Black Betty

“Oh my God.” said a man in white lab coat, his eyes on the monitor. It was one of over fifty, showing the feed from cameras aimed at every entrance and exit in the hospital. He was currently using one to watch the video recorded of the night before, trying to make some sense out of what had happened.

Patients were not allowed to go missing.

The nurse standing behind him wrung her hands. “Security just showed it to me a few minutes ago, sir. I wasn’t working last night.”

“Who was working?” his words came out breathless, sweat beginning to form on his shiny red forehead.

The nurse swallowed. This could mean her job. “Nicole Taylor…I think. She would have been watching the corridor.”

“Send her to wait in my office. Thank you, Nadine.”

The woman nodded and left the room quickly, leaving the doctor to continue his horrified staring. He kept watching the flickering images of the dark-haired woman running through the halls, then slipping through a door and completely disappearing. Maybe he would have wondered how she’d done it, but he knew how.

Her name was Bethany, and she was the most powerful psychic in the entire facility. All he could do was watch her make her escape repeatedly, terrified not only for the people she would come in contact with, but also his job. Every possible precaution had been in place, there had been no flaw in security for over a year.

It was impossible. Not only because of how guarded she was, but because he couldn’t wrap his mind around the danger she posed out on her own. Her reactions to a world she had never been exposed to could close global catastrophes. The doctor wiped the cold perspiration off his brow, glancing at the black phone beside his elbow. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but it had to be done.

Reluctantly he picked the phone up off the hook, hands trembling, holding down the one and waiting for it to put him through to his boss’s secretary. She put him on hold and he waited, squeezing the bridge of his nose, trying to keep his anxiety at bay.

“What is it?” said the gruff voice that made everyone in the facility quake.

The doctor cleared his throat. “Uh, sir, we have an escapee from the telepathic ward.”

An irritated sigh. “Who?”

The name seemed to catch on his quivering, chapped lips. “Bethany.”

There was almost no pause on the other line. “For the sake of your job you had better be mistaken.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we have it on tape. The attending nurse must have left her post. I assure you she’ll be let go immediately.”

“Do you think that I care about some incompetent nurse?” the imposing voice’s volume shot up, causing the doctor to flinch away from the phone for a moment. “You oversee her, Gregory! How did she escape a guarded suppression chamber and also get out unnoticed?!”

“I don’t know, sir.” said Dr. Gregory, wiping his sweating palm on the coarse material of his lab coat. “That’s not everything.”

A pregnant pause. “That’s not everything? What else could there possibly be?” the man on the other line sounded absolutely livid. Gregory could imagine the man standing over his polished desk, pale face scarlet with rage.

Gregory wasn‘t sure if the second part was harder to admit. “She took Asha with her.”

The silence on the other end was foreboding, and when he did speak it was in his lowest, most deadly tone, so calm it was more frightening than the shouting. “She somehow managed to get into the nursery?”

“I think she had help.” blurted Gregory, hoping to cover his ass a bit better.

An dubious snort. “You had better be right. I’m coming down there.”

Dr. Gregory felt a new thrill of fear at those words. “Sir, there’s really no need to --”

“Apparently there is, since you can’t look after the place as well as I thought.” hissed the other man. “I want security to thoroughly search her room and the nursery, and every step she took to get out. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir.” grumbled Dr. Gregory, a slight blush of anger creeping into his face from being spoken to like he was incompetent.

The line went dead and Dr. Gregory cursed quietly. He knew as well as his boss that now Bethany was free, it was highly unlikely they would ever find her again.

Gregory hurried down the pristine white halls from the security office to his own office. He opened the door, expecting to see the blonde Nurse Taylor sitting in the leather chair across from his desk. Instead there were two of the security guards, dressed in the plated black armor and red goggles of the security uniform.

“Where’s Taylor?” asked Gregory stiffly.

The men exchanged a glance, the one closest to Gregory speaking. “She’s missing as well, doctor. Her things are still in her locker, but we’ve searched the entire facility and she seems to have disappeared.”

“How could she disappear?!” Gregory found himself yelling at them, his glasses almost flying askew. “Unless there has been a lapse in security.”

“Sir, it’s possible she somehow escaped with…” the other guard began, falling silent under Gregory’s heated gaze.

Gregory put on a smile that was more grimace. “Search the facility again. Twice if you have to. Bring me something or pack your things, the both of you. Now get out.”

They jogged past Gregory, their boots making twin clomps on the tile floors. Gregory slammed the door shut after them, staggering to his desk and slumping into his chair. He leaned his elbows on his desk, resting his face in his hot palms. The pressure of the job had been getting to him for years, but nothing like this.

In the next few hours his seething boss would arrive, and then all hell would break loose.