Ongkingco
I am going to be eighteen tomorrow?” the teenager’s unbelieving voice trembled with anxiety.
“Yes,” a man wearing a laboratory gown sighed deeply with unquestionable regret. “Still, all our investigations have been inconclusive!”
“What will turning eighteen be like?” The boy seemed not to share the man’s disappointment.
“I can’t tell,” the doctor shrugged.
“More experiments?”
“No. They end today!” He tucked his glasses into his breast pocket.
“And you are going home and will be on your own,” the doctor added with a cold, clinical tone.
“Where is ‘home’ and what does ‘on my own’ mean?” the teenager clarified.
“I’m afraid you will have to find that out for yourself.”
“On my own. . .”
“However, we will keep in touch. Oh, kindly sign these papers before leaving,” the doctor managed to force a grin.
“No more tests? Blood samples, X-rays and other scans?” The boy slowly traced: RC-112 on every page.
“No more test. We have done all we could possibly ever think of. Perhaps, someday science will discover what exactly it is.”
“Doctor?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“What if it simply had to be so? That it’s something that need not be studied or examined because it is irrelevant?”
“Don’t start with that again,” the doctor’s face flushed with irritation.
“If all those years were inconclusive, then why bother?”
“Because you’re the only person in the world whose shadow is blue!”
* * *
The facility’s heavy iron gates groaned to a close. A faded yellow taxi was waiting outside.
“Where to, dude?”
The teenager handed him a piece of paper with an address.
“Hey, I know this place!” the cab driver said.
“My grandparents used to live in this area.”
In the last fifteen years, this was the first time for the boy to come in contact with someone outside the facility.
“My name is Dave. What’s yours?” the driver asked.
“Patient RC-115,” he automatically replied.
“Whoa! Dude, chill! And I’m RU-N2-ME. I mean, what do your folks call you?”
It took him some seconds to catch his ID dangling around his neck. Flipping it over, he slowly read the name: STEVEN BRADLEY. “I’m Steven.”
“Been in the facility for some time?”
“Yes. My ID number means 15 years, and the only patient in that compound.”
“And what might ‘R’ stand for, if I may ask?” Dave said.
“Restricted,” Steven said.
“Sorry for asking!”
From that point onwards, Dave never said a word. He acted as though talking more with Steven could infect him with some incurable disease.
To be concluded
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