Linked

Eight pt. 1: White

The waiting room is white. 

White walls, chairs, the small rectangular coffee table upon which sits a pile of newspapers and a pale plastic potted orchid. I run my fingers over the goosebumps raising fine blonde hairs on my arm. I'm not sure if I'm shivering because it is cold, or because it just seems so. 

This is a private waiting room. I am the only patient here, perched on the edge of a plastic chair, bag snug on my lap. A receptionist, hair tied into a tight knot on the top of her head, occasionally glances at me over her paperwork as she scrawls notes. There's no security that I can see. Perhaps this is just a routine check-up. Corin must be paranoid. I get up, stretch my arms above my head as casually as possible, and stride to the elevator doors opposite. My fingers graze the smooth surface of the wall, where buttons should, logically, be. I step back, take another look. No buttons on either side of the doors, clamped shut, tight as an oyster shell.

"Excuse me?" I turn to the receptionist. She puts down her pen and regards me with a raised eyebrow. "How do I operate the lift?"

She continues to stare at me. I can't quite tell if she thinks I'm an idiot.

"I need to go downstairs," I elaborate, hoping to spur her into life. "I... left something..."

Finally, her painted red lips break into a smile, flashing a row of perfect teeth, almost whiter than the walls.

"You don't." She says.

It's my turn to stare at her, loitering like a lost child beside the closed elevator doors.

"What?"

"You don't operate the elevator. I do." She taps the surface of her desk. "From here." There must be a row of buttons, hidden from view behind the raised frame of the work surface. I swing my backpack onto a shoulder.

"Well, can you open it for me? Please?" Glancing out the window, there's a sweeping view of next season's crops sprouting from the earth, shoots of green bursting up in neat rows like school kids vying to offer an answer in class. They must be genetically altered to be hardy, flourishing in winter.

"No."

"I'll only be a moment,"

She shakes her head. "Apologies, Miss Denman. Whatever it is can wait. I have instructions I must follow. As do you, I am sure."

I sigh loudly, stomping back to my seat. I can't even throw myself dramatically from the window. They don't open.

Dr. Frenchwood appears in the mouth of the hallway, embracing a clipboard. Her hair is pulled into a neat ponytail, a flow of lava streaming down her back, vivid against the pristine white of her fitted coat, nipped in at the waist. My heart thunders in my chest, fingers tightening around the strap of my bag. She smiles at me. A too-calm smile that doesn't reach her eyes, fringed with a flick of liquid eyeliner that lends a striking, fox-like quality.

"Miss Denman," she says. "If you'll come with me." Her eyes stray to the bag I'm clutching with a knuckle-whitening grip at my shoulder. "You can leave that at the reception desk."

Silently, I deposit the old schoolbag onto the counter, keeping my face still, casual.

"There's some croissants in there," I say coolly to the receptionist, as if to prove there's no reason my bag should be confiscated, "you know, in case you get hungry."

She wrinkles her face at me, and I follow Dr. Frenchwood into the wide, white hallway stretching ahead.

Bleached linoleum squeaks beneath my boots as I hurry to keep up with the doctor's long-legged strides. If it weren't for the rows of pale grey doors inset every few meters, the walk would be dizzying. Everything is an immaculate, pure white, walls seamlessly turning to ceiling and floors. I fall into step with Dr. Frenchwood.

"What's behind those doors?" They are labelled. Group One. Group Two. And so on.

"I'm afraid what goes on behind closed doors is confidential, Miss Denman," she doesn't even look at me as she speaks. "Much like our thoughts inside our individual minds. I'm sure you can understand that."

Then I spot what's missing, why the walls are so unblemished. There are no scanners to open the doors. There aren't even any old-fashioned doorknobs. Dr. Frenchwood must have access controls through her notepad. She stops, suddenly, at a door marked with her name near the end of the hall. It slides open noiselessly, and she motions with a hand for me to enter first. I can't see anywhere else to go, so I cross the threshold and find myself in a sparse exam room. Again, everything is white, nostril-stinging chemically clean scented. To my left, a bed runs almost the length of the wall. A fat pillow and thin layer of white cotton sheets sit on a plastic coated mattress. In the far corner, beneath a small square window is a desk, sandwiched between two chairs. I notice the patient chair is made of a hard, smooth material, four spindly legs propping it up. Dr. Frenchwood's chair on the other hand has wheels and seems padded in all the ergonomically comfortable places. Her sunset coloured hair, and the sprouting green shoots glimpsed through the fourth-floor window are the only splashes of colour in the room.

"Take a seat, Miss Denman," she says, cutting past me to slide into her wheely chair behind the desk. I shuffle past the unappealing bed and plop myself onto the chair facing the doctor. This room could belong to anyone. There's none of the paraphernalia usually found in offices, such as scenic calendars or photos of family. Dr. Frenchwood is clearly all business. She reaches to open a desk drawer and retrieves an aural thermometer, which she places on the empty desktop between us. I stare at it, hands clasped in my lap. She's going to take my temperature? Is that all?

"So," she begins, "your father scheduled today's appointment for you."

"I know." A familiar tickling starts at the edges of my mind, an insistent niggle. Nope. I'm not risking a Link with Corin whilst I'm with Dr. Frenchwood, who practically admitted at the school assembly she thinks Linkers are an abomination. He will have to wait.

"You are probably aware you aren't due a standard medical examination until entering adulthood at eighteen..." she tapers off, pausing to catch my eye, then tilts her head slightly, ponytail swinging onto her shoulder. "Are you wondering why you are here?" she stares at me calmly. There's a strange nothingness behind her eyes, as though she's trying to be friendly, but without the hard sheen she's left empty. I shrug. She sighs. "I can understand that." She touches the surface of her clipboard with a manicured finger. Her nails are painted silver, glittering like scales. "Be assured, you have nothing to worry about, Miss Denman. There are a few small tests your father would like done, a minor procedure, then you can be on your way."

"What tests?" I ask, pointing at the thermometer lying on the desk. "My temperature? Mrs. Plum could've taken that at home."

Dr. Frenchwood's serene smile tightens, taut as a rubber band. "I think you will find my results are both accurate and trusted. As your father's sole successor do you think it's unreasonable he wants to ensure you're keeping good health?"

I shrug again.

"Stop shrugging at me," she snaps. "At seventeen, I am sure you're capable of using words."

I'm enjoying this a bit too much. I shrug again. The doctor takes a long, rattling breath, obviously swallowing rage.

"I am going to take your temperature and your weight. Please comply."

She's still trying to pretend this is about my health.

"We both know this banter is a waste of time," I finally say, crossing my arms. "Why am I really here?"

Dr. Frenchwood regards me a moment from across the desk. Her long eyelashes flutter as she thinks.

"Perhaps you do require a change of tactic," She says. "You're practically an adult, Benna. If you can behave as such, I shall talk to you frankly."

"I'll be good." I sit up a bit straighter, as if to prove my statement.

"Good." She taps her clipboard with the end of a pencil, then sets the pencil on the desk. It's then I notice the clipboard is actually a large, thin notepad, covered in capitalized text and flashing charts. "We have it on record that your mother was a Mindlinker."

To be continued...