Chapter 5

"Zone-outs are probably the most dangerous thing an average Sentinel deals with. Second time I met Blair, I nearly got hit by a truck because I had a Zone. It's something Corey's going to spend a major amount of her time watching for and dealing with until Maria learns how to prevent it."

Will nodded, taking notes. To Jim's relief, Blair had been right. Will was curious about what Maria would have to deal with. He seemed to have very little interest in Jim himself.

"Been doing this long?" he asked. "Working with these… people?"

"About a year now. Seems like longer." Will shrugged. "I'm still on a learning curve, to be quite honest. There's always some new problem to deal with or try to figure out. It's never dull, that's for sure."

"And these creatures, they're safe?" Jim wanted to know, not sure he was comfortable with the idea of some of the things he had seen here running loose. Blair would no doubt claim it was the Sentinel's instinct to protect, as opposed to his being quite rightly freaked out by the realization that the things that went bump in the night were not just in the human imagination.

"Perfectly safe, for the most part." He shrugged. "Most of them are like you, really."

"Like me?" he demanded, frowning.

"Yeah." Will nodded. "Normal, well-meaning people who just want to be left alone to get on with their lives without being treated like some kind of monsters."

"I can't blame them. Being perceived as a freak is…" He trailed off, shrugging.

"All I ever wanted was to fit in," Will told Jim. "Never did, until I found this place."

"You're one of these 'abnormals' too?" he asked, surprised. The lunatics were running the asylum?

Will hesitated. "Don't know. But I see things that other people can't see, and I understand things that other people don't want to."

Jim felt himself relax. Regular guy, then. More or less.

Will continued, "See, for the first time in my life, I feel like I belong, like I'm not an outcast. Because now I know that there actually are people with my same hopes and desires and fears and problems."

Jim narrowed his eyes, trying to divine whether he was on the receiving end of some stupid headshrinker's mind-game. But the young man seemed entirely serious. There was not a whiff of subterfuge. He meant every word he said.

"Family's important," Jim told him. "And it's not always the family you're born into." Forget Dad and Steven. Jim had Blair and Simon. In them, he had found all he had ever really needed.

"You're right," Will agreed. "I really do think that I've found a family in this madhouse." He smiled. "Even if it is a fairly dysfunctional one."

"Blair says Ashley Magnus has to be experienced to be believed?" Actually, Blair's exact words that morning had been 'You like dangerous women, Jim. You have got to meet this Ashley chick.'

"She's something else," Will agreed, smiling. "I sincerely pity the monsters who cross the woman."

"You talk about these things like they're perfectly normal."

"Not normal, no. Just… no longer entirely unexpected." He shrugged. "You can get used to a lot of things, given half a chance. Don't you find that true of yourself?"

"I suppose I've had to get used to a lot of things since this all started," Jim agreed. "Blair's never seemed fazed by any of it. I wasn't always quite that accepting."

"But you are now?"

"Guess I'm mellowing with age. Five years ago, Blair never would have been able to talk me into coming to a place like this."

"You could be mellowing with age," Will agreed. "On the other hand, you might just be learning to live with what you are."

"Okay, see now you're starting to sound like a shrink."

"You have a problem with my profession?" he asked.

"Spent a lot of years trying not to get labeled as a freak. Labels in general annoy me; I'm an individual, not a category. And your field lives and dies by labels and categorizations."

"That, in itself, is a categorization," Will pointed out. "If I chose to apply a label to someone, it's only so I have a frame of reference in order to treat them as an individual. You have to remember, the people I work with don't typically fit into neat little categories. I couldn't generalize about them if I wanted to. Which, to be quite honest, I don't, because that does them a tremendous disservice. Doesn't help me do my job worth a damn, either. I need to be able to think outside the box here."

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to judge. I just… Blair says I have issues."

"Jim, we all have issues. The important thing is that you can still live your life in spite of them. What else can you tell me about what Maria might have to look forward to as a Sentinel?"

"Blair says we're very territorial. He claims that's why I have eight million rules for what is and is not allowed in my apartment. As a way of asserting my dominance and symbolically marking my territory."

"Hey, just so you're not literally marking it, right?"

Jim laughed.

0101010

Magnus had several tests beyond the brain-scans to show Blair, including detailed physical examinations of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin.

"So, as you can see, there are absolutely no anatomical differences between Maria's sensory organs and those of a 'normal' child. This lends credence to my earlier stated theory that the differences are entirely neurological. This being the case, it is theoretically possible to entirely suppress the ability with the proper combination of pharmaceuticals and biofeedback."

Blair nodded. "It's my experience that a Sentinel can, for awhile at least, suppress their own abilities, sometimes to the point of being unaware that they even have them."

"Not dissimilar to your technique of helping them 'dial down'?"

"A more extreme version, but yeah." He nodded. "You said there are drugs that could achieve the same effect?"

"Well, it's more problematic given what we know about Sentinels and adverse drug effects, but theoretically possible."

"That's not your plan for Maria?" he asked. Jim would throw a fit if it was, and Blair could not blame him.

"Not at all," she assured him, shaking her head. "The decision to accept or reject your own abnormality is not one to be made lightly. In almost all cases, I strongly advise against attempts to suppress your own abnormality. In every case, I insist that one be an adult before they make the decision. It's not a choice for a child or a guardian, neither of whom can fully understand the long-term impact of such a decision on the patient."

"Good because, look, I don't know about your other patients, but Sentinels are put on this planet to do good. It's not an easy path, but it's one worth walking. Jim's abilities have saved more lives…"

"Oh, I recognize this," she assured him. "And I find your loyalty to him in particular and to Sentinels in general to be a striking and highly admirable trait. Understand, Blair, I have always wanted far more than to simply study and document the individuals I work with. I learned on my father's knee that the only worthy goal of a true scientist is the betterment of mankind."

"In all of its variations, it would seem."

She smiled and inclined her head. "One does not have to be normal to be worthy of respect and admiration. Your Jim proves this. On the other hand, 'average' humans are frequently capable of appalling acts of savagery. You simply cannot judge by surface traits, not for anyone. Nor should you."

"I'd like to think I never have." He shrugged. "Of course, I probably have at some point in the past, but I do my best."

She smiled and nodded, returning her attention to the test results before them. "As you can see her blood-work shows a number of hormonal abnormalities, but it's difficult to tell whether those are related to her condition. Similar anomalies are perfectly consistent with extreme stress."

"Cortisone and epinephrine way up, serotonin way down…" Blair nodded. "Definitely could be stress-related. Either way, probably not healthy for a girl her age."

"Is she sick?"

Blair looked up, surprised. "Corey. I thought you were going to try to get some rest."

"I couldn't sleep." She shrugged. "Besides, I'm more comfortable when I'm closer to Maria. Is she okay? Did you find a problem?"

"Her blood simply shows an increase in stress hormones," Magnus assured her. "It's hardly desirable, but certainly to be expected. There's nothing for you to worry about."

Looking at Magnus, Corey abruptly looked about twelve years old, a child looking to an adult for reassurance. "You haven't lied to me yet. You wouldn't start now."

"No, I wouldn't dream of trying to deceive you," Magnus assured her. "Here, you can see her brain-waves here," she said, pulling up waveforms on the computer screen. "This shows that her mind is functioning like that of a perfectly normal eight year old. You can see from the spikes here and here that she's having a dream." She pulled up an interior view of the sensory deprivation tank, showing a smiling Maria floating inside. "A good dream from the looks of it."

"I haven't seen her smile like that since all this started." Corey smiled weakly. "I don't suppose I can set up a sensory deprivation tank at home?"

"I'd advise against it," Magnus answered, shaking her head. "This tank is specially equipped with cameras and other monitoring devices to increase the safety factor. But, in unskilled hands, sensory deprivation is a touchy prospect at best."

Blair nodded. "Time in a tank can lead to agitation, hallucination, even psychosis. It's dangerous."

"Psychosis? And you put my Maria into one?" she demanded, looking furious.

"Properly supervised, it's perfectly safe," he assured her. "I've used them myself."

"As long as we remove her before she's completely awake, she'll be perfectly fine," Magnus assured her. "And I'll be monitoring her every second."

"Maybe we can use this opportunity to talk about her?" Blair suggested.

"You two do that," Magnus said. "There's an office through there if you require privacy." She pointed to indicate a door. "I'll continue to monitor Maria and call you if there's any change."

"Thanks, Helen."