Lab C: Chapter 7 - The New Assistant to the Old Assistant
Buzzing. So much buzzing.
Inside a three story tall concrete box, furnished like a college dorm room, except one wall is entirely “glass”, buzzes a thick, floating, fuzzy, granular donut shape. It writhes, flows in a smooth cohesive pattern. Small black drips fall from it’s body.
Ick. Gross!
Above, near the ceiling, ambiguous figures definitely wearing lab coats peer down from an observation room that encircles the space. They take notes, pictures, data of the eerie shape. Uncountable amounts of individual cells flow through it together as one organism. One even breaks off, but rejoins quickly.
The cells have an iridescence to them. They blur as a piece but meld as a whole. The floor is scattered with they’re droppings.
Zooming in… it is apparent that they are black, shining, buzzing flies, and every second, many of them fall to the floor dead.
A bite suddenly disappears from the donut shape, then another. The flies packing in tight to create the illusion of disappearing matter. The tighter it gets, the more small black drips fall from it.
The Swarm gets to be a quarter of a donut, then melts in shape, forming a human figure. As it’s feet meet the floor, puddles of flies pool around its base and absorb the bodies of those who perished and fell from the mass. It leaves an immaculate cleanliness in its wake.
A large belly forms on this human figure. It leans back in anguish, its belly bloating and the limbs thickening in an obese blob of the human form.
“Ha, ha, very funny.” A tired, grumpy man pipes up, rapping the “glass” with his knuckles. He’s mid 20s, overly caffeinated, poorly washed, long, loosely curly haired man. The bags hang heavy on his dark brown cheeks. Flakes of a donut icing cling to the scruff of a short, accidental beard.
His lab coat is wrinkled. Under that, his white button up is splattered with old blood. His pants are baggy, loose, and a splatter of dried blood left an unmovable stain across his crotch, which honestly? Looks pretty rad.
“I don’t need to feel bad for trying to enjoy something in my day.”
The Swarm forms into a dense humanoid shape and points, miming laughing at him.
“I should have torched you.” The tired, grumpy man’s eyes narrow.
The Swarm dances a jig at him, then snaps to an intricate geometric shapes. It melds and shifts into a decagonal prism, then reveals there to be a icosagram (a 20 sided star) inside of it.
The grumpy, tired man sighs, checks his watch, then takes a note on a fresh piece of paper a top an inch thick stack of papers on his clip board : 2d 20 in 3d 10, 14856zv.
He flips the front page up, revealing both sides to be covered, in an organized fashion, with many of these notes.
He pinches a button on his coat lapel, “Checking time, I have 14856zv.”
His lapel talks back, “Correct time.”
Dan looks up, one of the ambiguous lab coats above him gives him a thumbs up.
“And the frequency?”
“During the geometry they dipped back into 35hz. Now they’re buzzing back up too-”
“-Please, don’t use that verb.”
“They vibing up to-
“-Come on. Just use real words.”
“Those are real words.”
“I mean like, professional science words or whatever.”
“They’re humming up to-”
“-That’s wrong too.”
“Then you tell me the right word to use!”
“Adaptively increasing frequency?”
They’re a pause.
“They’ve transcended up to 528hz again.” As the coat speaker/microphone phases out, the no face lab coat bitches to his coworkers about the tired grumpy man.
To himself, “Children. They’re all-”
No face lab coat, “-Yeah well you’re a whiny baby.”
The grumpy tired man looks up at him, then mimes rubbing his crying eyes. As his vision comes down, The Swarm is up again the glass as a person mimicing the eye rubbing too.
“Right? They’re the babies. Aren’t they Swarmie?”
The Swarm, apparently called Swarmie which we will be disregarding, shake their head No, in exaggerated, looping fashion. The tired Grumpy man squints in annoyance then looks around, “Where the hell is the chair I brought?”
The hall he’s standing in is impossibly long. Clear paneled walls stretch the whole way down, each housing something interesting. It’s dwarfing and painfully quiet, except for when nearby subjects with generous motivation slam into the “glass”. However, this material simply doesn’t break.
The grumpy, tired man’s lapel pipes up, “There is no comfort allowed in the observation hall.”
“Yeah. I’ve been told.”
“Which is why they took the chair you brought when you weren’t looking.”
“Yes, thank you… who exactly took it?”
“C-11”
“What is C-11”
“Check your files.”
“Just tell me.”
“You should check your files regarding any of the subject contained here.”
“I don’t even have access to 90% of the information on these files.”
“93%.”
The tired grumpy man takes a long blink. “Is it really that specific number?”
“That’s the average, sir.”
“How much do you have access to?”
“Only what I’m given.”
“Like the specificity of what’s contained on my access? That’s what you’re given.”
“The guy before you did the calculations while waiting on a subject. He wouldn’t shut up about it. Maybe if he hadn’t been so distracted he would have-”
FWOOM!
The grump, tired man stumbles back. The Swarm, in the shape of a large Acme like hammer, rears back to take another swing.
FWOOM!
The grumpy tired man shoots to his feet, hurridly, shakily grabbing at his lapel.
“Attempted breach! Attempted Breach! C-425… 432… 420… Ah fuck the one with the flies!!”
“Bro, relax!” His lapel shouts back at him.
“WHY DON’T YOU RELAX”
To someone away from the microphone, “how does she pick these guys? No wonder they never last.” The Grumpy, Tired guy looks around nervously, clutching his clip board like body armor.
The few other people there absolutely ignore him. The guards who patrol ignore him. Everyone and everything is cool, calm, and collected.
The grumpy, tired guy groans. He checks the bottom sheet of his clip board, in sharpie at the top. “My Find - C439”.
He lets the dozens of pages of note filled paper flop back down. Everything on him is heavy. He droops his head, rolling it side to side stretching out all the muscles in a slow circle. This goes on for a few loops. A solid pop pauses his head, and he loosely gasps out a soft release.
When he opens his eyes, The Swarm is pretending to play him a violin.
“By the way it’s vibrating at 7.38hz right now. It might actually be trying to show empathy.”
The grumpy tired guy holds his lapel. “Thank you, that…” he notes it down, underlines, empathy proof a few times, “actually makes me feel better.”
A beat.
“Sorry about snapping at you earlier.”
“Whatever dude, you don’t even know if we’re people.”
The tired, grumpy guy squeezes his eyes closed, “Yep! Yeah, thank you for that reminder.”
A woman’s voice pops out of his lapel now, “To be honest, we don’t even know if we are.”
A different voice now, “Have you seen the sun?”
Not opening his eyes, “It has been… a while.”
“If you aren’t getting a regular download from the sun’s rays, are you even human anymore?”
“What?” the tired, grumpy man says, intrigued but also desensitized to the wild shit that gets said in this place.
The woman’s voice chirps back in, “All of us observers were talking the other day, and we think that maybe vitamin D contains a data packet from the sun. And since we only get vitamin D from the lights they use here, maybe they reason we’re all so subservient and complacent is that they’re uploading submission information into our bodies via the vitamin D we produce with THEIR lights.”
The tired, grumpy man nods. “That’s a fun thought, so is that why vampires-” his eyes shoot open, “DO YOU HAVE VAMPIRES HERE?!”
There’s a pause, dead air. An asmr level of static. He wonders if he’s said something wrong, like maybe vampires are a taboo phrase.
A new, deep, authoritative voice comes through, “You do not have access to request this information. We are shifting shifts, please stand by and note any time codes that might be interesting in the subject.”
Unphased, the tired, grumpy man simple replies, “mhm” then the static returns. It keeps playing from his lapel and his eyes glaze over as he stares at The Swarm who stare back.
They shift into a pentagonal prism, then reveal a circle inside of themselves. He notes the time and shapes. He returns to his glazed look.
A smile creeps over his face as the flies shift into a curvier figure. Had they depth, lines, details, The Swarm might have been trying to replicate Jessica Rabbit.
“Ah Dr. Deb… you insane piece of work. It could have been you here if you hadn’t been such a bit-”
“Daniel.”
Daniel, the tired, grump man, jumps so hard he nearly falls over. He shoots his gaze to Sabine.
“SABINE!”
“Dr. Ambower when we’re in shared spaces.”
“I don’t GET IT Sabine. It’s like clock work, landing on an exact interval that I can not for the life of me see. Can I PLEASE plug this into a computer?”
“I need you to be field ready and to be field ready you need to get your brain ready to see things with out knowing them.”
He groans, whimpers. “Sabine that’s ludicrous, I haven’t even been-”
“-Daniel. If you can not uphold public protocol I will reassign you.”
He huffs, “Dr. Ambower.”
“Yes Daniel?”
He takes a look at the notes, he flips through them, scanning the numbers.
“I think…” he tilts his head, looking at the numbers deeper. “It jumps between Theta waves and geometry, to revitalization at the heart frequency. It’s playful at the Earth frequency and… hm…”
“I have someone I need to meet. Do you have something for me now or no?”
Daniel is deep in thought. Sabine shakes her head and taps a few times on her tablet. Daniel’s smart watch lights up. He moves his body to look at it, but his eyes are stuck to the numbers.
“Do you think it could be a satellite?”
“Can you point to why you think that?”
A long pause… the ASMR sound crackle returns. Sabine shakes her head, flustered. She marches over and presses his lapel. He’s immediately hit with the sweet, warm smell of a cinnamon, vanilla latte on the inhale, and bitter almonds on the exhale.
“Don’t let anyone else hear you. If anyone were to solve this before you and bring it to me, you know the consequences.”
Daniel looks her in the eyes, “What is wrong with this place?”
“It knows exactly how to get the results that it wants, and understands the importance of motivation, sacrifice, competition, and the value of blood shed. I saved you once. That is your only shot.”
Daniel blinks. This is information he’s heard before, but the reality of it is sinking in like a bucket full of sand in a front yard that only gets watered every once in a while. Slowly. Deforming and adjusting the earth as it goes.
“If you have a thought, need me, what button do you press?”
He shakes himself too and taps around. She holds patience as well as she can, but it’s clear he isn’t sure. She steps next to him, rubbing shoulders and leaning into him. He can smell her perfume, and his eyes linger on her chest. He tracks up to her face and catches her eyes. They’re like a Venus fly trap at this proximity. Her iris so full of sharp shards of a dozen shades of oak that every piece he looks over reveals a new detail, a new fractal of her enrapturing complexity.
His eyes fall and get stuck on the glisten of her lips and he’s overwhelmed with a desire to kiss her, but is frozen in place. Each little crack, highlighted by a subtle pink filling tells him a story that he would read over and over again if he had the chance.
“Daniel,” she says softly, his head moves before his eyes do. He glances up and even her eyebrows have such subtle volume and shape to them that he wonders how he never realized the importance and elegance of such an over looked featured. The skin so ever lightly less tan beneath the chocolate colored hairs. “Daniel, look me in the eyes Daniel.” and he does.
She speaks slowly, holding his attention like a snake convincing a mouse everything’s going to be ok. “bottom left button. Track. Tap “Superior” and it’ll give you a guided path to me, your superior. I am your only superior, understood?”
“uhhuh.”
“Say it for me Daniel.”
“Bottom left button. Press track. You are my superior.”
“That sounds perfect.” She leans in, pressing herself against him. His body warms and relaxes, the weight leaving his shoulders as he stands paused, looking at her. The smell invades him deeply, and he lightly moans.
The Swarm watches, shaking its head dramatically at the sight.
“I know you can figure it out. You’ve already seen more than other people. It is why I chose you. It’s why you’re mine.”
He nods, “Yes Sabine.”
She puts a finger to her lips and slowly backs away. A whisper, “Not in public.” which she follows with a light lip bite. Then she turns and walks away.
Daniel stands there, dumb founded, watching her lab coat, imagining as much bounce and jiggle as would be perfect for the space he knows exists but has never seen and suddenly he takes a deep breath in. The lack of her aroma convinced his brain it wasn’t worth it anymore.
“God damn, what the fuck IS THAT?!” He says, shaking his head. He looks to The Swarm pointing and laughing, then mocking his dumb founded, zombie like posture. “Swarmie she’s not even my type! What the, what even is it?!” The Swarm shrugs.
“Swarmie, this is ridiculous. Can you help me out with this?” He holds up the clip board.
The Swarm turns into just shoulders, arms, collar bone and dramatically shrugs itself into a flat line. Daniel freezes, “Is this… is a shape? Is a line a shape?”
The line extends down becoming a box. The box extends back becoming a large cube.
Daniel’s lapel pops in. “This feels different. It’s at some weird frequency.”
Daniel has his pen ready, “Missing puzzle piece, missing puzzle piece, missing puzzle piece” he mantra’s to himself.
The walls of the cube perpendicular to him open, his mouth drops. This is new, this is different. This is FRESH DATA. His lips curl into a smile as the cube turns around and reveals…
A massive middle finger pointed right at him. His head falls back, defeated.
He sits down, whimpers.
His lapel chirps up, “What was it? What did you see? Report?”
From the ground, he notes down “middle finger” and the time. As he opens his mouth to reply, he pauses. “You know the consequences.” rings in his head.
He looks up to the observation room, and flips them off. Them flip him off back. He flips them off with both hands. A group of 8 of them appear and flip him off from up there. The Swarm flips off the observation room people.
“Yeah Swarmie! Show um”
The Swarm floats up towards them as a middle finger. As it gets with 15 feet, red lights blare and an unhearable tone blares in the room. The Swarm shoots down under the bed and hides.
Daniel sighs. He sits on the floor for a minute and ponders, watching the Swarm hide in the darkness. The red lights stop. The tone, presumably, ends. The Swarm melts out like a puddle form the bed and sits in the corner, mimicking Daniel.
They look into each others eyes… then Daniel shoots up. “Even the god damn floor is uncomfortable.”
Down the hall, Sabine walks cheerfully. She passes by creatures and entities and inanimate objects. She passes by a book on a boring alter. A book with a face in it, whose eyes follow her… then she slows down, just barely, out of discomfort. Her grip tightens on her tablet and she focuses ahead.
She does everything in her power not to look at a human looking, porcelain sky blue and white figure. Everything in her turns and she trudges forward, twitches in her face betraying the calm she attempts to hold.
She passes by it, and relaxes.
