Subject R - ON HOLD

chapter 2

Everyone was still watching me, and its beginning to piss me off.

It's been three days! Get over it!

God, ever since i had that little moment (aka, I screamed bloody murder, and then face planted out cold on the floor) Monday, everybody was staring at me, as if they expected me to do it all over again. Or they're just staring at the bruise on my nose after I hit the unforgiving floor. Still annoying.

After I'd fainted, Grace had told me, everyone had stared at me - totally out on the floor - for about five seconds before anything had actually been done. Then I'd been hauled back to the infirmiry where they  let me rest and Grace willed me to consciousness with her beautiful voice and cheetos (so she says).

Not one of my better moments.

I quickly sprint like hell to my cubicle, toting a large file and a bag of Cheetos (they're so good...) and basically hide in there, trying to avoid everyone's prying, judgemental eyes. I mean seriously, I just...fainted...for no particular reason that I would ever dare to try to explain to anyone, even Grace.

Because it had been so strange. That boy - man i suppose - had just looked at me. Looked straight into my eyes like he'd picked me out from a thousand people, as if he knew me. And not even a second after my eyes had met his...hell, I can't even explain it right.

I just suddenly felt so much fear that it was like it was going to burst from my body. It was just so much, too much, more than I could handle or my brain could process, and my body had reacted to it.

I frowned down at my Cheetos bag. Did that mean my reaction to mindless fear was to scream like a banshee and then faint? Not good for my survival skils...

For some reason, I couldn't get over the thought that the panic I'd felt hadn't been mine. But how could that be? Whose was it, Subject R's? Yeah, ok Cecily, go ahead and tell that to the Board, they'll kick out of the only job you've ever had straight into a facility with padded walls and fancy sweaters nicknamed 'straightjackets'.

I shaked my head and then open my file, skimming through my assignment. My new assignment was to study the strenghts of some somewhat rare rock and see if it had a possibility for helping build stronger structures on our moon settlements. Good cripes, they've been out there for forty-something years and they're still struggling with just the structures? Goodness.

I pull out the little sealed plastic bag containing a large sample of the stuff I had to study, and frowned. I shouldn't have chosen Scientific Assembling and Structuring as my major. Something fun like Biological Studies, or Anatomical Examinations, or Medicinal Research would have been sooo much better. Something studying life, or living organisms, or something that would be worth doing every gosh darned day and didn't slowly gray my brain from its dullness.

Yeah, I'm regretting.

But I opened the packet that is probably thicker than your average phonebook and attempted to read. If I wanted a different job, I'd have to go back to school, which would take forever, and I'm not that patient.

About half way down the page and already bored to death, I feel eyes on me, and unwillingly look up. And cringe. 

Joey Buwil was peeking over the top of my cubicle again, his tiny hands gripping the sides, itty bitty nose poking over the edge, unusually large blue eyes peering down at me in awe.

Joey is young, and new. Just out of the Academy and very much looks like it. He's shorter than I am. I'm not short, unless you consider five foot eight short, but just by a quick guestimate, Joey's along the lines of five foot four. And he's infatuated by me.