"Of course," Maris said coldly. "Tell me, doctor, just how could researching DNA lead to an outcome such as this?"
Dr. Farrell coughed and spluttered a bit. Isabel couldn't help smiling. This guy was acting as if he knew what was going on, but he really had no idea. Maris had seen right through him. "Well, we… we need to search through the material from Dr. Sosa's lab before we understand the situation entirely," he finally managed to say.
"Fine," Maris replied. "But since I've been cooperative enough to turn over our research to you, not to mention foot the bill for all these sick people to stay here, the least you can do is share your findings with me. I want copies of any tests you run on those people. Understood?"
"That's highly irregular," Dr. Farrell replied. "But I suppose I can make an exception."
Isabel sighed and rested her cheek on the ceiling tile
beneath her. These people had no idea what was causing the outbreak. It was going to be a long night.
Max lay on his stomach underneath the cot of a sick teenager. Michael lay next to him.
"Now what?" Michael whispered.
Max knew Michael was impatient, but he couldn't be more anxious than Max himself. It had taken almost an hour to find the room where the quarantined people were being kept, and ever since then they'd been hiding, moving slowly from one bed to the next. There weren't many lights on, since most of the patients were asleep. But there were enough nurses and doctors to notice two guys walking around in the middle of the room. At this rate, they were lucky if they found Liz and Kyle by morning.
Michael nudged him. "We're near the nurses' station," he whispered.
Max peered out from under the bed. Michael was right. The makeshift nurses' station was only about five feet away. Even better, there was a fresh pile of linens… clean scrubs, clean sheets… stacked on the edge of a desk, right next to a desk lamp with a tall, thin arm.
"Can you knock over that lamp?" Max asked.
"I can try." Michael squirmed around until he could aim his hand toward the desk. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was coming, Michael flung a burst of power across the room. The lamp toppled forward as if blown by a strong wind, knocking the pile of linens to the floor.
Max shot his hand out and pulled as many scrubs as he could underneath the bed. Then they quickly crawled a
few beds away to make sure no one would find them if they came to check on the fallen lamp. In seconds he and Michael were dressed in scrubs.
"I'll go first," Michael said. "I'll find Liz and I'll stop at her bed. Then you follow me. We'll look more casual if we're not walking around together."
"Okay." Max watched Michael crawl out from under the cot and begin walking slowly up and down the rows of patients. Finally Michael stopped at the foot of one specific bed. He picked up the chart attached to the bed and began flipping through it.
Max shimmied out from under the cot and casually walked over to where Michael stood. In the bed lay Liz, her eyes shut, her body perfectly still.
"Kyle," Michael whispered, nodding to the next cot over.
Max looked. Kyle's eyes were open, but otherwise he lay as still as Liz. Michael made his way over to Kyle's bed. "How are you guys?" he asked in a low voice.
Kyle recoiled from him. "Quiet!" he whispered. "I can't stand loud noises."
Michael shot Max a confused look, but Max understood. "It's the same thing Liz has," he whispered. "Over-sensitivity to noise and light."
"And touch and smell and taste," Kyle whispered. "But Liz is worse than me. She's gotten really sensitive to feelings inside her body. She says that our metabolism is speeding up and that our bodies can't withstand it."
"Well, that's why I'm here," Max said. He sat down on Liz's bed, being careful not to jostle her too much… he knew every single movement could be painful to her.
"He's going to heal Liz, then you, then Marias mom," Michael told Kyle. "Then you and Liz can help us figure out what's going on."
"We did some snooping earlier," Kyle said. "They emptied out that lab where Liz worked. She thinks that Dr. Sosa guy was doing some rogue research. She found alien cells in the lab a few days ago."
"What?" Max cried. "Why didn't she tell me?"
"I didn't want to make a big thing out of it until I knew what was going on," Liz whispered.
Max looked down at her. Her brown eyes were open now, making her pale skin look even whiter. "I didn't think Dr. Sosa knew the cells were alien," she went on. "He thought they were cancer cells that mutated into something else."
"You think he's caused this epidemic somehow?" Max asked.
"I don't know, I can't understand it," Liz murmured. "Max, I feel awful."
His heart swelled with worry and love for her. "Never mind," he whispered. "We'll figure it out once you're better." He placed his hand gently against her cheek and concentrated on healing her.
Power built within him, heating up his hand against Liz's skin. He pictured her healing, becoming whole… but something was wrong. Usually when he healed, he got flashes of the person he was healing. Pieces of their thoughts, their memories, that sort of thing. And with Liz, he got flashes practically every time he touched her. But now there was nothing. Just emptiness.
Liz moaned.
Max concentrated harder, trying to get into Liz's body, trying to heal her from within.
She drew her breath in sharply, as if something had hurt her. Her muscles began to twitch, almost as if she was having a seizure.
"Max. Max, stop!" Kyle cried. "You're making it worse!"
Max pulled his hand away from Liz. He stared down at her. Her mouth was drawn as if in pain, and her eyes were brimming with tears. "It's too much," she whispered. "Whatever you were doing… it put more stress on my system…" Her voice faded, and her eyes fluttered closed.
"Liz?" Max whispered urgently. "Liz!" He felt her wrist, and was astonished at how fast her pulse was.
"Just leave her alone," Kyle said. "Let her calm down. She goes into a… a cocoon state, where she shuts out all the outside stimuli. We both have to do that every so often."
Max couldn't believe that Kyle was telling him this stuff about Liz. Why did Kyle know so much? Max was a healer… he should be able to figure out what was wrong with Liz just by touching her. He felt strangely jealous of Kyle.
"We can't stay here for long," Michael whispered. "Try to heal Kyle."
The blood drained from Kyle's face. "I don't know about that," he said. "I don't want you to make me worse too."
"No! No," Liz whispered frantically. "Don't touch him!"
Her eyes were still closed. Max couldn't tell if she was conscious or if she was just talking in a dream. "Why can't
I touch him?" Max asked her.
"He's like me, we're the same," Liz whispered. "Aliens…"
Her voice trailed off.
Max shot Michael a questioning look. Michael shrugged. "Maybe you can't heal this," he said.
"How can that be?" Max asked. "She's just sick. They're all just sick. And that's what I do, I heal sick people."
"I don't think we can risk you making anyone else worse," Kyle said.
Max was speechless. It seemed as if his healing power had reversed itself somehow. He looked at his hands… would they really make people sicker?
"We should go find Isabel. If the CDC has figured out what's causing it, maybe that will help you figure out how to heal it," Michael suggested.
Slowly Max nodded. It seemed like their only option.
"… Crashdown Cafe," Dr. Farrell's voice said.
Isabel jerked her head up. She'd almost fallen asleep, stretched out on the ceiling tiles. She had no idea how long she'd been up there, listening to the droning voice of the CDC lab technicians. They were compiling data, trying to find something, anything, that would help them figure out how so many different diseases could crop up at the same time.