Clara Newhall's Guide to Saving an Unperson

Abnormality

The welcome bell rang and two men walked in, boots thumping on the thin linoleum of the lobby. They were clearly another unperson/handler duo, with the first striding professionally up to the reception desk and the second hanging back, clutching his arm gently. Clara typically headed the reception desk as well as the medical responsibilities; her only employees were a pale janitor named Bradley and a grim-looking assistant named Janice, who was actually very easy to get along with. Bradley worked nights and Janice was usually in the back dealing with paperwork, so Clara greeted her client alone.

Whoever these people were, Newhall had never seen them before. "Broken arm," the handler stated curtly, sliding a file towards her. She leafed through the dossier, and the handler turned back to his agent, who was reading the laminated medical diagrams on the walls, looking for all the world like a tourist at a museum. The handler motioned at him to follow and they entered the examination room.

The unperson had an unusual expression on his face. Not even considering the state of his arm - most of Newhall's patients had an unusually high pain tolerance - he looked... vacant? No, vacant wasn't unusual. Whatever drugs or hypnosis her patients were typically on to make them compliant, it was common for them to stare at nothing, like they'd been hollowed out from the inside. This one was more... unconcerned. If he hadn't been holding his arm, Clara would have thought he didn't even notice he was an injured assassin being brought to a strange place for some very dubious medical care.

The unperson sat down, glancing alertly around the room. It wasn't the glance of a man taking note of potential threats, escape routes, or makeshift weapons (like most of the characters she took in), though Newhall knew better than to think that he didn't have some sort of plan if a fight were to break out. 

The file she had been given had no name, not even a codename, and under Date of Birth it only said "18." Place of Birth also wasn't listed, though the handler had a heavy Russian accent and she had also been handed an identical file written in Cyrillic. The unperson himself had black hair that reached just past his shoulders. He seemed to be some mix of races (the file left that out, too), but he was pale enough to be a bit red in the face, as was his handler - Russians tended to have a hard time with how hot she kept her office.

She skipped the rest of the file's meager information, looking instead at Biological Modifications. Under it was an extensive list of experimental procedures she understood vaguely at best.

Newhall raised her eyebrows. "These procedures are highly complicated... what does all this accomplish?"

The handler - A quick glance at the file identified him as Anatoly Kruschev - murmured a short string of Russian to the nameless agent, who nodded once and placed the hand of his uninjured arm on the table, palm-down. Without warning, Kruschev brought his fist down on it hard enough to hurt. Clara let out a small gasp of indignation, but the unperson on the table merely gave one extended blink, in what might have been his version of a wince. The afflicted hand, though, was glowing at the point where it had been hit, in veinlike red sheaths of light. The light grew and flowed up his arm and under his sleeve before dissipating.

A pause. "That's a lot of effort for a human glow stick."

Kruschev chuckled. "No, this light is for my researchers' purposes; very convenient. It is simply a visual representation... of power. Imagine..." he crooned, "A soldier that when hit, only grows stronger. Unbeatable."

"Unless he breaks his arm," Newhall pointed out. "I don't expect to understand all of this," she pointed at the file, "but will any of it interfere with my work here?"

"Nothing beyond accelerated healing, Doctor."

She nodded and began her examination. An uneventful X-Ray passed, and the three were back in the examination room waiting for results. It happened then. She was lifting up the agent's sleeve, trying to assess the state of the swelling in his arm, when he did something commonplace, yet so incredibly unusual. He flashed her a smile.

Clara couldn't remember the last time one of her patients had smiled at her. There was the occasional leer, which is why she made it a habit to wear her lab coats a size too big and to use a surgical mask more often than necessary. Sometimes a clearly-brainwashed unperson would simper submissively at their master. There was a memorable beast of a man who had seemed delighted by the sight of his own blood. But a genuine, friendly face like his... it hadn't happened since med school, and that had been over six years ago. She was simply floored.

"Hello," she responded softly as she examined the break. It was a nasty one. When she looked back up at him, his grin had faded, but a ghost of it remained at her acknowledgement. She felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy. Of course he was starved for human interaction; the poor thing didn't even have a name. But she was being unprofessional. She had met patients more unfortunate than him. A smile was not enough to turn Clara Newhall into something she wasn't.

The faint smile died quickly, though, when he turned his attention to his mangled arm. He kept still, but his feet kept twitching and he was biting and unbiting his lip. You would have thought he had an agonizing itch he'd been told not to scratch. Apparently looking at his injury was too much for him. Clara ordered him to look away, which he obeyed. After that he calmed down by degrees, looking at the model skeleton in the corner and breathing deeply.

The welcome bell rang from the waiting room. "Just a minute," she called, then turned to Kruschev. "I'm going to numb it and deal with that other patient while we wait for the drug to take effect, alright?"

A shadow of a scowl passed the older man's face. "I don't want to pay for that."

"I assure you, Mr. Kruschev, my expenses are very reasonable." She finished up and went out to meet the next patient.

Her codename was Eclipse. She was another unperson, blank-faced and staring. She never moved beyond blinking occasionally, walking in, and sitting down on the other examination table at a word from her handler. The first unperson offered her a small smile as well. Her handler looked sternly at him, as if he'd made a rude remark. but Eclipse didn't react. Perhaps she was too occupied with ignoring the gushing wound across her abdomen. Newhall suspected it had something to do with that "tragic accident" outside the House of Commons today, but to ask would be a damage to her sparkling reputation.

Without knowing the speed of the Russian agent's healing factor, Newhall had no way of knowing whether the anesthetic would be worn off by the time she was finished stabilizing Eclipse. Luckily, Janice was in the back room reading about experimental procedures and their effects on metabolism. Dr. Newhall called her in to help.

Janice immediately went to work on setting the Russian's arm. Clara was surprised at the disappointment that stirred within her. Subconsciously, she supposed she had really been trying to get the dead-eyed woman off her hands while she took care of the friendlier patient. Of course, the less experienced Janice went for the easier job. It was logical.

Janice had fixed him up and sent them on their way before Newhall was done with the Eclipse's gash. As a thank-you, Newhall gave her the rest of the day off, promising to take care of the day's paperwork herself. Janice took her up on the offer without a second thought. Of course, that meant that Clara would be on-duty until eight o'clock the next morning, but she didn't mind. Paperwork duty meant she got to name all the day's new patients.

It wasn't uncommon for unpersons to be brought in with a blank instead of a name. When that happened, Janice named them. Sometimes she would call them things like "Thunderstrike!!" or "The Incredible Sulk," but more often a file folder would be simply headed "Blonde Australian" or "Ethiopia III." Clara's names were usually either less entertaining, or took ten minutes to come up with.

But today she had no trouble coming up with names. Almost every patient today either came under a name, or was a returning client, who already had a folder. She wrote the brief, untidy reports - not having to answer to any committees or directors meant less paperwork - and moved on to the last report of the day. Fifteen minutes later, she finished with a flourish, and the folder entitled "The Smiling Boy" was placed in the file cabinet.