Part 10
[John! Help me!] You call and then reach out to Frankie without another thought. The boy's mind is still quiet, to John and the others he is only audible through their link to you. You feel first John and TIM and then Paul and finally Elena come into a link with you and reach through you to Frankie himself.
[Frankie! Frankie, you have to listen to us. You have to trust us!] Frankie's father has released you and is on his knees beside the boy. Frankie himself is unconcious, his mind entirely seperated from his weakened body. You focus all your mind on that small form reaching out for contact. [Frankie, you have to open your mind. You have to accept what is happening to you and relax into it. You have to break out!]
You remember your own break out. It seems so long ago now. You share some of the feelings of that experience with the boy, give him something to hold up as a shield against the cacophony of minds that is assaulting him. Beside and around you both you can feel the other Tomorrow People, trying to protect you and to guide young Frankie through the difficult process of break out.
But Frankie is frightened, scared to accept you and your help. Rather than opening to you, he pulls away.
Suddenly you feel a relaxation that almost knocks you out and you know that, just for the moment, Frankie is comatose and beyond anything you can do here and now. You take a deep breath before you take a few steps backwards. You fade into the crowd around Frankie and his parents and watch as an ambulance arrives to take the boy to hospital.
[Come back to the Lab, Jay.] John tells you tiredly. [We're going to have to rethink all this.]
*
The other three are in the Lab already. You glance at the clock and realise that Elena at least must have cried off her work early. All three of them look strained although none are quite as tired as you.
"He's catatonic for the moment, Jay." John tells you when you reappear. "We're going to have to focus together to get through to him now and only then when he's ready to hear us." He looks at you curiously. "How did you hear him in the first place? We've always known that some new breakouts are quieter than others but we've never found a quiet breakout in time to be any help."
You sigh and sit down on one of the chairs.
"Just luck, I guess." You sigh. "I must just have been thinking in the right way at the right time. He's been breaking out for weeks but when I got to close to him it just triggered a crisis."
"It could have happened to any of us." Elena consoles you.
"The question is what do we do about it?" Paul asks urgently.
"That is a difficult question, Paul." TIM's measured tones roll over you all. "Frankie appears to be telepathically receptive but I am not registering any significant broadcasts from his mind. That is why we did not detect his presence earlier. I believe that when he breaks out completely he will learn to communicate telepathically as he learns to control the broadcasts he is receiving. If, on the other hand, he does not learn such control the build up of telepathic energy will destroy his mind from the outside in."
There is a moment of silence.
"He is very young, TIM." You note doubtfully.
John shrugs
"We've had young breakouts before." He tells you. "Sometimes they dive straight in, sometimes we agree with their parents to have limited contact until they are a little older. Children are beginging to reach sexual maturity earlier and the physical and hormonal change often triggers the mental changes involved with break out." He frowns. "It is more difficult, Jay. Sometimes the minds just don't have the maturity to accept the changes."
"We have lost some." Elena tells you softly.
"Frankie is 10 years and two months old." TIM announces into the silence that follows that. Paul looks up at the biotronic computer's hemispheres with interest.
"You've tracked him down, TIM?"
"Indeed. One Sebastion Francis Peter Julien de Ferne-Abbott-Tayne has just been admitted to the intensive care ward of the Allwood Children's Hospital in West London. He is believed to be suffering from some form of neural seizure."
"Sebastion Francis... what?" You repeat.
"Sebastion Francis Peter Julien de Ferne-Abbott-Tayne. Known as Francis or Frankie. His parents are paying for the best possible private medical care."
"They were very protective." You remember.
John stands up purposefully.
"Alright. Paul, Elena, can you stay by the link table here? I think it will need all of us to pull Francis through this. On the other hand we're not even going to be able to start unless one of us is close enough to pick up what thoughts he does radiate. Jay, I think you and I had better jaunt to the hospital and see if we can get close to Frankie."
*
Francis looks small and helpless, lying on the white hospital sheets. You and John jaunted into a deserted corridor not far from the intensive care ward and it didn't take you long to find out where the child had been taken. Dressed in the white coats of doctors and with John's air of stern authority no one had questioned your right to get close to the boy. A glance at the monitors and equipment told John all he needed to know about his condition. Now you are standing by the child's bedside with your mind is touching that of John and more distantly TIM, Paul and Elena are with you too.
[You had better lead us.] John tells you when the interwoven network of minds is secure. [You and Frankie seem to have some kind of resonance.]
Carefully you push out and in to the shocked boy's delicate mind.
[Frankie? I'm here to help. Can you hear me?] At first there is silence and you push a little harder. [Frankie. There's something you need to do. I can help you to do it. Break out, Frankie, and the pain will be gone.]
[Pain.] The thought is very faint, very firghtened. [So much pain.]
[There is a wall in your mind, Frankie] You say quietly. [The noise and the pain are building up against it, flowing over the top. If you can just break that wall down, the pain and noise will flow through you and past you and then they wont hurt you any more.]
[Pain and noise.] Frankie murmers and then with startling clarity. [I'm going to die, aren't I? Just like the others did.] You want to ask 'what others?' but you know this isn't the time or the place.
[You won't die, Frankie.] You tell him, willing it to be true. [Not if you do as I say. Let me into your mind, Frankie, and I can guide you, help you.]
You feel the beggining of the deafening, earth shattering roar as Frankie lets you in to the chaos that is assaulting his mind. You feel the others close behind you as you embrace that chaos and try to steer a path through it to the lost and frightened little boy somewhere in the middle.
[Reach out to me, Frankie.] You instruct. [Imagine yourself as a flower opening in the morning sunlight, as a fist unclenching, a galaxy falling through space. Take down the barriers. For a moment, just a moment, it will hurt but then it will be past you and gone. Can you do that, Frankie? Can you be brave?]
The boy reaches out to you, tentatively, and you take his mental hand. Slowly you help him deconstruct the walls around his mind and build new different ones. For a moment the wave of thought that crashes against his mind threatens to wash you all away but you weather the storm, anchoring Frankie fast. You try to keep things slow and calm, knowing that too much at once will destroy the young mind but you are already bringing Frankie back towards consciousness when you hear the voices with the peripheral senses remaining in your body.
"Who are you? How did you get in here with our son? What are you doing to him? Leave him alone!"
[John!] You appeal, not daring to weaken your focus on Frankie. Your link reels slightly as John's awareness snaps back to his body.
"Mr and Mrs de Tayne, allow me to explain...."
But then Frankie hears his parents's voices through your mind and suddenly he's leading you. Pulling you all back up out of the link. Your eyes snap open at the same instant as Frankie's. You make eye contact and you can see at once that the eyes are clearer, brighter than before.
[Thank you.] He whispers in your head and even the whisper is louder than any thought you'd shared before. Then he looks tiredly at his parents. "Mamma?"
*
You need to sit down when your contact with Frankie and the other Tomorrow People ends. You stagger backwards a few steps but de Tayne grasps your arm firmly.
"You're not going anywhere." He whispers harshly, trying not to disturb the other ill children in the room but unable to hide his anger. The nurses are rushing into the room now. Some fuss around Frankie and his mother, others push and pull you, John and the father from the room.
"Mr Peter de Ferne-Abbott-Tayne?" John asks as you all reach the relative privacy of a family waiting room into which the nurses thrust you all with hissed rebukes. "Sir, your son was in a very serious condition but we believe he is now past the worst of it."
"What would you know about it?" Peter de Tayne looks you up and down. "You don't work here. I don't know who you are but you must have followed us from the street!"
Mrs de Tayne joins you and her first words are to her husband.
"Peter, the doctor says Frankie will be alright! He's come out of the coma."
John pushes the advantage.
"We helped Francis through the coma, Mr de Tayne, but we must talk to you about what caused it."
De Tayne laughs hollowly and with a flash of insight you see how desperately worried he is for his son.
"What caused it? No one know what caused it! Just as no one knows what killed Sebastion and Caroline."
"Sebastion and Caroline?" You query, confused.
"Do you know how many people have come to us over the years promising us miracle cures for Francis? How many people have promised that he wouldn't die if we just payed this amount or that to their mystical causes."
John is frowning.
"Why should Francis's life be in danger, Mr de Tayne? I would be very surprised if he showed any symptoms of this... condition before the last couple of months."
It is Mrs de Tayne who answers as her husband hesitates, surprised by your apparently genuine confusion. She speaks softly.
"Sebastion and Caroline were our first two children. Sebastion died just before Frankie was born, Caroline just after. Both died of unpredicted brain hemorraghes, both before their eleventh birthdays."
Your mind reels and you feel sick and a little dizzy with the realisation.
[They were Tomorrow People, weren't they, John?]
[And we didn't hear them breaking out.] He agrees grimly. [They were quiet break outs. Their powers killed them.] He takes a deep breath. "Mr de Tayne, Mrs de Tayne, Frankie wont die. He's now past the crisis that killed your older children." He addresses Frankie's father directly. "Sir, I am not going to ask you for money. I have some independent wealth of my own in fact but I do need to talk to you about what has happened here. Francis will need training to deal with...well, with the consequences of this seizure, if you will."
Mr and Mrs de Tayne exchange uncertain looks.
Do you:
a) Leave the talking to John?
b) Urge them to listen?
To return to the start click here.
To skip this storyline and start another click here.
You are currently on Path 6.
Click here to return to my homepage.
Email me on tiylaya@yahoo.com with coments or suggestions.