10/17

Episode 6, Chapter 24

Cold silence made Laney shiver as she watched the landscape slip by outside her window from the back seat of the nondescript, posh black sedan driven by a matching nondescript, black clad, security personnel. She wondered if there was special school someplace where people like him majored in things like stony expressions and intimidating inhumanity. She imagined the classes were things like "How to be a robot one-oh-one" or "How to select appropriately unremarkable, dark sunglasses for beginners." Anyone who smiled more than twice would be instantly expelled. The idea made Laney smile, until they neared the now familiar turn for the former Urgent Care building.

"What the..." she whispered, her voice trailing off as her brain tripped over what she saw.

The mundane little clinic was unrecognizable. People in what she could only think of as S.W.A.T. gear stood evenly spaced around the perimeter of the building. Interspersed among the new, soldier-like guards were sets of the original suited wonders. Nothing had changed in their appearance, but Laney assumed they were just as armed and dangerous as the commando guys. Wooden barricades ringed the grounds. A pulley system gate had been erected across the entry to the drive and tents large enough to drive through created a tunnel system surrounding the front door and half the parking lot.

As the car pulled up to the gate, one of the commando guards stepped to the driver's window demanding identity confirmation. Moments later, Laney's window lowered, and the same emotionless guard barked his demands at her mother. After confirming Ms. Dempson's ID the car rolled forward and around a turn in the tent where it idled. The driver stepped out, opened Laney's door and gestured toward the entryway with drone like efficiency and character.

"Thank you," Ms. Dempson said, offering a cheery smile. Without so much as a nod of his head, he reentered the vehicle and pulled away. Laney shook her head.

"You knew he wasn't going to answer you. I don't know why you bothered."

"Manners are not selective, Laney, their universal. I thought I taught you that," Ms. Dempson replied in that "mother knows best" tone. Laney could only shake her head.

Inside the waiting room, everything looked exactly the same, with two exceptions. Someone had hung a small span of decorative spider webs and plastic spider over a candy dish in the nurse's window, and the television was gone. Clint was no where to be seen, but, given his power, that did not count for much. Laney could not feel him either, though. Unless he had learned to block the weird connection the Altered seemed to share, he was absent. Her shoulders drooped as the realization sunk in. The chance to talk to Clint again had been the only real reason she was willing to make this trip.

"Laney, Sarah. Hi, Happy Halloween." The brunette nurse with the plastic smile waved them through the door to the back. "Good to see you again. I hope this trip was easier for you."

"Yes, much. Thank you, Rene." Ms. Dempson said, smiling as she followed the pretty nurse to an exam room.

"Well, good. We are happy to arrange a pick up, drop off schedule for the next few weeks, if it makes you more comfortable. Also, if it would be helpful, since Delaney is seventeen, a simple legal waver would allow her to make all future, routine visits on her own. That way you won't have to keep missing work."

"Ah, slow down," Ms. Dempson said politely, before Laney had a chance to panic. "Thank you, for the offer. Laney and I will give it some thought. But, we aren't ready to make those kinds of plans, just yet. Right now, I think we're just going to take this day by day. And where my daughter goes, I go." Laney let out a tiny little sigh of relief. She was not ready to do this on her own. Nurse Rene nodded, still maintaining her fixed, generic smile.