Impact: Regenesis Part 28

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that but what does this have to do with me?"

"Hopefully nothing, but to be safe I needed to come here and ask you a few brief questions." His eyes flashed before he asked, "Have you noticed any unusual abilities within the past few days?"

Jenna scowled, "What are you talking about?"

"Anything strange," he said, "Anything at all."

"I don't know what"

He cut her off, "What about the apple? Or how about when you killed your cat Kiki on Tuesday?"

Jenna paled. "What...How do you, how do you know about that?"

"You drained the remaining life from both the fruit and your cat," he explained. "I need you to follow me."

"No," she shouted. "How the h.e.l.l could you know that? Were you watching me or"

"d.a.m.n it we don't have time for this!" the detective snapped at her. "We need to leave"

"I'm not going anywhere with you, you"

Jenna suddenly flew back from the detective and the door slammed shut and locked before he could get in. He tried the lock and would have broken the door down had a sudden cry not alarmed him. The Asian man turned to find a man behind him in nothing more than a hospital gown. The stranger was soaked from head to toe, hadn't shaved in days, and kept his eyes locked on the Asian detective.

"Get away from the door!"

The detective grimaced. "You have no idea what you're trying to stop here."

"I believe I do," the drenched man hissed. "Get back from the door, now."

The already poor lighting in the hall started to flicker and though the detective never looked away from the poor man in the hospital gown, he managed to say before he left, "It's too late Sage."

Ryan lost sight of the j.a.panese man once the lights failed. He tried to find him but his eyes never managed to dilate in time; he also felt he had another worry to trouble him first. He tried the door, but found it locked, and only once he heard a shrill scream did he break the door down. The sight of the room startled him. The wall where her window had been was torn away completely. Jenna Bell's room was on the fourth story and though Ryan thought she might have been captured or thrown from the room, he found her in the kitchen with a broken neck.

Ryan walked softly beside her and turned her wrist over expecting to see the scar on her arm, however it wasn't there.

Someone seized him by the back of his neck and whoever held him in that vice lifted him off the floor and slammed him into the kitchen cabinets. Ryan felt the muscles in his neck collapse and he felt his consciousness quickly slip away. He heard the sound of metal clatter and before he could guess what might have made the sound Ryan felt seven objects impale him through his back. Warm blood filled his lungs and a burning sensation gripped his arm. Ryan's vision blurred and everything he managed to see grew dark. Finally, Ryan felt the sensation of flight, one last time.

10:35 AM.

London, England Jason pa.s.sed away in the night on the twenty-seventh, despite his sudden start toward recovery. None of his doctors saw any reason for the decline in his health but Jason died all the same. Doctor Reynolds asked permission to perform an autopsy to determine where everything went wrong but hadn't discovered anything, or at least she hadn't reported anything to Audrey. Audrey wouldn't have been able to take the call anyway; since the news of her husband's death she remained in tears and sobbed alone in her hotel room.

Her brother handled the funeral arrangements, though the decision for burial or cremation hadn't been made. Jason never specified and as such the choice fell to Audrey. No one, her brother Jack least of all, wanted to bring that question to her. All they could manage was to avoid it until the very last possible moment.

Audrey lay curled in a ball clutching a tear soaked pillow. The lights were off and it was quiet beyond the sound of her weeping. She raced from the first time they met to when Jason finally stomached asking her out, she recalled their first date, their first kiss, his proposal, their marriage, and every single memory she held of him. The mistakes he made melted away while her faults became illuminated. She hated herself for the harm she caused him and regretted the forgotten apologies.

She remembered the day he asked her to marry him. He had been distracted for weeks leading up to it, but on that day his thoughts seemed entirely elsewhere. Jason revealed afterward that his heart raced faster then than it ever had before. Audrey noticed familiar sights from London, scenes from their first few dates, art museums they'd visited together, and finally a quiet dinner outside with the London Eye just a short distance from them. In retrospect she should have seen it coming since he hardly ate a bite at dinner. But midway through their meal he confessed that he couldn't wait any longer. He knelt in front of her, retrieved the ring, and asked her to marry him. He told her he wanted to propose on top of the London Eye but couldn't wait anymore. Audrey hardly heard a word he said about the original plan. She nearly tackled him to the ground when she threw her arms around him and repeatedly accepted his proposal.

Out of all the people Audrey had ever known, Jason was the sole individual who never seemed to feel fear. She didn't come to find out until months later, but on the day of their wedding Jason was so nervous he vomited in the bathroom only a half an hour before their ceremony began. One of his groomsmen happened to be present in the restroom when Jason became sick and helped to clean him off and calm him down. His buddy a.s.sured him that no one would even notice him with Audrey beside him and once Jason regained his stamina the two headed back out to the procession.

Audrey thought about Jason's friends who still didn't know. She wasn't even sure she recalled half of their names from their wedding and couldn't even fathom how to contact all of them for the funeral. Time rushed past too quickly; Jason would be buried or cremated in only a day or so and then the memorial would follow and from there she couldn't see anything in her future. Audrey wasn't even sure where to begin in resuming her life, a life she shared for years with a man she loved with her whole heart. It didn't seem real and she tried to fight against the nightmare but knew he was gone. Audrey only thought about how Jason wouldn't return home each night promptly around six in the evening, he wouldn't surprise her with flowers and she wouldn't wake up to the sound of him brushing his teeth in their bathroom, and he wouldn't ever kiss her or hold her again.

The bedroom door crept open and her sister snuck in, just as she had nights earlier. Suzy walked over to her sister and handed her the phone. "Jason's doctor's asking for you."

Audrey tried to dry her tears but the effort seemed pointless. "Did she mention what this is about?" Suzy apologized and said she never asked. Audrey waited for her sister to leave before she answered.

"h.e.l.lo Audrey? This is Doctor Reynolds."

"Yes, what is it?"

"There's been a...well I'm not sure how to put this, but your husband is alive."

Audrey felt her heart stop. She had already seen his body, how horribly disfigured he was, how devoid of life or warmth too. The doctor repeated that Jason was alive and recuperating rapidly. Audrey finally cut the doctor off and asked her to explain. "I saw him, he's dead. You told me so yourself."

Doctor Reynolds confirmed that Jason was dead. "I'm unsure of how to convince you but I swear we have your husband back in our hospital and under observation. Please Audrey, if you could just hurry here we would like you to see for yourself."

Audrey only took a brief moment to tell her family about the news. She didn't explain it and simply left for the hospital with her mother and sister. Doctor Reynolds greeted them upon their arrival and quickly ushered Audrey to the room they kept her husband in. Jason lay somewhat exposed so the doctors could examine him, but his skin and muscle looked nearly whole again.

"The funeral home discovered him alive and breathing and rushed him here," the doctor began, "We weren't sure what could have happened. Jason was dead but here he is now nearly whole once again."

Audrey's eyes remained fixed on her husband. She couldn't understand how someone so gravely wounded could recover in a matter of a week. "Do you have any idea how this is even possible?"

Doctor Reynolds shook her head and told her they were as eager to know as she was. "We ran tests on his blood when he was returned here and found some irregularities. We found sodium thiperal and vecuronium bromite in his blood...Which are two chemicals used to euthanize the terminally ill."

Audrey paled slightly and asked who would do something like that to her husband.

"We're unsure of that now," the doctor began, "But the oddities don't end there. We performed a few other blood tests shortly before you arrived and found that those chemicals are gone; they've been purged from his system."

"And no one here performed an operation or anything to remove it?"

Doctor Reynolds simply told her there wasn't anything they could have done to remove it in time to save him. "The amount of the chemicals in him should have ended his life, even after coming back here, yet here's your husband and he's making the most miraculous recovery I've ever heard of." Doctor Reynolds added that the radiation remained but it did not concern her. "At the rate your husband's recovering, or regenerating if I might be so bold, he should be fully recovered in an hour or two."

"Do you think he'll wake then?" Audrey asked.

"I don't see why he wouldn't." Doctor Reynolds paused for a moment to take her over to her husband's side. Jason didn't have a single scar, burn, or mark from the fire. He was completely whole. "I'd like to ask you something Miss Templar, Audrey, if you don't mind."

"That's fine."

Doctor Jamie Reynolds began by stating how the final decision would be Jason's alone, but she felt she needed her permission as well. "You see, I would like to continue to monitor Jason after he's well."

"And why's that?"

"Basically I find all of this uncanny and I would like to turn this into an opportunity to study why he's been able to recuperate so rapidly." The doctor a.s.sured her she would not charge them anything for the check-ups, "This is something I'm curious about, something that could possibly bridge gaps between where we stand now in medicine and where we need to go. Jason's done something amazing, be that consciously or not." She started off toward the door and reminded Audrey that the final decision was Jason's alone. "I'll leave you two alone and check up on him later."

12:19 PM.

Las Vegas, Nevada "Twenty, house wins."

The German cursed, tossed his cards in, and told the dealer to deal again.

Nick and Strom sat at a blackjack table in the middle of the day on the outskirts of Vegas. Strom still hadn't won a single hand, even after two hours, but he was determined to keep going until it paid off. Nick saw how much he'd lost and though he guessed Strom could toss his wealth around as he pleased he doubted the man could ever profit from all of his gambling.

Nick worried when he stepped off the plane in Vegas, as he thought for a brief moment that he could possibly have been kidnapped by Strom, but Nick soon realized that wasn't the case at all. He'd left Strom at the table and wandered around a few times since they arrived and since Strom didn't really pay any attention to him, Nick turned his questions toward the reason why Strom took the detour there, if there was any real reason.

"Wh-When...When are we going to train?"

Strom glanced at the dealer and gave an empty reply, "We'll work out later. Hit."

"So when then?" Nick asked again.

"After this hand."

Strom said that over three-hundred twenty-three dollars before Nick asked the question, so Nick doubted there was any validity in the statement and simply looked at the cards he'd been dealt.

Nick wasn't legally able to gamble and he knew it. But Isaac Jones was twenty-one and since Strom wanted to toss his money in the toilet Nick agreed to join him if for no other reason than to speed the loss of Strom's fortune and return the two of them to their original path. Nick was also unsure whether Mizuno would know where to look for them, (or if he already knew for that matter), and a part of him wasn't sure he wanted to go back to that life. Though Nick realized he never left that world Mizuno brought him into, as he sat at a blackjack table with a fake ID and pa.s.sport with the world's deadliest a.s.sa.s.sin.

Nick glanced at his cards, a nine of clubs and a seven of spades. He simply said he folded and tossed his cards to the dealer.

Strom frowned and asked why he quit.

"I had sixteen, and most of the low cards won't show."

"What do you mean?"

"Even a.s.suming this is a new deck, the chance of me drawing anything that would be of help to me is only about forty percent, a.s.suming that you or the dealer don't have any cards that are five or below."

Strom studied him for a moment. "I didn't think you were that smart kid."

"What do you mean?"

"You seemed to me to be some average kid who didn't give a s.h.i.t about anything." Strom asked for one more card but broke, swore, and asked their dealer Brittany, whose name he finally recalled after two hours of cards, to deal again.

Nick reddened a bit and admitted he only knew it because his friend Drake told him about blackjack and probability. He cleared his throat and asked Strom, "You do realize you're wasting a lot of money, right?"

"Yeah."

"So why are you?" Nick asked. "It's not like a big payout would help you much."

"It's something to do with the money I make kid." He asked for another card while Nick folded without so much as looking at the hand he'd been given.

"Aren't there things you want to own though?"

He didn't answer right away. Strom took another card, broke again, and asked for the dealer to take a break for a while as he wanted to talk with Nick alone. Strom glared at the kid and asked, "Why do you care what I do with it? It's just cash, I can easily make more."

"I-I know. I know. It just s-seems...It only seems like a waste to me," Nick told him.

Strom glanced around to be sure no one could easily overhear them before he told Nick, "It is a waste and that's the point. All I need is enough money to live, to eat, to travel, and to get the little things I want that'll make me happy. Everything else is excess."

"Then why do you still..." he searched for the appropriate word, "Why do you still work?"

Strom rubbed his eyes and sighed, "Do you realize that I only take a few jobs each year? I'm not out trying to make as much money as I can. I'm simply doing it to keep the wheels turning."

"What are you talking about?"

"I like what I do because it gives me a thrill," he said flatly. "I like the fact that there's a chance someone could catch me, that I could die in a brief mistake or if I was set up. I like taking that shot and worrying about getting out of a city and being completely invisible for months at a time."

Nick looked away from him and apologized. He wanted to ask more questions but he felt Strom wasn't in the mood. All Strom told him was that they'd start his training later in the evening and motioned for Brittany the dealer to return.

Nick left though without a word.

He walked outside into the sun, turned his phone back on for the first time in nearly a week, and discovered he had twelve messages from his friends; two from Ian, one from Jordan, three from Drake, and six from Amy. He immediately called her.

It rang twice before she answered, "Nick?"

He took a breath and quickly apologized to her. "I-I had to get out of there last week Amy. I'm r-really sorry for leaving you there."

"What happened?"

He wanted to explain it to her, but a pit in his stomach told him she wouldn't believe him. Nick searched for the words he needed to give her some explanation, but only told her he and his friend Ian got into an argument about his brother's death and Nick needed to cool off.

"I shouldn't have acted like that."

"It's okay..." she paused, "Did you want to meet up and talk or something?"

Nick felt a twinge of pain at the fact that he couldn't do just that. "No, I-I'm...I'm sort of busy today. How about I c-call you later th-this weekend and we c-can set a d-date, okay?"

She reluctantly agreed and told him she was thinking about him before she hung up.

Nick turned his phone back off and shoved it back into his pocket.

"Did you call your girlfriend?"

Nick didn't need to turn around to confirm it was Strom. "It's kind of hard to tell if we're dating at all," he admitted.

Strom walked over and joined him. "Mizuno wanted me to stop you if you tried to call her."

"Why?"

He said he wasn't sure. "I think he didn't want you to slip up and say you were somewhere away from your home, as most people don't pack up and fly across the world off of a whim."

"So he wants me to lie to her?"

"And everyone for that matter," Strom added.