Dateline: Jericho (Julie Moon)

[Taya Robbins]

Taya Robbins walked through the bright and airy lobby of the Jozua Clinic for Genetic Medicine and straight up to the front desk, where she smiled pleasantly at the receptionist and announced, "Hi - I'd like to be tested for mutancy, please."

If only she wasn't undercover and could have had a cameraperson along - she'd have loved to have the woman's expression preserved in fourteen-megapixel digital clarity. But to her credit, the woman quickly returned Taya's smile and launched straight into her routine of routing questions, which ended with her handing a check-in form and a pen over the desk into Taya's waiting paws. The catlike mutant let her tail ride high as she sauntered off to the waiting area and sat down on a couch next to a chattering meditation fountain to fill out the paperwork.

It was all very standard - contact information, social security and driver's license, referring physician, medical insurance information, emergency contacts. Of course, there was the very real problem that any of that information would lead them straight to her file at the Jericho Center for Genetic Medicine in Connecticut, where she'd spent a traumatic week back when her parents had still believed her mutation was something to be cured. Really, that was why she was here - to see if the Jozua Clinic practiced the same sort of strong-arm manipulation tactics she'd experienced in New England. She had to effect the persona of a greenhorn mutant simply looking for help because she wanted to know if the clinic would use her "ignorance" as a weapon against her.

Her name was Lucy Garfield. Her social security number was just one digit off the real thing - she could always claim later that she'd made a mistake. She supplied no driver's license - after all, she'd taken the bus - and because the Jozua Clinic offered testing and registration services pro bono, she could get away with claiming she was uninsured. So, there, her alias was airtight, and she'd only had to commit a little bit of fraud. This was either the most brilliant thing she had ever done or the stupidest.

She came to a spacious field in the middle of the second page: Please briefly describe any symptoms or phenomena that may indicate mutation. Taya smiled and scrawled down, Extreme hair growth, swelling of extremities, a sudden fondness for fish.

Taya turned in her form and sat down again to wait, poking idly through the scattered magazines on the end table. She was surprised how little time it took before she heard her name called, and then she was ushered down a hallway into a little exam room where she was measured, weighed, and then told to wait for the on-call doctor.

The feline mutant hitched herself up onto the edge of the exam table and carefully clipped her iPod to the waistband of her shorts. She'd already tested to make sure it could clearly record a conversation from there. All that remained now was to wait for the inquisition.

[Julie Moon]

It was a slow day. Relegated to the meagre task of welcoming newbies, Julie found herself in an inexplicably pleasant mood; perhaps it was the sun, perhaps it was the coffee, perhaps it was the two pound weight loss that warranted an impromptu salsa across her newly-furnished bathroom that morning. Whatever the reason, Doctor Heidegger's latest personnel development scheme had failed to send her into another foaming-at-the-mouth diatribe, as was typically her wont. Instead, she decided, that if Heidegger wanted to pay her to talk and smile, in place of her role as scientific Reich Chancellor, then she would enjoy it. And refreshing as it was to lose the hurried clip in her step, she was nevertheless punctual with her appointments - some habits proved impossible to shake.

Upon entering the exam room, Julie caught a glimpse of her latest patient, and smiled. Battle-hardened from long-suffering stints working A&E night shifts, confronted with every manner of strange and exotic injuries and mishaps, she'd mastered the perfect professional poker face and betrayed to the felinoid no hint of shock or surprise.

"Hello, Lucy. I'm Doctor Moon," she offered her hand in greeting, "How are you doing?"

[Taya Robbins]

The wait had been long enough to confirm that it had been entirely too long since Taya had done anything worth getting into trouble over. She'd stood lookout for a few of Damien's more subversive schemes back at Cullen's, sure, and taken part in one or two post-curfew dashes over the school fence, but after Damien's graduation she'd become appallingly respectable, and it was telling in her heartrate. She'd just gotten through reminding herself that Henri Bertrand did not work here and polygraphs were likely not part of a standard check-up when her swiveling ears picked up the clipping of flats from down the hall.

When Dr. Moon entered, she was sitting with her paws folded in her lap and her tail curling around her crossed ankles. Taya took Julie's hand in her paw with a timid smile, looking very much the part of a newly minted mutant facing an uncertain future.

"Hi, Dr. Moon! I'm doing fine, thanks. How are you?"

[Julie Moon]

"Sweating like a pig, actually. Do you mind?"

She prized herself free of the heavy white coat and hung it on a clothes peg beside the door. Inviting Lucy to vacate the examination table, she took a seat beside a spartan desk, and gestured to its neighbour. She was a veritable fuzzball of nervous energy.

"Before all the fun prodding and probing resumes, I'd like for us to have a chat, Lucy. So, to begin with, can you tell me when you first noticed the signs of mutation?"

[Taya Robbins]

If there was one thing someone with a visible mutation got used to, it was explaining. If you spoke more than three sentences with someone, they asked, and if they didn't, you could tell they wanted to. It was like showing up on crutches with a cast that went up to your hip. People wanted to hear the story.

In this case, of course, Taya had taken some time to fabricate a story so it wouldn't bring up the wrong sorts of questions. She took a moment to center herself on her character as she looped her tail through the gap in the back of the chair. Truth be told, if she really were as uncertain as Lucy Garfield was supposed to be, Julie would be doing a lot to put her at ease. The doctor positively radiated relaxation, and her accent was absolutely adorable.

"Okay, well..." Lucy took a bracing breath and fiddled with her retractable claws. "It was back in May when I noticed something was up. It started with hair growth. Like, all over my body. I thought it was some weird hormonal thing, and at first I just tried shaving where it was most noticeable, but after about a week I knew there was more going on. I could tell in the mirror my face was changing shape, and I had pain in my hands and feet like you wouldn't believe. Anyway, long story short, I stopped noticing new changes about a week ago. So whatever it is, I think it's finished."

She pulled a sheepish sort of smile, and her ears fell obediently against her skull. Two years ago, she could never have pulled off the act - most people didn't have to think about how they were holding their ears or their tails while they were lying. But you just couldn't beat sunken ears for pure pathos.

[Julie Moon]

"And are you still in any kind of pain?"

Lucy shook her head. It was, of course, the most prudent of questions from a medical perspective. And while Julie was quick to play doctor, she also understood the importance of acknowledging in her patients the human need, especially with mutants. Telltale gestures stirred in her a fondness for the young lady; she was not a cat person, or a pet person for that matter, in fact the closest Julie had come to owning an animal was when she once studied a large litter of knockout mice, but there was no denying Lucy's unique charm. Poised on the tip of her tongue, a myriad questions threatened to send the discussion veering off into the realms of irrelevancy, so she tested the water with caution.

"Two months is a short time to undergo such a drastic change. You know, I'm a nervous wreck everytime I get a new haircut. It must have been difficult for you. How are you coping with mutancy?"

[Taya Robbins]

Lucy shrugged. It wasn't the kind of shrug that meant you had nothing to say, but the kind that meant you had far too much to say all at once. Meanwhile, Taya was channeling her own feelings from a couple years ago when her transformation really had stopped, mining for verisimilitude.

"It's... kind of hard to say, to be honest. I mean... it's sort of still sinking in, you know? On one hand, I feel really lucky that I can still walk and see and talk and everything. On the other, I keep looking in the mirror and I still can't believe what I'm seeing. I don't feel sick or in pain, I just feel different."

[Julie Moon]

"Well, from experience I can tell you that you're not alone; not in this clinic, not in any other city in America."

It was the kind of statement doctors rehearsed for people like mutants, or drug-addicts, or homosexuals, that in the end proved just about as comforting as the numbers that supported them. On the surface, Lucy's story was familiar, but the devil was in the details. Julie had no obligation to relate with her on a personal level, certainly not without some degree of pretense, but if it helped before she was put through the meat grinder, it helped.

"There are connotations unique to people with physical mutations, social and psychological factors which may affect the decision to seek professional help, so before we go any further, I'd like for you to tell me exactly why you have come to the Jozua Clinic."

[Taya Robbins]

Dr. Moon was making an effort, and it was enough to make Taya feel guilty over the deception. Of course, if she felt too guilty, it would mean she'd predisposed herself to find something wrong with the clinic, and then there went any claim she could make for journalistic objectivity. The ethical ground she was standing on was shaky enough as it was.

But that was all a footnote to Lucy's nervous introspection. When you had a feline physiology, you just couldn't hide your agitation.

"Well..." Lucy eyes wandered over the room, and she shuffled slightly in her seat before she found the doctor's eyes again. When she spoke, it was a torrent. "I guess I wasn't really sure where else to go. My roommate's a mutant, and she's been unbelievably supportive, but still I... I don't understand what's happened to me. I feel like a stranger in my own body, and I'm really, really frightened."

Hang on a moment - she was feeling frightened. And not the way she thought she'd be, the fear of getting caught doing something she shouldn't, but fear on a more primal level, as if she were under a very real threat sitting in this room, and the walls covered with informational posters and charts might collapse in on her any minute now. And then she realized what had begun as a statement of quiet anxiety was beginning to verge on a panic attack. Her heart was racing, her ears were ringing, and her tail was beating an unsteady rhythm on the chair legs.

[Julie Moon]

Julie was of the firm belief that, within the first minute, a good doctor should know everything he or she needs to know about a patient. By the one minute mark, Lucy was an open book; her tale was a small token of honesty, the real truth was written into her face, it was conducted with every twitch and gesture, and the quaver in her voice was as a flourish of a symphony orchestra: she was afraid. She was deeply afraid. She reached out and closed a hand over her paw, the gentle squeeze of skin a reminder that someone was there, it was a violation of her personal ethics to cross that boundary so early into the game, but the kid looked like she needed it.

"It's okay. We can answer your questions. We can help you learn to live with your condition. You are safe here, Lucy."

[Taya Robbins]

Taya tensed for an instant under the doctor's touch - and it was Taya tensing, not the Lucy persona she'd been so proud of creating - but the little burst of human contact was enough of an anchor to steady herself. She took a few deep breaths as the humming in her ears subsided. Her fear was like a cloud that was just beginning to disperse and float away.

"Thanks," she said meekly. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually this much of a basket case, I just..."

She quickly hit the brakes. Running her mouth off on nerves was just about the worst possible idea now. Of course, she was beginning to consider the possibility that this whole thing was a mistake, but the only way out was forward.

She managed to slip back into Lucy - timid, quiet, and deferential. "To be honest, I'm not even sure where to begin. What do you, um, usually do here?"

[Julie Moon]

"While the clinic is unique," Julie began, with a knowing smile, "Our practices are no different from any other hospital in America. You'll have your general heath assessed. We look at DNA to determine the traits of a mutation, its physiological impact, and any associated long-term health implications. Our priority is to understand mutation and, more importantly, to help our patients come to terms with their condition. We offer mutant counselling sessions and, for extreme cases, a variety of treatment programmes."

While she strolled through her script it was difficult for her not to feel like some sort of package holiday salesperson, or one of those deplorable timeshare cronies, and inwardly, she pined for late nights spent bent double over microscopes or buried under a mountain of paper work. Public relations and politics was Heidegger's arena, she was not the sort to be flowery with her words, so she didn't pretend to be:

"Look, Lucy, I could sit here and tell you everything you want to hear, but if its a pep talk you want, there's a brochure on the table. What I will tell you, and still I run the risk of sounding like I'm trying to sell you insurance or something, is that all we want for our patients here, is for you to be able to walk out through our doors feeling confident again, and completely comfortable with your condition."

[Taya Robbins]

Dr. Moon was still saying all the right things. Which wasn't actually any different from Taya's experience at the New England Jericho Center, really. They were very genial and sympathetic, up until her parents had actually checked her in.

"Okay," she said, and she took a deep, cleansing breath. "Can we get started?"

A physical was a physical, no matter where you were or what shape your body was. Taya had been through more of them than most professional football teams. Julie examined her eyes, ears, and throat, measured her heartrate and breathing, tested her reflexes (catlike), handled the joints of her legs, feet, paws, and stubby fingers, and, with Taya's permission, her tail and claws as well.

Taya braced herself when a nurse walked in and administered a mercifully quick blood stick. One and a half years in and out of hospitals hadn't done anything to improve her opinion of needles.

The phlebotomist left Taya sitting on the edge of the exam table and Dr. Moon continuing to cram as many notes as she could on both sides of the exam form on her clipboard. Taya took the opportunity to start a new recording on her iPod while the doctor wasn't looking.

"I heard there's a mutant prison somewhere in this hospital," she said. "Is that true?"

[Julie Moon]

"Sadly, yes," she murmered absently, then raised a curious glance over her clipboard at the young mutant, "Does that make you uncomfortable?"

[Taya Robbins]

Taya hunched her shoulders up. "Well, yeah, a little," she said. "It's one thing to have a little security around when you're treating injured prisoners, but holding criminals and patients in the same building is, well... pretty creepy, to be honest. Like an old mental institution or something."

If this were a different kind of interview, Taya would be sitting back sphinx-like in her seat and framing the next question with a barbed smile. But Lucy was almost painfully innocent.

"How do you feel about it, Dr. Moon?"

[Julie Moon]

"I think it's a sodding disgrace, quite frankly," she confessed, pen poised over the paper, "I mean, honestly, what business does a prison cell have in a medical facility of any kind? The answer, Lucy, in case you were wondering, is none. It's a waste of time and resources and has 'media stunt' plastered all over it, doesn't it? Nevermind, eh? It won't be forever, besides I promise your treatment will go unaffected by the presence of a couple of mutant degenerates. After all, I'm a doctor, not a prison warden."

She offered Lucy a warm smile and gave her notes one last scrape of the pen. That was all the essential paper work done.

"Do you have any further questions or are you ready to be shown to your room?"

[Taya Robbins]

Taya's heart gave a little frantic jump at the prospect of being shown to her room, but she beat it back down. No, that was the point, Lucy was the naive neophyte mutant who would take the Jozua Clinic's medical advice at face value. If they wanted to show her to her room, then darn it, she'd go to her room like a good mutant.

"Sure, lead the way!" Lucy hopped down from the table and followed Dr. Moon out into the corridor.

It was one of those long, wide hospital hallways that bounced sound back and forth down its entire length like an amphitheater. Anyone walking anywhere sounded like they were two steps behind her, and as they passed the occasional open doorway, conversations floated out like ghosts from a grave, impossible to ignore with her sharp feline ears.

"Breathe in... and breathe out. All right, now we'll try it with your gills."

"...she was flying, I mean, literally flying over the house, and we were so afraid she'd hurt herself..."

"...what do you mean, threat level three? I'm telling you, I'm not dangerous!"

By the time they reached the elevator, Taya was tense again, with her tail lashing at her ankles despite her best efforts to keep it still.

On the third floor, Dr. Moon passed her off to an effusively talkative nurse who confided with Taya that she considered herself a cat person, but she'd never actually met a cat person before, and listen, as physical mutations went, Taya's was adorable, and that was so clever how she'd cut a hole for her tail in the back of her shorts, ha ha, she always knew there was a reason hospital gowns didn't close up in the back!

It was actually a relief to be shown to her room (are you sure you don't need nothing, honey, well, okay, you know where to find me) and have a chance to collect her thoughts in peace. The room was for two patients, with an expandable privacy screen between the two beds, and there was a small table with chairs on either side. Taya sat down and checked her iPod - almost thirty minutes recorded already. She would have to be careful not to fill it up before she got to the really juicy stuff.

With a quick look around to make sure she wasn't being watched, she pulled a pen and a notepad from her back pocket and started writing furiously.

[Taya Robbins]

It was nearly two hours before Taya saw another face. It was a young-looking male doctor with closely cropped dark hair and a smile that was trying just a few degrees too hard. After an energetic introduction, he sat down with Taya and opened a thick folder of lab printouts, with which he explained to her that electrophoresis had revealed abnormalities on the nth and xth chromosome pairs consistent with other cases of systemic morphological mutations, and that with her permission they would like to run a series of polymerase chain reactions on the affected sequences to study their interactions more closely. As blisteringly technical as it was, it all sounded very familiar to Taya.

"Does that mean you need more samples?" Taya asked tentatively.

"Well, there's still a lot more we can do with the samples you've already provided," the doctor replied, "but we're still in the preliminary stages. If we take any more samples, it'll be with your consent. Also, Lucy, considering the dramatic way your mutation manifested, I think it would be a good idea for you to stay with us for at least a few more days until we can be sure your morphology has stabilized."

There it was - the invitation. Almost the same wording, too. The last time it had been her parents' decision. Taya remembered the creeping dread that she didn't understand and couldn't really articulate at the time; she felt it now, only now she knew what was at stake.

"Lucy?" The doctor leaned in slightly, trying to catch her eyes, which had lost their focus. "You don't need to make your decision this instant. But I do need to stress that morphological mutations are very unpredictable. Your body's needs have changed. There may be unforeseen personality changes." He smiled. "It's probably not going to be a long-term stay, just until you and we are satisfied with your condition."

Taya found she couldn't meet his eyes, but that was in-character, right? And so was the way her claws needled at the plastic surface of the table, threatening to hook in and leave deep gouges in the finish. With a concentrated effort, she pulled them back in.

"Can I... Can I call my roommate and have her bring some things up?"

The doctor relaxed. "Of course."

And that was it.