2.17 Malcolm's Aside -A- Year One

Trigger warnings: forced imprisonment

Malcolm wakes up slowly at first, but the moment his eyes blink open and try adjusting to the light he finds that things are not coming completely into focus. He feels... drowsy. As if he has been asleep for a long time, but never had a single dream. He wants to ask where he is, or what happened to him, but there is a woman, a ...doctor? Who is helpfully explaining some things. If only he could hear it better. He is in and out of focus, and eventually falls back out of consciousness. The woman's voice becomes clear for one instance as he is once again covered in darkness. “We'll have to wait until a little bit later... the muscle relaxants take longer to wear off.” She sounds... impatient about it, he thinks, as his consciousness fades away.

The next time he wakes up, he fights to get up quickly, to hear what is being said, but he doesn't know how long it has been? Probably a few moments, only. He gets out of the bed he is lying on and reaches a cold and rusty metal table, and hauls himself up with some difficulty. Then he stands there, swaying slightly, for a little while.

He hears a jarring metal screech as something is opened to the side.

The doctor is there quickly this time, too. “Lay back down.” He hears her this time.

“I'm getting up,” He protests, regretting opening his eyes more than absolutely needed.

“You're a fall risk right now.” She tells him.

“I'm going to throw up.”

He takes a step, retreats and bumps into the table roughly.

The next several moments are a blur. His must be having an internal ear problem after falling like he did during the fire. These people are saying something, but he can barely hear it. His ears are ringing now, the lights are still too bright for him. He has to lay back down again. “I got up... too quickly I think.” He mumbles, not wanting to talk too much in front of this doctor and nurse. They may be here to help him, but they are strangers. Desperation makes him open up his mouth again. “Have you called... my wife? She- ”

He feels a sharp pinch and blacks out in mid-sentence. “We'll try again tomorrow.”

“Understood, Director.” The man replies, catching him roughly under the arms as he falls.

The next time he wakes, he moves much more slowly. Something is wrong, he's been here too long. He doesn't know how he knows, but things are not right. His feet dangle delicately off of the side of the bed as he tries to get up. He wants to stand, there is no strength in his core.

The woman doesn't move to help him as he finally leans gingerly back against his pillow, giving up on even sitting up. “What ...happened?” He asks, finding his voice to be scratchy.

“You died in my hallway a few days ago. You were pronounced dead, but I was able to resuscitate you, actually. I am a very good doctor, you see.”

He takes a moment to process what she said. “Where is this...?” In the line of work he does, Malcolm is familiar with the local hospitals and some clinics. He cannot recall a place that resembles this in the slightest. He doesn't doubt for a second that the people here gave aid to him, but it is strange. It doesn't seem real.

That, she does help him with. The director...? She assures him that this is the place he will spend the foreseeable future, and though it is reality, he's not going to enjoy himself very much. “This is a lab. Despite how it looks, we conduct cutting edge research in this place, so we cannot divulge the exact location to you. We're in desperate need of new specimens, you see. Most of the subjects we house are cloned from cadaver tissues, and not legally human in their own right. We can push them, we can learn from and study them, and they can help the world by the work that we do on them, but it won't be a pure sampling of the population. We need to do our due diligence and gather as many different kinds of genetic samples as possible for the drugs that we make here.” She folds her hands neatly in her lap. “That's where you come in.”

“E...excuse me?” Malcolm stutters weakly, certain he has misheard the woman. She said it all with such a cheerful attitude. But if this was a real hospital, someone would have changed him out of his work uniform, or something. Strange, unsettling place. As he has this thought the kick of a loud, industrial air conditioner turns on somewhere above and makes him flinch.

She prattles on. “We'll start today with a few samples of tissue, we've already analyzed your blood and found some very promising things.”

“When did that happen?”

“Oh.” She smiles brightly. “You've been here for most of the week. We keep our few new arrivals ...calm and restful so we can find out if they are useful before deciding to allow them to see this place. You can be grateful that we find you useful and you were permitted to wake up.”

Malcolm clams up after the chill that runs up his spine silences him in shock. He does not have any more questions. At least, nothing he is sure he wants to hear the answer to. He wants to ask about his family, what are they going through right now? But this whole conversation seems dicey to begin with.

“Then, we'll get ready for those samples and you'll be having a stress test. To establish your baseline.” The director finishes. “Atom will be over in a moment. I suggest you cooperate with him.”

Malcolm is sure at first that this place is a fever dream, that his body is in a real hospital bed somewhere in a coma. He collapsed from the fumes and the heat, and someone out there is trying desperately to save him. This idea fades from his mind like smoke when the tranquilizers wear off and he starts to have normal rhythms with such needs as for rest, food, or the toilet. The pain and discomfort that seeps in as his body tries to regain it's strength cements it. He's actually here, and he can't pretend otherwise.

He begins to learn a little bit about the people who run the place. He eventually gathers the courage to ask about when he can leave, but mostly they ignore him or occasionally, smile patronizingly in response.

Atom. He's the one who smiles mostly instead of answering. He seems to be passionate about his work, whatever it really is, and happy to do things exactly according to the Director's methods and moods (of which fluctuate between seriousness and irritation mostly). He assists with subjects and their medications, cleaning, and keeping the machines in good working order. Occasionally, he cackles to himself as he works, sending shiver-inducing waves of disconcerting sound throughout the lab.

Planchette has security clearance for every part of the lab. His is referred to when not in the room as being 'unstable', and seems unaffected by most of what goes on around here. He will not speak to the subjects, does not say more than a few words to the lab specialists and technicians. He apparently follows the Director, and merely tolerates other people. He is in control of some unique technologies that nobody else seems to have access to, and can answer questions regarding a subject's vital signs and state of ease with a handheld device that is only in his possession. His wheelhouse seems to be security, transportation and ...disposal. When subjects are deemed failures, he will be told to 'clean up'. Malcolm does not know what all this entails, as it is not done on the floor he is on, though he can guess. As to how many levels this cold place is below ground, he has no knowledge.

Often referred to by the staff members as the Director, this woman is the one he sees the most in the first few days after he wakes up. She makes most of the executive decisions and refers to herself as a doctor, but her mannerisms and caustic approach make her seem like anything but. She is either jaded away from what was once a righteous cause of healing other people (which Malcolm would prefer to believe but it can't be terribly likely) or she is enjoying every moment of treating those in her power forcefully and with disdain. She values sim life, if it proves to her it is worthy of that life. People are a means to an end, and everyone here is either a subject with a number for a name, or staff, all of whom are firmly below her in position.

At about four weeks or so in her 'care' she finally tells Malcolm the answer to something that he's been agonizing over the most. What happened to him, according to his family? He hadn't wanted to ask, but he had needed to know. She is often happy to oblige in sharing any form of bad news, and this query offered no exception to her taste in this respect.

“They have 'your' ashes and a certificate of death, of course.” She replied with a warm smile as a cold stone of dread settled deeply into his gut. “You will be with us for a very long time, so do your best to make our investments into you worthwhile, subject 901. Because if or when you are not here, you're actually already dead.” Though he resolves again not to ask her anything else for a long while, no matter how many more questions he has (and there are a lot of them), he begins to become very aggravated. Could it be that he had gone along with the stringent testing thus far, because he believed they would merely let him leave, one day? But this place is like a grave, after all, meant for him.

Atom gestures for him to get out of the cell. It's meant to be intimidating, and it is, the leering. However, Malcolm is angry, which he finds greatly helps him in overcoming most of his natural hesitation. Today, as he gets up to be examined and swallow foul liquids and perform obnoxious physical and mental exercises, he leers right back.

Atom and the other research specialists, lab techs or whatever they call themselves here, don't need to like him. They're not the kind of people that will respect him mutually regardless of whether he grovels or tries to placate them. He knows this instinctively. Growing up with a bully of an older brother has taught him enough about the mind of someone who craves power.

They may be in charge of every aspect of his life, but he is not worried about them. The one Malcolm worries for, is always his pregnant wife Jyoti, who, back at home knowing nothing of his sufferings, is having to carry on, once again, without him. And after he had promised, and meant it, that work and his dream would not overshadow their time together. He would return to her every day without fail, that was what their vows had meant and what they had agreed to. Even though he had loved his work, even though volunteering at the Fire House required long hours, late nights, and the place had full accommodations for rest and all of that, he would return home faithfully. He had promised. And people like this man in front of him, had decided that he wasn't allowed to do that.

So, Malcolm comes to a decision, then and there. He would lean into his own natural terror of other people, he would pretend to be afraid when it would help him, he would lull them into a false sense of security, and then, at the first opportunity he would strike out, with any force that was required for it, and escape. This dirty and cold place was not going to be his grave.

Late that evening, when he is returned exhausted, his body blacking out from his efforts to conceal the pain from the day's experimentation; the needles, the running, the falling and the bruising, he will not feel nearly as strong at he did when he left. He will awaken the next day to some horror or another, and resolve to try again, to find an opportunity regardless.

The next months are a blur of activity and agonizing sensations. Malcolm complies when he can because it's quickly too painful otherwise, and pretends to be afraid, although at times he very much feels a thrill of panic that wakes him in the middle of the night when things are more quiet. His heart beats out of his chest, he tells himself he can make it, even if he's here forever. He has... someone to get home to. At times he feels like he could forget even her face, though. It's all a mess. He's been trying. Trying, but nothing has been successful, or even all that useful, really.

They're all just pointless rebellions. He tries more things with the quiet security guard than he should, swiping for his keys or his flashlight when he walks too close to the bars, testing him. The man has fair reaction times, but he doesn't seem to hold any animosity about it, nor report it.

Most times, he doesn't even address it, other than giving an annoyed look. Malcolm gets the feeling that there are worse people here than him, so it's just not worth him getting upset over.

The man is fairly calm and collected, but there are times when an unknown terror takes over his features and he retreats from the room. Which happens now. Something on the device provoked the change.

Malcolm gives the most trouble to Atom, who is overly hostile to him. Atom deserves it, when Malcolm resists. But he is not without ire of his own. In fact, Atom is made of nearly 38% ire alone on a nice day, when's he had a good meal and a nice long time on the toilet reading something fiendishly. Today, after Malcolm spit some foul smelling liquid into his eyes that was intended for him, Atom is made up of approximately 78% ire. He'd attacked back, and Malcolm had taken a few hits to the face and there would definitely be some more bruising, but at the moment it was all sweet to Malcolm, and so worthwhile.

Atom was the kind of sim who would have been picking on Malcolm anyways. He hates the quiet ones, who don't grovel enough. And Malcolm tried at first, to fulfill the role that was expected of him here. But as they tell him consistently, he is dead outside anyways. He has nothing to lose but his hesitation. He grows bolder and less timid every day. The more he can keep the techs off balance, the better it will be when he needs to make an exit. Assuming he will be able to see the opening he needs and be able to take appropriate advantage of it.

So it's no surprise later that week, when Atom comes over to the lab to taunt him. He drops a key through the bars while Malcolm is resting. It's supposed to be the lunch hour, but of course, Malcolm isn't being given anything as his 'behavior has been atrocious'. The lab specialists normally eat now, though. How nice of him to come and visit during his time off. The key clinks and bounces metallicly against the ground with a ringing sound.

It lays there, impotently, in silence for a beat.

“Pick up the key.” Atom encourages him in a low voice, leaning onto the bars. “I'll let you out for a few moments. Find out what happens when you don't have the element of surprise on your side. See if you can get past me today.” He clears his throat when Malcolm doesn't even glance at him. “You can't escape from here even if you have one of these, you know!” Without realizing it, he's forgotten to call Malcolm by his number.

I must have struck a nerve just because the egomaniac had to use a little eyewash, Malcolm thinks to himself.

Malcolm ignores him. Everything hurts today. It's tempting in a way because the tone of that man's voice is like someone took a cheese grater to Malcolm's eardrums and it would be very satisfying to shut him up for a while, but it's not as if he'd throw a key in here that really opened anything.

He attempts not to listen to the stream of taunts that come from outside the cell. Atom is kept on a tight leash by the Director, so she's been having Ceres take Malcolm around for tests the last few days with the security guard. It's going to be a shitshow when he finally is allowed in the same room with him again. Mildly, Malcolm wonders if they'll just tranquilize him for another week instead of leading him around the lab with a human leash on his arm like a puppy.

“Pathetic.” He mutters under his breath. Malcolm may be afraid at times that he's going to say the wrong thing to other people or disappoint them, but he'd never go out of his way to make someone so miserable in the way that they are doing to him. It's like they've lost their humanity in a bid for power.

…

He remembers the first time the Director sat down with him for an 'interview'. This is her way of checking in. She did it much more in the beginning, every week or so, then every month, now one in several.

These generally start off with detailed yet curt questions on a checklist, inquiring about symptoms and experiences with medications, and here at least, Malcolm has the keen sense to give his better effort. She then will follow up with what he needs to improve upon (mainly his attitude and behavior), and fill the rest of his silence with whatever subjects she feels like oversharing about. He is not required to say much, nor does he want to, but it's always uncomfortable to have to listen.

Malcolm sat there passively as the woman growled, and cursed, and hissed about her ex-husband, someone whose name rings no bells whatsoever. She must be crazy, or he must be ignorant. Who the hell is Loki? Does it even matter?

He still doesn't have the answer. What ultimately matters is, at the moment this crazy person is in charge. If she is unhinged however, there may be a pressure point that can eventually be exploited by which he can make an escape. It will have to be when she is nowhere nearby of course, as she is absolutely terrifying. Physically, there is no doubt that Malcolm could overpower her, but in those moments he is quite unable to have any sort of meaningful conversation. Not that she pays him more than a cursory glance. So, convincing her to let him leave is probably off the table.

She certainly seemed unhinged. If she were somewhat levelheaded, he could reason with her. But he's never heard anyone actually cackle like that before, so it's hard to see a way out. She switches to calm and complicated calculations in no time at all, with no tells. He had tried to suppress a shiver, and failed.

When these times come again he lets his mind wander. He thinks of Jyoti at home, of how long it has been. She must've had the baby by now, right? Was it a boy, or a girl? She'd had names picked out for both from nearly the beginning. Was it healthy? He thinks about his wife, and how she always remained cheerful, no matter what. He had known her for as long as he could remember, even when she hadn't remembered him, and he had seen her cry on exactly one occasion. The thought that she believed him to be dead... how was she handling this news? She has her family, still... but it's like a black hole, if he dwells on it, it'll suck him in completely and leave nothing encouraging left. He could sit here cursing his luck, or blaming the people here, but then wouldn't he be closer to the madwoman in front of him, rather than what he is? And whatever this is, he's just going to have to get through it anyways. The Director had left that first meeting after sharing the various ways in which she could hurt her ex, and how she was going to get even, most of which Malcolm didn't hear her say in the first place. Thankfully there will be no test or inquisition. Then, just as now, the door creaks closed and he blinks, alone at last. Back to the black hole.

Currently Malcolm has been increasingly pushing out the scope of his containment, trying subtle things as he complies with the many unreasonable orders he receives in a day. There aren't many weaknesses here. He is on a floor that seems completely locked down save the elevator, which he's not taken into, and there are other rooms for testing that he may be brought to and locked inside for the duration of. Unless there is a rare case that one of the tests require him to be anesthetized, he is not left alone there. Food, such as it is, is brought flavorless and served through the bars of his cell or waiting for him when he returns from the day's ordeal, if he has earned it. He feels different depending on when they serve him more than if they serve him different things (early or late), so he knows it's being tampered with in some way. He has no way of knowing how many different drugs he may be on. Sometimes a bit of light exercise will give him some slim understanding, but he also experiences symptoms tied to lack of rest or nutrition, so it's hard to rule anything out. Most of his symptoms could apply to anything.

The bars are thick steel frames, the doors are rusty and loud. A mere six inches seemingly separate him from freedom on any given day. The lab techs have access to be here whenever they like, and come and go with impunity. Atom, for some reason, came here today in the middle of the night when he should be off work, presumably resting.

The technician stops texting and looks up, feeling the subject's eyes on him, and sneers.

Malcolm passively meets his gaze, and a thrill runs up his spine. He's still not used to making eye contact with them.

I'll get past you, he thinks, despite his reliable anxiety. Should he just steal one of their phones and call emergency services? They could be on an intranet though, and the signal may not reach above ground. Atom spits into the cell and leaves.

He waits for the lab specialist to walk away before allowing himself to feel any worry over it. Then worry he does. He probably shouldn't be goading them like this. But doing nothing is way worse.

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

Atom is clearly a villain here because he has a scar on his face... also, that goatee, I'm mean, c'mon, man.

Close up of bruises, which I am dumbly proud of.

I struggle with using terms like 'sim' and 'human' in the same few sentences because it just doesn't seem to be very cohesive. People might say 'simkind' or something, but that just breaks the immersion in the story I feel, so unless there's a better suggestion I'm going to keep it going this way. Simian, is already taken by another species after all. Simun, Simuman, Simulation breaks it again. I have no idea. Halp.

I try to think of it in context. “A simulation like you outta not be writ'n checks that his pixellated framework cannot cash.” Has a great ring to it. :/

This subject matter can easily get very dark (and it will, soon) so I've made some of the conflict a bit immature as an offset. It's either about actual torture, or it's screenshots from a game. I like to keep the feeling of the game a bit alive even in stories like these.

Hope you all don't mind Malcolm getting some attention in a side story. I had a conclusion to his story from gameplay, but it just fell flat of my expectations of what he was going through while Jyoti and the family cannot see him, so of course I've been staging and downloading CC for weeks and now I'm writing like four posts at a time because the ideas kept flowing so much that I couldn't sleep on them. It's getting them to lineup on a single timeline, that has been difficult. There's also my proclivity for adding a pile of side characters, but oh well. It's unfair how he left, so let's see him again for a while.

Planchette is awesome even though his name is dumb. I'm totally gonna rip more sims out of graveyards as tertiary characters in the future. He's from ITF, like Atom is. Circe I made, she's up on the new Sparrows Download page in a simfile share link.