by Palladian
“Pretty easy,” said Casey as she surveyed the mostly empty lunch dishes. “Are you done eating? We can go upstairs and see what’s arrived so far and I can show you what to do.”
“Sounds good. I’m done,” Lex replied as she got up and crossed the kitchen to rinse her tableware at the sink and put it into the dishwasher nearby.
When they got to Lex’s room, they found that some of the things she’d requested had arrived, including the sheets and towels.
“Good,” Casey said, reaching into the closet near the front door for something. “Here it is.”
She pulled out a big green laundry bag and held it open for Lex to put all of the sheets and towels in.
“OK,” she continued, “just put whatever you need washed in here and leave it outside your door. People come to check for laundry periodically, so you should have your stuff back by the end of the day.”
“Thanks! Why is mine green, though?” Lex asked after noting a light blue laundry bag sitting outside Serena’s door as she poked her head outside when she dropped her own bag in the hall.
Casey smiled. “Oh, you’ll see once you get your uniforms, but it’s going to be your call color.”
“Call color?” Lex squinted up at the blonde with a skeptical look.
“Yes. When we go out on jobs, and talk to each other by communicator, our sponsors say we need to use something short and distinctive. I don’t know why, but they decided to go with eye colors. So, I’m Blue, Riss is Brown, and you’re Green. Since we have a couple of repeats, they call Serena Ice because she’s got light blue eyes, Lily is Black since she has dark brown eyes, and Joan is called Gold since her eyes are light brown. Really, I don’t know why they bothered, though, because we usually just call each other by first name.”
“Hmmm. OK.” Lex looked at the floor, trying to stifle her urge to laugh.
Casey shook her head and laughed. “I know; you don’t have to tell me. It’s pretty silly. Anyway, what did Clara say was next for you today?”
“That’s right! She told me you could show me to the medical wing once I’m done reading and signing paperwork. Where will you be?”
“I’ll be on the fourth floor down, which is mostly the weight room. Can you meet me there, and I’ll take you to medical when you’re ready?”
“Sure. I’d like to check out the lifting facilities here, anyway.”
“Good,” Casey responded, then snapped her fingers. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She moved from where they’d been standing near the door and rummaged through some of the things that had been put on Lex’s new desk and came up with something on a ribbon. As Casey walked back towards her, Lex realized that it was a keycard.
“Here’s your new badge,” Casey said, handing it to Lex. “This should get you through all of the doors you’ll need. There will be some that it can’t open, so you can figure those are the ones our sponsors don’t want you to get into.”
“Thanks, Casey,” Lex responded with a smile. “I think I’m going to get changed into my workout gear before I go back downstairs, since Clara told me I’d need it when I go to the medical wing.”
“All right. Remember, I’ll be two floors underneath the one you’re filling out paperwork on,” Casey said, moving into the hallway.
“Thanks. See you in a while,” Lex replied before shutting her door.
She picked out some sweatpants and a sports bra but kept the shirt she’d been wearing, a black t-shirt with a picture of a man on the front. He had spiky red hair and bright green eyes and stood with his arms across his chest, sand leaking from a big gourd on his back to cover part of the rest of the shirt in beige swirls. Finally, she put on sneakers and headed back downstairs to finish her paperwork.
The empty classroom seemed oddly quiet, and Lex let out a sigh as she sat back down at the desk containing her paperwork and continued reading and signing. She felt bored at first but soon got absorbed in the task, only stopping to consider the situation again when her pen hovered over the last blank space to be signed in the document.
At that moment, Lex found herself hesitating. Her mind traveled backwards, thinking about what work had meant in her life, all the way back to the first crappy fast food job she’d gotten the moment she’d turned sixteen. It had been one of the things she and her father had argued violently over, but still something that she’d felt good about. Her job had helped her to pay the rent when her father kicked her out not long after she’d gotten it. Work had allowed her to be independent in her life and to support herself, since she knew she had no other home to go back to. Lex sat very still and considered for a while, wondering if she’d made the right choice.
She closed her eyes for a few seconds, trying to think. The darkness soothed her, and she just breathed deeply for a few moments. As she opened her eyes, an image came to her of her uncle sitting beside her on the riverbank, smiling.
Lex realized then that she’d already accepted this future; the final step would be to finish the contract. Straightening up, she signed her name with a flourish and packed all the paperwork back into the envelope, sealing it this time. She went out of the classroom without looking back.
Chapter 6: Examinations
Lex was smiling as she scampered down two flights of stairs and through the door. What she saw then brought her up short, however. Lex could only stare at the biggest collection of weight machines and free weights she’d ever seen. The gym had been arranged in the large, rectangular open space in front of her and appeared to take up most of the floor. Finally, she started walking down one of the aisles, looking at the machines carefully, many of which she had never seen in any gym she’d belonged to.
“Wow,” slipped out of her lips, involuntarily.
The rhythmic clicks of a machine in operation stopped suddenly. “Hey, you’re finished,” Lex heard Casey’s voice from somewhere nearby.
Lex turned to her right and spotted Casey standing up from one of the weight machines. She walked over to the blonde, grinning. “What a great gym! I don’t recognize half of the machines here, though.”
“I didn’t either when I first got here,” Casey replied with a laugh. “Do you want a little orientation?”
“Yes, please.” Lex tried hard to stand still and not bounce with excitement.
“OK. The machines to the left of where you came in are the core workout machines, the ones to the right are for arms. Behind the arm machines, along the back wall, are the leg machines, and behind the core machines are all of the free weights. They told me there are manuals for all of the machines on the intranet, but I’ve never looked at them since they all have instructions posted on them like regular machines do. Let me know if you have questions about any of them when you start working out here and I’ll be glad to show you what I know.”
“Cool. I’m looking forward to using them. They don’t look a lot like machines I’m used to using, though. What do they use for resistance?”
Casey nodded. “These are kind of special, so that even I can get a challenge out of them. You have to dial up the weight you want to use here,” she said, pointing at a knob on one area of the machine, “and wait until it beeps to let you know it’s ready. They use some kind of weird goop to bring it up to the weight you want, and pump it in and out of the lifting chamber.”
Lex responded with a thoughtful noise, studying the nearest machine’s mechanisms more closely, running her hand along the cool metal.
“All right, let’s get you to medical. They’re probably already pissed because they figured you’d have finished the paperwork by lunchtime,” said Casey with a grin.
Lex frowned with worry. “Am I in trouble?”
Casey’s smile broadened. “No. If anyone is it’s me, as usual. Come on, I’ll show you up there.”
Lex followed Casey back up the stairs to the floor above the weight room. When they went through the fire door, Lex could see a long hallway with doors on either side. The walls to the first set of interior rooms were Plexiglas, and Lex could see what
looked like medical machinery inside, along with chemistry lab equipment. When she breathed in a moment later, Lex could smell a faint chemical scent. Her eyebrows furrowing, Lex followed Casey to the third door on the right.
The larger woman knocked and a muffled voice on the other side of the door answered her. As she opened the door, Lex could see beyond Casey into a fairly normal-looking examination room with a door on the far side that opened into another room with medical equipment in it. There was a young man in the exam room with a lab coat on, writing in a notebook. He had metal-framed glasses, short dark hair, and a very serious look in his eye as he beckoned Lex inside.
“Thank you for bringing her here,” the man said to Casey. The statement had a distinct tone of dismissal to it.
Casey didn’t look at him. “So, I’ll see you at dinner, Lex?”
“Yes,” Lex replied with a nod. “What time do you usually eat?”
Shrugging, Casey answered, “Probably around six or so.”
“Do you need any help with anything beforehand?”
“No. I figure you’ll probably need some time to shower and change before then, anyway. You can help me with the cleanup.”
“OK, I will, thanks!” Lex replied, and then turned to the man in the room as Casey turned to leave. “So what’s the plan?”
He looked at her over the top of his glasses and said, “We’ll start with a standard medical exam. Please take all of your clothes off and put on the gown there.”
The item he’d pointed at sat folded on the examination table. Lex watched him walk towards the next room through a door made mostly of frosted glass.
“Hey,” Lex called out before he was completely gone, a little annoyance sneaking into her voice, “if you’re going to ask me to strip, the least you could do is tell me your name.”
“Dr. Rogers,” he replied with a raised eyebrow, then went through the door, closing it after him.
Lex shrugged and undressed, folded her clothes, and put them on a nearby chair. When she’d finished, she put the thin cotton gown on and sat on the big sheet of paper draped over the exam table. She sighed and shifted positions, the paper making crinkling noises under her butt, and thought about how much she hated going to the doctor’s. Finally, she called out in a slightly louder than normal voice, “OK, I’m ready.”
Dr. Rogers came back through the door and started the exam by unwrapping her bandaged hand and examining it, grunting, then re-wrapping it in the same bandage. The rest of the tests involved breathing deeply and being listened to with a stethoscope; being hit with the rubber hammer for reflex measurements; having her eyes and ears looked into with strange instruments; and having her blood pressure, pulse, height, and weight all taken. After that, the doctor began asking questions from an interminably long list.
“Ms. McKilliam, do you have, or is there any family history of—”
“Doctor, please call me Lex.” She looked at him sternly for a moment so he would know she meant it, but he just glanced obliquely at her for a moment before continuing.
“Do you have, or is there any family history of cancer?”
“No.”
On and on, Dr. Rogers recited a mind-numbingly long string of ailments, some of which Lex hadn’t even heard of before. They both seemed bored, since Lex mostly answered no and the doctor wrote it down, until they got to migraine.
“Yes,” she finally replied.
“Family history, or is this something just you have?”
Lex hesitated. “There may be a family history of it on my mother’s side, but it is definitely something I have.” She’s such a liar, I can’t be sure if she has it or not, Lex found herself thinking.
“How long have you had them?”
She shrugged. “Well, I had lots of bad headaches when I was a kid. They got worse as I got into my mid- to late teens, and eventually I was diagnosed with migraines.”
“How often do you get these headaches?”
“It depends on my stress levels, I think. Sometimes I have one or two a week, but other times it’s more like once a month, or every couple of months.”
Dr. Rogers wrote a number of notes, then continued distractedly, “Ms. McKilliam—”
“Please, Dr. Rogers,” she interrupted without really meaning to, her voice tense, “call me Lex. I don’t feel comfortable with all of this formality.” And, she mentally noted, I don’t like to be called by that name.
He sighed, sounding slightly annoyed. “Lex, what do you use for your migraines?”
She went through the current medications she used, both of which were available over the counter. She’d begun using a new one recently when the other she’d used for a long time became ineffective. Dr. Rogers asked her many more questions about medications that she may have tried in the past, and asked why she only used over-the-counter drugs.
“I haven’t found a prescription medication that works or that doesn’t make me feel worse,” Lex responded.
“Did anything seem to initially set off your migraines?” Dr. Rogers asked.
Lex felt her shoulders tense as she considered the best way to respond. “I had a lot of head trauma when I was younger,” she finally replied.
He made a noise of consideration in response as he wrote more notes, then the seemingly endless questionnaire continued. Lex started to examine the ceiling tiles in detail, noting which ones seemed damaged and which had different patterns than the others. She sighed, but tried to do so quietly. Finally, her attention snapped back to the present due to what seemed to be an unscripted question.
“How did you get those scars?”
Lex felt like her muscles had started to hum, and she suddenly felt wrinkled paper under her palms as her hands dug into the exam table. She took a deep breath to steady herself. Lex thought about asking which scars, but realized that the majority of the visible ones only had one source that she could recall. “I was beaten a lot as a child.” As she spoke in a matter of fact tone, her voice clear and emotionless, she exhaled the breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding.
“How often?”
“Most days that I can remember, until I left home at age 16.” She talked about it without feeling it, not wanting to re-experience those days in front of someone who simply asked questions in order to fill in blanks on a sheet of paper.
He looked straight at her then for a moment, his expression searching and a little wary. She met his gaze, her own stonily serious, until his eyes dropped back to his notebook.
“What sort of injuries did you sustain?” he asked.
“Well, this arm got broken,” said Lex, pointing to her right forearm scar. “It was a compound fracture that I got when I was about four or five, trying to block my dad’s attack. He threw my head at a concrete floor when I was about three and knocked my baby teeth back into my head, giving me this one,” she continued, pointing to the bite scar under her lower lip. “He beat me for months with a bamboo sword that eventually splintered and gave me the scars on my back and some on my upper arms and thighs. I also got a lot of head injuries, bruises, and things like that during that time. I’m pretty sure I got several broken bones in my feet, and some cracked ribs as well.”
“Did you receive any medical attention for your injuries?”
“Yes, for the broken arm.”
He paused what he’d been writing in his notebook, his pen hanging in the air as he looked at Lex again. “Is that all?”
“Yes. My father was not a big believer in doctors.”
Dr. Rogers turned his eyes back to his notebook, silent for a moment.
“Really, though,” continued Lex, almost to herself, “I think he just didn’t want to get caught.” She clamped her mouth shut after saying that, since it had slipped out before she’d realized it. Not in front of him, it’s none of his business.
After a few more moments of silence, Dr. Rogers seemed to come back to himself. “Well, Lex, let’s get you hooked up to the treadmill. I’d like to test your heart and
your fitness level. Please put your workout clothes back on, but leave your shirt off, since I’ll need to attach some electrodes to your chest. Feel free to put the gown on over your sports bra if you feel more comfortable that way. Please come through this door when you’re ready.”
He disappeared through the frosted glass door he’d been waiting behind before. Lex slowly dressed in her workout gear again, running on automatic.
She ran for a while once the doctor had attached the leads, hooked up by wires to various machines. The feelings she’d tried to leave behind in childhood invaded again, crowding close and taking up all the room in her head and chest. She sighed, wondering if she’d ever be able to run fast enough to get away from her father. Lex had been submerged so deeply into her thoughts that she stumbled a little before she adjusted her pace, caught unaware when the treadmill began to slow.
“Sorry about that,” Dr. Rogers said from the opposite side of the room, his voice quieter than it had been, causing Lex to quickly glance at him and then away. “You must not have heard me when I warned you that we were going to stop now.”
Lex got off the belt as it halted, trying not to tie up the lines that were attached to her chest and attempting to ignore his comment. “Is it all right if I take these off now?”
“Sure, just lift one end and peel them, and they should come up all right. You’ll probably want to shower afterwards, though, since you’ll have some adhesive left on your skin.”
“Thanks,” she replied, peeling one of the contact points away as advised. He’d been right; enough stickiness remained on her skin to adhere to her t-shirt. She made a little face.
The doctor cleared his throat, and Lex looked over at him as she finished peeling the last of the contacts away.
“Lex, are you all right? You seemed to be so mentally distant that you didn’t even hear me. I called to you several times.”
Lex dropped her eyes, shaking her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it seem as if I were ignoring you. I just don’t like talking about my childhood is all.” Her throat felt thick now and she swallowed painfully.