"That's what he said to you. But even if he means it, there's always psychotherapy, post-re-growth orientation."
Orientation—he hadn't thought of that. They'd want to keep him under observation for several days and he had no desire to stay hospitalized. Erica would come to the hospital in a few hours. Perhaps she was there now, waiting to see someone. Come to think of it, he had got past the receptionist with remarkable ease. At any rate, if she was insistent about it, she must eventually get to see the evidence he had just studied.
And then there would be orientation—for both of them.
Without doubt, he would be taught to accept himself as he was, and Erica would be trained to look at him without laughter, and together they would know that beneath his piebald exterior lurked a lovely personality. Then, well adjusted, they would go home and live happily ever after. Or would they?
"Don't stand there, if you want to get away," Miss Jerrems whispered urgently. "Next time they won't take any chances."
They wouldn't. He would be confined to a room he couldn't break out of with guards disguised as nurses. Blindly he moved toward the door.
"Not there," she exclaimed. "Do you want to walk right into them? This way. They won't look for you in here." She clasped his hand in her bony fingers and led him through the maze of files to an elevator. "This takes you to the ground floor," she said. "Once outside, you can get away."
