The Search for Artemis - By P. D. Griffith Page 0,19
a photo of it.”
The photo showed a city bus lifted some six feet off the ground, a crowd gathered across the street, with some people pointing, others gasping, and front and center, a boy crouched on the ground. He wore a pair of dirty jeans and a muddied yellow t-shirt. The man leaned in closer to the screen.
“You are saying this boy here”—the man pointed at the guy in the photo and looked up to the thin boy with messy dark hair sitting with his back to them in the examination room—”is the same boy sitting in front of us?”
Both Dr. Dodgson and Dr. Longfellow raised their heads and looked long and hard at Landon, who sat unaware of the audience gazing at him.
“Yes, sir,” Dr. Dodgson said. “They are one and the same.”
“But that should be impossible!” Dr. Longfellow exclaimed as he stared wide-eyed at the monitor. “That bus must weigh upwards of ten tons, not to mention the weight of the people inside! His body should have collapsed on itself from the stress of it all.”
“What are you saying, doctor?” the suited man asked.
“What I’m saying is that, consistently, subjects have only ever been able to reach a lifting capacity of thirty-five times their body weight, at a maximum. Physics shouldn’t allow for anything more than that, so what you’re seeing here should be impossible. His body should have compressed into itself from the pressure.”
Moments later, the door to the observation room opened and Dr. Márquez entered.
“We’re ready. She should be entering the room momentarily,” Dr. Márquez said as he walked up to the glass. “Ah yes, here she is now.”
Beyond the glass, Sofia Petrovanya entered the examination room and shut the door.
“Sofia? What are you doing here?” Landon asked. He started to blush, embarrassed by the medical clothes he wore.
“I requested to do this for you,” Sofia replied. “I told you before you got in the car with me that I’d answer your questions. It’s now time to answer some of them.” As she spoke, she walked over to the small table next to the gurney and picked up the vial of milky liquid. “This substance has the ability to draw out memories. In particular, the memory of the night you’ve forgotten.”
“God, she’s good,” Dr. Dodgson said under his breath as he and the other observers watched Sofia convince Landon to lie back in the gurney and let her strap him down with the leather restraints. They also watched as she drew the milky white compound into the large syringe and comforted Landon as she injected it into his arm.
“I’ll come back once you’ve awakened. Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” Sofia said as Landon dozed off into a drug-induced slumber. He was unconscious by the time Sofia left the examination room.
In the observation room, the three doctors and the suited man stood there, silently waiting for some sign that Landon was reacting to Dr. Dodgson’s compound. They didn’t even pay attention to Sofia as she entered the room and joined the men along the glass.
“Anything yet?” she asked.
“No, nothing. The anesthetic seems to have taken effect, so it should be any minute now. When the compound begins to react with the brain you’ll see a spike in his heart rate on this monitor.” Dr. Dodgson pointed to a monitor on the console next to him but never took his gaze off Landon lying unconscious in the examination room.
Mere seconds later a loud beeping sound began to fill the silent observation room. The pulse of it continued to elevate until it sounded somewhat like Morse code. They all stared in anticipation, waiting to see what was in store. Suddenly, Landon’s entire body stiffened, his back arched and his head sprung backwards.
“Is this supposed to happen?” the suited man asked.
“Well sir, we have no precedent for this reaction. His heart rate appears to be within the safe range, but the paralytic should have removed any bodily reaction,” Dr. Dodgson replied with an obvious tremor in his voice.
As the observers continued to stare into the examination room, they watched the gurney began to shake. The small metal table, the half-empty vial, and the syringe lifted into the air, and a strange noise began to emanate from the walls. It groaned as if metal was buckling under pressure.
“Are we safe in here?” Dr. Márquez asked as he erratically shifted his head left and right, following the creaking sounds.
“This glass is twelve inches thick and it’s reinforced by high grade steel.