The Storm of Elements

Goodwin Goes Even More Psychotic

I awake on a soft, cushioned surface. I can feel a slight wind and know I'm moving - or being moved. The wheels under me rattle. I can hear the breath of people around me. 

I open my eyes and am greeted by white light. Everything is blurry. Rectangular overhead lights on the ceiling continuously shine too brightly in my eyes then pass by as I am wheeled down the hallway. As my vision clears, I discover that I am on a mobile hospital bed, with clean white sheets and a pillow my head is resting on. 

My head is throbbing. I kind of feel like I have to throw up. 

Where am I? 

My memory slowly returns. That's right. We were fighting. Then Gray dropped in and delivered the gas. I passed out. 

Where are my friends? What did they do to them? 

A thought occurs to me. The bracelet on my wrist. Obsidian gave it to me to send a distress signal to him only when needed to. An emergency. I think this qualifies as an emergency. 

Before I can press the jewel in the center, a noise brings me back to reality. 

The sound of a doorknob turning. I watch, my vision now much clearer, as a man in a white lab coat opens the door of a room. The people pushing my bed wheel me through the doorway and into the room. 

The room itself is kind of small and has dark, metal walls, giving me a sort of weird Death Star vibe. There are no windows, the only source of light being a rectangular light hanging down in the middle of the room. There is a desk with a computer against the right wall, and against the opposite wall there are big, bulky machines that look like large office copying machines and medical equipment that I can't really identify. But in the center of the room, there is a wide open space under the hanging light. 

And that's where they wheel me to and park me at. 

What is this room? What do they want with me? Is this going to be some sort of cell for now? 

They position me so I'm lying directly under the light. It's so bright that I feel like I'm burning my eyes. 

Then a face leans over me and smiles warmly. "Hello again, Miss Cooper." 

I'm taken aback. "Constantine?" 

My old favorite second-in-command on the science side is sitting in a chair next to my bed. He hasn't changed his looks a bit, except that his hair is a little more salt-and-pepper than it was. Same ratty lab coat. Same polished leather shoes. 

Dr. Constantine smiles. "It's been a little while. I have to admit, I've missed your wry sense of humor around here." 

"Well, forgive me if I say I haven't missed being around here." 

"Only natural. Since we 'kidnapped' you, you see us as your enemy. But I've told you again and again that we're only here to study you." 

"And inject me with a formula and a power I didn't want," I add. "I never asked for it. I could've died, you know." 

"Science is about taking risks. And we would've never let you die. You're too valuable to us." 

"Only because you're using me and my friends as test-subjects," I tell him. "Not because you like us and actually care for our well-being." 

"Ah, but there is much you do not know," Dr. Constantine smiles at me again. "So far, have your new upgraded powers brought you to harm? Dr. Goodwin was right when he told you that Gray would have most definitely killed you all if it wasn't for the formula you had coursing through your veins. Our work, our creation. So if you want to get technical, then I'd say we were the ones who kept you alive."