Keary Taylor - The Human

The man sat in front of me, turned to the side so he was facing that flat rectangle. His fingers flashed over the pad that sat on the table, each of his fingers rapidly tapping certain points on it.

I watched him as he worked, observing the details that made up the whole that was him. His hair was so dark. So much darker than my own. It was longer than many of the other men I knew. It curled slightly at the ends.

His skin was dark as well and almost looked black in the creases and wrinkles. He didn’t have as many of those as Dr. Evans did though. Dr. Beeson was much younger.

I felt differently toward Dr. Beeson than I did toward Dr. Evans.

But I didn’t know how to identify that feeling.

I’d been taught to observe others and identify their body language. Shifting eyes and skittish hands indicated nervousness. A smile and bright eyes usually meant happiness. Tears and trembling lips were surely sadness.

But when it came to what happened inside of me, there wasn’t anything.

I’d stared at myself in a mirror for exactly ten minutes once. My face had been blank. No body language to read. I’d tried smiling like I’d seen others do. I tried frowning. But it didn’t look right.

I realized then that there had to be something going on inside to make the outside look correct.

My inside was mostly hollow.

“How do you feel, Eve?” Dr. Beeson asked, finally turning toward me. His eyes looked sad.

“I feel like myself,” I said.

He studied me, much like I had studied him moments ago.

“You don’t feel angry?” he asked. “You don’t feel sad?”

I shook my head.

He kept looking at me, not saying anything.

So I kept looking back at him.

His eyes rose to look at someone behind me. “The last adjustment is holding. She doesn’t need another.”

“Very good,” a voice said. I turned in my seat to find the speaker. There was a large television with a gruff-looking man on the screen. His eyes narrowed at me. “Keep us updated.”

“Yes, sir,” Dr. Beeson said. I turned back to him, and noticed uncertainty in his eyes.

Dr. Beeson didn’t like the man on the screen.

“Try it again,” the woman said patiently. “Look at the letters. Sound them out.”

I looked from her face back to the book. The words seemed to shift and rearrange themselves on the page. But I narrowed my eyes, focusing on one word.

“Bio…” I struggled to make them stay focused. “Bio…log…ical.”

“Very good,” she said, a smile spreading on her face. She patted my back. “Read on.”

“The biological reasons for this are unknown. Possible exp…lanations include increased risk of pregnancy complications.” I paused, looking from the article to the woman again. “Why am I reading this?”

“Because it helps you learn,” she said, her eyes meeting mine. Something changed in them, but I didn’t know how to recognize it.

I blinked twice at her before turning back to the article.

I was almost finished reading it when Dr. Evans stepped inside the room. I met his eyes and he gave me a sad smile. His smile was always sad.

“Keep reading,” the woman said. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I kept reading.

The woman and Dr. Evans slipped to the back of the room and talked in quiet voices.

“Any sign that the dyslexia is improving?” Dr. Evans asked.

“Slowly but surely,” she said.

I tried to keep my reading smooth and even so they would not be able to tell I was listening.

“This is taking longer than we expected,” he said. “Subject one has recovered much more quickly and from a much more serious neurological condition.”

The woman was quiet for a moment. “I wish you wouldn’t call them that. We could give them real names.”

Dr. Evans paused, the air serious, even from across the room. “It’s easier this way.”

Neither of them said anything and finally I heard the door open and then click shut again.

“This is argued to be caused by an unbalanced gen…” I struggled.

“Genomic.” The woman was flustered and distracted if she was giving me the full word without making me sound it out.

“Genomic imprinting,” I continued. “Favoring paternal genes in the case of autism and maternal genes in the case of psychosis.”

“Very good,” the woman said. “You can take a break before you are taken to the gym.”

And she turned and left.

Since I didn’t normally feel pain, I didn’t know how to describe the feeling.

Like cold and sandpaper squeezing all the nerves in my head.

It wasn’t crushing or like fire, like some of the pain I had experienced before.

This was like slow suffocation.

My eyelids fluttered open for a moment. There was no detail to the space around me, just hazy gray.

“…can’t go out like this,” a voice said. “Look at her.”

“I don’t see how we have much of a choice.”

Goosebumps prickled along my skin. The air around me was chilly and moist.

That cold, grating feeling in my head pulsed once and darkness started rising in my eyes.

An alarm was sounding and I placed my hands over my ears in attempt to block it out. People dashed down the halls, shouting, fear in their eyes.

Dr. Evans peered around the corner, looking both ways down the hall, before turning back to me.

“We’re going to run for Dr. Beeson’s office, okay?” he said. He was just as scared as everyone else. “You’re not going to say a word and you’re going to do whatever he tells you. Don’t say anything, got it?”

I nodded, my eyes wide.

There was something clawing under my skin, fighting to break out.

I suddenly hoped Dr. Beeson might do an adjustment and make the feeling go away.

“Let’s go!” he yelled.

My hand gripped tightly in his, we sprinted down the hall.

“We can’t afford to wait any longer.”

I knew that voice and it made my fists ball.

“You rouse her too quickly and we could lose her,” a voice said.

And suddenly everything in me flooded back to life.

I was off the table in a frantic scramble. Finding Margaret at my side, my right hand closed around her throat. Grabbing a shining blade from the table, I backed her into a corner and held the blade to her throat.

“Let me go,” I hissed.

There were three others in the room. A man who looked like he must be a doctor, and two soldiers.

“Calm down, Eve,” the doctor said. “Or you’re going to make yourself bleed to death.”

As he spoke I felt a wet, warm trickle work its way down my neck. I glanced down just a moment too long.

One guard snatched Margaret out of my grip, but not without the blade nicking her jawline. She cursed loudly. The other guard rushed me, pressing his shotgun across my throat, pinning me to the wall.

It had been a line of blood that had distracted me, running from the back of my head, down around my throat and in between my breasts.

“Please calm down,” the doctor said, wild fear in his eyes. He held his hands up as if he were surrendering. “You’re already tearing the stitches.”

“What are you doing to me?” I barely managed to get the words out. My body shook with rage and uncertainty.