Chapter thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

I was extremely thankful for a quiet work week after my information gathering session.  Not only had I strained my power, but there were several bumps and bruises that were rather sore.  The light week let me get to the point where using my power didn’t cause splitting headaches anymore.  I was rather lucky that I didn’t break any bones, as that would require a rather lengthy explanation.  Dr. Minton noticed that I was rather stiff right away, but seemed to accept that my muscle soreness was the result of a game of racquetball that got a little too intense.

My nightly excursions were also vastly different.  I stayed by the river, looking through industrial complexes for a place for the final showdown.  Luckily I found just the place on the north side of the city, a grouping of warehouses sandwiched between the interstate and the Cumberland River.  An unused one would be perfect.  Wide open for the most part, there were a few pallets of machinery scattered at random.  Limited exits and an undisturbed layer of dust showed very limited foot traffic meant there was little chance of being disturbed for the final confrontation.

Halfway through my Thursday afternoon, my relaxing week went to hell.

“Well Larry, this should be a rather routine fix.” Dr. Minton started out with the background of our latest patient.  “Eight-year-old boy broke his arm outside playing.  Let’s head in there and get a quick peek, then we can get the stuff for a proper cast.”

“Sounds like a plan Dr. Minton.”  I replied.  Knocking lightly, we both entered upon hearing a faint “Come in” from inside.  Rather small for his age, our patient was sitting on the table cradling his left arm across his chest.  Sandy blond hair cut short in a crew cut with icy blue eyes, something just seemed off.  He seemed to radiate a sense of despair and frustration, but it was hard to tell if it was with himself or the bear of a man next to him.  Easily six foot three, this guy would give Brian Urlacher a run for his money back home.  Slightly distracted by the giant, I almost missed what Dr. Minton was saying.

“So, this is Brandon, right?  Hello Brandon, I’m Dr. Minton and this is Dr. Davidson.  Between the two of us, we will have your arm good as new in no time.  Before we do that, can you tell us exactly what happened?”

Before the boy could speak, his dad interjected, “Kid was running around the yard and got a little too close to the see saw.  His brother jumped off, and Brandon here ran right into it as it swung down.”  Eyes downcast, Brandon merely nodded along with the explanation posed by his father.

“Well, these things are bound to happen.  You must be a pretty fast runner to break your arm hitting something like that.  Now, I’m going to lightly run my hand along the outside of your arm to check where the break is and what it looks like.  I promise, this won’t hurt a bit but I need you to sit very still for me.  Can you do that Brandon?”  At his nod, Dr. Minton continued with the examination.  Although the story seemed plausible to me, something about this just seemed wrong.  I’ve known kids who could stoically accept whatever life threw at them, most of those wouldn’t be silently shedding giant tears at the same time.  After Dr. Minton stepped back, I got close and examined the arm.  Shocked at the shape of the break, I kept all emotion off of my face.  Looking at Brandon, I asked, “Brandon, does any other part of your body hurt?”

Clearing his nose with a subtle sniff, he responded, “My other arm hurts a little bit too, but not as bad as my left.”

“Ok Brandon, hold still while I check this one out as well.”  Mentally drawing a line across the boy’s chest, I started my exam level with the middle of the break in his left arm.  Sure enough, there was a hairline fracture of his upper arm.  “Dr. Minton, there seems to be a hairline fracture on this arm as well.  I don’t think it is deep enough to require a cast, maybe a sling to help immobilize it for a few weeks and it should heal on its own.”

Frowning, Dr. Minton stepped back up and checked his arm.  “I agree, sorry that I missed this on the first look Brandon.  If you two don’t mind, Dr. Davidson and I will step out for a bit to get everything we need.”  Getting nods from both patient and father, we stepped out into the hall.

Making sure that we were out of hearing distance from the room, I stopped and turned to Dr. Minton, “Do you agree that something just isn’t right in that room back there?”  With a thoughtful frown Dr. Minton nodded.  I continued, “I don’t know if you happened to look at the shape of that break, did you?”

“Yeah, a spiral fracture.  Not really uncommon, but I’m used to seeing it on much younger kids.  I assume there is a reason you are bringing this up?”

“Exactly.  This type of break is commonly called a toddler fracture where I’m from.  It’s caused by kids planting their limb and twisting.”  Seeing the light of recognition flashing through his eyes, I kept going, “There is also another way to get this specific type of break, and it isn’t quite as innocuous.  Sometimes adults grab onto a child’s arms and twist, trying to get the kids to stop doing something.  Twisting too hard breaks the bone in the same pattern you saw.”

With a look of dawning horror on his face, Dr. Minton muttered, “Child abuse…”

“Exactly.  Now, how would you expect the breaks to show if someone who was much stronger with his right hand grabbed both arms of his kid while facing him and twisted?  The poor child would have a major break on his left arm and a minor break in his right.  Or maybe even just a hairline fracture.  Did you also notice that the breaks twisted in the opposite direction?  How could someone naturally break their arms in a twisting motion if the motions were in opposite directions?  No, this is child abuse, plain and simple.”

“Well, we can stall until police get here I think, but Mr. Goodfell in there doesn’t seem like he would be the most patient of people.”

Hearing that name, I froze.  “Goodfell?  His first name wouldn’t be Roger would it?”

“I think so, but why do you know that name Larry?”

“It doesn’t matter where I heard it, but that guy works pretty high up with the Malias family.  Dr. Minton, we need to get the police here as quickly as you can and we need to evacuate this area of the hospital.  I can handle Goodfell, but I don’t want anyone to get caught in the crossfire.  Can you have the nurses slowly evacuate everyone else?”

“Yeah, we call this a code white so that the patients don’t understand what is going on.  I’ll have the nurses clear everyone out and call the police.  What was your plan?”

“Well, we can’t really separate Brandon and his father too much.  Let’s see if we can get Roger out in the hall while you work on Brandon’s arm.  I’ll keep him occupied until the police get here.”

“I would feel a lot better if we knew what his strengths were.  As strong as he looks, I would put him as an earthbrand.”

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“No, he’s a sparker.”  Getting a weird look from Dr. Minton I continued, “You don’t want to know.  Just trust me that this guy is a sparker and that I can handle whatever he throws at me.”

For the next fifteen minutes, organized chaos descended in the halls.  Patients were quietly moved around, all staff maintained a subtle perimeter to make sure that nobody wandered in, and word arrived that police would get there in another half hour.  Knowing we couldn’t delay any longer, Dr. Minton and I walked back into the room with the Goodfells.

“Took ya long enough.  Can’t you see my boy is in pain here?”  Roger grumped at us as we entered.

With my politest tone possible, I replied, “Sorry about that Mr. Goodfell, but we ran into a few issues.  While Dr. Minton sees to your son, would it be possible to discuss a few things with you in the hallway?  I’m positive when we get a few things cleared up your son will be perfectly fine.”  Holding the door open for him, I nonetheless received a glare for my efforts.

Stepping into the hallway, Roger took up a position about four feet away with his arms crossed over his chest and his feet planted shoulder width apart.  “Ok, I’m out here.  What do you want?”  I would be surprised if this guy could stuff more condescension into those two phrases.  Rather than tiptoe around the issue, I decided to confront him directly with what evidence we had.

“Well Roger, it seems you haven’t been entirely truthful with us about how your son broke his arms.”

Eyes narrowing at the use of his first name, Roger interrupted, “You callin’ me a liar, boy?”

“Not just a liar.  You’re a child abuser.  Something your son did pissed you off, and rather than handle it like an adult, you broke his arms.”

“Watch your tone, boy, you have no idea who you are dealing with.”

“Oh, I think I know exactly who I’m dealing with.  Big man twisted his little boy’s arms until they snapped.  Of course, working for the Malias I wouldn’t put good parenting skills on your list of attributes.”

“You know who I work for, which is pretty surprising.  You know I can get away with what I want, and you keep pushing me?  You got a death wish, boy?”

“Naw, no death wish.  I’m just not impressed with a guy that has to break his kids arms to get what he wants.  What happened?  Did he not jump high enough or fast enough for you?”

The more I taunted him, the more I could see the anger rising in his face.  At this point, there was a vein above his left eye throbbing in time with his heartbeat.  “I don’t gotta take no shit from some doctor fresh outta diapers.  Listen up ya little shit, you are pissing off the RaiKami.  Believe me when I say that it ain’t something you wanna keep doing.”

“RaiKami?  Seriously?  Could you get a more pretentious title?”  My mocking seemed to take a little wind out of the guys sails.  “Seriously, calling yourself the ‘Lightning God’ in Japanese is supposed to make me scared?  No, the only thing that might do is make me paralyzed with laughter.”

“You wanna test me?  See why I earned that title?  You do realize that your water power won’t protect you from lightning, or are you that stupid, boy?”

Conjuring a shield of ultrapure water in front of me, I kept taunting him, “Getting real sick of you calling me boy.  Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and see what is stronger:  my water or your lightning.”

As Roger raised his hand to make a pointing motion at me from his hip, I tightly shut my eyes and braced myself for what was to come.  I also took notice of his exact positioning.  KRABOOM! Thankful that my eyes were shut to protect from the lightning strike that just blasted into my shield, I had never been happier of my study of basic chemistry.  What most people don’t realize is that pure water makes a great insulator.  The hard part is keeping water pure enough that the solutes don’t start to allow for the conduction of electricity.

Not wanting to waste the aftereffects of what was essentially a flashbang going off, I took two quick steps forward and unleashed a kick to Roger’s groin like it was the game winning field goal chance.  Blinking furiously to clear my sight, I quickly got onto Roger’s back and held him down.  As the ringing in my ears cleared, I finally got him to quit struggling by applying the point of an ice dagger to the back of his neck, slightly to the right of the center so I wouldn’t kill him.  As quickly as I could, I used a rough lobotomy procedure that I had practiced on Donovan to destroy his powers.  Letting the ice instrument melt, I formed a new dagger and held it to his throat.  “Listen up asshole, stop struggling right now.  I’ve already stripped you of all your control over fire, you have no power anymore.  I want you to deliver a message to your bosses for me.  Tomorrow night, have them come to the north edge of town.  There’s a complex on Cowan Street, have them meet me there at midnight and to come alone to the warehouse that is shrouded in fog.  If they don’t come alone, I will keep dismantling their organization a little at a time.”

“You think that just because you can block lightning you have a chance against the twins?  You really are a special kind of stupid.”

“Yeah, I got a bone to pick with the twins, but the more important thing is this:  Are you going to deliver my message?  If you can’t deliver it, I should just kill you now and send them a message another way.  So, what’s it gonna be?”

“Cowan street, tomorrow night at midnight.  Come alone to the warehouse shrouded in fog.  I’ll deliver your message, don’t you worry.  Of course, you might want to get your affairs in order, the twins don’t take kindly to threats.  Warn your family to get out of town, they might live a little longer.”

Before I could respond, several police officers raced around the corner.  One of the lead officer asked with a gentle voice, “Doctor, are you going to take the knife away from that man’s throat?”

“Yes officer, I just needed it to subdue him after he tried to kill me.”  Slowly extending my arm to the side, I tossed the dagger away from my body.  As soon as it left my hand, several officers swarmed over Roger and me.  Handcuffed and hauled to my feet, we were quickly separated.  As quickly and concisely as possible, I told my side of the story to the officers, leaving out the threats and lobotomy I had performed.  Luckily, Dr. Minton came out of the exam room with Brandon and backed my side of the story.  While nobody actually saw Roger attack me with lightning, several people throughout the building heard the blast.  The police were convinced that it couldn’t have been me blasting lightning around when I demonstrated control of water.  Three hours later the police left with a written account of both my and Dr. Minton’s stories, and Brandon was headed out in protective custody to become a ward of the state.

“Whew, what a day.  So, are you going to tell me how you survived a point blank lightning strike or just going to leave me hanging?”  Dr. Minton seemed both exhausted and interested at the same time.

“Well, I simply used a water shield.  Not really a big deal.”

“Larry, this is a huge deal.  Water conducts electricity.  That’s why nobody has survived a lightning strike until now.”

“Dr. Minton, up until now nobody was using the right kind of water.  Water doesn’t conduct electricity, at least pure water doesn’t.  All the things that water is able to dissolve are what causes it to be able to conduct electricity.”  At this proclamation, Dr. Minton just stared at me.  “Try it sometime with a voltmeter.  See how pure of water you can summon, and check the resistance of it.  If you get it truly pure, it should read 24 ohms.  Then take that same water and dump salt in it and watch the resistance drop.”

Shaking his head, he replied, “Is it seriously that simple?  I’ll check it out sometime, don’t worry.  Don’t worry about it now, let’s just go ahead and head out for the day.  Go ahead and take tomorrow off as well, nobody should have to work the day after they almost get killed.  No matter what though, I am proud of you for sticking up for that boy.  Just so you know, I did get him to open up about why he got his arms broken.  Apparently his dad was trying to cause his powers to awaken, and got frustrated when he didn’t show any progress.  Never mind the fact that most people don’t show any power until at least puberty.  At least he will spend a very long time in jail.”

“Thanks Doc, for telling me.  I’m glad we could get him out of there as well.  I think I will take you up on that offer though, and head on out.  I will see you on Monday.”