Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters portrayed within, with the possibility of Erik.
Author's Note: Not much happens in this chapter. I apologize. It's mostly talking, really a bit of an information dump. I don't like the title, either… Guess I'm not fond of this chapter, period. Next chapter is when the real action starts.
METAMORPHOSIS
Chapter Five
Revelations of the Spirit
Dr. Sid had a hard time getting to Erik's cell the next morning. The USMF soldiers who were reinforcing the guards were highly paranoid, not a very good state for armed soldiers to be in. He had a difficult time making them realize he was who he said he was, and had been unable to explain why he wanted to speak to a witless mute. But in the end, they let him in without supervision. The doctor wondered absently if they were hoping he'd finish off the youth and end it all.
Erik was pacing his cell, a surprisingly steady gait considering his handicaps. He looked shocked for a moment, then carefully drew his face into a blank look before seating himself on his mattress.
Definitely a keen mind there…
"Hello, Erik," he said, wishing he'd asked for a chair. In the end, he carefully lowered himself to the mattress on the furthest edge from Erik. He watched the youth carefully, knowing he may get the answers he needed from body language.
"I'd like to speak to you; maybe you can help me."
Erik removed his crooked glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"I want to know why you tried to kill Aki," Dr. Sid continued. He pulled a pen and a worn piece of paper from his pocket and offered it to Erik. The youth's brows arched in surprise, but he didn't accept the offered paper.
Maybe he can't write? "These killings… they're connected to why you attacked Aki, aren't they?"
Erik toyed with his glasses, blue eyes fastened on their bent frames. At lease he seems to have lost that blank look… and he is listening to me. Maybe I just have to say the right thing to get him to be more responsive. But what?
"It can't be a coincidence," Dr. Sid said. "And I think you know something about it. Why won't you let anyone know what's going on?"
He had Erik's full attention now. The youth's eyes – God, they look familiar! – were on him, and his face was displaying interest. Perhaps he'd only played dumb because he'd thought Dr. Sid had come to avenge his crime.
"Those attacks are getting more frequent… and are becoming worse. Another body was found right outside the hospital. Whatever it is, it's getting bolder. If you know anything that can stop them…"
Erik seemed suddenly ashamed. His face fell, and he closed his eyes. His hair slanted forward, covering his features.
Dr. Sid watched with dawning realization. Erik had thought killing Aki would solve everything! But why? "What is it?" he asked, a little despairingly. This was going nowhere. If killing Aki was the only option, then there was no way he could carry it out, or permit anyone else to do so. "It's almost like a Phantom is behind this. But the Phantoms are gone!"
He lurched to his feet, intending to leave. This is useless… I shouldn't have expected anything from an attempted murderer.
"The Phantoms aren't gone." Dr. Sid barely heard the soft voice, and he turned slowly back to Erik, wondering if he'd imagined it.
"Excuse me?"
"The Phantoms aren't gone." Erik uncurled his body, standing slowly to face Dr. Sid. A grim look clouded the youth's face. "But they aren't what they were before."
There was a dry rasp to his voice, either from disuse or due to the injury to his vocal cords. But his words were clear.
"You can speak?" Dr. Sid cursed himself for stating the obvious.
"When I want to."
"Why did you do it? Why did you try to kill Aki?" Dr. Sid demanded harshly.
"I had to. Before…" Erik faltered under Dr. Sid's cool gaze, then suddenly braced himself and matched it. Only his fingers, anxiously twisting around the glasses still clutched in his hand, betrayed his emotions. "I failed. I made a promise, and I failed. I may have doomed us all."
"A promise to who? What do you know, Erik?" Dr. Sid tried to soften his voice, hoping to coax the truth from the youth.
Erik sucked in a breath. "Dr. Ross is different. Changed." He walked over to a glass of water he'd set aside, probably from lunch. "She's not human anymore."
Dr. Sid's stomach lurched. No… It can't be true! But… he's right about one thing… There is something different about her… "Why should I believe you? Who are you, anyway?" There was something disturbingly familiar about the intense gaze Erik suddenly fastened on him.
"I can't tell you," Erik muttered.
"Then why should I trust you?"
Erik turned his face from Dr. Sid. "You wouldn't trust me if you did know," he said sadly.
"Try me," Dr. Sid said. What was Erik hiding? "Or I shall leave right now, without giving you a chance to explain yourself." Erik stayed silent. "I promise you, I'll listen with an open mind. No one else will give you that." Erik sank to his mattress. "Now, who are you, and what did you find out?"
Erik closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. "My name," he said, voice faltering, "is Erik Nathaniel Hein." Dr. Sid could only stare wordlessly at the youth before him as Erik met his eyes. "General Hein was my brother."
* * *
Saying it felt almost like an admission of guilt. Dr. Sid looked disgusted and horrified by this revelation, and Erik was almost sorry he'd said anything. But why should I feel guilty? It's who I am! If he won't listen because of that…
If he won't listen… then there's no hope for any of us.
"Genera Hein's brother," Dr. Sid said slowly. "That explains a lot. You promised him you'd kill Aki if he failed, didn't you?"
"This isn't petty revenge," Erik said coolly. "Even if she was partly responsible for his death, I wouldn't resort to murder."
"Your brother would," Dr. Sid countered.
Exasperated, Erik snarled, "I warned you. You promised you'd listen with an open mind, remember? Now you're damning me because of my brother. If you would just listen…"
Dr. Sid sighed. "Even if you didn't intend it, you could still be carrying out your brother's last request. Hein was a skilled manipulator; I wouldn't put it past him to trick you into killing an innocent woman."
Erik swallowed. This was going to be difficult. "I suppose he arranged these murders as proof?" he challenged. "Anyway, Douglas wouldn't do that to me. I trusted him, Doctor, even if no one else did." Dr. Sid gave a derisive snort. "Perhaps I should tell you why, before I get into how I came to be here?" Erik took a sip of water as Dr. Sid seemed to internally debate this. Then the older man sat next to Erik.
"I did promise you," he sighed.
"It's a long story," Erik warned. "I hope the military won't come in and check up on you. I could be brutally sucking the life out of you, after all."
"They won't," Dr. Sid said dryly.
With that, Erik began his tale.
"It would be more accurate to say that I'm General Hein's illegitimate half brother. Our father wasn't very loyal, and he decided to amuse himself with one of the female scientists at a base where he'd been posted for half a year." Erik's voice was slightly bitter. "My father and his family didn't know about me until my mother died in an accident when I was five, and I was sent to live with them."
Erik smiled wryly. "I surprised them, to say the least. They weren't a really loving family to begin with, and I seemed to push them over the edge. I had been happy at first to discover I still had family after my mother died, but I was stuck with a father who hated me, a step mother who ignored me, and a twelve-year-old half brother who resented me for throwing his family into turmoil. I've never been hated for being born before." Erik shut his eyes, remembering those miserable years. Odd, it felt good telling all this to the doctor, even if it only turned Sid's opinion further against him. "It didn't help that my brother was a genius. I think my father expected me to be just like Douglas and be three years ahead of my class. When I wasn't, he gave up on me and barely acknowledged my presence."
Dr. Sid didn't say anything, and Erik decided to shift gears. He expected no sympathy from the doctor, and didn't want to drag this out and make the doctor think he was saying this for pity. "Eventually, though, Douglas realized I wasn't so bad. Probably because I worshipped the ground he walked on – he always did have an ego." Dr. Sid seemed to smile slightly at this. "When he entered the Houston Military Academy four years after I came to live with them, well, I wanted to be a soldier too, even though my teachers told me I was more fit to be a scientist than a soldier."
He paused to take a drink, remembering those long, lonely years in the Academy where he was again compared to his brother and was constantly reminded of his own shortcomings. "I won't go in to that. But I became a soldier, and I was posted in my home city of San Francisco." Now Erik began to fidget uncomfortably. He straightened out his limbs, showing slightly crooked lines of his arms and legs. "That's when everything went wrong for me. That's why I look like this. It's also why I trust my brother completely." Now he had Dr. Sid's full attention.
"When the barrier fell, my brother was at a conference in Houston. I was still in San Francisco at the time, and when I learned what was happening, my first thought was to evacuate my sister-in-law and niece. But they were too close to the fallen section of the barrier, and I didn't get there in time." He could still see their faces, the fear frozen on their stiff bodies. He'd wanted to fall to his knees and weep, but the Phantoms had been coming…
"I was helping to evacuate a building when disaster struck: An escape pod had had its pilot killed by a Phantom, and it crashed into the building. I was trapped under the rubble and crushed…" He saw Dr. Sid wince, and for the first time there was real sympathy in the man's eyes. "I pulled myself free, but I was horribly mangled… And I was alone. I'd been left for dead by my squad, and most of the city was empty of life by the time I worked my way free." He shuddered as he remembered the feeling of abandonment he'd felt, compounded by the intense pain he'd felt all through his shattered body.
"How did you survive?" Dr. Sid sounded intrigued, despite himself.
"Adrenaline, at first. I somehow pulled myself clear and found a drug store. I don't know why a Phantom didn't get to me… I guess I was lucky, though at the time, I would have welcomed the release. But I found a store, and took all the painkillers I could find, as well as food, since I didn't know how long I'd be there. To be honest, I thought I'd die within the day. I'd hoped that I would, anyway. I certainly didn't expect a rescue, not with the Phantoms all around."
Erik took another drink, resting his sore vocal cords for a moment. They'd been wounded when a jagged piece of shrapnel had scraped his throat during the collapse, and they still hurt to use. "I survived by staying near a bio-etheric pipeline. The Phantoms were made visible whenever they came near them, and they seemed to prefer to avoid them when possible. So I survived, barely. I think I was there for eight days, slipping in and out of consciousness, before a patrol came to pick up something important from their base. To make a long story short, I heard their transport and went after them. I think I would have missed them if they hadn't been attacked by Phantoms. I was infected during the battle, ironically, and they brought me out of there."
The infection almost hurt worse than his badly healing wounds. "They eliminated my infection, but didn't think I was worth salvaging. After all, I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, I was barely even alive. But they told my brother, and he came to me. He had lost everything: Parents, friends, his wife and daughter, but he came to me. And he did everything in his power to save me. His mother was very rich, and he'd inherited all her funds, and he used it, every penny of it, to find doctors that could restore me." And he refused to let me waste it in suicide… He knew I wouldn't have the will to use the knife once I was strong enough to wield it, damn him. "He did it all to save me, because I was his family."
"That's… difficult to imagine," Dr. Sid said finally. "But what does this have to do with Aki?"
Erik smiled faintly. He'd wondered when the doctor was going to start getting impatient. "My brother saw to it that I got scientific training while I recuperated – yes, I am aware of his feelings about scientists," he added when he saw Dr. Sid raise a skeptical eyebrow. "But he also knew what I was really good at. And he knew I wouldn't be brave enough to stand against him," Erik confessed. "Anyway, he got me the position aboard the Zeus when I had recovered enough, and I was quite content to work up there."
Erik folded his hands, resting his chin on them. Now for the difficult part… "Then you and Dr. Ross proposed your spirit wave theory, and her infection was exposed. My brother was livid… He was so close to being able to use the Zeus. And he was suspicious of Dr. Ross and her infection. So he sent me all the information he found in your labs"
Dr. Sid's lips thinned. "You were involved in convicting us of treason, then."
"Yes… Though my real discoveries came afterward, when I spoke to my brother face to face, and we accessed your lab aboard the station together." Erik hesitated. "He had just done something terrible… He'd dropped the New York barrier…" Dr. Sid drew in his breath sharply. "He'd gone a little mad, then… he ordered me to ransack your labs… he was trying to justify his actions to himself, I think. He wanted to believe you were the villain, not him… that Aki really was in league with the Phantoms, and that she was wrong." Erik drew his knees up to his chin. He'd never seen his brother cry before. Strong, arrogant, aloof Douglas didn't cry. Oh, he had when his family had died in San Francisco, but Erik had been bed-ridden during that time. He'd never seen his brother really weep before, and it had frightened him. It was why he'd agreed to the general's order to search the lab. "I didn't believe him… I hated him for what he'd done… Then we found your records, and everything changed."
"What do you mean?" Dr. Sid asked alertly.
"The wave pattern of the Phantom you had on record, and the spirit wave form… they didn't match." He watched Dr. Sid's eyes widen. "They weren't opposing, like you had said. I don't know where you got your Phantom pattern, but it was doctored. Douglas and I found the original one, as well as another taken by a doctor in Tokyo that had been sent to you after you left the Zeus. Neither of them opposed the spirit wave fragments that you had collected. True, we only found data for four of the spirits, but they didn't oppose any section of the Phantom spirits! In fact, they almost seemed to enhance it…"
He wondered if Dr. Sid believed him. He didn't care, and plunged onward. "When my brother realized you were going to go on with your plan to use the wave, he realized he had to dispose of Dr. Ross and the wave quickly. He'd realized by then, you see, that you were using the wave to keep Dr. Ross alive… and that it had to be affecting the particles inside of her."
"He'd insisted she was under the control of the Phantoms," Dr. Sid said numbly.
"Yes. And my brother knew he had to do whatever it took. He ordered a mass evacuation of the station, sending all personnel except a skeleton crew to leave at once. I didn't want to go," Erik said softly. I could see this was driving my brother mad… He needed me but he sent me away…" Erik stopped himself. "He knew he'd have to push the Zeus to the limit and that he'd probably die in the process. But, before I left, he made me promise to take care of the situation if things went wrong. He made me promise to destroy Dr. Ross, even though I didn't want to hurt anyone."
"That's why you tried to kill her," Dr. Sid said slowly.
"I'm sorry," Erik said, not sure if he meant he was sorry he'd harmed the doctor's protégé, or sorry he'd failed. "I know you probably don't believe any of this…"
"You said Aki was different," Dr. Sid said. "That's why I'm here. I think you're right. She's connected to these killings, isn't she?"
Erik started. He met Dr. Sid's eyes, staring at the sober man in astonishment. "You do believe me," he breathed.
"I believe something is going on here that involves the Phantoms. I believe something is wrong with Aki. But I don't believe all these killings are her fault… She's been in the hospital during most of them."
"I'd wondered about that, too," Erik admitted. "I thought maybe I'd been wrong about her. But… if it isn't a Phantom, then it would have to be something else affected by the spirit wave. Doctor, was there anyone else that came into contact with it?" He had a horrifying thought. "It isn't you…?!"
Dr. Sid just stared, his mouth dropped in an 'O' of horror. "Captain Edwards," he breathed.
To Be Continued…