Max Baker: Guardian of the Ninth Sector by Matthew Cronan

that he could see the entire length of the hallway.  Without any more hesitation, Max hurried to the end of the hall. 
    Using his hands as torches, he moved more confidently down the length of the hall.  As he grew closer to the door, he could see that the stone walls of the corridor were mostly barren, but a few paintings were hung sporadically.  They were all covered in cobwebs and dust, and he could not make out what any of them were.  As he reached the door, one of the last paintings caused him to double take as he passed by it.  He could have sworn that the painting was a portrait…of himself.  He returned to the painting, and as he inched closer to it, trying to examine it more closely, the woman on the other side of the door screamed again.  Max rushed to the door at the end of the hallway and pushed it open.
    Light flooded into the hallway, and Max had to shield his eyes so they could once again adjust.  However, when they finally did acclimate to the new level of light, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
    In the center of the large room was a hospital bed, his mother Evelyn lying in it.  She was pregnant and in the midst of childbirth, her swollen ankles and feet propped up into stirrups.  A tall man in green scrubs knelt down in front of her, and a stout woman was standing beside him.  The stout woman was wearing gloves that were covered in blood.
    “One more time,” the tall man instructed her.  “Push.”
    His mother screamed again.
    Max’s view was obstructed slightly by the stout woman, but he was able to see the tall man lift a small child away from Evelyn.  It let out a piercing cry, and Max felt his blood go cold.  The tall man handed the baby to the stout woman, who then took it to a stainless steel table next to the bed.  She began to clean it off, removing the blood from the infant’s grayish pink skin.
    “It’s another boy, Evelyn,” the tall man said.  “It’s over, you did it.”
    Evelyn looked exhausted. Her damp hair pressed was against her forehead.  Sweat and tears had rolled down her cheeks, but Max noted that even in this state she looked much healthier than she did now. 
    Max looked around the rest of the room. In the opposite corner, he saw a man looking on.  The man was dressed from head to foot in black garb, and from this distance Max thought it looked like the man from the picture he had seen during his last dream.  He wore a black fedora low on his brow, but his face was ugly and scarred.  He looked much younger than the man Max had seen in the picture, but there was no mistaking the resemblance.
    The stout woman placed the newborn in one of the two medical bassinets that were near Evelyn.  Max could see movement from both of the bassinets, and he knew he was looking at Aiden and himself.  He took a couple of steps further into the room to get a better view.  The tall man moved from one infant to the other, shining a small flashlight in their eyes and then taking his medical reflex hammer and quickly running it up the arches of each of their feet.  He picked up a metal clipboard from the foot of Evelyn’s bed and scribbled notes on it.
    The stout woman was busy tending to Evelyn, drying her forehead off and giving her ice chips from a foam cup beside the bed.  She adjusted Evelyn’s I.V. and fussed with her pillows, all the while keeping her eyes on the old man in the corner of the room.  After a few moments, the old man nodded toward her and then exited the room.  The stout woman whispered something into the tall man’s ear, and Max could see a worried expression mask the man's face.
    “Mrs. Baker,” the stout woman said, “I need to run a couple of tests on Aiden.  It looks as if he might have a touch of jaundice.”
    “Nothing to worry about though, Mrs. Baker,” the tall man in scrubs chirped.  “Have you heard from your husband?”
    She nodded and then asked the tall man for Max.
    Seeing himself be picked up and handed to his