With the stadium cleared of the civilians, all that was left was Kevin's family and friends along with their parents. Agent Reynolds walked up to Ben and the others. With no one holding him back, Ben grabs Agent Reynolds by the collar of his jacket, furious.
“Where did you take my son? Ben questioned in anger. Peter, what will they do to him?
"He’ll be alright." Reynolds quickly answered as he pulled Ben off his jacket. "I convinced them to take him to the hospital, but I need you to come with me Ben."
"Understood." Ben replied.
He turned to his wife, hugged and kissed her as she wept, worried about everything that had happened.
"Ben, bring him home, please." Alexia begged.
"Don’t worry Lexci; we’ll get him back, I promise." Ben replied softly.
"Alright, we will be initiating a protocol soon. Listen to me and listen carefully, keep all electronic devices like TVs, phones and any smart devices off until midnight." Agent Reynolds commanded. "If you refuse to do so, that's your choice, what you saw today is also your choice to remember."
When Reynolds mentioned that, Sara's eyes lit up surprised that she had a choice to remember this crazy incident or not based on the instructions they were just given. Reynolds looks at Ben.
"Are you ready?" Reynolds asked.
Ben nodded and the two left for the hospital. As the two depart, Alexia turns to face Kevin's friends.
"It's best you kids go home and remember what the agent said."
Then she and Brandon went to their car and left for home leaving Johnny and Sara alone on the field. The two fell silent, Johnny wasn’t sure what to tell Sara, Sara was thinking about what she wanted to tell Johnny.
"Well, at least he'll be ok...I think." Johnny said trying to lighten the mood.
"Why didn’t you call the Advent Guard?" Sara Asked
Johnny looks at her confused, she looked frightened as she held herself as she couldn’t get the thought of what she saw Kevin doing out of her head.
"You saw for yourself what he is and you did nothing."
Johnny let out a sigh as he knew Sara would be upset.
"He begged me not to." Johnny said solemnly. "He didn’t want our team to forfit and miss this opportunity. Sara…he won, for us."
Sara realized Johnny was right but seeing Kevin's eyes glow still terrified her.
"Did that freak from the school do this to him?" She softly asked.
"I-I don’t know." He replied back.
Sara began to tear up as this was getting hard to accept but she knew what she needed to do. She looks at Johnny who sees her smiling but with tears in her eyes.
"I can't do this." Sara said with her voice cracking trying not to cry. "The thought of seeing…”that thing” for what he is, or what he’s become, its just too much."
She turns around as she faces her back to Johnny.
"I’m sorry Johnny, I know where I stand. Where do you?"
Johnny couldn’t answer, and with that silence. Sara walks back to her folks and they leave for their car. Johnny returns to his parents who hug him and they leave for home.
With the power still down from the EMP blast and everyone had evacuated the stadium, Reynold’s men were scouting the area, accessing Kevin’s damage. One chose to go downstairs using a flashlight to explore the other rooms. He came upon the locker room Kevin and Johnny were in and discovered the damage Kevin had left. He then looked around the ceiling and spotted a surveillance camera pointed in the direction the damage occurred. He then realized there could be footage they may need. He makes his way back upstairs to the others, informing them of his discovery.
"We need to check the surveillance files."
Soon all three got alerts from their phones, they all took them out to see a message alerting them of the rewind protocol was soon to engage.
"We need to hurry before the rewind protocol starts; Reynolds would want to see them." He requested.
The others agreed; once they found the security room where the surveillance files would be held, they broke in and began searching the room. With the help of their flashlight, they found a rectangular-shaped black box connected to a giant screen. They disconnected the black box and took it with them as they returned to the Advant guard headquarters. As it was late in the evening (9pm) the effects of the EMP begin to wane. Section by section, the city’s electricity was restored, and the people had power in their houses once more. Using back up generators the Advent headquarters noticed the city’s power was being restored. It wasn’t long before their section's power came on. Immediately they began to initiate the rewind protocol. Those trained in coding began hacking into the network of every social media platform, every web browser, and page on all devices. Anything that had footage or recording of Kevin using his powers at the stadium was deleted, leaving no trace of it on the internet. As evening approached, whatever show or news station anyone was watching, there would be occasional flickers on their screen that occurred in patterns. The flickers on the screen were rhythmic and even hypnotic; those who looked at the screen became tranced by the constant rhythmic flicks. In between the flicks, a message popped up that would read, “Kevin Riley is human” For anyone listening to music, there would be the sound of static also in a rhythmic pattern which became hypnotic. A voice spoke between the static, stating that Kevin is human.
Alexia and Brandon turned off everything as instructed and went to bed early, but Alexia was worried about Ben and her Son. She lays on her back looking at the ceiling, she clasped her hands together praying.
"Please let them come home." She whispered.
Johnny and his folks turned off all electronic devices as instructed, Johnny went to his room, he saw his picture of him Sara and Kevin in middle school winning their first dirt bike race. He looked at the picture closely and notice that him and Kevin were looking at the camera but Sara was looking at Kevin with a big smile. It was then he realized, Sara had feelings for Kevin.
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"Sara? Did you?"
Sara was in her room hugging her pillow; she was listening to her music while browsing her phone of the pictures of her with Kevin and Johnny then it changed to photos of her and Kevin as she would playfully annoy him or she would secretly take a picture without him knowing but she then found a picture of her and Kevin during Senior prom. Her date bailed on her and Kevin volunteered to be her date. They stood under the photo op area in each other’s arms smiling. She began to tear up until she heard the emergency alert on her phone she looked at her phone and saw the message Rewind Protocol will commence.
She takes a deep breath, and exhales as she waits for the protocol to begin. Her mind began to race thinking about what happened earlier, Kevin using his powers, his eyes glowing. As she thought about it the protocol starts, unknown to her the rhythmic pattern of static sounds between her music started. It wasn’t long till those eerie thoughts of Kevin as a seirei jin half breed begins to fade as a voice between the static whispered in her ears that Kevin was human. Her thoughts changed to when they graduated, the race and them winning. As a single tear rolled down her face, she smiled.
Agent Reynolds and Ben were heading to the hospital. When Reynolds saw the streetlights coming on, he heard the radio coming on in his car. He quickly shuts it off.
“We can’t have that now,” he stated. He looked over to Ben, who was looking out the window, watching everything pass by. He looked worried, thinking about his son and what the Advant Guard was going to do to him.
"You did shut off your phone, right?" Reynolds reminded him sternly.
“Of course I did, but I don’t understand why. What is the rewind protocol?” Ben asked.
Reynolds paused for a moment as he thought back to the several occasions in the past when he had to use this protocol in other areas of the nation. He let out a sigh.
“Since that incident with Agent Parker, we came up with a way to prevent something like that from happening again. The rewind protocol is when we erase a Seirei Jin incident that we don’t want exposed to the public. Through hypnosis and powers of suggestion, we hack into phones, radio towers, networks, and the internet itself, removing all evidence of what happened, and we-
"You replace it with false memories." Ben interrupted, finishing Reynolds’ sentence.
Reynolds softly nods, agreeing with what he said.
"As long as you don’t hear or see it, you're safe," Reynolds added.
"How long will this last?" Ben asked.
"It should only take a couple of hours, tops. This is a small community, so this won’t take long." Reynolds replied.
"What about my son? Ben asked What will they do to him?"
"For now, nothing; I just hope it stays that way," Reynolds answered.
They arrived at the only hospital in the area. Ben was about to come out of the car till Agent Reynolds pulled him back in. Unsure as to why, he watched as Reynolds took out a spare earbud case and sunglasses.
"Put these on, and don’t take them off until I tell you," Reynolds warned him as he started putting on his sunglasses and a pair of earbuds in his ears.
Ben did the same, and the two came out of the car and into the hospital. Walking into the hospital, Ben watched as the staff members, security, and even patients were all staring blankly at tv screens and their cell phones as they were trance by the subliminal message and hypnotic rhythm of the static that kept flickering on their screens.
"My God," Ben whispered to himself, marveling at what he was seeing as no one noticed they had arrived.
As their faces were focused on the screens in front of them. Reynolds taps Ben on the shoulder to get his attention. Ben looked over to Reynolds, who motioned him to follow him as they were heading to the elevator. Reynolds pressed the button to go up, and it wasn’t long till the doors opened, and they went in.
Ben watched as Reynolds took off his sunglasses and earbuds, and he did the same.
"We’re safe now; where we’re going, we won’t be affected by the protocol," Reynolds stated as he took out a small enclosure key with three bits at the end.
Reynolds placed his hand on the panel with all the numbers on the hospital floor. The panel beeps, and the numbers are turned over, making the panel blank as it activates a hand scanner. The scanner’s light ran from the tip of Reynolds's hand to the palm like paper being scanned from a printer. Once it finished, it identified that it was Agent Reynolds. The numbers flipped back in their place, and a small compartment door opened up to reveal a keyhole with three bits shaped like the enclosure key that Reynolds was holding. He inserts the key, turns it clockwise, and presses buttons “12” and “1”. Once he pulled out the key, the small compartment door closed, and the elevator ascended to its next destination. Ben watched as the numbers appeared on the screen above the panel, telling them what floors they were passing as the elevator continued to rise. Once they passed 12, the number changed to 13, which puzzled Ben. He looked at the panel of buttons for each floor and saw that there was no thirteenth floor. The elevator then comes to a stop.
"So, there really is a thirteenth floor; I always thought it was bad luck to have one." Said Ben surprised.
“If you can convince enough people how real a superstition can be, then it’ll become real," Reynolds replied.
The elevator doors opened, revealing a technological hospital ward that looked more like a prison. A soldier guarded each Room whether they were sitting or standing behind the thick metallic doors. In the center of the room was the nurse’s station, where doctors and nurses were studying their patients' vitals via computer monitors.
Ben looked at several other screens and saw seirei jins being watched through a security camera in their room. Some were asleep, others were awake, pacing back and forth and still, and others were sitting in a corner with their heads down in despair. Ben watched with hundreds of questions in his mind but wasn’t sure where to start. Reynolds noticed and decided to break the silence as they stepped out of the elevator.
“Seirei jin and half breeds can get sick or injured, too, ya know," Reynolds replied. "This is where we hold them, away from public eyes."
Reynolds and Ben approached the nurse’s station, where a secretary was happily doing her job and processing data on the computer till she saw Reynolds and Ben approach. She stopped what she was doing and addressed them with a smile.
"Good evening, Agent." She stated cheerfully. "How may I help you?"
As a friendly gesture, Reynolds takes off his hat, holds it to his chest, and nods at the secretary.
"Excuse me, miss; I need to speak to the on-call physician, please."
"Of course, sir." She replied.
She picks up her phone and dials a few numbers to activate the intercom overhead.
"Dr. Geyser to the front desk, please, Dr. Geyser to the front desk." She softly announced.
In about a minute, one of the doors from a patient’s room opened, and Dr. Geyser stepped out, walking over to the nurse’s station.
“Who paged for me?" The doctor asked.
He then paused as he saw Agent Reynolds and Ben at the nurse’s station. He recognized them both, especially Ben, as he was Kevin’s Physician.
"Ben, what are you doing here? You don’t have clearance." Dr. Geyser asked.
"Relax, Doc, he’s with me," Reynolds announced.
"Dr. Geyser, you know he’s a half breed; he hasn’t used his powers since that incident. I’ve have been monitoring Kevin’s progress for years with no reiki activity. Ben states. How did this happen? Did you find anything?" Ben asked.
Dr. Geyser was unsure whether to tell Ben; he glanced over to Reynolds to see if it was ok, and Reynolds nodded in response.
"Honestly, he’s fine, just exhausted from what happened. The doctor replied. I can’t explain it but, there’s not a hint of reiki energy from him at all. From what I was told, he saved a crowd using his powers but normally, when a seirei jin or half breed uses their powers, there would be signs of energy particles around them, and for Kevin, there was nothing. Only minor scrapes and bruises."
Ben looked at Geyser in relief, thrilled to hear the good news; however, Reynolds was not pleased to hear that. He was hoping he would get some new information that would help solve the problem of the mysterious markings he saw on Kevin’s body.
"Where is he?" Ben asked. "I want to see him."
"Of course, he’s in room twenty-four; he’s resting now."
Ben walked past the doctor and over to Kevin’s room, where a soldier stood in front of the door; Agent Reynolds followed closely behind. The soldier guarding Kevin’s door allowed them entry; Ben’s eyes weld up with tears as he sees his son asleep, unharmed. He walks up to Kevin’s bed and goes down on his knees, relieved to see him.