwise I'll throw a huge hissy fit." Not to mention that I'd fuck their machine. A sight blob and 110 pounds of force being applied to a quarter inch circle should be able to disable it somehow.

The nurse was ushering Mom out, so I just got a last, "We'll come back as soon as they let us."

If Mom used the collective "We" then presumably the others were nearby. I closed my eyes, created a sight blob, and followed Mom with it. I could tell that I was going to enjoy having the sight blob ability.

Mom walked out of my room, down a hallway, turned down another short hallway, and then into the ward's waiting room. The blob's vision had started degrading late in the journey, but it was still easily good enough to see that Dad, Julia and Vanessa were there, as well as one of the FBI guys. My loved ones leaped to their feet and gathered around Mom. I tried forming an NP, but it was either too far away or Mom's cornering had disoriented me enough (whichever of those factors had sufficiently disoriented me), so I canceled the sight blob, created an NP-fingertip and another sight blob near me, then sent the two of them over the same route.

They were going at full-speed this time, a value that dropped the farther they went, and especially after they turned a corner. The total distance was about sixty yards, with three corners involved, and by the end the two ki-effects were down to two or three times faster than someone could run. That was still pretty fast, but NOWHERE near as fast as they had been going when they left my room.

I watched Mom being grilled by the smiley-faced loved ones. I was smiling more too. The blob's vision was a little better too, thanks to the repeated trip. I waited until no one was looking at Julia, and then I stroked her cheek.

Julia jumped in surprise, looking around wildly. The others looked at her curiously, while Julia looked around the room in puzzlement. She knew from dozens of experiences with me that my NP was restricted to line of sight. I'd moaned about not being able to steal Vanessa's cookies, and other restrictions, many times. Not seeing me anywhere, Julia turned back to the others, with a look of confusion on her face.

She put her hand to her face, feeling where I'd stroked her cheek. I moved the NP to the inside of her wrist and pushed her hand away gently, then stroked her cheek again. Her eyes went wide at the implications of that. Just so there was no doubt it was me, I lightly rubbed the front of one of her breasts.

Julia smiled broadly, saying something short to the others. I guessed it was something like "Mark's okay."

I watched for a few more seconds, wondering whether I could discover a way of eavesdropping, and then my body decided that it would much rather go to sleep.

When I woke next time, the first thing I did was create a sight blob and go searching for Prof. He was exactly where Mom had said: a couple of rooms away from mine. He looked miles better than when I'd last seen him, his eyes having moved back into their normal positions and his skin looking normal. He even had some lips now. He looked like he was sleeping, and I thought I'd stroke his cheek to make sure. I tried creating an NP-fingertip beside his head, but it didn't work, so I created one in my room.

I tried sending it to Prof's room without a guide blob (it's like a guide dog, but doesn't shed hair), but when I thought the fingertip was entering his doorway, it hit an obstruction instead. It was good that my subconscious was much better at tracking ki-effect positions, otherwise the fingertip would have long since canceled with this much inaccuracy in its positioning. I felt along the wall going away from me farther, which I guessed was the correct direction, until I felt a doorway. I entered that room and headed toward the sight blob. The image I work with is quite similar to a radar that only shows ki effects, so I knew the NP was in the right room because it moved too close to the sight blob to be in another room.

Once my NP was in the area of the room that the sight blob was looking at, I could order it to go to Prof's cheek (absolute positioning, rather than "move forward" or the like, which are relative positioning). I stroked his cheek but got no response from him.

I noticed his chart at the end of the bed, and zoomed down for a look at it. I understood virtually nothing, so I gave that up and went in search of my loved ones. I sent the blob and NP to the waiting room. They were all there, wearing different clothes I noticed, so I must have been out of it for quite a while. There was a cop-looking guy, so I placed my NP-fingertip across Julia's lips.

That got her attention. I put my NP on her back, and pushed her forward. It was too weak to push her off the chair (a single mind has a maximum of fourteen pounds if it was exactly four times my previous maximum of 3.5 pounds), but it successfully conveyed the message I wanted. Julia started getting up and I shushed her lips again to be doubly sure. Julia got to her feet, stretched casually, said a few words then wandered out. As soon as she was out of the room her pace picked up considerably. She knew the way to my room exactly, and very soon walked into it.

I canceled the blobs and opened my eyes. "Hello, darling. I was just thinking it'd be nice to see you again."

"How?" was all she asked, wisely.

"I'm feeling great. I'm very much IMPROVED."

She already knew as much, seeing me lying in bed here after being NP'd in the waiting room a few seconds ago, but it was still great to have it confirmed, "Wow! That's fantastic. How are you feeling?"

"Pretty good. My mind's been clear for a while. The physical injuries were just breaks, so they're..."

"Apart from your finger being cut off!"

"Yeah, but that's no big deal either. That and the breaks will heal quickly. What annoys me is that Goon - that's what I called him because I didn't know their names - Goon cut off my hole finger, 'h', 'o', 'l', 'e' - without the 'w'."

I smiled at her while I waited until she put it together.

It took her a couple of seconds, then she giggled, adding, "I knew they'd cut one off, but not which one. What a pity they chose my favorite finger, haha."

I said, "Yeah. The bastard wanted my ring. Do you know if..."

#2: <What ring?>

#8: <Our wedding ring. You guys had a wedding ring, didn't you?>

#2: <Nope. Why would we have a wedding ring? Were you allowed to get married at fifteen in your dimension? It's eighteen here.> [[I found out later that in some dimensions, Oregon allows marriage at seventeen with parental consent. If I'd know that at this time, I would've envied those Marks, even though there were still the bigamy and brother-sister problems. Although, as it turned out, I got around one of those problems in early 2006.]]

#8: <No, it was eighteen there too, in Oregon anyway. It wasn't a real wedding ring; we just called it that. And now I've seen Julia properly, I can see she's not wearing hers either.>

#1: <You must have had a different relationship with your Julia than we do. I'm pretty sure our Julia wouldn't agree to even pretending to be married to us, because she wants us to have lots of experiences. Your Julia did let you - almost force you - to play around with lots of other girls, didn't she? If not, you're in for a GREAT surprise!>

#8: <Our Julia was the same. You 3A guys already said you had the pipeline system running, which is how Julia is arranging all the girls at school who want to date us, right?>

#1: <Yep. I think it's going to be a bit of a pain with the big dates, but once the group sizes are down to four or less, the girls should be pretty much to our liking. We should end up with some very good casual girlfriends at the end of it.>

#5: <That sounds like the same as us. I'm amazed you guys didn't have rings though. You did have a marriage ceremony didn't you?>

#1: <No. Why would we have a marriage ceremony when we're not planning to get married?>

#5: <It was more of a "Lordship Ceremony" really, but we called it a marriage one. It wasn't legally binding or anything like that; just something we did for ourselves and for the families to witness. If you guys didn't have one of those we definitely should. It was a fantastic experience! The females bawled their eyes out, so it had to be good, haha.>

#1: <Julia occasionally calls us her lord, and she treats us like that sometimes, except when she's being bossy, which is probably most of the time, haha. We've never had a ceremony though. It doesn't sound like that big a deal to me, but I'll take your word for it. If it worked in your dimension it should work here.>

Julia had noticed that I'd stopped talking, so she started. I let her do so while we kept talking internally.

#6: <It worked BIG TIME. It was all Julia's idea originally, although Vanessa helped put it together. They organized the rings, vows, flowers and everything. I'm surprised she never did that with you guys. It was such a fantastic way to celebrate Carol's joining us.>

#1: <Why would Carol be involved?>

#5, #6, #8: <WHAT!> Followed by three panicky questions, all to the effect of <PLEASE tell us Carol's our wife/lover/girlfriend?>

#1: <You had SEX with CAROL! That's just weird... >

#5, #6, #8: <Oh GOD!>

#8: <Send me BACK! I don't like this place!>

#6: <Do you 3A guys really not desire Carol?>

#3: <She's a nice person, and she's certainly good looking, but she's so quiet and placid. She's okay, but there are heaps of girls at school who're much sexier and more interesting than Carol.>

#8 privately to #5 and #6: <PLEASE let me be the one to send them some memories?>

#5 privately to #8 and #6: <Send them to us too, so we can enjoy reliving the moments.>

#8: <Listen up 3A. First, here're some images of what Carol looks like. {Carol naked}, {Carol posing sexily in her little black dress with the even littler straps}, {Carol in the wonderfully obscene bikini she'd bought in LA}.>

#1, #2, #3, #4: <Wow! She's HOT!>

#8: <Thank God you think that! Otherwise we were going to have a MAJOR conflict over Carol's role in our life. Now I'll send you some more memories. If you don't like these ones you need your head adjusted. {A few seconds' worth of having sex with Carol in the missionary position, including the sight of Carol's breasts wobbling and the feeling of our cock in her}, {Carol, Julia and me in a threesome}, {In a foursome with Carol, Julia and Ava}.>

#3: <Oh God! She does EVERYTHING!>

#8: <And to prove I'm not a total sex-maniac, here are samples of the best times. {A couple of memories of Carol confidently standing up for herself}, {Some excerpts from our pillow talk when Carol had been telling me how much my love meant to her}, {Pillow talking with Carol, Julia and me when Carol was saying how much our three-way marriage meant to her}.>

The memories had been relayed at high speed, but Julia had finished asking, "What ring, darling?" and was waiting with increasing impatience over how long it was taking me to answer.

I answered, "Oh, that'll be another hallucination then. The last day or so Prof and I were getting some real doozies. I know my memory of the giant purple caterpillar having a line-dancing competition with itself was probably imaginary, haha, but I had a vivid memory of Goon cutting off my finger to take a ring you'd given me. You might catch me making a few mistakes like that because those hallucinations were incredibly vivid. More vivid than ordinary memories, so they've kind of burned their way into my head. Some were pure fantasy, like the dancing caterpillars; some were perfectly reasonable, like you having given me a friendship ring to wear on that finger; and some were half and half. I've got a clear memory of being extremely annoyed because the assholes didn't bring my study computer when they kidnapped me, because that stopped me googling how to escape dungeons, the way you tell me to google things. It was a very weird experience, Julia."

Julia gave me a suspicious look.

#1: <For future reference for when we lie to Julia, try to keep it short. If we give a long-winded explanation she always knows we're lying.>

#5: <Speaking of the study computer, what do you think of this? {Image of us sitting in our study, looking at the screens, except that there were eight screens, eight eyeballs floating in front of each screen, with each screen displaying, "Subject 1", Subject 2", up to "Subject 8"}.>

#1: <CHRIST! Eight subjects at once would be INCREDIBLE! Do you really think we could we do that?>

#5: <We'd have to be centered to use a ki-effect, so seven is more likely. We'd have to overcome the superimposition problem. We SERIOUSLY need to try to overcome that limitation, because studying seven or eight subjects at once would be unbelievably awesome. And it'd make Prof very, very happy too, which is something I'm very eager to do.>

#6: <We might be able to extend that to eight before too much longer. We're getting better at remaining centered while every mind is active. We should practice that specifically in the study context too, which should make it easier for us to do it. We're going to be spending a few more days in this bed, I guess, so we'll have plenty of time to practice, especially if we get well enough to stop falling asleep so often.>

#2: <We can concentrate on hearing multiple conversations at the same time, so we should be able to do the same with sight.>

Julia was just starting to answer when a passing nurse looked in and saw Julia. That was the end of that! The nurse rushed in and ejected Julia. My saying, "It's okay, she's my fiancée," made no difference whatsoever.

As she was being pushed out the door, Julia called back over her shoulder, "I'll tell the others you're awake. Bye, darling."

"Bye, my love."

I added, "Nurse. I have to go to the bathroom."

"That's GREAT news. I'll get a bedpan for you and tell the Doctor." She was smiling happily, so apparently it truly was, "great news."

#1: <Some people are easily pleased. I wonder how she'll feel when we have to crap?>

#6: <I think it means we're fully hydrated now, or enough that there's water to 'waste', so to speak. It does seem like good news.>

That business attended to, celebrated by being noted on my chart, and the pan carried away ceremoniously, we got down to other items of business.

#4: <Two items on the agenda: eight-subject studying and Carol. Which goes first?>

#6: <Carol's the most important. She's was a HUGE part of our life before, and it was REALLY good for her. She totally blossomed! You 3A'ers don't have any objection to our seducing her do you? Because if you do, we'd have a serious problem on our hands and in our head.>