19 USABLE
19
USABLE
The corridor ahead is long and dark.
I look down to see a carpet beneath my feet, fluffy and beige. It smells like fresh linen and new paint. It feels so clean in here. Too clean. And wealthy .
Nisha joins me, swinging the door shut behind her.
‘Don’t close it,’ I hiss. ‘Leave it as it was.’
She uses her arm to stop it from slamming. ‘You sure about this?’ she whispers.
I can hear a low, mechanical hum – air conditioning or electrics – in the walls. But there’s something else too. I can sense it. Something dark and unsettling, almost powerful , lurking within the concrete, hidden behind the layers of fresh paint. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Eli, maybe we should go back…’
We can’t. Not now.
I begin to head down the length of the corridor, Nisha trailing behind me, glancing at the rows of doors on either side as I pass. More gold plaques, each with the same lettering:
Data Collection Room 1
Data Collection Room 2
Data Analysis, Data Sorting
Clinic Room 1
Clinic Room 2
The further we get, the darker it becomes. A heaviness descends and a pressure seems to build. The walls feel denser, like they’re penning us in. The air is thicker too. I can hear every movement, every rustle of clothes, every breath.
‘Eli…’ Nisha says from behind me. ‘ Stop .’
But I can’t. I see other smaller corridors leading off from this one. This place is so big . Like the floor above with Melinda’s office.
Melinda . How much does she know? Can I trust her? Should I ever have trusted her? Does she know about Dad? She knows Jack. He was in her therapy group. Why hasn’t she told me I knew him?
Then my brain empties as one particular plaque catches my eye.
Cleaner ’ s Room .
Casimir.
‘Eli.’ Nisha’s voice comes from directly behind me. ‘ Look .’ A sharpness in her tone makes me glance up. She’s pointing down the corridor, her face fixed in an expression of something I recognise. Panic. Light spills out of a frosted-glass window in a door up ahead of us, illuminating a plaque beneath it that reads Security Office .
Behind the glass is a shadow, pacing back and forth. There’s someone here.
‘Eli—’
I take Nisha’s arm and pull her towards the cleaner’s room. I grab the handle, pushing it down until it clicks.
Loudly. Too loudly. Fuck .
I snap my head up to see the shadow behind the glass stop moving.
‘ What was that? ’ A voice, low and muffled. A man’s. ‘ You hear that? ’
My body tingles with fear. Actual fear.
And then another voice, somewhere out of view. ‘ Probably just the ventilation .’
The outline of the man leans towards the glass, peering into the darkness. ‘ I think I heard a door open .’
Nisha gasps. ‘Eli, we need to—’
Without giving her time to finish, I bundle her into the cleaner’s room. I close the door behind us – gently, gently , holding my breath – until it shuts and we’re plunged into complete darkness. We press our backs up against the door.
‘Eli—’
I squeeze Nisha’s hand. Shh .
‘ Hello? ’ The man’s voice, nearer now. ‘ Who ’ s there? ’ I hear the heavy tread of his footsteps until they come to a stop directly outside.
I keep my hand on Nisha’s. She’s trembling, her breath rattling with each intake.
‘ Is there a night cleaner tonight? ’ the voice shouts back down the corridor.
Nisha flinches.
‘ Sometimes they no-show on weekends .’ The other voice, further away. ‘ Check the data rooms . As long as they ’ re secure, we ’ re fine . Probably just the pipes .’
The man sighs, then mumbles to himself. ‘ Why can ’ t this place just have cameras? ’
He has a point. Why doesn’t this place have cameras? What’s it hiding?
Nisha and I wait for what seems like an eternity as the footsteps move off. Only when I’m sure he’s gone do I allow myself to move, my jaw aching from where I’ve been clenching it. I scan my eyes around the room but can only make out the small green dot of a smoke alarm on the ceiling. I smell something sharp that tickles the back of my throat, like bleach.
This room makes me feel … something. I feel something.
Uneasy. Very, very uneasy.
‘What do we do?’ Nisha murmurs, her voice coarse with the residue of panic.
I feel it too. Fear. I swallow it down. ‘Find what we need.’
‘And what do we need?’
‘Answers.’
I run my hand across the wall next to the door, searching for the light switch. Fuck ’ s sake, where are you? I hear Nisha unzip her bag, fumbling inside. A light appears – the torch on her phone. She scans it over the wall.
‘Got you.’ I see the light switch and click it on. A strip light flickers above us, stark white.
I blink a few times, shielding my eyes with my hand as I adjust to its severity.
The room comes into focus. I don’t know what I expected, but this cleaner’s room looks just like … a cleaner’s room.
Long and narrow, with shelves on either side, holding reams of different products in uniform rows: bleaches, anti-bacterial surface sprays, disinfectants, air fresheners, Dettol wipes, toilet cleaner. It smells sharp. Clinical. Beneath the shelves are a washing machine and a tumble dryer. Mops and buckets and brooms neatly lined up, alongside a grey plastic trolley with rubber gloves and dust cloths folded on the top.
When I was hypomanic, I would’ve loved this. This would’ve been my idea of heaven. I wonder if they have grout cleaner.
‘I don’t know about this, Eli,’ Nisha says. She’s standing by a little desk at the bottom end of the room. There’s an empty Tupperware container and some cans of drink on top of it, their straws still poking out of them. Casimir is particular. A cleaner who likes Dr Pepper by day and runs a club appealing to the needs of trauma addicts at night. Who is he?
I begin to search through the sprays, trying not to move them too far from their very particular positions, looking for something, anything …
I stop in front of the washing machine. The door is slightly ajar. I kneel down and peer inside.
That’s strange. A long, thin white box, about the same size and shape as the container Dad keeps his poker chips in.
‘Nisha,’ I say. ‘Look at this.’ I lift it out of the drum and hold it up.
‘Eli…’ she says hesitantly. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t touch anything.’ She looks tiny again, hunched over, shoulders up. I place it down on the desk next to the empty cans.
On the lid a white sticker, with one word:
USABLE
I pause, feeling my body tingling with anticipation. It seems to be making up for lost time, every fibre fizzing with the unknown.
Do it . Open it .
I lift my hand.
‘Eli, wait.’
Ignoring her, I flick the clip latches. I lift the lid to reveal a series of compartments in a grid formation, separated by thin plastic dividers. Inside each one are what look like SIM cards. Two, three at the most.
The fizzing swells. ‘Is this them?’ I say, my voice shaking. ‘The digital chips?’
‘Eli—’
I lean forwards to look closer. On the inner side of each compartment, scrawled on the plastic, is a name.
TOBY
BEA
ALEXANDRA
JEREMY
MAX
SHILO
KEIRAN
BELLA
SCARLETT
WILLOW
‘What the hell?’ Nisha says.
Willow . A name I’ve heard before. Recently.
I know who that is. The girl from group therapy, who was with her mother.
Toby. Twat-Head Toby .
These people were in the group therapy session. I know these people .
FRANK
JEREMY
TAMIA
JAI
KEIRAN
Then I see two names in the bottom right-hand corner and something sears into me. Heat. Pressure. Like a needle into the side of my brain, pumping something both euphoric and dreadful into its folds.
JACK
ELIAS
Nisha makes a small gasp.
‘What is this place, Nisha?’ My voice sounds far away. Outside of myself.
‘I think he’s stealing them. The chips. He’s stealing them from Tear Solutions.’
I look back at the box. Some of the compartments are empty. Tamia’s. Keiran’s.
And Jack’s. Jack’s compartment is empty.
Usable . What does usable mean?
I look at the chips beneath my name. Two of them.
I lift one out and hold it close to my face. A date is scrawled on it.
JAN 8 TH
I’m shaking so much I nearly drop it. ‘This was the day of the crash.’
‘What?’
‘This –’ I turn to her, holding it up – ‘is the day the crash happened.’
Nisha glances back at the door to check no one’s coming. I know I’m speaking loudly, but I don’t care. I take out the other chip.
JAN 16 TH
I don’t remember that day. I study the chip for any more writing. ‘What are these?’ I turn to Nisha, who is now standing beside the tumble dryer. ‘How do I watch them?’
She has a strange expression on her face and I see she’s holding something in her hand. A pair of black goggles with wires and pads just like the ones in TraumaLand. A headset.
‘Where did you get that?’
She points to the drum of the dryer, sheets now spilling out of it. ‘In there.’
A bang from the corridor. A door. Nisha flinches.
‘How do we get the chip in?’ I say, urgency fuelling me.
‘Eli—’
‘Quickly, Nisha!’ I hiss, holding out my hand. ‘Pass it to me.’
‘Fine, fine. I’ll show you.’ She lifts the headset in her shaking hands and presses something on the side of the rubber rim of the left goggle. A tray shoots out, like the kind you’d put a SIM card into on a phone.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Great. I’m watching it.’
‘Eli. I don’t know if this is a good—’
Before she can stop me, I snatch the headset and place the chip marked Jan 8th inside the slot. I attach the pads to my forehead, to the base of my skull, and pull the goggles down. Then the world goes black as I enter another reality.
One I do not know.
My own.