The Virus (24 page)

She was so relieved to
have her hand intact once the shake was over, that she wanted to
thank Lieutenant Dan, but thought better of it.

“I will be sitting with
you, Miss Hanson, whenever Mr. Summons is present.” Lieutenant
Dan’s voice bellowed, though he tried to lower his voice so he
wouldn’t startle his young female charge. Delilah nodded that she
understood. She was familiar with body guards, though never anyone
like him. The lieutenant general marched to a modest wooden chair
that Dr. Crangler had set up for him during this brief exchange.
The chair was noticeably too small for the lieutenant general, but
if he was uncomfortable, neither his face nor posture betrayed it.
Palms planted on his upper thighs and elbows tucked tightly to his
side, he sat with his back ramrod straight against the chair’s
slight backing. Once he situated himself, he gazed straight ahead
and didn’t move a muscle. Delilah wasn’t even sure he was
breathing.

Wow, this guy is the real
thing. He’d definitely put those stuffy-looking guys in Britain or
London or wherever, that guard whatever that place is, to
shame.
She thought. Just as the thought
passed her mind, Geoffrey chuckled, then quickly coughed as if
something was stuck in his throat. Delilah thought nothing of it
until she looked in his direction to ask him something. She noticed
a look just leaving his face that looked like he had done or said
something that he immediately wished he hadn’t.
Must be that nervousness
, she
thought, and though she didn’t see it, a look of relief crossed
Geoffrey’s face.

Finally, Delilah asked him
the question that was on her mind, “Are you dangerous or something?
Is that why this guy is here? Cause if you’re dangerous, you should
know that I am in no mood to be screwed with.” She tried to sound
as threatening as possible.

“I assure you, Miss
Hanson, I pose you no danger. Lieutenant Dan is here because you’re
a very important person and a lot of people just want to make sure
you’re well taken care of.” He gave another warm smile, “I’m sure
you’re used to people being around to make sure you’re
safe.”

“I am,”
answered Delilah, as if to say,
you’d better believe it, buddy
.

Dr. Crangler was still
dumbfounded at Geoffrey’s instant progress with his wayward female
patient. She even allowed Geoffrey to assume a seat beside her on
the leather couch that she was now sitting on.

Now, the doctor finally
spoke up. “I will be monitoring you as usual, so if I am needed,
you can just summon me from where you are.” He said, “Otherwise,
the lieutenant general will be here to keep watch over things, and
I will return later to escort you back to your room, Geoffrey.”
With that, the doctor gestured to the room’s camera and the heavy
room door unlocked and opened. The doctor disappeared down the hall
as Delilah looked on. Except for the three occupants, the room was
empty now, and everyone sat silently, with Delilah trying to make
heads or tails of the tree trunk of man stationed to ‘guard’ her,
as well as the new stranger that she was apparently supposed to
make friends with, and Geoffrey probing Delilah’s mind in an effort
to discern what the next move should be. Lieutenant Dan, as unmoved
as ever, looked like a stone sentry that could breathe death upon
anyone living at the flick of an eyelash.

Even when Dr. Crangler
returned to one of his smaller offices to watch the scene on a
monitor, everyone stayed in the same position. “Let’s hope you know
what you’re doing, Geoffrey ole’ boy.” he whispered to himself.
Only time would tell.

Chapter 23

From the first day,
Geoffrey’s experiment with Delilah promised to be a wild success.
He seemed to have a way with the normally-rebellious vixen that no
one else could command. Technically, he didn’t
command
her; no one, not even a
stranger as perfect as this one was, seemed to be able to do that,
but if she didn’t respect him as a superior, she certainly saw him
as the closest thing to an equal, at least in most areas. It didn’t
escape her notice, however, that every now and then, a certain
frown or slight smile graced his lips, and always, suspiciously,
after a random thought had just crossed her mind. Other than that,
everything went smoothly, and even those incidents waned in time.
There did seem to be a connection, however vague, but a correlation
nonetheless, between how she felt or what she was thinking, and a
corresponding change in Geoffrey’s immediate behavior.
It must be all in my head
, she told herself. After all, there was no way for a guy to
know what was going on inside her. No, she had simply been in this
place way too long and it was beginning to weigh on her
senses.

Meanwhile, Dr. Crangler
escorted Geoffrey back to his own room late every evening and back
to Delilah’s room early each morning. It was during these escorts
that the doctor grilled his patient on exactly how things were
progressing with Delilah.

“Well,
she’s certainly opening up to me,” Geoffrey informed the
greatly-concerned doctor, “and she has already made up in her head
that she’ll go through with this pregnancy thing because she thinks
it’s her best hope of escape from this place. Other than that,
she’s a little suspicious at times, about my
abilities
.”

“She knows about the
telepathy?” Dr. Crangler’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. When they
came down, he was frowning. Aside from Geoffrey, only the doctor
knew of his patient’s capabilities, and he wanted very much to keep
it that way. If his superiors ever caught wind of what Geoffrey
could do, they would certainly want him tested and experimented on
until there was nothing left of him but a used shell. Besides the
fact that he was a living, breathing human being, and not one of
the alien life forms on which the doctor had already experimented
on to no avail, he was also Dr. Crangler’s only real hope of
progress now. As is too often the case, the people in charge who
watch from positions of safety and comfort, demand substantial
results at every turn as if those results are simple matters. Dr.
Crangler and his associates, the ones in the actual thick of
things, knew all too well that such results could not be simply
concocted like a magic brew in a witch’s cauldron. There were
variables that had to be worked out before any lasting results
could materialize, and if anyone found out that about Geoffrey’s
telepathy, those variables would instantly increase a hundred fold.
If Delilah found out, it would destroy any progress that had been
made in that arena, so it was imperative that no one found out
Geoffrey’s secret.

“Does she know?” Dr.
Crangler asked again, a single step away from hysteria now.
Geoffrey simply looked on, relishing the doctor’s rising angst for
a brief moment. How many hours had he spent in his whitened room on
the verge and beyond hysteria? How many days was he trapped in this
place, away from family, friends, and familiarity, without so much
as a hint as to when, if ever, all of this was to come to an end?
When Geoffrey saw telepathically in the doctor’s panic, he about to
give Geoffrey a good shaking and assault the answer out of him, he
thought it best to not toy with the doctor any longer, even if it
was only fair.

“No, she doesn’t know,”
Geoffrey at last answered, just as the doctor grabbed Geoffrey’s
shoulders. The relief on Dr. Crangler’s face was evident until
Geoffrey finished, “at least, not yet, anyway.”

“What
does
that
mean?” It was difficult for Dr. Crangler to keep his voice at
a normal pitch.

“It means
that sometimes, not too often, but sometimes, she suspects that
something isn’t quite…right.” Geoffrey answered. Even if Geoffrey
couldn’t have read the doctor’s mind, it would’ve still been
abundantly clear on his face what he was about to ask, “And what
does
that
mean?”

Geoffrey answered before
the words filled the doctor’s mouth, “It means that her mind is not
like yours or your assistants’, or even mine for that matter. It’s
like a funhouse of mirrors in that girl’s head. Thoughts disappear
without warning, other thoughts change instantly for no foreseeable
reason. Man, I don’t think
she
knows what she’s thinking half the time. I
remember my father telling me a long time ago that some scientists
got together and performed a bunch of research and tests and found
out that girls and boys are different. You know, fundamentally
different, down to the very neuron organization in their brains. I
remember thinking at the time that that was the very
personification of stupidity. These were supposed to be the world’s
most capable minds and they had to spend millions of taxpayer
dollars to compile research and run tests to find out that guys and
girls are different? It was stupidity, if ever I’ve seen it. But
now, I guess I can see their point, because, trust me Dr. Crangler,
you’ll never know just
how
different guys and girls are until you can see
into a female’s brain. I don’t know if every one of them is like
that, but that one,” he gestured back toward Delilah’s room, “her
mind is like a very elaborate, changing maze that has no
discernible route or exit. Sure, I can read her enough to maybe
gain her trust, but to really understand her…” Geoffrey shrugged
his shoulders helplessly.

The two had made it back to
Geoffrey’s room door by this time, but Dr. Crangler didn’t lift a
gesture to one of the cameras lining the hall for the door to be
opened, as he usually did. Instead, he moved closer to Geoffrey.
“All right,” he whispered, “so you’re telepathic
and
a philosopher, but
that still doesn’t answer my question. What do you mean, she hasn’t
found out
yet
?
And how are you planning to move along with this? I don’t think I
need to remind you that I need to begin the procedure as soon as
possible, or trust
me
, there will be seriously ramifications.” Geoffrey saw in the
doctor’s mind that he meant not only his superiors, but also the
ravished world outside. The ravished world outside…it had almost
become an afterthought to Geoffrey and Delilah. Shielded as they
were behind bunker doors and beneath ever-working Cleaning Lights,
they had almost forgotten that countless scores of women around the
world were being literally ripped apart by overgrown, unborn
children who were not being birthed by nature’s usual dictates, and
that this was happening every day. What’s more, since The Virus saw
to it that mother and child (or children) all died even if the
child was cut out before the mother’s belly, the death toll was now
well in the millions. In the coming months, The Virus promised only
more casualties, until not a newborn or childbearing woman was left
on the entire face of the planet.

Reminded of this truth,
Geoffrey chided himself for wasting time having fun at the doctor’s
expense. “All right, I do have an idea I think will help keep
Delilah oblivious to my telepathy and speed up the procedure.” Dr.
Crangler, or course, was all ears, but it was not his
ears
which Geoffrey had
in mind. “But first,” Geoffrey continued, “I can see that you don’t
want to talk in my room because of the camera, but aren’t there
cameras out here as well?”

Well past shock at his
patient’s ability to know what was going through his mind, Dr.
Crangler answered, “There are, but they’re spaced out far from each
other and the microphones have a hard time picking up voices at
certain places, but all the walls are soundproof, so it’s much
easier to pick up sounds in closed rooms…” Dr. Crangler thought for
moment, “but shouldn’t you already know that? Is Delilah’s brain
really that cluttered, that it’s scrambling yours?”

Geoffrey had to chuckle at
this, because, though such was not the case, it would’ve otherwise
been quite plausible. “Well, Dr. Crangler, I’ll just say this: Any
man who thinks or claims that he knows a woman’s mind completely,
is highly mistaken.
Highly
mistaken. But, no, it’s not that. I can read your
thoughts, but I can’t precisely read your mind per se. What I mean
is, I can’t hear or see your memories or how you’re feeling, only
what you’re thinking at any given moment. So, since you weren’t
thinking about the camera in the hall at that moment, I didn’t know
about them.”

“Really?” Dr. Crangler
mused aloud. Geoffrey knew what he was thinking; he was happy that
at least something in his head was still secret.

“I agree, Doc.” Geoffrey
answered, though the doctor hadn’t said anything. “But let me tell
you, this ain’t easy for me either. It’s exciting sometimes, but
other than that, it’s scary being able to hear what other people
are thinking. It’s savage what people think when they know that no
one else is listening. I mean, really weird stuff. And I’ve got
enough weird stuff of my own to try to sort through without other
people’s thoughts filling my head. And then women’s minds…that’s a
whole other story altogether.” Geoffrey was trailing off the
subject again. “But, more importantly,” he resumed “I have another
plan. I think we did pretty well with that little experiment of
ours, with me projecting my thoughts into your head. I’m not
willing to try that on anyone else, but I think we should practice
it until we perfect it. If I can communicate with you
telepathically, it won’t matter where we are, no one else will
hear. I can inform you of everything that’s going on as it happens
and nobody else, including the head guys, will ever find out. And
just as importantly, I can tell you what Delilah is thinking and
what will help us move things along.”