The Inventor's Son

Chapter 21: In Which a Terrible Truth is Revealed

"I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW why you did not tell the boy your surname. He is not a little child," was the first thing Ethan heard Dr. Devereaux complain about.

"I have my reasons," Dr. Gideon said to him.

Ethan could hear the annoyance in Dr. Devereaux's voice. "I do not want anything jeopardizing that boy's recovery. He's at a very critical stage."

"I don't think so. No, I don't think so at all!" Ethan heard Dr. Gideon growl, and then he watched the tall fellow take a couple of large films and jam them into a light box frame and pulled the beaded chain. Both doctors looked at two x-rays. One was of Ethan's skull right before the surgery, and one was taken yesterday. Ethan watched Dr. Gideon shake his head sadly.

"It is amazing that he is still alive, with the trauma to his head!" Dr. Devereaux remarked.

Dr. Gideon turned to Dr. Devereaux and gave him a hard glare. "The boy needs to know this is a terminal injury." A wave of shock hit Ethan like a lightning bolt.

"Are you mad? The boy can recall exactly what has happened to him!" Dr. Devereaux exclaimed, standing up from behind his desk to emphasize his position.

"Why does he not know that he will regress and die soon from this damage?" Dr. Gideon demanded.

Dr. Devereaux shook his head and answered, "Because it is not terminal!"

Dr. Gideon cleared his throat. Then he responded, "I am one of the foremost experts on the brain on Earth, good sir! If I say that boy is going to die, then you can be very certain that he will!" He pulled down the x-rays and placed them back into a large manila envelope. "He needs to be told about this, and then he needs to go back to England where he can be made comfortable and be with his family."

Dr. Devereaux seemed extremely skeptical as he asked, "Are you not the very same Dr. Gideon Colbourne who had been ousted with some disgrace from your former position as head of your department at Cambridge?"

Dr. Gideon Colbourne, the very one who Ethan's father had warned him about in the film he'd left in Sam! The same Professor Colbourne who was trying to have Ethan killed, or worse... The very same man who invented Kearney!

Ethan fled as soon as he heard. How in God's name did Colbourne manage to infiltrate this hospital? Ethan realized at once that it didn't matter. The man could not be trusted, even if he was correct. Even if Ethan really was doomed to die from his brain injury, he would not rest until he reunited with his father and spend the last of his days with him. His eyes blurred with tears for a moment. There was precious little moisture in his body. Only the one tear managed to roll down his face.

"This feels wrong! I know he's wrong. I'm healing. He didn't see the flowers," Ethan whispered in the darkness of the hallway. Ethan slithered back downstairs. He barely had a chance to return to his bedside and gather his few belongings they had kept around him before Colbourne reached his former bed.

Crouched behind an unused bed, Ethan watched Professor Colbourne stand in stupefied silence. Then Colbourne bellowed, "Where in hell is Stanwood?" Ethan rolled under the bed and settled on his stomach, watching for his feet. "Where is his nurse?"

Ethan heard a pair of female shoes clicking on the floor as they passed by him and headed toward his left. "Nurse, where did the Stanwood boy go?" Colbourne demanded. She protested in French, and then Ethan heard a dismissive, "Never mind! Let's split up and look for him. He cannot have managed to get very far!" And, as Ethan had planned, the pairs of feet split up and diverted away from his bed and began looking between beds and alongside unused gurneys. Ethan made no move until he heard them both depart.