The Chronicles of Vallanie Sharp: Novice

by Morgan Feldman

Scia remained a strict mentor, though her methods toughened and loosened based on my rank. The ranks we received as apprentices were unofficial, and yet everyone knew about them. I was constantly wavering between second and fourth with Stacy Olins, who was almost always just ahead, and Grant Jones, who was almost always just behind. Zack Septus never wavered from first. We all thought he was going to be one of the youngest, if not the youngest apprentice to become a perceiver, and I was jealous he would steal the chance away from me.

  When I first saw Zack in the patient’s chair, I was shocked. Surely he wasn’t ill? The large white robes engulfed him, masking his virility, but were unable to devour his charm as he sat patiently, both feet planted firmly on the floor, hands on knees that bounced ever so slightly in an intricate pattern. His lips tightened at the sound of Scia’s heels against the tiled floor, but he made no sign of recognition as I walked in.

  Scia slid her radix under her arm to tighten her bun. “What brings you here, Mr. Septus?” It was funny to hear him addressed so formally, but I knew better then to show it.

  He leaned forward, interlacing his fingers and shrugging his shoulders. “The same thing that brings everyone here.”

  “Most people are asked to come here.” Scia removed her radix from under her arm and picked up the hem of her thickly layered skirt, easing into the chair opposite him. “You’ve been performing to excellent standards, and your records show you saw a perceiver two weeks ago, and were diagnosed healthy.” She leaned back in her chair, resting her elbow on the armrest. “Yet you demanded to be re-evaluated. Why is this?”

  He slid forward slowly. “There’s something wrong with me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked away and shrugged, tugging three times at the base of his ear, only to look back up at her and shrug even bigger. “I don’t know.”

  Scia raised an eyebrow. She scanned his face for a reaction, but he controlled his features well.

  “I…“ He held up a hand as if Scia was about to interrupt him, though she made no indication of beginning to speak. “I think I’m ill.” His voice nearly cracked from worry and fright. As much as he tried to hide it, I caught a flicker of pain cross his face, and it made my heart clench.

  “How so?”

  “Things have been bothering me lately.” His gaze shifted to the floor, then back to Scia. “Things that shouldn’t.”

  “Like what?”

  His foot moved a fraction to the right to cover a scuffmark in the floor. “Broken things.”

  “Could you give me an example?”

  He nodded, once, then twice, then three times, gaining speed and momentum with each bounce of his head, never losing the serious expression on his face. “The rain.”

  “The rain?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded again, slower this time. “The rain.”

  Scia rested an index finger against her chin. “How can the rain be broken?”

  “It comes on twice a week, for ten minutes on Mondays and Thursdays, an hour before Lights On.” He leaned forward, his voice gaining speed with every word. “Recently, it’s been coming on fifty-nine minutes and fifty-one seconds before Lights On, and going off nine minutes and thirty-six seconds later.”

  “Really?” Scia seemed genuinely surprised. “But surely you aren’t outside at that time?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why does it bother you, then?”

  He blinked, his eyebrows coming dangerously close to touching one another. “It wakes me up.” He leaned back in his seat, but his shoulders rolled forward almost instantly. “It’s not normal.”

  “It may not be normal, Mr. Septus, but it is quite a normal reaction to be bothered by a change in a usually stable pattern, especially something as stable as the rain.”

  He tugged at his ear, giving a series of slow nods.

  Scia watched him patiently. “Is there anything else?”

  He turned towards me, looking as if he was about to say something, then thought better of it. He shut his mouth and shook his head.

  “Do you have any family, Mr. Septus?”

  He shifted his attention back to Scia. “What?”

  “Parents? Siblings?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, what?” Scia waited for him to answer, but he stared at her blankly, his face paling. She continued, “Mom? Dad? Brother?”

  “Mom and Dad.” His head nodded enthusiastically, as if assuring himself. “And a sister.”

  “How often do you see them?”

  “A few times a year. Holidays.”

  “When was the last time you saw them?”

  “Last week.”

  “Why? There wasn’t a holiday last week.”

  “She won an award.” He ran a finger over his hair, tapping it gently in a line from the base of his ears to the back of his head.

  “Your sister?”

  He nodded.

  “Jessica Septus?” Scia matched the surnames.

  His nod increased its fervor.

  “Well, I’d ask you to pass on to her my congratulations.” She leaned back in her chair and cast a glance in my direction. I smiled to show that I recognized the name, though I felt more like scowling since all I could think of her as was Luci’s mentor. “It must be hard for you to have such a successful sister.”

  Zack shrugged again, his hands tugging on the side of his pant leg. “May I go?”

  “In Just a moment, Mr. Septus.” Scia tilted her head to the side and frowned. She looked him up and down, then stood, brushing the sleeves of her coat. I followed her to the door. “It was a pleasure to see you today.”

  “Wait.”

  Scia turned around. I copied her, only to find Mr. Septus on his feet, his eyes on me.

  I swallowed self-consciously as his narrow eyes focused all their attention on me, flickering from my face to my wrist and back again.

  “You’re missing a bead.”

  I swallowed, looking from him to Scia and back again. “What?”

  “You’re missing a bead,” he repeated simply.

  I looked down at the blue and white bracelet Sid had given me for Christmas, and spun it curiously. I didn’t notice anything different about it. I glanced at Scia, who was watching him carefully. I looked back to Zack with a polite smile, trying very much to silently communicate that this would stay between us, and I wouldn’t mention it to the other students. I secretly hoped that this would bring us closer together. “Thank you.”

  Scia turned her back to him. “Someone will be here to release you shortly.”

  We stepped out into the hall busy with conversing perceivers and healers, and maneuvered our way to a small space beside the dark curtains.

  Scia looked at me expectantly.

  “Healthy.” I tried to make my answer sound more confident than I felt, but I was too busy trying to figure out if my bracelet was broken to make a detailed diagnosis. However, I’d learned that, with Scia, an incomplete answer was better than a hesitant one.

  She was so focused on typing in the results that I wasn’t sure she even heard me until she replied a moment later, “Don’t worry about your bracelet. There is nothing missing.” She looked up just in time to catch my startled face, the corners of her lips tightening in to a smile. “He just wants attention. His behavior was typical of someone in his position. Nevertheless, these thoughts can develop into a defect if they continue too long. I’m scheduling an appointment for him to come back in a month.” She finished typing in her diagnosis and sighed. “We’ll be able to tell if this is simply a cry for attention, or something more serious at that point.”

  I couldn’t believe Zack was the kind of person who would fake a defect, but I couldn’t believe he was defective either. Granted, I hardly knew him, but I convinced myself that I was too good of a perceiver to sit across from a boy for months and not know he was defective. I’d tried talking to him twice. I knew his favorite color was red, he always wore the s
ame pair of shoes, and his cologne smelled like amber and wood. There was no way I could have missed that he was defective. Still, the horror of it kept me up late that night, and the next morning, I awoke early to the sound of rain.

  “Did you know the rain has been off lately?” I asked, when I saw Clint waiting outside Central.

  He looked up, startled. “What?”

  “The rain,” I repeated, about to explain more. I stopped short when I realized his radix was open in his hand, the image of an unfamiliar red-headed girl filling the screen. “Oh, I didn’t know you were using the Ortus.”

  “What?” Clint looked from me, down to his hand, then back again, “Oh, uh, yeah,” he said shortly.

  “Who’s that?” The girl asked from behind the glass.

  Clint looked down at the screen with a frown. “Val,” he said quickly, “she’s another perceiver here who recognized me from primary school.”

  “Really?” The red head laughed. She raised a pierced eyebrow. “And do you remember her?”

  “Of course,” Clint said curtly. Looking up to me, he shrugged, mouthing the words, “I’m sorry.”

  “Who is it?” I mouthed back.

  Clint was about to answer when the girl replied, amused, “I can see you two, you know. I’m Kat, by the way.” She looked to me and nodded in Clint’s direction. “I’m his girlfriend.”

  Clint looked so embarrassed, he almost dropped his radix.

  “Oh, um, it’s nice to meet you,” I said, surprised. Clint had never mentioned he had a girlfriend before, and though it didn’t surprise me that he had one, it did surprise me that she was so—well, different.

  “Yeah, well, I have to get to work,” Clint said sharply, “I’ll call you later.”

  “You do that babe! And don’t forget to think of me while-“

  Clint ended the call while she was midsentence, shutting his radix and sliding it back into his pocket. “Sorry about that,” He turned to me scratching the back of his neck. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “What?” It took me a minute to remember why I’d approached him in the first place. When I did, it seemed a stupid thing to want to talk to him about anyway. “Oh, um, no reason. I have work to do. See you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” he shook his head to clear his bangs from his eyes, “see you.”

  I made up my mind to try and talk to Zack again, during seminar next Monday, but he sat on the opposite side of the crescent rows of seats facing the screen without so much as glancing at me. I could say he was avoiding me, but we never talked to each other in seminar anyway.

  After class, I waited for him outside, trying to think of some excuse to talk to him that didn’t sound stupid. I was debating between asking his opinion on a homework question or a made-up case, when I saw Luci come around the corner, her dark hair adorned with tiny fake crystals that clung to her like dandruff.

  I turned away quickly. What was she doing here? She couldn’t have come to look for me.

  My heart sank when I heard Zack call her name fondly.

  Unable to stop myself, I glanced over my shoulder. I instantly regretted it.

  With a subtle toss of her hair, Luci planted an overly lip-glossed kiss on Zack’s cheek before pulling him into an embrace.

  I felt my stomach tighten and looked away, starting quickly down the hall.

  The only thing worse than Zack Septus having a girlfriend was Zack Septus having Luci Lux as a girlfriend. It was too horrible to think about, so I tried to keep it from my mind by immersing myself in my work.

  I didn’t think it’d be too difficult, for I rarely saw Zack outside of class. But of course, now that I was trying to avoid him, he seemed to be everywhere I was, and always with Luci. On the rare occasion they weren’t together, Luci was loudly gossiping to her friends about how he compared to her previous boyfriends, how great a kisser he was, or how much fun she was having trying to teach him to dance.

  Even with loquacious Luci for a girlfriend, Zack maintained his image as the ideal perceiver all the way up until he snapped two weeks later.

  I’m not sure exactly what happened. I was still on my way to seminar when I heard the scream, but I joined a small crowd of apprentices who ran forward in curiosity.

  A guard stopped us, holding out his hand, shouting for us to stand back. Looking over his shoulder, he stood in the doorway, keeping anyone from entering or seeing inside.

  I did as I was asked, along with everyone else. There were whispers and gasps as my classmates traded questions and imagined answers for the strange event.

  A moment later, three healers emerged through the doorway, their footsteps marked with fading prints of blood. A silver stretcher glided in between them with a figure lying still and secure on the cushion.

  The girl next to me gave a small cry and burst into tears. I recognized her as one of my classmates, Mia Harding. Uncertainly, I put a hand on her shoulder, hoping to calm her. She threw her arms around me, smearing her makeup into my coat.

  The other students moved back as two more healers rushed in to help another victim lying motionless on the ground. His legs and feet were all that were visible from behind an overturned table laying in a graveyard of shattered glass.

  The mentors began arriving seconds later. Scia, being one of the first, pulled Mia gently off me and insisted I follow her right away.

  She requested permission to evaluate Zack, on the grounds that she had been the last to see him, and had formerly requested a follow-up appointment. So it was, on a Monday afternoon, instead of being in seminar, I was once again witnessing my classmate’s examination, and Zack Septus was once again garbed in patient’s garments, only this time, with his hands confined behind his back.

  His dark eyes looked up when we walked through the door. He gave a weak grin in recognition.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Septus,” Scia said coldly. “I think you know why you’re here.”

  Every muscle seemed to melt in his face as his smile fell into a frown. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  Scia folded her arms, taking a long stride towards him. “You cut out a boy’s eye. That doesn’t sound like an accident to me.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant to-” he swallowed, his cheeks collapsing in on one another. “I meant to fix it.”

  “Fix what?”

  “His eye.”

  “He had perfect vision.” Scia let her arms fall to her side, but she remained standing, glaring down at her patient with eyes like weapons, ready to strike at any moment.

  “There was a spot on it. Brown. 2 millimeters long, less than a millimeter wide. Do you know how painful that was to look at every day? Can you imagine his horror when he looks into the mirror and sees that, like a gash on his otherwise green eyes. It was grotesque. I could hardly look at him.”

  Scia shook her head in disgust. “You broke two desks, fractured the main screen, and shattered a window.”

  He slid back into his seat, his shoulders making small heaving movements, but his breathing didn’t increase in pace. “They showed my reflection. My right eye is too close to my nose.”

  “How close?”

  “.08 of a centimeter.”

  “I can’t tell at all, Mr. Septus.”

  “Then you’re not a very good perceiver.” Zack folded his arms. “If you can’t tell the physical deformities, how can you tell the invisible ones?”

  Scia pursed her lips. I wondered if she was scolding herself for breaking her own rule with her previous statement. “You saw Grant every Monday for the past three months. You went to school with him for four years before that, and you’ve never hurt him before. Why wait until now?”

  Zack brought a hand to his drooping earlobe and gave a small shrug. “I didn’t want to hurt him.”

  “Well, you did.” Scia folded her arms across the ruffled layers of her burgundy blouse. “He’s blind in that eye now. The healers are doing their best, but they’re not sure they can restore his visio
n entirely.”

  Zack gave a sharp shake of his head. “He should have gotten help years ago.”

  “There was nothing wrong with him, Mr. Septus. Neither was there anything wrong with your mentor,” Scia looked down at her radix, then back at Zack with an accusatory glare, “who said you drugged her earlier this morning.”

  Zack looked away. “Her left hip was higher than her right.”

  “And what did you plan to do about that?”

  “Plan to do?” He blinked. “I fixed it.”

  Scia opened her mouth. I could tell she wanted to know if he was serious or not. Anyone capable of performing one-hour surgery on their own was impressive, especially if they weren’t a healer: criminal, dangerous, and irresponsible, but impressive nonetheless. Scia, however, seemed to determine the more likely scenario was true: that he was baiting her on. She followed procedure and refused to buy into his manipulative prodding. “We’ll leave that to the healers, Mr. Septus. I think I have all I need. I doubt I’ll be seeing you again.”

  “I can fix you.”

  Scia stopped, her voice hardened to a threatening growl. “Excuse me?”

  “Your left ear is .12 centimeters lower than the right, and your right eye is a millimeter lower than your left.” Zack said earnestly. “I can fix them.”

  Scia turned slowly around to face him, her hands crossed in front of her chest, her lips pursed in clear disapproval.

  “What?” Zack frowned. “You can point out flaws in me, but I can’t find flaws in you? That’s no fair.”

  Scia took a small step towards him. “There’s a big difference between diagnosing illnesses and hurting people for your personal pleasure.” She turned her back to him and opened the door. “It’s a shame you can’t tell the difference.”

  Zack watched us leave, his head sinking into the palms of his hands, small dark wrinkles at the corners of his eyebrows.

  Scia diagnosed him with both a level three Coactum Auctoria, and stage one Vegrandis Sensus, recommending a surface alteration of the amygdala. He was supposed to return to work within a month. She leaned against the wall and shut her eyes, her right hand pulling back her hair. “We should have recognized this.”

  “It’s fine,” I wasn’t sure what to say, but I wanted to be comforting. “Everyone makes mistakes.” I should have known that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  Scia’s eyes grew wide and her eyebrows slid inward. “Not me,” she snapped, “not us. We can not afford mistakes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t acknowledge my words, but turned on her dark heels, taking small quick steps down the busy hall. It took me a few minutes to realize it wasn’t me she was mad at this time, but herself.

  We finished the day as usual—only, an uncomfortable silence seemed to loom over us whenever we weren’t with a patient. During our breaks, which she usually spent updating me on some scientific discovery I could care less about, she silently read over something on her radix, tapping her finger against her chin with growing force. At dinner, she hardly said three sentences to me, before retiring to her room.

  I heard the recording of our previous meeting with Zack playing through the walls. I listened to it twice, before I went back to my room and took out the bracelet Sid had given me for Christmas. I began counting the beads. I’d gotten to thirty-two white and thirty-two blue, when I came across an empty divot in the metal. I was missing a bead.

  “That’s scary,” Clint said, when I told him about it the next day at lunch. “So he was actually dangerous?”

  “Of course he was dangerous,” I replied, mixing the dressing into my salad. Half the people we saw were dangerous.

  “Yeah, of course.” Clint unfolded his napkin and placed it in his lap. “But, I mean, he could have actually hurt you.”

  I shrugged. Technically, any of our patients could hurt us, but it rarely ever happened. The only cases I knew of had taken place years ago, and even then as a result of negligence. “He was hand-cuffed.”

  “That’s scary,” he repeated, leaning back in his chair. He didn’t touch his fork, but stared at the table with a growing frown.

  “What?”

  He glanced at me, then back to his food, reaching for his glass of water. “Nothing.”

  I leaned my elbow on the table, pointing the spokes of my fork at him. “You’re not telling me something and I don’t like it.”

  He took a sip of water, and when the metal left his lips, they were curled into a smile. “Sorry,” he brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. “I was just thinking about what we classify as dangerous.”

  I nodded slowly, waiting for him to continue. He looked like he wanted to say more, but kept himself from speaking by taking another sip of water. I bit my lip, wondering if he was refraining from saying something against me or Scia and our misdiagnosis. “I think I know what you mean,” I ventured, half hoping I was wrong, but wanting to beat him to the chase in case I was right, “We should have been able to classify Zack as dangerous the first time we saw him.” Perceivers were ordinary humans. They made mistakes all the time. I made mistakes all the time, but I had never had to admit them to my friends before. My face was red, and I looked up to see Altus walking towards us with a large mug, strands of steam spilling into the air above it.

  “Maybe he-“ Clint began.

  “Yeah,” I cut him off, wanting the conversation to end before his mentor arrived. “Well, we’re safe from him now, and that’s all that counts. And they’re really cracking down now. Everyone in our group is being re-examined.

  “Yeah, the rest of us are, too.”

  “That’s good.”

  “What’s good?” Altus asked, setting his tea on the edge of the table.

  “Val’s mentor was the one who diagnosed Zack Septus. Apparently, he checked himself in a few weeks ago and was diagnosed as healthy.”

  I glared at Clint, but he wasn’t looking in my direction, which only further annoyed me.

  “That’s good?” Altus raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he was healthy.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, desperate to get away from the subject of the failure. It was bad enough watching the other apprentices turn their backs and whispering when I passed, and even worse when their mentors joined in. I didn’t want their sympathy; I just wanted them to forget about the whole thing. “What’s good is that they’re being extra careful about the rest of us. And Grant is healed; at least, that’s what I heard. I haven’t seen him yet though.”

  “That is good,” Altus replied monotonously, as if his mind wasn’t with his words. He set down his fork, leaning back in his chair and resting a hand on his chin. “It’s a shame the boy believed what he was doing was helping, when it was actually only causing the worst pain imaginable.”

  Suddenly, Luci burst into the room with her same dandruff hair clips slightly skewed, stomping so loud, everyone turned to look. Her cold eyes darted around until they found me, and she was instantly feet away, slamming her hands down on our table.

  “You-“ she said bitterly, pointing at me, “You tricked me! You’re trying to make me defective!”

  I would have burst out laughing if I hadn’t been so startled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, honestly.

  “And you,” she said, pointing to Clint, “you let her! You didn’t warn me, but let her pretend to like that boy just so I would try to date him, even though you both knew-“

  “Excuse me, miss,” Altus interrupted, calmly, “if you have a problem with these apprentices, I’d be happy to discuss it with you. They examination rooms seemed fairly full today, but I’m sure we could secure one if the situation demands it.”

  Luci’s face flushed to the point it nearly matched her shirt. “We’ll talk about this later,” she said to me, turning away and sulking out of the cafeteria.

  We finished our meals engaged in trivial conversation, which I tried to enjoy as best I could, dreading the hours of solitude and scorn I
was sure to endure the rest of the afternoon.

  Chapter 9: Patient 218