“I’ll need to draw some blood,” Sessions said. “I’d also like to get saliva samples—”
“You want me to spit in a petri dish?” I looked at him with a combination of loathing and skepticism. “Are you a real doctor or did you get your degree in the Caribbean?”
“Harvard Medical School,” he said with aplomb. “Highest Honors.”
“Your mother must be so proud.”
“Oh, she is,” he said, as though what he were saying were of no more import than giving me a weather update. “Very proud indeed.”
“I wonder what that’s like,” I said, muttering under my breath.
“Shall we begin?” He lifted his head up and smiled brightly, causing me to stir. I felt his touch as he pushed up my sleeve, and I watched him as he started to draw blood. His blue latex glove was on my bicep, and I resisted the urge to flex hard and knock it away just to show off. My muscles didn’t look all that big. Actually, they were roughly the size of any of the other non-meta women at the Directorate. I had the strength where it counted, though—performance.
After a moment, a thought broke through and I reached to swipe at his hand. “Doc, the glove won’t protect you for more than—” I stopped, and looked up at him, his face broken wide into a grin. He squeezed my arm for emphasis, and I realized he’d been holding onto me for well over ten seconds, and he was still sitting there, unaffected. “How?”
“New material,” he said, and kept his hand on me. “I won’t bore you with the technical details, but it’s the same approximate thickness of a latex glove, but slightly more flesh-suitable, shall we say?” I felt his hand resting on me, and he was right. The glove wasn’t rubbery, it didn’t tear at my arm hairs as he ran it down to my forearm. It felt smooth, soft, almost like skin but not quite. He gave me a squeeze and brought the needle out with his other hand. “Might as well get this done while we’re at it, but my plan is to keep a hand on you throughout the exam to test how long this material holds up.” He gave a little shrug. “If it works, we could look at getting you some gloves made from it.”
I stared at his fingers, draped in the blue material, snugged tight to his skin. “How about more than that?”
“More than what?” He blinked and readjusted his glasses. “More than gloves?”
“Yeah,” I said, as I licked my lips. “What about…like…a bodysuit?”
His eyes seemed to stare off into space and his face scrunched up in thought. “Why would you need one of those? Your hands are the weapons, keep them contained and you should be fine—”
“Because,” I said, cutting him off, “maybe I don’t want to always be a weapon.”
“Then wear gloves,” he said, clearly not getting it. “It’s simple, puts the safety on, if you were to continue the weapon analogy—you stick with long sleeves, long pants, shoes, and as long as you don’t touch anyone with your face, you should be fine.”
“You’ve never known the touch of a woman, have you Doc?”
He stared at me, inscrutable, for another few seconds and then the intense look of study dissolved. “Oh! Oh, for intimacy! You want a bodysuit so you can…” He blinked again, and his look of revelation cascaded into discomfort as his voice lowered in pitch and his face fell. “Oh. Yes, I mean…it is theoretically possible to make an entire body encasement of the material, and it’s not that difficult for us to synthesize here in the lab.” He gave my arm another squeeze and gently stuck another needle in my arm. “That is certainly something we could look into for you.”
I stared straight ahead, considering the possibilities. “How…resistant is the material to breakage?”
He didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “It’s tougher than latex, can take more pounds per square inch of pressure before suffering a rupture. For something of that nature, it would need to be measured and specially fitted in order to give the level of…ah…protection…you’d require for uh…such activity.”
“So it is possible?” I tried to look him in the eyes, but he didn’t bother to look up from drawing his fifth vial of blood. “You can do that? Make a suit for me?”
“Yes. Although,” he said, placing the last vial into the little row in the container he had for them and withdrawing the needle from my arm, “I might suggest that for your purposes, it would be easier for your paramour to be the one to be fitted for the suit.” He flushed. “Assuming that your…ah…partner…would be male rather than female.”
“Fair assumption in this case.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Zack Davis. You know him?”
“An agent, I believe?” Sessions seemed to give this some thought. “I’m certain I’ve met him, but I can’t place a face offhand. Regardless, if you intend to engage in…activities of the sort you’d indicated, it would be easier on a purely mechanical level for the male to wear the suit.”
“Sure,” I said with a vague sense that I was agreeing to something, but not really caring what it was. “Whatever you say.”
“If you wish for…Mr. Davis to have a suit of this material, send him over to me at his earliest convenience. Taking measurements is simple enough, and it’ll take a few days to fabricate. It’s hardly a panacea that will solve all your ills, but we could probably synthesize another every few weeks if need be.”
“That would be marvelous,” I said with a hunger. I felt a buzz in my stomach, a nervous energy that stemmed from excitement coupled with nerves. “Thank you, Doctor,” I said, and genuinely meant it.
“I haven’t done anything yet,” he said, once again blank. “Except draw your blood, I suppose, though I don’t know why you’d be thanking me for that.”
“I’m thanking you for telling me about this,” I said, trying to stay calm. Sessions was a dolt, complete and utter, clueless about basic human need or desire. “It’s a chance for me to live a normal life.”
“Oh, I see,” he said, but I could tell by his voice he didn’t. “Well, that’s good. Now, if you can just open your mouth,” he brandished a swab, “I need to get a sample of cheek cells…”
I sighed, and opened my mouth. The swab was long, white and had cotton on the end. It was not pleasant, not fun, but it didn’t matter because my head was already elsewhere. This suit was something that could change my life, could make me able to touch my boyfriend, to feel him against me without two layers of clothing to separate us. We could sleep in the same bed, could stop fooling around in our dreams…and start doing it in the real world.
And I wouldn’t have to worry about his eyes turning colors anymore.
5.
The exam lasted longer than I wanted, and was far more invasive than I really cared for. I sighed with relief when I was done. That I’d learned about the new material was worth the inconvenience of dealing with Sessions and his complete lack of humanity . When finished, I dressed and worked my way back to headquarters, where I found Parks in the watch room next to the basement interrogation chamber where Fries was being held. I watched Fries, who sat with a black hood over his head, handcuffed to the metal table in the center of the room. There was no cot in the cell, and I wondered if he’d slept sitting up in the chair. Actually, I wondered if he’d slept at all.
“Would you have, in his place?” Parks asked when I voiced that thought to him, “We’ll be able to get an idea of his state of mind when we pull that hood off.” His gray hair flowed over his shoulders, somewhat more controlled today than it normally was. Its usual state was to be bushy, but it looked like he had washed and perhaps combed it. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” His expression was almost wolfish, his teeth bared as though he were a feral creature ready to strike. He strode out of the observation room and into the hallway, unlocking the door using a key card. The door opened with a gentle whoosh , and I walked in first when Parks gestured for me to.