Zoe looked dejected at Markus and Lilly where they laid strewn on the ground. Dr. Tanner hadn’t come to play with her in a long time, and Zoe was getting impatient. She really wanted to play with her friends, but with her hands pressed against her in the white suit they shoved her in, she was unable to make them move. Only Dr. Tanner could make her friends come to life because even though she wore a white suit, her hands were entirely free.

Zoe could somewhat remember a time when her hands were always free and she had never seen one, of course the suit came off when it was bath time, but that wasn’t any better, since those times were very brief, and painful. Everytime the white suit came off her arms would start to hurt really bad.

Dr. Tanner usually brought her food as well, but that had been a long time ago as well. Had she forgotten her? Zoe’ s breathing quickened as an unfamiliar feeling wrecked havoc on her chest. It wasn’t one that hurt, it was the opposite, the feeling caused her to smile so widely her cheeks started to ache.

The feeling caused her to want to move around, to make noise, to break something. She tumbled off her bed in haste, which caused her to land on her chest. Zoe wriggled her way back to her feet, something she had learned how to do with ease after other accidents. Zoe looked around her little room before zoning in on the chair that Dr. Tanner sat in whenever she visited.

Zoe’s smile felt like it grow even larger as she made her way to her four legged target. It only took one kick to send it flying, and an odd sound escaped her lips. The sound of her own voice frightened her, but the sight of the overturned chair distracted her. Suddenly she was next to it, and her foot was extended and the chair was all the way against the wall.

Zoe c***ed her head to the side, not processing what had just occurred. It was almost as if she had lost time. The confusion tamed the animal roaring in her chest, and Zoe returned to the spot on her bed where she would stay until Dr. Tanner came back.

She really wanted to play.

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Dr. Tanner observed Zoe over the monitor, exhilarated at the movement she had just witnessed. Zoe never moved unless she was prompted to, and Zoe had never once made noise before. The girl might as well been considered mute up until now, now there was a series of new tests to be done.

Dr. Tanner looked down at her clipboard and marked out the text reading ‘mute’ and wrote ‘to be determined’, before spinning around on her heel and barking out orders to the assistants also working on Zoe. She didn’t give them anytime to ask questions, before she rushed out of the room, determined to get permission from the head scientist on a schedule change.

Dr. Setto was a man who was easy to respect, but Dr. Tanner had a well known problem with authority and she knew that he already held a grudge against her for disobeying him with giving Zoe dolls to make her more codependent on the woman. Apparently it was a big leap to make, but Dr. Tanner really couldn’t see a problem with it.

The halls were relatively empty as it was fairly early in the morning, but Dr. Setto was normally the first to arrive, so she wasn’t deterred. Reaching his incredibly plain door, she gave it a suspicious look. If she was the boss, she would make it very obvious, not just have a regular sized nameplate, it made him seem modest and that was truly repulsive. Who could possibly be humble with the type of power he held?

Shaking away the distracting thoughts, she knocked on the door. She waited a few seconds, seeing if there would be a response, she got one in the form of Jenna. Jenna was Dr. Setto’s teenage daughter who helped with gaining trust of patients who were extremely suspicious of the Scientists and Doctors.

Jenna seemed to be leaving the room, so Dr. Tanner quickly side stepped out of the dark haired girl’s way, who seemed to only notice the woman once the door had clicked shut behind her.

“Ah, Dr. Tanner, what brings you here?” The girl was adjusting the strap connecting to her bag causing her blue sleeve to get slightly bunched up, which she set out to fix without even looking away from Dr. Tanner’s face.

“Um… Oh yes, I’m here to talk to Dr. Setto about Patient 116.” Dr. Tanner got out, as always Jenna was giving off a wave of danger, and the woman could feel her fight or flight instincts act up. Flight seemed to be the most prominent today, Dr. Tanner noted.

“The rainbow girl, Zoe? Sweet, but he’s a little testy right now, what with paperwork piled up to here,” she put her hand, palm facing down, to around the same height as her collar bone, “so I hope, for your sake, that you aren’t about to give him more. Now, I've got to go see Soohena.” Jenna finished fixing her shirt, and with a flourish, took off past Dr. Tanner.

The girl always insisted in calling the patients by their names, which was against regulations, but no one was going to stop the boss’ kid.

Brushing off that unsettling encounter, Dr. Tanner knocked again, but louder this time. However, she didn’t wait for a response before opening the door. SHe quietly shut the door behind her before facing the man.

In that moment Dr. Setto seemed much older than he was with his black hair was in disarray, wrinkles prominent on his forehead, and eyes clenched shut in obvious annoyance. When he looked up however, the only thing that remained of who she had just seen was the hair that seemed to only look more out of place with every movement.

“What is it, Dr. Tanner? I’m not exactly free right now. “ He gestured at the piles of paperwork on his desk. It seemed Jenna had not been exaggerating, if piled all together, it could probably come up to the man’s neck. The strange, realistic version of a popular hyperbole put Dr. Tanner on the defense.

“I just have a request to make. I want to make a change to Patient 116’s schedule.” Dr. Tanner wasted no time in telling him the request, having been in his shoes before with her own assistants and knowing how she’d want things to be taken care of.

Dr. Setto gently laid his pen down, rubbing between his eyes for a moment, he leaned back in his chair. “Alright, I’m listening.”

“Unprompted, the patient showed signs of violence, and started laugh. Neither things had occured before, and until now we had even believed the patient to be incapable of speaking.” She handed him the clipboard containing what she had observed.

Dr. Setto read the notes through, flipping back through a couple papers. “You wish to go recruit Dr. Ethan, yes?” He didn’t wait for a response for continuing, “If you can get him on board, you can put Patient 116 through some of his experiments.”

Dr. Tanner nodded, a slightly delayed response, “Thank you, sir.” She took her clipboard back,  hurrying out before he could change his mind.

Yes, things were working out nicely.

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Dr. Ethan was the youngest specialist in the entire building, but he had earned his place and got very little quibble about it.  He had bleached blonde hair, that had recently been shaved down along the side, an undercut that had become popular with the masses. Dr. Tanner could certainly see the appeal, but he was too young for her tastes, and blondes were just not her type.

FInding him was easy, he was always set up in the laboratory next to the quarantined area where very few were allowed in. Dr. Tanner couldn’t get in, so it was easy for her to turn a blind eye to it, as she demonstrates by walking straight past the locked double doors heading towards another set of doors. She noticed absently that the door seemed to have frost creeping out of it, Patient 34’s doing, she assumed.

The caution sign was not set up on the door, so she just walked in. Dr. Ethan had lower status than her, and if she caused him displeasure, he would just have to restrain himself from comment.

Sure enough, Patient 34 was sitting at the grainy white table, opposite from one of Dr. Ethan’s assistants. The man himself was standing a few feet away, typing something into his computer. At Dr. Tanner’s entrance, he spun to address whoever was there, and when he saw it was just her, he decided to just continue sitting.

“Let me guess, one of your patient’s need some type of speech therapy or treatment. Is it both? It’s both isn’t it?” The sigh he let out was very childish and Dr. Tanner had to bite her tongue to hold in a scathing comment.

“Yes, it is both. Patient 116 has shown the aptitude to speak, and i would like to get on expanding that immediately.” Dr. Tanner remained professional, despite the want to respond with heavy sarcasm.

“Interesting… probably. I obviously don’t know who that is, but if you’ve got permission from Dr. Setto, then I concede. I’ll send the paperwork over later. Main lab number?” He stood, grabbing a clipboard off the wall. He quickly wrote down the number Dr. Tanner said absently, before hooking it back up on the wall. “Anything else?”

“That’s all, I will be waiting for the papers.” He gave her a flap of his hands as if to say ‘yeah, yeah’, before turning his back to her and sitting back down at his computer.

Dr. Tanner used her sleeve to push the door she had entered through’s handle, the ice having grown in amount on the handle’s since she had made her entrance. Walking back the same way she came, she passed the two doors, before stopping and walking back. The doors were unlocked and slightly ajar.

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Zoe was staring at the chair she had attacked, it was turned on its side still, similar to herself. Suddenly an alarm went off, jarring her from her entrancement with the inanimate object,  and her door swung open, something that had never happened before.

She stood up, waiting for Dr. Tanner’s entrance, because surely it was just the woman being silly, but after a moment and no appearance, Zoe crept towards the door, peeking out. She registered loud sounds, and saw the other white suited people with their arms free leaving the big outside room in a hurry.

Where was Dr. Tanner? Zoe knew the woman wouldn’t want her to leave because the one time she had tried, Lilly and Markus got taken away. She didn’t want to lose her friends again, so she stepped back away from the ajar door, plopping back onto her bed.

She would wait on Dr. Tanner to come play with her, and she would ask her to make Lilly and Markus move. That’s what Dr. Tanner would want her to do, Zoe giggled to herself, something she had been playing with since she found out she could.

The room was getting hotter.