“There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t like doctors, and I don’t let them touch me.”
“That’s good to know,” the doctor says.
I let my gaze roam him again. He’s wearing a white coat, and a facility badge which reads: ARES.
“God of war,” I mumble to myself.
“Hm?”
“Ares was the god of war.”
“Yes. That’s true,” the doctor says. “It’s my last name. My first name is Thomas, but most people call me Tom.”
Way to tell me his life story.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“What is that?”
“You’re trying to make me feel at ease. It’s a trick. Tell me your name, make me think you’re a nice guy, maybe I’ll let you do medical things to me. It’s not going to work. They’ve tried every trick they know on me, and they always hurt me in the end. So I’m telling you now, I’ll hurt you first.”
“Sedate her, doc,” Tyko says. “She’s going to mouth off and hurt you if you don’t.”
“We’ve got time to talk,” Doctor Ares says. “There’s no rush.”
“This won’t work, Doc,” Tyko sighs.
We’re in a rare agreement now. This won’t work.
“Is there some reason you don’t think I should speak to her like a person?”
“She’s basically feral. Weren’t you briefed on this girl?”
“I wasn’t notified of her visit before she arrived in the waiting room, so, no, I was not briefed. Perhaps you could do the honors, agent Tyko.”
Tyko snorts. “She’s a freak.”
“That’s not a medical diagnosis I’ve ever heard of,” Doctor Ares says.
He’s starting to show signs of working out that I’m not just another agent. This poor bastard. He is going to shit himself when he realizes how much hardware I have tucked away inside me.
I’m almost tempted to let him examine me so he can see how messed up I am inside. Almost. I’m not afraid of many things, but I am afraid of doctors, genuinely afraid. That white coat he’s wearing makes it hard for me to breathe properly. I try to calm myself down, but it’s not easy. I don’t need to be here. I should be back in my cosy little cell. It’s six feet by four feet, and that’s enough for me. I don’t need space. I need walls around me. I need to be alone, away from men who handle me against my will.
“How about you come on through to my exam room, young lady?”
I snort, thinking he just referred to Tyko as “young lady”. Then it occurs to me that the doctor is still speaking to me. I’m really not used to that. The medical professionals I’ve encountered in the past consider me more a subject to study than anything else. Usually, once their opening gambit fails, they go back to treating me like a piece of furniture.
I chance a look up into his face. The doctor smiles at me with those beautifully warm eyes, and for a moment, I am human. I feel a rush of me-ness flowing through my body. Heat and life pulse through me. Usually I feel like a machine, something programmed to do nasty, violent things. In his eyes, I feel like the girl I look like on the outside.
I’m staring. I’m locked in his gaze and for a brief moment I forget about everything. Something like a smile bubbles up in me. I am the girl who doesn’t smile, but with him, I feel the urge. It doesn’t reach my lips, but I feel it hovering behind them.
Somehow, I have followed him into the examination room. I have to be basically unconscious, usually, to end up here. There’s something different about this man. I can tell that things work for him which would never work for others. I don’t think it’s a talent like mine, given by medical science, but it is something innate. He’s one of the charmed people, the ones for whom life is always easy. Right now, it’s rubbing off on me.
“Can you get up on the table?”
He pats the examination bench. Getting up on a small table should be impossibly easy for me, but this alleged injury makes everything harder.
“Do you want me to help you up?”
I nod my head a little, but I am hesitant. He wants to help me? Nobody helps me. They don’t like to interfere in the process. It messes with the data. From the beginning, it has always been about the data.
He reaches for me. My muscles twitch with the impulse to rip his throat out. I have endless responses like that, coded into my DNA. Tyko thinks I hurt him on purpose, but the truth is that it takes effort to restrain myself almost all of the time when I am around other people. I have brutal programs running almost incessantly in my minds, hard instincts telling me to slay all who come into contact with me.