[Note to readers: this is the sequel to Zoners and picks up where that story ended. I’m trying to add enough bits and pieces of exposition that it won’t be necessary to read Zoners. Let me know if I’ve succeeded or failed.]
Of course, nothing really ended with the surgery—nothing important, anyway. Sure, the seizures were stopped, the tumor was removed. But I’d left my indelible mark on people across three continents. All that didn’t exactly go unnoticed.
I’d also had just enough of a taste of power to have an idea about how it worked, and had learned about another man with powers, who seemed to have taken a number of people I cared for under his influence.
In other words, there was a storm brewing that summer, and I was right in the middle of it. Hell, I was ready to march through the storm with a kite strapped to my back.
Zeroes
Prologue: Intensive Care
Phoenix: Hospital—Monday
I’ll admit, my first feeling after waking up was disappointment—I was looking forward to being woken during the surgery, while they were cutting into my head. After that I noticed a throbbing ache in my head.
“Ow,” I said, bringng my hands up to my temples. “My head.”
Erin was waiting for me when I woke up, half-asleep in a chair by my bed. She had a blue teddy bear in her lap, wearing an orange bow. It clashed with the pink sundress she was wearing. “Hi, honey,” she said, stirring in her chair, blinking the sleepiness from her eyes. She yawned. “How are you feeling?”
“Who are you?” I gave her a puzzled look. Then, as the horror grew on her face, I smirked. “Hey, angel.”
“Goddamnit, Eric!” Her face grew red. “That wasn’t funny!”
I was laughing. “Yeah, it was.”
She hit me with the teddy bear.
“Did you stay here all night?”
“No,” she said. “I went home, and tried to sleep. But I was too worred about you, so I tossed and I turned...” Shaking her head, she added. “Finally, I drove back out here. You were in there for 13 hours, you know.”
“Long time,” I said.
She nodded. “Long for me. You got to sleep through it.”
I yawned. “Not much of a sleep. So who’s your friend?”
She looked down at the bear in her lap, and made a face. “Oh, it was waiting here when I got back.” She grabbed an envelope. “It came with this.” She pulled out a card from an envelope she’d had sitting near her. “Who’s Elise?”
“What? Let me see that.” She handed me the card—it was one of those big generic GET WELL SOON type jobs, with a handwritten Elise at the bottom. I remember noticing that Elise dotted her I’s with curly hearts; it seemed very out of character for the harried, librarianesque woman I’d met on the plane. “No fucking way,” I said. “That’s just creepy.”
“What?” She leaned forward, worried. “What?”
“Remember the whole business card thing I told you about on the airplane?”
She looked puzzled. “Um, no?”
I sighed. “I’m not sure who I’ve told what. Sorry.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. So, once they decided to send me home, the trip back from Naples brought me to Frankfurt, then Atlanta, then here.”
“Busy airports.”
“And how,” I shook my head. “Seizures the whole time. Anyway, on the first leg of the trip, we sat next to this woman—Elise. Didn’t really know much English, or at least spoke with a horrid accent, I couldn’t really tell. Whatever.” I waved my hand. “Anyway, she gave me this business card, had an hourglass on it.”
“Like this?” Erin held up the envelope—it’d been sealed with a sticker bearing the same logo—black background, golden hourglass.
“Huh.” I nodded. “Yeah, like that.”
“Okay, so she was flirting with you. You said you had seizures on the plane, maybe you made a good impression,” she giggled, and winked. “So to speak. Was she hot?”
“Yeah, she was. Looked like a barbie doll.” I shook my head. “That’s what I thought at first—that she was flirting with me, I mean. But she didn’t say anything when she gave me the card, and then just walked away. I was a little suspicious and curious, so I called the number on the card.”
“From the airport?”
“Yeah, I tracked down a pay phone, used my calling card. It was a German number.”
She leaned forward, giving me a glimpse at her cavernous cleavage. “Soooo, what happened?”
“I’m not sure. I called the number, it rang a few times, and there was this piercing racket. I felt like my ears were bleeding.”
“Weird.”
“That’s not the half of it. Eddie, remember my T.A. from Italian last year?” She nodded. “He was with me, escorting me home. He said he didn’t hear anything.”
“Now you’re making me curious.” She shook her head, tossing her red locks. “I want to try that number.”
“They have a U.S. number, too. I found it on their website. Same thing happened.”
She pulled out her BlackBerry. “What’s their website?”
“Just search for ILYSKN.” I spelled it out for her.
“Huh. I wonder what the hell it means.”
“Search me.”
“Ooh,” she said. “Found it!” She typed in a few numbers, and put the phone on speaker. “Let’s see what it does.”
Three rings, and a click. I braced myself. Then the pandemonium exploded from the phone. My ears still felt like they would bleed, but I also heard the babbling I’d thought I heard before. I thought I was a few seconds away from understanding it when Erin shut the phone off.
“What the hell was that?”
I looked up at her—she was flushed, breathing hard. “What was what?”
“That fucking racket.”
“You heard it?!”
“Like a drill going into my teeth.”
“Bizarre,” I said. “I wonder why you could hear it, and I can, but Eddie couldn’t.” A light bulb went off in my head. “Hey, maybe you’ve got mind control powers too!” I had to chuckle at the idea. Erin had been desperate to be mind controlled—to imagine her as the controller was just too much.
She made a face. “Don’t even joke about that.”
Still laughing, I said, “Yes, Mistress.”
She smacked me with the teddy bear, but it was worth it.