Penny awoke hours later in a room so dark, she could not tell if her eyes were closed or not. She lay motionless for a while, opening and closing her lids, trying to see some difference. After she tired of this, she tried slowly to raise herself from the bed. As soon as she moved, a soft, orange light illuminated the room. Penny grimaced against the pain in her muscles, suddenly reminded of what had put her to sleep in the first place. She thought of Kai, and of her dream: she remembered men talking, their aged faces deformed and obscured as though seen through warped glass. She remembered feeling afraid. She groped at other details, but her memory of the dream was rapidly fading. Leaning into a sitting position, Penny rubbed her eyes. She felt that she had slept for days, but still felt exhausted.
Penny inspected the room through still-bleary eyes. It was very clean and tidy, more so than any room she had ever seen. The furniture was made of straight, rectangular blocks of dark, polished wood. Her bed had a thick, soft mattress, covered by several white sheets under a deep red blanket that matched the pillow case. There were chairs in the room, made of the same wood as her bed, with padding the same color as her blanket. A bookshelf stood in the corner, and a night-stand was next to her bed. A black device rested on its glassy surface; its face read “15:37”. On the far side of the wall to her left, a door without a handle was slightly sunken into the wall. A small, square panel was next to it: it displayed a cartoon of a sun, with “20%” underneath it.
The display changed to blue as the brushed steel door slid into the wall. A women entered, and Penny tensed her muscles, readying herself to either fight or escape. The woman slid a finger on the display, and the room became brighter. Penny could not tell where the lights were located. The woman grabbed a chair, placed it next to the bed and sat, facing Penny. She looked young, and graceful, but Penny could tell she was older than she appeared. She wore a tight, red skirt that stopped just below her knees, and a matching suit jacket, which was unbuttoned. A red tie, expertly knotted at her throat over an immaculate white dress shirt, disappeared under a black vest. The woman crossed her legs, resting her hands on her thigh, and looked at Penny. Her presence made Penny anxious and angry.
“You want somethin', lady? I ain't just-” she began.
“Am not,” the woman interrupted.
“'Scuse me?”
“Am not, not 'ain't.' You say, 'I am not.'”
“I'll say 'ain't' if I damn well please, ma'am. You need somethin' from me, or do ya just think I'm that pretty? 'Cause if you stick me with one of them zappers, I swear I'll-”
“My name is Paola Sciarpa. You're called Penny, correct?”
Penny hugged her knees to her and glared at Sciarpa over them. “Yeah, that's me.”
Sciarpa smiled, and offered her hand. “It's good to meet you, Penny.”
Penny shook her hand lightly, her arm still weak. Sciarpa rose from the chair. “I realize you're probably still tired, but you've already slept for over fourteen hours. Would you like some breakfast?”
Penny's stomach felt painfully empty, but she distrusted Sciarpa too much to accept her offer so eagerly. “What, uh, what time is it?”
“Nearly four in the afternoon.”
“Ain't really breakfast if it's that late,” Penny responded, sulking.
Sciarpa smiled again. “'Isn't.' And no, maybe not. But you're hungry. Stop being difficult and let's eat.”
Slowly and begrudgingly, Penny slid off the bed. The carpet was cool and soft on her bare feet, and it was then that she noticed that the clothes she was wearing did not belong to her. She followed Sciarpa out of the room, into a large, open living room.
“What didja do with my clothes, ma'am? These ain't mine.”
“They were torn and filthy, so I got rid of them. There are some new ones in your dresser, but we'll have to go buy you some other things later. And it's 'aren't', or 'are not'.”
Penny was about to grumble when she took notice of the room they had entered. She had never seen such opulence in her life, much less that it could be owned by a single person. The floor of the living room was covered in the same carpet as her room. A fireplace made of dark, glassy marble occupied the middle of one wall. A red, leather couch sat in front of it, flanked on either side by chairs made of the same material. Circular stairs made of a black, smoky glass led to another floor which hung over the living room like a balcony. The walls were bare concrete, except for the furthest wall, which was a solid pane of glass. The metal fixtures were all brushed steel, and everything had the sleek, austere aesthetic that her bedroom had.
“Well, are you coming?” Sciarpa asked, halfway up the staircase.
“Yes ma'am, I was just... lookin' around.” Penny answered, realizing suddenly that she had been gawking at the room for several minutes.
She followed Sciarpa up the stairs, enjoying their cold hardness on her feet. At the top of the staircase was the kitchen, filled with gleaming with brushed steel. A large, marble table surrounded by high-backed chairs occupied the edge overlooking the living room. Sciarpa donned an apron while Penny ran her palm over the smooth, wooden railing.
“Is all this yours?” she asked Sciarpa.
“Yes, but I only paid it off a few years ago. A suite with a fireplace doesn't come cheap these days,” Sciarpa answered, pulling a pan down from where it hung above the counter.
“How'd you afford all this?” Penny asked, immediately regretting it. “I mean... shoot, I'm sorry, ma'am. I know I ain't – I'm not supposed to ask that, it's not proper.”
“I don't mind, really. I have a unique job, and the government pays me well to do it. You don't have to call me 'ma'am', you know. No need to be formal; Paola is just fine. How would you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled, if it's not too much trouble, thank you. You must be awful important to 'em then,” Penny said, flopping down onto a chair. She craned her head to see over the counter; the smell from the kitchen was intoxicating.
“More than they know,” Sciarpa responded, grinning widely to herself.
Penny sat, dwarfed by the chair, kicking her bare feet under the table. She watched Sciarpa's even, efficient movements, trying to guess at who she was. Maybe she's a special kind of police officer, she thought. Guardin' me for somethin'. Probably figures I know the most 'bout Hank. That's why she's being so nice to me. Tryin' to butter me up with fancy clothes and such. She glared at Sciarpa's back. Well, you just try, Miss Paola. Won't get nothin' out of me.
Moments later, Sciarpa strode to the table, setting a plate full of still-steaming scrambled eggs, bacon, buttered toast and fruit before Penny. Her stomach growled audibly as Sciarpa placed a frosted glass of milk next to the plate.
“Eat up, Penny. I've already eaten, so don't worry about me.” she said, sitting across from Penny.
Penny needed no further encouragement, eating voraciously. Sciarpa watched for a moment, satisfied with the child's enthusiasm.
“After you're done there, we'll get you dressed, then we can go get you some clothes that fit, and perhaps some books for you. I have a spare tablet that you can use, so we don't need to buy a new one. By that time it should be close to sundown, if you'd like, I can take you over to the skyport and we can get some ice cream,” Sciarpa said, looking out the window.
Penny stopped, the fork in her hand hovering over her plate. “Miss Paola, I do appreciate your kindness, I surely do,” she said cautiously, “but I've got to wonder why you're being so kind to me. I thought I was in all sorts of trouble; them policemen zapped me and put me in chains and all that. If you're lookin' to get answers or something out of me, I'd like to have it straight – no disrespect meant to you or nothin'.”
Sciarpa took a deep breath, leaning back into here chair. “Alright,” she began, “I suppose that's fair. Here's the deal: your guardian, Hank, is dead, as you know. Your house has been taken under government control, and you're legally an orphan. What that means is that, normally, you'd be placed in the Orphan Protection Program, which is a fancy name for a kind of adoption agency that has the authority to keep kids there indefinitely. I won't lie to you, it isn't the nicest place: they're not first in line for funding, and in most of the locations it shows. You'd be stuffed in there with hundreds of other kids, sleeping in big rooms full of bunk beds with big mean guards walking through all the time. You'd get government surplus food, and every day you'd have to watch people file through, staring at you like you were a kitten in a pet store. We picked you up on my case, and I figured you didn't want that kind of life. My position allows me... particular influences, so I was able to bypass the typical procedure. As of right now, I'm legally your guardian. If that's not what you want, I can pass you off to the orphan program.”
“No, of course not ma'am – Miss Paola. I'm very grateful for all you did for me, thank you much. I just didn't know what to make of all this, is all. I've just never, you know, left home or nothin'.” Penny replied, slouching a bit in her chair. “I don't really know what's goin' on.”
“It's alright, I'll explain more later. Just finish your breakfast for now, we can talk on the way.”
Later, as Sciarpa drove through a tunnel winding between the towers of the city, Penny dozed against the car door. Sciarpa stopped the car at an intersection, and the change in motion woke Penny. She looked around, straining her neck trying to see the tops of the buildings. She leaned against the glass, but still could not see their peaks.
“Good, you're awake,” said Sciarpa. “Let me tell you about what I do."
Kai had been awake for over half an hour, by his own estimate, but did not open his eyes. He kept his breaths deep and even, listening carefully. He heard other people: they were either asleep or pretending, he could not tell. The air was cool on his face, and a blanket of some sort covered his body from his throat down. He shifted slightly to feel his clothing; he was wearing pajamas made of thin material, and no socks. He opened one eye a sliver, but saw nothing. The room was dark. They're done hurting me, he thought, but they might come back. I need to be ready.
“You can't trick them like that, you know,” came a child's whispered voice. “They can tell.”
Lights flicked on above him, and Kai slowly opened his eyes. The ceiling above arced over him, covered in a cartoon mural of bright colors. Soft piano music began to play; Kai could not pinpoint its source. A man's voice sounded over the music.
“Good morning, children,” it said. “I hope you have all slept well. We have a lot of fun planned for you all today. Just follow the blue path through the panda bear tunnel for breakfast.”
Kai rose cautiously from the bed and looked around. He was sitting on a circular bed, and all around him were other children sitting in identical beds. The room itself was a massive hemisphere, with a large, blue light at its apex. The floor was covered in a colorful, patterned carpet. There were paths of various colors tracing across it. On the outer wall, there were large, garish, cartoon animal heads; their mouths were all open, forming tunnels. Kai could not see through to the other side of any of them.
The other children began to hop off their beds. Most of them, like Kai, were studying their surroundings; others formed pairs or groups, whispering with their small voices. Kai jumped down to the floor, feeling the warm carpet on his toes. He walked towards the blue path, looking intently at the animal faces. There were six of them, he observed, evenly spaced. Something about their eyes made him uneasy; they felt too lifelike to Kai, as though they were actually able to see him. A boy with red hair and freckles on his face was walking towards him, so Kai paused near the middle of the room. The boy stopped in front of him, slipping his hands into the pockets of his pajamas.
“You know you weren't fooling anybody by pretending to be asleep,” he said.
“I didn't know where I was, I didn't want those men to know I was awake.” Kai said, taken slightly aback by the boy.
“They would have known anyway. It doesn't matter how good at pretendin' you are.”
“How did you know?”
“'Cause everyone else was doin' it too,” the boy replied, shrugging. “A person's breathing doesn't sound normal when they're sleeping, anyway. What's your name?”
“My name is Kai. What is your name?”
“I'm William. Don't call my Willy or Billy or none of those short names. I hate them, because my name is William, not any of those other ones. What kind of name is Kai?”
“It is just my name, I don't know know what kind it is.”
“It's just weird. I've never heard it before. Let's be friends, okay?”
“Okay,” Kai said, shaking William's hand.
Kai followed William towards the panda bear tunnel, and the other children began to do the same. He watched its eyes as he entered its mouth, trying to discern any movement. The interior was red, like blood, thought Kai.
Breakfast consisted of eggs, Canadian bacon, toast, granola, orange juice, three liquids in sealed, unlabeled bottles, and fourteen pills of various shapes and sizes. The trays provided directions explaining which pills needed to be taken with which liquids. Kai took them; some dissolved, some expanded, some went down his throat like a pebble. He glanced across the table at William, who put the pills in his shirt pocket, nodding once at Kai as he did. Kai leaned across the table.
“If they know when we are awake without even looking at us,” he whispered, “they will know that you did not take those.”
“Don't matter to me. What can they do? No one is even here.”
Kai doubted that there was nothing they could do. He did not know who “they” were, but he strongly felt that they were very much in control. He didn't like that, some unknown number of hours ago, they had done something to him that made him feel differently. He didn't like that they were alone here, but were still being told what to do. He also didn't like that he not only felt that he should do what they told him to, but also that he wanted to.
“Hello again, children.” the voice said again. “Now that you're finished, you should follow the red path through the elephant tunnel.”
The children rose and walked towards the giant elephant head with no discussion. Kai stopped, noticing that William was still sitting at the table, scowling and clenching his fists.
“William, I think we should-” he began.
“Yeah, yeah, you're right.” William said quickly. Kai noticed that there was a slight gleam of sweat on his forehead. William rose and followed Kai, smirking slightly.
The next room was rectangular, and cylindrical elevators lined the far wall. Above them were digital displays with names. Children approached the elevators, hesitantly at first, then gaining courage after their peers had entered them unharmed. Once they were inside, the doors hissed shut, and the elevator hummed out of sight, some up and others down. An empty elevator took their place seconds afterward. Kai's name appeared, and he began walking to it when William grabbed his wrist, turning him around.
“Hey, Kai. I don't know if I'll see you again, but listen. They've done something to us, and they're still doing it. I don't know what it is or why they're doing it, but they're not doing it for us. Be careful. Don't take anyone's orders but your own, okay? I still think we're in trouble here. Just – be safe, yeah?” he said, holding onto Kai's wrist.
“I will, William. You should be safe, too. I think if we try, we can find each other. I will see you again, I promise.”
Kai squeezed William's hand, nodding to him before entering the elevator. The doors snapped shut and the capsule fell beneath the floor into a lightless void.
Minutes later, the doors opened into a spotless, white room. As soon as Kai stepped out, the doors closed, and the elevator continued downward out of sight. He looked around the room, waiting for the voice to give him further instructions. It was, like the previous room, rectangular, but much larger. Kai estimated its width to be forty feet, and its length to be a hundred or more. It was bifurcated across its width by a wall that was as high as Kai's stomach. Beyond the wall was a trench descending so far down that Kai could not see its bottom. He looked at the ceiling, inspecting the corners. He saw no speakers or lights. He felt worried, in every other room the voice had told him what to do, but here it was silent. There were no markings on the walls, nor on the floor or the ceiling. The entire room was flat, angular geometry consisting of perfectly white planes. Across the chasm, another elevator tube was position in the middle of the wall, and an empty elevator sat waiting. He inspected the trench: it was too wide for him to jump across, even if he leapt from the top of the wall.
Kai spent a few minutes looking over the walls and floor, searching for some trick to solving the puzzle. He found none. He had concluded that being given no direction was part of the test, and that he was required to jump across the trench unassisted. He had also decided that if he did not jump across the trench, whoever was controlling the elevators would leave him in that room to die of thirst. He planted his feet as far away from the short wall as possible, bending his knee so he could push off when he began running.
He stared at the elevator on the far side of the room, breathing deeply. He lowered his stance slightly, and burst from the wall, sprinting as hard as he could. He jumped just before the wall, using all his strength to push off its edge. He knew, as soon as his foot left the ledge, that he would not reach the opposite side. His head was instantly filled with an intense, focused anger. He clenched his eyes and screamed, flailing his arms and refusing to believe he would die.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard people talking; two men, and a woman. “Brains over brawn, by nature I see,” one of the men said.
“Load him up for the P thirty-thirty next.” another man's voice said.
“That's a little advanced for his first P-course, don't you think?” the woman replied.
“This is an advanced child, doctor. Load him up.”
He felt his leg catch on a wall, sending him tumbling across the floor.
Kai opened his eyes. He had landed on the far side of the room, several feet from the edge of the chasm. His leg throbbed for a few seconds before returning to normal. He felt fatigued, and had a throbbing headache. He stared at the edge of the floor; he knew he had not been moving fast enough to reach the ledge. He knew he couldn't have jumped high enough, yet somehow he had managed to make it. The elevator doors slid open. Holding his head, he entered. The doors slid shut, and the elevator descended.
Ryan drove along the suspended road, its spotless surface bathed in the orange light of the morning sun. Government driving privileges had been significant motivation behind his decision to apply for the Watcher position; he had seen some old films in his youth about suave, charming gentlemen driving gleaming cars, effortlessly and at breath-taking speeds. He had wanted to be a suave, charming man his entire life. He had discovered that having a car did not make you a secret agent; it merely meant you had annoyances others did not. His government-issued car was hardly special.
He veered into the carport next to his apartment, stopping just before hitting the rear wall. He liked doing things like that; taking corners too fast, slamming the brakes, maneuvering through what little traffic populated the roads. He pretended he was being chased, and that every time he arrived somewhere he had outwitted his pursuers with his courageous driving. It helped him to feel less boring.
Ryan entered his apartment, and the lights flicked on. He had covered them with lampshades so the light was dim and yellow, rather than the cold, florescent glare that was used everywhere throughout the city. His concrete floor was covered in an aging carpet with an ornate design, and the furniture was wooden, with a thick layer of varnish. Antiques and relics covered tables and shelves, many of them broken or incomplete. Ryan sat in a stiff-backed chair, kicking his shoes off as he propped his feet on a creaking coffee table. He studied the unfathomable object he had pilfered, sighing with exhaustion.
It was mostly spherical, and made of polished brass. He turned it, enjoying the reflection off its surface. It had an unusual inertia to it, he noted, as though the interior had to catch up with the outer shell when it moved. There were small knobs and buttons on the outside, with a few glass windows set into its surface. He held it up to a lamp, but could not see inside it. Ryan prodded one of the knobs, twisted another, but nothing he did elicited much of a response. He set it next to the lamp, making a mental note to investigate it later.
He strolled into his bedroom, which was illuminated blue by his computer screen. He had no idea why he had put the damned thing in his bedroom. All he wanted to do was to fall face-first onto his bed and sleep in his clothes, but Sciarpa had sent him something. He hated being reminded of his inability to refuse her requests, especially now that he was her direct subordinate. He sat down in front of the screen and opened the message.
Kesseler
Watch the attached video, carefully. We'll discuss it tonight. 1930, my office. Don't be late. Get some sleep.
-Sciarpa
P.S.: Make sure you watch it carefully. Don't miss anything.
Attachments (1): vidmoni-33948782-ts9935.mm7
Download View
Ryan downloaded the video and played it. It looked like a security camera recording, grainy in quality and without color. There was a child in a large room, with a large gap across its middle. The child was walking around the room, occasionally patting the walls and floor. Ryan was tired, and fast-forwarded through most of the beginning, until the child began running towards the gap. Ryan let the video play: the child sprinted across the room, jumping off some raised portion of the floor. He was clearly going to fall into the endless pit, and Ryan wondered what kind of sick thing Sciarpa had sent him. The quality of the video suddenly degraded, thick with static. Ryan could barely make out any details, but it seemed to him that it was playing much more slowly. The boy hovered in the air, his arms lazily flailing. The static increased, and something happened that made Ryan pause the video and rewatch it. No matter how many times he did, he was sure the same thing happened: the floor bent outward, like a sheet of paper. The child crashed into the floor, rolling to a stop, and the illusion faded with the static.
Ryan was unsure of what he had seen. The quality of the video was so poor, it seemed to him like the camera had gone bad in the middle of recording. He knew the child was not going to clear the gap and that he was going to watch some poor youngster tumble to his death. But, the child had cleared the edge, and after he did...
Ryan sat back, pressing his palms against his eyes. His head throbbed from lack of sleep and dehydration. He was tired of Sciarpa's vague evasiveness, and felt that he had watched the video thoroughly enough. He flopped down on his bed, half-heartedly pulling a thin sheet over him.
So my job is to watch crappy videos of children being tortured, he mused. I really don't like that woman.
