Axel found himself sitting in the huge laboratory Dr. Quantos resided in. When Dr. Quantos met him at the front door and brought him inside, he kept on looking at Axel with a strange look on his face. It was twice as strange to Axel, because he couldn't figure out why Dr. Quantos didn't remember what he'd done for him more than a year ago! It was like his memory of that had been erased or something.

Mandy remembered Axel, though, and when Dr. Quantos brought the boy to the lab, the dog came out of her hiding place and ran up to Axel, her tail wagging as she jumped up at him and licked his hand, almost demanding him to pet her.

Dr. Henry Quantos just stood there leaning back against a work-table, his arms folded as he shook his head in wonderment. "Very strange. I've never seen her act that way with a stranger before. She's often fairly shy when she meets new people."

"Stranger?" Axel said in an offended tone as he tried to stop Mandy from licking his face excitedly. "I'm no stranger to either her or you, Doc! She remembers me, but why don't you?"

"Hmmm... this is the second time you've mentioned a previous meeting between the two of us, but I can't figure out what you mean," the Canadian doctor said. "Though I recognize you as Axel of the 7-member PSI-Unit, son, I've never actually met you in person before."

Axel just gaped at him as he realized something very strange had happened. Yet it was not unfamiliar territory to him, a child born with natural psychic abilities who had used those abilities as a hero and protector of this island nation. "They must've put mind-blocks in you somehow, Doc," he said. "Have you had other memory problems?"

Dr. Quantos wore a skeptical look on his face, but he finally replied, "Well... yes... but I don't see what that has to do with--"

"I can help you, Dr. Quantos."

"Mmm. Perhaps you can. I'm not sure I can trust your method of doing so, however, son, until it's been properly studied."

"Just let me see what's..."

"Axel, what are you...?" Dr. Quantos frowned as the boy reached out and grabbed hold of his hand...

...and the world faded away.

Axel entered the mind of Dr. Quantos in search of the familiar signs of memory-blocks placed through hypnosis in this afflicted mind. He expected to find familiar territory, but he found something else entirely. Something that had never happened before.

He saw a memory.

Or at least, it seemed like a memory. He saw a picnic bench covered with food and could smell roasted hamburgers on the grill. Tall mountains blocked the horizon on every side, and from a small mountain lake just a few feet away could be heard children's laughter. The picnic bench seemed lower than it should have, however, as if he was levitating a few feet over the ground. He looked down at his hands. They were HUGE! He looked down at himself, and he realized he was still standing on the ground.

"Axel, how about another burger, son?"

Axel turned his head. And he saw Dr. Quantos. The Canadian doctor was different, though. He seemed older, with more wrinkles on his face... a face which looked happier than it had in the present.

"Come on, Axel," Quantos said, laughing, "your old dad can't eat as much as he used to, and we don't want to have to throw these patties away, do we?"

"'Dad'?!?" Axel said, suddenly stopping himself as he heard his own voice. His own, suddenly DEEP voice.

It was then that it hit him. He was seeing a memory, yes, but it wasn't a memory of the past...

...it was a memory from the future!

Just as Quantos began laughing again, everything faded away...

...and Axel found himself back in the present as he let go of the grasp on Dr. Quantos' arm as if an electric shock had run through him.

He looked up at the old doctor, who returned his gaze with an astonished look on his face. "I don't know what that was, son," the doctor said in a slow, almost wavering voice, "but that was really very strange."

"You saw?" Axel said, still shocked at this strange new manifestation of his psychic abilities. "The picnic bench? The mountains? ... The future?"

"'Picnic bench'?" Dr. Quantos said, somewhat confused. "No, no, Axel. It's just that there's a memory tugging at the corner of my mind right now that I can't quite grasp." He placed his hand on Axel's shoulder and bent down to him. "But I think... I think maybe we have met before. Maybe... maybe if you told me a little bit about it, my memory will be jogged."*

At first, Axel could only smile at the kind face of the man who would become his adoptive father. After growing up in an orphanage along with the other orphaned kids in the PSI-Unit, he would finally have a father. A father!

quote:
(*) see future installments of Twists of Fate - starring Dr. Henry Quantos and Chance for the first meeting of Axel and Dr. Quantos... as well as the explanation of what happened to Axel at the end of issue #10...


[ 12-04-2003, 03:31 AM: Message edited by: TheTimeTrust ]