So here's the deal—I've been on a family vacation and busy all day then super tired when we get back and all that, so the only time I really write is at night when everything's all quiet and calm and all that. Yeah, I'm aware of how many "ands" I used in that sentence, but just ignore it.
By the time my partner goes over this and the last chapter it should be a week, I think. (Perfect timing for the new Lab Rats episode, by the way.) But not to worry—it'll all work out, you'll get your new chapters, and it's all gonna be great. Kay?
November 12th 2013
Chase's Pov
We spent over an hour watching the old tapes, including having to answer some very idiotic questions on Adam's part on why someone would want to make a musical about the west side. (Even after spending time during the tapes and a generous half hour after everyone went home on the subject, he still didn't get it.)
Today Janelle and Ashley planned a conference type of ordeal because apparently they dug up more dirt on whoever the dude that was always seen with Maria was. I honestly wasn't looking forward to spending my lunch hour pining through magazine articles on the woman my girlfriend was pissed at, but in the matter I clearly didn't have a choice.
Christine wasn't too fond of the idea either, expressing her feelings on the subject as we headed our way to our group's regular table.
"I just don't see why we have to this during lunch," she grumbled grumpily. "Nothing good can come from looking through a new love life my mother picked for herself." She sniffed haughtily, adding in, "I'd rather keep my nose out of it, thank you very much."
I chuckled, kissing her hair as we sat down. Bree and Leo sat across from us, Bree biting her lip and tapping away at her pencil nervously while Leo calmly thumbed a DC comic. Whoa, those were pretty old adventures he was reading up on.
"Dude, since when are you into vintage?" a voice asked as a seat screeched against the cafeteria floor and was pulled next to me. My bionic hearing caught on to this and made me wince. Rachel smiled at me apologetically, swinging herself into her seat and patting my shoulder. My reaction must not have been as subtle as I thought. Whoops.
Leo held his head high. "I have decided," he said with great authority, "To adapt to the older generation of comic books and become the greatest comic book collector of this decade!"
He looked around the table with a grin that nearly took up his entire face, saw our blank looks, and slumped over in his seat. "In other words, Mom's cut short on my allowance, and I had to dig through a closet to find a box full of comics to keep me entertained."
"What kind did you find?" Sammie asked, her dark head of curls popping out of nowhere. Again with the audible screeching noise of a chair. I reacted again, just not as noticeably.
Leo brightened at someone finally asking. "Oh, you know," he said flippantly, waving a hand, "just a dozen DCs and maybe a gazillion old Disney action ones. Nothing too valuable money-wise."
Sammie tilted her head, genuinely thinking about it. "I wouldn't be too sure about that," she disagreed with a shake of her head. I narrowly avoided a mouthful of curls by ducking lower in my seat. "Judging by the heavily increasing dependency on technology of our generation and therefore others to come, I'd say that in a few decades if you were to seriously consider a financial investment in your findings, the old print and costly rate of the comics would increase highly so, resulting in a pretty good fortunate if to ever turn them in."
Janelle and Ashley, coming just in time to hear Sammie's financial monologue on the comics, gaped at her in amazement and shock. I did so too, but mostly in disbelief. Even I, the bionic genius, would never have said such a thing at that moment. (Could I be slipping from exhaustion, maybe?)
"What the hell was that?" Rachel said finally.
Sammie, finally realizing the attention she'd brought upon herself, smiled shyly and ducked her head. "A few years ago I spent a summer with my grandparents on their Lake House and grandpa kinda rubbed off on me. It doesn't help that my dad and Short Fry over their have a highly irrational love-slash-obsession for comics." She looked pointedly at Leo.
Leo didn't seem to notice, instead looking down at his old new finding with renewed interest. The thought of sudden money gain in a few years seemed to have him seeing everything in gold.
While all this madness was going on, Bree still stared nervously down at her paper, the pencil still doing that tap-tap-tap against her papers. At first it hadn't been bad, but my hearing had picked up on it and the sound was beginning to irritate me.
Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed how out of it my sister was. "Dude," Christine said, mildly annoyed yet concerned, "what's with all the tapping?"
Bree looked up, a bit startled that someone was talking to her. She finally seemed to notice that her hand hadn't stopped moving, and reluctantly set it down on the inside of her textbook. "Sorry," she said offhandedly, looking distractedly. "I'm somewhere else I guess."
Rachel snorted, grabbing a fry from my sister's discarded tray. "No kidding."
Ashley elbowed her sharply. "Be nice," she warned.
She shrugged in return, still shoveling the fries in. "I'm just saying, it wasn't like she wasn't obvious or anything."
"What're you thinking about?" My girlfriend asked. She leaned against me, head on my shoulder as she looked to Bree across the table.
Bree shrugged, suddenly looking unsettled. Her voice dropped low, and she leaned closer, gesturing for us all to do the same. We all did, puzzled, especially Adam as he leaned in a bit too much.
"I did another one of those things again," she said softly, speaking to her papers. "You know that thing I did on the mission? Except it didn't hurt this time. I was asleep." She shuddered, as if reliving it. "It was horrible—like a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from."
Janelle furrowed her eyebrows and wrinkled her nose. "What could you have seen this time? I mean, yeah, doing it in that lab thing was different because something triggered the effect of the ability, but in your lab, what could've done that?"
Bree squinted as she tried to recall it. "Uh, it's all really fuzzy. Like a dream you can't remember even if it's really recent. But I think it was Callan and—and Christine." She looked to my girlfriend, head tilted. "You were at a house . . . his, I think. At first it was a play rehearsal; something, happened, I guess."
Christine looked frazzled. My fists tightened as my jaw clenched. What did Bree mean by something happened? Wouldn't Christine have told me if she did something other than play practice?
Rachel didn't seem to have any pieces in her head click either. "Chris," she said slowly, "What does Bree mean by something happened?"
Christine sat up straighter, squinting and thinking hard. "I don't know," she admittedly, looking at all of us. "All I can remember is that I felt really sleepy after went through some scenes. Dad said he carried me home because I fell asleep. But that's all that happened, I swear," she added. My girlfriend eyeballed me, trying to guess my reaction.
Instead of answering her forwardly, I turned to Bree, who was still trying to clearly remember all of what she'd seen. "Do you think there's a way for us to see all of it?" I asked gently, trying not to sound too eager to the idea.
My sister looked at me hesitantly. "Yeah, Davenport told me about this system he worked out for my visions," she explained, once again capturing our full attention. "He said that if I ever experienced a vision too powerful too fully remember or that had to be seen directly, then I had to tell him so he could use this new extension he finished putting on his cyber desk. He said it was supposed to display the recalled vision on his cyber screen to tell exactly what it showed."
"And he's sure that safe?" Leo asked. His attention finally seemed to be away from his comic fortune. "I mean, Big D's experiments have gone haywire before—" Janelle snorted, and Leo gave her a pointed look—"without me being near them, and this would be his first time testing it out on a human, no matter specially powered a being you are."
Bree folded her hands on top of the table nervously. "I thought about that too," she said, "but I hadn't told him anything about it this morning because I was still trying to figure out what it was exactly that the visions had told me in the first place."
Rachel twisted her mouth to side, obviously deep in thought as she went over the information handed to her. God, it was nearly like she had bionic skill all on her own: making up instant game plans and following by a constant rulebook.
"Okay," she said finally, her mind set, "this is what we're going to do. Bree, you are going to tell Davenport about the visions and say that you're willing to test out the experiments." She turned to Christine and I. "You two—it's your job to call after she's done so to round us up so we can be there when the testing is ready." Then, she turned so she was facing all of us. "Then, if the vision thing works like it's supposed to, we watch, observe, then decipher later. Deal?" She looked at us all with one eyebrow cocked, daring someone to challenge her move.
Looking scared shitless (if only a little), Leo dared to raise his hand. Rachel gave him an amused look. "Yes?"
"Rules?" he asked.
Rachel relaxed, smirking as she scribbled on some loose leaf paper from Bree's notebook. She casually stuck another fry in her mouth. "Rules are, if Bree gives us any sign or signal that she's in serious pain, we call it off and say it's too risky for her health." Bree seemed to visibly relax at this. "Rule Two: nothing is labeled as unimportant. If it's in the vision then, well, it's useful in our favor. Got it?"
We nodded our heads. "Got it," we echoed.
Our plan was in motion. Our leader had spoken.
Throughout the rest of day went by in a blur, me thinking the same thing throughout all my classes: what the hell happened between my girlfriend and Callan? It bothered me to no ends, throwing me off track and practically making me a zombie for play practice.
It wasn't even a play practice really. Alissa had recorded different practice session and was having us watch it the entire hour, pointing out mistakes and slight things that needed to be fixed before opening show night. Basically, she was freaking because the play was just barely three weeks away.
I spent the hour with the video and her voice as background noise, counting all the people that fell asleep. Ten, Gemma included.
"You seem loopy," Christine pointed out, poking my shoulder as we scooted out of our seats and grabbed out bags.
I made a face as we made our way out. Janelle and Ashley had waved us ahead, saying they'd meet us at my house with Bree for the experiment to begin.
"I was just busy thinking," I said truthfully, because on top of the Callan issue, the practice reminded me of how close the play was and, our drama with Tina, Eyebrows, and Blondie aside, how well it was coming along. Gemma and Damon seemed excited, always dragging Christine to see the different dress she'd have to wear throughout the play.
Three weeks was all we had left before opening night. And just barely that. And Lord knows something was going to screw it up, because with our luck, nothing could go right for us.
Bree, Janelle, and Ashley were four minutes late. That left Christine and I to call everyone over and awkwardly tell Davenport we had something to tell him.
"Could you make it quick? I'm in a hurry to get some new parts for NASA and God knows how impatient they are when it comes to spare parts. . ." Davenport started to get all spaced out again, making Christine result in snapping her fingers in front of his face several times to regain his attention. Rachel, having arrived early and current nestling up to Adam like he a teddy bear, rolled her eyes.
Leo was present too, but too immersed in his old comics to give a damn about what we were doing.
"Dude, you're gonna want to pay attention to this," Christine assured Davenport just as the rest of our team come bustling, out of breath.
"Alissa. . .wanted us to. . .stay behind for some. . .backstage crap. . ." Ashley panted.
Bree scowled at her. "And this one made me stop to get Sammie and wouldn't let me break out with my super speed even though no one was around."
"You're still recovering!" Ashley said to defend herself.
"Helllooo, bionics heal fast in case you didn't know!"
"Fine, next time I'll let you speed all around town and wear yourself out and then I'll say I told you so!"
"Ladies!" Davenport interjected just as Bree looked ready to throw a punch at the petite redhead. "I was so rudely interrupted in my work because of something important." He gave Christine a pointed look, and she sighed with an eye roll.
"Bree has something to tell you." My girlfriend gave my sister a pointed shove, making her stumble and nearly crash into the couch.
After a glare over her shoulder to Christine, she quickly gave Davenport a summarized version of what she told us at lunch.
Davenport looked at her carefully. "And you're sure you want to go through with this?"
"We've talked it over," Rachel said confidently, shoulders squared, and face set. "We all decided that if Bree in any way signals us that she's in an unbearable amount of pain, we ditch this experiment altogether and try another strategy."
Davenport looked a little alarm at the loud authority coming from her, obviously unused to our power system, so I gave him a look to know that for now she was the leader of this operation and all decisions were made and run by her.
With little reluctance he led us to the lab and carefully explained the process of how exactly the vision viewing worked as he instructed Bree to settle into her spot on the lab counter.
"I'm getting really sick and tired of always being up on this thing and hooked up to something," she stated dryly as she laid down.
Davenport flitted around her, hooking wires to her temples and the pulse points on her wrists.
"You see," he began, "I have found a way to display the occurring or current events Bree envisions with a new device I like to call the Vision Connecter. When hooked up to the person in question—in this case, Bree—it displays the recalled visions and shows us exactly what she sees."
Rachel stepped up, eying how he typed furiously into his cyber desk and the wall screen suddenly erupting into static, looking for a signal. "Is there a switch or does she have to recall first?"
Davenport stopped, looking to my sister to the screen. He scratched the back of his head. "I haven't really worked out how it starts yet," he admitted sheepishly. "Only how the general idea of it is supposed to go."
"Genius," Christine snapped her breath from beside me.
I elbowed her to keep her quiet, but felt the impeccable urge to bust out laughing and could hardly contain it.
Rachel sighed, obviously annoyed by his lack of thinking, and took control like usual. "Okay, this is what we're going to do." She walked closer to Bree, taking her hand and squeezing it between her own. "Bree, I need you to try really hard to get back the memories you told us about. But if it hurts too much, stop at any time, 'kay?" Bree looked pained at the thought of even trying, but nodded and squeezed her eyes shut.
Then she turned so fast it was a serious wonder how she didn't suffer a moment from whiplash. Rachel snapped her fingers at me, making me snap to attention. Because God I'll admit it—there were times where she could scare anyone shitless and this was one of those times.
"You, Brainiac, take over with the controls because obviously this one has no idea what he's doing." She gave Davenport a look so fierce it shushed whatever protest or defense he was going to give against her words.
I took his place at his cyber desk, analyzing the holographic layout that was traced over the controls. It was pretty basic as far as set-ups go. For the Vision Connecter to work, Bree had to envisioning the same thing that she wanted to appear for everyone else to see while the two wires were set to tap into the part of her brain that accomplish the feat.
Before I tapped the controls, I leaned down her ear and whispered, "I'm gonna do it now. Just relax and see the vision—everything'll be good, okay?"
Bree nodded, so curt and fast if I'd blinked I would've missed it. With a deep breath and final look to her figure, tense with clenched fists that shook bleached at her sides, I tapped the final code that allowed the part of her chip that protected any outside source of its firewall to evaporate and watched the change begin.
At first, all Bree did was twitch and everyone turned to the screen, wide-eyed. The static began to thicken then fade and let out a loud screech before giving away altogether. That was when Bree began to scream. It wasn't loud like the first time she ever did this on the mission, but it alarming either way. I jumped when I heard it, my sensitive ears protesting at the volume. I clenched my teeth and ignored it, watching her clenched jaw and fists shake as her skin paled.
"Bree, remember what I said," Rachel remained sternly as the screen began to flicker with images.
The first thing I noticed was that the "work" we'd interrupted with Davenport when we first arrived home must've been putting the final touches to the Vision Connecter before the scene was blurred around the edges and made things hard to make out straight away—like you were still groggy when you woke up and looked around your room for the first time of the day.
Bree groaned as a house took shape. A comfortable mansion-looking house with gold-trimmed shingles and white paint, the inside huge and comfy looking.
Christine gasped, recognizing the scene almost immediately.
"Callan's house," she explained as the blurred figure of a sleek blonde woman came into view. The second figure, an obvious visitor, took form faster than the blonde lady, the mop of brunette hair and slim, broad shoulders materializing first all the way to her combat boots. Christine was there, smiling and politely making conversation with the enemy's mother.
Ashley cocked her head. "I knew it—the damn guy is a rich snob."
"A rich drama snob," Janelle added helpfully.
The damned rich snob himself came in, forming almost as quickly as Christine had. I mentally stored away the information that familiar figures and states of visions formed faster than unrecognizable ones did.
The vision began to fade again, slipping in and out as scenes flipped past like a flipbook, like—
"A rewind button," Christine said thoughtfully, turning to take in Bree's figure. She was still groaning.
I thought about the slowness of the visions and realized it must compete with the built-in firewall of her chip, making everything that was supposed to work fast go slower and how her mind had strained painfully under the change.
"Whoa, what did he do to you, man?" This coming from Leo made me turn to the screen abruptly. I swiveled my attention there just in time to see Christine setting down a blurred glass, her face tiring suddenly so as she looked to her script in fatigue.
"I'm feeling tired suddenly, maybe we should . . . take a short break," Christine's voice managed through a wide yawn. Callan stood in the edge of the vision, smiling a smile so perverted it nearly made me shudder.
"Oh, gross," my girlfriend said now, watching herself on the screen as Callan slowly convinced her to rest, as her body slumped.
I watched the seen unfold further, that damn drug taking place in her veins as he dragged her up those (admittedly pretty damn grand) stairs to a huge bedroom, humped and moaning and putting her under the influence while she flailed and lolled underneath him. I turned away once he began to cuss out loud and ripped his clothes, already having had enough.
"Damn Floraxide," I growled underneath my breath, letting my fist bang against the table.
My anger caused Bree to jumped slightly, one of the suctioned wires attached to her head slipping and severing the connection, making the screen melt back to static.
"Goddamn," Rachel said in amazement as Bree gradually began to unfold from her weakened state. "That guy's a bigger asshole than we thought."
"What the hell does raping my girlfriend have to do with any of what they're trying to accomplish?" I asked to no one in particular, my voice loud and angry.
Leo shrugged, having grabbed his pad from his specialist's desk and was now furiously tapping away at it screen. "Seems to me it was another way of having a decoy," he suggested. "Because Bree was used as a decoy, knowing that her sudden health fall would cause a sharp decrease in Big D's attention with his monitors and screens." Davenport causally looked at this, but everyone knew it was true.
"And," Leo was quick to add, "it's quite obvious that Christine was taken to Callan's because she would have told Chase about it, in which his jealousy would let his guard slip. See, their game is all about distraction—the more, the more chances they have to overrule us."
Janelle stared at him in amazement. "And when exactly did you get so smart?"
Leo shrugged, looking at her with a smile that took up his entire face. "I have my ways."
"While this little flirtation is cute and all," Rachel said over them, flicking her eyebrows up between the two. They blushed, glancing at each other then looking away. God, those two life to tease each other.
"There's a bigger question on the table," Rachel continued, "is why exactly is Bree getting these images? I mean sure, the why is pretty much explained because our drugged little decoy didn't know what was happening, leaving us all clueless . . ."
Christine growled lowly under her breath and glared as she went on. ". . . But, the real question is how—how is Bree's chip projecting these images to her? The power, and we all must admit this, is much more logical in the supernatural lighting than the scientific experimental, don't you think?"
Rachel challenged everyone around the room to a look no one objected to.
"Okay," Ashley said. "So this is a bit on the paranormal side; any ideas on to why that is?" She swiveled to look to Davenport with a daring look of her own, arms crossed.
He looked to Bree—who was now slowly sitting up, looking at us dizzily—and then to his cyber desk, which contained everything from our DNA information to undiscovered bionic abilities.
"I don't know."
This is officially the longest chapter yet, which is quite odd because this originally start out as a filler chapter but then turned into this. See, didn't I promise you guys the Callan Thing would not be forgotten?
Although I'm sure this is a lot more than you expected. . .
Anyway, next chapter should be up by the end of week, if not then no later than the 24th. The next one will also be big.
Only about eight to ten more chapters left with a touching epilogue. Please stay tuned because this chapter is the turning point to Something Big.