--XXVII--
Nightingale
Day #41
Subprocedure Nine
Can't give what you don't have.
Avyeena Paleros was someone everyone described as a faker. She had, quite possibly, the most square and simultaneously also rectangular face imaginable.
I stood two feet from her as we all focused our attention on the task in front of us.
All of us except her perhaps.
Technically a grade above me in school, I saw her in three of my classes- history, math, advanced reading. I didn't know why she was there.
"I swear, I'm losing my shit!" Avyeena screeched in my left ear.
I said nothing. My eyes fixed on the strange, alabaster shape that calmly floated on the display in front of me: a screen, not unlike the ones at school that I used whenever I borrowed a book for the weekend. Only this one didn't have catalogs or rows and columns of pieces written by rich people from millennia ago. This one gave you one-hundred and eighty seconds to watch whatever it wanted to show you and then decide whichever word or sentence or number or shape was the correct item after. Whichever "corresponded," as was said by the man who herded us into this room.
But I knew better.
There were five of us in the room. Well, five initially. I quickly glanced over at the murky pool of blood on the floor to my right before sliding my finger fast around the edges of the unique polygon shape on my screen; my other finger quickly tapping and moving inwards, to the center of the shape.
I saw, immediately, how it changed from an alabaster-like hue to a very mild almond color- almost an indistinguishable shift.
I lifted my finger from the screen, I froze, half-expecting anything from the walls crushing us to slow death to a knife blade previously buried in burning coal
To this day, that test still confuses me. Sometimes. This is not something I will be happy to remember. It was a test of identifying differences and deviations; it was a test of identifying those who are potentially dangerous; of knowing what to run away from. It was a test of knowing criminals.
And I knew those people.
I shut my eyes for just a split second.
The songs in my head are the only things that will help me...
A few days before this torture, the man in the crimson helmet took my pen and notebook- the pen and notebook that I stole from one of their offices. The two objects that were my only source of non-torture. Because I can swear to you that every single other thing in that place WAS nothing but torture. He looked at the notes, poems, and songs, and stories for only a few seconds before he tore every page in front of me.
Don't try to guess how he punished me after that.
Beams of light
Beams of light here are a curse
Beams of light here are a bad thing
The men and women running the show knew I'd help people; give answers. I think they noticed that I'd previously assisted others, thereby keeping them alive, when had it been just for the experiment and not me they'd have been eliminated and then disposed. Unless their bodies had cells or relevant DNA or genes or superpowers that they wanted to look at.
Unless their bodies were a useful tool.
And so, I was the only one in the room who was gagged.
They already zapped me twice for trying to give clues with the gag on. The tremors in my hand were manageable, but just barely.
Avyeena let out a horribly staged laugh, and then an even worse and even more unconvincing laugh, and then she spoke again.
"Just kidding, y'all!" she said with her pitifully stilted smile, one I had seen before.
Even Avyeena's "y'all" wasn't convincing. She never said "y'all."
She must have been in a lot of stress.
"Damn! This is so easy."
She sounded like she was at an audition for a school play and was simply forced to be there.
She sounded like this all the time. It was irritating to almost everyone- almost everyone because to me it was, perhaps, neither worth the irritation nor attention.
I glanced at her quickly and then down at her screen, in an attempt to at least communicate that she needed to have her cognitive functions on the more important task, and not scattered with her perfectly unsolicited and pointless comments.
No beams of light
Please please
No beams of light please
I remember a teacher once asking her and I to partner for an assignment in which we read verses of the Bible to the class, taking turns, and then entire chapters alternately. I had already done this assignment alone. Upon asking our teacher afterwards why I had to do it again AND WITH HER OF ALL PEOPLE, she replied, "Because the class wouldn't be able to stand her voice for five minutes." She smiled at me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Let alone ten. We needed yours."
I gave Avyeena another moment's glance. I thought about what the teacher said.
At this point, I think I finally had to agree.
I thought I heard a clicking noise but ignored it; another set of instructions flashed at me on the holographic projector and I needed to read and understand.
Quickly.
Honestly why does she sound like that-
It sounded like a microwave oven in a massive opera theater exploded.
INTO A MICROPHONE.
Both her, and the blast.
It was a blinding flash of white.
Glass above us- what used to be the ceiling of the room- shattered into thousands of tiny yellow-and-pink crystal shards and flying orange sparks. I shielded my eyes for an instant, before realizing THE BREAKING GLASS ITSELF WAS A TRICK.
You needed both your hands on the screen with your mind still counting, keeping records, NOTING PATTERN CHANGES, and remembering whatever followed them.
In spite of all this chaos.
In spite of the micro-razor crystal shards that buried themselves into my forehead, in spite of the red liquid that, consequently, began to run into my eyes.
But my vision wasn't the only thing that turned red.
--
Only the flashing red light from Avyeena Paleros's screen illuminated the look on her face- one of realizing the same thing I did, but only when it was too late.
I assume now she must have shielded her eyes from the tiny shards for one second too long. Her hands, which were a pale shade of blue, were still ON THEIR WAY BACK TO THE HOLOGRAPHIC PROJECTOR SCREEN when it blinked red, one more time.
The last time.
I am not going to look
I am not going to look
I am not going to l-
I looked. And I watched as her entire scalp started spraying blood from every single follicle- like hundreds of tiny, microscopic little water sprinklers in a garden of bottle blond, her hair and skin slowly burning itself like aviation gasoline into her skull. Imagine a thin layer of cheese melted or baked slowly into the top of a bread bun or dinner roll. Or a layer of caramel. That's what her entire head- including her face- looked like, deflating like a red, red, red balloon of human flesh.
I felt the one slice of bread they allowed me to have the day before push back upwards, threatening to enter my mouth from inside of me.
I can't even look at you right now
Nope can't look nope
I'm sorry Avyeena
Nope
Not looking at you
No beams of light. Please.
Please
I closed my eyes. Then I looked at her one more time.
WHY DID I LOOK AT HER
I didn't know her. Or I barely did, if at all. But I couldn't help her. I wanted to, but I needed to keep BOTH HANDS ON THE SCREEN.
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Both hands on the screen
No beams of light
No please-
She seemed completely unable to move, frozen, save perhaps for a very, very mild twitching of her right leg and foot that only someone like me would notice, probably. An almost unnoticeable shaft of light surrounded her area of the room from ceiling to floor.
No
The beams of light here...
NO
She was done.
Apart from her scream, the only other sound I seem to remember is that of her retinas slowly breaking; coming apart; detaching- a sound that I wasn't sure how I was even hearing- one small tissue at a time, and then popping, from inside of her skull, behind her eyes; her eyes which then dropped onto the floor.
Then I realized it wasn't the sound of retinas detaching that I was hearing. Or at least, not just that. The circle of subtle yellow light that radiated floor-to-ceiling around her was pulling apart every cell on the surface of her body.
Slowly.
Only the songs in your head will help you right now...
Think of an already-broken egg toppling from the middle of a very large bookshelf. That was the first eye.
Only the songs in your head will help you right now
Happy place
I don't remember the second eye anymore. But I know nothing rolled when it hit the ground.
Happy place
I realize now that that was the only time I ever heard her scream, truly scream, despite all the noise that I and many others had already heard from her in school before.
I'm sorry Avyeena
That scream was the most real sound she ever made.
--
I stood there, in the circular room- or was it octagonal? And breathed, my eyes glued to the screen and waiting for a next instruction, another puzzle, another subtle string of lines to read upwards and sideways and forth and back.
I still heard Avyeena's insides bubbling on the floor to my left. Whatever was her brain was now identical to whatever mess was around her intact pelvis. Well, maybe not intact. The dent in it was probably not unlike the one in the metacarpal in my left hand...
Her scream lasted longer than any scream I had made in my nightmares. Or so it seemed to me. Her eyes, shortly before dropping, had slowly moved to look at me.
But there was nothing I could say or do.
Scalp to neck, hands to rib cage, feet up to her stomach, I watched her turn from one you saw at school that people all hated but couldn't avoid, to a human pork roast on a barbecue. Only I felt nothing still.
I wasn't thinking about how many new versions of bad dreams I was going to go home with; I was thinking of survival- because if I wasn't going to survive, then how would I help anybody, save anybody?
An almost familiar face lit up the blank screen. Almost familiar, because there was no face. Just the mask, red hair and stubble.
"As much gymnastics as your body does, it doesn't stop there, does it?" The man said. And then he uttered a slightly muffled laugh which lasted thirty seconds, which made absolutely no sense to me. He continued. "The mental side is no less impressive. See, when I choose someone, I choose only the smartest. Anything you're capable of physically is only just bonus territory."
That's when shapes moved above me. Shadows, I'd guessed, maybe more enormous holding chambers or moving platforms or racks of test tubes- but, like as not, something else.
"But let's test that bonus territory," he continued. "If you want to prove you're useful to us..." I saw him get up and then pick up a sheet of paper on a desk- "in addition to how profitable we already know you can be, then let's see you in a physically high-stress situation."
What?
I wasn't sure I was hearing him right.
Physically "high-stress" situation?
I couldn't be hearing him right.
In addition to all this?
I felt the gag on my mouth- so uncomfortably tight. I probed at it with my fingers but there was nothing to make it come loose. It wasn't fiber; wasn't cloth.
In addition to the glass tiles, the poisons, the injections?
I was done for the day. They'd give me my one hour of time to sleep. Before some other kind of forced injection.
And in addition to the bedroom?
Well, at least the continued abuse meant, for me, a little more time to sleep on a comfortable bed.
Sometimes, it was almost a refuge...
The shadows above me moved down, closer to where I stood.
Physically high-stress situation.
No, I heard him right.
One of these mutated creatures screeched at me- eerily a lot like Avyeena- as I had to dodge sideways and into a roll, fast. I untucked back onto my feet just as quickly and looked up. Projectile echoes and waves of sound you could actually see started coming at me from all sides.
"We created them five years ago, from wolverines and from bats." The man's voice was now booming at me from the main audio system that they used for larger gatherings, as well as still coming from the screen behind me. "Impressive, aren't they?"
"uAuffhuuh-" I stepped back and flipped backwards as one of these... these things came at me with its black talons pointed toward the side of my neck. "mmFhihuh, mmmuAuff!"
"Oh, sorry. I forgot they had you gagged."
The contraption that was holding my medial pterygoid and masseter and temporalis still finally came loose and hit the ground with a loud clack.
Pattern number one:
It targeted the side of my neck. I was already bleeding there.
I picked up what looked like one of my ex-co-test-subject's femurs and then Avyeena's right tibia and defended myself from the hordes of monsterbirds.
"How are you today?" the man said. "How is the experiment?"
"Are they attracted to blood?!" I said.
"Wow," the man said. "How'd you know that so fast?"
I said nothing.
I ran over to the four pedestals where the displays were- the ones of my now-dead experiment-mates, and started up the test programs, one at a time.
"What are you-"
On the first display there were two choices: 1956 and 1911.
"THEY TOOK HALF THE WORLD. NOT BY STORM. CHAMBERS AND GAS. THIS ANGEL WAS BORN."
I positioned my feet, calculated the distance and line, and intentionally tapped 1956.
I lunged and flew forward- into a flip with a full twist and then a half- and then looked up as the shift of light froze these mutated wolverines with wings. I didn't stop to watch them turn into blood and bones. I'd seen a lot of that, plenty. No thank you.
I walked, light-footed and swift, across to the next screen.
1911 was the right answer.
A man was born that year- a man known for torturing innocent people. Many called him the Angel of Death, something I had also read in a book, at eight years old. His name was Josef Mengele.
I didn't know if it was fiction; many parts of the book were faded and I couldn't read all of it. I remember trying to ask the librarian for a digital copy, but she said she didn't have one, and told me to read something she called "Twilight."
Let's not go there.
The next pedestal gave the following two choices:
LRNR and JCSL.
"YOU HAVE ONE SECOND. IF THE SHAPE YOU SEE BELOW IS NOT A PENTAGON, SELECT THE WOLF."
The program was pretty generous, because it showed me the old Overwoods flag- the one from eons and ages ago- which, of course, was rectangular and not a pentagon. It was the flag they used before the former country from millennia ago destroyed itself completely. The program also showed the flag on the screen for two whole seconds, which was much longer than I was bracing for or expecting- so that was nice of them.
I glanced over at the mutated creatures that were caught near the last screen. Frozen in air, slowly burning, strange little wisps of black smoke mixed with red emitting gradually from their giant, brawny, frightening bodies, like slowly evaporating molasses. Their razor-sharp claws detached; fell as a pile of searing, hot metal into the pools of human blood.
I intentionally tapped "LRNR" and flew in the opposite direction as more flying wolverines attempted to attack me, and subsequently burned.
Juan Carlos Sánchez Latorre, born September 13, 1980, was a man many called the "Big Bad Wolf." I also learned this from reading. Don't ask me why they called him that.
I remember reading on for maybe two more pages, and then crying and having to put the book down, because I had my own wolves. I went back the next day, after spending evening until morning with said wolves, to read the rest of it.
By this time I had activated all the murder-technology areas except for one- my own- and I had noticed something else.
Apart from that I was blacking out and that there were now only five of the monsters, another pattern had emerged in all the memories and plasma and bones.
I just needed to test it.
"...I've been speaking to you, Daniel."
"Danny."
"That is a nickname."
"I don't know what my real name is. Hate me."
Silence save for the screeching and my ragged breathing.
"I can't hate you. Would you like a real name?"
This distracted me enough that one of the wolverines had managed to clamp its teeth on my shoulder- very close to the wound in my neck- and I dropped the femur and yelled through gritted teeth and struck with Avyeena's tibia, again and again and again until it finally let go, and I was then able to damage both of its eyes with my fingers; I wasn't going to have to kill it. I was on the ground just regrasping the femur when a screech, earsplitting and shrill, came at me from behind.
I knew instantly there was no maneuver that would move me out of its way entirely. I used my arms and elbows to cover my head and crossed the bones in an X behind my neck and back.
Both bones broke, into pieces that flew like marrow-filled, blood-coated pieces of striated confetti on both my sides as they absorbed, thankfully, most of the frightening and eerie impact. Here I was unarmed with possibly a spine injury and fingers that I couldn't move.
I used what seemed like the last of my strength to push up into at least a crouch, using my elbows and arms mostly since my hands weren't cooperating. But I still needed to test the theory.
It was like when your leg fell asleep in a bad position for so long that you had to cry- that's what my hands were like. The parts of me that could ignore it did while the rest of me suffered. Suffered as I sidestepped a visible wave of shock and sound that blew up yet another part of the tile floor beneath me, but didn't bounce off.
Pattern #2:
These waves bounce off walls, but don't move upward.
I didn't need my hands this time.
"Do I go up from here? Or do I eliminate these targets?" My voice was my voice, yet it was so detached from me. Like an AI robot machine or whatever they called it had my voice installed on it. "Tell me what to do. Please. I'm so tired."
"You didn't like any of the names?"
"They were all great. I just didn't hear any of them." Four more of these monsters and this may have been it, may have been the match that was going to stab me in the throat, choke me; penetrate me through the heart, with its claws or fangs or talons. "You'll either tell me what to do here or I'll die. I'm not sure it matters."
I dodged another attack, another screech, another bite. It almost wasn't different; different from the time I was on the floor and crying from the pain, in the sense that I was there, but I wasn't there. I was a corpse that moved. All of the rest of me had already died. Whatever remained hoped only for safety; wanted almost nothing else.
"I just wanted some action."
I used my right hand, which was less damaged, to pick up a bone. I'd been victim to sick people like this; it wasn't new. But it always took a lot from you and gave little in return. "You like a lot of action, I get that." I glanced up at one of the cameras. "If I die here you won't get any. Do I kill these-" I quickly flipped backwards to dodge the wolverine that was swooping in toward me with its fangs bared; I rebounded into a double backwards tuck for extra distance- "or is there some platform up there that I can reach for safety?" I paused to catch my breath, which at that time felt like an almost impossible task- either the air was empty of any oxygen or the hard blow to the back of my head was playing tricks on me- "I know the screech-projectile-echoes don't move up."
A door panel hidden in the wall, one like many others here, unlocked itself with a subtle emission of cold air and vapor and smoke. Tranquilizer darts from above shot at the remaining mutation-creatures, and I watched them flop onto the ground, which was still slick with intestines, eyeballs, and hemoglobin. It looked almost graffitied in some places- the places where I was and struggled and flipped and my shoes drew lines in the blood. I smelled like I vomited liquor on myself- a smell I knew only from knowing other people who were alcohol-addicted, and having to be physically very close with them- in addition to smelling like I swam in a soup of dead, boiled human bodies. Which might or might not have been, actually, the accurate statement.
"I like how you always fold the sheets in the morning."
I turned around and there he was, the man in the mask.
"What do I do now?" I said.
"Nothing tonight." He scratched a stopwatch on his suit. "You've proven your survivability for the day."
For the day.
"What should I expect tomorrow?" I said it politely. I didn't like him when he was mad. His emotion in itself didn't bother me. But he knew how to hurt you. And if he was mad, he would hurt you. "Apart from the injections."
He didn't answer my question.
"You let tomorrow take care of itself," he said in a warm, obliging voice that severely contrasted to the violence all around us. I was in a slaughterhouse, of humans, of children, and here was a man who drank wine from expensive glasses on tables of diamond. "What would you like tonight?"
"I'd like my own blanket."