The Whiz-Kid

See prologue for disclaimer, rating, summary, etc.

AN: Hello, it's been ages since I feel like writing and as soon as my mojo came back, I took the time to write another chapter. I am terribly sorry for the long wait and I hope I did not lose too many of us because of it. This chapter begins a few months after last chapter's revelations and it is back to Zane's POV.

Review of previous chapter: Brin decided to confront Zane about his sudden reactions and whereabouts. She cracked his shield and discovered his problem with seizures.

Have fun reading!

Chapter 13: Goosebumps

(Or, yeah I'm making your hair sit up)

Sacramento, CA

0710 hours, September 22, 2014.

He woke up from his sleep; he was vaguely aware of a shattering noise, which some part of him realized were his own teeth clinking together. Zane knew the symptoms. This was bad. Blindly, he reached an unsteady hand towards another brand new bottle of miracle pills Zack had sent by mail a couple of weeks ago; Triptophan. He struggled to open the lid; the fucking childproof cap kept getting in the way and made him feel exactly like a puzzled three years old toddler.

With concentration, he finally opened the damn thing with too much strength, the white capsules of vitamin scattering everywhere on the linoleum floor. He gasped as the tremors increased with renewed force.

He stumbled out of the bed, on his hands and knees, grabbing a few pills and gulping them in one shallow. Then he waited, panting and tired as hell.

He cursed mentally again. These episodes were getting worst. He used to be a morning person. And from a morning and generally bright and breezy person, he'd fell a couple steps backward to being an awful and borderline ill-tempered non-morning person.

After a couple of minutes, he decided to knock back down a few more pills.

When he shakily stood up, Zane brushed the back of his hand on his sweaty forehead. He grabbed a pair of jeans and padded his way out in his room. The hallway was dim-lit and he thanked mutely some god up there for the existence of clouds and smog. Sun was not something he wanted to deal with right now. The brightness was too much.

Zane staggered into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to cast away the constant dizziness. He continued his journey in the room, zeroing his sight on the fridge. Milk – he needed milk. Tons and tons of it. He knew Brin would have managed to get some now that she knew about his state. He opened the refrigerator's door and took the white beverage. Not bothering with a glass, he sculled about half the bottle in one go.

It helped, kind of.

He leant back against the counter and rolled the bottle across his forehead. It was so hot in here. And his head was pounding madly.

"You ok, man?"

"Shit!" Zane startled and spun around, his hands gripping the edge of the counter to keep himself up. The bottle slipped out of his hand.

Gabriel was there, eyes wide and palms up.

"Fuck! Don't pull that shit on me!"

A human nobody had managed to sneak up on him and scared him out of his skin. That's how bad the situation had gotten. Now he was feeling less than nothing. Not only was he a deficient being, he also was a pitiful excuse of a genetically empowered soldier. What was Gabriel doing here anyway?

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

Zane threw a glare his way before remembering the liquid at his feet. His gaze felt to the linoleum. "S'ok."

He gripped a rag and bent to tidy the mess, all the while eying warily Gabriel's whereabouts from the corner of his eye; he wasn't about to get caught a second time. Brin's boyfriend grabbed a chair and sat at the table keeping somewhat quiet, certainly sensing Zane's annoyance toward him. At least Zane could be grateful for the lack of noise. That did wonders to his brain.

Then the stillness of the room was killed by Brin's clicking dead-trap devices more commonly called high heels.

She stopped at the kitchen entrance assessing the situation. He could feel her eyes blazing into his skin. He could just imagine what a pathetic picture he made; shoulders slouched, spine straight as an iron fence, trying to breathe as casually as possible in front of her boy toy. After some time, she quickly sauntered her way to his scrubbing form, crouching besides him. She took the rag away from him and finished the job.

"Have you taken your meds?" She demanded lowly for his purpose only.

He nodded curtly and they stood back up again. When standing, Zane shifted on his feet awkwardly sensing too many eyes on him.

"Do you want to go to school? I can call in sick for you."

He shook his head. "Nah. I'll go. I'll catch my death if I stay trapped in here another day."

Brin careful nodded her agreement, doubt clouding the dark pools of her eyes. However, she knew that he didn't want her hovering over him like a mother hen. He was his own man. She knew better to press him in these times.

"Go ahead, I'll see you later"

"Ok. See you later." She put the rag in the sink and motioned for Gabriel to follow her outside.

"He's sick?" He heard Gabriel ask before the front door closed behind them.

He turned to the sink, cursing and turned on the tap to rinse the rag.

/

Sacramento, CA

1538 hours, September 22, 2014.

Zane had learned quite a few things in the years following his escape from Manticore.

The more outstanding and important one of them was that even outside; there were rules. Some rules he tried to avoid, some rules he willingly disregard and other rules he had no choice but to follow. Alas, going to Sacramento High School was situated in that last group.

In a high school as wrecked and crappy as the one he was attending, there were a few underground rules as well –some even called them laws- that every student had to follow to keep alive. Rules such as "do not eat the brown gooey served at the cafeteria on Thursdays", "do not rattle off", or again "do not stare".

The most important unwritten rule of survival was to find your type of crowd and stick with it; which mostly meant that the table one sat at in lunch time determined whom that person was. Zane wasn't one to pick a crowd; his own crowd was sprawled all over the country in hidden locations.

He was a lone wolf.

Within the first month of school at SHS, he had achieved many things.

He succeeded at keeping away undesired company, meaning every soul in the place including his sister and her attached-by-the-hip boy toy.

Then, he had, somehow, successfully kept hidden the seizures dealio from prying eyes; and really, the vitamins Zack sent him were to thank for such an accomplishment. However, concealing this weakness meant that, every once in a while, he had to ditch his last class and head, with shaky legs and uneven pace, in a dark corner of the back of the school establishment. Then, he would dig into his bottle of Tryptophan unafraid of curious stares – an action not unlike to the ones of a junky missing his addiction. And that kind of hurt his pride. At least, hiding meant that no one ever wonder about his sudden paleness, sweaty palms and grinding of the jaws.

His last accomplishment was by far the one he was the less pleased about.

He had managed to build an unhealthy interest in a girl sitting by herself at the graffiti covered picnic table. The one girl he'd been staring at each time he had to sit against the brick wall of the backyard, trying to gather enough strength to stand back up on his jerking leg muscles. He'd been watching her from afar. She was petite and dressed in a patch-work of unmatched colors, which had first attired his curiosity. She was always absorbed in writing in a small book, a diary, perhaps. He would examine her attentively; her hand would be scribbling on the blank paper and her dyed pale pink hair would be falling in disarray locks over her face. She had the habit of putting her pen in-between her lips when pondering some thoughts.

The idea of approaching her near enough to examine her features from a closer look had crossed his mind quite a few times but still, he kept at a distance. He didn't want her to think of him as a shaking junky stalker.

So he kept studying her from a distance until he grew back enough control over his limbs, then he would just gaze at her one last time, and stride away briskly.

One day, he decided, he would speak to her. But not today; he was expected at his after school job.

/

Sacramento, CA

1634 hours, September 22, 2014.

When he entered the garage, he discarded his schoolbag near the wall, making enough noise in the process to warn Felix of his presence. He'd previously found out that Felix was one to startle easily, and being shocked out of one's skin didn't add well with a head under the hood.

"Hey, Felix."

Felix's head popped out of under the hood, his white teeth smile contrasting with the dark smudge of motor oil on his cheek. "Hey, kiddo. How was school today?"

Zane shrugged indifferently: "The usual. What do we have here?" he said, eying the piece of fine car his friend was working on; a 1970ish vivid orange Camaro Chevy, he deducted. It was a rare thing to see that kind of muscle car in such a fine condition; few people could afford that kind of vintage car –or more like few people could afford a car- with the price of gas and cost of maintenance nowadays… "She is a beauty."

Felix eyes sparkled, and he excitedly used a sleeve of his overalls to clean a spot on the sparkling metal, "I know, right?"

"You need a hand?"

"Why not? We're just doing a check-up." Felix threw a screwdriver in his direction and pointed at the Camaro. "C'mon. Let's see what this beauty has under the skirt."

They both chuckled and went to start on work.

He felt in steps with his Felix and they both bent their heads under the hood. After changing the air filter, oil and checking the steering wheel fluid, they decided that all seemed to work fine with the car. They were working quickly and efficiently, the radio playing as a background sound and he could help and wonder about the girl at the picnic table. Zane stopped to work, cleaning his hands and he stood there, studying a still working Felix, trying to decide if he should ask him advice.

"You're thinking so hard I'm afraid I'll get grey matter on my shoes. Spill what's on your mind already."

Zane shuffled awkwardly on his feet, hiding a quick smile at his friend observation skills. He couched slightly, somewhat embarrassed about what he was about to voice out loud. "Hum… There's a girl at school…"

"What's her name?"

"I - Well, I don't know."

Felix shook his head, unimpressed with him. "Well ask her. Less qq more pew pew."

"She'll think I'm a creep."

"No. She'll think you're interest in her. That's not being a creep, Shane. You know, for someone so bright, you're seriously lacking in the people skills department."

"That's the misfortune of genius people. For my defense, I have to say that the social gene does not run in the family" A flash of Zack went through his thoughts; yeah definitely not in the family.

"You're sister is a social person."

"She's too social for her own good; it gets in the way of her intellect."

"Wait 'til I tell her you called her stupid."

"You wouldn't."

They grinned at each other, finishing cleaning up their greasy hands. At some point, Felix threw his rag Zane's way, hitting him in the face. "Aw, man! That's gross!"

Felix laughed. "You're such a cute little girl! I need to hit the WC."

Zane frowned after him, stood up and went to the mirror, looking if he had dirt in the face. He sighed as he saw a black oily mark on his left cheek. He started scrubbing at it and was distracted by the radio program changing brusquely from its usual Mexican music to the news report. He paid attention to it when the words military authorities echoed in the garage.

"…young boy of fourteen years old was captured by military authorities today in the baseball field of Wolf Point, Montana. The boy had displayed minutes before impressing strength and skills while throwing a ball. A helicopter arrived soon afterwards taking the child away not without using a display of force and violence. A resident of Wolf Point mentioned to our channel that the crowd was asked to keep things silent by local military public affairs officer regarding the situation. Nearer from us in Santa Monica, Senator Bailey was elected with a majority… "

An apprehensive feeling made its way up his spine. He needed to contact Zack. He had a feeling this head news story was bad news for one of his brothers. No, he did not only have a feeling about it not being good, he knew it.

He stomped over the employees' phone attached to the wall and punched in the memorized digits; Zack's emergency line.

The line was occupied.

Zane hanged up the receiver with a loud bang. He sighed and shook his head, grabbing his hair tightly, staring at the wobbling twisted cord of the apparel. After another thirty seconds, he shook out of his funk and strode towards the phone again. He tried calling Zack's set-up line a second time.

That time his brother picked-up the line after a second.

"What's happening?"

"I don't have time for chit-chat, Zane. We've got a situation here."

"We? Who are you with?"

"I'm meeting up with Vada. Lydecker's on her tail. Kavi blew their cover right in front of a Manticore official. They got him."

"Shit. Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes. Hang up; you're jamming my line. I'll get in touch with you later."

And the line went dead.

Zane was left with a sentiment of dread.

To be continued...