I'd never seen someone so bipolar. He had seemed like a blessing when he told Edison to call a doctor for my ankle, but now he was calling me an abomination and forcing me to walk on it. It was like seeing the sun and preparing to go out, but a twister whips through just as you step out over the threshold.
And he seemed like he thought of himself as the king of everything everyone saw. (I would say everything he saw, but that would be in poor taste.) He carried himself like a god, and his dogs were pieces of the night sky he plucked from the air by himself. I never knew someone could make putting one foot in front of the other look like a task meant to be closely watched by all in the vicinity.
He was lean and stood a full foot above me. His thin shoulders remained coolly slack, and he kept a fist tightly clenched against a black cane with a silver handle. He used his other hand to sweep a loose tress of chesnut hair away from his forehead. His skin and complexion were a true rarity for any section of the world; a smooth porcelain that was almost translucent enough to clearly see the blue veins in his neck and around his eyes.
Then there were the eyes. An unnatural, milky film covered what looked like once green eyes. I tried to imagine the green they may have been without the film, and found myself in the same grassy field I had dreamt about. I wondered if he was born blind. Wouldn't his eyes be blueish if that was the case?
He finally stopped, and I felt nearly relieved. He sighed and held out his cane, rolling his unseeing eyes.
"Take this. You thumping around with that limp is getting on my nerves. We're almost there any way, you drama queen."
"My ankle is broken." I said, hesitantly taking the cane and using it as a crutch.
"As you've said. You're lucky I feel generous today, swine."
With that, we continued onwards towards a lift. He smashed a button with his thumb, opening the metal lattice that let us onto the elevator lift. We stepped in, and the interrogation began.
"Name, age, purpose." He demanded, keeping a glare fixed in front of him.
"Genevieve Cortez, 17, and I don't know. I was only recently assigned to the fuel room a while ago. I don't know why, but an explanation would be nice." I answered, trying to get him to explain why I was reassigned.
He ignored the attempt. "That isn't what I meant. What do you have concealed? My dogs smelled it on you."
"Nothing, " I replied, "just my person."
"These dogs can smell gunpowder from a mile away. You have a bomb, don't you?"
"A bomb? You mean there's a bomb somewhere in that fuel room?!"
"Well, not anymore, you nitwit of a child! I've got it on a lift with me on the way to a lab! If you were plotting some sort of explosion in my Factory, you somehow managed to smuggle in the tools to make a bomb. You must be incredibly dedicated to ruining this industry if you went ahead and broke your own ankle to catch Edison's attention."
I let that sink in. Why would it catch his attention if I broke my ankle? (Besides the obvious, of course.) How would he know if I did? There were no cameras throughout the entire Factory. Or, so I thought. No obvious ones were placed on the ceiling in a corner or in heavily populated workplaces. How was he monitoring the entire factory at once?
Before I could ask any of those questions, I found myself being searched by a couple of burly women. They were practically taking turns holding me up for observation. (For weapons and any contraband, I assumed.) I was in front of a plexi-glass wall, separating myself and the nameless man from before. (I really should have made some nickname for him.) He stood with a small group of bristling people in starched white lab coats.
The two women dropped me onto an observation table with a gruff and synchronized, "She's clear."
They left the room, ushering in the group of people dying to get as many samples as possible. One stuck a needle in my arm as another put my foot into a cast. Another took a skin sample, someone plucked out a few of my hairs, someone flashed a light in my eye, and an unseen hand took mine and clipped off a fingernail with some difficulty.
As soon as they came, they left. My foot was numb and in a full cast, drying quicker than expected. My arm had a band and piece of gauze where they had took blood. My scalp tingled and I couldn't find any words for the life of me.
One of the scientists was talking to the man named nothing on the other side of the glass wall. The scientist must have said something to displease him, because he was turning to leave. The scientist quickly stopped him, mouthing something I couldn't quite make out throught the soundproof barrier. The nameless man stopped, and contemplated whatever the scientist said. He hesitantly nodded, and left.
Once again, I was alone. It wasn't very fun at all being left over and over again.
Looking back on it, it hadn't been a very good day at all. I woke up with little sleep, I broke my ankle (Not Orrick's fault. He saved my life.), I got sent to some weird waiting room, then got stuck walking with some jerky blind guy who took me to a lab to be gawked at like a freak.
No, today was not a good day at all.
