As the sun started to peak over the edge of the world, Colin woke Higgins and after making sure his gun was loaded, Colin trusted him with the morning watch.
“Promise you’ll stay inside,” Colin said as he shifted into his dragonfly form.
Higgins nodded, “I have no intentions of picking a fight. Safety is on the agenda for me today.”
“Sounds good,” Colin said and took off.
“Watch out for birds,” Higgins called out as Colin flew away.
Flying over the town, he could see that most of the fires from the previous days had burned out. A few homes were reduced to ashes and charred support beams. Cars littered the streets near the highway in a tangled mess. Everyone had been so desperate to escape that they all got in each other’s way.
Colin hung his head and silently apologized that he couldn’t have done more as he flew past. He liked Kristy’s idea of helping as many of the Changed recover as possible, but he also worried it was too late. Not a single of the cured Changed had woken up yet and that wasn’t a good sign. There was no way he would voice that concern to Kristy. He could tell she was trying to cling to whatever could keep her mind off the situation they were in. Stuck in a devastated town with no sign of help from the rest of America was not Colin’s first choice either, but he felt like he was adjusting pretty well. Almost as well as Jenny. He was grateful that she thought of the whole mess as super heroes. It was a lot easier than explaining the darker details. Colin passed over a turned over school bus with its engine exploded. He could feel nobody trapped inside and saw the roof hatch had been used.
Similar scenes of chaos littered the rest of the flight to the water-plant and Colin did his best to not look too closely.
Touching down in the parking lot of the water purification plant, Colin shifted to a snake with six chicken legs for better ground speed and maneuverability. He coated his body with alligator hide just in case and then skittered off towards the plant while expanding his life pulse. Technically, his body wasn’t alive anymore, but he didn’t have a better plan yet to narrow down where to look.
Colin paused as his sense picked up the feeling of two pulses around the corner. Both were full hypnosites with human minds inside of them, but one was far more developed than the other. Colin immediately recognized one as Merrin, but the undeveloped one was unfamiliar to his senses. It was far too instinctual at its current stage.
Colin dashed for Merrin’s location, revising his search plan.
Surprisingly, by the time Merrin noticed Colin approaching, he was right next to her.
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“Run and I kill you,” Colin said with a hiss to his voice. He meant the threat after what she’d done to the town and to his family. Before his talk with Kristy, he might have just killed her without talking to her, but he was trying to take her advice and avoid killing people if he didn’t have to.
Merrin froze, her emotions jumped back and forth to so many different ranges in such a short amount of time, fear, joy, love, anger, paranoia. It felt so inconsistently volatile that Colin felt sick trying to keep track of it, so he shut himself off from her feelings. The second life source was coming from inside of a human woman’s head.
”Stay back!” Merrin said protectively over the dead woman’s body.
Colin held up a claw placatingly, “I won’t hurt you, but I need you to answer my questions.”
”It’s not what you think. That’s me on the ground. My old human body, that is,” Merrin said.
Colin nodded, getting sidetracked from his real question, “Did that hypnosite get to your body before you could stop them?”
Merrin’s eyes went wide, “I found him like this and now he’s resting in the chrysalis. Can you feel him in there? Of course you can. ”
”Who is it?” Colin asked. His first thought would have been Chuck if the FBI hadn’t confirmed taking him into custody and Merrin freaking out over it.
Merrin laid a hand on her old body’s dead face and smiled sweetly, “I don’t know but I feel responsible for them now that they carry a part of me. I feel like I need to take care of him.”
Colin felt more uncomfortable the longer he talked to Merrin. He wanted nothing to do with her, but she was likely his best chance at finding his body, “I’ll leave him and you alone if you answer two questions for me.”
”Anything!” Merrin practically screeched.
“Are there more places that can be hurt by you setting off a frequency blast?”
“No, I couldn’t set more off if I wanted to,” Merrin said.
”If you’re lying, I will hurt both of you. If you tell me the truth now, I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Merrin let out a breath and deflated, “There’s one more, but there’s no reason for me to set it off. They aren’t bringing him back. I feel terrible for what I did. I was angry and wasn’t thinking. At this point, I just want to be left alone.”
Colin felt like she was being truthful. The way she came clean. He felt sorry for her in some ways. “Question two: Where’s my old body?”
”That’s it?” Merrin perked up, “There’s a section of the lab I can draw you a map to. It should be in there.”
“Really? It’s still okay?” Colin said in surprise.
Merrin nodded, “We preserved all the bodies for creating stabilization solutions for the Gilberts. Your body should not have been processed yet.”
Colin was too stunned to respond.
“I can’t leave him, but if you bring me a pen and paper, I’ll draw you a map,” Merrin offered.
So many things about Merrin didn’t feel right that Colin wasn’t sure what to think about her. Strangely, he felt like even if he had killed her, she would not have cared.
Not really sure how to feel, Colin fetched a pen and paper from inside the water plant and after Merrin drew the map and the key codes for the doors to the lab, he happily left her presence in search of his old body.
