AN: Funny thing. I wrote this chapter before the last one, and I was like "I'll post the next chapter right after this one so that way no one will get too freaked." Then things happened and instead of getting mild anxiety you're getting a huge wallop to the gut and no painkillers. Have fun.

Chapter 35: A Second Interlude

Dr. Janus Dane awoke to find Mr. Hipler staring down at her. He looked vaguely disapproving. She removed the helmet from her head and sat up on the chair, swung her feet over the edge of the bed.

"We may have a problem," he said to her.

"What is it?"

"4979 has a visitor."

"He has visitors all the time. His mother and sisters-"

"This person isn't a family member. The techs have been talking to him, and they seem to be friendly with him already.

That got her attention. The technicians were not approachable people. It would take a special touch to get them to warm to a stranger.

Something occurred to her. "It's not visiting day."

"Exactly."

Janus stood, "I'll be right there. Get the techs out of the room."

The man waiting for her in 4979's room was in his early 20s. His hair was back and cropped short on one side and long on the other so that it fell over his brow. The eyebrow above his left eye was studded at three different points. His lip was pierced on the right side with a surprisingly tasteful ring. He looked up at her, and she saw that his bright blue eyes were full of confused sadness.

"Hello," Janus said.

"Hi." He went back to gazing at the still face inside the chamber.

She waited for a minute and then said, "What's your name?"

"Adam," he took a breath and shook himself. When he turned to look at her for the second time. His eyes were now alert and nervous. "Who are you?"

"My name is Dr. Janus Dane."

"Doctor of what?"

She shifted uncomfortably, "It's complicated."

There was something alive in his eyes. Janus, who did calculus in her head, did not sense anything familiar. Adam has a different sort of intelligence than she did. "Suit yourself," he went back to observing 4979.

The body in the chamber was twitching slightly, causing the fluid around it to slosh back and forth. It looked like the man was having a bad dream.

Adam looked at her again, and Janus realized that she had no idea what to say. "How did you get in here?" she asked.

He shrugged, "I scanned my pass at the door and walked in."

"And who gave you a pass?"

"A friend sent one to me online."

If it was one of the technicians she would see to it that they were dismissed immediately. "And who was this friend?"

Adam shrugged. He was wringing his hands in his lap. "I don't know. Just a guy I met online. We both have a soft spot for old video games. Doom, some of the early Nintendo Stuff, Silent Hill…"

Janus's eyes widened. A distant bell was ringing in her head.

"He sent me this message," Adam produced his phone from a pocket and showed her the screen. On it was a brief message: the address of the facility, 4979's full name, and the words, "go say thank you."

"That's...interesting. Why the thank you bit?"

Adam took out his wallet. He pulled out a photograph and handed it over. "These are Nancy and Susan. My twin sisters. They're five."

"And?"

"This idiot," he taps the glass over 4979's head, "saved their lives. That's why he's like this."

"What did he do?"

"Ran into a burning building," he sighed, "just typical." Adam wiped his eyes, "He must have been looking for me, and when he walked by the building and saw it was on fire he ran right in. I wasn't there, and instead he found my sisters. They were two years old at the time. He carried them out. Then he must have gone back into the building, all this before the firefighters showed up." He sighed, "I'm not sure what happened. Maybe dad whacked him and knocked him out. That's probably it, because the old man made it out just fine. There's no justice in this world."

Janus stayed quiet. It made sense to her that this was 4979's story. He was a hero, in a sense. "And you didn't know where he was?" she asked.

Adam shook his head, "His mom swept him off somewhere. She always does that. Religious camps, youth groups, bible studies, private schools. I think she thought it would 'cure' him."

"Cure him?"

"Not literally. He's not sick, not from my point of view anyway. He's just… not what she wanted I guess. The poor guy is so far in the closet I doubt he knows he's in there at all."

Janus blinked. This was news to her. "4979 is homosexual?"

His face darkened, "maybe I shouldn't have told you that."

"No," she said quickly, "no. It's none of my business. The techs might like to know though."

"They already do. We talked about it a bit earlier."

"How did they know?"

"'The way his hormones responded to certain stimuli.' That's a direct quote."

She flashed on Herobrine's concerned face. "He's getting better." What had he meant by that? Was he referring to the fact that Player was gay or was it something else? "Did he ever show any signs of sickness?" she probed.

"I'm pretty sure he was some kind of depressed," Adam said, "having no friends will do that to a person. He got better when he started hanging around with me, but deep down I think we made it worse for him at home. And eventually his mom found out and… there was a reason he was looking for me at my house and not at school."

Janus had just one more question, but she really hated to ask it. "Did you two have a relationship?"

Adam smirked at her, "My girlfriend would just love that, but no. I'm straight, I just have empathy. I'm surprised how much people confuse those two things."

She dropped that line of questioning and went back to the original one, "So your friend told you where he was and you came here to find him."

"Yes he did. He does stuff like that, he always seems to know what's going to happen before it does." His phone sparked and buzzed, and Adam dropped it with a yelp.

Janus raised a foot to stomp on it instinctively, like it was a huge spider, but the phone skittered sideways of its own accord. It crackled and snapped, sparks flying from it like it was alive. Something squirmed from it, and she knew without a doubt that this was alive. It emerged from the screen, long sagging limbs dragging it forth until it resembled some huge insect, and then it was gone like a shot across the floor. It scrambled up the wall and disappeared into one of the screens.

The screens in the room jumped to life, all of the complicated medical information that the technicians usually spared the visitors in plain view. Adam's eyes locked onto one of the displays and he leaned forward over the glass bubble. This seemed to concern him much more than whatever had just crawled out of his phone.

"What the hell is that?" he asked no one, his eyes narrowing.

Janus was watching another screen. The white text of the system she was used to seeing was on it, filling up the screen. For the first time, the text wasn't monotone and informative.

"One virus detected, treating.

"Treatment failed.

"No viruses detected.

"I can feel him. He's climbing up inside me. He's ripping me apart. He's going to take over. The code is being rewritten."

The text color changed to an acid green, and the plain white text of the system began to change before her eyes. "Don't be afraid, Janus," the speakers in the walls shushed her with static interference. The door slid open gently to admit the two technicians as they rushed in, looking down at their computers that monitored 4979's vitals.

"What are you?" Janus asked.

The technicians were pulling hidden keyboards from the area around the container, completely ignoring Adam's presence. The young man was still watching the screen, his eyes getting wider and wider as the reading changed.

"My name is Ben," the thing in the computer told her. Shivers ran up her back and clawed at her hair. She swallowed hard. She had not asked for this. "I am here to help you. Act quickly, but do not use the paddles on 4979. You may cause damage."

One of the technicians reached for the latch on the bubble.

Janus pointed at him, "Don't," she said. He stopped moving.

"We have to do something," the other tech said.

"What's wrong with him?"

Several alarms began going off. Action exploded in the little room. The body in the tank spasmed, its back arching, its legs thrashing. Its arms jerked like they were on puppet strings.

"He's seizing!" Adam yelled, a professional authority came over him, "we need to get him out of there. He could hurt himself."

One of the techs jumped into action, opening the bubble. Some of the semi-congealed liquid within slopped out onto the floor as the body flailed.

The other tech was still on the wall, frantically tapping a keyboard. "His heartbeat is up, but there's no palpitations yet. We have time. Blood pressure is elevated. The EEG shows no signs of the seizure. It could just be muscle spasms. Leave him in the pod, you idiot or we'll lose all of the data!"

Adam turned his head to look at the man but did not remove his arms from the solution. The other tech hauled him back. "You'll sacrifice him for the data?!" he yelled.

That earned him a sharp slap and a few low words. "If we have no data we won't know what's wrong with him or what to do about it."

"Are you doing this?" Janus asked the screen.

"No," Ben told her, "Try to relax. Things are already in motion. He will come to no harm."

She didn't believe it. Another young man was going to die in front of her, and she was powerless to stop it.