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Betrayal From Within, chapter 1
Conner woke up, wishing violent destruction on the alarm clock. He had once used his powers on it and had been given a long lecture about it. Right now, he was thinking that a lecture might not be such a bad thing compared to that annoying ringing. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was surprised to see Max stirring groggily.
"Aren't you normally up by now?" he asked. "Are you feeling okay?"
Max looked at the alarm clock. He turned it off.
"I'll go fix breakfast," he said.
Martha had already prepared breakfast. "Sleeping in today? It's okay, you must have needed it."
They got to school a little later than usual because they had to share the bathroom to get ready.
Conner noticed Max was a little slow at school. "Are you feeling okay?"
Max gave him a smile. "I'm fine. I guess my waking up late has thrown me off a bit."
At home, he still seemed to be struggling.
"I think you're sick," Conner said.
"I don't get sick," Max said. "I'm fine. I'll just go to bed early."
"You want the bed and I'll take the cot? I don't mind."
"Thank you, but that shouldn't be necessary."
At dinner, Martha said, "Max, you don't look like you're well. Are you sick?"
"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Max said. "I'm fine."
Max collected the dishes to take into the kitchen. A few moments later, a thud sounded from the kitchen. Conner, Jonathan, and Martha went to see what happened, and they saw that Max had collapsed on the floor.
"Max!" Conner exclaimed as he went to pick him up.
Conner laid him on the sofa, surprised that Max hadn't regained consciousness. Martha put her hand on Max's forehead.
"He's burning up!" she exclaimed.
"I'll change the sheets on the bed," Jonathan said. "Conner, you're going to have to sleep on the sofa. You don't want to catch whatever he's got."
"Conner, get me some clean towels and ice. We'll try to keep him comfortable."
Conner brought them to her. "Should we call a doctor?"
"We can't without risking your secret," Martha said. "We'll have to see how he's feeling in the morning."
Conner tried to get comfortable on the sofa, but failed. He kept replaying the day's events in his mind and tried to figure out if there was anything that could have caused Max's condition. He couldn't come up with anything.
He hadn't known Max to ever get sick. In fact, Conner had only gotten sick twice; once with the clone-plague and once when he was melting due to the Agenda's tampering. He hadn't seen any blemishes on Max, but he hadn't checked out anything other than his face and arms. He hoped Max's condition wasn't as serious as either of those times.
I'll check tomorrow, he thought as he uneasily drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Max was awake but looked awful. He was paler than normal. His fever remained, and he was visibly sweating.
"I'm fine," he claimed, an obvious lie.
"No, you're not," Conner said. "It's okay to admit that you're not feeling well."
"I called Clark," Martha said. "He's going to come and take you to the JLA Watchtower at the end of the day. Conner, he wants you to go too."
Despite Max's protests, Conner helped him bathe. He needed it since he had sweat quite a bit the previous night. Conner also checked to see if there were any blemishes. There were none.
Conner was distracted that day at school. He kept wondering what was wrong with Max. He still couldn't come up with anything. Perhaps he was overreacting because he hadn't ever had a regular experience with illness.
That night, Conner and Max underwent examinations at the Watchtower. Dr. Mid-nite was going over all the tests. Kon's results were regular and used as a baseline comparison for Max's.
Finally, Dr. Mid-nite came out of the lab.
"Match, I have your results."
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