Grounded

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Just relax, Lydia. This isn't going to hurt a bit." Maxwell connects wires he calls electrodes to my head, chest, and limbs. We're back in his lab and this time I'm sitting on a padded examination table next to a machine with a dozen different gauges and blinking lights.

"I'll try," I say.

"Did you sleep well last night?" He adjusts his glasses on his nose before continuing his application of wires to my skin.

"I think so." In truth, I woke not knowing where I was from a deathlike sleep. I might still be sleeping had Jameson not roused me for the noon meal. "In all my life, I've never slept so long or so soundly."

"You're in the inception period. Korwin experienced something similar."

I arch an eyebrow. "You mentioned last night that he became a Spark at fifteen. So, he wasn't always able to throw lightning bolts from his hands?"

Maxwell smiles. "No. Before his inception, we had the note but no proof it was true. Everything about him appeared...average."

"How did it happen...for Korwin?" I wonder if Korwin's change was as dramatic as mine.

"Struck by lightning," he says. He states it clinically, without a hint of emotion. "Korwin went through a period of intense pain afterward, followed by an exponential increase in electrokinetic ability over the following several weeks."

I roll my lips together. I'm familiar with the intense pain. "So, the lightning helped him change into what he is. Do you think I might have been normal without the lamp?"

He laughs. "Who is normal? If you are asking if you might not have become electrokinetic if you'd never left the preservation, the answer is, I don't know. It's possible. The DNA analysis shows that you and Korwin have the same gene, latent for both of you as children. We don't completely understand how it works. Would it have eventually triggered the change whether or not you were exposed to electricity? I'm not sure. In your case, it just as well could have been lightning."

The sheer randomness of it all overwhelms me. Could I have escaped this fate by staying in Hemlock Hollow, or was my change divine providence? My faith tells me both. I was called to be this way so that I could save Korwin.

Maxwell adjusts his glasses again and flips a switch. The screen on the machine flashes numbers and letters, then graphs.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"It means, I'm surprised the Greens weren't harder on you. The voltage you're putting off is almost as high as Korwin's."

"You can tell all that from this gibberish?" I squint at the display, completely at a loss.

"The miracle of modern science." He bends over to adjust the placement of an electrode on my foot and his glasses fall off.

"Seems the miracle hasn't extended to your vision," I say, laughing. "Don't the Englishers have a way to fix what's wrong with your eyes?"

He straightens, glasses firmly in place, and frowns at me. "In fact they do, but curing my specific condition requires a period of several days without vision and my current responsibilities make that impossible."

"You mean, because you're a scientist and a politician?" Korwin said he led the opposing political party to the Green Republic. I am not learned about how the Englishers' political system works, but I figure it must be a pretty demanding job.

Maxwell busies himself with his notebook and doesn't elaborate. I don't push the subject. Strictly speaking, it's none of my business. "I'd like you to try something for me. Korwin says you used the spark on the Holotread yesterday. Can you try to show me? Draw it down into your hand."