Trigger warnings; Circe beaker: Exists
Malcolm has a lot of dreams where the floor drops out on him. Everything he is trying to support is so fragile. His son, his health, his mind.
The days go by in an agonizing blur, for a while. He's hanging on, they both are. Somehow.
I'm not good enough for you. “I'm sorry.” He tells the boy before it is time for him to return to his place for the night. “I'm sorry we're here, but I love you, sleep well.”
He says this mantra nearly every night for awhile, but he doesn't know if he wants the boy to ever remember it.
It's a lonely and somehow special routine. No matter how horrid the hours they spent apart were, there are the few minutes they get to spend together. He wants to pick the boy up and run away. He constantly stamps the urges back now. This fleeting moment could melt like a sheet of spring ice and disappear, if he's not careful.
Beaker is in charge of making sure Malcolm is secured, tonight. He does late nights as a favor for his mother because that allows the lab specialists to rest. He loves the night, but could think of a thousand and a half things he would rather be doing.
It's so boring, nothing exciting ever happens.
His mom occasionally comes by to thank him with nutrients. He must have some serious chompers to get through that cotton-poly overcoat.
Pretend you didn't see it... This place makes no sense at all to Malcolm. It is, largely, the antithesis of everything that he is.
Everyone down here is twisted in one way or another, but they all think they are normal. Or rather, they seem to think they blend in. To Malcolm, who grew up on the poor side of town in a sprawling coastal city and has seen nearly everything, it's still jarring to witness unhinged and crazy actions by those who then turn around and play pretend. Like they are people. Not that he minds Beaker, all that much, but Beaker doesn't seem like people when he can drink his own mother's life force away and casually remix a southern rock tune to himself right away afterwards.
This evening the director and the young man walk by with no regard for him, so it's quite obvious where they are going. The only person being held in that part of the lab is of course, Emir. Subject 1601.
Little Emir of course, is not free from being tested. Although Circe has promised that nothing potentially lethal will be given to the child, it's not like her word can be trusted. If it was safe, it would be done above ground, by the light of day, on a child that had an active birth certificate, with his parent's permission.
Several of these tests are done right outside of Malcolm's cell and become another reason he finds it impossible to rest on any given night.
He pays attention to every little sound and tries not to go mad with anxiety for him. He quickly learns to distinguish between the cries the boy makes, what is hunger, discomfort, or pain. Regardless of knowing the reason, he is not allowed to comfort him most times after, so his parental instincts quickly become like a knife, turning in his gut instead.
“Write it down.”
“Sure, sure. Are you sure this is worth testing?”
Another day, another reason for tears.
It would be a childish and petty thing, if the boy was eating enough to begin with. But to let him have just a little bit of sugar like this, enough to make him feel hungry, means that he's going to be fed something intolerable in the next few moments, and he will not be able to resist because he needs to eat. Obviously, that means his food, like Malcolm's and likely everyone's who is also given a number instead of a name here, is tainted.
When he is given time with his son, it is supervised, and observed. He only thinks about using it well, trying to teach any little thing he can before the allotted time runs out. Trying to comfort in little ways. This becomes difficult as he doesn't have anything to give the boy that he can keep. He can't give gifts, there are no real toys, and food is strictly kept under lock and key. So Malcolm gives himself, as much as he can. If the boy is hungry as he often is, Malcolm will give him his own finger to chew on so he doesn't scar his soft hands with tiny bite marks. He provides a strong and steady voice. This will be an anchor to his son in more ways than he knows. Maybe his son will make good decisions when he is old enough to understand the world.
“Time's up.” The director announces. “Say goodbye.”
“Got it.” He always responds immediately, and remains obedient, no matter how wrong it all is.
He tries to keep his mutinous thoughts to himself. The Director can be this easygoing as she has supreme confidence in her staff's ability to defend her, and to overpower him. In the beginning, he had fought much harder to get away. Now as they have his son, has no plans to go against her.
He spends long hours at the testing equipment, some days more than others. The sessions are exhausting and many things hurt, but he could do more than this if he had to. He's decided to treat this place like a job. While it may be the kind that he can never quit from, it may just save people if he does it. While that thought could be a lie, for now that lie is keeping him somewhat sane.
Research Specialist Ceres checks the numbers, at times asks him questions regarding symptoms of the new medication they are developing. “Nausea, shortness of breath... dizziness.”
“No. no, and no.”
“No sleep terrors... appetite is normal, slightly irregular heartbeat.” She summarizes. “Morbid... thoughts?”
“...no.”
She pushes the pencil over the pages of his chart, filling out all of the relevant information, finalizing the notes with a sharp tap of the lead. “Perfect. Then it looks like we can increase the dosage.”
“Got it.” Malcolm has made good on his promise to cooperate. He can do anything if he's convinced it's going to take the heat off of his son.
She pauses. The Director of this facility and (well, technically her own mother, not that it mattered) Ms Kirke really had this one pegged. While other subjects scream, cry and pass out from the pain, this one endures. When they were trialing out blood pressure medication and he experienced ten days of blindness, he hadn't even complained a single time. Hope was a terrifying and very useful thing.
He seemed to have an instinctive understanding of the Director's need to torment others, and was becoming fairly deft at avoiding many of the things that would trigger her in this way. Instead of yelling or fighting or becoming violent, he would comply. Instead of pleading for the experiments to stop, he would just pass out when his body could no longer endure. He could be pushed to much further limits than the others, but also had to endure less unnecessary abuse.
She is impressed with this subject's resolve, and Director Circe's oversight. Using the child as a tool had served the center well, there were results to show for it. More importantly, he was making them money.
'Subject... remains... compliant.' She adds to the notes.
She will be watching for the moment he makes a mistake on his agreement with the Director.
Beaker is not immune to his mother's experimentation.
Apparently it's foul.
“I don't... feel any different.”
“That's because it's the antidote.”
“Antidote for what?”
He doesn't always like helping his mother out, but he is loyal to her. He's going to wonder what he just took for the better part of the day. She was probably messing around with him.
Today another subject is brought through this level of the lab. He is called 101, but the nickname he has in the facility is simply 'nervous'. Malcolm has had the rare occasion to talk to him, but the older child had said that Nervous is his name. It seems to be a sad case of clear neglect and abuse that brought the boy here, so much so that he cannot remember much about his own family or life, before he was here.
Nervous hates surprises the most, so of course that is worked into most of the testing that is conducted on him.
“Did something... just move?”
The Director doesn't bother to answer him. When the boy gets even more twitchy, she finally cautions in a bored tone. “Just stay put.”
Beautiful, Circe thinks.
Scared, he runs out of the center of the jets of scathing water that inexplicably had appeared underneath him.
“Can I get a towel?” He asks, and is again ignored.
The Director's expression sobers and he clams up, not daring to say another word.
Malcolm is sick of having to witness things like this.
The boy cowers back as the madwoman approaches him, now with a stern expression on her face.
He seems to be hoping without any good reason that she knows that not all tests will yield positive results.
She yells at him. He ran away too quickly. How can they apply a new burn cream to him if he doesn't stay put long enough to suffer burns? It seems like another thinly veiled excuse to delight in someone else's suffering.
He almost can't believe she would say that to a kid. Malcolm is normally not the type, but he begins to have troublingly specific fantasies about choking the woman out, after this. Would he be able to do something violent like that, if it protects the kids? Hurting another adult in her quest for knowledge is diabolical and evil, but abusing a child for any selfish reason is on the sort of level that makes Malcolm wonder if the woman is even alive at all. It would make more sense if her heart itself were dead within her chest.
He has begun to realize that playing along is not good enough, he's an accessory to everything that she does in his purview, if he could have prevented it. He may just have to risk everything to escape, after all. These children need help. Is there a way out that won't cause them more harm, is the question that will plague him soon after this event. Even sims like Malcolm have a breaking point.
Well this is it.
Not a week later, subject 901 rushes Planchette out of nowhere when he steps off of the elevator. Reacting quickly he brings his tactical Maglite down on the man's head, but the subject is fast and the anodized aluminum rod bounces off his clavicle instead with a clunk.
Malcolm is not usually the type. That is why, after years of simply complying, he is able to catch the stoic security guard quite by surprise.
Sharply, Planchette hits him a few more times without enough force as he is being tackled to the ground off balance. Both men get back up at the same time. He sees in a split second- behind 901- that Ceres has been locked in the cell in place of the subject.
Planchette fumbles in his pocket for the alarm that locks down the elevator, irritated not for the first time that Circe won't let him have a real weapon unless there's an emergency. Maybe she'll rethink her policy after this. She keeps all kinds of things locked up in her office. Still, he is not without experience.
Malcolm knew he would have to confront Planchette first. The man is always observant, and clearly too capable to try and sneak past. He makes his voice a low growl, but he's not used to threatening anyone so it tumbles out of his mouth like his first speaking presentation in high school.
“You've never gone out of your way to hurt me, and I- I don't want to have to hurt you. But I need your device, that scans the room ...for life signs. You're going to give that to me with any other electronics in your possession, and then you will be locked up in my cell while I get out of here. NOW... please. ...I don't want to hurt you.” He emphasizes this too much possibly, as Planchette ignores him, instead clenching his fist around the flashlight to bludgeon him again.
Malcolm is stronger than he looks despite chronic fatigue and various ailments, so the flashlight once again just bounces off of his head. “Aw, shazam, really?”
Yes, really.
Malcolm finishes the fight as quickly as he can, but the young guard starts to get right back up. So Malcolm opts for the flashlight trick himself. It works for him, and Planchette is out cold after a solid blow to the temple.
He stashes the man's body in a storage alcove off the main room, hoping he's going to sleep it off and not be seriously injured, although there was a troubling shudder of breath at the end there.
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People in the future say Shazam as a cuss word. Sure they do. I know it's spelled different. Shazam is how they spell it in the FUTURE.
For anyone who is curious, the Daft Punk Discovery Album (Interstella 5555) has been my go to background music (or movie) while I'm writing this series. Usually I just listen to rainymood, so it's a first to have music that I feel fits the mood of what I'm writing. Happy retirement, DP. You were there when the world needed you.
Okay, back to sims things...
Rare image of Malcolm frowning. He smiles through literally everything I put him through that is not a pose or animation effect, and has to be in extreme motive failure to make one of these slightly discomforted expressions. I wrote for him during this series accordingly. The man can take a hit.
Stop it, Emir. You're being just like your dad! This is a serious story okay, it is a serious business we are all about.
...and some of you may recognize Nervous Subject is of course, from Midnight Hollow. He looks quite like himself grown up, I think the devs did a good job on him.
