13 Chapter T H I R T E E N : Right Under The Nose (Part 2)

"Pick up a clam, and whatever number you get inside, that's the locker you are gonna have for as long as you're here, and also...the PAM, Prototypic A1 Mate, in case you haven't flipped through the prospectus, and that for the clam you've chosen," Dale fills in for the least we must need to know.

"That's the coolest thing I've heard so far for today!" River joins her palms together, while keeping me posted of her excitement.

When is she not excited anyway?

"But a few students share a close nexus with their PAMs, and don't want others to get the same interaction that they share with their PAMs, even after graduation, so they pull a few strings," he warns in a wary tone, as he sighs. "So be careful. It's not in your hands though."

And he has this weird ability to make even the minor thing into a scary detail.

"Riveting? Check! Jumpscares? Cross check!" River makes a weird voice, and rubs both shoulders while crossing her arms over each other.

I shake my head looking at her.

Yes, I've heard about this PAM stuff. Each student gets their own prototype assistant in this school, mostly in form of a few certain small species, who stays with them all 24/7, and guides them through wherever they're stuck in.

More like a pet or sidekick...perhaps!

But I don't get the clam part yet.

And it gets untangled just in a few seconds.

Dale places a small crystal cube on the middle point of a large 'T'-shaped glass stand, and attaches it firmly with the mid-clamp, before extending the holding rod to elevate the whole system.

He presses his hand on the upper sensor of the cube, and before we know it, the cube gets transformed into an average-rectangular-slightly-raised fish tank, only filled with variety of clams of different shapes and colors. It's strange how the large tank is getting well balanced on a slender rod stick.

He turns the whole system so smoothly off the top, at a total right angle, with the aid of his one proficient hand, that I'm sure, it both stuns and excites us all.

But the strange thing is, not a single droplet leaves the tank despite such a vulnerable position of its.

"Jeez! Ain't there anything else than clams? Ugh! Why on earth clams!" River fusses beside me.

"And that numeric would too be your keycard to get inside this class and this only, so if any of you lose it, intentionally or not, you might need to show up at the Triforum, and explain for yourself," he concludes with nonchalance, as he looks for any probable mistake he might've made while putting up the system.

I get it, it's important, but he doesn't need to drag it down to Triforum right yet. We haven't even started anything.

Cause, boy, Triforum is a whole new level!

To define it in simple words, Triforum is this school's internal jurisdiction section, where three people make all the legal decisions and judgements: Principal Hescott, Vice-principal McLachlan, and Programme Head (PH) Nicholas Vellacott. Any student, stuff, doctor, professor or even researcher, found with illegitimate connection or other issues that violates the school's regulations, needs to show up before the three people's community, and explain their actions with proper evidence and plausible logic before the entire school.

And if one fails to explains, they might get suspended, expelled or fired; and often it can drop the lawsuit on them, even extending it up to execution, depending upon the severity of their crimes, and it gets done within the school's authority, without any involvement from the Chanteuse House.

"C'mon! Are you waiting for an invitation?" Dale snaps. "Get here fast and pick one."

Everyone seems to be grossed out with the fact that they need to catch a clam with bare hands, just to get a locker.

"Captain!"

Gray gets freeze on his spot. It's clear that he doesn't want to be the scapegoat right now.

"Ye-yes!"

"Stop chickening out and grab a clam already!" Dale instructs with a crease in between his brows.

"Ye-yes! O-on it!"

Leaving an exasperated sigh behind, he walks up to there, without a sheer hint of excitement, but rather disgust all over his face, while rolling the sleeves of his Blass up, revealing his sinewy rugged arm, prominently adorned with visible blue veins and short black hairs.

Damn! That is sooooo....

"Make it fast, Jackson!" Dale's voice rumbles, intruding into my not-so-sweet reverie.

I facepalm myself, as I feel a sudden heat on both of my cheeks.

Gosh! I'm embarrassed to myself!

Sue my dirty thoughts!

"Ugh! What are you doing?!"

I look up, only to get choked on my saliva as I take in the scene before me.

Gray is putting his hand in and out of the still water, but not even reaching out for a clam, and let alone touching.

I don't get it! I absolutely don't!

How can someone be so afraid of such a docile little thing!

If he's such scared to touch a clam, how he's gonna deal with blood and shit?!

"They ain't a shark, so take one out already!"

I'm not sure whether it's Dale's voice or his (Gray) quickened impulse, but he finally grabs one and in an instance, jerks his hand away from the vertical waterline, making the black-spotted clam fall from his hand onto the glass floor.

Dale makes a weird expression, which clearly says, 'Is he for real!'

"Next one!"

*****

After the tinderbox moment, with each choosing a single clam differing from each other like those VNTR sequences, Dale busies himself in taking the system back to its previous state and putting the T-stand aside.

River is going over the top to having got hold of a tricolor mussel, with blue, yellow and green adorning its shells in an abstract color-drop.

On the other hand, I have got myself an ordinary dark brownish freshwater bivalve with a plain smooth surface and edges.

I guess, I've pulled the safe card out!

Yes!

Unconsciously, I start fiddling with my clam, until I feel slight pinches all over my palm, which startles me to such an extent that it slips out of my hand without me even realizing.

It hits the floor with a faint thud, and my eyes gets round, with an unexpected shock, the moment my eyes meet up with its location.

The clam has morphed into burgundy-stripped oyster with undulating edges.

Picking it up with extra caution, I pay attention to its beautiful construction.

"Guess everyone's ready for clamming!" Dale's voice booms, taking me out of my space. "Time to open 'em up!"

"Woah! I don't remember you picking that cutesy clamy!" And I realize, River is already hovering over my hands.

"Can you stop being a little less weird?" I whisper-yell at her, while taking my hands away. "And what's wrong with your words today?"

She pouts like a five-year-old, before she adds, "You're the one to talk! And my words are just fine, it's you who is proficiently lacking in the vocab norms!"

I scoff. "Whatever!"

"Grab the shells firmly with your fingers and put the thumbs on both edges," Dale instructs.

As I place my thumbs on its rippling edges, something gummy gets stuck to my fingertips.

What the hell!

"Now don't rush it, and pull apart both shells against each other. Don't put too much pressure, but make sure you're putting enough force to tear the abductor muscles!"

A string of expected 'ew's echoes around the thick hollow walls of the room.

Someone raises a hand up straight.

"Yes, Mr. Viland?"

"Can't we just put the gloves on first, and...uh, then do the whole thing?" A brown-haired tall guy makes the move, and to be honest, I guess, everyone is having the same thought as his.

Dale scoffs. "Unless you don't want your PAM to be loyal solely to you."

A sudden whispering hikes up in the air, but Dale is fast to put a cease on everything.

"I don't have all day for your stupid questions. That's what you're handed the prospectus for!"

The whisper dies down at once.

"Now pull 'em apart!"

Keeping his words in check, I firms my grip on its umbo along with the entire body, and tug at the edges with a frail force, but to my surprise, the shells don't even budge.

A frown makes its way on my forehead on its own. I put more pressure, but no, it's not opening.

"Woah! That's so cool!"

I realize, River has already opened up her clam and got hold of the pearl inside.

"Now whatever you got inside, take it to me! Quick! Make it fast!"

Taking a deep breath, I raise my left knee up a bit, and supporting the umbo against my thigh and putting my thumb-tips inside the small gap between both shells, I put my entire force to pull those against each other.

I said, open! Damn it!

From the corner of my eyes, I watch everyone submitting their pearls and receiving numbers to their lockers, as I struggle in silence.

"You need help there?" River frets as she places a hand over my shoulder.

I shake my head vigorously before presuming what I have been doing.

"Okay! I'll be right there! If you need me, just give me a call, okay?"

"Yeah!" I rasp out, as I put my entire concentration over putting more and more force beyond my limits.

The muscles on my arms twitch, the veins come on attention, my teeth clench, lips purse, face grimaces, as I tug at those annoyingly stubborn shells of this ridiculous clam.

CLINK!!

A major part of one of the shells breaks apart and falls on the ground, making a sharp distinct sound in the process.

That was enough to make every head turn towards me.

DROP! DROP! DROP!

Everyone has this shock all over their faces.

Ignoring them, I crouch down on the floor and pick the broken shell up.

But something there holds my gaze more than it should.

Near the piece, lies a few droplets of some red substance.

Could this probably mean....

I slowly take my hand up, and hold it before my face. There's a deep cut on my left thumb, starting from the tip till lower joint crease, and blood is furiously oozing out of there, even the clam muscles have got drenched in blood. My blood.

Boy! How could this have possibly happened?!

"Captain!" Dale's voice rumbles, startling me in the process. "Clean the mess up right now."

He throws a cube towards Gray, which he catches effortlessly.

"The locks ain't activated yet. Clean her up and get her clam to me." Dale eyes me once from head to toe, and scoffs. "Guess her genome has already been analyzed. Thoroughly."

He throws his gaze towards Gray again. "Can you do the dressing?"

Gray scratches his nape and ponders over it for a brief moment.

"Guess, you can't. Nevermind. Mr. Douglas?"

"No, wait!" Gray stalls. "Can do it. Just fine!"

Dale sticks his lower lip out a bit, as he bobs his head once for approval. "Okay then! You do it!"

With that, Dale walks away and busies himself with others, as Gray strides up to me, his face masked with something that I can't even name.

I leave an exasperated sigh.

"Didn't know you're clumsy to this point!" He scoffs scornfully.

I scoff back. "Pardon?"

Ignoring my shocked state, he grabs my unharmed hand, takes the clam out of my clutch, and stares deep into my eyes for only a few seconds, before dragging me along with him, away from the gathering, towards the specimen dolls.

He stops before a large closed tank inside which a few babies of different species are immersed in a yellowish liquid, probably formalin and isopropanol solution.

Gray lets go of my hand only now, and then looks at the cube up close before taking a cubelet out of it cautiously. In seconds, it changes into a first aid box which he places on the top of the glass tank and opens up.

We term it as Doctors' Cube.

This time he looks at me again with a blank face and his eyes hooded, and without a warning, he grabs my wounded hand, and takes it up to his level.

I was about to say something sassy, but he glares me down, and I also decide not to drag it along unnecessarily.

His brows knit together as he looks back to my thumb. I follow his gaze, and what I see next, scares me to no end.

There's dark blue substance oozing out of the wound, instead of RBC filled crimson blood.

It's just like....

The fricken DREAM!

He doesn't say anything, but presses the wound with a bit pressure.

"Ah-ah!" I flinch as a sharp stinging injects through the cut.

He releases his hold at once.

Guilt and worry overlaps each other repeatedly over his handsome face.

He pulls the sensor tool (the only thing inside the opaque glass box) out of the box quietly, and stalls for a moment, while staring deeply at the wound, before tracing it lightly over the cut.

And within a second, the a small rectangular screen appears just above the tool, and the wound gets displayed up close, even the damaged cells and capillaries are shown minutely. Gray pushes it away and widens the screen for a better view.

On the top of the it, there appears the word, 'LACERATION' in white with light purple highlights.

Under that word, a few options appears automatically, one after another:

1. Cleanse

2. Ointment

3. Suture

4. Dressing

5. Medication

6. Aftermath

He goes for 'cleanse' first and taps over the option, as the others dissolves quickly.

Next it starts to show steps gradually:

USE WARM WATER AND COTTON PATCH TO CLEAN

Instantly a sterilized cotton roll, a forceps and a small glass container appears inside the box, and Gray delays not a single moment to pull it out.

He preps the whole thing, and cautiously cleans the wound with a water soaked cotton swab, with me wincing from time to time.

Not only me, he is struggling too. I can tell that from the way he is flinching when I wince too.

I guess, he has an issue with blood.

Then why did he take up this major in the first place?

It's a question that I'm ingeniously curious about.

The moment he place back those tools back inside the box, the previous options shows up again, and he chooses 'suture'.

The steps starts to pop up, one by one.

On the other hand, a needle and a needle driver, scissors, tissue forceps and anesthetics appear inside the box.

Following the steps emerging on the screen, he prepares the needle, numbs the wound with the anaesthetics, and holds the skin near the cut with the forceps.

The needle rises and falls, the rhythm quite mundane, as his panting increases, and his warm breath falls over my frayed skin.

He warps up the whole thing as tenderly as possible, trying not to hurt me anymore, and cuts the thread with a shaky hand, at the end of his stitches.

Next, he cleans the area around the cut, and makes sure that there's no trace of blue blood on my skin.

On the screen, he presses the 'medication' bar, and following the same way, he hands me two tablets and water on a round glass container, which the box provided with.

"Better make a round to the infirmary after this class," He informs me with the same straight face as before, as he puts everything back to the box and turns it back to a small cube, before fixing his nasty glare on me.

"And you're not gonna tell anyone about what we both saw," he warns me, but his voice is draped with wary.

"Why would I advertise myself?" I scoff. "Neither I'm gonna hide it anyway. If anyone digs it out, I'm not gonna deny either."

"Why don't you listen to a thing I say?!"

"Give me a good reason to," I retort, and I don't know why that cafeteria scene from yesterday flashes before my eyes, as anger blinds me for a moment.

He closes his eyes for a moment before looking right into mine, as he steps closer.

"If there won't be any reason working, I wouldn't just ask you to keep such a petty thing a secret!" He snaps quietly, and then stops himself immediately.

So...my cut is petty? Is he being sarcastic right now to mock me? To get back at me?

"You know what..." He sighs. "I don't care. Do whatever you please."

With that, he walks away with the clam in one hand and cube on the other.

I stare back at his retreating back. I don't have the wish, neither the energy, to start another fight with him.

****

"Here's your keycard and here's your pearl!" Dale hands me over a slender burgundy colored card and a pinkish round seed.

"As long as this one's with you..." Dale points towards the pearl. "...your PAM will be loyal, only to you."

I pick up the card and read the number craved on the card in thick black ink.

"3-2-5-8-0!"

"Find your locker, and first take your PAM out of there and take it to me. I'll give you each a container and you gotta put it in there. It'll be in a womb-ball, so be careful with it," Dale warns. "Before taking it home, you must soak it in the ethanol, so the hatching can be done overnight."

I collect the pearl as well, and bury it inside my coat's side pocket.

He pushes a cream tinted screen towards me. "Now sign here."

He points towards the last gap, above which everyone has already left their curves.

As I go through the lines mentioned above, I get to know that it's a mutual agreement, and with signing this, I must return my PAM after my 3 years are over in this school, and the school can't take my PAM away for that time being.

Taking the e-pen up from the side, I doodle the familiar curvatures on the screen.

Dale scans through it for a moment, and then looks back to me.

"Okay you can go now!"

I was about to go, but his voice stops me.

"Oh, and also take those lab glasses out with you. You'll find it there. In your locker," he adds, with his eyes on the screen which he gave me previously to sign.

Putting it aside, he looks up at me.

"What? What are you waiting for?"

I shake my head, before turning on my heels and squirting away from there.

As I reach up to the locker wall, I watch everyone searching for their own lockers, while some have already found it and even taken their PAMs out.

The womb-balls are bright red, and the PAM can be seen through the semi-transparent placental layer: their eyes closed, and body bent to fit inside the ball. One thing I notice is that all the PAMs are in their original adult shape, but somehow dormant, as if they have been put in sound profound slumber for ages.

'3-2-5-8-0', I mumble this along repeatedly, so I don't forget, as my eyes move up and down and sideways, for over and over again, searching for the particular door, which the number is engraved on.

After a good deal of searching and misinterpreting someone else's locker with mine, my eyes finally clash upon the actual door.

32580!

I double check the number on my card.

Yes! That's that!

But the thing is, it's way up to the highest section of a different column.

Why on earth the lockers need to be aligned like a fricken endless periodic table?!

Keeping eyes fixed on the door, so I don't miss it amidst thousands of doors going up and down restlessly, I start to walk towards that particular column.

I didn't see it coming, and then even before I know it, I bump into someone. Looking up, as our gazes clash, I get numb on spot.

"Guess someone's having fun to slam it hard."

There comes the haughty insinuation from the century's bipolar most lady killer, as the corner of his lips lifts up.

"If you are trying to apologize, you know, there is this certain word." I sigh as I speak calmly.

"Says the one who always finds a way to pick on me," he taunts.

I look away at once.

He's got me!

"I don't pick on you for no reason," I mutter to myself.

"You know what, I've got this," he perks up, making my head turn. And the moment I turn, my heart thumps rapidly as I realize that my face is just an inch away from his and we're, indeed, standing so close...

Way too close!

"Facts," he speaks huskily.

Is he deliberately making it difficult for me?

"What are you even saying?" I manage to retort.

"Facts bout yourself, which you haven't noticed before, that's what makes you blush," he concludes with a wink.

My eyes widen, and I can't bring myself to scoff or swat it off.

"Gotcha! See, here you go again!" He chuckles as he moves away.

I cover my traitor cheeks with both hands.

Damn it! Why so frequent vasodialation!

I walk around him and scuttle off there at once, as I hear faint sound of laughter from behind.

I stop as another thought crosses my mind.

I've lost the sight of my locker.

Damn you, blonde prick!!

*****

Again wasting my time so futilely, I finally come across a lead, and run into River on the way.

Together we make it to our respective lockers, but mine is still up there.

Following her suggestions, I swipe my keycard at the slot just beside the column I'm standing before.

To be precise, every column has this kind of slot on a slender glass stalk, so the lockers can be arranged according to the need of each student.

As soon as I did swipe, my locker oversteps the other ones underneath it and gets down to my level, just like some translocation thing.

Taking a quick glance at River, who is happily cradling her PAM, which is most probably a hamster imposter, I take a deep breath and open up my locker.

First I take the glasses out. Except that the locker is filled with a few papers and two or three books, all old and tattered. I guess, it hasn't been used for years.

It sometimes happens though.

Next something at the right bottom most corner, catches my attention.

Something round. Something sheer blue. And also something moving!

I takes it out slowly, my hands imminently trembling as I hold on to it.

When light reflects on it, my assumptions turn out to be true.

It is, indeed, a blue womb-ball.

A fricken blue ball!

Inside there lies a weird species, I've never heard of its existence before.

A slender petite figure, as big as my palm, seems to be in deep sleep, with its knees bent and face on the top of them, as those tiny little arms drape the knees tenderly, the ears are protruded, and there's some fragile projections on its back.

Something more like a wing.

Could this probably mean...

"Wow! Looks like you've got an EAM," River exclaims with hushed excitement from beside.

I look at her dumbfoundly.

An EAM? The same one for Eutypic A1 Mate? Huh!

"That's so rare, woah! What's you got anyway?" She inquires curiously, as she stares at the ball for a moment.

Shock registers on her usually bright face, as her jaw drops instantly.

"Is that a..."

I complete her words.

"Fae!"

©Shena