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Chapter 20

Chapter 20

December 5th 2157

Logan woke from hibernation with a hang over worse than that night back at university.  A fun night out turned into a two-hour drinking game with close to twenty people from the linguistics program. Logan felt that he needed to at least make an earnest effort in showing his abilities, but it soon turned into an out of control game of one upping everyone else.  Less than half of the students made it to class the next day, including Logan who didn't think to connect himself to a personal IV until it was too late to prevent his headache.

Logan wanted nothing more than to keep his eyes closed and fall back into oblivion.  But two sets of strong hands had other plans.  He felt as the IV was removed, and other tubes and wires were disconnected.

Then there was a voice; it seamed to come from the far side of a long hallway.  "All right, lets get him to the bed."  Logan heard the voice, but he didn't understand.  The hands then picked him up, and felt as his feet began to shuffle along the ground assisted by someone on each side.

Then there was the bed; it was so soft and inviting.  The pillow was a cloud and the sheets were heavy and enveloping.  He let the bed consume him, and he fell into deep sleep.

 **

Logan woke and every muscle in his body hurt.  It felt like he lay on a metal unforgiving surface with a small hard pillow that had long ago lost any hope in supporting the head.  He rolled to his side and the pain only worsened.  A groan escaped from Logan's mouth sounding as if it came from another human being.

A familiar voice said, "Let me help you."  Logan opened his eyes for the first time since entering hibernation.  The light was extremely bright even through the small gaps between the eyelids.  Logan was helped to sit up, and then handed a bottle of clear liquid.  "Drink," came the voice again.  Logan looked and only saw a silhouette, and his mind couldn't process who this was, or even what was going on.

Logan took the bottle and took a drink from it.  The liquid was bitter and sweet and felt thick on his tongue.  "That's it," came the voice once again.  Logan doubled his efforts to try and see, and was rewarded as he realized that fuzzy non-things began to take shape.  Next came color, everything was still fuzzy and nothing had hard edges, but color was starting to take the place of black and grey and that blinding white.

Returning to reality was a long and painful process, but Mike helped him through the process.  The drink that he was nursing was an electrolyte mixture that would help hydrate his body as it flushed all of the hibernation drugs from his system.

After an hour, Logan was finally able to make it on his own power to the edge of the bed.  He still needed Mike's help to get fully dressed, and it became easier the more they worked at it.  Once fully dressed the two headed out to the common area were several people mingled or sat alone. Nora was one of these sitting by them self.

"Were do you want to sit?" Asked Mike, who was still supporting much of Logan's weight?

"There, over by Nora," Logan replied.

The two hobbled over to the group of chairs where Nora was sitting.  She was reading her tablet and gave the pair a wide smile.  Mike gently assisted Logan down onto a seat.  "If you don't mind, i think i will excuse myself," Mike said.  He turned and walked away from the two and headed in the direction of his fellow Special Forces comrades.

"Guess we don't need baby sitters when we are a captive audience."  Nora joked watching Mike walk away.

Logan tried to laugh, but only managed a faint smile.  "Where is James?"