Chapter 16 #2
I am waiting for some sort of aftershock after the events at dinner, something to tell me that the trauma of what happened with his family is still rotting in his brain.
But I see nothing. No emotion, no sadness, no rage.
Just pure boredom. Nothing he saw last night disturbed him.
He finally feels nothing, and there is nothing bottled up that could make him explode if left unattended for too long.
The sound system in his cell had been left on for fifteen hours straight, looping an ambient track composed entirely of distorted infant screams, scraped violin strings, and the final sounds his family made on this planet. But again, indifference. Nothing can touch him.
I step into the room where 738 is waiting.
As the subjects don’t have a schedule or anything that could give them a clue as to what’s about to happen, I’m surprised when he greets me while his back is still turned to the entrance, facing the wall with his hands behind him like he is looking through a hypothetical window.
“Good morning, Doctor.” His voice echoes in the empty room.
“Sit,” is my only reply, and he complies in a heartbeat.
“What time is it?”
“Irrelevant,” There is no reason for chitchat, and he knows it. “You have nowhere to be.”
He laughs, most likely out of habit. I wonder what the exact moment was that the coping mechanism turned into behavior. I cannot help but be proud of what I created.
Turning around to face me, he whispers, “Doctor, I dreamed about you.”
I ignore that remark. It is normal after all to dream about the one you worship, if that being has a face you can see almost every day.
“738,” I say, stepping forward. “We’re going to do something interesting today. We’ll even reward you for it.”
This catches his attention. If there is one thing the psychopaths feel, that is pleasure, which comes in many shapes and forms. And for him, it is drugs.
“Which one?” he asks with the curiosity of a child asking what color paint he’d get to smear on the paper.
“That depends on you.”
I take the syringe from the tray I brought with me, filled with a clear liquid. It can be anything from dissolved methamphetamine to vitamins. He wouldn’t care. He just likes the idea of getting it. But if everything goes well after this discussion, he’ll never get the chance to have it injected.
“The injection comes after,” I inform him. “After the task.”
His gaze sharpeners. Hunger. Something to do, to control.
I sit down in the chair in front of the bed he’s currently on, so we are at eye-level. Close enough for me to inhale the horrific smell his body gives off after weeks without seeing a shower.
“Today, today is your graduation. There’s someone in the adjacent cell,” I continue. “Another subject. Just like you.”
He blinks slowly, as if every sentence is being preserved in his memory. His blood might be filled with a chemical soup, but his mind is sharp enough to understand what is happening.
“She thinks she’ll be released today, but that depends entirely on you. Are you going to do something for me and make me happy?”
His mouth twitched into something like a smile. To him, this must be a reward in itself; he is worthy and desperate to serve.
“What do you want me to do to her?”
There it was.
No protest. No second-guessing. No ‘why.’
Project complete. With this, he is my final subject.
I never meant for this project to go on for so long.
It was meant to keep me busy until I got bored of it, and I officially had.
Subject 738 is officially the last one to add to my army.
What will they do after I leave? Probably shit for the country.
They will be sent into a war zone, fighting a battle that was lost years ago but is being prolonged to entertain the population.
Maybe my sixteen obsessed psychopaths will be dead by the end of the year, but when the time comes, and I get bored again, I can just create more. Now I have all the information I need.
“I want you to make her scream,” I say softly. “She upset me. She wasted my time and failed to complete her task yesterday. I want you to take revenge, in my name.”
His head tilts to the side, a frown forming on his forehead.
“Can I choose how?”
I nod.
“You’ll have your reward after. You know the rules.”
He doesn’t respond but stands up in one move. He is so ready.
With that, we leave the room and move through the hallway toward his new purpose.
As he enters the room, I continue my walk.
There’s no point in locking the doors or supervising their little game.
This experiment is over, and I don’t care what happens to them now.
They can escape and enjoy their freedom for all I care.
I’ll just enjoy the show they’re about to give me through the security camera. That will be enough.
She is sitting on the bed, legs crossed under her and hands in her lap. Blonde, mid-thirties, and intelligent enough to run a pyramid scheme that bankrupted two multi-billion-dollar companies. Yet she was too weak to cut her cellmate’s tattoo out of her skin.
She looks up the moment 738 enters and immediately backs against the wall. Good instincts at least.
“I did nothing,” she says, voice trembling as she tries to push herself into the wall. “You don’t have to do this.”
But he doesn’t entertain her speech. He knows he’s in there for a reason, and that it needs to be completed quickly.
As she starts screaming on instinct, he grabs her by her throat and cuts off her airflow. His other hand grabs her wrist and bends it into an unnatural position until the loud sound of a bone breaking fills the room.
She continues to fight, kicking him with her feet, but it’s useless.
Once the first wrist falls limp, he does the same with the other hand, leaving her helpless. After he’s done, he lets her fall to the floor, clutching her useless arms to her chest.
He crouches beside her, eyes level with hers and gently kisses her forehead.
“You can scream now,”
And she does, for the entire duration of his eight-hour session.
Subject 738 took his time. He broke her down the way I’d taught him until there was nothing left of her. Literally. Just a pile of something in the corner of the room.
He made her beg. Then he made her lie. Then he made her choose death.
As he completes his task, I take the file and label it: “Subject 738—Success.”
I leave the Facility right when the alarms start, notifying the guards that an inmate is trying to escape. He’s on his own now. The government will probably shut down the project, yes, but that is irrelevant.
My work here is done. I’d created my own monsters.
I am a God.