Second Chance War - 47 Bodily Changes

Thomas awoke in the dark, he wasn’t strapped to the bed this time, that was nice. He got off the bed, but immediately fell over, the lights suddenly came on, blinding his eyes. He squinted to try to make out what was going on, but all he could see was a blur, everything was fuzzy and white. His body felt…wrong. He tried to stand again, but he fell down just as fast.

“Thomas, can you hear me?” The voice sounded like Doctor Elaine, but he couldn’t be sure, everything was just so messy, why was it so messy? “Thomas, listen to me very carefully. There was an accident while you were testing your new power. You’ve been unconscious for ten days, your body has been breaking itself down and rebuilding itself the entire time. We’re not quite sure to what extent, but you need to take things slowly. Can you nod your head for me?”

Thomas looked up at the shadow in his light, it vaguely resembled the good doctor, it certainly smelled like her…wait, since when did she have a smell? One thing at a time Thomas, you’ve got this! He slowly nodded his head…he can at least nod his head!

“Okay, now I am going to need you to close your eyes, don’t think about anything, just relax.”

Thomas closed his eyes, the darkness felt better, it was cool and soothing against the bright lights on the outside.Things started getting a little fuzzy again, it felt nice and warm.

“Thomas! Thomas! Don’t fall asleep!” An insistent voice from outside was buzzing around him. It was disturbing his rest. On instinct his hand casually flew out to make the buzzing go away. There was a scream, a yelp, and then silence. Thomas slid into a blissful, warm, and fuzzy sleep brought about by his own body’s need to continue changing.

An hour later Doctor Elaine was in a bed of her own, her arm was strapped across her body and a gauze cast. On trying to keep Thomas from falling into another coma she attempted to rouse him, but who would have though his strength would be great enough to fling her against the opposite wall. The impact broke her arm and there was a small fracture in her skull, but that was nothing to her, instead she was feeling worried about Thomas. The other two doctors were on both sides of her bed, she was propped into a sitting position so she could better speak with them.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have roused him from his coma as of yet, it was perhaps a bad idea.” Doctor Katz spoke first.

“Indeed, this may complicate things, the Senator is getting impatient, we can’t tell him about Thomas either, he may want to use him as a lab rat to try to replicate his abilities.” Doctor Turing mused, he of course had the greatest knowledge of politicians having met several in the course of his Doctorate.

“Not necessarily,” interjected Elaine. ” Just because he shows interesting qualities and powers doesn’t mean they can be replicated, even we can’t explain them and the government put us three in charge of anything science as far as this facility is concerned. We must be able to give them something though. Perhaps a few blood samples for their pets to examine?”

“I think that would be best, but how are we supposed to get any samples? Needles keep breaking on his arms, and I’d rather not try to shoot a bullet through them.” Doctor Katz was puzzled.

“X-ray shows that his musculature and bone structure have been greatly enhanced, beyond that of a normal human, especially in his legs, that’s where the greatest amount of change has happened. I’m not sure a regular nine-millimeter could penetrate his legs, but definitely his arms. We must wait until he comes out of the coma, it appears even his olfactory and ocular senses have been greatly heightened, not even Doctor Katz could tell to what extent. It looks like we will need to bring in an Ocular Specialist, perhaps we can petition Major General Hughes. This one is far above our heads.” Alan Turing pointed out the data he’d recorded down, which Doctor Katz had also discussed with him overnight. Both were showing signs of fatigue, though they were way too excited to care at the moment.

“You’re both right, this is bigger than the three of us can handle, although I specialize in generalizing, there is a limit to what I can do.” Doctor Elaine admitted.

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Major General Hughes hung up the phone on his desk and sighed. This had been one hell of a week, the Senators and Eisenhower had been breathing down his neck demanding status reports the moment they heard about Thomas falling into a coma after activating his powers. There was nothing he could do, the attempt to forcefully awaken Thomas had ended in abject failure with his top medical officer lying in bed with a broken arm and a fractured skull. He rubbed his temple, things were getting a bit dicey. They needed Thomas up and about, now that he had activated some control over his powers, they wanted the special unit up and running within the month.

Apparently Command had decided on their first course of action in the war against Japan and Germany. They were going to simultaneously strike in the Pacific and Africa. It was a brilliant maneuver and he had yet to be filled in on the plan, but before either plan could be carried out, they needed Thomas up and running to do a few behind the scenes actions that would make everything go a lot smoother.

Just an hour ago in fact, the two doctors who could still run around unimpeded came to his office with a rather peculiar demand. They needed someone who specialized in the body’s senses, particularly those of sight, smell, and sound. It seems they discovered something new about Thomas, but that’s the rub. They couldn’t do anything because it was out of their field of specializations. So he had to make a phone call and pull a few strings. Now sitting on his desk were three different folders, all three doctors, top of their fields in fact. The question was, who should he pick?