Lab C: Chapter 10 - "In 10 years, you could be me"

Sabine walks out into the monstrous concrete halls of Lab C, perfectly pristine. She rolls her head back and forth, stretching her neck as she waits for John. He looks up and down the hall first before walking out, his hands confidently in the inside pockets of a real cool black lab coat. He switched into a white shirt, black tie combo.

“Guess everything in here is exactly the same.”

“More or less, come on, while we wait for people to check out The Spooky Building, I got this hive mind conciousness made of a bunch of flies that we aren’t sure about?”

“How’d they do that?”

She smirks, excited to talk about it. “So you know how flies die pretty fast?”

“Uhhuh.”

She starts them walking in one direction. As they talk, they pass by random guards, other people in lab coats, and people in different colored jump suits.

Sabine finally starts, “So it turns out that if you give them enough psilocybin, it lingers in their bodies so well, that they just keep redosing themselves? And after,” she checks her watch, “, 23,436 cycles, it can interact with things at a bugs bunny level of intelligence.”

He looks up and imagines it, smirks. “What? They like, put up fake holes on walls?”

“No. That is funny though.” She imagines it for a second, and starts up again, looking at him excitedly, “They play pranks, and…”

She stops, her head slowly tilting upward and her mouth a gape. John looks at her confused. A curious smile fades to concern when her eyes turn red, her face parallel with the ceiling and floor.

“Hey.. Sabine?” He shakes her shoulder, no one else stops, they just give the event a look and keep walking.

Her head snaps back down, serious and stern. She looks him in the face, “It’s Dr. Ambower. I’m sorry but I have to go.”

John is taken aback, he asks at her as she walks away “What the fuck was that? Are you ok? What room were we talking to? Fucking. God damn it.”

He notices his watch light up and just starts walking. “No one told me when I’m supposed to check emails, so I’m just going to not.”

And he thinks about it, then continues walking down that way.

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Sabine walks, nonplussed, turning corners and passing all manner of security doors, observation areas, break rooms, lunch areas. Where she is going is actually miles away, but somehow, she gets there pretty quickly. People wave, she waves back in different levels of commitment, respecting hierarchy. She remains nonplussed, as she passes a house sized ball of squirming tentacles like that thing in Studio Ghibli, in a containment cell the size of a few football fields, painted to look like its in a massive sunny valley, she turns a corner down a dark hallway.

The whole time she’d walked by, her watch glows, and when she exits, it stops.

The facilities lights smoothly blend from fluorescent to warm orange as she walks down one very, very long hall. Her nostrils flare and her breath deepens. She takes a deep breath as she walks and closes her eyes, savoring it.

When she opens them, she’s come upon an old oak door set in a brick wall on a raised patio. Her head pulls back in unsurprised confusion. She looks around and notices that there are four windows set into the brick wall, like a family home. Moonflower Datura blossom in dense bushes around the base of the windows, and large bushes of Brugmansia rustle in a breeze. Around the home facade, the dark concrete walls could be the languid night for all she can tell.

Enraptured, she reaches out for the door handle without looking, but the door opens on it’s own as she does. Inside is a warmly lit, librarian friendly family room. An older woman sits in a large arm chair reading over a leather bound book. Sabine opens her mouth but nothing comes out.

The woman turns to look at her with eyes covered by burnt skin. “Ah, Dr. Ambower, so good of you to drop by, come in, please.” Her smile is just a bit too big. She’s missing her philtrum.

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John puts his hands behind his head and walks with a swagger. Smiling to whatever thoughts he’s got going in his head.

He meets eyes with everyone who’ll let him, nods to them. One of the guards grabs him by the collar and lifts him up off the ground, but he takes no offense. He shows them his badge and they check his credentials. The guard puts him down gingerly, its mask revealing nothing of how it feels about the interaction.

John shrugs it off.

His watch vibrates and he ignores it. He makes a left and wanders down a darkened hall where the containment cells hold water, and creatures in them.

He walks by a pod of dolphins who talk at him, “Oh look at this fucking bitch. Fucking bet we could fucking wallop his little smimey face. Little bitch doesn’t even know we can fucking take him the dumb little ass face. Bet he tastes good. What do you think boys? He probably taste good? No, he probably tastes bad. Look at him, stinky flesh. He’s a stinky flesh! That was sweet. I like when you said he was smimey. Good one.”

He passes by a tank full of corral and they light up as he passes. The glows react to one another, and as he walks past the other side, the glows are flexing at one another like rippples in water that slowly dim into light twinkles.

He stops at an ominously deep, dark blue tank. A small little blue bald boy with massive eyes and rounded lips slowly appears from the darkness. John smiles and waves. The little blue boy waves and approaches the “glass”. It’s so cute, with its dotted skin and lightly plump bell. It ain’t got no legs but somehow moves up right to the glass.

The little blue bald boy puts his hand on the “glass” and John puts his hand on the other side of it.

At this, a monstrous mouth full of rows of massive teeth extending past John’s peripheral view comes into view out of the dark water. There’s a stem attached to the small blue bald boy’s body, like an angler fish. John follows the stem up to two, unreflective eyes.

John smiles and leans left and right. The monstrous fish tilts it self to match, tipping deeper to each side, until finally, it dips so far to one side that it does a full rotation. The Little Blue bald boy acts surprised by the complete 360 move, and feigns relief when it’s right back up. John too leans so far to one side he’s about to fall over, then saves it with a cartwheel.

He throws his hands up in a “ta-da” motion. The monstrous fish does something incredibly close to a huff, then disappears back into the darkness.

And John keeps walking.

He continues on his way, visiting different containments when his watch lights up. Pretending not to notice, he starts whistling, but it begins to vibrate.

John sighs, defeated. He answers it, “Hello, this is Dr. Grimsen, you can call me John. Who am I speaking too?”

“I- Oh, uhm. This is Dr. Tesla.”

John flinches, “What?”

“That’s not my real name, but I’m trying to cope in here so I gave myself a cooler name. I need you to come to the location marked on your-”

“-Can you please just tell me where it is? I do not enjoy following lines on floors.”

“It’s… I couldn’t tell you man. I literally can not get any where without the floor lines. I have no idea where I am at any point in time, only of what I can see with my own eyes.”

John takes a second. “Yeah, this place do be like that. Fine. Is this what Dr. Ambower has me on?”

“I don’t totally understand your roll in this. However, I received an email telling me to call you about this.”

“Yep. Yep yep yep. Alright. Just shoot me the thing then.”

“Ok, I’m including documents relavent to the thing, it’s a Swarm.”

“Yes! Yes, Dr. Ambower was telling me about The Swarm, it’s like a collective conciousness of flies who eat each and keep a loop that is making them advance very quickly.”

“I… Yes. I just wrote that report. How’d you read it?”

“No, no Dr. Ambower told me about it.”

“She did what? She literally told me to never tell anyone about anything ever, or I might be demoted.”

“I mean… I’m kind of special here, don’t worry about how things work for me. It’s just a heirarchy thing. You’ll have more security if you get a bit of weight under your belt. Like, if you can stick with a solid mentor, it’s kind of like the Sith.”

“Yes, I watched the introduction videos too.”

“Fair enough! They don’t leave in *GARBLE GARBLE GARBLE*. Ohp, sorry, guess I can’t tell about that… did you send the location?”

“YES! Yes. Sorry, about that, here it is coming to you… now.”

John nods, “It was very nice to meet you Dr. Tesla.”

“Or Daniel. If you want.”

“Nah, Dr. Tesla’s cool.”

Dr. Tesla smiles.

In 5 minutes John manifests himself at the door to the interrogation room Daniel is running.

“Ok, I swear what they’re doing is statistically an anomoly. Actually, it’s more what they are not doing. This is actually pretty bog standard and boring.” Dr. Tesla says as he organizes papers. John looks to an observation room, just a sterile version of the room John and Dr. Tesla are standing. The Swarm are standing in it, pretending to bounce a ball.

“Yeah, that is a hive mind, collective sentience of flies. And they are,”

“they are bouncing a ball.”

“But what they are not doing is…?”

“Becoming shapes, inside shapes.”

“How many times did it make shapes?”

Dr. Tesla hands him a clipboard. His anxieties building. He’s tired.

John raises an eyebrow, “What does 2d 15 in 3d, oh! Oh, so like it was a two dimensional 15 sided shape inside of a three dimensional 20 sided shape. How did you count the 3d sides?”

Daniel slows, looks over. “What? How did we… we counted. We just looked at it, and counted.”

“Yeah but flies aren’t a flat shape, they’re all bumpy. Isn’t there as many sides as… I don’t know… as many flies there are?” John says.

Dr. Tesla’s jaw slowly hangs open. His brow furrows. “What? No, they were making a shape, clearly. Like, like if they were still doing it, you wouldn’t make that comment. I promise.”

John looks it over, “Oh and like clock work too. And they just stopped?”

Dr. Tesla nods a dozen quick nods, moving his weight from foot to foot as he just stares.

“Ok, so our big question is why?” John looks at the room, his hands go to his waist and tilts his head. The Swarm absorbs the ball, then shifts over in front of John and copies him.

He laughs, “Right, Bugs Bunny like intelligence.

“Buddy, you don’t even know. It faked me out, then became a giant mallet and scared me by slamming the “glass” with it.”

John does an exaggerated nod, watching The Swarm copy him in his peripheral vision.

“Can you make a motion of affirmation towards me?”

Dr. Tesla thinks about it, then holds up a thumbs up.

They stand there, The Swarm is still nodding along with John. John makes a thumbs up towards Dr. Tesla. The Swarm does not make a thumbs up. John makes a thumbs up to The Swarm and now it makes a thumbs up, mirroring him wholly again.

“It… respects other people’s conversations kind of?”

“I think so. If it wants attention, it will try to get your attention regardless of what you’re doing. However, yeah, it does seem to understand who who is talking to.”

John strikes a James Bond Pose, gets into it. The Swarm copies him. John grunts an affirmation.

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“Director 5.” Dr. Ambower says as she walks, smiling back at Director 5, politely.

Director 5’s upper lip warbles enough to see that the it doesn’t actually connect in the middle. Her pupils are huge and her iris frame them like a solar eclipse. Under her charcoal blue, more blue than charcoal, sports coat and ankle length, tight tarp skirt, everything, besides her lightly wrinkled hands, ankles and bare feet, is vantablack. Including her neck.

“Sabine Ambower.” Director 5 lets her head tilt over like a puppy, “I am so happy we were able to get you to your new role. Who knows, in 10 years, you could be me!”

“I’m just glad I can contribute even more to the cause.”

“That’s great. How has the arrival of Dr. Grimsen gone?" Nothing unexpected I take it? He’s not, haunted, is he?” She giggles.

“Not that I can tell.”

“Excellent! I want to make clear, this not about a man, this is about your position of authority, and your obligation to the company. Do you feel you are meeting both of those respectfully?”

“I do.”

“Marvelous. Well, is there anything else?” Director 5 smiles.

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John waddles back and forth on his feet like a bit of a penguin, he’s becoming less interested of playing games with The Swarm.

Dr. Tesla gets most bored first. “So you’re like, a consultant here?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that, I come and go, because for me to be able to do what I do I need to be in reality most the time. To be honest, I hate coming here.”

“Oh… then why are you here?”

John meets his eye, gives him a look. Then raises his eyes brows.

“Never? Like this is it now?”

“No, not like that. Who knows, in 10 years, you could be me.”