Chapter 3 #2
His attention is fixed on Ellis instead of me. He looks even worse than I feel, practically green around the edges. Still, I’m frustrated, and heat flares in my face.
“How can we get used to it faster?” I ask. “Will it help if we meet the subjects up close?”
Ellis gawks at me like I’ve said something irrational, but I carry on. “We need to be prepared so we won’t overreact in an emergency situation.”
Barnes’s look is thoughtful, which helps me feel less weird about saying it. “I was going to give you some more time to settle in, but if you two are game, I can show you some of the observation rooms.”
I nod. Ellis, after a moment, also nods, albeit shakily.
So we end up gawking through an observation window at the Ooze, which is just a strange green puddle with a couple of eyeballs free-floating within it.
Next, Hunter shows us the Goblin, a tiny creature that hides beneath its bed, giving us only a glimpse of yellow eyes through the glass.
I glance at my binder and the chart within every time Barnes shows us a new one, noting that each subject he’s showing us is a rare yellow or orange threat level instead of the reds that make up the majority of the subjects here.
In the hallway, as we pass by Observation Room 16, I can’t help but glance up at it, remembering the shut-off video feed, the question mark on our chart, the black threat level. Again I resist the urge to ask; I assume Subject X-16 is beyond my clearance level.
But Barnes pauses beside the room, too. He rubs his beard as if in thought and heaves a sigh.
“Right,” he says. “We should talk about him.” He scans his key card but pauses with his hand on the door, glancing at us.
“X-16 is one of our most unusual—and most dangerous—cases here, and he’s been volatile since an incident a couple of months ago.
The same incident that…” He searches for words.
“Well, suffice to say, we lost our last head of security and several of our more senior officers.” A weighty pause.
I’m not sure what to say, and after a moment he continues, “You two won’t be working with him directly as new employees, but it’s important for you to understand the protocol for dealing with him safely. ”
The observation room is sterile and empty, laid out exactly the same as the others we’ve seen, but there’s a new unease after Barnes’s warning.
Or maybe the sense of dread is due to something else entirely.
My palms are sweating the same as when I met Somnus, my heart rate picking up even though nothing has happened yet.
I think back to the blacked-out video feed. The observation window, too, is covered, metal panels blocking our view into the room next door.
What kind of monster would be so horrible that we can’t even look at it?
Ellis and I stand back as Barnes steps up to the control panel. He looks at some readouts on the screen, and then, for the first time today, he hits the intercom button.
“X-16, this is Hunter Barnes,” he says. “How are we feeling today?”
There’s a pause. And then a voice, barely audible through the speaker: “Fine.”
His voice is low and soft and…human. Shockingly so. I exchange a glance with Ellis, who mirrors my surprise with a cocked eyebrow.
“I’m going to open the observation window,” Barnes says.
Another pause. “I understand.”
Barnes shuts off the intercom. He hits another button, and the metal shutters slide open.
Inch by inch, they reveal the cell on the other side.
I’m braced, breath held, heart pumping, unsure what sort of monstrosity I’m about to see that merits a security level higher than anything else we’ve seen today.
What kind of monster could be too dangerous, or too secret, to even show on a video feed?
The last thing I expect to see is what appears to be a perfectly normal man sitting in the cell.
He looks like he’s a handful of years younger than me, and he’s seated on a plain cot with crisp white sheets.
Long, slender hands rest on his knees; shaggy dark hair hangs in front of his eyes.
He’s looking at the floor, his profile all pale skin and sharp angles, his body lean beneath black sweats and a long-sleeved gray shirt.
He slouches, head low, like he’s trying to appear smaller.
My brow furrows as I glance from the young man hunched on the bed to Barnes standing at the desk. The head of security’s hand hovers over the button, his eyes on the subject, as if ready to slam the shutters shut again at a moment’s notice. His jaw is a hard, clenched line.
“He looks harmless,” Ellis says, echoing my thoughts.
The subject’s head rises as if he can hear him, though I know I saw Barnes shut off the intercom.
His head tilts, silky hair falling to the side to reveal his eyes—all three of them, blood-red and faintly glowing.
I swear that the third, situated in the middle of his forehead, fixes a slit pupil directly on me.
Ellis swears and takes a step back. I am frozen in place, the strangest feeling zipping down my spine.
Barnes chuckles dryly. “Best not to make snap judgments when it comes to the subjects,” he says. “But you’re right. X-16 is harmless…most of the time. But he has what we refer to as episodes. Unpredictable eruptions during which he becomes highly unstable and unsafe to interact with.”
Despite my gut instinct not to trust him, I have to admit that Barnes has remained level-headed during my interactions with him thus far.
Now, though, there’s a flash of something in his eyes.
A look like he’s gone somewhere else. “Imagine a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, but the toddler can kill you without touching you. Or, rather, he can make you kill yourself.”
The silence stretches until it’s awkward.
Then he clears his throat and shakes off whatever dark mood gripped him for a moment.
“Your files contain instructions about what to do during an episode. Read them. Memorize them. Because you can be affected even within the CCTV room. The video feed is shut off to prevent accidents, but if you’re on duty, you’ll need to check in on him occasionally. ”
“Where did…” Ellis asks, and then trails off. His words are slurred, odd enough that I finally tear my eyes off X-16 to look at him. He sways on his feet, and I automatically grab his elbow to steady him. “Ugh, I don’t feel good,” he mutters, wincing and pressing a hand to his face.
Barnes looks unsurprised. He hits the button to close the shutters and checks his watch. “You made it a minute and a half,” he says. “That’s not bad.”
I look back at the cell, watching until the metal fully covers X-16. Only then do I process the words and turn to Barnes. “Another goddamn test?” I ask, releasing my grip on Ellis’s arm.
Barnes lowers his wrist to look at me. “Yes,” he says. “Everyone working here has varying levels of resistance to X-16’s presence. It’s important to know.” He pauses, scrutinizing me. “How do you feel?”
I pause, considering. There is the strangest feeling in my chest, but it’s something almost warm that doesn’t feel at all like fear.
Is it sympathy? I’m not sure what to call it, or how to explain it, but…
As monstrous as they were, there was such humanity in X-16’s eyes.
Such sadness. And despite Barnes’s warnings, it didn’t make me want to run from him.
It almost made me want to do the opposite.
“Normal,” I say. Not entirely true, but I don’t care to explain more than that.
“There’s an escape attempt on the chart,” Ellis says, pulling me from my thoughts. With the shutters closed, he seems to have recovered and is flipping through his binder.
I shake off my weird daze and check my own notes. Can’t have Ellis making me look bad. “And a recent one,” I say.
Hunter nods. “The incident I spoke about. Wasn’t really his fault, to be fair. It was…an odd case. Someone broke in and attempted to set him free, but X-16 never left his room.”
“Why?” I ask, meaning both: Why set him free? Why did he stay?
“We don’t know,” Hunter says. “But I’ve seen what X-16 can do when he’s in the midst of an episode. I’m just glad he didn’t take the opportunity to take off. He’s better off here, and the rest of the world is safer with him locked up.”
I frown down at the chart. “He doesn’t have a name listed.” Most of the subjects do, or at least a moniker or nickname—the Banshee, the Siren.
“He never gave us one,” Barnes says. “He insists we stick with X-16.”
As we head to the door to see the next room, I swear I can feel that red gaze burning in the back of my mind.
Even as we see monstrosity after monstrosity, each subject stranger than the last, somehow X-16 is the one that lingers in my mind.
Those eyes, intense and sorrowful. And even stranger, that feeling tugging me toward him. Something strangely like familiarity.