What The Water Brings In

6

I wanted to pause at door 367, the door that had Jacqueline Brown on the sign in Sean's handwriting. A moment would have been nice for me to gather my wits and courage together so I could tie them up with shoelaces and carry the bundle with me. But with every second I faltered, the closer Sean got to doing something I was certain he would regret later.

The door latch opened with a soft click. I probably could have made it silent, but I did not want perfect stealth at the moment. Spooking either Sean or Jackie could prove disastrous, so I carefully entered the room with enough noise to let the people inside know someone new was there, but not obnoxiously to cause any alarm. I left the door half open to allow easy access to whoever Mr. Blackbourne sent to help me, but still afford for a sense of privacy to whatever I could say to Sean.

Too bad I didn't have a clue as to what that would be.

Dr. Green already had the tourniquet tied around Jackie's upper arm and was swabbing the crook of her elbow with the alcohol square.

I was too late. If I were to say anything at that point, I would just incite panic in either Dr. Green, Jackie, or both. The situation could easily escalate to that needle being turned into a weapon.

A buzzing sounded to my left. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Dr. Green's purple-cased iPhone face down on the side of the handwashing sink. It danced a little as it vibrated, and its jig gave me a sliver of an idea.

"Dr. Green?" I called out, trying my hardest to keep the shakes out of my voice. "You're being paged. I think you're needed urgently elsewhere." It wasn't a lie. I needed him urgently anywhere but this room right now.

"Nonsense," Dr. Green replied in a professional tone. "This perfectly routine medical procedure will take absolutely no time at all. I'll be finished up in a jiffy." Again, he didn't bother to look in my direction as he spoke to me.

"I know my patient rights," Jackie piped while focusing on her arm. "Why are you taking my blood?"

"I will be running the standard tests on it," he answered with a pleasant bedside manner. "White cell count, platelets, and all those little bits that make up your blood will be counted. It will tell me if there's enough of everything in you."

He wasn't lying either. Sean just omitted his main goal for obtaining the vial of her blood. He was better trained with Academy skills than the comparatively few lessons I've had with Mr. Blackbourne.

A terrifying thought flashed through my mind. What if an Academy member did go rouge? A person trained to possess skills like lying, manipulation, analytical and predictive thinking, subterfuge, and stealth, all now second nature, could be unbelievably dangerous if the person held malicious intent. Any trained Academy member could con their way into a position of power and corrupt the system to their advantage. An Academy member with genius cognitive skills? They would be a real life Moriarty.

Dr. Green didn't have malicious intentions, but he was certainly using his Academy skills to his own advantage. There were better ways to do this, and I was powerless to stop him as he pushed the needle into the blue vein in Jackie's arm.

"Dr. Green," I whimpered as my heart broke.

The door behind me swung fully open, its door handle smacking into the stopped on the wall. It scared the begeesus out of me, startling me to press my hips against the sink with my fists clenched under my chin.

Two people I had never seen before breezed in at a pace that was hurried, but not so fast it was alarming. They looked as if they were simply arriving late to an appointment.

One was male, the other female. Both wore navy blue scrubs and had plastic ID badges clipped to their front pockets. The salt and pepper hair on the man combed to the side on a part, along with the dirty blonde, shoulder length hair with greying roots on the woman told me they were both in their late 40s. He wore rimless glasses. She had conservative, yet stylish black frames on her nose. They both wore serious expressions lined with worry.