A R D E N
Later that night, we set our plan into motion. There aren’t very many options when it comes to actually getting the supplies needed to do the surgery, or whatever you want to call yanking a thing out of Arthemis's neck, so we have to be very attentive and follow the plan as carefully as possible. In order to get into the medical wing -- which turns out to be the pentagonal room -- one of us needs to be actually injured enough to spend the night there. Arthemis makes the sacrifice, knocking on my door at one in the morning and putting as much pressure as possible onto the reopened wound in her shoulder.
“It’s a shame, really,” she says through gritted teeth. “It was just starting to heal.”
We leave the room as quietly as we can, and head down to the medical wing. About halfway there, Arthemis pulls me into a small alcove in the wall. She closes her eyes and pulls the mask off her face, and then unties her hair, letting it bounce out around her head. She holds it out to me, or in my general direction. “I can’t keep my eyes closed for long or they’ll know something’s up. Take the mask quickly.”
I take it, pushing down mixed feelings about how close together our faces are, and put it over my own face. It doesn’t fit properly, but I hope no one will notice. Arthemis lies down on the floor before opening her eyes to make it look like she had passed out, and I help her up and we continue.
“Let’s hope this works,” I whisper quietly.
She stops us right near the entrance to the pentagon room and glances at a clock on the wall. “Two minutes. That’s when they change nurses.”
Her job is to get into the infirmary, and mine is to pretend to be the replacement nurse. Of course, the real replacement nurse should be coming soon, so Arthemis goes into the infirmary alone and I wait in a hidden spot nearby. Once I see a Mask go in and another one go out, I know it’s my turn to act. I cross the pentagon room as calmly as I can, preparing the cloth in my hand. Opening the door, I give her a friendly wave when she looks up from the book she’s holding.
“I was wondering if I could get some of the headache pills?” I ask. “Somebody in my dorm is having a hard time getting to sleep because of a sudden migraine.”
She gives me a small smile and gets up to go find the container. “Are you new here?” she asks.
“Kind of,” I reply, gripping the cloth behind my back. I wait until her back is turned and she’s opening one of the drawers before advancing quietly until she’s within arm’s reach.
“I thought so. I don’t think I’ve seen you much, but I was thinking maybe you just don’t come here often.”
“Yeah, I work in the security department,” I tell her, readying myself.
She sticks one of her arms into a drawer. “Ah, that would make s--” Before she can finish, I press the cloth over her nose and mouth and hold her tightly to stop her struggling. It takes longer for her to go limp than Arthemis said it would -- probably because of her mask getting in the way -- but after a few moments the fight leaves her body and I put her down gently on the floor. She’s still breathing, but whatever liquid Arthemis made me put on the cloth has knocked her out cold. I close the drawers she had opened, pocket the cloth, and take her keycard off the desk. Then I go look for Arthemis.
I find her sitting upright in a bed in the next room over. Her shoulder has fresh bandages on it and she’s looking impatient. She hears me come in and lies down in the bed, pretending to sleep.
“I’m going to have to keep my eyes closed until you take it out,” she tells me. “If they think I’m asleep it will probably raise the least suspicions.”
“But how do I know where to go if you can’t see anything?”
“You’ll just have to try,” she replies, getting off the bed and holding her hand out for the mask. Her face is turned away, but there are hints of scars on the parts of it that I can see that I don’t think were there a few weeks ago. I take off the mask and place it in her hand, and once she’s adjusted it back on her face, I have to hold her shoulders to avoid her bumping into things.
After a few failed attempts at getting her to walk up the spiral staircase, I end up just picking her up and carrying her to the right floor. She gives me directions like that, telling me which way to go every time we come to an intersection. We eventually end up in an empty room on the third or fourth floor, its shelves packed with everything we need (which honestly isn’t much).
She lies down on the table thing in the middle and tells me what I need to find, giving me a description of each. The most important thing being moonflower extract, which will make this whole thing a lot less painful for her. That is one thing I do know how to find, thanks to my years of combing the forests for the bright flowers and standing by in operating rooms while the shimmering liquid was used on countless patients. I set the tools on a small tray near her and pull some clean gloves over my hands. “Okay everything’s here. Now what?”
“Now you just do it,” she says bluntly. “Just yank it out I guess.”
“You know, I really shouldn’t be the one doing this,” I laugh nervously. “I have barely any experience in this type of stuff.”
“Well, do you see anyone else around?” she scoffs. “Because if there was another person in this room that will do it instead of you I think it’s high time you tell me about it!”
“I’ll do it,” somebody says quietly from behind us. I yelp and spring around, brandishing one of the tools from the tray. The guy shrinks into himself, stepping back into the shadows of the hallway behind him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted.”
But Arthemis scrambles to her feet, holding her hands out blindly. “Bear?”
YOU ARE READING
The Normals | ✓
Science FictionWhen Arden stumbles across a half-conscious, bloodied girl at his local train station, he doesn't know what to think. But once she tells him what happened to her, he gains a whole new perception of his world. Arden lives in pretty much the perfect s...
