Exactly twenty-two minutes later, there was a knock on the door.
Henry finally let go of and opened the door. Ethan and an older gentleman behind him stepped in.
"Please excuse our late arrival." Ethan took a look at everyone in the room before stepping aside and introducing the old man behind him.
"This is Judge Krohn, who will serve not only as a witness but also as a notary today."
The old man nodded at everyone, his eyes narrowing at Henry for a mont, apparently recognizing him, while Henry smiled at him, pleasantly surprised.
The blonde woman stood up from her seat.
"Dr. Cecile Lawrence." She introduced herself to Ethan and the judge, and only now did I notice that she hadn’t done that before.
Because if I had heard her na, I would recognize it.
Omar ca from a prestigious military family, and although he took his mother’s last na to lay low, which was ’Anand’, his father’s last na was Lawrence.
If she was the boss’s daughter, and if this was no coincidence, then did the Lawrence family have their hands in this project?
Would this speak more for this being a governnt-related project or more for a private one? Because it could be either way, with the Lawrence family doing it solely for their own benefit or because they had been commissioned to do so by the state.
I’ll have to ask Omar, or I could just flip a coin on her.
While shaking hands, I only looked into the future, concentrating on whether she would adhere to an agreent, and saw a few scenes that told she would, like her talking sense into an indignant Dr. Thomas.
In my vision, she also ntioned that they would profit more by working together with Henry and than by coercing or forcing us to give them information.
From this standpoint, their lenient behavior also made more sense.
Ethan took one of the chairs, rolled it to the table under the window, sat down, and took a laptop out of his suitcase.
"Good. Now, please fill in on the contract you want to set up." His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
I started naming the conditions I had just co up with, Henry standing beside as we all waited obediently until my attorney finished writing.
It was funny that we all clung to the law because there was just nothing else we could put our trust in for now.
"Good, is there a printer here?" Ethan had finished, and the girl with the dark makeup instantly told him which printer he could use, which was one inside the room.
While the printer worked, Ethan stood up and put his jacket back in place before pushing up his glasses.
"This contract is not with the center; it is between the five parties present as private persons," he explained.
"So let sum it up like this: you can go against the contract, but then we will sue you. As private parties, you have no right to use the legal insurance that you receive through your work. That ans it would end up in a legal fight, draining your funds until you have absolutely nothing left." He made eye contact with the three doctors.
"Mrs. Howard, the matriarch of the famous Howard family, is very fond of her grandson. Very fond." He emphasized.
I smiled; wasn’t having money nice? Imagine a big old dragon constantly watching your back; it was fucking reassuring.
The CSI girl had no color left on her face, making her look like a corpse with fancy makeup, while Dr. Lawrence wasn’t fazed at all.
Yet, she took it seriously and nodded.
Dr. Thompson looked at , more concerned about the few students’ nas I had ntioned—his affairs—to threaten him into compliance.
While shaking his hand, I flipped the coin with the intention to see what he wanted to hide. As it turned out, he had a few young dicine students under him before working here, with whom he had affairs. So I whispered these students’ nas in his ear after finding out that he wouldn’t stay true to a possible agreent/contract with us and would spread the results they’d gather about our abilities to the other scientists and doctors in this center as well as to the authorities.
"Are you willing to sign the contract by your own free will?" Ethan finished.
"Let look through it." The blonde doctor stepped to the printer and took the first stack of papers.
More ti went by, Henry fiddling with my hair absentmindedly while I looked at the screen still showcasing my brain in a fancy animation. Creepy to think that this was inside my body. I really am not going to ever get fond of anatomy in this life.
Finally, Dr. Lawrence finished and said that this was fine, giving the papers to Dr. Thompson, who just skimd through them before handing them to the CSI girl, who needed the longest ti to read.
When they were finished, they had to copy their IDs, which they conveniently had on them, and Ethan let them sign before Henry and I did as well.
Finally, the judge signed, and this little farce was over.
"Very good. I am now making a copy of the signed contract for each of you." Ethan took over the printer while the judge said goodbye and left.
"Where do you take these things from?" Dr. Lawrence blurted out, no longer able to contain herself. She still held the empty water bottle in her hand, never having let go of it.
There was no apparent ti limit I had tested my ability on since I had fought the giant. So, no idea when the stuff would disappear again.
"My mories." I answered her.
"mories?" She thought for a while before turning to Dr. Thompson.
"The hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex?"
"Stores and decodes mories." He nodded.
"Care to explain?" I asked them.
"Not only are these areas bigger in your brain, but they are unusually active, like the rest." She went to the screen to show it to , and I stepped closer to it as well.
"All in all, your brain is connected more than we have ever seen before; you have far more synapses, the wires that transmit information, than we have ever seen inside a human body."
"Okay."
"Every one of the survivors has an unusually high amount of synapses, but yours are exceptionally nurous. Can you go back inside and take sothing out of your mories while we scan your brain?"
"Yeah." I patted Henry’s shoulder while going back inside the room from before, where the bed ca out.
Before, too much ti had passed, and not having heard anything, I got impatient and wanted to check, only to see Henry acting out.
Anyway, I am really curious as well.
Lying on the bed, I waited until I was pulled in again. Like the first ti, I had to close my eyes because I got claustrophobic. No idea if it was because of the hellhole or because of the giant, but I didn’t like having walls so close to .
Over the speakers in the room, I heard the doctor asking to use my ability, and I conjured up another water bottle.
"Can you do it again?" She asked.
I put the water bottle back and conjured it up again.
"Okay, co out." The bed I lay on ca back out, and I walked back to the surveillance room, still barefoot and in the hospital clothes I had changed into.
"And?"
"Nothing." Dr. Lawrence said, still staring at the screen, while Henry ca to to hang on .
"Nothing changed; we didn’t see one area light up more or show more activity."
"That can only an your ability has nothing to do with your brain... or that your ability is already constantly active."
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