Think 'Haven' & Take My Hand (girlxgirl)

Chapter 6 Stephanie

As we waited in the lobby, I stared as a redhead girl flirted with Rachel. My friend, like usual, smiled quirkily at the girl, making her believe that she has a chance. As far as I know, when people approach Rachel so spontaneously all she does is either ignore them or make-out with them. At the moment, due to the event coming up, she was likely to ignore the redhead.

I frustratingly tore my eyes away and crossed my legs. I was sitting on a black-leathered couch, the space next to me was empty, right in front of the reception desk. I stared at the clock and tried to count down the minutes until it showed a nine and two zeros. I had nothing else to do whilst Rachel got distracted by people, instead of doing what she had gone to do – find out the Sections they belonged to.

After a minute, exactly, Rachel slumped right next to me with a very bright smile on her face. “Tissue Reconstruction Organization.”

“She certainly does look like it.” I said, crossing my arms. That Section is basically plastic surgery.

Rachel frowned, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing…” I said frowning back.

Rachel paused shortly and then gave me a crooked smile. “How were things last night?”

She pushed me playfully with her shoulder before I could answer. I turned and looked straight into her. I could already feel the slight blush at the mentioning of my ‘evening with Jay’. An evening I did not have because my mind was a mess… for different reasons. “Great. Thanks for asking.”

“No details?” Rach raised her eyebrow. “I’m your best-friend. You should tell me about your sex-life.”

I was about to say something when a man in a dark-blue suit came out of the main elevator. He wore dark sun-glasses and sported an implanted headpiece. Five others followed him from behind and as they stepped out, their faces landed on ours. The first man I had looked at was probably the leader because he was the first one in the triangle formation that approached us.

“Cases,” He called out to us using colloquial terminology, “Welcome. Please stand in a line as we proceed with scanning.”

This was standard protocol. Every day that we reported ourselves at our Sections we were meant to do this against a specialized ICN. This time, however, the scans came from their glasses; red, blue, ultraviolet and then infra-red light. The last one was much warmer than the others. Right afterwards, our H.Codes were recited without any need of confirmation.

Once they were done with the two dozens of people present, the leader of the men in blue looked from left to right.

“Okay. Thanks for coming this morning.” He said and paused. Somehow, the headpiece implant looked different than normal. It was green, rather than black, which meant that he was an exclusive Informative Case. “As you may know, today marks the start of the 26th week of the year - the ideal date to start the selection process towards the formation of the new Research Section. It consists of nothing else but a few physical exams to be run throughout the day. Our estimates show that only a fourth of you will be apt to carry out this new mission for humanity. So please follow orders and we will commence immediately.”

I glanced at Rachel. She was staring hard at the sun-glasses men, almost as if she were trying to figure something out. She glanced at me and gave me a hard smile. Of course, we had all seen this scene before. Nothing is irregular. Scanning and a check-up, check-up and report, report and go home… It’s just that this time, we were not sure if ‘going home’ was something that was going to happen straight away.

The other Cases looked equally as concerned or confused as we were. They probably didn’t know about the limb transplant part. I don’t blame them; it’s classified information.