Life of a School Girl
Chapter 2- The Crazies Abound
[I'm really bad at naming stuff…]
The whitecoats come over to my cage. They unlatch my door and grab my arm to drag me out. They pull me hard, and I stumbled, but Claw, who was also being taken, helped steady me. I get my bearings and have time only to smile my thanks to him before the whitecoats push us off into different directions. In the School we need to stick together, be strong for each other. That's not really one of my strong points, but I try.
Little Ari tried to follow me, but Jeb held him back. "No, son, you stay with me and I'll show you around some more." Good, I thought, he doesn't want to see this, anyway.
We walk down the halls and corridors, lined with cages upon cages of test subjects. I'm located in Human Hybrid section 3 (They ran out of space in the first 2 sections.) Pretty much, if you can think of it, it's here. Cats with human hands? Yup. Monkey's bodies with giraffe necks and fish heads? Take a right to the aquarium. Human/wolf things? Made on an assembly line, literally. Humans and avians? Your's truly!
I pass some faces I've known for a while. Some faces I should know but can't place because they've been changed and disfigured. Some faces that have been replaced.
We finally reach today's testing room. I recognize it as the room where they test your durability; by that I mean they hit you with something hard, do it some more in a bunch of different places at different levels of force, then check the bruising; then you come back later to see the healing rate.
I grimace at the prospect of this torture, but wordlessly take my place on the stone hard table. As the beatings commence I look around and notice the Gasman going through the same procedure. How many times do they have to do the same tests!? They have the information they need, don't they!? I think bitterly to myself. It's not usual that I get angry like that, but something about seeing them hurt the little kid got me enraged.
When the whitecoats looked away for a moment to compare results, I stood up and walked over to Gazzy. He was huddled up, silently crying. I wiped his tears and tried to comfort him. I didn't want to hurt him, but I don't think I did too well with that.
"I know your pain." I crooned. "I know it hurts. I know..." The Gasman just looked at me, and I really did empathize with him.
"What are you DOING!" the outraged voice came from behind me. "You're going to mess up our data!" the whitecoat continued. She grabbed me by the arm to move me away so she could 'assess the damage.' That got me even angrier.
"Is that all we are to you? DATA!? What about the fact that you're hurting a THREE-YEAR-OLD for this data!? Did it never occur to you that it HURTS!? What about this, does this hurt!?" I outburst without warning, throwing my fist into the face of the whitecoat that had grabbed me. There was a loud snap, a gasp, and a thud as the woman I hit fell. Blood spurted out of her nose like I'd turned on a faucet.
Everyone looked very shocked.
I have to admit, even I was shocked. It was just that something about seeing the Gasman this way made me super protective. I'd just snapped.
The whitecoats got over their shock quickly, and the one nearest the fallen woman knelt by her to see how badly she'd been hurt. Another one got the guards.
Oh, crap.
I knew I'd pay big for my spell of insanity. Then I felt a small tug on my arm and looked down. The Gasman was hugging my arm "Thank you" he said. I wasn't sure what he was thanking me for; the boat-load of trouble I'd gotten us in? Then I understood: he was thanking me for caring about him, about his feelings, about his pain, and for sticking up for him.
I bent down a little and smoothed back his dirty blond hair. "Any time."
Then the guards came. They all look like perfect men, until they change. We called them Erasers, because they simply erase any rebels; people like me. I understood that just then, little Gazzy was going to see his new hero torn to shreds.
The first Eraser started to turn wolfish, his teeth growing into fangs, huge paws with claws morphing from his hands, hair sprouting all over his body, a muzzle where his mouth should be. He wound back his fist to strike when suddenly a loud commanding voice came from behind him.
"Stop right there!"
It was Jeb. I gaped at him, wondering why he wouldn't just let them get it over with; and by the shocked looks on all of the Eraser's face, I knew they were wondering the same thing, only they were disappointed.
Jeb pushed through the guards and made his way over to me and the Gasman. He put his hand under my chin and looked at the bruises that were just starting to bloom on my face. He tutted, and moved over to the Gasman, evaluating his bruises. He turned with a look of disapproval to the whitecoat and the Erasers.
"Now, what have you done with these two?" Jeb asked, incredulously.
'What have we done? What about what it's done?" Asked the white coat, pointing at me, then to the whitecoat on the floor. "We were just running some standard tests, when this freak started to go crazy! I was just following protocol, calling the guards."
Jeb seemed not to hear what he had said, and continued his own train of thought. "I told everyone not to do any tests on the Human-Avians that would leave marks, didn't I? Your name's Dr. Wilkins, am I correct?" Dr. Wilkins looked stunned and furious, but nodded. "Well, Wilkins, you did not follow my orders. That's very bad. I'm head scientist of this group, but you disregarded what I said, and went along with your own testing. Then you were prepared to kill the most successful recombinant life-form we have to cover it up! You're the one at fault! Now, you can either get out of my sight this instant, and never come back, or, you can feed the guards yourself for the last time. Do I make myself clear?"
Although Jeb's voice hardly rose, his threats made Wilkins literally wet his pants. He just backed up, wide-eyed, staring at the eraser's yellow fangs and long claws, muttering, "Yes, yes, very clear, sir, crystal clear. I understand, sir. I'm going, sir. Very clear, sir. Never see me again, sir. My mistake, sir. Very clear, sir."
You might think he'd try to put up a defense, but now the Erasers were looking at him with the hungry gleam in their eyes, like I just dare you to trip.
I gave him a little wave good-bye as he dashed through the door. I could practically see his tail tucked between his legs.
"Now, what are you all standing around for? You have your stations, am I correct? Back to them, everyone. Tata! Shoo." Jeb said to the Erasers, waving them away. Then he squatted next to the whitecoat that was injured, still out cold, and the whitecoat helping her.
"Am I right to assume you had nothing to do with all this?" he asked, raising his eyebrows, like, there are still a few Erasers hanging 'round, if you want me to fetch them...
The conscious whitecoat's eyes went wide and very round. "Um, no! No, sir! We were- we were just doing what Wilkins told us! Nothing to do with this! Nothing at all! We didn't know about your orders, we-"
"Okay, I get it, enough blathering. Get her to a hospital. Hurry now!" Jeb said. The other whitecoat hoisted up the injured one, and tentatively asked a guard for help.
When they were gone Jeb turned to me and Gasman. I inched away, gripping Gasman's hand, terrified of what he would do to us.
But he just started laughing. He laughed so hard tears rolled down his cheeks. "Did you see the look on his face? Priceless!" His laugh was infectious, and soon we were all laughing from relief. It was like suddenly all the troubles in the world lifted, and we were free.
But it wasn't true. Eventually we quieted down. Jeb looked us over again, and tutted some more. "Those'll take some time to clear up." he thought out loud. "Have the rest of the day off, for healing." he announced. We looked at him, unable to believe what he was saying. We had barley been out for an hour.
"We have a big day tomorrow, you and the rest of the 'flock' need to look good."
At this we were ecstatic. The whole 'flock' stayed in our cages the rest of the day, and at dinner time we got two bowls of food. The food was disgusting, some gray kind of slop as usual, and it made Gasman stink; but it's still food.
They also hosed us down real well, and gave us towels to scrub ourselves with. Whatever was happening tomorrow must be really important.
We were all a little disappointed that Claw wasn't considered a part of the festivities, though. He only got one serving of food, and didn't have the day off. Although the rule of no testing that would leave visable marks seemed to apply.
Also, Iggy didn't seem to be a part of it. He didn't make it back in time for dinner at all. We tried to stay up and wait for him, but Claw and I were the only one to manage it. Outside the tiny window, the sun was just rising when Iggy came back.
The whitecoats shoved him in his cage, and he looked shaken. He stared at me in shock, and I wondered what could have scared him so much.
I scooted closer to his cage, and Claw asked "What's wrong? What did they do to you? What are they going to do to you?" We've all been through some pretty tough stuff, so we wondered what could have possibly scared him so much.
We all had raptor vision, so I could see Iggy almost perfectly in the nearly nonexistent light, and through the bars of our own and Nudge's and Gasman's cages. Iggy, however, could see the best out of all of us, and I knew he could see me perfectly.
He answered my question in barely more than a whisper, I had to lip-read to really understand what he was saying, but what I made out scared me even more then Wilkens was scared of Jeb. I instantly got angry and protective again. Claw sat up straight and practically growled at the prospect of this new horror. The whitecoats were crossing the line big on this one. The whitecoats had never done something of this magnitude before. What he said made my skin crawl like there were billions of ants on each square-millimeter of my skin. I just can't wrap my head around why the whitecoats keep trying these kinds of things; they almost never succeed, and their fails result in disastrous consequences-usually death.
"They're going to operate on my eyes"
What'd you think? 1903 words, again excluding this bolded bit.
At the end, by 'this magnitude,' she meant majorly effecting one of the five senses.
Did I build up the suspense a little too much on the eyes bit? You all knew it was coming, so was the lengthy paragraph necessary? Opinions, please!
We saw a little of the Max we know, just a glimpse of her potential. Jeb had to save her butt.
A few questions answered, but many new ones to be asked. What's so important about tomorrow? Why can't the whitecoats test as usual?
Oh, and ages: Claw: 13 Max, Fang, Iggy: 9 Nudge: 6 Gasman: 3 Ari: 2 Angel: 1 Jeb: Adult.
By the way, did you think Jeb was a bit out of character? I don't have much to go on, as I don't really remember his personality...
Reviews, PLEASE! Again, I don't want to beg, but I will do what's necessary to get reviews! If you liked it, tell me! If I failed horribly, tell me!(Nicely, if you can, though.) If I messed up on anything, I need to know, so tell me! If you read it, but have no emotions, tell me! If you laughed at all, tell me!(No, really, please do. I don't remember trying to be humorous writing this...) If you farted like the Gasman while reading this, keep it to yourself, but tell me you read it!(OK, maybe I lied about not trying to be funny...) If you want more, tell me! TELL ME EVERYTHING!
Dawn is coming, a new day approaches, and there are many questions to be answered. The next chapter is on its way. Read on, my dear reader!