Chapter Two

Clio

*twelve years later

The alarm in the bedroom went off at seven a.m. on the dot, yet Clio had been laying awake, staring up at the blank ceiling for some time, measuring the seconds until it was time to rise. 

Smiling a little to himself to finally be allowed the opportunity to move, he rose from the bed swiftly, pulling away white sheets from his white shift sleep-gown, and flexed his feet onto the cold, white tiled ground. “Alarm, stop!” he called to the room, ceasing the dull, insistent artificial bell and its repetitive tune. Clio had never heard a real bell chime before, but he imagined that a real one would not sound very nice, either, and wondered why someone had decided to mimic their song with mechanics in the first place. 

He padded through his colorless, unadorned bedroom with his usual routine, pulling out a fresh uniform of the white he was so used to: shin-length cotton leggings and a long, simple top that extended to just above his knees, covered in silver buttons (the buttons that allowed the fabric to be pulled off of him, of course, if needed; the doctors alway needed to).

Dressed and humming to himself, he went to wait in front of his locked, glass bedroom door. It would unlock at seven-thirty a.m. on the dot, he knew, as it did everyday.

By seven twenty-nine, he was bouncing from foot to foot, though patiently maintaining himself otherwise. At seven-thirty, the door slid open, disappearing into the wall, and he calmly stepped over the threshold and waited patiently for a guard to appear and guide him to the playroom. 

This was the first rule about living as a child within the PCA center: never go anywhere without a guard. It was for the childrens’ protection, he knew, though sometimes, if he were being truly honest, he thought this rule was a bit silly. He knew where the playroom was, and largely doubted he would run into any danger within the fifteen paces or so it took to get there.

Still, PCA only wanted what was best for him, he knew. They worked with the best minds in all the world, and if they had their reasons for escorting him to the playroom, he didn’t doubt their decision.

PCA. It stood for Paranormal Control Agency, he’d been told once by the agency that looked after him, just as they had told him that a horrible disease, come about by vis, had befallen the world, and it was up to paranormals like him to offer their bodies for study to help eliminate this disease. V-1 disease.

He had never seen the horrible effects of V-1 disease, of course, as he had never stepped foot outside of the building in his twelve years of life, though he felt deeply sorry for all of humanity who suffered greatly from this life-threatening ailment. It was his duty to help and purify the race. He and the other children were the Special Ones; the most important key to solving the relief of what now plagued the world.

A few minutes of patient waiting passed before a guard finally appeared, looking a little lost and out of breath as she approached Clio with no small amount of wariness. Her hand, curiously, rested on her hip where her gun was tucked, nested in its holster. Perhaps she had a side cramp.

“Hello!” Clio said brightly, blinking up at her. “I’ve never seen you before. What is your name?”

The guard, measuring him warily, dropped her hand from her hip and straightened, clearing her throat and snatching his hand to swipe her task watch over his, as all PCA members did when they encountered him and he became their temporary charge until he was passed along to another. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed very important.

Everything the PCA did was very important.

“Ashley,” she answered eventually, making a gesture for him to turn and begin walking. 

“Assshley,” Clio repeated, testing her name. “I’m so happy you are with PCA, now. I’m always relieved to hear when people have survived V-1 disease.”

“Survived what?”

“V-1 disease,” Clio repeated with a frown. He had heard of situations such as this before and bit back a knowing sigh, not wanting to upset the poor guard. Some people, as he had been told, were in complete denial of the disease, and didn’t want to even acknowledge the deadly epidemic, it upset them so much. 

Clio wondered if this young guard had lost a loved one to V-1, or many, and his heart ached at the thought. 

“All right, let’s just get moving CL-10,” the guard huffed, still holding back away from Clio, as though there was something severely off-putting about his person. He often got this reaction from people, and he couldn’t even begin to ponder the reasoning for it. Another PCA child had once suggested perhaps it was because he wore strong perfume and it might make people uncomfortable.

But Clio didn’t wear any perfume, so the other child’s reasoning made no sense.

“Clio,” Clio clarified, defining for her the name he had given himself that derived from his PCA identifier, Certified Level 10. CL-10. Clio. The PCA children were not given true names, only identifiers, though Clio liked the idea of having a true name, like the other members of PCA around him.

Like Agent Jackson.

“Clio’s a girls name,” the guard muttered.

Clio frowned again, wondering what the difference was between a boy’s and a girl’s name, and why it mattered. People of the outside world were often puzzling like this. 

They eventually made it to the playroom, where the guard used her task-watch to key-open the sliding door that separated them from the larger, white room. The three other PCA children were gathered onto plastic fold-out chairs, facing a television screen, waiting for him.

Clio knew all of them, and well. There was ‘Three,’ who was ten percent werewolf, one-quarter warlock, he had been told. ‘Two-One,’ a bored-looking teenage witch with no powers. And last there was ‘Four,’ a nine-year-old vampire who was always hungry. The PCA kept him nuzzled and apparently well-fed, but even the haughty Two-One gave the younger child a wide berth. 

Three nodded a greeting to Clio as he sat down, and then another guard within the room was turning on the television so the three PCA children could watch the PCA mission statement video, as they did every morning of every single day. 

The video illustrated the importance of their duty, to provide themselves to the PCA to help solve the deadly grip of V-1 disease on the human race. It also provided useful instructions, such as which buttons on their uniforms to undo when the doctors needed to draw blood, or what to do if a guard tells you to ‘get down’ (PCA children are to drop to their stomachs with their hands behind their backs, and to not move). The video also, a bit sneakily, hints at the possibility of being released from the PCA, if such a child is very good and offers themselves completely to PCA research. 

Clio felt his heart swell at such a prospect, though he knew he would have to work very, very hard to be so good as to be released. 

Though he had watched the video thousands of times, memorized every word and pause and nuance, he watched the video with new eyes each day, his heart swelling with pride to carry out his responsibility. 

Afterwards, a nurse entered the room through one of the task-watch-operated sliding doors and called for Two-One to accompany her. 

When Two-One left, the three remaining children were left in the room with three guards.

Clio watched as the television screen changed to fill the screen with a schedule, outlining the childrens’ tasks for the day. It looked like coloring was on the agenda, first.

The children gathered around a craft table, where coloring books full of animals Clio had never seen in person waited. Along with simple, twelve-color boxes of crayons. The children were forbidden from drawing outside of the lines of the coloring books, or coming up with their own designs. Four had once drawn a lion with vampire wings, and it had earned him three hours in the boxroom. 

The boxroom was a windowless room at PCA where the children were sent if they exhibited poor behavior, which admittedly happened on occasion. 

A bit late, Miss Geneive, the PCA children’s counselor, rushed into the room, scanning the children’s task-watches and taking a seat at the head of the craft table. Miss Geneive oversaw the daily activities for half the day, until another counselor took over for the remaining half. Clio wasn’t sure exactly how the PCA scheduling worked, but he imagined greater minds than his own were at work for creating such an exquisite system.

“You think Jackson will come and visit you today?” Three, sitting next to Clio, murmured quietly to him, glancing over to see if Miss Geneive caught the exchange. The children were technically not allowed to speak to one another without the inclusion or supervision of a counselor or other PCA member, though this rule was often evaded out of practicality. Still, Clio was one to mind it when he could.

“It’s Agent Jackson,” Clio corrected Three, glancing at Miss Geneive as well, to see that the ordinarily-esteemed counselor had her work cut out for her in attempting to show Four that it was possible for the little vampire to use more than one colored crayon when coloring.

“Agent Jackson,” Three huffed impatiently. 

Though Clio could play dumb, he knew very well the intrigue that had sparked the question, as it was mirrored in the same curiosity the children all shared, including Clio himself: the renowned, high ranking field Agent Jackson of top operations, sometimes, and for reasons unknown, came to visit upon Clio. 

None of the other children ever received visitors, and aside from Agent Jackson, Clio did not, as well. Every PCA member he encountered, be it doctors, nurses, psychological researchers, counselors, guards, etc. all had respective tasks to complete with him, yet Agent Jackson came, it appeared, for no reason at all. Just to talk to Clio. 

It was a curiosity, and though he would never voice it, Clio couldn’t hide the swell of deep pleasure at the feeling of being, in some small way, special. Agent Jackson had chosen him to be friends with, and though he didn’t understand why, he knew with certainty that he was the luckiest boy in the world because of it. 

“I don’t know,” Clio whispered honestly, hoping that his regret for his lack of knowing didn’t seep into his speech. Agent Jackson’s visits were random and splattered across the months. Sometimes, he would visit every day for a week, while other times, he would remain absent for three or so weeks, sometimes months, before reappearing. 

Three was quiet for a moment, carefully swiping his hand back and forth to color-in the feathers of a parrot, though for some reason, Clio had the impression that the older boy was not thinking about the mindless activity. 

“Do you have lab today?” Three asked, this time even more quietly.

‘Lab’ referred to the times in which a PCA child was sent to a lab to be looked over by a team of doctors for extensive research. It differed from the simple blood-samples taken nearly daily, and happened about once a week.

“Tomorrow,” Clio whispered back with a small shrug.

Three was quiet for another moment. Clio went back to his own coloring, only to be distracted once more when Three nudged him. 

Clio glanced over to follow Three’s minute body language, seeing that the other child had written words within the beak of the bird he was shading. Be careful, Three had written to him, and then went on to color the beak to hide the message.

Clio frowned, returning to the elephants on his paper.

Be careful? Of what?