2.18 Malcolm's Aside -B- Year Three

Trigger Warnings; Forced Imprisonment, Child Endangering, Torture (Etc. Circe Beaker exists)

They're sort of like siblings, only the worst kind. The kind that know they could have everything work out well if only the other person disappeared forever. Enemies, that was the word.

This is a common theme, Malcolm being covered in minor injuries. Atom tells the Director how clumsy he is, and that he falls a lot, but there are times Malcolm gives it back. He makes nothing easy for the overzealous medical specialist with the rotten glare. The Director knows about this putrid dynamic, of course. But if the research she requires is being conducted without fail then it is beneath her notice.

Atom releases the deathgrip he has on Malcolm's arm and shoves him into the cell as he enjoys doing at every opportunity, then turns to Planchette, who happened to be walking through.

“...he'll be fine.” Planchette sighs, as if tired or the answer had been obvious. Atom's interest in the scanner he holds is thinly veiled and the greed in his eyes is somewhat overbearing. He's pretending to care about the subject's vitals and energy levels (ie, exhaustion or fatigue) but he doesn't, of course.

“Could you check if...”
“He is fine. You can continue with the day's schedule as planned.” The impeccably dressed man snaps. “I have other work, so, 'sccuse me', I believe is the expression to use here.”

“Sure, sure. Another time then.” Atom tells him. There is always more time regardless of the evasiveness of their security guard. Whether he can see through him or not.

Malcolm doesn't do well at taking advice from tyrants. So he chooses, 'to his own detriment' to continually provide as much resistance as possible to the invasive testing that seemingly has no end. Although morning and evening have little meaning here, and there are several timekeeping devices that seem not to agree with each other. He fights, he resists, and finds that he is completely overcome on every effort. They deprive him of essentials, so that he quickly becomes very exhausted and is easily subdued. Then they forget or try some new drug, loosen their grip, he regains energy, and pushes the boundaries again.

He can hold out hope that he is expected somewhere, that he is missing, that his family, his wife or brother, are somehow looking for him despite what he was told. But he does not voice this. In fact, he doesn't need his voice for much of anything as there are very few times when it will be heard. Mostly he is instructed, and if he does not follow through with those instructions, there are punishments. Food is used as a primary method of control. He quickly loses weight and becomes easier to overpower despite his best and at times desperate, efforts.

The tests vary from mundane and borderline understandable such as tissue sampling, blood draws, and various forms of grueling exercise, to injections, pills and invasive (albeit somewhat minor) surgical procedures which are nightmares, psychologically. His is assured that most of these are clinical trials to test new drugs, but in observing the director as closely as is tolerable, he finds that she seems to enjoy things the most if they cause him some form of pain.

Some mornings Malcolm is not so sure that he wants to wake up. “Does this have to be the way you greet me in the morning?” He groans. Not that it seems to be morning. Didn't he just get to lay down?

Directer Kirke smiles curtly. “I'm a very busy woman number Nine Hundred and One. If you want to eat today, then you will cooperate starting now.”

That day, his mind swimming in unease, he simply decides to comply. It's hard on the body to be in a constant state of stress. At least the Director doesn't always have the time to see him personally, so maybe tomorrow will be better?

Most days his basic needs are met by Ceres. Ceres has been in the lab as long as her 'brother' Atom has; from the beginning, according to her. She is careful to do the work that is asked of her and is patient in it, but seems uncomfortable with a few of the Director's unethical methods. She says that she was raised with Atom, but he torments her from time to time telling her she is his twin, and that they are just alike. Apparently, the argument is over whether or not they shared an actual test tube at one point, and neither can prove to the other if they were or were not in fact, so close at their earliest cellular divisions. She shares a common vexation with Atom however, in that the both of them triple check every single chart, switch, and lock in the lab before they leave for the night. This further compounds Malcolm's gnawing fear that he may never be able to escape this dark dungeon. Ceres forgets things on a regular basis, but it seems that she is so hard on herself about this that it serves largely, to make her even more diligent.

Today, she hasn't forgotten a single thing.

“Ceres?” The Director's call echoes from just outside his cell as she aspirates the syringe.

“Juuust finishing up.” Ceres singsongs back from her station. She always drinks copious amounts of coffee, which allows Malcolm to tell the time a little. When she is well caffeinated, it's early, when she is irritable, it's the afternoon, when she is gone, it is the late evening, although she's on call a few days a week. If she's irritable and it seems late in the day, it's of course, actually an early morning.

She finishes running the centrifuge. “The interval is forty-five minutes on that dosage.” She informs her.

Circe nods, then turns her needle on Malcolm, who doesn't have the strength to resist in any way. There are definitely still some tranquilizers being administered along with other things. So, he was right that it would be one of their counters to his mild mischief. But it can't last forever, some things they must need his willing participation for... he's waiting to find out if this is all they've got. Not that it's nothing. He grits his teeth when she misses his vein and goes back in without a warning. She smiles sweetly at him.

Thus begins a timeless period, much like in the beginning. He begins to spiral, the days begin to blend although some have acute new memories that cannot be ignored. He didn't talk much before, but he finds himself with ample time, enabling him to retreat within his own psyche and get lost in morbid thoughts. Rather than this introversion aiding him to tune things out, he finds instead that he is becoming overly sensitive to the screams that ring out from other subjects out of sight or the fire in his own veins when an intravenous shot does not agree with his biological temperament. He finds himself becoming more sensitive to nearly everything. Which is... as maddening as it sounds. Soon enough, he begins reacting to everything, and it becomes hard for him to choose how he will behave. He lashes out more and more, and sometimes they have to restrain him for their work to be conducted.

Around this time a new sim comes to the lab, but it seems he is here on a volunteer basis. Taking a 'gap year' before college, he says. This generically friendly young man with the off-putting gaze is apparently the offspring of the Director and her fabled ex-husband whom she talks overmuch to Malcolm about. It seems he is barely an adult.

One day he reaches into the bars, observing Malcolm. “Hey can I have some of that?”

“You're hungry enough to eat one of our test subjects?” Circe asks from the side, confused. “There's perfectly good plasma juice in the fridge.”

“But that's not as fresh!”

“Well, as long as you tell me about your side effects afterwards. That one's on a few things.”

Beaker lets his hands fall limply to his side. “Ugh. Nevermind.”

Why do the things that are bad for you always look so tasty?

Ceres recoils from the conversation, glad that she was born before Beaker was old enough to crave human blood. Her childhood might have looked a lot different. Circe's naturally born children are on another level.

Time marches on much in this same way without being counted well, and Malcolm has no real way of knowing the days are passing anymore as there is no rotating rhythm overall. He lost track somewhere around a thousand. Wasn't he supposed to scratch stupid tick marks in the wall to keep track? But he's not sure he wants to know anymore.

So here he stands, brooding when it is unlike him, chewing on his nails, deep in his own misery. Nothing is working, how can he possibly escape? It's been too long... Would Jyoti be waiting for him, for a third time? He laughs shortly in ridicule at himself. Of course not. This time, it's not a matter of waiting. He's dead, to her. Was their baby... well? The child would probably be walking already, maybe talking. What would their voice sound like? What would it be like, if he could just see his wife, one more time? His thoughts are driving him crazy and he hasn't been tranquilized so much anymore so they run throughout his mind unrestrained. His muscles used to shake from the withdrawals of it not being in his system. Now, instead of tranquilizing him for being 'ornery', they punish him for his many attempts at freeing himself... by keeping him awake. He wonders if he's really so valuable that for all his rebellious efforts, they've not just... purged him. He's tried everything he could think of, after all. Save for straight up attacking someone violently, which he does not want to do although it seems more appealing every moment.. He supposes they want him here still because he's not a clone, like the few others that he's seen. There are a few people, children mostly, with the same face. This creepy place. He shivers. If he goes to lay down now an alarm will sound to wake him, so he leans on the bars and lets their coldness seep into his clothing, which somehow sharpens his fragmenting mind. He tries to remember, the warm things he had known in his life. 

Eventually, he is pacing the cell in slow agitation. The first time he'd held her outside of lunch at school: they'd stood in the rain while she cried. She'd laughed at him once before when he asked for permission to hug her. But she'd let him and it was now also, a sweet memory. That long night before spooky day where they finally shared one anther's affections. The day she said yes. The trip to China.

Does he have a single warm memory, from before he'd met Jyo? Maybe being at the beach with his dad when he was a boy. That man had loved the beach and Malcolm had gotten to play a lot there. He'd surfed once or twice, but nearly drowned and stopped that activity afterwards. It's not as if his father had taken him there to spend time with him though, he had wanted to use his son to meet barely clothed females. Malcolm had hated being used as a tool in that way. It had been so difficult to make meaningful relationships, after that. So, where was there real affection, other than from his mother, and later when his mom had died, from his wife? Here he was, decades after his tumultuous childhood, and he was still being used. It just didn't seem fair. Malcolm wanted out in the worst possible way, and there was no amount of willpower or manpower he could employ as a means to get away. It didn't help that the people here were mostly several magnitudes smarter than he was on their worst day. He tries to stop chewing his fingernails when he tastes blood, but he hardly notices that anymore. He's alive, he's still alive, that's why he can taste it. He stops again, savors the thought and closes his eyes, resting his head against the cold steel frame of his cage. He has to believe that there will still be opportunities to escape. If he gives up now, there will never be anything warm in his life again.

In time, after enough trial and error with the staff, he finally decides just to do this prison break style. He also resolves to tell himself two things, and burn them into his brain. One; it is still possible to get out (when he is in pain), and two; he may be here for a long time (when he is not in pain). This quick mental trick keeps him just out of the deep end of despair and allows him to keep moving forward, no matter how slowly. All he needs is an opportunity.

Most of his searching is done when nobody is looking at him, now. So they feed him a bit more, and he rests a bit more because he complies outwardly, and afterwards he gives up some rest in order to keep looking for the way out.. These bars are not as old as they look, but they sure creak and rattle like they've been underground and half underwater since the middle ages. It's impossible to force them apart, or leverage them with a chair, or cause any rivets to loosen, as everything is fit too tightly together, like an oversize puzzle. The assembly of his cell must have been the kind of careful effort his great-grandfather would have put into building his own house, which of course legend has it, lasted forever. “Where are you when I need you?” He asks the old man under his breath. But, that old man has been gone since Malcolm was a small child. How he could use an older, wiser man's advice right now. Maybe then he would already be back home with his wife and their son or daughter.

He hears the elevator and stops rattling the cage, as that's basically all he's been able to do with it, and lets his breathing slow down. His muscles are warm from the effort.

He'll probably have to save his energy for some new horrid experiment.

He had prepared to look like he wasn't trying to ferret a way out that would get him punished again, but the person who arrives on the floor is not what was expected.

Malcolm watches through the bars of his cell as the person they call Beaker (who has free run of the place) comes in holding a small child, presumably one of the other test subjects. The child coos contentedly, or even laughs at the faces that Beaker is making.

“You have no idea that I can't stand you at all.” He tells the child in sweet voice. “You are so icky.” But the boy, having no idea what he's saying, knows the tone of it is pretty funny. His giggles fill up the room in cute little echoes for a few moments. “I'm gonna tell my mother to let someone else do allll your dirty work, okay? I'm too busy to play with your yucky, nasty self.” The boy grins, his little eyes dancing with mirth and fixed on the adolescent's. There is some serious big brother energy coming from them.

Malcolm smiles despite his situation. Beaker is one of the people here that he finds he doesn't mind so much. Obviously he's old enough to know that the things which go on here are wrong, but that doesn't mean he is mature enough to stand up to the terrifying woman he calls mother. The young man also seems familiar in a way that Malcolm is having trouble understanding. He watches them silently. It's rare to see anything sweet in this dirty place bathed in artificial lights and cold calculations.

The elevator sounds again.

Circe walks brusquely out of it and through the room, and ruins the pleasant atmosphere with her unique tension. “Alright, let's get this over with.” She growls.

She turns to Malcolm and fixes him with a cold stare. “Subject Nine hundred and One. This child has been in our care since the day he was born. He was born prematurely to a young mother in stressful circumstance, and was declared stillborn at the hospital. I was able to resuscitate him because of my level of skill, but as you can imagine, I was more keen on keeping him than sending him back home to the care of his neglectful mother, though she survived the ordeal of a difficult birth. As you have been informed, we are in severe need of subjects with new genes.”

Malcolm remains silent, sure that she will get to the point on her own as she loves to talk so much. She's confessing a serious crime in front of him, though. There is a look in her eyes is that is harder than usual, as if this is not something she wants to tell him at all. He begins to dig into his fingers with his nails in agitation.

“I am willing...” she pauses, clearly the idea of moving on a single position she has for one of her mere subjects is disgusting... “to compromise with you. Because this child is your son.”

“What... did you say?” It comes out in a near whisper, but she hears it.

“Yes, Emir Sparrow-Meir.” She holds a silent beat on his own last name. “Born to Malcolm and Jyoti Sparrow-Meir. That's quite the face you're making. I like it. This negotiation will go well, then. Here, we do not use names. So this child is subject Sixteen Hundred and One.”

“H-how ...did you-”

“Did you think you were here by some mistake? No, Malcolm, I had been setting fires in my humble home for a few months until you were finally the first responder. Did you think the hospital, and even your own wife, would be out of my reach if I was able to get you?”

He shakes his head, teeth bared but nothing comes out as his mind races, certain this woman is crazy and a liar. He's never met her before he woke up down here, so there would be no reason-

“You seem ...curious.” Her voice cuts into his thoughts. “So I will share a detail more. Loki Beaker, a man I've told you about before, it is because of him that you find yourself here. My pathetic ex-husband. He always had an... affinity, for the Sparrow family. I was quite jealous at one point, but now I focus on them as more of a hobby, and to check his power. I believe you and I have something in common, that we didn't want him to get his claws into your... wife. Although what's done is done. However, you and your son are quite enough so I am leaving her well enough alone, though I can imagine you'd want her to pay for betraying you as she has.” She pauses for a moment, summarizing. “Not that you'd know anything about that. You are both here to satisfy my professional pride, to fuel my life's great works, and to fulfill in me a sense of pure and petty revenge. Isn't that... kind of a thrill?”

Silence hangs over the room once more. She waits for his response. He has no idea how long she waits.

“You mentioned... a deal.” Malcolm chokes on the words. He wants to grab her outstretched arm and- He forces back the evil thoughts.

Circe nods towards the door and Beaker walks into it unceremoniously, holding the child the Director's story is pinned on. Malcolm backs up quickly, feeling dizzy and high from the adrenaline in his system. Beaker's eyes shine in the darkness and Malcolm finds it impossible to look away, his instinct says the young man is a threat right now, by the piercing gaze alone. He is in too high of a state of stress to focus on the child.

“Get on with it.” Circe tells her son, impatient. Beaker shifts the child in his arms and slowly detaches him from where the boy's arms play around his neck. Children love Beaker, and Beaker is repulsed by them. So of course his mother has him help with the children much more often than she actually needs him to. He shoves the boy in Malcolm's direction, happy to offload a charge.

Beaker cringes as the child squirms and starts screaming. “He's always like that.” The Director scoffs, as if a small child should know how to behave without anyone coaxing them into it.

Malcolm reaches out, doubtful of the story he has been told. The boy's red hair looks a bit more like the madwoman in the labcoat behind him than anyone he knows, although it could resemble his mother in law, if he had known her well enough to remember. It's hard to be sure.

When the boy is firmly in his hands and stops hiccupping for a few moments and opens his eyes- he sees it. “You have her eyes.” He says, wondering. “And your grandpa's nose, don't you?” Before he realizes, he is already thinking of the child as his. He blinks. This is another moment that is not real. It cannot be.

“Depending on your behavior-” The Director was saying- but Malcolm heard none of it. How did this child really come to be here? He remembers what the madwoman told him, his first week in this hellish place. Most of the subjects here are clones from cadaver tissue. He looks up at her, sharply. “He's not-”

“I told you, this one was brought here alive.” She says with a sly smile.

“Right.” He says, thinking too quickly to know what he's saying out loud. “Right. You wouldn't have to lie about that.” They couldn't make a convincing clone resemble the Sparrow family if they lacked that information, right? And wouldn't it be younger than this, if the boy was created here? Is it really his child...?

“Are you going to care for him or not?” The Director (the madwoman) is getting impatient.

“Of course I will.”

“No more escape attempts or lashing out at my staff... I will have your full cooperation on every trial at every time you are required. It will be all or nothing on this.”

He straightens up, takes a deep breath. He can't afford to hesitate here, something tells him that this situation is more serious than he understands. He nods carefully. Even if this child is not his, he can help him, right? Somehow though he knows it's his son. But, that would be dreadful. It is dreadful.

She takes the child back from him, abruptly, wrenching him out of his father's arms and observes Malcolm with her sharp eyes. “On second thought. Do you want to know what sort of things will happen to the child when you misbehave?”

She pinches the boy hard on his side several times until he starts to cry, startled. He frowns at the unnecessary cruelty. But she's watching Malcolm, not the child. He doesn't say anything, he's sure whatever he says will make her do something much worse. “Maybe you need a clear demonstration. Hmm? Atom, hand me a surgical knife.” She calls over her shoulder.

Atom is over from his workstation promptly and hands her a small blade through the bars of Malcolm's cell. “Here you are, Director.”

“I know you know how to speak.” She goads him now, sliding the tiny blade over the the boy's back and pressing the cold side of it to his skin through one of the holes in his shirt. The child squirms to get away from her, but somehow knows to be as quiet as possible.

“I- I think you're better than this.” Malcolm stutters. Something both furious and cold writhes in his stomach.

She grins. “Not really.”

“Then I will be better.” He tells her quickly.

She holds his eyes for a lot longer than he wants (because he wants none of it), but he cannot back down from her gaze right now. The child can't afford it, if he shows fear.

“That will do ...for now.” She responds eventually, pressing her lips together in a thin line. Wordlessly she hands the blade back through to Atom, who retreats but watches with glittering eyes from a distance as she places the child down on the cold floor by Malcolm's feet.

“You have him for an hour.” She tells him as she leaves without looking back.

The doors echo loudly as they are slid shut and the locks deadfall down into their place. Malcolm shudders out a groan and sinks down onto the floor next to the boy, his mind swimming in hapless thoughts. When he is done dry heaving from the stress, he talks to himself. “I shouldn't have gone to work that day... no, I still would have gone.” He mutters. If even one or two of the things the Director has said are true, they are devastating. What if it's... all true? He can't weaken his own resolve by entertaining these thoughts, but the boy looks like him, and like her. How would he come here in a way that doesn't fit the story he was told? Jyo is safe, she's at home. The Director must actually be afraid of her ex... but why? She had mentioned... because of Jyo? The woman said that he had been betrayed, but if Jyoti had thought that in these last several years, that he had died, shouldn't she be allowed to start a new life together with someone else? That thought had occurred to him, of course it had. The only problem is, he can't remember anyone by the name she brings up... but Beaker, the madwoman's son, and his shining eyes... that just seems too absurd to be true. It can't be related to the same person he's thinking of. Yet in a way, that would fit, too. He feels sick. For himself, for her, for the child.

This is no place for a child.

As soon as they are alone he reaches out to cradle the boy and whispers gently, any kind thing he can think of to say. The child pushes back against him at first, crying, but falls asleep soon thereafter and Malcolm sits there on the floor until his butt is numb, not daring to move or disturb him. The entire hour passes by this way, until Ceres (who mercifully is the one tasked with receiving the child) comes in and the Director is nowhere in sight. Emir is placed in a crib just outside of his holding pen, barely in sight but where Malcolm can hear every tiny noise from it. He doesn't sleep that night at all.

Most evenings (assuming that's what they are) he's allowed to spend a little bit of time with the child before lights out. At first the child resists any type of being held, especially by someone new and is fussing, squirming, making unhappy facial expressions, but he doesn't cry much. That alone is hard for Malcolm. Children should be allowed to cry as much as they need to when they are young. He's not sure what he can do as the boy is already so distrustful.

Eventually, Malcolm remembers. One of the things that is often done with a newborn, that was likely never done for this child. A new baby will not be able to see clearly, will not have words, will not be able to know it's parents, until it is held closely over the heart of it's mother or father, skin contacting to skin. Only then can a bond be formed. So one day he tries it, takes his shirt off and braces for the boy to push and wail or scratch him because he hates being held. But once the boy is in his arms and pressed onto his chest where he can feel his own father's heartbeat, the boy just blinks, wide-eyed, until he falls peacefully asleep. In that moment, all the pain is worth it. The sweetness of holding his own son, the way he should have been able to years before his life was stolen away from him, banishes every worry from his mind. Until they come to take him away again, that is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Follow @Subject901 on Simstagram for more handy mental tricks!

Pensive Malcolm wears blue, for some reason. Also please allow me to apologize for all of the internal monologue and lack of action in this one. Malcolm is shy, and he's not particularly dumb, so he's not going to just start wanting to talk to everyone so his feelings can come in other ways that are quicker. Things will improve, in a post or two.

Ceres is also a premade from Into The Future. The only new sim here that you all have not really seen before is Beaker from post 1.45(who we saw once in Starlight when he was a child). He grew up well, so he may be useful after all.

I didn't have a use for this picture, I just thought it was cute.

It's nearly impossible to make him look unhappy with normal gameplay. I'll touch on that more next post, but it's funny how happy he looks down here.

I also made Malcolm thin for about one picture and it just doesn't work with my many disjointed pictures I'd taken from all different play times. So he's going be huge and 'starved' at the same time. Let's just pretend. Whatever he's been doing on his own time while we watch the Sparrows has put him at the high end of the muscle spectrum. So here's the what if.