The Outlier

Anita and Rasha were sitting together in one of the many common rooms on the AFMA campus, relaxing after a hard day of work and enjoying a snack.

“So have you talked to your family since you’ve been here?” Anita asked, popping a gummy bear into her mouth.

Rasha shook her head, swallowing as she did so. “No. They live pretty far away. It costs too much to call them and I can never get them at the right time whenever I try.”

“How far away?” the teen asked hesitantly, not wanting to offend her new found friend.

“They live in America, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied with a goofy grin. “We may be from the Middle East, but I wouldn’t come all the way to a small town in Illinois just for this procedure.”

Anita cocked her head to side, still chewing on gummy bears. “What procedure?”

“First,” she replied, grin still intact. “You shouldn’t talk with a full mouth. It’s awfully rude. Secondly, yes, my procedure. Vincent is probably going to ask you to participate as well.”

“Yeah, but what exactly is the procedure you’re going to do?” she persisted.

“Don’t worry too much about it, okay? He’s just going to try and amplify my abilities is all. It’s supposed to help with my headaches and make it easier to read people’s minds.”

“Dude, that’s crazy!” Anita exclaimed, mouthing gaping with awe. “What’re you going to do with that?”

Rasha shrugged. “I am not sure yet. I think I’m just going to wait and see where it takes me.”

“Well, you do you, I guess,” she replied bluntly. “But you should figure out what you wanna do.”

The woman shrugged again. “Maybe I’ll be a fortune-teller or something. Make a little bit of money.”

“There! See? That’s something you can work with!”

“But I don’t see why I should be getting so excited,” Rasha retorted. “It may not even work on me.”

“Has Dr. Walsh tried it in the past?”

Rasha nodded as she pulled her black hair back into a ponytail. “Apparently, he’s tried it on a few other patients with some success.”

“Some success? What does that mean?”

“Like I said before, Anita, don’t worry too much about it, okay? You have bigger things to worry about.”

Anita gave Rasha a confused look. “Like what?”

Rasha quickly scanned the room before leaning across the table. “How much do you know about AFMA?” she whispered.

“Jack,” the teen whispered bluntly in response.

Rasha scanned the room again, using only her eyes so as to not draw attention to the two of them. “The Association for Medical Advancement does not care about the patients. They are a company, not a medical facility.”

“I mean, I kinda got that part-”

“No, you don’t understand,” she interrupted, waving a hand in front of Anita’s face. “Most hospitals and other medical facilities that do this kind of work are non-profits. AFMA just wants money and fame. They’re undermining so many other places to get people like us.”

“Dr. Walsh is doing that?”

“No, not Vincent. He doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. It’s all Marcus Bennett, the CEO. He’s the big, ugly man you saw with me yesterday. He shouldn’t even be running the place, but it’s all politics. They even have facilities overseas where they can’t be held accountable to United States laws and medical practices.”

“What? How do you know this?”

“I’ve been listening in,” she admitted, tapping her index finger to her temple. “They’ve done a lot of unethical things. There was one patient that they pulled the plug on without even consulting the family first. They let him die because he was in a coma and he knew too much.”

“That sounds a little crazy to me, Rasha,” Anita admitted in a hushed voice. “Even if that was true, how does someone as high up as Dr. Walsh not know what’s going on?”

“They purposefully keep researching doctors like him out of the loop. They want promising statistics, so they put stuff like that under wraps.”

“So they do shit like that often? Killing people because they can?”

“Not too often, otherwise they would be noticed. They have to do it sparingly, and it’s usually only to the patients that would negatively impact the studies.”

“Wouldn’t they show up in the reports?”

Rasha shook her head, finally leaning back in her chair. “They tell them not to.”

Anita leaned forward, suddenly interested in learning more. “And if they do? What happens?”

She shrugged and looked out the window. “I do not know. But I pray that whatever happens to them will not happen to Vincent Walsh.”

“He seems to be doing a good job, though,” the teen replied, puzzled by the idea of Dr. Walsh doing anything wrong. “Isn’t he?”

Rasha nodded. “Of course, he is doing an excellent job. And if you and I turn out how Marcus Bennett wants us to, he’ll get a promotion and probably be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means if we die, or something else goes wrong, Vincent is going to go through Hell.”

****

“Come on, Anita. We gotta get to Rasha’s procedure.”

Louise was standing in the doorway to Anita’s room, leaning against the frame.

Anita pulled on a cream colored sweater and a pair of faded brown boots. “Remind me again why I’m going?”

“Dr. Walsh wants you to see how it’s going to work for you. He doesn’t want you to be afraid of what’s to come.”

“And if it doesn’t work for her?”

Louise shrugged. “Then it doesn’t work for her and we’ll run more tests before your procedure. You have nothing to worry about, kid.”

“I hope not,” Anita admitted. “I’m a little nervous. Mostly for Rasha, though.”

“I understand,” Louise replied calmly, nodding as she did so. “But she’s gonna be fine. Dr. Walsh has this whole thing planned out and by the numbers. There’s a one in a million chance that anything will go wrong.”

“Knock on wood,” the teen added, knocking against the dresser as she approached the door.

“You hold onto that, kid,” she said, gesturing to Anita. “We can use someone with superstitions. Everyone else around here thinks it’s all in the hands of science.”

The two of them walked down to one of the many procedure rooms on campus. This particular one was set up in three separate sections; the actual procedure room, a technical room where Vincent would be pulling switches and pushing buttons, and an observation room for people like Marcus Bennett to watch the whole thing unfold. Anita and Louise walked directly into the technical room and saw Dr. Walsh explaining something to Rasha.

Upon entering the room, Rasha’s face brightened a little as she waved at the teen behind the glass. Anita gave a small wave back, before motioning to her to pay attention to Vincent.

The young doctor continued his explanation before strapping the woman into the chair and placing what looked like a metal crown with electrical wires on her head. Rasha looked a little nervous, but her demeanor almost suggested this wasn’t the scariest thing she’d ever done.

Once she was strapped in and ready to go, Dr. Walsh walked into the technical room and pushed a couple buttons. “Alright, Rasha, can you hear me?”

Rasha nodded. “Yes, Dr. Walsh, I can hear you.”

“And we can hear you on our end. You ready for this?”

She let out a long breath before nodding. “Yes, I think I am.”

“Okay, it’s just going to be exactly as I told you. Don’t panic, okay? And if you want to stop at any time before I pull the final lever, say something. Don’t hold back.”

Vincent started pushing more buttons and turned a couple knobs. “Louise, start the sequence.”

“Beginning sequence,” she responded, sitting down next to Dr. Walsh and turning a dial slowly. “We’re warming up the machine. We’re currently waiting at 5 milliamps.” After a few moments, Louise turned to Vincent. “Dr. Walsh, we’re ready when you are.”

“All set on this end, Louise. Begin the countdown from twenty.”

“Test in twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen…”

As Louise continued to countdown, Rasha’s breathing started to get faster and heavier. “Dr. Walsh?” she called out. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Are you sure?” he replied.

Rasha nodded frantically. “I don’t want to do this. I’m too scared.”

“That’s okay, Rasha. We’ll postpone the test.”

Just then, the door to the technical room burst open and Marcus Bennett came flying in. “What the hell is going on, Walsh?! I have so many sponsors and higher-ups in that observation room up there that came for a show.”

“She’s not ready, sir. We can’t go through with the procedure!”

Bennett scoffed, pushing past the doctor and Louise. “To hell we can’t!”

The large man spun the knob and pulled the lever.

“Bennett, no!!” Vincent shouted, but it was too late.

Rasha screamed as her head flung back against the chair she was strapped to. Sparks were flying and her body convulsed violently. Her screams were blood-curdling.

“Stop!” she managed to scream out. “Please!”

“Louise, stop the machine! Now!”

The young woman pushed her way past Bennett and pushed the lever back up, not paying any attention to the complaints of the CEO.

Vincent ran out to Rasha, attempting to undo her bonds as fast as possible. “Rasha?!” he practically shouted. “Rasha, can you hear me?!”

She was unresponsive and hung like a ragdoll with only the straps keeping her in the chair.

“We need a crash cart, stat!”

Anita could only watch in horror as more and more people piled into the procedure room. Vincent finally managed to get her out of her bonds and out of the chair. Her head was bleeding where the electrical current device and the smell of burning hair and flesh finally reached the technical room.

“My god,” Anita breathed, trying to hold back gags.

“Louise!” Vincent shouted over the clamoring of nurses, doctors, and emergency staff. “Get Anita out of here.”

Louise quickly tried to shuffle Anita out of the room, but before the door closed behind the teen, she saw poor Rasha lying a stretcher; her temples bleeding, hair singed, and body still convulsing from the leftover electricity.

Through all the commotion, however, Anita heard one little whisper in the back of her head.

”...help...please…”