Fourth Birth: The Oakmont Saga, Book 1

“John, what do you make of this,” she asked the radiologist after Melanie had left.

“You know I can’t give official analyses of the images, but since you ask, I’ll give you my opinion,” he said, looking intently at the images. He then started flipping through the different pictures on the computer faster than Rebecca could keep up. He suddenly stopped at one particular image, and magnified into it, highlighting an area that had some odd bright red patches in it.

He then created a little pointer, aiming at one little point within the red, where there was a white dot. Even magnified down, it was only one or two pixels on the screen.

“Damn, I was hoping I wouldn’t find that. Mrs. Wilde that is something to watch. The amount of energy it takes to create red in these images normally kills people and her reddened areas are growing very fast. White is a magnitude or several greater than that.”

“How did you see that?”

“I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

“Have you ever considered going into neuroscience?”

“Too expensive. If someone would pay for it, I’d go though.”

“I’ll see what I can arrange,” she told him, making him look over at her. “If you were to guess, what would you say that spot is?”

“Unofficially, I’d say it’s the focal point of an energy burst that’s trapped. Being that it’s in the telepathic region, it’s obviously a part of her telepathic ability. I was told about these during my training for the program.”

“Do you know of any way to remove it, without harming the patient?”

“No ma’am, but that’s definitely not my area.”

He suddenly started typing at an amazing speed, and then started working the mouse, bringing up many more windows with other brain scans in them. Again, he started flipping the scans faster than she could keep up. He apparently came to the image he was looking for and stopped. Like last time, he started magnifying in until a tiny white dot was visible.

“That’s a white dot again. Is it in another place in her brain?” she asked him.

“No, ma’am. This isn’t her. It’s a former patient of the program. This image is old and was taken not long after they brought modern imaging equipment in here, even though modern is debatable. The quality is poor.”

“What are you showing me then?”

“This is a similar latent energy burst in a brain. This patient was administered a serum that proved a failure. This serum was supposed to give instant telepathic ability, rather than in the DNA. You know about all of that, but you probably don’t know about this side of it. This patient had a similar looking energy burst that went off in the brain, after several months of it sitting there. They got lucky and found it before it happened, but there was nothing they could do. Of course, they didn’t realize it was a problem until it was too late. The theory is that it grew with every psychic burst the patient had,” he explained, looking at her intently.

“Once they started seeing it in human patients, they began more thorough animal testing, using the DNA strain and the instant strain. It showed up with both.”

“Are you telling me she’s going to die from this?” Rebecca face was worried, and shocked.

“I can’t say that. What I’m saying is that it needs to be closely watched. I would advise having regular brain scans done and bring in one of the experts, but that’s already being done. This image has the same profile as hers, other than strength. She’s off the charts, from what I can tell.”

She pulled out her phone, dialing as soon as it was under her fingers. “Mike,” Rebecca said as he answered the other end of the phone. “I’m in the radiology lab. Melanie had a third attack,” she told him. “Yeah, three. Just like Friday,” she answered. “I’m looking at her brain scans with John. There’s something very concerning, and I’d like you to come take a look,” she said. “Alright, see you in a few minutes then,” she said, hanging up the phone.

“Do you know what serum this patient was given?” she asked, returning her attention to John.

“This was X4-I.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting. Has anything like this ever been seen in X3?”

“Not until now, unless she’s the product of a different serum,” he said, looking at her askance.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Can you pull up her records?” she asked, her face looked curious, considering his question and the look he’d directed at her. He started working at his very rapid pace, finally bringing up a window with an amazingly small amount of information. “Crap! I forgot that she doesn’t have a background check yet,” she said, when she saw it.

“Assuming that she’s X3 like everyone else, that means we likely have the first X3 patient with this anomaly.”

“It would appear so,” she said, worried about the incredible odds that this situation would take to be real. “That anomaly could explain some of her other oddities, but why’s she the only one with this?” Could you check Aliyah as well?”

“What oddities are those, what would explain them and what does Aliyah have to do with it,” Mike asked, as he walked in.

“John’s found something in Melanie that’s only been seen in recipients of the X4 serum, until now. Oddly, Aliyah’s scans are very similar to Melanie’s, so I wanted to see if this anomaly exists in her as well,” she said.

Before she was done speaking, John had Aliyah’s images up and was flipping through them at his normal rapid pace. He came to the image he wanted and magnified down, just like with the previous images. He stopped on a similar looking white speck, but with only a small amount of red around it. “I’ll be damned!” John exclaimed.

“John, is that what I think it is, and you’re sure this is Aliyah?” she asked.

“Yep. It sure is, doc,” he replied.

“Why haven’t we seen it before?” she asked.

“Because we didn’t have a reason to look this closely, until now. It’s such a tiny spec in the scan, that you need a reason to find it. The first time it was found was an absolute lottery win. The proverbial needle in the haystack, but it’s always in the same place, so finding it now is simply a matter of looking there.”

As he was talking, he was bringing up more images and playing with them. “What you see here is a progression of Aliyah’s energy signature in her brain. The white spec has been there since she began manifesting her abilities, but the red wasn’t and now it is, although not too much. I’m familiar with this phenomena, since they told me about it in training, so when you brought her to me and asked me about the images, I took a look and found it. To be honest, I got lucky to find it. I had almost forgotten about it, since it was only observed in the X4 patients,” he said.

“No others have it?” she asked.

“I could bring up every other kid in here, and you won’t see that. I’m surprised Aliyah does. I might have to start studying other kids, just to be sure though,” he said, but she heard something odd in his voice.

“So why do Aliyah and Melanie have it, and why are their brains so similar? Could it be related to their apparent telepathic strength?” she mused.

“Doc, I can’t begin to guess at that stuff,” he replied.

“John, bring up Aliyah’s record, if you would,” she asked. Within a moment, Aliyah’s record was on the screen. Written clearly in the document was X3 where the serum was recorded. “So, Aliyah has this and she’s definitely the product of X3.” Neither of the men could tell if she was happy or disappointed, her expression being somewhat blank.

“Unless the records were altered,” John suggested, a small ironic smile on his face. Rebecca looked at him for a moment, as if he had just grown a third arm out of his forehead.

“Rebecca, I came in a little late. What is this and why does it matter?” Mike asked.

“The tiny white spot is an energy spec, for lack of a better term. In the recipients of the X4 serum, it caused an energy burst that killed them. John found this spec in Melanie, and then in Aliyah. With Aliyah, we can see the red signature around it growing, although very slowly. With Melanie, the growth is much faster and more noticeable.”

“Are they in danger of dying?” he asked.

“I really can’t say.” The worry was clear, though.

“But there’s a chance.”

“Yes, I think there is, at least in Melanie.”

“What do we do to prevent the energy burst, or fix the underlying white spec?”

“I really don’t know. We need one of the neuroscientists to take a look at this.”

“John, would you forward these images to the lab, care of the neurology department head? Make sure to note the spec.”

“Sure thing, doc,” John replied.

“Oh, doc, there’s something you should be aware of. In the previous patient, the anger response seemed to have an impact on this,” he told her, making her heart sink. She knew that girl was full of anger, and was going to have a hard time controlling it. “That was the lucky part of them discovering it. They were able to follow its progress and document it. The more psychic bursts the patient had the more it grew. The bursts also got more intense with every episode. Also, many of them had bursts very close together, just like Melanie,” he told her. Melanie was having far too many bursts, much too close together, and both of the teachers wore their worry openly.

“Thanks John. If you believe in God, pray,” she told him as she got up and headed for the door.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Rudie, I know we don’t like to have frequent calls, but you need to know what’s going on,” John said, as soon as Rudie had picked up.

“John, if you called me, then I assume it’s important. Don’t worry about me getting mad,” Rudie tried to assure him. “What’s going on?”

“She’s having a lot of attacks, and from what I can find, they’re giving her the drugs to push rapid development.”

“That’s not unheard of,” Rudie said.

“Yeah, but I think she’s already developed. These images look like a well developed telepath, not someone just waking up.”

“That could be a problem,” Rudie acknowledged.

“Rudie, she’s had seven attacks that I know of in four days,” John said, and then paused very noticeably.

“What’s the matter, John?” Rudie asked.

“She has an X4 latent energy burst,” he said. Rudie didn’t reply for a few moments.

“She’s too young,” he heard Rudie mumble, something he clearly wasn’t meant to hear.

“Keep an eye on her, and update me as often as you feel the need. We’ll make sure your communications remain secure, whatever it takes,” Rudie said, and hung up.

As John put the phone down, he knew there was something odd in Rudie’s tone. Rudie didn’t sound surprised by the fact that it had happened, just when it happened.

“Dr. Trasker, there is a directed request to you concerning Subject 32145. Apparently there is a latent energy burst present in the telepathic region of the brain, similar to patterns seen in the X4 trials. The subject appears to have anger problems, which are likely to exacerbate the issue,” Dr. Percoli said, relaying the information from the request. “It appears 32145 has had repeated multiple psychic burst episodes, which is causing substantial growth of the high energy phenomena.”

“Add Perchlorosterate to the mix. Let’s see how that affects the situation. Maintain the weekly scans and blood samples. Watch for any liver deficiencies in the blood work. Also, have an advance team on standby, along with the resources to retrofit the necessary work areas at Oakmont,” Dr. Trasker ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Dr. Percoli replied, and left.

The old man looked at the door for a long time, considering whether to take possession of the subject now, or wait. It was a gamble, either way. Waiting would allow further development, but if he waited too long, the subject may expire before they could study it.

Being that this was such a unique subject, even more so than 32023, he was torn. However, he had never been an indecisive man. Knowing they needed further natural development, he decided to wait, at least a little longer.