Chapter 3. Where has all the medication gone?“What do you want with me?” Kensicle asked, and was treated to another electric shock.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, your kind never learns, do they?” Dante asked rhetorically, then instructed, “Stop asking the wrong questions. You know perfectly well what I want. I know what you do. I know who you work for. I know what you’re planning. You know the information I need.”
“What information?” She was zapped once more. This time the shock was stronger.
“Oh yes, the dial is only set to two. Imagine what I can do with ten …” Dante moved the dial up another notch. Kensicle cringed. Zap.
“Hey,” Kensicle said, “I didn’t even say anything.”
“Er, sorry,” Dante apologized, “I’m still getting the hang of this.”
“Dante, listen,” Kensicle started, but was electrocuted again.
“Quiet. Also, you should know I go by D. Theodore Marksoff now. You may call me Theodore or Marksoff. You know what the D stands for, so don’t even bother asking.”
“But Dan – er, Theodore – that’s ridiculous.”
Theodore sighed. “Do you really want to make me press this button again?”
“No,” Kensicle mumbled.
“Good. Then we may continue.”
***
The first thing Hermes saw when he opened his eyes was a face.
“OMG!” he screamed.
“Hey, Hermes!” The voice greeted him cheerily. “You’re awake!”
“Lemona?” he asked, panting.
“You recognize me! Great! Super! I just had a few questions to ask you. You don’t mind, do you? You don’t mind if I ask a few questions?”
“Erm, go ahead,” Hermes consented.
“Well, the first thing I was wondering was, who do you think poisoned you?”
“
”
“Hermes?”
“Er, sorry, I meant
”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know – it’s something – the medication – LOL” he laughed frowning, which did something very bizarre to his countenance.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“OMG, it’s getting worse.”
“Well, I guess I’ll come back later. Get well soon!” Lemona skipped away.
“Wait! Lemona!
” Hermes looked around at 667’s small hospital. Something was attached to his arm. He ripped it out. He swung his feet over the side of the bed, but was quick to realize this idea wasn’t his best idea as he fell over and slammed his head against the headboard. “LOL,” he said softly.
It was going to be a long day.
“Goodness, Lemona was right, he’s awake!” Sophie gasped. She and Bryan ran over to his bed. Pen had agreed to wait outside, as they weren’t sure exactly how much Hermes would remember.
“Hoodlums,” he muttered, “You’re all a bunch of
” he groaned.
“Hermes, you have to listen to us. Someone’s been tampering with your medication.”
“Hermes,” Bryan said, “You have to tell us what you were doing the day Bee got kidnapped.”
“People are disappearing. They’re scared. No one is safe,” Sophie emphasized.
“LOL,” Hermes said with a grimace.
“Sorry?” Bryan asked, eyebrows raised.
“Listen,” Hermes said, struggling against some force within him, “Tell Kensicle that OMG she has to
804.1.”
“She has to what?”
“804.1,” Hermes repeated, “Tell
that she has to
”
“Oh no,” Sophie breathed, “The drugs are overcoming him. Call a doctor!” Bryan ran from the room. Sophie kneeled by Hermes’s bed.
“Hermes,” she gripped his hand urgently, “What should I tell Kensicle?”
“Tragedy has struck again,” he said, and they lost him. Well, not exactly lost him, as he was still there, but rather something transformed in his face. A grin stretched to his ears and stuck there, like a coffee ring on an important document. His eyes glazed over until they appeared permanently foggy, and when he spoke, his voice had taken on a new liveliness that was at once disturbing and very irritating.
“I feel great! I feel marvelous! I feel absolutely superlative! That means the same thing as ‘marvelous,’ by the way,” he continued, “I’m happy as an optometrist! I’m as chipper as a chipmunk! I’m good to children! I’m good to women! I’m good to traitors! I’m good to go!
” He made to get up from the bed. Sophie, alarmed at this sudden transition, pushed him back. “Now look here,” Hermes said, and was about to push her aside when Bryan ran in with a doctor.
“He’ll be fine with me,” Dr. Shelly said, checking the equipment surrounding the bed, “You kids run along now.” So they did. Once outside, they updated Pen on the recent developments.
“Sounds like someone had switched the medication, which, of course, begs the question as to where to real stuff can be located,” Pen noted.
“And there’s the matter with Kensicle. What does Hermes mean by ‘Tragedy has struck again’?” Sophie mused.
Bryan thought for a moment. Finally he correctly assumed, “We’re going to need some help.”
If you ask the right member and you get the right disguise, you can find the answers to all sorts of secrets. BSam, for instance, had once gotten Tragedy intoxicated enough to reveal the password to one of the reclusive sections in 667’s library. Willis had once tricked Pandora into thinking she’d won a board game when in fact he’d known the secret to winning lay in etiquette all along. Sixteen had attracted the attentions of 667 by feigning marriage to a sheep, when in reality this was simply a diversion to distract the populace from his blackmailing BSam into intoxicating Tragedy. Every 667er had a secret. No one knew them all. And as Bryan explained his plan to Sophie and Pen, they had no way of knowing they were asking the wrong questions. They should have asked why someone would want to switch Hermes’s medication to begin with. They should have asked whether “Tragedy” was a proper noun. They should have wondered why, beneath their feet, they could make out faint but distinct cries for help.