Guilty

Chapter 4-Blue

Monday morning, we were back in the lab, waiting for Dr. Killdridge to come in and explain what was going to happen next. The Y-shaped scars had surprisingly already scanned and healed, which Rush said was common with American medicine--barely anything scarred if you could afford the "fancy" medicine, and it only took a couple of days to heal.

The silence was interrupted by the red-headed secretary entering the room. She eyed Rush, Jill, Alain, and me suspiciously, and waggled her finger at us. "The metal teeth that Dr. Killdridge installed last week are tracking chips, but they also monitor what you eat and drink. He strictly warned that straying from the diet is prohibited. This first time, you will not be penalized, bit be aware that any other transgression will result in punishment. Alcohol isn't allowed. Mr. Moreno, Mr. Caster, no smoking."

"Thanks for calling me by my last name like a polite young woman," Rush said, shaking her hand, "But please, I go by Rush Harrison. Caster's my father's last name. Never had the money to get it legally changed."

"Caster? Like the Reid Caster, the man that invented telecontacts?" Jill asked, just as surprised as I was, even more so that she'd known him for years and had never heard his real last name.

"Yeah, Reid's my grandfather. My dad was his son, and the family refuses to admit I exist. I'm one of those accidents they swept under the rug. They don't even give us any compensation. Their lawyers are good enough to keep any of it from getting public," he grimaced. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm Rush Harrison, and that's what's important."

"Well, I'll make sure that Dr. Killdridge and the nurses know to call you Harrison, then," said the secretary, leaving.

"My father's one of Caster's lawyers," Rosamond muttered from the corner.

"And?" Rush grunted, crossing his arms, "I really don't want anything from the man. I don't want to be part of a family that doesn't want me. I'm perfectly fine with the old woman and my brother and sister. My dad's got a new lady and some kids now."

"Shhh, you hear that?" Alain whispered, and we all quieted. There was a beeping noise, accompanied by what sounded like heavy breathing, gradually getting louder.

"What is it?" Asked the dark haired girl that I hadn't met yet.

She was answered with shrugs until someone appeared from the other side of the wall. He was a monster, some kind of experiment-gone-wrong, gone disastrously. He slowly inched forward in a wheelchair while his arms and legs shook like an earthquake, barely able to exert any pressure to make him move faster. One eye was rolled back into his head and the lids around it sagged, and the other was dilated entirely, a black nickel on an ivory-sculpted face; it analyzed the room, quivering slightly as it took in its surroundings. Snowy hair drifted down his forehead to land wispily over his eyes, and he brushed it away with great difficulty so he could further interrogate his rods and cones for a picture of the room and the people in it. There was not a speck of dust on him, nor anything not white other than his one eye-even his eyelashes and the hair on his arms was white. He was completely clean, OCD clean, like his entire body had been bleached and scrubbed without leaving burns. Clear tubes and wires entwined themselves throughout his body-- an oxygen tank attached to the wheelchair provided him with air through one coming into his nostrils, another connected to his wrist dripped a clear fluid lifeline into his blood.

This entire description avoids the elephant in the room, per say, as the seemingly most important tube, coming from his neck, didn't pump something clear, but pumped a dark red broth from his body through a machine and back into his chest. His hospital gown was torn to reveal a large portion of his chest, and his skin torn to reveal a bulky machine balanced precariously inside of his chest cavity, where a heart would typically be. It protruded past his breast bone, no-doubt using it for support, so that the only option was to keep an open wound or graft skin over the machine to create an eerie shape. There was no blood spilling from this wound; everything was clean like a plastic anatomy figure in a biology classroom. A small portion of his lungs could be seen expanding and contracting with his coarse, shallow breaths. Scars littered the area around the chest that skin still clung to. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rosamond covering her mouth in horror, Alain standing with a gasp of pity across his entire body, and Jill simply looking away. Thalia and Rush were expressionless, unsure of how to react.