After resting a moment, Mike was finally heading toward New York again, and the comforts of Dr. Horton's clinic. He knew his friends would be terribly worried about him. Half the afternoon had passed when Mike appeared in the clinic.
"What on Earth?....." Horton gasped when he heard a noise near the front doorway. He rushed from the back chemical lab area. "Mike! It's you! You're back!" he cried, when he discovered the boy propping himself up on a bed. Mike looked over to him with a sheepish grin.
"Oh, Bureaucrats!" he said, trying to sound cheerful, "I wanted to surprise you!"
"Don't worry, you did! Are you all right, son" What happened to you? You look terrible!"
"It's a long story, doc," Mike explained.
"You'd better hop up on this bed before you tell me about it. And I'd better let Cooper know you're here before he does something drastic!"
When Cooper arrived seconds later, Mike explained what happened to him as quickly as he could, while Dr. Horton gave him a thorough examination.
"You actually got struck by lightning twice?" he was asked by the amazed physician.
"Yeah, and would you believe I think that's what saved me and gave me enough energy to come to and get to that farm? I felt strange surges of power when that happened, different from anything that's ever happened before. The holes in my pants will show you it's true." The boy shivered, just thinking of the experience.
"Hmmmmmm, of course.  Natural electricity acts like a battery for you, with energy similar in power to what the transporter provided in the burst that gave it to you. The sun may hurt you, but lightning helps you. It's a good thing to learn and remember, but if I were you, I wouldn't plan to get too close to many more storms like that!"
"Don't worry, I don't intend to! What about your machine?"
"It will be recovered shortly. The homing device you activated is coming in handy. The search party I sent out in a jeep have radioed me that they're in its proximity right now. I'm sure it'll be intact and we can gather the information from it safely."
"What matters the most is that you're intact, son!" Dr. Cooper added, smiling so broadly it appeared he was blushing. "We couldn't very well send out a search party for you, since we didn't have the foggiest idea where to begin looking! I wish your first trip to California had been under more pleasant circumstances."
"You're lucky, Michael," Dr. Horton told him, "you'll be all right. You've got some pretty bad scrapes and bruises, but the worst thing you're suffering from is a terrible case of exhaustion. You'll have to have complete bed rest for a few days to fully recover, and regain your strength."
"Oooooooooh," Mike moaned. He put a hand on his stomach and stared at Cooper, wondering about the lab work.
"Everything's o.k., son. We'll take care of everything," Cooper told him.
"Excuse me, Doc," the boy said, "but there's something I have to take care of right now. Dr. Horton, may I please have the bed pan? I think I'm gonna give you those samples you asked for the other day!"
Cooper noticed Mike was blushing furiously. "See you later, son!" he told him, and headed back to the lab. Dr. Horton got Mike what he'd asked for, and after he was taken care of, he fell into a deep, uninterrupted sleep for a long, long time.
The next day Dr. Horton called Dr. Cooper to the clinic. He had an important question to ask him.
"I want to talk to you about those samples Mike gave me yesterday," he began. "How do you study something that's nothing?"