Shaw is leading her by her elbow like an unruly toddler, and she lets him do it. Perhaps in his own way, he believes he’s helpful, escorting her like a regretful blind date. Or, perhaps it’s exactly what it seems, he’s nothing but overbearing. Yes, that’s far more likely.
Above all, one thing is certain, and that thing is that Dr. Valentine realizes she doesn’t like it and pulls her elbow out of his hand with an over-exaggerated jerking motion.
“I’m not comfortable with being led anywhere by you.” Her eyes drill into his.
Shaw’s smile fades.
Oh, that’s perfect. Is that embarrassment on his face? So, what if he’s offering me an olive branch now? Too little too late.
He says nothing to her. His smile fades.
There’s a reason she and Shaw are here, and she’ll be patient long enough to get some answers.
“Uh, Private, uh…,” Snapping his fingers as if it will help Shaw recall the private’s name.
“Tummons,” says the private, yawning widely, a mouthful of crooked teeth shine in the hallway lights before he makes eye contact and winks at Merna.
“Right, Tummons, right, of course, I knew that. I wish to collect two, no, no… make it three subjects.”
“Children.” Dr. Valentine corrects him. “Not subjects. Children.”
“Not children,” Shaw inserts. He corrects her under his breath, “subjects.”
The problem is she’s made it all too clear her fondness for Rose, and she knows he’ll use it to take little digs at her.
After what she’s experienced in the OR she’s not quite sure how she should feel about it either. But, every so minutely her original thought on the subject shifts back into place. These are children who were affected by something that no one understands. It wasn’t what they wanted. They’re just as much a victim of circumstance as every other survivor on the planet.
“Bring, Rose,” he says, looking for a pat on the back for acknowledging that the kid has a name, but he won’t get one from her.
She nods. Resigning her immediate concerns on the matter giving into curiosity. She knew he’d include Rose in whatever demonstration he has planned. She braced herself for it the best she could.
“And also, bring R – Zero – Four – E, and R – Zero – Six – E, to the main courtyard,” Shaw continues.
On these two, Merna agrees, Hawthorne and Ivy are both special cases. She hasn’t connected with them the same way she has with Rose.
Tummons shouts down the hall to another soldier who runs off to collect the children from their rooms.
Chapter Eleven
“Don’t judge someone by how they look, judge them by how many people they’ve harmed.”
Something feels different. This is out of order, Rose can hear keys rattling in the corridor. Lab Work Day normally ends with an early day back to her room, and a chance to read more of The Wizard of Oz.
The keys on the big ring jingle. A green man throws her door open wide. He’s a big gawking man.
“What’s happening?” she asks. The man only stares at her with dark, beady eyes. She doesn’t like him, she decided it without giving him a chance, but she’s no fool. She can tell he doesn’t like her, just like the rest of the green men.
“Get your arse up,” he says. His accent is thick and as guttural as they come.
Rose has seen this green man before, and she knows how to get under his skin. She looks him right in the eyes. It makes him uncomfortable. She knows it, and that’s why she does it.
“Aye, aye, aye, aye aye. None of that lookin’ into meh eyes like that. Yeh gonna make me crazy, like a hornet in a bottle.” He jostles nervously from one foot to the other and back again like he’s barefoot on hot pavement. He pokes at her with his weapon. “I’m dead serious so, if yeh get yeh arse up, that’d be ripper.”
He has a bad temper. She’s seen it before, with the other children, and it’s never a good thing when they test him. There was this one time when he shoved Ivy so forcefully, it sent her rag-dolling across the floor.
He’s scared of Rose, and all the other children too; wet-your-church-pants scared. That’s why he acts out the way he does.
“Right-o. Out now. Yeh just be all apples and I won’ have to pop yeh head wide open, now will I? Ay? Ay?” He motions with his rifle for her to move through the doorway and out into the hall.
Once out of her room, she finds Hawthorne following her with his eyes. His expression is one of repugnance. What does he expect her to do, but follow directions?
Saying nothing she takes her place; standing in front of the boy just like during morning line-up. Now she’s certain that something wrong, because no one else is with Hawthorne, and usually the others are already lined up too. That and protocol isn’t being followed, and the green men didn’t bother to call out the Wayfinders. Ivy is the last to be collected from her room before they are marched to a place that Rose has never been before.
The green men take them to a side door. It’s reinforced, like the operating room door. The only difference being there are extra steel plates welded onto it.
They wait while Private Osbourne holds a rifle on them, pointed at their heads while another green man, one that Rose has never seen before, uses a big keyring and initiates a lengthy search for the key that will open the door.
“Cam on, Cam on. Open it already, mate,” urges the Australian soldier. “Marcia’s waiting for me, and I need to get over there before she cools down.”
“Don’t flip your wig, Ozzy,” says the key holder, and mutters something about, being dizzy with a dame, as continues to search for the key. When he finds it, he slips it into the lock and turns the key.
The lock is hesitant but grinds open with a bit of force. The door swings back. It claps hard against the courtyard wall, and a loud metal boom echoes through the corridor. Ivy gets the muzzle of the key holder’s rifle against her shoulder, and she moves forward and through the door.
A fierce light, far brighter than the little one hanging in Rose’s room, and far, far brighter than the ones where Dr. Shaw cuts up children when he wants to look inside them, causes her to blink her eyes, and they water with big salty crocodile tears. She feels dazed, but the feeling isn’t unpleasant. To the contrary it’s euphoric. She almost falls, but its as if the rays of the light catch and support her.
Rose is sandwiched between Hawthorne who is standing at her back and Ivy who leads the section of three. If it weren’t for Ivy pulling her along she wouldn’t be able to move at all.
As it is, Rose thinks that Ivy feels the same way she does, because the soldier with the keys has to push into Ivy’s spine with the muzzle, to get her to move. Hawthorne is dragging behind; she can feel his weight preventing her progression into the courtyard.
It’s hard to concentrate here in this place. Her head swims, but Rose manages to inspect her surroundings, as best she can muster under the circumstances. Her heart beats become erratic, and her rate of breathing quickens.
The small yard in which they’re corralled, is surrounded by tall fences with endless jumbles of wire around the tops and each coil thereof have pointy, triangular pieces of sharpened metal welded all throughout.
Rose chances a glance skyward searching for the source of the delightful, life-giving warmth beaming down on her. It’s coming from a yellow smudge way up in the sky. The sheer radiance of the thing forces her to squint and pushes her head down; her eyes water from the spectacle of it. What is it? She braces herself for the power of the golden star above and lifts her face again to confront the radiant disk She is doused in the golden, sweet rays of the Sun. Tingles and tickled creep along all her delicate skin. Energy swells deep within her and finds its way to every one of her fingers and toes. She imagines that tiny pinpoints of light flow from the ends of her hair.