The Medical School

Chapter Twelve

The gong, five minutes for the breakfast that we don't get, and the guard who takes us down to the Exertion Observations Lab are the events that start off Day Twelve.

I have known that this Lab existed from Day One, and now I finally get the honor of using its exercise equipment.

There are ten different stations in the room: An elliptical, bench press, pull-up bar, small trampoline, punching bag, stationary bike, rowing machine, stair climber, sit-up bench, and treadmill. The one time I will get to run freely, and I'm too worn out by hunger.

I'm overjoyed to see that they give us a cup of water after each station, but it's just enough to keep us from passing out. They have us hooked up vital sign recorders, and while we work out, the workers stare at their computer screens in a lounge chair.

I have to watch poor Abby use the bench press with one arm, and I can't help her as tears stream down her face. If we ever get out of this hellhole, I'll come back just to give Charleston a beating he won't forget.

I'm scheduled to use the treadmill last, and I hope I won't be too tired. Peter is on it now, and he looks as if he could run on forever. I wonder if he's imagining that he's running away.  

The punching bag gets a little exciting, as I've never really hit anything before. But when I take a swing at it, I'm greeted by a rock-hard lump that doesn't budge. I punch it again, and again, and again.

And the more I punch it, the more it looks like Professor Charleston, so I punch it harder, and harder until I notice that my knuckles are screaming in agony.

I stop for a bit and see my worker with an impressed look on his face.

Good. He knows what I'm capable of.

I go through the rest of the stations painstakingly, not so much because I'm tired, but because I just want to get to the treadmill.

Stationary bike. This is going to take a while. Rowing machine. Is the time up yet? Stair climber. Only one more after this. Sit-up bench. Come on, come on, come on! Treadmill.

I'm finally running free. I ignore the fatigue, and the overworked body, and close my eyes. As soon as I do, the milky warm color of a lush meadow draws its way into my eyelids.

I run faster, there is a beep, and the treadmill goes up a speed level. Now I'm sprinting, and my worker beeps the machine up another level, and another, until I am running faster than I ever have before. Birds fly around me, flowers brush my legs, and I'm free. I'm so free.

And then I have to leave the meadow and go back to the cold, cramped attic where we re-form our circle.

-

It's Tyler and Lucy who are going to talk this evening. I curl my sore body into a ball, and listen to Tyler introduce himself.

Tyler Capital is a six-year-old boy from Devonshire. A mining accident had killed his parents when he was three, so he was taken to Happy Endings Orphanage. He remained there for three more years before being kidnapped.

He tells a story of a secret door in his room, and how he always hid there when his parents said it was time to go to bed. He tells a story of the time he fell down the laundry chute, and fractured a rib.

He tells a story of the day his parents were killed, a story of a clown who had scared all of the toddlers in the orphanage to death, a story of a Christmas when the tree had fallen over and broken through the front window, and a story of how he had come to build a go-cart, and how he had raced it down the street with his friends.