Chapter Four: The Charlotte Davidson Incident

Going downstairs, Mei was much more comfortable than when she had first entered the building, but found it to be much more interesting than the ground floor. The stairs ended with the white hallway taking a sharp right, then two more rights spread out so that it made sort of a square to an unusually long hallway. Mei figured that they were directly below the examination rooms, though she could hear echoes of loud chatter, laughing, clanging, and what she thought were the squeak of sneakers. In any case, she couldn't get a better listen since Dr. Holst took out a bunch of keys and unlocked the first door to his left, opened it, and stepped into its side so that Mei could enter.

She did, and could immediately feel that strong sense of comfort wash away. It was another white room, again, though with a much higher ceiling that she thought wouldn't be so possible underground. There was a large window to the left with a long desk, at least five computer monitors, and a man and a woman with lab coats and coffee mugs.

However, most eerily terrifying was the white padded chair, almost like a dentists chair with twice the amount of metal gadgets and wires and a hundred other things that could only be identified by a few people in the world. It was placed in the center of the room facing a much smaller chair and desk. The people in the window could clearly see the side view of both the chairs, but they were now standing and greeting Mei's father, who had apparently gone around some back door to get into that room.

Dr. Holst asked Mei to please sit in the white chair, while he took the smaller chair and desk and scooted towards her. "Now, this is a much safer place. No one can be listening here, except those goofballs observing us, so don't be afraid to speak up, alright?" He still had his clipboard, but was turned to a different page.

"Alright," stuttered Mei. She looked to the window again. Her father was looking intently at her, but then gave her a reassuring smile. She still couldn't tell his fake smiles from his real ones.

"So," the doctor poised his pen. "When did you have first signs of your ability?"

Mei looked to her feet and clicked her heels together. "Well, um. Well, I don't know." She could tell that her voice was getting quieter. "I think it was a few weeks ago, when um..."

Her father's voice suddenly rang out from a speaker, and Mei looked to see him talking into a mircophone. "The Charlotte Davidson Incident," he said. "That was your first."

"Charlotte Davidson?" Dr. Holst asked. "Who's that? Someone you know?"

"Oh, well," Mei went slow to pick out her words. "Well, Charlotte Davidson is this girl from school. And er, she was one of those girls, you know, who's real dumb and real pretty and real rich and says she's related to the Queen by something like twenty half-cousins." She stopped, glancing back at her father, who was sipping a coffee of his own.

"Yes, I know the type. Did you do something to her?"

Mei's eyes shot back down at her feet. "Well, you see, of course I didn't like her very much, and she didn't like me very much either. And she'd always talk badly about me and my friends, but I didn't say a word about her. Not aloud to anyone she'd talk to, at least. So, finally," she took a quick glance at the doctor, who was still writing. "Finally, I just thought really badly of her. You know, I just wished that someday she'd be fat. Real fat. And ugly, too. Just, that tiny little ass of hers would just blow up like a balloon." The last part had been said a little too loudly.

"Yes? And then what happened?" Dr. Holst showed a small sign of a chuckle waiting to burst out. Mei looked to her father, who was also holding a thin smile. The man and woman in lab coats were very seriously writing on their clipboards.

"And then, it happened. Every lunch time, she'd be there with piles of food, just stuffing her face with cookies and all that comfort food stuff. And you know, she used to just eat a banana every day. I heard that she just told her friends that she was just really hungry all of the time. Or, at least really hungry in school. So, she just ate. A lot. But, she just looked fine with it. It probably wasn't like she couldn't stop herself. It was like she thought stopping herself would be worse than letting herself go so that it could pass."

"But, it didn't pass?" Dr. Holst was writing notes down furiously.

Mei shook her head no. "This started a few weeks ago. I'd say the beginning of last month. Last time I heard, she was more than twenty pounds overweight. Well, she started at I think fifteen pounds underweight, so that's quite the difference."

The doctor decided to ask some more questions instead of catching up. "Did you know it was you doing it?"

"No, sir. I thought it was purely coincidental."

"Any other incidents that you know of? Accidental or not?"

Mei swung her feet. She always felt better after a good rant. "I think. I heard my mother telling my friends that she couldn't fight with my father anymore when I was around," this time, she didn't dare glance at her father. "She said she'd always just feel happy and would understand everything he said. She said that was real strange. I would think it would be my doing. I don't like it very much when they argue."

Dr. Holst nodded. "Completely understandable." He finished the last of it, and looked to the window watchers. They nodded, and went to their computers.

"What now?" asked Mei.

"Now, we start testing."

That was the last thing Mei remembered. Not a moment later, she shot up from the bed and looked around her. The room was oddly dark from all that white she had been seeing earlier. At least, there was a window from the door that let in a stream of whiteness. She could still tell that the room she was in was still white, with a white bedframe and white sheets, and a white table at the foot of the bed. Even the hospital gown she wore was white. In about a minute her eyes adjusted, and she noticed that her blanket was gray and that her father sound asleep in the bedside chair.

Her feelings got the best of her, and she went from bewildered to angry. "Papa!" she whispered. "Papa!" she said, in a normal tone. "Papa, wake up!" She scooted over and shook his arm.

"Hm? What? Mei- Oh, shit!" He grasped his temples.

"Sorry, sorry!" Mei let him go. "Oh, I didn't tell them that I can give people headaches."

"Nevermind. They got that," said her father, and he stretched himself out and gave a long yawn.

Mei pushed herself to stand up in the bed. "They did? How?" she asked.

"Testing," he said and flicked on the light switch. They both shielded their eyes from the brightness of the room.

Mei peeped through her fingers to glare at her father. "Testing? I don't remember any testing. I just remember Dr. Holst saying there was going to be testing. And then- And then I was here."

Her father nodded. "That's the idea. I told them to erase your memories."

"What?!" Mei slapped her hands down on the bed. "What for?!"

"It's standard procedure. Everyone that comes in and is registered here goes through testing, and then has the decision to erase their memories of it or not." Mei spoke up, but he continued on. "But, since you're a minor, I made that decision for you."

"But, Papa, I-" she scowled. "Could you at least tell me what happened?"

He nodded. "It really wasn't anything special. They just wanted to see your limits. They tested for what emotions you could send, whether physical or eye contact made it stronger, whether it could go through walls. Just things like that."

Mei asked nervously, "And? What were the results?"

Her father took a deep breath and tried to remember it all. "From what they got, you can make people feel hungry, confused (which is where the headaches come in), calm and happy, frightened or anxious, and depressed, but I'll expect you to top that list with anger and attraction," he grinned. "Not that you'd need the latter."

Also, it has a range of about six feet for general use, but a targeted person half a kilometer away can still feel the effects. Physical and eye contact do make it easier to concentrate on the target, and unless you are completely closed off and air-sealed from the target, it can still work. However, you're still young yet and you'll be able to develop your powers much further. Good enough for you?"

Mei let out a breath and stared at her knees. "Yes, good enough," she said.

"Don't worry about it. They usually abstain from multiple testing, but currently you're the only known and living pheromone manipulator in all of the United Kingdom, so they'll want you to come in often," he got close, and fingered her hair, not helping but to share her sadness.

She hugged her knees. "Is that what they call it? A pheromone manipulator. Like pheromones as in scents and bugs and all that?"

"Mei, it's an absolutely wonderful ability. You're very lucky to have it," he told her sincerely, trying to fight the depression that was raining upon him. "C'mon. Cheer up, Mei."

Mei stuck her face in her knees to keep from crying. "No!" she shouted, muffled. "I won't! What do I want to give people headaches and make people fat for?!"

Her father stood up, walked slowly to the door, checked the outside, then locked it. "Mei, I think it's time that I'd tell you something," he said. He sat on the foot of her bed and lifted her face to look him in the eye. "Now, I'm going to tell the whole story, and nothing but the truth."

As she learned much later in life, he never did tell her the whole story, nor even a quarter of the story, although all of what he told was completely true. He just left a few important parts out.

A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the reviews! Even though there were just two of them! D And please, don't be afraid to give another review, for I can deal with two happy days in a row. It's like a drug, really. I'm addicted.