SHOUTOUTS:
Alexandria Queen of Dreams - ha wow… I luff your muses then. lol
Brownie/Melody - maybe you skipped last chapter… hey we need to work on our German story… then we can post it under LOTR… ha. Let these people see an entirely different side of my mind. Hehe or, rather, what happens when you combine us
wiseupjanetweiss - dun dun dun…. And the answer is… not okay! (but we're talking about Curt, aren't we? That's to be expected)
Roxy Eno - I missed writing it… school really gets to be a bitch sometimes. A muse-killing bitch.
SiriusBlackfan5405 - ahh lucky you, this chapter and the next were already typed up and ready to go… haha. I'm staggering the releases, tho.

Chapter Twenty

When I came to, it was back in the hospital again, and it scared the shit out of me. It was looking up and around and seeing all that bright, clean, cold whiteness just like when I was a kid. From somewhere I could hear my heart rate skyrocket, then fall as I started to get hold of myself. But no doctors had come running.

I sat up and looked around, but there still wasn't any sign of anyone being around. Pretty big room, white and chrome and plastic, clean. But nobody there.

It looked like Maxwell had cut me up pretty badly in his panic- I had stitches in a few places I could see, and reading the little note board that was by the bed, I found I had a concussion as well, probably from crashing to the floor. And that bullet wound, that's the only thing I was really getting any heavy pain from. But I wasn't hooked up to any machines other than one to monitor my heart rate. So I pulled those little probes off and headed for the door. I had to find Maxwell.

I expected doctors to come running as soon as I had torn the heart rate machine off, but as I stepped out the door, it was still deserted. Things still got worse, though 'cause I realized this was a lot more of a laboratory than it was a hospital.

I caught a flash of someone in a white lab coat hurrying down the hallway and I went to follow. They had to have been going to wherever Maxwell was. A stat board said we were the only two "patients" on the ward. I followed the nurse down the hall to an automatic door. With a password.

"Shit."

-Curt!-

The response was instant. I couldn't see Maxwell but wherever he was, he could hear me. And he was scared.

"Yeah, Max- it's me. I'm locked out. What's the code on this door?"

He didn't answer for a second, then I knew he was thinking about it, replaying the sound of the keypad to decipher it. His hearing was just that fuckin' insanely good. He always knew who I was talking to on the phone, either from hearing their voice or me dialing. He knew combinations to several of the neighbors' safes by listening in the same way.

-Twenty-six. Pound. Eighty-nine. Pound. Five. Pound. Zero. Zero. Pound.-

"Thanks."

I started keying in the number.

-They know you're here.-

And the doors slid open again before I could finish. Doctors in white coats.

"Mr. Wild."

"Doctor."

"You're awake. Good. Please, come with us."

They reached for my arm. I jerked away.

"Where are we?"

"You are in a government medical facility for treatment."

I scowled.

"Don't lie to me. I know Maxwell is here, too. I saw the charts."

They scowled back to me. But I had them now, the lying bastards.

"Take me to him."

They were all looking between each other and one answers,

"I'm not so sure that is a good thing to do."

"Fuck that. Take me to him."

More looks. Finally,

"Follow us."

Down a hallway, though another set of (unlocked) doors. Into a huge room. Around the walls were all sorts of medical and lab equipment, some familiar, some completely alien.

In the middle was a Plexiglas structure I could only have called a cage. And in it was Maxwell.

"Holy shit."

He looked up towards me. His stats were flying all over the room on all these computerized ticker screens. 18 breaths per minute, 92 beats per minute, 106 degrees Fahrenheit.

I pressed a hand up against the glass and he came forward and I watched all those reading rise and fall. He had his hand pressed against mine, then a doctor approached and he snarled loudly and backed away.

The cage was about as stark as possible. No bed, no sheets, no furniture at all really. And I wondered how he was managing to keep clean. He was miserable, I could tell that much. I turned on the doctors.

"How can you keep him like this?"

"This is a highly specialized government facility. It is very safe, very effective in research."

"That's not what I mean!" I snapped back. "I don't give a shit about how much the government puts into this, or about any scientific shit. Can't you see you can't keep him like this, in a fuckin' cage! He's like us; he thinks, he speaks, he feels- he's not some fucking experiment!"

He gave me an annoyingly patient look.

"No, not an experiment. He is a magnificent specimen of a previously unknown species, and therefore here for observation."

"Well you're doing it all wrong."

"You propose to tell me how to run a scientific facility?"

I banged a fist against the glass of the cage. Maxwell, who had been slumped in the far corner, started.

"You treat your goddamn monkeys better than this! And he's a helluva lot smarter than any of them!"

"He has yet to give any indication that we should think so."

I started at him, incredulous.

"Are you joking me? He fuckin' TALKS!"

The doctors all looked at me strangely, and a realization hit me. I turned to Maxwell.

"You haven't been talking to them!"

Silence, inside my head and out.

"You can't fucking do this, Maxwell! They need to know!"

-Why? What's the point in it, Curt?-

I leaned my head against the glass. I could feel the pounding and frustration creeping in.

"Nothing is going to change if you don't. It'll only get worse."

I noticed cameras starting to focus on us. Me talking, seemingly to myself, Maxwell edging closer, up to the glass. He stopped right in front of me, frowning slightly, watching my eyes.

-I want to leave here.-

"I know. I'm doing what I can. I don't want you here, either."

I knew how doctors ruined people's lives.

He nodded, sat down. I went to sit on the ground on the other side of the glass. The cameras followed us.

"You have to help me, though."

"I have nothing to say to them."

A combination of sound inside my mind and spoken out loud. I could hear a collective murmur of astonishment rise from the scientific community. And I smiled, bitterly, for something at least was going to go my way.