“The painted lines on the floor are for your protection, as well as to ensure the integrity of our facility. Please stay behind the yellow line at all times during our tour. Go beyond it into the red zone without the proper identification and well,” the tour guide in the white lab coat stepped over the line to demonstrate. An alarm sounded, followed by an influx of some serious looking men with severe haircuts. He quickly passed his key card over the line of demarcation and the alarm stopped. The guide waived at the security team. “As always, gentlemen, you have impeccable timing. Thank you.” He turned back to his audience, “Now, if you’ll follow me I’ll show you one of our labs in action. This area behind the glass is a contaminant free zone or what you would call a clean room. Here at the Vaughn Institute we utilizes the same standards as NASA in our labs. The test tubes you see there…” the man in the lab coat droned on. Emma tried to concentrate on his words, but the close proximity to four classes of high schoolers was making it impossible.
Emma covertly sent a text to the flu ridden Mel. ‘This sucks! U suck! Wish you were here.’
Seconds later Mel responded back. ‘Lol, miss you too, biotch.’
Everything at the Vaughn Institute was crisp white and sterile except for the floor. A wide band of green strategically flowed down the hallways lined on either side by a stripe of yellow and then red. Emma giggled, picturing herself on the yellow brick road to Oz. Only this Oz had been taken over by a demented clown and his crazy use of colors.
“Now, if you’ll follow me, we’ll make our way to the outer gardens and arboretum. Then we’ll make our way into the hydroponics hangar and greenhouse.” Emma let the tour guide’s voice fade as she allowed students to pass her. She wanted to be in back of the crowd, reducing the amount of white noise in her head.
Since Mel was absent, Emma was feeling more isolated than usual with this field trip. She hadn’t seen Mattox at school, either. She nearly screamed out when an unexpected presence stood next to her.
“Well, this is where I’d come during the zombie apocalypse,” Mattox chuckled as he matched Emma’s pace in the crowd.
She had to laugh, “Why?”
“You mean besides the fact that it’s built like Fort Knox? Let’s see,” Mattox counted things off with his fingers. “Self-sustaining food source, power source, and water supply. Don’t even get me started on the labs. I mean, they could probably cure the zombies and create them,” he chuckled again.
“Yeah, that lab made me feel like Peter Parker fixing to get bit by a radioactive spider or something.”
“Are your Spidey senses tingling?” Mattox teased.
“Ha! All the time. Is the Vaughn Institute the same Vaughn as your building?” Emma asked.
“You never know.” Mattox smirked.
Emma rolled her eyes. “Come on, I want to get outside, these hallways are making me claustrophobic and deathly afraid of clowns at the moment.”
Mattox laughed, “After you, Spidey.”
Emma took a deep breath enjoying the open air and shade from the beautiful boulevard of trees lining their path to the hydroponics facility. The white noise radiating from everyone had diminished outside, but they still muffled the beauty of the institute’s grounds. Mattox stood facing her and smiled. He seemed to be enjoying her reaction to their surroundings. Just then Emma’s teeth were rattled as someone shoved her from behind, and straight into Mattox.
“Hey, watch it!” Emma shouted as she was flung forward, reaching out trying not to fall.
Two boys ran by as Emma grabbed Mattox’s forearms for balance.
“Sorry,” they said in unison, but instead of sensing their remorse, the echoes in Emma’s head became silent, almost as if they were being shielded.
Emma looked around in awe as she clung to Mattox’s arms. She listened to the nature all around her. The birds were chirping, the leaves in the trees were rattling in the wind, and her classmates were simply talking all around her instead of inside her head. She looked at Mattox who was staring at her again and smiling.
He leaned over and softly whispered in her ear, “Who’s the mysterious one now?”
Instinctively she stepped away from him as if his words had shocked her. As soon as she dropped his arms the noises returned. All of them. Slowly, as an experiment, she grabbed onto his arms again. He didn’t protest, instead he held on to her as well. His grasp was strong and his hands were larger than she had realized. She felt small and safe in his embrace. And again the empathetic sounds ceased. Confused by the sudden quietness she looked around. Somehow touching Mattox had cloaked the echoes. Her mind had become deaf to everyone’s emotions and it was beautiful. She could hear the birds chirping in the trees, children laughing as they played, and the sweet smell of cut grass and blooming jasmine as the wind threatened to sweep her off her feet.
Emma looked up at him, her eyes searching his, “How did you-” she stopped herself, not sure how much of her craziness she wanted to share. Her heart was pounding again and her mind was racing. Half of her frenzied response was from the realization that another human had the power to silence the voices in her head. The other half of her reaction was from Mattox himself.
“What’s got you so worked up?” he asked, but to Emma he didn’t seem that surprised.
Emma shook her head and dropped his arms, “I don’t even know you.”
Mattox nodded in agreement, put his hands in his pockets and started to walk away. Ten feet ahead of Emma, he stopped and turned. Mattox raised one of his hands and looked at it before holding it out to her, “Then get to know me.”
Emma gulped and stood dumbfounded for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she stepped forward and took his hand.