Chapter 4: Way of the Land
Still smiling like she's posing for her yearbook picture, Dr. Tate goes around the table and unlatches the binds around my wrists and ankles. I drop down onto the floor, expecting to land on my feet for the first time on dry land in a year, but immediately crumble to the ground.
"Easy there, Mr. Turner," Dr. Tate warns, helping me to my feet. I feel like my legs are made of rubber. I steady myself on the table and notice my wrists for the first time.
"Where's my watch?" I ask, noticing a white band of skin around my left wrist. "What have you done with my watch?"
"A…watch?" Dr. Tate asks, as if I was asking about some sort of alien technology. "I'm sorry, Mr. Turner but I never saw you until we had you strapped down on the table. I'm not sure where they would have put it."
"Great," I say, thinking that this day couldn't get any worse. I take a few shaky steps away from the table around the room until I'm confident in my footing. I nod at the doctor and she opens the door, waiting for me on the outside. I take a few steps toward the door until I notice the mirror on the wall. I'm wearing a grey t-shirt and a pair of blue shorts, but that's not what's got my attention. Whatever it is that they have that's keeping me alive on land it's like a high-tech air tank. Two clamps are attached around my gills, feeding me water, and two more are around my ribs…it feels so weird….
"Mr. Turner?"
I look away from my reflection to see Dr. Tate looking at me with a look of amusement on her face.
"S-sorry, doctor," I stutter, walking though the door finally. We're in a small white hallway lined with doors and the smell of antiseptic in the air. Despite the stillness of the hallway I can hear a slight humming coming from the door at the end of the hall. "What's that sound?"
Dr. Tate, who's making her way towards the door, looks at me with a knowing smile and says, "Oh, your senses really are good! That, Mr. Turner, is the sound of who I like to call the monkeys."
When she opens the door it feels like I've been transported to an entirely different world. I walk out onto a catwalk overlooking a huge factory floor lined with tables and machines. A crowd of men and women in white coats walk around everywhere carrying clipboards and tools in their hands. The hum of machines and a thousand conversations is deafening to me.
"We call this place the Beta Floor," Dr. Tate tells me over the noise. "We're ten floors below the lobby of the Temper Industries Building. Anyone from any department can come down here to test out their ideas. We're at the robotics and engineering section right now."
"How many sections are there?" I ask, amazed at the vastness of the room.
"Ten, side by side, with hallways and rooms like we just came from connecting them."
"That's massive!" I look at her in astonishment, "This stuff wasn't here before the Impact!"
"A lot can happen in a year," Dr. Tate smiles, starting down the catwalk.
I walk behind her looking at all of the machines the engineers are working on. I see everything from robotic arms to self tying shoes. This must be the place where my tank came from.
We reach the end of the catwalk and walk through a door into another hallway.
"So where are we going?" I ask as Dr. Tate turns corner after corner, never stopping.
"I am to show you to your quarters," she says. "Along with all of the testing rooms we also have apartment sections for anyone that needs to spend the night or, more recently, for when we acquire some of your people."
There's something weird with the way that she said 'your people'. Like even though I couldn't see her face when she said it, it's like her entire body tensed up when she said it…weird.
The sound of our footsteps rings through the halls, my bare feet against the tile and her sneakers thumping along with each step; it feels like I can hear everything around us…including a third set of steps.
I turn around for a second but don't see anyone behind me, coincidently the other steps stop once I do. Dr. Tate turns around. "What's wrong Mr. Turner?"
"…" I can hear breathing. "I'm not the only Carrier here, am I?"
Laughter comes out of nowhere and a man suddenly paints himself into existence in front of me, smiling at me just like everyone else around here does.
"Mr. Young!" Dr. Tate yells, stamping towards the man. "You're not supposed to be out of your apartment right now!"
"Relax, sweetheart," the man says, pushing past her and extending his arm to me. "Malcolm Young, fellow Carrier, at your service. I'll be training you for your mission."
I shake his hand, trying not to put too much of my strength into it. "Invisibility? Wish I got that."
"Really?" Malcolm chuckles, "You try running around for weeks without knowing where your hands are."
"Mr. Young," Dr. Tate interjects, stepping between us. "I must demand that you go back to your room right now!"
"Yes, mother," Malcolm says, winking at me before turning invisible again. Dr. Tate screams in protest but I can already hear his footsteps echoing down the hallway away from us. Dr. Tate stomps down the hall again.
"Honestly," she says, turning a corner to a room lined with different doors. "I don't understand that man. We take him in from the street, give him food, shelter and new clothes, the least he can do is follow our rules! If any human can do it then you people can do it too!"
She stops at one of the doors and turns back to me. "What, Mr. Turner?"
I'm staring at her, trying to comprehend what she just said. "If any human can do it"?
"What did you mean by that? 'If any human can do it'?" I ask.
Dr. Tate looks puzzled for a minute, but then looks at me like I'm an idiot. "It means you're not human."
She doesn't even blink. She just keeps looking at me with that face. I'm confused with a split second and then rage just spills out of me.
"I'm not human." I can't stop myself. "I'm NOT human?! You know where I was three minutes after the impact? In the river, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I only stuck my head out once and I heard the screaming. I saw people attacked and killed by Blights in spitting distance from where I was swimming and I couldn't do ANYTHING about it because I couldn't step out of the water without freaking drowning in the air!"
I'm right up on her and I can see the fear in her eyes.
"So you tell me," I scream, "when you experience the hopelessness, anger and fear that I felt that day, what it means to be human!"
I open the door and slam it behind me, leaving Dr. Tate speechless and stunned.
"...I am human."
To be continued
Log in to comment