Oracles

After another day working in the school, word goes round for women to go to the open clinic. As I make my way to the center, I see a group of filthy people in rags tied up one after the other, entering the clinic first. I walk to Maze, one of Kier’s men, who is also staring at the sight.
“Who are they?” I ask him.
He shrugs his buff shoulders, “Mountain people. A few of them were near the perimeters. So they captured them.”
“If they’re living in the mountains, aren’t they running from something?”
He contemplates on something and then motions me to follow him. We enter the tech building. I stare at the vast amount of tech savvy people, tracking radio waves.
“You might have heard that there’s been a cease fire in the west,” he tells me. I nod to him, as we climb a flight of stairs. “Well, since then, Polaris’ radios have been silent. No information going in or out. At least none that we know about.”
He shows me a map on the screen.
“Could they be controlling the satellites?” I ask.
“That was our first guess. But we’re too far away to know for sure. It would be too risky to cross it. They would be able to track us instantly.”
I sigh, “So what doesn’t this have to do with those refugees.”
He points to the map, tracing the distance from here to Polaris.
“They came from the western hemisphere. They are probably from Polaris.”
I frown and look at Maze, “That’s impossible. No one could survive such a long journey on foot without resources.”
“The only explanation is that they’re Perfects.”
I pause at his words.
“If that is true, why would the President allow to let them in here?”
“Apparently, they’re not the first Perfects to enter Quint. And they don’t usually come looking like that.”

The following day, I search for Ame. I walk down the hall, but a voice stops me.
“Sage,” Josephine smiles walking with her daughter Deja.
I smile back politely and say hello.
“I didn’t see you at the clinic yesterday,” she comments.
“Oh, sorry. I got busy with…” I take a glance at Deja and look back at Josephine, “Work.”
She nods, “That’s alright. I hope you come soon so that we can archive your emblem. It’s very important that you do.”
I press my lips in a thin line, “Yes.”
Josephine smiles again and leaves. Though, Deja stays.
“You’re going to Ame’s compound?” she asks me casually.
“Um, yeah,” I say.
“So am I.”

We walk side by side down the hallway, passing doors. Being next to her gets me angry and I’m not sure why.
“Luckily, you don’t have to wait in line to be archived,” I say.
She shrugs as a response. I stare at her from the corner of my eye.
“I wonder how they do it. Do you know?”
“They scan it with something,” she says.
“Only Outliers need to be canned, right?” I question.
“Yeah,” she answers.
“Because,” I continue, “Perfects don’t need to be scanned.”
“What are you babbling about?” she asks me now.
I decide to change course and ask her, “Are you still interested in Kier?”
She smiles widely, distracted with thought of him.
“Yeah, he’s dreamy isn’t he? We’ve talked a few times. He’s a man of a few words, but that just makes him ten times hotter,” she tells me.
I cross my arms and roll my eyes.
“Alright, but don’t you know he’s an Outlier?”
“Yeah,” she shrugs again, “So?”
“So—how could he be with you if he is matched with somebody else?” I interrogate her.
“You could just naturalize him,” she answers.
I widen my eyes. Yes, I hit the jackpot. I need to know what this is. Josephine refused to tell me. Perhaps I can get it out of Deja.
“Oh, yeah? How?” I play dumb.
Deja grins and brushes me off, “It’s some complicated thing.”
She then knocks on Ame’s door. I stand behind feeling defeated. So, if they can’t tell me straight up, that means it’s a secret and I’m not supposed to know.

I’m given the day off, so I decided to spend the day getting back into training. I settle in the gym early in the morning. I strap weights on my wrists and ankles. I do a few laps around the gym. Every time I close my eyes, I see flashes of the Piths Square, the bombings in the Hitherlands, the war, everything.
In one year, my whole life changed so quickly. I still don’t know what to believe, who to trust. Slowly, I’m finding out the truth about what I am and what it means. The flame I had when I wanted to help destroy the Cygnus is merely a spark now. There is no escape.
The Cygnus has reconstructed the DNA of humankind to respond in two ways: either you’re born a Perfect or die an Outlier. Naturally, any Outlier would resent the Cygnus and rebel. But that’s what they want. They know that if someone like me rebels against their laws, I’ll die slowly.
It’s like the Cygnus implanted a self-destructing time bomb in my veins, and the only way out is to find the one person they gave the ability to diffuse it… my match.

I walk out the gym before people start showing up. I throw the towel over my shoulder. I feel a lot lighter on my feet.
I make my way over to the clinic. The doors are open and I hover inside. There is a strong smell of antiseptic ingredients. As usual, all is in white. The nurses carry clipboards and walk around in and out of revolving doors. I walk over to the front desk with a glowing sign.
I tell the nurse that I’m here for my vaccination. She gives me basic information and creates a card for me. She takes me further in the hospital and tells me to wait for a doctor in a cubicle. I get itchy looking at all the metal tools spread over a nearby counter. Finally, an older woman pulls the curtain and comes in introducing herself to me.
“You must be Sage,” she smiles reassuringly.
I nod and give her a small smile. She tells me to lie down on the chair and relax my muscles. She pushes a lever and a body monitor descends atop me. She proceeds to puncture my skin with a triple head needle and infuse a dosage. The pinch doesn’t alert me as much as the other nurse coming in with a scanner. She aims it on my wrists, but I tuck my arm to my side. She pauses looking at me oddly. The lights seem brighter in my eyes. The doctor pulls out the needles and sanitizes my shoulder.
“We need to scan your emblem, Sage.”
“Why?” I ask, as though I didn’t already know.
“It’s for keeping data,” she says smoothly, “We need to know who your match is. It helps other doctors determine any problems going on in your body and give accurate diagnoses.”
Her explanation is plausible, but doesn’t align with Josephine’s.
“Only for medical reasons?” I question.
The doctor nods with ease, “You’d be surprised with how much information we can collect with the exchanges between matches.”
I have to take the risk, if I want anything more about this. I turn over my wrist to the nurse with the scanner. I take a stressful gulp, hoping that I won’t regret this.
Suddenly, the scanner makes a beeping noise. Both the nurse and doctor take a look at the screen. She scans me again, but it beeps the same way. They try again, using a different angle with my wrist. At this point I frown, because I can read their faces that something is wrong.
“Sage, your match is not registered on our system,” the doctor informs me.
I sit up in the chair and stare at her. This means… Kier never came to the clinic. Plus, I haven’t told anyone that Kier is my match. Now that I think about it, I doubt Kier has told anyone either.
The doctor packs away her equipment, “Do you know who your match is? Maybe we can get him to come in—”
“I don’t know my match,” I lie quickly.
The doctor pauses again and sits down in front of me.
“The monitor shows me that your body temperature is two degrees above where it should be. This means you’re going through match pains,” she turn the screen for me to see. I watch the thermal images. “We are going to put you on a treatment to regulate choleric symptoms.”
The doctor walks behind a glass, reaching for pharmaceuticals. She hands me two bottles with different coloured pills and a blue liquid.
“How does it work?” I inquire.
“This is a blood thinner, so take two a day,” she points, “Then, before bed, drink three teaspoons of the syrup.”
The doctor then exchanges a look with the nurse. The nurse turns around and leaves before the doctor eyes me.
“Come back in four days after your treatment.”
I nod and ask, “I heard about naturalizing unmatched Outliers. What is that exactly?”
“Well,” she says slowly, “That’s for people who don’t necessarily recover ongoing treatments.”
“How does it work?”
“That’s confidential,” she answers flatly, “But I can tell you that every process is unique to each patient.”
“But isn’t that what will happen to me, if I never meet my match? Shouldn’t I know what would happen to me?” I ask with a worried face on.
The doctor takes a long breath.
“First, do the treatment. In four days, we will assess how well you’re functioning. Then we will discuss what happens next,” she puts back on her smile.
I’m not getting anywhere.