The Human Xenocide

Chapter Four - Look What I can Do

The doctors organized their notepads and papers and started to file out of the room as if all other questions had fled their minds.  Dr. Hemaz indicated to Lilly to follow him out of the room and past the dispersing crowd. The pair of nurses who helped earlier were doing a good job ushering the curious onlookers back to work, assuring them the charts and logs would be available after their shifts were completed.

Dr. Hemaz led Lilly down a few halls until they arrived at a particular hall with black tape on the carpeted ground and a distant eye chart.

Lilly was instructed to stand on the line and she covered one eye to stare at the chart, “Let’s start here.” Dr. Hemaz stated as he pointed at the twenty-thirty vision line.

“Too easy!” she easily rattled off the very bottom line instead, twenty-fifteen—she got them all right.

“Well,” Dr. Hemaz said, noticing the dilemma, “we are going to need to make a stronger chart for you.” It didn’t take long, a few measurements and a couple hot copies off the printer later and he had several new rows of letters taped below the twenty-fifteen vision line. “Start here,” he pointed at the row below the one she just did.

“B, E, F, H, E, T, L, F,” he marked down her answers and told her to move down to the next row. She rattled off more letters. His eyebrows rose as he told her to move down to the next row; he didn’t say if her answers were correct or not. The next row was actually a bit hard to read; she had slight difficulties with a few of the letters but managed to finish the line.

After that line she was instructed to go one more down and after that another row down. She struggled to complete the second to last line.  Dr. Hemaz had her switch which eye instead of moving on, so she covered her opposite eye and repeat the lines starting at the one below the twenty-fifteen line.  Once she finished down to the second-to-last line Dr. Hemaz finally talked again, “Well, the line below 20/15 was 20/10, that’s twice the vision of a normal human, after that was 20/6 then 20/4. The bottom row is the vision quality of a hawk or eagle. Try it, first with your right eye.”

She could barely make out the letters, “Uh, B, G, K, K, L, F, F, H?” she knew she had to have been wrong; they never put two of the same letter next to each other on these tests.

He marked down the letters then told her to switch eyes. She did as she was told and repeated the line, somehow she getting different letters, now she knew she was wrong.

“On the left eye you got them all correct up to 20/4, where you missed one letter, then 20/2 where you missed five. On the right eye you got them all correct up to 20/2, where you missed only three letters. According to these results you have the eye sight just short of an eagle, something that was thought to be completely impossible to the human physique, until now,” he snapped his metal clipboard shut and continued, “Now time for the next, test, I want to see if this change has, in any way, affected your movement or endurance.”

Lilly followed the doctor to the hospital’s brand new rehab gym, taking several turns and passing what was considered her room. He went up to the patient desk at the gym and ordered a standard long sleeve gray shirt and sweats for Lilly.  She went into an unused room next to the gym and changed into the gym clothes, expecting to be stuck running on some treadmill in the gym. Once she met up with him again Dr. Hemaz did something surprising, he went directly for a password-locked door at the back end of the gym, punched in a code, and exited the rehab gym revealing a cloudy day. 

He motioned for her to follow.  She was confused as to why he chose not to use the gym equipment, sure she felt the equipment was pointless and a waste of time, but also ecstatic that they didn’t go near the machines. As the pair stepped outside Dr. Hemaz pulled a white brimmed hat and a pair of grey gloves out of a small black bag, “Put these on, you’ll need them.”