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Entering a long hallway, looking over her shoulder, the woman asked Roxy, “How are you doing?”
“Uh, fine I guess.” Roxy could feel her shoulders pull in and tried to resist closing off.
“Hopefully things turn around for you here, I’m taking you to meet the lady in charge, Margaret. Do you have any questions?” Roxy shook her head. The woman knocked on an open door, “Margaret, here’s Roxtyn.”
She sat at a desk in the middle of a decent size room, a man stood off to the side from her, looking stiff and aggressive. Margaret smiled at her, “Come in!” She shuffled into the room, folding her arms and sitting down. “Welcome,” Margaret was warm and didn’t take her eyes off of her. “I am sure you’re wondering what is going on, and I am glad you decided to make this scary step.” Her soft gray hair framed her face.
Roxy nodded in agreement.
“Well, many years ago, my husband and I discovered this island and with the amazing modern technology, it doesn’t show up on radars and we are out of aircraft routes. We banded with a few friends and built a community, but we couldn’t grow and survive with the few people we had and needed to recruit people. When the last war started we began pulling people who looked like they needed help, a rescue of sorts. Jay is pretty good at that, isn’t he?”
“Yes” She softly responded.
“We really wanted to give people who have been struggling and give them a second chance.” Margaret opened a folder.
“That’s exactly what I needed, thank you.” Roxy looked at the desk papers but couldn’t read them upside down from that far away.
“My pleasure,” She smiled back at her, “I’m going to go over these papers to help get to know you, see where you fit and get you in our system. Since this is a fresh start, you’ll get a new name, you will get a chip injected into your hand, will there be a problem with either of those?”
“No,” She swallowed and thought how she has had it worse and pulled down her sleeve more to reassure her yellowed bruise was covered.
“Okay, let’s get started.” Margaret picked up a pen, “Do you mind if I choose the name, it helps not having too many Briannes or Jacksons?”
“Uh, no.” Roxy began to think of what name she looked like she had. Margaret looked at the screen in front of her and scrolled down with her finger.
“What about Joan?”
Roxy could feel her face scrunch down. “That sounds like a grandma's name.”
Margaret laughed and looked at her screen, “you’re right.” Delaying her look back at Roxy, “How do you feel about Juniper?” They stared at each other, “You could shorten it to Junie or June.”
“I think I can make that work.” Roxy seemed to like the change.
“And a last name?”
Juniper responded with another shrug.
“How about Jensen.”
“Okay.” She softly responded.
“Great, when is your birthday? If you want to change it you can, it’s just something that is better for health reasons, so keep it in a six month range from your original.”
“My birthday is September twenty third.” She was honest.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty Five.”
Margaret didn’t look up, “Do you have any surviving immediate family members?”
“No.” Juniper mumbled.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She set her pen down and looked up giving Juniper her full attention. “How long have you been alone?”
“Since twenty.” June averted her eyes.
“I’m so sorry. That must be hard,” Margaret expressed her sincerity. “Do you want to talk about it?”
