Chapter 2-A Driving Lesson and a Hospital Bed
Disclaimer: Alex: mine. Alex's dad: mine. X-Men: Well, I asked for them for Christmas, but Santa didn't bring them, so they still belong to Marvel or Warner Brothers or someone else entirely. I would like to point out, however, that I'm still accepting birthday and graduation gifts, and it's never too soon to think about Christmas presents.
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So life went on, as it usually does. I continued to take a lot of crap from pretty much everybody-teachers, students, even some friends, though they cut it out as soon as they noticed I was not amused. Since I couldn't explain why I suddenly went for the Matrix look, (Honestly, what could I say? "Hi, I'm Alex. I'm a mutant-I wear sunglasses because I look like a freak and can see in the dark. How are you?") I kept an air of I'm- wearing-them-because-I-feel-like-it-dumbass around most people.
Even with the aloof manner, I was open for numerous jokes. The general favorites were the Matrix jokes, from the glasses, my vaguely Asian features, and a penchant for dark colors. It wasn't long before half of the school was calling me Neo.
The worst, however, was my driving instructor. Mike Nesblatt, of Mike's driving school was probably still on the payroll of said company for the sole reason that he owned it. He was one of the most annoying people in my acquaintance, and definitely the worst teacher known to man. He called me his "little Keanu Reeves" (boy did that man have the hots for Keanu) and spent most of my driving sessions making very obscure Matrix jokes.
Consequently, it was with great glee that I approached my final driving session. All I had to do was navigate DC, two major highways, and some winding two lane roads and I would have my license. I wasn't that worried because we were basically taking a long route back to my house. The only problem was the bad traffic due to heavy rain, but I had navigated these roads many times before.
After a few "hey, is your girlfriend named Trinity?"-type comments from both Mike and the three other students in the back, Zach, Jacob, and Carlos fell to talking among themselves about which teacher was hottest, and Mike fortunately fell asleep to the soundtrack of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally got off the highway and onto the home stretch. Ten minutes and I would never have to listen to mediocre 80s rock again. Ten minutes and I would never have to listen to Mike's Keanu Reeves fantasies. Ten minutes and I would have my license.
I rounded a corner and turned onto a flat stretch of road. The car's headlights were on, but I didn't need their help to see through the rain.
Well, it was more like the road wasn't dark, but the rain blocked so much I couldn't tell what was ahead of me. All I could do was focus on the yellow line in the middle of the road.
I was focusing on that line, watching it stretch off into the distance, when a Hummer turned onto the road with its brights on, and nearly blinded me-even sunglasses couldn't help. I struggled to recover my vision, and then sped up so I could get home before that happened again.
I heard a lot of yelling from the back seat, and an instant later, I felt what they were yelling about.
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"Where is my son? Doctor, what have you done with Alex?"
"Mr. McAllister, calm down. We've moved him for his own good. You can go see him now."
"What do you mean 'for his own good'? What's wrong with him?"
He was practically yelling now; he must not know. I took his arm and steered him toward the elevator. "Sir, if you would just come with me, we can discuss this in a more private place." We got off on the third floor and headed toward the south wing: psychiatric ward and mutants. There was an awkward silence as he realized where we were headed; by the time we got to the room, he had turned a sort of ashy green color.
"Mr. McAllister, I would first like to state that the boy will be fine. He's suffered a severe blow to the head, and broken several bones, but there will be no permanent damage." I paused, hoping this would calm him, but all he could do was look around the room in disbelief. I gestured for him to sit down, hoping that at least that would help, but he seemed anxious to get out of there. I continued on, both of us knowing what was coming. "While operating on him, it came to our attention that your son is a mutant. We know that he is hypersensitive to light, but we don't know if the X gene has affected anything else, so we've isolated him here. He still hasn't woken up, but he should shortly."
That got him sitting down. I ploughed on, knowing that the faster we went through the usual questions, the more time I could give him to adjust with the mutant. "If you could shed some more light on this situation, it would be an enormous help. Has he told you he is a mutant?"
All I got from Mr. McAllister was an aggravated grunt. I took that to be a no.
"Well, have you noticed him acting strangely lately? Have any weird accidents happened with him around, such as electrical or fire-related problems, damage to property for no apparent reason, or odd natural disasters of any kind? I must warn you, sir, that some mutants can be a great danger to the people around them if they can't control themselves-"
"I know perfectly well what mutants are capable of, and it's been my job to keep them from being harmful to society." There was a pause as he sorted out in his mind what to do.
"You know, he was a perfectly normal boy until you brought this up, and I'd prefer that this stays between you and me. All I want you to do is keep him isolated, and I'll figure out what to do with him."
He left the room as quickly as possible, leaving me with nothing but the quietly beeping monitors over his son's bed.
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Brightness. Brightness and pain. I immediately moved to cover my eyes and grab for my glasses when I realized that they were covered. Layers of gauze surrounded my head, but I placed one arm over them anyway and found my glasses on a table next to me. Putting them on over the gauze, I relaxed and saw darkness.
Now I was confused. I tried to glance around the room, but couldn't see anything-it was a problem I hadn't had in months. I strained my eyes to pick up even the smallest bit of light, but nothing came until-
The room appeared around me, a brightly lit hospital room. I saw my IV and several monitors around my bed, and then I saw the bed across the room from mine, no wait, it was a wall, and on the other side was a bed.
I admit I was pretty freaked out, but since I had spent the last 6 months seeing in the dark, I figured it was yet another gift from that damn X gene. I mentally added seeing through solid objects to my list of things to avoid discussing with my father and set about trying to actually see what was in front of me.
It was a lot harder than I expected. While I quickly got the hang of seeing through the bandages, I had trouble not seeing through anything else for quite some time. On the other hand, I learned a lot about my surroundings in the time being. There was a tree by my window with an albino squirrel in it, for example, and later that day, a new patient came to the room next to mine. He spent most of his time looking scared, curled up in the fetal position and not allowing anyone to touch him.
It took a few days, but I eventually figured out that if I treated my x-ray vision as though it were a normal part of my eyesight, I could focus on different objects normally hidden to the human eye. It was a constant struggle to remain in control, though. Every time I lapsed, I invariably ended up seeing some nurse's bra. Let me tell you, some of those nurses had really kinky tastes in lingerie, though to be honest, I wasn't complaining for some of those nurses. What can I say? I'm a 16-year-old straight boy.
It only took a few days because in that time, I had no visitors at all. None. Zip. Nada. I did manage to have a few conversations with the nurses, who would only tell me that I was in a special ward for mutants. I could have figured that out myself, since the kid in the room next to mind kept temporarily paralyzing anyone he touched, and I heard the nurses talking about another girl who set things on fire.
I did have one encounter with a doctor. A woman came into the room, clipboard in hand, to quiz me about my powers. "So tell me, when did you first notice your mutation taking effect?" She said, without so much as a hello.
I was slightly annoyed, as this was the first significant human contact I'd had in the two days I'd been conscious, and I let it show. "Good morning, doctor, I'm Alex. How are you today? What happened in the accident? Why am I here? Is everyone OK? And have you seen my father?"
She gave me a startled look, possibly because I wasn't meekly following orders as she would have liked. My eye bandages were off by this time, and trust me, if she could have seen my eyes, she'd have been getting a death stare. As it was, my glaring was only making me lose control of my vision, and I saw straight through her and the wall beyond. They were now tranquilizing the patient who kept paralyzing people.
"Well, Alex," she started, "I'm Dr. Eggers, and I'm just trying to understand the full effects of your mutation, so we can better handle you. As for your other questions, I'll answer them as soon as you help me answer mine."
Despite her now friendly demeanor, I still didn't like her. I merely shook my head as she moved through her checklist, asking me if I'd ever had any weird accidents, or noticed any bodily changes (other than my eyes, she had picked up on that), on top of the usual stuff like medicinal allergies.
After going through the entire list without any actual response from me, she looked up and sighed.
"You know, Alex, we can't very well help you if you don't tell us what's wrong. Just what can you do?"
"I see in the dark, that's all" I lied, "I don't think there's anything else." I don't know why I didn't tell her that I could see through walls. It's just that I picked up on an atmosphere, possibly from watching the kid next door and overhearing the nurses' conversations, that we were all considered dangerous-and I figured that x-ray vision would add to that sense. At least seeing in the dark wouldn't be so "dangerous" that I'd have to be tranquilized like paralysis boy.
Dr. Eggers looked at me skeptically, but seemed to accept my answer, so she moved on to answer my questions. "First of all, I'm fine to day. Thank you for asking.
"Now, you're here in the mutant ward because it came to our attention that you were a mutant while we were operating on you. You were injured when the car you were driving hit a tree. Everyone else in the crash was injured, but Carlos, Zachary, and Jacob were all released yesterday, and Mr. Nesblatt will be fine. He was thrown through the windshield because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, but he'll recover.
"Your father was in here Monday, shortly before you woke up. I spoke with him, and he decided you should remain here for awhile, while he determines what would be best for someone in your situation. He'd like you to rest and recover until further notice. There, does that answer all of your questions?"
I stared at her as I thought for more questions.
"Can I have visitors? I'd like to see some of my friends."
"I'm sorry, but we only allow family to visit here. Privacy is paramount in this ward." She gave me one of those annoyingly perky smiles. "Anything else?"
"Well, can I at least have a paper?"
"If we've got one."
She left to get the paper and I returned to my thoughts. I no doubt had hit that tree because I had seen right through it. As far as I could see that night, the road was clear when I recovered from that blinding by the SUV. It was a little scary to consider driving now that I knew how dangerous I could be. I couldn't even consistently see people's shirts, so how was I going to be able to even make sure I could see the cars in front of me?
"Here you go. We didn't have a paper, but I found a Time from April in the waiting room."
Dr. Eggers handed me the two month old magazine and walked out of the room. At least it was something to read-I was going insane sitting in a room alone all day. Even I have a limit to the amount of bad daytime TV I can watch.
I sat in the silent room and contemplated further. I knew I wasn't going to get any visitors. My father would no doubt distance himself from me because it would not go over well with his supporters. I wondered if my sister even knew, and what they'd told my friends. I sighed. I had a feeling that I would be in here for awhile, and once I got out, summer would be well underway. At least I could play the accident off as a mistake, and avoid everyone except my friends, who had accepted that I was just eccentric. Until then, life was going to be quite boring.
But just when you're hoping life is going to return to normal, it usually doesn't, just to spite you.
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Author's Note: Let's have a party because I have a plot. Keep reading to find out what happens next-I've already written much of the next chapter, so it won't be long.
If you're wondering why Alex looks vaguely Asian, it's because he is part Asian. It's not a particularly important part of the story, it's just the way he looked in my head.
On completely unrelated note, I was doing research on Alex's name (which I picked because I liked) and discovered the name Allister is a Scottish (duh) variation on Alexander. This means that his name is Alexander son of Alexander. I found this highly entertaining in a you-should-never-do-this- to-your-kids sort of way. It's an innocent mistake, I swear-I'm not that cruel. At least it beats Jerry Jerrod.
Disclaimer: Alex: mine. Alex's dad: mine. X-Men: Well, I asked for them for Christmas, but Santa didn't bring them, so they still belong to Marvel or Warner Brothers or someone else entirely. I would like to point out, however, that I'm still accepting birthday and graduation gifts, and it's never too soon to think about Christmas presents.
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So life went on, as it usually does. I continued to take a lot of crap from pretty much everybody-teachers, students, even some friends, though they cut it out as soon as they noticed I was not amused. Since I couldn't explain why I suddenly went for the Matrix look, (Honestly, what could I say? "Hi, I'm Alex. I'm a mutant-I wear sunglasses because I look like a freak and can see in the dark. How are you?") I kept an air of I'm- wearing-them-because-I-feel-like-it-dumbass around most people.
Even with the aloof manner, I was open for numerous jokes. The general favorites were the Matrix jokes, from the glasses, my vaguely Asian features, and a penchant for dark colors. It wasn't long before half of the school was calling me Neo.
The worst, however, was my driving instructor. Mike Nesblatt, of Mike's driving school was probably still on the payroll of said company for the sole reason that he owned it. He was one of the most annoying people in my acquaintance, and definitely the worst teacher known to man. He called me his "little Keanu Reeves" (boy did that man have the hots for Keanu) and spent most of my driving sessions making very obscure Matrix jokes.
Consequently, it was with great glee that I approached my final driving session. All I had to do was navigate DC, two major highways, and some winding two lane roads and I would have my license. I wasn't that worried because we were basically taking a long route back to my house. The only problem was the bad traffic due to heavy rain, but I had navigated these roads many times before.
After a few "hey, is your girlfriend named Trinity?"-type comments from both Mike and the three other students in the back, Zach, Jacob, and Carlos fell to talking among themselves about which teacher was hottest, and Mike fortunately fell asleep to the soundtrack of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally got off the highway and onto the home stretch. Ten minutes and I would never have to listen to mediocre 80s rock again. Ten minutes and I would never have to listen to Mike's Keanu Reeves fantasies. Ten minutes and I would have my license.
I rounded a corner and turned onto a flat stretch of road. The car's headlights were on, but I didn't need their help to see through the rain.
Well, it was more like the road wasn't dark, but the rain blocked so much I couldn't tell what was ahead of me. All I could do was focus on the yellow line in the middle of the road.
I was focusing on that line, watching it stretch off into the distance, when a Hummer turned onto the road with its brights on, and nearly blinded me-even sunglasses couldn't help. I struggled to recover my vision, and then sped up so I could get home before that happened again.
I heard a lot of yelling from the back seat, and an instant later, I felt what they were yelling about.
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"Where is my son? Doctor, what have you done with Alex?"
"Mr. McAllister, calm down. We've moved him for his own good. You can go see him now."
"What do you mean 'for his own good'? What's wrong with him?"
He was practically yelling now; he must not know. I took his arm and steered him toward the elevator. "Sir, if you would just come with me, we can discuss this in a more private place." We got off on the third floor and headed toward the south wing: psychiatric ward and mutants. There was an awkward silence as he realized where we were headed; by the time we got to the room, he had turned a sort of ashy green color.
"Mr. McAllister, I would first like to state that the boy will be fine. He's suffered a severe blow to the head, and broken several bones, but there will be no permanent damage." I paused, hoping this would calm him, but all he could do was look around the room in disbelief. I gestured for him to sit down, hoping that at least that would help, but he seemed anxious to get out of there. I continued on, both of us knowing what was coming. "While operating on him, it came to our attention that your son is a mutant. We know that he is hypersensitive to light, but we don't know if the X gene has affected anything else, so we've isolated him here. He still hasn't woken up, but he should shortly."
That got him sitting down. I ploughed on, knowing that the faster we went through the usual questions, the more time I could give him to adjust with the mutant. "If you could shed some more light on this situation, it would be an enormous help. Has he told you he is a mutant?"
All I got from Mr. McAllister was an aggravated grunt. I took that to be a no.
"Well, have you noticed him acting strangely lately? Have any weird accidents happened with him around, such as electrical or fire-related problems, damage to property for no apparent reason, or odd natural disasters of any kind? I must warn you, sir, that some mutants can be a great danger to the people around them if they can't control themselves-"
"I know perfectly well what mutants are capable of, and it's been my job to keep them from being harmful to society." There was a pause as he sorted out in his mind what to do.
"You know, he was a perfectly normal boy until you brought this up, and I'd prefer that this stays between you and me. All I want you to do is keep him isolated, and I'll figure out what to do with him."
He left the room as quickly as possible, leaving me with nothing but the quietly beeping monitors over his son's bed.
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Brightness. Brightness and pain. I immediately moved to cover my eyes and grab for my glasses when I realized that they were covered. Layers of gauze surrounded my head, but I placed one arm over them anyway and found my glasses on a table next to me. Putting them on over the gauze, I relaxed and saw darkness.
Now I was confused. I tried to glance around the room, but couldn't see anything-it was a problem I hadn't had in months. I strained my eyes to pick up even the smallest bit of light, but nothing came until-
The room appeared around me, a brightly lit hospital room. I saw my IV and several monitors around my bed, and then I saw the bed across the room from mine, no wait, it was a wall, and on the other side was a bed.
I admit I was pretty freaked out, but since I had spent the last 6 months seeing in the dark, I figured it was yet another gift from that damn X gene. I mentally added seeing through solid objects to my list of things to avoid discussing with my father and set about trying to actually see what was in front of me.
It was a lot harder than I expected. While I quickly got the hang of seeing through the bandages, I had trouble not seeing through anything else for quite some time. On the other hand, I learned a lot about my surroundings in the time being. There was a tree by my window with an albino squirrel in it, for example, and later that day, a new patient came to the room next to mine. He spent most of his time looking scared, curled up in the fetal position and not allowing anyone to touch him.
It took a few days, but I eventually figured out that if I treated my x-ray vision as though it were a normal part of my eyesight, I could focus on different objects normally hidden to the human eye. It was a constant struggle to remain in control, though. Every time I lapsed, I invariably ended up seeing some nurse's bra. Let me tell you, some of those nurses had really kinky tastes in lingerie, though to be honest, I wasn't complaining for some of those nurses. What can I say? I'm a 16-year-old straight boy.
It only took a few days because in that time, I had no visitors at all. None. Zip. Nada. I did manage to have a few conversations with the nurses, who would only tell me that I was in a special ward for mutants. I could have figured that out myself, since the kid in the room next to mind kept temporarily paralyzing anyone he touched, and I heard the nurses talking about another girl who set things on fire.
I did have one encounter with a doctor. A woman came into the room, clipboard in hand, to quiz me about my powers. "So tell me, when did you first notice your mutation taking effect?" She said, without so much as a hello.
I was slightly annoyed, as this was the first significant human contact I'd had in the two days I'd been conscious, and I let it show. "Good morning, doctor, I'm Alex. How are you today? What happened in the accident? Why am I here? Is everyone OK? And have you seen my father?"
She gave me a startled look, possibly because I wasn't meekly following orders as she would have liked. My eye bandages were off by this time, and trust me, if she could have seen my eyes, she'd have been getting a death stare. As it was, my glaring was only making me lose control of my vision, and I saw straight through her and the wall beyond. They were now tranquilizing the patient who kept paralyzing people.
"Well, Alex," she started, "I'm Dr. Eggers, and I'm just trying to understand the full effects of your mutation, so we can better handle you. As for your other questions, I'll answer them as soon as you help me answer mine."
Despite her now friendly demeanor, I still didn't like her. I merely shook my head as she moved through her checklist, asking me if I'd ever had any weird accidents, or noticed any bodily changes (other than my eyes, she had picked up on that), on top of the usual stuff like medicinal allergies.
After going through the entire list without any actual response from me, she looked up and sighed.
"You know, Alex, we can't very well help you if you don't tell us what's wrong. Just what can you do?"
"I see in the dark, that's all" I lied, "I don't think there's anything else." I don't know why I didn't tell her that I could see through walls. It's just that I picked up on an atmosphere, possibly from watching the kid next door and overhearing the nurses' conversations, that we were all considered dangerous-and I figured that x-ray vision would add to that sense. At least seeing in the dark wouldn't be so "dangerous" that I'd have to be tranquilized like paralysis boy.
Dr. Eggers looked at me skeptically, but seemed to accept my answer, so she moved on to answer my questions. "First of all, I'm fine to day. Thank you for asking.
"Now, you're here in the mutant ward because it came to our attention that you were a mutant while we were operating on you. You were injured when the car you were driving hit a tree. Everyone else in the crash was injured, but Carlos, Zachary, and Jacob were all released yesterday, and Mr. Nesblatt will be fine. He was thrown through the windshield because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, but he'll recover.
"Your father was in here Monday, shortly before you woke up. I spoke with him, and he decided you should remain here for awhile, while he determines what would be best for someone in your situation. He'd like you to rest and recover until further notice. There, does that answer all of your questions?"
I stared at her as I thought for more questions.
"Can I have visitors? I'd like to see some of my friends."
"I'm sorry, but we only allow family to visit here. Privacy is paramount in this ward." She gave me one of those annoyingly perky smiles. "Anything else?"
"Well, can I at least have a paper?"
"If we've got one."
She left to get the paper and I returned to my thoughts. I no doubt had hit that tree because I had seen right through it. As far as I could see that night, the road was clear when I recovered from that blinding by the SUV. It was a little scary to consider driving now that I knew how dangerous I could be. I couldn't even consistently see people's shirts, so how was I going to be able to even make sure I could see the cars in front of me?
"Here you go. We didn't have a paper, but I found a Time from April in the waiting room."
Dr. Eggers handed me the two month old magazine and walked out of the room. At least it was something to read-I was going insane sitting in a room alone all day. Even I have a limit to the amount of bad daytime TV I can watch.
I sat in the silent room and contemplated further. I knew I wasn't going to get any visitors. My father would no doubt distance himself from me because it would not go over well with his supporters. I wondered if my sister even knew, and what they'd told my friends. I sighed. I had a feeling that I would be in here for awhile, and once I got out, summer would be well underway. At least I could play the accident off as a mistake, and avoid everyone except my friends, who had accepted that I was just eccentric. Until then, life was going to be quite boring.
But just when you're hoping life is going to return to normal, it usually doesn't, just to spite you.
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Author's Note: Let's have a party because I have a plot. Keep reading to find out what happens next-I've already written much of the next chapter, so it won't be long.
If you're wondering why Alex looks vaguely Asian, it's because he is part Asian. It's not a particularly important part of the story, it's just the way he looked in my head.
On completely unrelated note, I was doing research on Alex's name (which I picked because I liked) and discovered the name Allister is a Scottish (duh) variation on Alexander. This means that his name is Alexander son of Alexander. I found this highly entertaining in a you-should-never-do-this- to-your-kids sort of way. It's an innocent mistake, I swear-I'm not that cruel. At least it beats Jerry Jerrod.