The Focus Effect

Two

"What is it?" she asks.

"What..."  I'm at a loss for words.  What do you say in response to something like this?  "Who were they?" I finally manage.  I try to wipe the tears from my eyes using my shoulder.

"Jennifer and Thomas McKenzie were your parents.  Your mother was a dentist and your father was a building contractor.  You had a younger sister named Riley.  She was thirteen."

I nod and close my eyes, letting tears stream down my face.  I've lost everything except my life.  Taken from me are my family and any memory I had of them.  The woman patiently waits for me to compose myself.  My stomach clenches and nausea returns so violently that I don't even have time to lean over and try to hit the bowl.  I throw up on the table.  The woman departs and returns with a roll of paper towels.  She wipes my chin and the watery mess up before tossing them in the bowl beside my chair.  She sits back down and begins to speak.

"You're in a military hospital now.  The paramedics that arrived the night of the storm had to resuscitate you.  You're a lucky young lady.  You were struck by lightning during the storm.  You were then admitted to the local hospital, and shortly thereafter, we were called because of your...unusual condition." 

"Unusual condition?"

"There were high levels of radiation emanating from your room," she explains.

"From my room?  Or from me?"

She smiles for the first time.  "You're pretty smart," she says.  "The radiation was indeed traced to you.  About 5 millisieverts of ionizing radiation per hour were measured.  While a onetime dose of 5 millisieverts isn't particularly dangerous and is about the same as receiving a chest CT scan, your levels have been rising.  An hour ago we measured your emissions at about 100 millisieverts per hour.  Unfortunately, these levels of radiation can be quite harmful over an extended period of time.  The suit I'm wearing is made of a nanocarbon mesh that absorbs about 99 percent of ionizing radiation, so my exposure is minimal.  To give you some context, the maximum yearly dose permitted for US radiation workers is 50 millisieverts.  A onetime dose of 2000 millisieverts can be fatal."  I can see her frown and shake her head slightly.  "As far as we can tell, the radiation poses no threat to you personally.  We're trying to figure out how and why it's happening."

I let this information sink in for a moment.  "Then why am I getting sick?  And come to think of it," I add, "why am I tied up?"  I wiggle my wrists against the arms of the chair.

"It's for your protection and ours."

My jaw sets and I can feel my anger rising.

"Listen."  She sounds as frustrated as I feel.  "We don't know what's happening to you.  And until we do, you'll have to be patient."

"I am a patient already," I point out.

The woman gives me the barest hint of a smile.  "A patient patient, then.  Your body is changing at a molecular level.  You're sick because it's purging itself of unneeded processes."

I stare at her.  I don't know about my body purging itself, but it does feel numb.  "I don't understand."

"I know and neither do we.  Not yet.  But some of the smartest people in the world are working to figure it out," she assures me.  "But it'll take time.  We've already learned so much."

"Yeah, my posing a threat to people must have been a terrific discovery."

The woman seems disheartened.  There are dark circles around her eyes.  "Yes," she answers after a moment.  "In addition, there's a silicon aspect to some of your skin cells.  They are beginning to convert light into energy.  We believe that when this molecular change has concluded, you'll no longer need food or water."