"Okay," he said. "I think we have enough to work with here. 3PO, get me a current status report on the second student, and a location of the event."
The droid's response was quick. "Johann Krueger is currently residing at a place called Woodside Manor, sir. It's a rehabilitation center for patients needing long-term care."
Max nodded and watched the rest of the report scroll onscreen. Krueger had been admitted in April 1995 after three weeks in SFGH, in comatose state due to severe electrical shock.
A more recent addenda revealed that he had since regained consciousness but was still undergoing intensive physical and speech therapy.
Susan closed her eyes as she read this, struggling not to further upset Max by crying again but *this*...."He--he can't even talk, or move, right-- and it's all my fault..." she whispered.
Max asked, "Are you sure about that? Do you remember it happening?"
She shook her head. "No--but it said, electrical shock. That's what'd happen if I really hit someone." She closed her eyes. "I know that much. 'You have within you the means to strike down the enemies of the Dawn'" she quoted. "That's what they kept telling me. They'd use dummies, there, but they always said the time would come when it'd be someone real and I was so afraid the next time would be it." she shuddered and buried her face in her hands, trying to push that memory back. "And now I see this."
Barbara hugged her. "I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, Susan. whatever happened here. They just tried to twist it around to the way they wanted you to think--they're good for doing -that-."
Max thought about that, and what it might mean to those who were still in captivity. "Hmmm...."
The report from school personnel gave the circumstances of the event as follows:
March 9, 1995.
A sudden power outage affecting the second floor west side of the main building forced evacuation of students from those areas. At that particular time of day, the art classes were on lunch period, but there were students in the math classes across the hall, and it was some of these who reported having heard a loud bang just before the lights had gone out.
School personnel investigated and found that, while the art classrooms proper were unoccupied, one of the small studio workrooms off a main room (used by students to work on individual projects) was in use, or had been. The door had to be forced as it was apparently blocked by a lighting fixture that had fallen, and that was when the two students were discovered unconscious inside.
It was concluded that the electrical malfunction had originated in this room, causing an explosion which had shattered the overhead light as well as shocking the two students.
What triggered the malfunction was not clear, but what was immediately obvious was that Johann Krueger was found against the wall, opposite the door, a metal pail tipped over nearby. Much of the surrounding floor, as well as numerous artwork mounted on that wall, were soaked with a combination of water and paint thinner. Some of the artwork had been defaced, and in fact a spray can was also found lying on the floor.
Susan Harrison was closer to the door--in fact, it was noted that the falling light had just missed her. She was also not in the puddle of water/thinner and this fact was credited with the reason she was less affected by the electrical shock.
"Somehow I don't think it was -all- your fault, Susan. This guy's lucky the thinner didn't catch on fire."
Max headed towards the area 3PO described, constructing scenarios as he went. He wondered if the fire sprinklers had gone off, their caps melted by the heat of electrical discharge.
"Little schmuck Johann was in here messing up some of the artwork. Maybe some of it was yours, maybe all of it was. Nothing makes a punk feel better than ruining the work of people with talent. You get angry and set off a surge that blows the light and sets off the sprinklers.. He trips on the bucket, falls in the sprinkler discharge and gets cooked, but by the fixture, not by you. You couldn't have had the focus to hit him, so it went to the area of highest electrical potential, which would have been the overhead light. So you can stop beating yourself up. You haven't shot anyone. Maybe we can get Arias to pop in on Johann while he's asleep and fix him up a bit, I'm sure he's learned his lesson by now. If he'd been hit by one of your bolts, the paper and the medical records would have identified it as a lightning strike, and that certainly would have made headlines. No, it was the discharge from the falling fixture that cooked his keister."
She looked at Max, her eyes wide..."You really think *that's* what happened...?" she whispered. "Since you said that,I've wondered if maybe I did hurt someone and that was why they said 'they knew I could'..." she shook her head. "But I didn't. I didn't hit Falcona, when she took the pictures away from me. And I wanted to, then. I just couldn't."
"It's not in your nature, Susan. It's just that simple. You could probably blast the stuffing out of a spare tire at two hundred yards, but you just can't bring yourself to use it on a live target. You don't have that 'killer instinct'."
"But they must've heard about this, and figured they could make me do it. They sounded so sure I could, like they *knew*."
"Oh, I have no doubt that they thought they could turn you. They've done it to others. I'm getting some really weird ideas about these people, but their behavior in the present shoots most of that down. And they -wanted- you to pick up on their sense of certainty. They thought you might just start believing it yourself, and make their job that much easier."
The trio had reached the art room by now, the same one they'd been in earlier. Susan looked around as they entered...and her gaze fell on two doors set into the far wall.
"One of those must be where it happened. I remember, when we were in here before, I saw those doors and didn't want to go near them. I didn't know *why*. That's why I didn't say anything. How was I going to tell you when I couldn't explain it to myself?"
"Susan, you shouldn't be afraid to tell us anything. We're your friends."
Barbara walked with Susan, still talking reassuringly to her and holding her hand as they stood before the two studio doors.
Max looked into room 274B prior to looking into C, to get a before/after sense of things. He saw that the two rooms looked pretty much the same, but there were slight differences. The light fixture in B was an incandescent bank, while in C it was a fluorescent. The walls were a slightly different shade, also--as if C had been painted more recently than B.
Susan took a deep breath and walked over to stand beside Max, her face still pale. "It said they found me unconscious, too. But I came out of it. He didn't."
"Correction. He just took longer." Moving behind her, he put his arms around her waist. "Susan, it's okay to remember this. Johann brought this whole thing on by himself. I think I have enough to do a reenactment, if you think it might help. We don't want you to remember what the papers and the others said. We want you to remember what -you- saw. What -really- happened, as it happened. We have to get this block out of the way."
Max released her and moved to one of the desks before starting to draw. He spoke to R2 and 3PO while he worked, but spoke quietly and without the microphone in his mouth. After a few minutes, he pulled a small device out of the page and put it on his wrist, then attached the comlink to it.
He left the room briefly, returning with a bucket like the one in the photo, a tin of thinner, and a couple of cans of spray paint. He also didn't look like himself anymore, but Johann (due to the holoprojector on his wrist, and the imaging data being supplied by R2 over the comlink).
"Let's try a walkthrough," he says, moving to room B. "I've disabled the fire alarm, so we don't have to worry about that. Give me about sixty seconds. Try to picture what you might have been doing at the time. Why were you in the area? Were you working on a project in an adjoining room and heard something? I'm sure they won't miss a work or two for research purposes."
Max quickly stepped into room B and closed the door behind him before Susan could respond. A little more drawing produced protective sheeting for the art in the room and the floor, then he applied a little paint to the sheeting to have something for the thinner and water to affect. He had two fire extinguishers nearby, just in case.
(Retrocognition would -really- be helpful right now,) he thinks. (Too bad.)
He shook the paint cans thoroughly, as if angry. When he started painting, he chuckled almost gleefully, but resisted the urge to talk to himself. Then he stepped back and went for the can of thinner, banging it against the bucket in haste. The cap dropped, and went skittering into one of the corners.
"I'll show them..." he said.
Susan's hands went to her mouth as Max closed the door behind him. She glanced from one door, to the other, then back again, and started shaking, her lip trembling. She clutched at herself trying to hold on. Then her eyes shot open, and as Barbara reached for her, she walked towards the room Max was in, slowly, as if in a trance.
She opened the door and her mouth worked, silently, then after the longest moment a tiny squeak came out. "Johann...why..?"
Her hands went to her head, she sank to her knees sobbing. There was a flash overhead and the light in the small workroom went out. However, not with as spectacular an effect as described in the original incident report; there was no explosion, and the fixture was still intact.
Barbara came up behind her but wasn't sure if she should interfere.
Max, prepared for just this probability, triggered a surge -himself-, using the power from his wrist projector. The bank of bulbs superheated and exploded, and one edge of the fixture dropped as the sprinklers kicked on. Max gritted his teeth and watched the wiring drop. He stepped back from the door and caught his foot on the base of the bucket, which tipped and tripped him. The wire broke as he fell, and a sparking end descended towards the water.
(The things I do for my friends,) he thought.
He felt the electricity start to flow through him but knew that it should hurt a lot more than it did. The image from the holoprojector shifted his appearance to simulate the injuries Johann incurred. He screamed briefly, then collapsed, his body jerking as the mock current continues to flow.
(The whole thing was staged,) he thought. (The breakers would have cut out with the initial surge from Susan. Like they did just now. Someone shorted them and fried Johann for his trouble so he couldn't say who set him up to do this.)
Max continued to lie on the floor, letting the sparks die out.
(Susan must have stepped into the room for the fixture to clip the door on its backswing. Maybe the ceiling was weaker there and it was able to swing farther. Still ... this might have been enough.)
Susan still sobbed. Barbara touched her on the shoulder, then waited for the sparks to die out. Then, careful to not let herself come into contact with the broken light fixture (in case it still carried some current) she stepped as close to Max as she could and called to him.
"Max..??"
Disconnecting the comlink, Max dispersed the holoprojector, returning it to its page. "That -stung-!" he said, sitting up. He looked at her first, then at Susan. Rising to his feet, he took Barbara's hand and nodded. "I'm okay. I've had light sockets stuck on my toes a few times, when the guys at the orphanage needed a laugh at my expense. I think the whole thing was a setup, and Johann was either a lackey or a dupe."
Releasing her hand, he picked Susan up from the floor and took her to the lounge's couch. "Remind me to move that sheeting before I disperse it. Otherwise we'll have water and paint thinner all over the room. Nuts, I've got to fix the light fixture and reset the circuit breaker. I just hope it shook something loose for Susan."
Kneeling by the couch, he looked into her eyes. "Susan? Tell me about it, Susan. Tell me while it's fresh."
Susan looked up at Max, tears still streaming down her face. "Johann! I didn't *want* to hurt him, it was the school art show!"
"Keep going."
"He wouldn't believe that I'd really taken first place. He'd only gotten second, so I'd be going to the county show and not him."
"Smells like the perfect patsy to me. A sore loser."
Barbara sat beside her and kept patting her hand by way of silent encouragement.
"He said the only reason the teacher picked me, was because of who my parents were..."
"Yeah, right," said Max. "I've seen your work."
"That day, it was lunchtime. I'd come in to work on the project a little more, and someone was in there. I thought it was someone else with their project--then I heard spraying. No one was using spray paint...!"
(She could have gone and gotten someone to help her,) he thought.
"I walked in and saw Johann. I remember throwing myself at him. He pushed me away and laughed." her voice changed slightly, as if she were trying to mimic a different voice. " `Now they'll have to do it *right*, where *everyone* gets a chance, not just the teacher's pet!' That's what he said. I tried to get the can away from him. The lights went out. Then he screamed, and something hit me. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up in the hospital."
Barbara hugged Susan again, looking over her head at Max. "It's all right, Susan...it really will be, now..." she whispered to her, then looking at Max. "That just sounds like someone who couldn't take losing. You really think the Dawn had something to do with this...?? they didn't even come after her till September. It -sounds- like their style, but can we be sure?"
"They'd want to test her control, to see how dangerous she would be to capture ... and they'd want to know if she was capable of killing in a moment of passion. Just a push from one of their moles might have been enough. He sounds pretty high strung. Maybe they had the guy who came after me have a talk with him."
He looked at Susan again. "Now for the twenty-thousand dollar question. Do you remember your parents?"
She closed her eyes for a moment, putting her hands to her head, trying to sort out the torrent of images/feelings/memories that was rushing through her mind...then she looked at Max...and nodded, the tears beginning to flow again. "Yes...oh, god, yes...Mom...Dad...oh god help me I *remember*..." she began crying again harder.
"Well, this is good," he said. "Now you're that much further away from what they tried to make you into. And you seem to be the same Susan I knew before." He smiled. "I still can't find anything not to like. Cry all you want to. You're long past due on grieving."
He stood, and looked at the two of them. "I've got to go fix the school, or there'll be all kinds of questions we don't want to answer. I -think- I can match the paint color of the walls. You know how to reach me if you need me. And I can't leave those droids alone for too long, they might go looking for Obi-Wan. It shouldn't take more than an hour to finish up, and then we'll do whatever the two of you want to."
Max reached the door and stops. "Wouldn't it be funny if I actually -did- find some stolen computer files here? Just remember, you talk, and I hear."
Max didn't have much trouble at all getting the art studio back in order, and wrapping up the stuff in the office didn't take long either.
What he heard from Barbara and Susan during that time was mostly Susan getting the tears out of her system and Barbara comforting her.
When he came back to the lounge, Susan was sitting on the couch with Barbara beside her.
"Max...would you mind...I mean, not tonight, it's pretty late, but....do you think we could go by the house tomorrow...?" Susan asked. "Did you find out if it'd been sold--it probably has by now, but.."
"That's no problem. Everything's wrapped up here for tonight. Your dad's parents own the place, and they've hired some kind of custodian to take care of it. I'm sure we can find a time when its empty to go in and take a look. What would you like to do now?"
Barbara squeezed Susan's hand, then stood and came over to Max. "What about something to eat? we haven't really had anything since lunchtime.."
Susan nodded, she was still sorting through the flood of memories... "I want to tell you so much, I don't even know where to start. And..." she paused, thought for a moment.."I didn't even think of it till just now but I am a bit hungry."
"I left an e-mail note with the principal explaining to him that the Special Agents are most likely not going to be in until tomorrow afternoon if at all tomorrow. Examining evidence, and all that. But their records -are- in order now. I had them all transferred onto a CD-ROM, which of course we have a copy of, just in case you want to look up a tidbit or two. Scanned photos, every page of every yearbook I could get my hands on, blank forms, all of the hard copy files ... I even took the liberty of setting up student dossiers for us Special Agents. Barbara, did you know that you only had one non-'A' grade the entire time you attended this school? But your SAT and ACT scores are impeccable. Of course, those entries are time-coded so they won't even know the records are there until a year from now."
"Food sounds like an -excellent- idea. So, Susan, where can we go this time of night and still get something decent to eat?"
"I think there was a place we used to go...Twin Peaks, I want to say."
"Twin Peaks?" Barbara chuckled. "You don't mean as in the TV show?"
Susan nodded. "I think it was."
"All right. I'm game."
Barbara looked at Max. "Well, I suppose we could go back across the street and call a cab, or take a bus." She grinned teasingly to Max. "Or I *could* try flying us there..." she joked.
Susan stood to one side, still a bit pale. "I just want to get out of here, for a while anyway..." she looked at both of them. "It's all coming together and.." she put her hands to her head, suddenly. "no..." she whispered, as one memory in particular clarified itself.
Max knew it was only a matter of time before she thought about that last car ride with her parents.
"I think it's best if we used our own wheels," said Max. "Barbara, get Susan and yourself outside unseen. I'll lock up, reset the alarms and meet you out front."
Barbara took Susan by the hand and gently led her away, Susan let her but as they went began crying quietly again.
A few minutes later they reached the front entrance and waited for Max. Barbara stood with her arm around Susan's shoulder, in a shadowed corner. She made sure they stood out of range of any outside security lighting, so as not to be visible to any cars that might happen to pass.
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