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To scienceficfan24 – Thanks for your review! Glad I was still able to surprise you! Hope you like this chapter!
Enjoy!
As the hours passed, Tom kept a watchful eye on Hal. Everyone else, besides Pope, did the same thing. As it grew later and later though, Matt drifted off to sleep, then Weaver, then Pope, then finally Maggie. Only Ben and Anne stayed up with Tom throughout the while night, despite his attempts to get them to go to sleep. Ben insisted that he stay up as not only was he the best person to guard their camp since his spikes would warn him if any Espheni were nearby, but the spikes also made it so that he didn't need as much sleep as the rest did. And Anne insisted she stay awake to keep watch over Hal.
Tom didn't have the energy or the will to push it any further than that. He knew that Ben was right, his spikes gave him a greater strength and endurance level than those without spikes, and they did warn him about nearby skitters. So letting him stay up was a logical decision even if he didn't get any rest when the others did before the attack. It also made sense for Anne to stay up as she was a doctor and Hal was running a fever before he fell asleep. It wasn't just that though.
Throughout the entire night, Tom's oldest son didn't stir, didn't make any move whatsoever. He remained peacefully asleep, which was the complete opposite of how he was that afternoon. It was nice to see Hal completely at rest, yet it unnerved the father a bit. The young man was so still that if it wasn't for the sight of Hal's chest rising and falling steadily, it would've appeared that he was dead.
As night turned into day, Hal continued to sleep. Even when everyone else who had fallen asleep woke up and ate some of the breakfast they brought, he never stirred. They all then began wondering if they should wake him as they packed up their camp, but they didn't have to. Maggie, wanting to check if Hal still had a fever, went over and knelt down beside him just in time to hear a soft groan escape his lips, followed by his eyes fluttering open.
Hal woke slowly, still feeling exhausted despite knowing he'd been asleep for awhile. It was like when he'd take a nap before he'd go on sentry duty for most of the night and would wake feeling all groggy. This time though, along with the grogginess, he had a bit of a headache and his entire body was aching. He then tried to remember what happened, recognizing the way he felt, as he felt it before but couldn't remember when and why it happened. His head was throbbing so much, he couldn't think clearly. Letting out a small groan, Hal forced his eyes open.
The young man then instinctively closed them though when the bright sun shined directly into his eyes caused the pain in his head to intensify. Suddenly, a cool hand was laying against his forehead before moving to his cheek as a familiar voice asked, "Hal? Are you awake?"
Hal turned his head to the side where the voice had come from, then opened his eyes again. It was easier and less painful this time as the sun wasn't shining into his eyes, allowing him to keep them open and to focus on the figure beside him. Maggie.
"Hi." Hal managed to croak out before he started coughing. His throat was drier than he thought it was. It felt like he had been eating sand or something.
"Here, drink this." Anne said as she came over to him, offering him a bottle of water. Hal pushed himself up, ignoring the ache in his limbs and took the water from the doctor.
"Thanks." Hal said, then swallowed a few gulps. As he did that, he noticed everyone was staring at him and just like that, the memory of what happened last night, of what he did, came back to him.
Tom, who had also walked over to his son, waited until Hal finished drinking before he asked, "How are you feeling?"
"Better." Hal replied, lowering the bottle as he put the lid back on. As he did that, Anne crouched down in front of him, pressed the back of her hand against his forehead and said, "Your fever's gone."
"Told you, I just needed some sleep." The young man reminded her of what he had told them all last night.
"Since you knew that, I take it this has happened before." Anne concluded. Hal looked up at her, then at the rest of the group who were still watching him before he sighed in resignation and nodded.
"Well, don't leave us hanging. What the h*ll was it that you did last night? And how?" Pope demanded when Hal didn't actually say anything. Tom resisted the urge to turn around and punch Pope in the face just to shut him up, but it soon became clear that he was not the only one annoyed the leader of the Berserkers.
"Pope." Weaver's voice was full of warning, telling the man that he'd better be quiet right now if he knew what was good for him.
"What? He said he'd explain once he got some sleep. He slept, and now he's awake which means it's time for him to start talking." Pope reasoned, his tone full of anger and annoyance.
"Give him some time Pope." Anne tried to reason with the criminal. A noble effort, but one that they all knew wouldn't work.
"We've been giving him time to 'fess up for nearly a month now. Hasn't that been enough?" Pope questioned, his voice getting louder and louder with every word that passed through his lips.
Tom, now completely fed up with the man's behaviour, stood up, turned to face him while protectively standing in front of Hal. As he did that, he put his hand on the gun in his belt and with a terrifyingly calm voice, he said, "Pope, that is enough."
Seeing the not-so-subtle threat, Pope backed off but didn't look happy about it at all. As Anne looked around at everyone else in the vicinity, she could see that everyone was now on edge and looked a little lost, like nobody really knew what to do now. It was Hal's expression though that unnerved Anne. Normally, he was very social and seemed to enjoy being around others. Now, it was as though he wanted to become invisible or disappear entirely. It made sense considering what was going on, but it was still a very abnormal expression on the young man's face.
"Here, let me get you something to eat." Anne said to Hal as she moved to stand up.
"No, it's okay. I'm not hungry." Hal responded, causing her to stop in her tracks as everyone turned to look at him with concern.
"Hal, you need to eat." Maggie told him after a brief moment of silence, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"I'm fine, I'm just not hungry." Hal insisted as he turned his head to give her a small but reassuring smile.
There was another moment of silence as everyone besides Hal exchanged looks, wondering what they should do next before Weaver took charge, "Well, since the rest of us ate already, we should get a move on. Got to put as much distance between us and the aliens as possible."
"I doubt that will be a problem. Pretty sure the kid took care of all of them last night. If there were any survivors, they'd either be running back to their Overlords or they would've found us sometime during the night." Pope commented.
"You okay to walk?" Maggie asked Hal as they both stood up, her hand gripping his arm above his elbow to help him up. The dark-haired, young man nodded and seemed relatively steady so the blonde released her hold on him.
Tom stared at his son for a few seconds, clearly still a bit worried about him, but ultimately nodded and said, "Okay, let's go."
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As they trekked through the woods, everyone was silent which surprised Hal. Considering how long they had all pushed him for answers for the last few weeks, and how they acted last night, he expected them to start asking questions again, especially since he told them he would explain after he got some rest. Nobody did though, except Pope when he first woke up, but even he was quiet now. The young man had no doubt that the former criminal wanted to hound him for more information, but that was probably the reason why he and Weaver were at the front of the group, then Matt and Anne while Hal was closer to the back with his Dad, Maggie, and Ben.
For the first half hour or so of their journey, Hal waited anxiously for someone to start asking him questions. Though he had known when he first arrived at the 2nd Mass that they would, he figured he would just try to blow it off, hoping that if he did it long enough, not only would they stop asking, they might forget all about it. He didn't want anyone to know about what happened during those months he was separated from his family, nor did he want to think or talk about it. After what happened last night though, he knew he was going to have to tell them. Then again, he might still be able to control how much they knew.
Continuing through the woods, they ended up having to go up a small, but steep hill. Hal grabbed tree branch with his left arm to keep his balance and to use to pull himself up, just like some others were doing. However, he immediately regretted doing that when his left shoulder started throbbing. Since it hadn't been hurting in a while, he had thought that it had finally healed after the abuse it suffered while he was held prisoner by the Espheni, but apparently he was wrong.
"Are you alright?" Maggie asked, seeing the pained look on his face and how he was now rubbing his shoulder with his right hand.
"Yeah, I just pulled a muscle or something." Hal assured her with a grin. She didn't look convinced but let the matter drop. Glancing around at everyone else, he saw that they were all looking at him but quickly turned their eyes away when they saw him staring them. He waited until they were all up the little hill before he finally decided it was time to tell them the truth. Or well, part of it.
"It wasn't a ghetto." Hal started, still rubbing his left shoulder, "Where I was. I have no idea what you would call it, but it definitely wasn't a ghetto. At least, not like the kind you were in."
Hal could see from the corner of his eye that Maggie was looking at him, but he knew that everyone was listening to him, so he continued, "I don't remember much of what it looked like. I was inside pretty much the entire time, we all were."
"'All'?" Tom questioned as he looked over at his son, trying to keep his voice neutral even though he was already starting to feel terrified about what Hal was about to tell them.
"Yeah, there were other humans there." Hal confirmed, taking his hand off his shoulder and shifting it around a little, hoping to shake off the soreness in it. As he was doing that, he noticed that everyone was not-so-subtly looking over at him, waiting for him to continue.
"I don't know a lot about what they were doing and planning, I just know what Karen told me." Hal warned, knowing full well that Karen could have been lying to him, even though he didn't really think she had.
"And what was that?" Pope asked, his tone filled with frustration at how long it was taking Hal to tell them what had happened.
"Karen," Hal paused briefly, feeling a little sick at the mention of her before he forced himself to continue, "she, and, at least two Overlords were in charge, I think. They wanted to create more people like Lexi. Hybrids, to use as weapons against those that were still fighting against them, and to pressure the humans into siding with the Espheni."
"But, how did they plan on getting you all to side with them in the first place? After all, you weren't harnessed and you don't have an eyebug." Ben questioned, moving a little faster so he could walk closer to his older brother.
"From what Karen said, that was still a work in progress. I guess, something was going wrong with them trying to do the same experiments they did on us on harnessed kids. The same with people who were implanted with eyebugs." Hal answered.
"And Karen just decided to explain this out of the goodness of her heart?" Pope asked with a disbelieving tone.
Hal slowed his stride at Pope's questioning, wondering how exactly to answer that without going into any details. After a minute or two of thought, he said, "Let's just say, that some, pretty bad stuff happened, and she found herself trying to get on my good side."
"What 'stuff'?" Tom asked, actually sounding terrified of the answer he would get.
"It doesn't matter. But that's why they were doing the experiments on me, and on the others." Hal responded, not glancing in his Dad's direction. He didn't think he could take the look on his face.
"How many people where there?" Weaver then asked, changing the subject much to Hal's appreciation.
"I don't know. I was either in a cell, or in the, lab, I guess you would call it." Hal told him.
"Then how do you know you weren't alone." Pope asked, his voice making it clear he didn't think Hal was telling the truth and was trying to find a way to prove it.
"Because the sound of people screaming really carries through vents and pipes." Hal answered honestly, not bothering to hide how annoyed he was getting with the long-haired, older man who seemed to live for making the entire Mason family miserable.
"Screaming?" Hal immediately regretted his answer when he heard the horror in his Dad's quiet voice. He shouldn't have let Pope get the best of him like that. But, maybe if he somewhat told them all what happened while he was the Espheni's lab rat, they'd stop asking questions.
"Dad, in what world is being experimented on fun?" Hal told him as nonchalantly as possible, finally turn his head to look at his Dad, "Plus, I saw them when I escaped."
"How did you escape?" Tom asked.
"I woke up, and I could smell smoke. Security was down, so I was able to get out of the building. First time that happened since I was brought there." Hal replied, leaving most of the details out. From the expressions on everyone's faces though, he knew he was going to have to give more than that.
"It was night. The buildings that were surrounded by the fence were on fire and a lot of other prisoners were outside. At first, I thought that they had all managed to escape their cells and were trying to get free. But then, then I saw the spaceship above the camp drop a bomb on the building I was just in and it exploded. It was just chaos. There weren't any skitters or Overlords around at all, and the other prisoners," Hal paused, trying to push down the memories of that night that were now running through his mind, then finished, "they started attacking each other."
"Why?" Maggie spoke up for the first time since they started walking.
"I have no idea. They looked like they had gone insane or something." Hal answered.
"So, how did you get free?" Ben then asked.
"When the ship wasn't dropping bombs, they were firing at us. Every time they did that, the fence around us got weaker. It actually started disappearing for a few seconds. It was just a matter of timing and running as fast as I could." Hal told him, nearly tripping on a tree branch in his path.
"Why did you want us to think you were dead?" Maggie asked the question that everyone had been wanting to ask ever since Hal told them he wanted them to keep his presence a secret.
"Considering that the Espheni tried to make me a weapon for them, tried to kill me in the camp along with the others, I, I truly thought you guys would be safer if I wasn't with you. Can't kill someone you already think is dead after all." Hal explained.
Everyone nodded, accepting his reasoning, and then they all fell silent for the next few minutes. While a part of Hal was grateful for the brief respite, he felt tense at not knowing what exactly they were going to do or ask next. He didn't have to wait long before Matt finally joined the conversation to ask, "So, what all can you do?"
"I don't know. I've hardly used my," Hal stopped, not wanting to say 'powers' because that it made sound like he was some kind of superhero or something, then settled on, "new abilities."
"Why not?" Matt asked, moving so he could walk directly beside him. Hal glanced at him, seeing that he actually looked a little excited at the thought of his oldest brother having superpowers which made him smile a little.
"Because I don't want to." Hal responded, making sure his voice sounded light-hearted.
"Why not?" Matt pressed, not seeing why Hal wouldn't want to use his powers. If he had gotten powers after all, he'd be throwing them right into the aliens' faces.
"I just don't." The oldest Mason son repeated a little more forcefully, which luckily, was enough to tell Matt to stop asking.
"When we get back to Chinatown, we should run more tests." Anne broke in, which caused Hal to come to an abrupt halt.
"Why?" Hal all but demanded to know. His tone, and the fact that he had stopped walking made everyone else stop and turn to face him.
"Hal, you were experimented on. We need to know what they did and how it's affecting your body. What they did could have serious side effects."
"Not to mention, if you're going to fight, knowing what alien powers you have would be useful." Tom chimed in. While of course he wanted to make sure that whatever Karen did to him wouldn't have any side effects, he had seen what Hal did to the skitters and the Mech last night. If he could do that again, and more, that would give them a great advantage over any future fights against the Espheni.
"That doesn't matter because I'm not going to use them." Hal replied, clearly shocking everyone from the looks on their faces. He didn't let that faze him though, he had made up his mind about his powers months ago and it wasn't going to change now.
"Not even to help us when this war?" Pope questioned, voice filled with barely contained rage as he took a step towards Hal.
"Whoa, everyone, calm down, alright?" Weaver ordered, quickly getting in between Pope and Hal, fully aware that the former criminal was about to lose any calmness and patience he had.
Tom waited until everyone quieted down before he turned back to his eldest, "Hal, I can't make you do something you don't want to do, but they do have some fair points. We need to make sure that you are okay despite what the aliens did to you, and honestly, we're at the point where we need to use every weapon we have against the Espheni before they kill us all."
For a long moment, Hal stayed quiet, thinking everything over. He wasn't sure what he expected from his family when they found out what the Espheni did to him, but then again, he hadn't been planning on them finding out at all. He didn't really know what he should do. He was pulled from his thoughts when his Dad said, "Hal?"
He looked up at his Dad, then at everyone else before he said, "One test, and that's it. Me using my powers though, that you can forget."
"Hal," Tom started, turning to continue facing Hal as he walked past him, but Weaver reached forward and put his hand on his shoulder, making him move to face him.
"Tom, don't. We pushed him enough for one day. Maybe even for a lot of days." Weaver told him, "He'll come around once he's calmer."
Tom stared at him, then looked over at Hal's retreating figure before he said, "I hope so."
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Luckily for Hal, the test Anne decided to do was another blood test. She was positive that if the experiments they did on Hal gave him abilities, it should show in his blood. After all, blood was connected to every part of the human body. The minute she was done, having found nothing out of the ordinary, though apparently she could feel that something was wrong with it, Hal rushed out of there as fast as he could, wanting nothing more than to be alone.
Tension between him and his Dad hadn't gotten better since they stopped talking on the way back to Chinatown. He knew that his father was watching him and knew that not only was he still worried about him, he was also waiting for another chance to talk to him, and at the moment, that was the last thing Hal wanted. He just knew that it would be about the what all else happened at the place where he was held that he had kept to himself, and his Dad would then ask him why he was refusing to use his 'powers' and Hal didn't want to deal with that right now.
After making his escape from the infirmary, Hal found himself sitting on a bench in front of the small pond on the far side of the base. It was a fairly secluded area with a small playground near by where kids would normally be playing. There weren't many out at the moment though which made it quieter. Hal hadn't been in this area much, having been spending most of his time with either his brothers, or Lexi, or Maggie, or just alone in his room for some privacy. But he liked it here, it was peaceful.
"What are you doing over here?" A soft voice broke the silence. Hal turned his head to look over his shoulder and found Lexi coming up behind him, a curious and concerned expression on his face.
"Just, wanted some time alone. It's hard to think when everyone's staring and talking at me." Hal answered as she came closer to him. Once everyone who went out on the latest mission got back, Lexi had been filled in on what happened. Actually, Hal was fairly certain that by now, everyone knew what he had done at the Espheni base. Pope wasn't known for keeping his mouth shut after all.
"Is it okay if I join you?" Lexi asked, gesturing to the empty space beside her oldest brother.
"Sure." Hal replied, shifting over a little so she had more room. Lexi immediately sat down beside him and for minute or two, the oldest and the youngest Mason children sat in silence.
"Did Mom find anything?" Lexi then questioned, turning her head to face him, though Hal kept looking at the pond.
"She said something about the blood test feels off even though it looks normal, but has no idea what it is." Hal told her what he heard the doctor say before he had left.
For another few seconds, the two were quiet again, but then Lexi asked, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I'd be better though if everyone stopped pressuring me." Hal responded, glancing over at her to give her a small smile before turning back to stare at the still water in front of them.
"It's just because they're worried about you." Lexi told him. When Hal didn't say anything to that, Lexi put her hand over-top his and asked, "You do know that, don't you?"
"I know." Hal confirmed, lowering his head to look down at the ground.
"This might sound strange, but I'm glad you have abilities." That got Hal's complete and total attention.
"Why?" Hal wondered, looking over at his sister with a curious and slightly defensive look.
"Because now I'm not the only one." Lexi answered, her voice sounding just a little sheepish.
Hal didn't say anything for a long moment. While he had obviously knew that the aliens had changed him, gave him his abilities, he hadn't really thought about what Lexi would think when she learned the truth. He also hadn't really thought about what it had been like for her to be the only person the aliens had given abilities too. If he thought it was lonely even though he knew that his sister had Espheni DNA, he couldn't imagine how lonely it had to have been for Lexi.
"No, you're not." Hal told her with a small grin. He then wrapped his arm around her, causing her to move closer to him and lay her head on his shoulder. He had to admit, as much as he hated that his family now knew that he had, abilities, and knew that his Dad was going to keep pressuring him to get back in the fight, he did like that it made Lexi feel better. And honestly, he felt slightly better too. It was nice to not feel completely alone like he had been. Maybe, once his family got used to everything, things would go back to normal again, though deep down, Hal knew that that wouldn't be happening. For now though, he was just going to sit beside his sister and enjoy the small bit of peace that he was sure that wouldn't last for long.
