Chapter 35: Loose Ends and New Directions

Police. Firefighters. Ambulances. Rescue workers. Sirens. Flashing lights. Hoses. Stretchers. Water. Blankets.

Spectators. Reporters. Questions. Barricade tape. Helicopters. Floodlights. Devastation.

National Guard. Trucks. United States Army. Trucks. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Department of Homeland Security. SUVs.

Examinations. Hospital. Doctors. Nurses. Interrogations. Parents. Myers' Institute for the Talented and Gifted. Vice-Principal. Principal. Therapists.

Funeral. Speeches. Remembrances. Documentary.

Lawyers. Lawsuits. Threats. The Association for Super Human Advocacy. EarthGuard.

Media. Rothschild Marketing Agency. Television. Cameras. Microphones. Radio. Blogs. Security.

Insurance companies. Investigators. Contractors. Building Management. Neighbors.

Child and Family Services.

The Jamaican woman's colorful robes billowed and flowed behind her as she strolled into the hospital. Her jewelry jingled musically as she walked, and she shined and sparkled in the fluorescent lights. She strode to the information desk heralded by her jangling accessories, rested her arms and bracelets on the counter, and smiled as the attendant looked up at her.

"May I help you?" the attendant asked.

"I am here to visit a patient," she said in her rich accent.

"Patient's name?"

"Miss Adaline Bartlett."

She checked her computer. "Are you family?"

She smiled and shook her head. Her earrings jingled. "No. She is a client of mine."

The attendant frowned. "I'm so sorry. But only family members are allowed to visit her. It's hospital policy."

The jangly woman nodded and lifted a pendant which hung about her neck, and she showed it to the attendant. It glittered and flashed in the employee's eyes. "Can you tell me which room she is in?"

"I really sorry. But I cannot give out that information," was what the attendant thought she said out loud.

"Is she under guard?" the woman asked.

"Again. I'm very sorry, but I can't talk about that," was what she heard coming out of her mouth.

"Thank you," the colorful woman said, and she smiled politely.

"Have a nice day," was what the attendant thought she said in return. The other woman kept her smile polite despite what the attendant really told her to do. She took the insult as an impersonal side effect of a perception alteration spell, swished and jingled towards the elevators, took one up several flights, and headed down the corridors, counting the room numbers.

The room held five patients, all of them in comas. Four out of the five had intravenous feeding lines attached to their chests, the needles plunging into their skin, but one woman had a feeding tube running up into her nose instead. Lady Zamora glided over towards her, and sat on a stool next to the bed.

Adamantine lay in a dreamless sleep. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were closed and lifeless.

Lady Zamora studied the woman for a moment, and then leaned in to her closely.

"I do not know if you can hear me," she said to the woman. "I do not know if you will ever hear anything again. The day may come when you will return to the world of the waking, and until that day comes, you may lie there asleep wasting your time, or you may lie there thinking about your life. It does not matter to me.

Adamantine continued to sleep.

The fortune teller shifted on her stool. "I am not here to offer you my compassion or to judge you. Your life is your choice and your lesson." She casually checked out her own nails. "Every person must spend their own whole life trying to learn how to live it, and the misfortunes that happen to us, be they deserved or not, are our chances to learn how to live. Perhaps you will learn from this most recent misfortune and change your life. Perhaps you will not. I do not care.

"But I will tell you this much. You came to me to know your future. You held out your palm and asked for a reading. And I told you to pay me, but you did not. So I told you he would break you. It is what fortune tellers do; we simply tell our clients what they wish to hear, and they are happy to hear it. I knew that given the path he was on, and the path you were on, he would not break you, at least not in the way you wanted him to."

She paused, wondering if any of this was getting through to the coma patient.

"So whatever you learn from this is your decision. You may decide to evaluate your life, and change your ways, and think about others. Or not. If I were to read your fortune now, I could only tell you where your current path will take you, but I cannot tell you how you will live your life. What lessons you learn are your decision."

Lady Zamora stood up, pushed the stool aside, and started to walk away. She stopped, and reconsidered Adamantine as she lay unconscious.

"But if I were to make a suggestion..." the fortune teller added. " ... it would be this. If you ever want an accurate answer from me, you PAY me!"

WHAM! WAP! WAP! WHAM! WHAM! WAP!

The heavy punching bag swung and twisted chaotically as Sandy Carter savagely pounded it. The blind woman was breathing heavily, sweating profusely, and she hit it again and again in her darkness, punching and kicking and slamming it, throwing all of her rage and her grief into the well-punished bag. It creaked on the ceiling hook and reeked of her sweat and blood.

Her home health-aide sat nearby in the stairwell, watching in concern. "Sandra, you really should rest," said the woman.

She stopped, panted for a moment, and asked "What for?" Then she resumed punching the bag.

"You should take it easy. You were just in an accident, and you really shouldn't strain yourself."

"Noted." She continued punching.

The health-aide sighed, and they both heard the doorbell ring upstairs. She checked her watch. "I'll get that. It's probably my replacement."

Sandy continued attacking the bag. She may have nodded in acknowledgement too.

The woman went upstairs, pushed the cat out of the way, and opened the front door. An attractive man on the stoop stood there with a bag of supplies and was digging his identification out of his pocket. "Oh! Hi!" he said a little nervously as he saw the health-aide. "I'm Warren Lucas. I'm with Homestead Health?"

She smiled at the man. "Leila. Leila Velazquez. You're our new guy, right?"

"Um ... yeah." He looked around the neighborhood. "I got the right place? Sandra Carter?"

Leila nodded. "Come inside."

As Warren Lucas stepped into the townhouse, Leila took a long lingering look at his butt and smiled politely as he looked back at her. "So have you been doing this long?" she asked him.

"I've ... got some years in this. How's she doing?"

She paused on that. "Hard to say," she decided on.

"How so?" He squinted as he heard the activity downstairs.

"She's not your typical newly blinded person. Very depressed and angry."

"That sounds typical."

"Also VERY physically active. I can't get her to rest, or eat. Also, she hasn't allowed me to contact her family about her injuries."

Warren just paused on that. "Is she downstairs?"

Leila nodded, and led him to the basement. "Sandra? Sandra."

Sandy was still punching her exercise bag, and she stopped as she heard the sound of two sets of feet come down the stairs. Two sets of eyes focused on her. She leaned against the bag, breathing heavily through her nose, and held on, resting. Sweat dripped from her face, and stained her tank-top shirt.

"Sandra, this is Warren..."

"Um, Hello ... Sandra."

" ... and he's our new guy and he'll be taking over for me." Leila stepped forward and gently laid a hand on Sandy's arm. "I'm leaving now. I'll be here tomorrow, so if you need anything, Warren is here for you."

Sandy eventually just nodded, still breathing heavily.

Leila gave Warren a quick glance, and leaned into Sandy. "He's VERY handsome," she whispered to her.

Sandy just continued to breath heavily and sweat.

Leila patted her arm, and then went upstairs, leaving Warren alone with Sandy. He stood nearby, his eyes locked on Sandy's face.

"So um ... How are you doing?" he tried.

She paused and swallowed. "I'm blind. What do you think?" She slammed the punching bag. "It's not like I LIKE being kept in the dark."

"Can I get you anything? Have you had lunch?" She continued hitting the bag. "Breakfast? ... When was the last time you had your bandages changed?"

"Yesterday." Sandy continued to punch the exercise bag. She could hear Leila still upstairs.

Warren sighed. "Can I at least hold the bag still for you?"

Sandy roared, dropped into a crouch, and brutally kicked the bag. The bag swung wildly and she spun and fan kicked it on the return trip. Then she dropped and dexterously rolled under the bag, and hit it from the other side.

The new guy just watched her maneuver. "Or not," he amended.

They could still hear Leila upstairs, probably collecting her things, but the health-aide was now heading towards the front door. Sandy stood up, breathed heavily from her exertions, and fumbled and felt towards a nearby cabinet. She found a towel, and wiped her face with it.

Warren got fed up with her. "Look, I'm not going to just stand here while you ignore me. You need help adjusting to your new condition, and I came here to help you." The front door upstairs closed as Leila left the house. "Obviously you think your pretty tough, but losing your sight is a traumatic..."

"HE-YAA!" WHAM! Sandy whirled and slugged Warren hard in the face. He spun and smashed against the wall, and dropped to the floor.

"WHAT! THE! HELL!?!" she screamed at him.

"Ow!" Warren held his jaw. It stung painfully, and his teeth felt loose. "Why did you..."

"YOU THINK I DON'T RECOGNIZE YOUR VOICE?" she wailed at him. "WE WORKED TOGETHER FOR FIVE YEARS!" Sandy shivered and held the counter for balance as she let her emotions free. "PLEX! You're DEAD! We had your FUNERAL!" She stumbled towards him, got down on her knees, and felt his body. He was warm and breathing, and he winced as she touched his face.

"You still hit like a jack-hammer."

"We're still finding your bodies! They're everywhere! All over the world!" she cried. "And you just walk in my front door? No word? No warning?" Sandy threw herself on him and hugged him tight, sobbing hysterically. "We thought you were dead!"

Warren, or Multiplex, hesitated, and then wrapped his arm around her. "I was," he admitted.

She squeezed him tightly, soaking in everything about him, his strength, his warmth, his scent, his sound, and his breathing. "What happened?" she sobbed almost incoherently. "How did you..."

He caressed her head tenderly. "I was trapped by Tombspawn, and then I was trapped inside him. And they all died. All of them. All of my bodies. I could feel their lights going out, their worlds silencing. And I knew I had nowhere to go, and I would be gone soon. But this one stayed." He flexed his fingers. "This body was in India, a doctor in a hospital. They saw it collapse, and put it on life support. It was the only one I could find, and it took so long to reach. And when I got to it, when I finally found a body to enter, all the others were gone, and for the first time in ten years I was one person again."

Sandy held him tight, and she shook in her crying. "Why didn't you contact us? Why didn't you call? Do you realize the agony you put us through? Put ME through?"

"I'm sorry that I..."

"Sorry? SORRY?" She screamed at him hysterically. "You just let us all think you were dead, let us think you were gone, and all you can say is you're SORRY?"

"Hey, I was DEAD! Then I was ALIVE again. I had a lot of shit to go through!" He grabbed her hands and held them tightly. "I'm sorry what happened to you, and what I put you through, but you don't know what my life was like, what I did to myself, what I turned myself into. Ever since the accident, when I got my powers, and when I discovered what I could do with them, I realized I never had to make any choice anymore. I didn't have to decide what one thing I wanted to do in my life. I could do it all! Medicine, Engineering, Government, Peace Corps, Justice, Education, Law Enforcement, whatever interested me, I could send a body to do it. I could even be a superhero. I could be a force for good, a secret society working for the good of all behind the scenes, in as many places as possible."

"So what does that got to do with anything? What does that have to do with you not TELLING me you were ALIVE?"

He paused. "Because I wanted you."

"What are you talking about?"

"I thought I could love like that too. But I can't. I tried to have hundreds of lovers, but that doesn't work. I couldn't get close to anyone as long as I was spread out so thin. And nobody could know what I really was, and I couldn't reach out to anyone. I was lonely."

"I knew what you were! Why didn't you talk to me?"

He got very quiet, and stroked her fingers. "You kissed me. You didn't just kiss me; you kissed the core. You kissed the real me. You reached me. And for the first time in ten years I had finally found someone who could relate to me. But I couldn't relate back to you. Not as long as I was spread out."

Warren stood up and paced, and Sandy followed his position by detecting his senses. "I knew then what I had to do for you. I had to undo everything I had done in the last ten years. Pull back, retract a thousand lives from around the world, and it would take time. And I would have to retire from EarthGuard, which would have been difficult. You know how much I do in communications and logistics alone? I spoke with Technarch about getting a new automated system that would replace what I was doing, and he tried to talk me out of it. He didn't want me to leave. And who could blame him? I was dirt cheap, and effective.

"So when Tombspawn killed me, when my bodies died, and I escaped into this one last body that was on life support, in one day I had managed to become what I had been trying to become for the past several months; one person. It didn't happen the way I wanted it to happen, and it made this huge mess around the world, but it worked. And I thought 'What would happen if I told EarthGuard I was alive? What would they do?' I knew you all were in disarray, losing me. I knew Technarch would want me back in the command center, and as soon as I divided myself again I would start being Multiplex again, and I would lose any chance I had with you.

"I didn't tell anyone because Multiplex is dead. I don't want to be him anymore. When I'm divided up, I can't feel close to people. I can't love them. I wanted more than anything else just to be with you. And you need help now, and I am here for you. If you'll have me."

Simon's phone chirped. He rolled over and saw the text message. The bright screen hurt his eyes in the darkness, and he blinked as he read it.

"Are you sleeping?" she had asked.

"Not any more," he chuckled to himself. He typed back. "Dreaming of you"

He could almost feel her smile from all the way down the hallway. "Can I come over?"

"You never have to ask me that," he mumbled. "Yes!"

He scooted over in his bed, making room for her, and wondered which would be the coolest pose for him to be in when she arrived. He fumbled around, trying different positions. Lying on his back? On his side? Sitting up? He settled on leaning up, and checked his breath.

She slipped through the door with her signature fizzing sound without even opening it first. Sarah was wrapped in her Moonlight weave robes, and she illuminated the dark room with her simple presence. The robes flowed and billowed around her, revealing gentle hints of her growing figure underneath. Her eyes lit up with excitement as she saw him in bed. "Hi," she whispered.

"Hi there," he said, smiling back.

She drifted into the room, clasping her fingers together and casting odd shadows as she swayed slightly with an uncertain nervousness. "I um..." she started to say, stopped, and bit her lip in agitation.

"Is something wrong?"

"Yeah," she confessed.

"What is it?" He patted the bed, inviting her to sit down.

She took a deep, shaking breath. "I feel weird. I'm feeling kind of disbalanced, and ungrounded?" she said as she cautiously stepped towards him. "Like I'm filled with this surplus of Yin energy?"

"Yin energy?" he asked skeptically.

She sat on the bed, facing him, swallowed nervously, and nodded. "Yeah. It's a kind of like an Anima surge with a tinge of Earth and Metal flux?"

"Oh." Simon nodded and thought about it. "You do understand that I have no idea what you're talking about."

She inhaled and squirmed on the bed. "There's something wrong with me. My chakras are completely unaligned, and I can't get them back. Like my third and fourth are completely disjointed. And my seventh is ... like..." She flexed her fingers, trying to find the right word, and made an awkward face. " ... starving."

"Okay I'm Googling this." He picked up his phone, and tapped in a search. "How do you spell that? What is it? Chakra?"

"C, H, A, K, R, A."

"Chakra, chakra ... Here we go! Chakras. Thank you Wikipedia!" He scrolled through the article. "Okay, there's a bunch of them. Third is throat, fourth is chest ... And the seventh is..." His eyebrows shot up. "Oh! Down THERE." He squinted at her.

"I think I'm not well."

Simon got concerned. "Did you want to see the nurse?"

She made an odd face, as if the thought of seeing the school nurse not only had not occurred to her, but also was something she simply didn't want to do. "I'm not that bad off," she hedged.

"Not bad enough to see the nurse, but bad enough to see me?"

She hemmed a bit. "Ummm ... Yeah."

"Maybe it's just nerves? Or a little PTSD?"

She squirmed, grunted, and shifted on the bed. "No. This is a definite dissonance. Something is missing."

Simon sighed. "What do you need?"

"Um..." She took a deep nervous breath, and he glanced down at her developing chest for a moment. "Yang to balance the Yin, Animus to compliment the Anima..."

"What are those?"

She hesitated. "They're ... masculine energies. And the Earth and Metal need an influx of Wood."

He stared at her for a good long moment. "So let me get this straight. You're telling me you need a guy with some wood for you?"

Sarah blushed and hid her eyes. "I'm really not good at this," she finally confessed.

Simon smiled, watching her break down in her pretensions. "Are you just, like, horny?" he asked. "Is that it?

She scrunched her face up and squeaked in embarrassment, but the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her desires. Simon pushed himself upright and reached out to her. He caressed her warm cheek. "Sarah, I'm really not an expert in this, but if you're trying to be seductive, I'll just say this. You have far more power over me than you realize. And you don't need to make weird excuses to be with me. All you need to do is say 'Simon, I'm horny', and I'm good. I'm here for you. I will come running."

She giggled and blushed.

He continued. "Actually, you don't even need all five syllables. All you need to say is 'Now!', and I'll be ready and eager."

Sarah laughed delightfully. "Now?"

"Yeah. That's right. Just 'Now!'"

She leaned in closer, her embarrassment slipping away and replaced with silliness. "Now!" she whispered playfully.

"You got it."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "You don't understand, Simon. I said 'Now.'"

He blinked, and could see the determination in her eyes. "Oh! You mean ... now."

She nodded, grinned, and leaned into him. "Now," she whispered, and she kissed him.

As Simon convulsed at the tingling sweetness of her kiss, Sarah pressed forward, pushing him onto his back, then crawled and lay on top of him. She writhed against his thin body and held him snug as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly, planting and grinding her sweet mouth on his and probing him with her warm tongue. They moaned and giggled and made out, slipping her lithe body under the blankets and snuggling together against the growing chill of the mid October night, with two weeks to go until the next full moon.

"Pay up, Sheila!"

Raquel glared at Kaelyn. The cat girl was looking a bit too smug for her own good, but a bet was a bet. Sarah and Simon had hooked up, and Kaelyn had won fair and square. Raquel pulled a ten out of her pocket, and with attitude, held it out to the feline.

"Thank you!" she said, taking the bill and stuffing it into her cleavage. "Told you they would. I could smell it on them." She purred and with a flick of her tail, turned from Raquel and Clyde to find another victim for the day.

"Ahem!" Raquel cleared her throat impatiently. Kaelyn stopped and regarded her.

"You have something to say?" she asked.

Raquel held her hand out, waiting for a payment. "That ain't the only bet we made!"

Kaelyn squinted at her, and saw her nod towards her new boyfriend. Clyde looked a bit sheepish, almost embarrassed at the attention.

"We didn't bet on you two hooking up!" Kaelyn said.

Raquel grinned, sauntered up to the cat-girl, and gave her a knowing smirk.

"EVERYTHING gets bigger," she reported.

Kaelyn digested the news, her eyes widened, and she glanced up and down Clyde's body, making estimations. The boy just shrugged in confirmation. She gave Raquel an astonished look, and Raquel simply nodded and wiggled her eyebrows proudly. With a growl, the cat-girl whipped the ten out of her bra, thrust it back at Raquel, and stormed off.

Raquel triumphantly smoothed out the bill, and called out to her retreating friend. "A pleasure doing business with you!" Then with a grin, she grabbed her new boyfriend by the shirt collar and led him down the hallway to their next class.

The patio door and window had been repaired. Destroyed furnishings had been removed. Walls were repainted. The couch had been replaced, and Tricia now sat in the middle of floor surrounded by a debris field of wooden shelves and assorted fasteners and other components. She was holding an Allen wrench in one hand, instructions in the other, and she squinted in bafflement at the international pictographs which were supposed to clearly depict how to assemble an entertainment center.

Annie sat nearby, deep in a depressed thought, silently twisting her Velcro tether in her fingers.

The bedroom door opened, and Joey quietly emerged. He was wearing his jacket, ready to go outside, and he rolled a luggage bag behind him.

"I'm leaving now," he said simply.

The girls stopped what they were doing and stared at him. "Please, don't," Annie pleaded.

"Joey, you don't have to do this," Tricia said, setting aside the tools and instructions. "Whatever Tombspawn was doing to you, he's not doing it to you anymore. It's over. He's gone now."

He shook his head. "It's not over. Nothing has changed. He just took advantage of the situation I created. It's bad enough that my being here puts you both in danger, but what I've been doing to you both, that started a long time ago. I've been programming you two, and myself, every time I touched you. I can't do that to you anymore."

Annie spoke up. "You're not programming us!"

"Yes I am. Annie, you don't have any willpower around me anymore. Every time I touch you, you break. You become this slave, willing to do anything I ask. And you've got it worse than Tricia. She can at least stand up to me a bit and teach me things that I need to know, but only as long as I'm not touching her. But you? I'm turning you into a shadow of yourself."

"I'm not a shadow!"

"Then tell me. Was I wrong? Was it wrong for me to nearly kill Brandon, and put him and Neal and Clyde in the hospital? Tell me this right now!" She balked, and he continued. "If you think it was wrong, why didn't you tell me? What about me going to Purgatory and talking to Psi-Clone? Did you really think I should go, or were you scared?" Annie trembled in her silence. "What about me dating Lynne? Did you have any opinion on that? And what about you and me, making love when we both knew Betty was going to walk in that door in any moment. You were worried that she would catch us, so why didn't you stop me? I don't want you like this. It's my fault. I did this to you. So I have to go."

Annie started tearing up.

He turned, and out of habit, reached for the small cage that sat next to the wall. Scrappy's cage was empty, and he swallowed hard as he remembered. He dropped his hand, and couldn't bring himself to look at them as he spoke. "I'm so sorry. I love you both. Goodbye."

And he stepped out the door.

Tricia and Annie stood and sat there, crying, and Annie shook her head. "No," she blurted out. "NO!" she then screamed, and she rolled to the door, chasing him.

"Annie! Stop!" Tricia said, going after her. Annie pulled the door open and rolled into the hallway. Joey was at the elevator.

"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" she screamed at him.

"Annie. Go back."

"Don't leave me!" she yelled, grabbing his jacket sleeve.

"Annie. Let go of me."

"I'm not letting go of you! I'm not letting you go anywhere! You can't leave me!"

Joey turned to her, dropped to his knees and grabbed her arms by the sleeves. "Annie! I have to go! You're a junkie now!"

"I'm not!" She struggled against his grip.

He released his grip, and took her hands in his. Omegaplasm flowed instinctively, and she gasped as the pleasure filled her. Her eyes dilated, and she swooned at his touch. "Yes you are!" he said to her. "See? This is what I do to you! Do you feel it? I can't control it!" He released her hands and grabbed her sleeves again. She panted heavily, and as the pleasure died, she responded by surging forward to kiss him, and his pushed them apart. "You need to detox. And I need to control this."

"I don't need to detox! I need you!"

"That's the addiction talking. You need to get past it."

"No! It's not addiction. It's my heart! Joey, I love you!" She was tearing and sobbing, in near hysterics. "You think I can just get over you? I know what will happen if you leave! You're just going to stay with Lynne, or you're going to meet some other girl with powers who gives you everything you want, and I'll just be a memory, a stepping stone in your life. So I am not letting you go, because if I do, I know you're not coming back to us."

Joey grew quiet, and he shook his head. "I'm coming back."

"How can you promise that? What kind of promise can you make me? Do you really promise to come back to us?"

He thought about it, and dipped his head downward and shook it. "No. I can't make a promise that I'm coming back to you both."

Tricia was standing not far away, and they heard her gasp.

"But I'll make this one," Joey said. "I'm coming back for you, Annie Freidman."

"M ... me?"

"All this time, I've been wondering. Who's the one for me? Who's the one I'm supposed to be with? And all this time the answer has been sitting right in front of me. There's something different about you, Annie, something I haven't been able to find in anyone else. You are the only one I've been able to connect to at range. I've been trying for weeks to expand my powers, to infuse someone with powers at a distance, and all of this time I've failed for everyone except for you. And when I was looking for you in the warehouses, I knew where you were. I could feel you, sense you at a distance. I homed in on you, and found you. Annie, you are part of me now, and I can't imagine life without you, and don't want a life without you. And yeah, I know I am going to meet other women in my life, but you're the most special girl I'll ever know. You're the only Jewish-Japanese paraplegic with a hundred and sixty-five IQ I know of, and you are my rock. I feel lost without you. I need you, and I don't want to leave.

"But the more I touch you now, the more I lose you, and I need you back. I need the girl I fell in love with." He paused. "Everyone has a secret desire but yours wasn't a secret to me. You wanted me to choose you. Well I choose you, Annie Freidman."

"Me? You choose me?" She glanced around at Tricia, who was listening in at a distance and tearing up. "Not Tricia and me, but me?"

Joey shrugged. "Tricia's my mom. It's not like I'm going to marry her too."

Annie gasped, and Joey lightly brushed one finger over her left ring finger. The Omegaplasm sparked, trying to make a connection from such a simple touch, and they both looked down to her hand. "You wanted a promise. Here it is. I am coming back for you, Annie, if you'll have me."

She trembled and stared at him for a good ten seconds before telling him "I wear a size four-and-a-half."

Joey smiled. "I'll remember that."

The elevator door opened, and Joey stepped back into it.