He looked around to see if the monkey men had changed position or anything, which they hadn't. An odd sensation immediately caught and held his attention. When he'd turned his head to look, the left side of his face felt as if he pressed it against a balloon or something similar, while the right side felt like it was pulling away from that same material.
The slightly cold and icky feeling compelled him to look for the cause, but there was nothing he could see. He raised a hand to his face only to freeze when he encountered the same slightly stretchy, almost sticky substance with the hand. Oh God. He was…coming undone. There was no other word for it. Shock jolted him to his feet despite feeling like dried glue was being peeled off his entire body at one time.
Standing there, he stared open-mouthed at his chair—where his body still sat unmoving and silent! He turned to the doc for an explanation but the guy was sort of hovering in the air, eyes rolled back in his head. A trance?
Tyler's body sat there as if he were dead, except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest. At least he was alive. As near he could figure, his mind had somehow left his body and was wondering about on its own.
Wait, why was he suddenly looking down—not a little down, but down from the ceiling—at his body? Did that mean he could move around? He stepped to the right a little with no ill effects. Three steps left caused no problems either. After a deep breath, he tried moving further from his body. That didn't seem to change anything either. Huh. Who'd have thought you could just…take your body off like a glove and walk around in your mind?
Would he be able to do it any time he wanted? Was he really walking around or was he dreaming it? Whatever it was, it was frickin amazing. Talk about a super cool power! Almost as good as invisibility.
Caught up considering the possibilities, he paced the room in a random pattern, not paying much attention to his surroundings. One of the monkey men snored a little and Tyler went over for a closer look, interested despite his distaste for them.
Standing there in the quiet, if he'd still been in his skin he'd have jumped out of it when several voices spoke at once. He listened closely to the snippets of gibberish with an understandable word here and there, all running together. "…human boy…can't…why…hurt him…Mother will be angry…we're guilty…" Without the connecting bits, none of it made sense. Tyler began to pace again, answering the strange energy setting up inside him. Or was it around him? It was hard to know.
A new voice froze Tyler in his footsteps. "...human subject shows remarkable ability for astral projection. Are the Archangels aware? They could certainly exploit the talent for espionage, especially since adolescent human males seem almost invisible to other humans. Definitely worth mentioning."
Tyler looked around for the speaker but no one else had come into the room. The monkey men still looked like they were sleeping, and the doc still floated there in his trance. Who the heck was that? It couldn't have been his imagination, right? He took a closer look around and didn't find so much as an air duct that could have carried the voice from another room. Whatever. He went back to pacing.
When nothing more interesting came up, he started thinking about Francis and his plan. From what he knew of gangs and street kids, it wouldn't be easy to win a kid away from the gang. Most of the time, there was no one else the kid could depend on outside his gang family. He knew how he'd feel in the same situation. In fact, after he was on his own, a gang would probably have been the safest place for him. Too bad he didn't find one in time to keep him out of those creeps' clutches.
"…seem to share some genetic material. Is a common ancestor possible? If so, at what distance?" The mystery voice started up again, surprising Tyler once more. It seemed similar to the doc's voice this time. Listening carefully, he moved closer to the doc and waited.
"Tyler?"
Tyler moved to stand in front of the doc, but didn't try to reply. He searched for some sign of awareness in the man's face, and found absolutely none. He was still in an unconscious-looking state, eyes rolled back, lips parted, jaw slack, looking for all the world as if he'd had a few too many beers and just dozed off.
"I thought so. Continuing notes. Subject demonstrates ability to overhear thoughts. This might be cultivated to become telepathic communication. Tyler, I want you to respond to me. A simple yes or no will suffice for now."
The idea to be difficult came as a knee jerk response and he didn't answer.
"Ah, so you prefer to play charades? Fine. No matter. Remember, I can read your thoughts. Obstinacy serves no purpose."
Great. "Okay."