A Disease of Magic

“Please check that your information is correct.” Lola—I remembered her from the first time I was here with Alex for the study—handed me a tablet. It displayed my name, age, race, address, phone number, ID number, and even more personal details. It was incredibly thorough and a little unnerving. I checked over the information quickly, giving her a nod.

“Great, you can take it into the room right there—” she gestured to her left “—and complete the survey. Once finished, a volunteer will tell you the next steps. You will either be dismissed and called back at a later time, or taken to another test, which could be a physical test or another survey. It just depends on your answers, and we ask that you answer honestly and as truthfully as you can recall. Once you enter those doors, you will only be known by that ID number in the corner.” She tapped the top right corner of the screen, where a seven-digit number was displayed in bright red.

She’d done this little speech frequently, judging by how her words flat but sharp. Bored. Her appearance also suggested a professional, no funny business attitude, her blond hair pulled back in a tight bun, suit a navy blue this time.

“Thanks, Lola,” I said, offering a smile. I didn’t envy her having to repeat herself constantly in this job.

“You’re welcome.” Her eyes didn’t soften, not even for a split second. Ouch. “If you will.” She held out her hand again towards the open doorway, and I skedaddled myself out of the way for the next person.

The room was quiet, soft carpeting under my feet dampening any sounds. I didn’t want to be back at Hubert Industries today. But they’d emailed me with details for the first real part of the study after putting me in Group A based on my first survey answers.

How they came up with yet another set of questions after how thorough the first set was, I had no clue.

Earlier, I had asked Alex if they had reached out to him about a group designation, and he confessed that he dropped out of the study. When asked why, he gave a short, inconclusive excuse about time. When I pressed further, he hadn’t answered.

That was suspicious enough, but I decided not to push. We all had our secrets, after all, and just because we were dating didn’t mean we had to share all of them.

I had a few theories, anyways, and I was curious if I would be able to figure out which was correct.

Theory one: he was being fully honest, realizing that he didn’t have the time for whatever reason I didn’t know about.

Theory two: he just didn’t want to do it anymore.

Theory three: he was lying to me for an unknown reason.

The first two theories would be anticlimactic, so I was going to try to deduce if it was the third. Not that I wanted him to be lying to me, of course. I’d rather rule it out. But it reminded me of a lesson my father taught me when I was younger. Whenever I was little and playing hide-and-seek, he would always check the dangerous locations first, like the washer, to make sure I was safe. I’d asked him why he did that one time, and he explained that he would rather waste time checking where he hoped I wasn’t before checking elsewhere, because what if I got myself into trouble and got hurt? Applying the same logic to figure out why Alex dropped out would be the plan.

There was plenty about his life that I didn’t know about, a plethora of unanswered questions that wiggled around in my brain. Most of them centered around this mysterious group he worked with who kept an eye out for others with abilities. Or was it a volunteer group? And why hadn’t he invited me or Leo to meet with this group? He knew I had abilities, and it would make the most sense for him to bring me in.

Right?

Picking a seat near the covered windows, I plopped down in my chosen chair and tried to scrub all the questions from my brain so I could focus on the here and now. The survey popped up on my tablet automatically, and I began reading and tapping on my answers.

I lost myself in a strange sort of self-reflection for an undetermined amount of time, hunched over the table, as I answered the questions. They were related to the ones from the first survey I’d done here last week, but expanded on more specifics, some even open-ended questions that required a written answer.

Finishing the survey and seeing the confirmation message on my tablet, I slowly straightened myself. I’d spent the better part of an hour leaning my head against my palm, elbow braced against the hard table. I pried my hand off my cheek, my elbow protesting in discomfort as I flexed it.

“When you’re ready.”

The voice came from my left, startling the living bejeezus out of me. Jumping in my seat, I strung together a litany of curses in my head, only barely managing to keep my lips pressed together to stop them from flying out into the world. With a hand on my heart, I turned to see Dr. Goodwin himself hovering over me with a pleased grin.

“Just a second,” I confessed, taking slow, deep breaths to gather myself.

“I apologize for startling you,” he chuckled, tugging on one sleeve of his suit jacket. “I had no idea you’d be so focused. A good trait, to be sure.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just nodded and then stood, pushing the rolling chair back in place.

“You’ve been put in Group C, based on your answers.”

“How many groups are there?”

“It goes to Group U, so quite a few, actually,” he answered, leading me towards the front of the room and another open door. “Your group is completing further testing today, and we’ll get to the others later. You have time for the tests today, correct?”

“Sure.” I wanted to say no, that I’d rather go home and sleep, but it was important. And would also give me more money, which I really couldn’t shy away from, even with Leo’s ridiculous generosity. Hopefully, I’d be able to pay him back in some way. He would never accept direct payment, but being able to do little things, like spruce up the apartment and make it more homey, purchase a couple of house plants maybe, was the plan.

Dr. Goodwin clapped his hands once, loudly. “Excellent! I’ll take you there now. It’s very basic,” he assured me, glancing over his shoulder at me. “We’ll take some basic readings and run a few simple tests. Are you okay with giving a bit of your blood?”

“What’s it for?”

He waved a hand in a casual, dismissive gesture. “Oh, we’re looking at things like blood sugar, iron levels, other vitamins, you get the idea. We don’t expect to see any differences, but one never knows.”

“Need to start somewhere,” I added.

“Exactly, you understand. Perfect.”

The room we entered was stark white, several chairs lined up against one wall, different stations scattered throughout with expensive-looking equipment on top. It was the definition of what I imagined a science lab to look like, several people milling about doing important things dressed carefully in personal protective equipment, from shoe coverings to hairnets and everything in between.

Dr. Goodwin led me to one of the chairs, gesturing for me to take a seat. As I did, he waved over one of the blue-clad scientists, who came rushing over with a basket.

“This is one of our employees. I’d give you her name, but that’s not allowed.” He chuckled to himself again. He turned to me, saying, “This here is Curtis. He’ll hook up a few monitors, take your blood pressure, and draw a few vials for our tests. Shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes, and we’ll get you on your way.”

I thanked Dr. Goodwin, who gave Curtis a single nod, before leaving us to the fun part of me being hooked up and stabbed with a needle.

Curtis was quiet, only speaking to give instructions, and worked efficiently. Once the machines to monitor my vitals were set up and running, he took my left arm to draw blood from the crook of my elbow. I saw his eyebrows raise in surprise as he exposed the inside of my arm.

“Yeah.” I nodded to the bio-screen. It had a small blinking light on it that I hadn’t noticed. While in the elevator on the way up, I’d silenced all notifications to be sure it didn’t distract me. Again, now that I was no longer in danger of having a LaShoul’s episode, there was no need to the notifications to distract me. Or, now that I hopefully wouldn’t have another episode, really. Just because Alex had shared as much, that didn’t necessarily mean that what was working for him would also work for me. I operated under that assumption, but knew that could always change at a moment’s notice.

Incredibly curious to what the notification was since the only ones I still had set up had to do with gamma radiation, I forced myself to shrug it off and told Curtis, “Dr. Goodwin startled me when I finished the survey. I bet it’s a heart rate alert.”

“Are you feeling calm now?”

“Yes. Perfectly normal.”

Curtis didn’t respond, simply going back to work at prepping my skin and stabbing me with a needle, maneuvering it just a little to get a steady flow of blood. In total, he collected five vials before slipping the needle out and applying pressure. He wrapped it up, promised to be back in fifteen minutes when the other readings were finished, and left.

Finally alone, I glanced at my bio-screen’s notification, pulling up my gamma stats.

P1

4

4

P2

0

0

P3

0

0

P4

0

0

S1

0

0

S2

6

3

Total

10

7

Strange.

I hadn’t run into Leo or Alex today, the only two people I knew with abilities. While there was at least one other person who worked on the same floor I did, I hadn’t run into any familiar here, which meant it was likely someone else.

There’d been other people waiting in line to get checked in with Lola, then there was Lola herself, Dr. Goodwin, Curtis, and others sitting in the room, also completing their surveys. In all, too many people to possibly narrow it down.

I shot off a one-handed message to Leo, who was quick to reply.

Me: Have you run into random other people with the same “issue” we have?

Leo: Once maybe. Why?

Me: Twice now I’ve noticed it happening, both times in this building.

Leo: You’re at Hubert right?

Me: Yes I don’t think it’s the same person either, though I’m not positive.

Leo: Keep your eyes peeled and ears open. Any information we can get is helpful.

Me: Aye aye captain.

Once I started beeping with alerts, Curtis came back over and unhooked me from everything while giving instructions for how to get back to the hallway in case I had gotten turned around.

“Thank you, Curtis.”

His eyes crinkled a bit at the corners, smiling behind his mask.

“You’re welcome.” Grabbing the equipment, he walked away.

Bingo.

I glanced back down at my screen, reading the new numbers displayed for me.

P1

4

4

P2

0

0

P3

0

0

P4

0

0

S1

0

0

S2

8

4

Total

12

8

I had no clue what Curtis’ ability could be. Nothing he had done seemed out of the ordinary or raised any red flags, similar in manner to how Alex’s strength ability could be hidden easily. Mine and Leo’s, however, were very obvious if one paid attention.

Sending off another quick message to Leo about what I discovered, I hopped off the chair and merrily started making my way back home to eat a pint of ice cream and force cuddles on my cat.