The Energy Room

I couldn’t help but stare at Al’s face. Even with my healing abilities, it was miraculous that he had almost completely recovered from his burns in just a couple days. All the pinkish color of new skin had completely left him. His eyebrows and hair had even started to grow back. Although, I did have to emit a small chortle at the sight of the eyeliner he had used to draw on the rest of his eyebrows. He looked as though the only tragedy that had befallen him was a party prank in poor taste, involving an electric razor and a permanent marker.

  “Are you going to keep staring at me like that?” Al asked uncomfortably, shifting in his seat.

  “Sorry, but… it’s kind of amazing,” I said in awe, reaching out to touch his clearly fake eyebrows.

  Al slapped my hand away, just as he had done with the medics a couple days before. I was unable to control my snort of laughter as he eyed me fussily.

  “I’m a fast healer,” Al explained, pouting at my amusement.

  “Yeah, but you don’t have a single scar. Even I’m not that good,” I said, retreating to my sofa.

  Al sat silently across from me, false eyebrows wrinkled in thought. It seemed as though there was something heavy weighing on his mind. I shifted anxiously in my seat, trying to decide whether or not to ask him if something was wrong. It was unlikely if something had been wrong that he would tell me what that something was. He was the psychologist. I was the patient. While I would have liked to think that we were on somewhat of a higher level of friendship, seeing as how I saved him after almost turning him into charbroiled steak, I reminded myself that I wasn’t in any position to get close to an employee of The Facility; even if that employee was somehow connected to me and my kind.

  I remembered the discussion that took place in the Energy Room the night before. Perhaps I could find a way to communicate with Al through my mind, to try to find out if he really did know something about us. I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, pondering the best method for my first attempt at telepathy.

  “What’s on your mind?” Al asked, taking his notebook out of his worn messenger bag.

  “You tell me,” I said suspiciously, leaning forward to eye the therapist intently for any signs of acknowledgment.

  Al looked at me oddly, as if he were staring at some sort of… freak of nature, or something. I leaned back in my seat, shaking my head as I observed no signs that he was reading my thoughts. I was fairly certain he thought I was on drugs.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Al questioned innocently.

  “Nothing. I’m weird,” I responded plainly. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  Al sighed, skimming through his notes. He seemed so unfocused, like someone took the Etch-A-Sketch in his mind and chucked it in the washing machine. I badly wanted to ask what was wrong; whether because I really cared or because I was nosy, I wasn’t sure. Probably because I was nosy...

  “Are you okay? You seem sort of out of it,” I inquired.

  ...maybe because I cared.

  “What? Yeah, uh… I’m fine. Bit of a headache,” Al replied.

  He was lying. I didn’t know why, but he was most definitely lying.

  “Do you want to head down to the medical floor? They can give you something for it,” I said politely.

  Residents weren’t allowed to keep medication in their homes, not since Dr. McGhee ‘accidentally’ took too much of his sleep aid a few years back. He woke up, of course… but after the incident, he had to be kept on the medical floor, where he spent most of his time coloring and watching cartoons.

  “No thanks, I’ll be fine,” Al forced a smile, staring at me until it became so uncomfortable that I had to look away.

  “Alright, then. What are we talking about today?” I asked curiously.

  Al rubbed his eyes, seeming very upset. I didn’t take my eyes off of him, half expecting him to yell at me for something I did or said. I felt my general affection for the shrink begin to shrink. In lowering his hands from his face, I could see the eyeliner smeared over his forehead, giving him the appearance of a unibrow. I snorted to myself.

  “I don’t know, Angie. Whatever you want to talk about,” Al responded in an exhausted tone.

  I was starting to get a little angry; he was treating me like a child who had spilled milk all over the kitchen table while trying to make their own bowl of cereal.

  “Are you mad at me? You know, I didn’t mean to burn your face off,” I snapped, feeling my temper attempting to get the best of me.

  “No, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s nothing, really. I’m sorry for being so distant,” Al sighed, drained.

  I slumped my shoulders, feeling guilty for snapping. Al was genuinely upset about something, but it seemed there would be no way for me to help him. If he was a mind-reader, he certainly wasn’t reading my mind at that point in time.

  I sat up a bit straighter. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was reading someone else’s thoughts, and it was stressing him out. Lakin would have called me crazy, and perhaps I was, but I had a hunch. It was a much stronger hunch than when I suspected Dr. Helmsworth of being an alien.

  I focused on Al’s face. If I did possess psychic capabilities, they weren’t anything the scientists had studied; it wouldn’t cause a chemical reaction that my Electro-Cuffs would be able to detect. I squinted my eyes, trying to imagine myself inside Al’s head. I leaned forward more, focusing harder, trying to see…

  “Seriously, Angie. What are you doing?” Al asked uneasily, leaning in the opposite direction from me, even though we were feet away from each other.

  A gust of wind swooshed from my lungs, having been stuck in there for who knows how long. I crossed my arms in frustration, pushing my back against the sofa. I wasn’t psychic. I definitely was not psychic.

  “Nothing,” I said grouchily. “You’ve got eyeliner on your forehead.”

  Al fussed in the bathroom for a good ten minutes, trying to clean up his face. When eyeliner says ‘waterproof’, it isn’t fooling around. By the time he returned to the living room, I had already decided on a new plan of action. I would focus on one word inside my head, to see if Al picked up on it. Hopefully he would fit the word into our conversation in a way that wouldn’t be suspicious to anyone in security who may have been ‘monitoring’ our session.

  I decided the word would be ‘idiot’.

  “Thanks for pointing that out. I’m kind of an idiot when it comes to makeup,” Al said, returning to his seat.

  That was too easy. I probably should have picked a less common word. A word that wouldn’t describe the entire population of one specific gender of the human race… pancakes! I liked pancakes.

  We spent the majority of our session discussing what it was like to grow up in The Facility. Pancakes. Everything from diaper changes at the Steins’ house, to a very embarrassing conversation about lady business with William. Pancakes. Al got a good laugh out of my ‘identity crisis’ at age fifteen, when I wore black baggy clothes and a beret for twelve straight weeks. Pancakes. He asked me if I found it difficult being around so few people my own age. Pancakes. I explained that quality was much more valuable than quantity, and that Eric was worth more than a thousand friends. Pancakes.

  We discussed if I had ever felt the need to find my biological parents. I clarified that it occasionally crossed my mind, but mostly only ever ended in anger. Pancakes. They had abandoned me, according to what William had told me. If they didn’t want me, why would I want them? Pancakes. At this, Al eyed me with a very concerned look, but remained silent.

  By the end of the session, I felt as though I had crammed eighteen years of one-sided psychology into a few hours. There had been an awful lot of me talking, and an awful lot of Al not saying much of anything. It seemed very odd to me, but I was so drained that I didn’t press it. All I wanted to do was sleep.

  “I think that’s enough therapy for today,” Al said, snapping his notebook shut.

  I sat quietly for a moment, trying to decipher the concerned expression whi
ch had crossed his face just moments before, when I had mentioned my parents. Al grinned as he shoved his notebook back into his bag. He appeared undisturbed, but he was definitely lying. Pancakes.

  “So your birthday is coming up in a couple days?” Al asked, stretching his arms as he stood.

  “Yeah, there’s a shindig every year down at The Village. They set up a massive barbecue in the street. It’s kind of ridiculous,” I replied with a sigh, secretly excited for the celebration.

  “That should be interesting. If it’s alright if I come, I mean,” Al said apprehensively.

  “The whole Facility is going to be there. It would probably be dangerous not to have a psychologist in that crowd,” I laughed, standing to accompany him to the door.

  “Well, if you’re in the mood for a pre-birthday breakfast, I wouldn’t mind heading to Caf 1 with you in the morning,” Al said with one foot out the door. “I could really go for some pancakes.”

  Al shut the door to my stunned face with a glint in his eyes, and a smirk on his face. I attempted to suppress the urge to jump around the apartment excitedly, but my will-power failed horribly. I bounced around like a kangaroo in a pit of cobras. My joyous shrieks and woos were only silenced by the static sound of the speaker system.

  “Angela? Is everything alright?” William asked curiously.

  “Yes,” I answered quickly, stilling myself to catch my breath. I let the lie find its way effortlessly past my lips. Perhaps it wasn’t completely a lie. “Al invited me to breakfast tomorrow. It’s very exciting.”

  “Oh, grand!” William cooed with a distinct tone of satisfaction. “It’s wonderful to hear that you two are getting along so well.”

  “Yep. Very well,” I gasped, pinching my sides as my lungs heaved. Man, I was really out of shape.

  “I’ll let you get back to your, er… celebrating,” William said pleasantly, followed by a click of the speaker.

  I collapsed on the sofa, face buried in my hands. Of course, there was still a chance that Al saying the ‘code word’ was simply a coincidence. Though possible, I thought it was very unlikely. As far as I was concerned, Al had just confirmed that, at the very least, he was capable of reading minds. My new task would be to figure out if and how he was connected to my kind, without outing him to the rest of The Facility.

  I let myself drift off into slumber, still strewn about on my couch. I opened my eyes to the vastness of the Energy Room, smiling at the comforting sight of Lakin chatting with Nadia and Lyla. I pushed myself out of my seat, still giddy with excitement as I trotted over to my friends. Though Lakin still appeared uncomfortable to see me, very little could have been able to hinder my good mood.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with our Angie?” Lyla asked, ogling over my bliss.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “You’re too happy. It’s weird, and I don’t like it,” Lyla joked, crossing her arms as she leaned back in her seat.

  I shoved out my hand to the group, unable to keep my feet from moving impatiently in place. Lakin was reluctant, but eventually reached out for my hand, along with Lyla and Nadia. I couldn’t keep myself from grinning as I watched their eyes cloud over to relive my therapy session with Al.

  Nadia gasped, covering her mouth with her hands as they ended their visions.

  “I KNEW IT! I TOLD YOU!” Nadia exclaimed, jumping from her seat to join me in a happy dance.

  Lyla’s eyes were filled with intrigue, while Lakin’s were full of skepticism. I paused in the middle of spinning in circles with Nadia, to inquire about Lakin’s uncertainty.

  “All that might prove is that he could be telepathic. We still don’t know that he’s connected to us in any way. He could have been trained by The Facility. I don’t trust it,” Lakin explained, forehead lined with worry.

  “Why can’t you just let me be happy?!” Nadia cried, falling back into her chair with irritation.

  “I know you want to be hopeful, Nad. I just think that trusting him because of this one thing, would leave Angie and all of us in a very vulnerable place,” Lakin said in a calm voice.

  One of the very few things that could have hindered my good mood had just happened. I moodily scooted my chair over to the group, and sat as heatedly as I could. My rigid posture relaxed the more I began to appreciate Lakin’s perspective. He was right: if Al saying the code word proved anything, it was only that he could read my mind. If my new therapist had been trained to be a telepath, and was in no way connected to our kind… the situation had become much more dangerous for all of us.

  There was a chance that Al could have already known about the Energy Room and how it worked. He could have already informed William about the others. The Facility could have already been trying to figure out a way to intercept us in our dreams.

  It didn’t take long for my frustration to change to worry, and for my worry to change to fear. The thought that I could have potentially put all the people I cared about most into the direct path of peril, made me want to curl up and hide underneath the sapphire cushion I sat on.

  “I don’t think we should give up hope, but it would be dangerous for Angie to let down her guards. That’s all I’m saying,” Lakin said in an attempt to comfort a very upset Nadia.

  Nadia nodded in understanding, wiping away a single tear streaking down her cheek.

  “Lyla? Do you have anything to add?” I inquired, looking to the girl who had been sitting silently.

  “Even with jacked up eyebrows, he’s still hot,” Lyla responded, grinning mischievously.

  We all laughed—except Joseph—and rolled our eyes at Lyla being her typical self. If Lyla never really had much to offer in the way of serious conversation, at least she was able to ease the tension of the Room. We could always count on her for that.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Surprise, Darling