Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [2]
They move on. I sit unmoving at my machine. No one seems to care.
“HISTORY?” THE STERN MAN AT THE TERMINAL ASKS WITHOUT turning to face me.
I stare, poised in the doorway for flight.
“What is your history?” he snaps again.
“What is history but a fable agreed upon?” I ask.
He swivels his chair and studies me. “Oh, yes, I was warned about you. Give me that disk.”
I extend the piece of plastic and he drops it into the terminal.
“Patient’s History—Review—” he tells it.
“Sarah. No surname. No precise date of birth,” the disembodied voice announces. “Admitted from Ivy Green Institute, private facility.”
A light begins to flash and the voice states without change of tone, “Classified! Classified!”
The man studies me for a moment, then shrugs, his face falling into lines of habitual boredom.
“Don’t matter,” he says, punching a button. “Computer, reprocess patient as socially functional and discharge her.”
The computer grunts and he hands me another plastic disk. “Here’s your walking papers, Sarah. Go out of here and turn left. They’ll send you on your way.”
I stand frozen. He repeats his instructions more slowly. I turn and walk to the door. Betwixt and Between mutter comfort, ignoring that in my unhappiness I am swinging them upside down.
The normally sepulchral discharge area is in chaos. Myra Andrews, who usually spent her days watching the soaps, is frantically processing orders. Her subjects are panicked men and women who, until that morning, had been cloistered, in many cases for most of their adult lives. Various flunkies drafted from other areas try to keep order. I recognize Jerome from the cafeteria. He waves but is too busy to stop.
Another flunky takes my name and gestures me into line, where I find that both Ali and Francis are in front of me. Too numb to be surprised and welcoming them as something familiar on a day too full of change, I smile.
“So, you’re getting out, too?” Francis says. He’s clearly verging on his depressive phase.
“They can only set free men free,” I reply.
“You’re right, sister,” Ali agrees, seeming to have held on to his belligerence. “We were long ready to get out of here. They aren’t throwing us out. We’re leaving!”
We huddle together: frightened, defiant, numb. Orderlies arrive and take charge of us. My flunky is a lady I faintly recall from the Library staff. She is chatty and kind.
“Come along, Sarah. First, we’ll get you your medical clearance.”
She takes the hand in which I do not hold my dragon, leading me like a child. We go to a temporary bank of medical scanners. They are easy to use, but a bored-looking tech drifts over to assist.
“If the patient checks out clean,” she explains to my escort as they match my body to the human silhouette on the chair, “then press this tab. It’ll give her a whole host of immunizations and a five-year sterilization.”
“Five years?” my aide seems concerned. “That’s quite a while, isn’t it? What about the patient’s civil liberties?”
“Flip ’em,” the tech replies. “If I had my way, we’d sterilize them permanently. What good can a crazy contribute to the gene pool? Anyhow, check the chip when you finish the outprocessing. Technically, these folks remain the wards of the state for the next decade. Loco parentis.”
She laughs at her own joke as she helps me to my feet. Next, my aide takes me to a supply heap. Digging through various stacks—much of it clothing I recognize as having been made in the sewing workshop—she packs a nylon travel bag.
When she hands it to me, I realize that it is so light that it couldn’t possibly contain more than a single change of clothes and possibly some extra socks and underwear. I sling it from my shoulder and let Betwixt and Between perch on top. They have been very quiet, but I feel that their ruby eyes have missed nothing.
The last thing my aide gives me is a plastic credit card, not unlike the ones we use in the Home