Chapter 4.
“What the ell?” I squeal, running around the table to push him away from Brian.
“He needs to calm down somehow!” York says heatedly to me. I turn around and see that Brian looks calm. He suddenly sits on the bench.
“I did it Ricki, I can read a lot more than one person's miond at a time. I read everyone in the facility. I know Mia was thinking of changing herself to look like June and getting with Luke tonight.” Mia blushed a deep red, her big wavy brown hair falling in front of her light green eyes.
“And Vaughn was eyeing Alexia.” Alexia glanced, surprised at Vaughn, who looked bewildered.
Then I hear him in my head, “And the doctors can’t be trusted.”
By the shocked faces surrounding me I gather he’s in their heads as well. “Yes, I’m broadcasting to the whole lot of you. The doctors will know I freaked out, but not over what. Not if I tell you like this.”
His face is concentrating on the table, his hands gripping it tightly, and his knuckles turning white. “I heard them thinking. Thinking about our genes.
"Some sort of splicing. They… They’re selling them to terrorists or private buyers, or planning to. It’s not about advancing the human race, it’s about increasing their wallet size.”
Everyone looks more shocked than before. Devin looks skeptical though.
“How do we know you’re not lying? Come on!” I shush her, but Ella speaks up as well.
“Yeah, I’m not one to agree with you, but he could be making this up.” Now everyone looks unsure.
Brian thinks again, “You have got to believe me. Something sinister is happening here. We can’t stay here. We need to leave and get out.”
Now Cal speaks up, “What is gene splicing? What does that mean?”
Brian shrugs, “I’m not too sure, I’m not a scientist. And I didn’t stick around in their heads long enough to find out and I’m not going back in, I’m never ever doing that again.”
His face is red with frustration, “They’re taking our genes and giving them to others, there is no telling what those people will do with them.”
He stops concentrating and turns to face everyone, his emotions undetectable. “If you don’t believe me that’s fine, but we were told we could leave at any time.
See if you can leave. Ask, tell them, see what they do, or see what they say.”
He stands from the bench and stalks out of the room, storming down the hallway and slamming the bunk room door behind him. We stay silent, some of us trickling away.
I just sit down. It’s only lunch time by now and I’ve got half a day of tests ahead of me that, now, I’m really not looking forward to.
Eventually everyone leaves, but me, leaving me to sit alone with my thoughts. I want to believe Brian. I don’t want him to be a liar or a fool, but I don’t want what he said to be true.
I came to the company on a spur of the moment decision. I can still remember the day the first letter came in the mail. At first I was scared, some body, some how had figured out what I could do.
Then I was excited, I could possibly get answers from whoever it was. Then lastly, I felt guilt. How could I ever think of leaving my parents? I was their only daughter.
I replied to the letter with a no, though I didn’t tell my parents. Then, when they sent another letter, persisting I accepted. I just had a gut feeling I should have done it.
Now I’m glad I have, the past year has been amazing, but now I'm regretting it for a moment.
“Ricki Robin Leroy, please report for check up,” announces the black speakers on the wall. I look up at the clock. I’m half an hour late!
I rush down the hall, Brian watches me pass by from inside his room, a disapproving glare on his face, and I mouth that I’m sorry.
I pass through the light metal doors into another hall way and turn into the second on the left.
A plaque on the side says “Check up” in big block letters and below in Braille. I touch if for a moment before I enter the room, hesitating for a slight second when the idea of not going in hits my head. I shake it off and push open the door.
“Hello, sorry for being so late Dr. Crane, I wasn’t looking at the clock.”
“It’s no problem,” says Dr. Crane, a tall thin man in a doctor’s coat. His short brown hair compliments his light blue eyes, and his short nose hold up his black thick rimmed glasses.
He glances up at me from his clipboard and makes a note. He weighs me, checks my height, and prepares me for a shot.
“What exactly are these shots for?” I ask before I realize I’m thinking it.
“Vitamins, we told you that the first time we gave it to you,” he says, a bit exasperated, “Ms. West asked when she came in to, I swear…” he mumbles off.
It reassures me a little to know that Pan was wondering as well. That I’m not the only one worried, even if it is only a little bit.
“Oh, right, sorry, I’m just not…” I trail off and shut my mouth. How do I know they are vitamins? I hate to admit it, but Brain makes me paranoid.
He is a good friend, but I don’t know much about his past, what if he is a compulsive liar?
Or there’s something else wrong with him? I bite my lips when Dr. Crane sticks the needle in my arm. I feel a pinch and then he tells me to sit up straight so he can listen to my heartbeat.
He listens to my back and chest, then takes my blood pressure, and says, “All right, we’re done here, head over to room 315.”
I nod and leave the room, heading farther down the bland hallway. I stop in front of the testing room and think. I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I don’t want to go in. However, I do. I push the door and walk in, “Dr. Dillard?” I say.
“Yes, I’m over here,” says Mr. Dillard’s voice from behind a stack of books and binders filled with papers. I sit in a spinney chair in front of his desk and wait.
I lean sneakily over to peek at the paper, but he grabs them right out from under my nose. “Nothing here, darling,” he calls everyone that, “Just papers for Payton’s testing. Well, lets get started, shall we?” He smiles at me.
His fluffy graying hair has always reminded me of the hair my grandpa had in pictures, so naturally I warmed to him sooner than the other doctors, but now, something in his kindly smile seems fake.
His happy green eyes seem dull and uninterested. However, I push the thought out of my head, not wanting to think badly of him.
He loads a tape recorder and presses play. “Did you dream last night?” He asks, his pen at the ready to take notes.
I think about my dream, it seemed so real, but then again, all of my dreams feel real, whether they turned out to happen or not.
I shift in my seat and say, “No, nothing last night, or, well, nothing important,” He smiles at me and raises his eyebrows.
“You know we like to hear everything, whether you think it could come true or not.”
“Well I dreamt that…” I trail off, not wanting to tell him what it was. I’m scared now because thinking of my dream reminds me of what Brian said.
That he thought there was something bad happening, what was it? Gene splicing and something about selling them? But, what did that mean? I’d only ever skidded by in science classes.
“I dreamt that me and Brian were kissing” I blurt out. It was the first thing to come to my mind that I would not have wanted to tell him.
He looks surprised, and I can understand why, I’ve never really dreamt of anything like that, but I smile shyly to try to make him believe it.
I never dreamt that in my life, but I’d thought about it. Of course, then again, I thought about kissing a lot of people.
“Well that certainly is a new one,” he says, scribbling a note on to his pad. Anything else? Any details?”
I blush and look away, embarrassed for saying it. “No, it was really fuzzy. I only remember kissing him.
And it might not have been him, maybe it was someone else, I can’t remember the what the face looked like exactly.”
“So this probably wasn’t one, alright then, I’m going to take some blood and I’ll see you tonight for night testing” I nod and let him prepare a needle and take it out.
When he’s done he shoos me out so he can work and I walk down the hallway to my bunk. I look toward the Male side of the hallway but both doors are closed.
I sigh and enter the room, walking to my cot and collapsing on it.