Encounter

            They took him to a new room to await transport. Did he regret leaving his old room? He wasn’t certain. It was home, that room of bare, concrete-block walls. He knew every square inch of it, every shadow cast by the lamp on the table, every creak of the bed, every squeak of the heavy metal door, every whiff of formaldehyde that came in when it was opened. Did he hate it, or would he miss it? Maybe both.

            The new room was just a big, square block of light, with a huge window, a door, and a square structure in the center. For a while he walked around the square, wondering if this was a simulation, trying to find some clue as to what he should do. There were people in the room on the other side of the window, watching him. What if he failed to figure out what he was supposed to do? But eventually they all walked away, and he was alone. He had decided a long time ago that alone was good. It meant no one was watching, except the video cameras. It meant a moment of freedom to be himself. He did what he had wanted to do from the beginning and climbed up on top of the square block. He stood on it for a moment, examining things from his new vantage point. Next he sat down, looking out into the other room with its green walls and cloth-covered floors. Most of the walls he knew were green, though some were white and some blue. He didn’t think he liked green. It was a very dull color. Why did everything in this safe place have to be dull? Maybe in the new place it wouldn’t be.

            At last, with perhaps a touch of defiance, Gem lay down on the square with his back to the window. Sometimes it was a relief to exercise that small, dangerous amount of autonomy, orienting himself with his back to the viewing window or the video camera. He tried to imagine what life would be like without being watched all the time. He couldn’t imagine it.

            Behind him he heard the sound of the door opening. A familiar squeaky sound made him tense, but he didn’t move. He could get away with pretending to be asleep. He could make even Mr. Raines believe he was asleep.

            “Time to transport him,” Mr. Raines said, and Gem’s heart beat suddenly very fast, but he still didn’t move.

            The door opened, closed again. There were two men in the room, he could tell, even with his eyes closed, and one of them was Willie, Mr. Raines’ normal sweeper. He and Willie had met often before. The first time they met, something about Gem had seemed to astonish Willie. He often thought that the sweeper believed he had met him before and didn’t like him.

            Willie’s dark hand fell on his shoulder and shook him. Gem pretended to wake up and sat up dutifully. Each of the sweepers took one of his arms and led him to the door. He wanted to tell them that he knew how to walk by himself, but he didn’t dare.

            When the door opened and the sweepers ushered him out ahead of them, there were two other people in the outer room, people he had never seen before. That in itself was cause for excitement. Gem’s practiced eyes took in everything about them in an instant. A short, thin, balding man in a grey polo shirt was near enough to touch him. Just behind him was a beautiful, tall woman with dark hair and blue eyes, wearing clothing like he had never seen before, a patterned grey shirt and a very long black coat, and the area around her eyes was painted a silvery white. It made her eyes look huge and blue, though maybe they only looked huge because she was staring at him as if he frightened her. He read in her shock, doubt, confusion, comprehension, and, yes, fear, as well as recognition and a strange warmth and sadness. The short man was staring as hard as she was, with fewer emotions but no less shock. Fascination and awe, too.

            “This is the Gemini,” Mr. Raines told them, pride in his voice.

            “Raines, what have you done?” the woman said, jerking the words out between her teeth.

            “Save it for later, Miss Parker. We have a schedule to keep.”

            The two sweepers took Gem’s arms again and pushed him out around the woman, man, and Mr. Raines and down the corridor beyond. Mr. Raines squeaked along behind them, and Miss Parker and the thin man brought up the rear, quarrelling quietly between them. Gem tried to hear what they were saying, but they had fallen back a little. He wished he knew what they had found so shocking about him. That he was special, he knew. He had been told that every day of his life. Special because his abilities set him apart, made him able to do things no one else in the world could do. But that was not why they had stared at him in that way. They had found his very existence to be a shock, highly significant and almost repugnant. What was wrong with him?

            Pondering the question, he stared at his shoes as he went ahead of the sweepers through the corridors. He knew these corridors well and felt no need to say goodbye to them. If he never returned to them, he would not miss them.

            The sweepers opened the heavy metal doors in front of him. All the doors at Donoterase were metal and heavy, with locks to them, to keep him and everyone else safe, Mr. Raines told him. But now he was walking out of that safety, into something entirely new.

            A sound of running feet caught him. He looked up. All his breath shuddered out of him in a terrified gasp. It was the Man! Terribly tall, pulling up short, staring at Gem with dark eyes in a suddenly white face, losing all his own breath in the same sort of shuddering gasp. The world seemed to recede away from him as he and Gem were caught up together in the same moment of horrified recognition.

            Miss Parker shattered it with a “You’ve got to be kidding me” as she and everyone else crowded in the doorway and saw the Man and the older man with him. She was pulling out a gun behind him, and the two men were running away, sweepers running after them.

            “Get them!” Mr. Raines snarled and, grabbing Gem’s shoulder, yanked him back into the hallway. For the first time in his life, Gem heard gunshots for real and a distant exclamation of pain.

            “Move! Move!” Miss Parker cried and shoved him out of the way, darted into the hallway, aiming her gun, running. Her short friend seemed undecided about what to do, but when more gunshots came from the corridors, he seemed to decide it was best to stay where he was. He kept stealing glances at Gem as Mr. Raines herded them back down the corridor they had come from.

            Why was the Man here? It was supposed to be safe! Why had the world seemed to stop when they saw each other? Why had the Man seemed so shocked? Gem was missing something. If Mr. Raines knew he was missing something, there would be trouble. He had to figure it out. Who was the Man?