Part 24: Codename-Pox, In her words (Part 3)

The doctor asked the nice woman to leave us alone and we talked. I was amused by his voice and his eyes were kind. He talked to me with no pretense or condescension. He told me that he thought my sisters and I were special and he was an expert with “special” people. He then told me that there was no record of any living family and the state would be placing us with foster families. That word “families” scared me. They were going to separate us and I could not let that happen. He then told me that I was the oldest and asked if we may want to go live with him. He could test us and see what made us special and see if he could fix us. If we wanted to be fixed. I quickly accepted. I had to keep us together.

We were kept in isolation even from each other. We had no human contact except through biological suits and rubber gloves. Our foods and any personal items were passed through hermetically sealed drawers. The facility was obviously some type of laboratory but apparently he lived there as well. We were fed well and I was given school lessons by various nurses and even the Doctor himself. For the most part it was not unpleasant, until they started testing us. More needles. I hate needles and there seemed to be an endless supply of them. After nine months they reduced our quarantine and a suite was set up for the three of us to live in. We had school at regular hours and were allowed to play, but there were always needles and tests. But for the most part we were happy because we were together.

It seemed I had the ability to pass on pathological symptoms to other people without the actual pathogens. It was a unique ability one they had never seemed. They would bring various animals in for me to touch and “pass it on”. When they took the animals away they told me that they had to “go make them better”. Anytime I asked them to see them though they made excuses. It didn’t take me long to realize that they weren’t making them feel better. I began to imagine the fates of the rats, rabbits and cats they brought me and I cried. It was only after I cut my finger on a broken dinner plate and healed the wound that they saw the true nature of my powers. I was able to manipulate the metabolism of living cells (mammalian cells) to the point of pathology or accelerated growth. My powers they said had great potential. I was a very special girl. My sister’s power remained very immature; as they were so young and it would take years before they really manifested them.

I accelerated in my studies and was given my high school equivalency by age thirteen. At that point the Doctor asked me what I’d like to learn about. While I graduated at an accelerated pace I was far from a prodigy. Any child given the opportunity to learn with no outside distractions would do the same. I had high reading comprehension and enjoyed philosophy and the humanities. He gave me all the reading and study materials and we would have weekly one-on-one discussions about all aspects of philosophy. He would always try to steer me toward the classic concepts of truth, liberty and justice. While interesting I gravitated toward the more esoteric and radical ideologies. This made for long debates that were both frustrating and invigorating. After one very long session about Neitze , Satre and Camus he told me that he found my fathers name. Excited I asked if he wanted to come take us home, the Doctor reluctantly told me he had died years ago. And true to his honest nature and willingness to talk to me like an adult he told me he had died during a drug bust just after my sisters were born. I asked him to leave my room and I didn’t talk to anyone for a week. Even my sisters. Knowing I was angry the staff workers were told to wear bio suits until I calmed down.

He came to me a few weeks later excited and anxious. He talked to me about the outside world and what was happening. He realized that we had been kept in isolation but assured us it was for our own good. And to be honest I didn’t miss it. After living the hell that was our life I enjoyed the separation from the exterior world. He asked me if I wanted to be truly special to really make a difference in the world. To which I answered “of course”. After all doesn’t everyone want to be special? He said that people in the government needed people like me to do things to make the world better. That there were people out there that made the world a bad place and we needed more girls like me to take care of things. He said that there were other children (a term I didn’t care for because even at 13 I didn’t feel like a child) that were special too that may come help us some day and would I like to join a team to help the world. “Why can’t I do it alone”, I asked. “Or with my sisters?” He explained they were too young but someday if they wanted to maybe we could. I agreed.

He was thrilled and then asked, “Would you like to call me father?” I jumped into his arms and cried as he held me. He pulled away from me after a while beaming with pride and took a moment to think. “We need to train you. You and your new partner. I think you will like her. She’s very special.”

I was very nervous about our meeting. I hadn’t seen another person my age, besides my sisters in almost three years. I waited in the conference room both anxious with delight and apprehension. I had been used to my solitary life and had grown accustomed to the situation. My sisters and the doctor were all I needed. The lab workers were merely employees…. needle bearing nuiscenses. But I could see they feared me and that was good enough to know I had that edge on them. The thought of a friend, a real life friend, was exciting and scary. Would she accept me for what I could do or would she think of me as a freak?

A shadowy figure in an overcoat and fedora walked in the room. I recoiled for a moment. It was an adult. I began to regret my decision; this wasn’t what I signed up for. Who was this person? How am I going to work with them? Then I saw a skinny hand reach out from behind and grasp the persons arm.

“She’s a little shy.” The voice told me. It was a woman’s voice which seemed odd, but it was a pleasant voice. Walking around the figure was a skinny girl roughly my age. She had straight dirty blonde hair pulled back by butterfly shaped barrettes. Her clothes were bright colored (not my taste, I was currently going through a bit of a Goth stage) and hung on her like they were hand me downs from a much bigger sibling. She didn’t look directly at me. In fact she seemed to look around at everything except me. Her head seemed to pivot against normal patterns. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t place what it was. She inhaled a deep breath and seemed to look straight at me and smiled her eyes still not looking directly at me but just above me.

“Oh there you are!” She said in her squeaky mouse like voice. And as I fixed on her wandering eyes I realized that this girl was blind. She then walked directly up to me dodging the occasional chair and stopped directly in front of me and held out her hand. “I’m Codename-Glimpse, what is your name?”

I stuttered. What the hell was this, I thought. A blind girl, what could she possibly do? What good is this?

“Oh goodie the doctor is coming down the hall I can’t wait to see him again!” She said with her back to the door and blind no less. Silly girl what was she talking about? And at that moment Father walked into the room smile on his face, eyes lit up with great pride.

“Hello Doctor dier Schepper!”

“Why hello Glimpse, good to see you.”

“And it’s good to see you!” she laughed in a cute girly laugh. The kind of life I could never have yet wished I could. She focused back on me. “What was your name again?” Her blind eyes looking off in the distance unfocused on me. I moved a bit to my left and her hand followed.

Embarrassed I stuttered again.

“That’s right, dear; we never gave you your codename. What would you like it to be?” he asked with enthusiasm.

I hadn’t thought of a name before and I was ready to rid myself of my given name. I paused for several moments and then it just came out.

“Pox, call me Codename-Pox” I said with new found pride. A new name. A new start.