Chapter Five

"I cannot believe you actually ate that!" Hayden exclaimed as we walked down the hall. "Dustin puked from eating it!"

"It wasn't that bad," Tanik mumbled, embarrassed.

"It wasn't that bad?-!" he exploded. "What have you eaten?-!"

"Worse than that." He left it at that, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know. My stomach still felt funny the way it was.

"What could possibly be worse than that soup—"

"Cadets!" We looked up as the head man—apparently the Corporal from what I heard of some of the other conversation at lunch—continued, "The Science Department is open and will be running your tests this afternoon on Level 57! Everyone head up there and wait until they call you in!"

"Level 57," I mused, doing anything to keep myself from focusing on the offending substance. "We're on Level 21 now…." I groaned as I finished the calculation and almost wished that I hadn't done the math as a distraction. "36 levels to go up."

/

We were almost to Level 57 when we could start to smell the chemically odor that could only belong to something relating to the Science Department.

My gut clenched nervously. I wasn't sure what "testing" entailed, and so couldn't be very well prepared for what I may have to get out of.

Okay, so if they want to do a physical examination, say you're a really private person and do your best to talk your way out of it. Worst comes to worst, fake a panic attack and get out of there. Determining that that could work, I nodded barely perceptively to myself. All right. Now how are you going to get out of it if they want to draw blood? Now that could be tricky. I didn't want them to suspect anything, but if they did more than blood typing (or even that much could give me away—I didn't know how that worked), I was done for.

Hayden pushed the door to Level 57 open—which we'd reached by this time—and led us into a large room filled with random scientific-y equipment for measuring height, weight, etc., which were all occupied.

"So….I guess we wait." I crossed my arms and started watching the proceedings to see if I would have to creatively get out of anything.

One doctor stopped in front of each of us. The one facing me eyed me critically. "Follow." He turned and left without another word.

The three of us exchanged supportive glances before I followed him away.

I cleared my throat. "So. You, ah, do this for a living?"

No response.

Okaay. "Uh…you always want to be a scientist or doctor?"

Silence.

"You do this every day?" I tried. "161 hours a week?" I figured I should allow him an hour of sleep a night. It seemed fair enough.

Finally, an answer: "Quiet."

A bit miffed, I replied, "Fine—I'll stop talking now."

I guessed that he was satisfied. I couldn't really tell with Mr. One-Word-A-Minute's elaborate and lengthy response—too many big words to understand.

"Gloves off."

We'd reached a table by now, and seeing the ink pads and slightly-marked up pages, I got it right away: Fingerprinting.

I stripped off my gloves, and he grabbed a sheet before pinching my thumb at the knuckle and rolling it around on the ink pad and pressing it down in a rectangular marking.

"You're a great conversationalist, you know that?" I asked him after a bit as he moved on to my right pinky.

He gave me a look, which I innocently returned. He scowled before snatching my left hand at the wrist and practically bruising my thumb against the pad.

"Ow!" I complained. "Watch the dominant hand, will ya?"

/

From there, we went to a wall measure and scale.

"So, do I just take off my boots?" I hesitantly asked.

The doctor ignored me. He must be a pro ignorer or something.

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes as I sighed through my nose. "Okay. I'll just take off the boots then." I crouched down and determinedly freed the laces from the bow-knot I'd tied them in before kicking them off and stepping on the scale.

It beeped, and he made a few markings on his paper before stepping over to the wall measure.

I obediently stood against the wall, and he used as little motion as possible to obtain my height and record the results as I sat down and grabbed my boots.

"Later," he gruffly ordered, walking past me and down an aisle. I bit back a protest and quickly shoved my other foot in before half-limping after him as I tried to shove my other heel all the way down. Success, and I walked normally—well, "guy" normally—for a few paces before he pointed at the table. "Up."

I complied and watched carefully to see what he would grab to give me an idea as to what exactly he'd be doing here. All he grabbed was a blood pressure cuff, knee-kick-bouncer-whatchamacalit, and the ear and nose examination thingy.

First, though, he took off the stethoscope from around his neck and plugged his ears with it.

I went along with it, and if he noticed any difficulty hearing my heart/lungs due to the extra layers around my chest, he didn't give any indication. The rest went as normal as any basic physical would, and in-between his note-taking I managed to tie my laces—well, sort of tie them; it wasn't quite the same way we were technically supposed to do them.

So, boot laces fastened and physical finished, I hopped off the table and followed the doctor through the labyrinth until we reached another folding table.

The man glanced up. "Another one already?" He sighed as he pulled out another sheet of paper. "Name?"

"Dustin Hynek," I replied, noticing Big 'n' Silent handing him the page from his clipboard as I did so.

"Mm." He glanced over the second sheet for a second before standing up. "Follow me."

Figuring I had no other choice, I followed the suit until we reached a wall with doors in it. We passed the first one—which was presumably occupied—and he stopped at the second, quickly fumbling with a key before holding the door open for me.

I walked through, not quite sure what to expect, and heard the door close behind me. I turned to ask the man what this was now to see no one there and hear the lock click back into place.

I stared. So now they're locking me in a darkish room by myself? What's that going to accomplish? How long it takes for me to go insane from boredo—

"GEAAH!" I leapt about a foot in the air as someone poked me in my upper back below my neck. I whipped around to see a redhead who was smirking and suppressing laughter.

"That was great, yo."

The parts with Dustin and the doctor "he" was stuck with were fun to write. :) Just wanted to say that.

PS Reviews make me happy. :D