Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 4

Three great entries for last week's challenge.  You can still write for it if you like.

The General Guidelines can be found here. 

This week's prompt photo is Lapse by Camden Heibel-Schmidt, a photo manipulation artist over on Deviant Art called DarkStar797.

Identity

Doctor Caseon shrugged. “I’m not sure how it works. It could take years to find out.”

“But imagine the possibilities.” Doctor Janis looked at the iris again through the microscope. “It’s incredible.”

“I know. But meantime the patient: Are they the only person with this installed? Where did they come from?”

Doctor Janis pushed back his wheelie chair and stood up, perusing the unconscious patient. “They’re not from Sector 8 that much is clear from the skin tone and ear shape.” He pointed to the low lobes, how they reached far under the chin. “Those indicate further out round Sector 15.”

“By the uncharted border?” Docter Caseon looked doubtful.

“Yes, why not?”

“I’ve seen that ear construction on Sector 10’s and Sector 11’s.”

“Yes, but, although their lobes are long, they don’t have tops. Look at these, they do.”

Doctor Caseon stepped forward to see where Doctor Janis was pointing. The ear was fully developed at the top too. “But we have no idea what might have been manipulated on the body though. If they can do this to irises, they can do anything to any body part. Who brought them in?”

“They were found in one of the immigration sweeps, so it would have been PTD, the police terror division.”

“Arh, so retina scan didn’t compute?”

“Nope.”

“Not a surprise. But a full body scan has been done, hasn’t it? We do know this isn’t a cyborg of some sort, don’t we?”

Doctor Janis’ eyes widened. “It was brought here to us when the scan didn’t work. There was no mention of a body scan.”

Both men took two steps back from the body that was lying peacefully in the chair. The last time cyborgs had been reported in Sector 8 there had been a planet wide lock down for several months, the hundred year war still fresh in everyone’s minds. A repeat of such an event did not appeal to the doctors.

“Inject it. See how deep the flesh is.” Doctor Caseon flapped his hand at a syringe on the counter.’

Doctor Janis grabbed one and took a tentative step forward. Then he hesitated. “But if it is a cyborg, how is it unconscious? They can’t be knocked out without damage to the skull.”

The two doctors paused, staring at each other. Doctor Caseon relaxed a little. “It can’t be then. The thing in its eye has to be a human implant.”

They moved forward together with caution. Doctor Janis still had the syringe in his hand. “It can’t hurt to check though, right?”

He slid the needle under the skin on the forearm of the patient. A faint whirring noise was audible. Doctor Caseon looked through the microscope. “The hands of the clock have started spinning! I can see cogs moving!”

The arm with the syringe came up and hit Doctor Janis under the chin, flinging him up and back into the air. He landed against the wall of the lab with a crash. Blood from where his head made contact leaving a halo on the wall.

The patient’s other arm came up and grabbed Doctor Caseon round the throat. It pulled him in until their noses almost touched.

“Don’t do that again; I hate needles.”