The Synergist

[Year 11 | 2263-64]

Two months after Artur’s tenth birthday, he had what would turn out to be the final appointment with his doctor.  Artur was not the least bit disappointed by this turn of events: after three long years, he was finally done; Artur simply wished she had passed him the original generation Gogh Tab earlier.  Maybe not three years earlier, but at least a year and a half, so, suffering or not, he was still able to see Dad.

“Artur, I want you to draw me a picture on this.”

“Why?”

“You used to love these things, Artur.”

“Yeah, back when I was a kid.”

“You’re still a kid.”

“Fine, a little kid.”

“Well, you might still love it now,” the doctor advised him.  “Take your time, draw the first thing that enters your mind.”

Artur spent the entire hour-long session drawing a woman standing under the City’s neon lights, basking in their glow.  The light is refracting from the puddles caused from the rain pouring down from the sky.  Red runs into the puddle, pouring from the woman’s face which is covered in injuries that mirror the ones he saw on his father’s face.  As the session was about to end, Artur slid the Gogh Tab back to the doctor, who picked it up and examined the art.

The art was wonderful, particularly from an artist as young as Artur.  The neon lights were vivid, and the boy has a knack for drawing realistic anatomy.  The way the blood pooled over the rain-soaked ground brought an uncanny vivacity to the image.  But most stunning of all, the subject of the image was unmistakable: the doctor.

“This was the first thing that came to your mind, Artur?”

Artur nodded his head.  He contemplated telling her about how, years ago, she told him that she wanted to earn his trust, but has only betrayed it since.  About how he knows that she must work for YutopiCorp, and she has done nothing to help him about his dad.  About all those nightmares stemming from his dad’s torture, and how he has been enduring them ever since.  He didn’t; his mum might end up in a re-education camp, and then he’d be alone.

“I…I think we’re done here.  There’s nothing I can do for you.”  Artur’s doctor was visibly rattled and Artur liked it.

Over the next ten months, Artur was a much happier boy.  He was still besieged by nightmares, but these happening every other night was a marked improvement.  He actually began to engage with his peers in class.  He laughed at his mum’s terrible jokes.  And over the course of those months, when he arrived home from the institute, he fired up his Gogh Pad Plus.