2. Two
I swivel slightly on the stool while I wait for my testing to begin. I’m alone in here and as always, the room is brightly lit, smells of disinfectant, and is wholly devoid of any decoration. I used to wish that something would change in the testing rooms, anything, honestly. Now, I think that I would pass out if I saw any of the changes I had once wished for, a floral arrangement, a wall painted anything other than white or gray.
There’s a gentle knock on the door a second before the new Tester walks into the room. He looks professional enough, not much different from everyone else that I’ve seen in these rooms.
I notice his eyes before anything else. Not the color, or the shape, or the genuine warmth I see there, but that he’s looking at me. It’s not the removed observation I’ve become so accustomed to here, but rather something that almost seems friendly.
His hair isn’t cropped short like so many of the other men I see here. The blonde waves flopping over his forehead slightly give him a youthful look, despite his lab coat and otherwise buttoned up appearance. When he enters the room and latches the door behind him, I get up from the stool and sit on the table where I was supposed to be the whole time.
He doesn’t seem irritated about the inconvenience of finding me on his seat, not the way some of the other Testers would. Normally that small act of defiance was greeted with a scowl, and occasionally the more uptight ones would wipe down the seat with disinfectant before taking it for themselves.
The casual air surrounding this man raises the hairs on the back of my neck, and I wonder how much longer he’ll be allowed to work in close proximity with me. The only other person who had started our interactions this way was quickly removed, and I never heard from her again. She was an education specialist who I could have considered a friend; she looked at me with something akin to love and saw the person underneath my deathlessness. In the two weeks that she oversaw my learning she became more and more protective of me, something John absolutely could not afford for his work to continue.
“Madeline?”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I ask as I shake my head to try and clear the oddity of his friendly demeanor.
Was he speaking to me?
“How are you doing today?” The right corner of his mouth ticks up slightly, as if he’s amused by my reaction to his presence. He’s not looking at me when he repeats his question, though, he’s focused on starting up the monitoring machines and positioning the pressure cuff on my arm and the pulse monitor on my finger.
He finishes adjusting the pressure cuff on my bicep and the machine whirrs to life, the band tightening further and further.
“I’m fine.” I let the suspicion show in my voice, matching my newly guarded body language. No one since Mary has asked me that question with any warmth, and even she was playing a role.
His demeanor has me on edge. Sure, I’ve spoken with the other Testers, but none of them ever interacted with me beyond what was absolutely necessary to get the information that they needed. Part of me worries that this man will be removed from this position the moment someone notices the perceived familiarity he’s showing me.
The way he looks at me is so strange. Everyone here looks at me with bored detachment or, in John’s case, cruel amusement hidden poorly with a blank mask. Not this Tester. This man is looking at me, actually looking into my eyes like I’m a real person. Not just some lab rat heading into another Tank. It’s unsettling, and I look away without commanding my body to do so.
His eyes scan my face and my body, taking note of all the ways I’m walling myself off from him. As soon as he’s done removing the pressure cuff from my arm, he slides back on his stool to put a little more distance between us.
“Do you feel ready for your evaluation today?”
I pause, unsure of what he would be talking about. The spark of realization hits me and detonates something small in my gut. I may not visibly tremble at the mere mention of the Tanks anymore, but terror still grips my insides and wrenches them tightly.
“Do you mean the Tank?” I ask, hoping the facade I’ve built around the anxiety is firmly in place. Hoping, for some reason, the man in front of me won’t notice.
“Yes, the Tank. Do you feel ready?” After another brief moment of searching my face, his green eyes cut over to the monitor, reading something I can’t see.
I twiddle my fingers to avoid watching him more closely, and I notice the heart rate monitor is still clipped soundly to my index finger. He’s still watching the readings coming from it and I do my best to school my thoughts, tame that anxiety thrashing around inside of me.
“Just about as ready as I have been for all the others, I guess.”
“Right.” He seems almost embarrassed to have asked that question, shaking his head and shifting slightly in his seat. I’m glad to see that he isn’t as unaffected by this place as everyone else. I hold up my hand for him, sure he no longer needs the readings. My base levels will be the same as they have always been, no need to watch for the spikes.
He reaches out and takes the clip from my finger gingerly, as if he’s trying to avoid hurting me with the stupid thing. His care is even more ridiculous, considering whatever torment he’s about to be an accessory to. Sure, he might not be watching, he might not be the person orchestrating this Tank, but he will be taking the same readings after I’m hauled out. He will be able to see my charts, see my corpse. He’ll detail the ways I’ve been mutilated to sate John’s curiosity.
“Do you know what it is?” My words take me by surprise, I’ve never asked anyone other than John for the details of a Tank, but something about him makes me think he might tell me what I want to know.
“I’m sorry?”
“The Tank. Do you know what it is?”
“Brecken didn’t tell you?”
Brecken? Who the hell is Brecken?
As if reading my mind, he corrects himself, “Sorry, John. Didn’t John tell you about this Tank?”
“No. He wanted me to ask, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.”
He smiles a little at my response and turns to the cabinet behind him to pull out everything he needs to collect the blood samples.
“I’m not exactly privy to all of the other evalu-,” he glances at me, quickly correcting himself. “Tanks that you’ve experienced, but from what I can tell, this one seems to be going beyond the norm. If anything here can be called ‘the norm’.”
He mumbles the last bit to himself, but I hear it loud and clear. I also catch the brief flash of disgust on his face. It’s so foreign to me that I almost didn’t recognize the emotion coming from a Tester.
“Name.” The word comes out of me unbidden, a single word command. Something in this interaction suddenly has me desperate to know who this is in front of me.
“I’m sorry?” His confusion melts into a light amusement when I begin to blush and scramble to clarify my question.
“Name. What is your name?”
He pauses briefly, looking once again deeply into my eyes. “My name is Mark. It’s nice to meet you, Madeline.” The smile that accompanies his words sparks something new inside of me, and I find myself wanting to memorize the sight of it. His freckled cheeks pulling upward, the slightly crooked teeth, the way the green of his eyes seems to vibrate with life.
I feel myself make a silent plea that something will come out of this. I don’t dare to wish for an escape or anything quite so big, but I wish momentarily for him to stay. For him to continue being here as my Tester, as a friendly constant in this faceless world that has been built around me.
“Hello, Mark.” I can’t help the smile that lifts my cheeks at the sound of his name on my lips. “Now tell me about this Tank.”
Too gently, too kindly, he tells me the basics of what I will be subjected to, and I feel that familiar tightness settling into my stomach. A war is going on inside of me, brutal and violent. My blood is on fire and I can’t feel my face at all. I want to scream and bite and kick and do anything I can to get away.
Of course. Of fucking course.
John is a sadistic freak, and after years of being my keeper, he knows exactly which buttons to push to get me to my extremes physically and mentally. God, sometimes I wish he could just kill me. Not play this game of pretend we’ve both been circling around. Hundreds upon hundreds of false deaths I’ve been subjected to, and he still strikes terror into the deepest parts of me.
I almost don’t register both of his hands circling my biceps when he leans in close to me. The firm but gentle touch is so jarring that it yanks me out of the thought spiral I was descending into.
His face comes into sharp focus and suddenly my whole world is the green in his eyes.
“You will be okay.”
His firm words echo the grip he has on my arms. The intensity of his face tells me he wants me to calm down. He wants me to breathe. Potentially because my panic will skew the results of the Tank, potentially because he doesn’t want to be responsible for whatever error my mental state will cause. Who knows what would happen to him if John knew he was the one to reveal this information to me? I can’t be respons-
“Mads, look at me.” A gentle shake of my shoulders snaps me back, the sterile walls no longer closing in around me. “You will be okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
Mary’s false assurances ring in my ears, ‘Just get in the Tank, sweet girl. You will be fine, I promise.’ She listened to me scream for hours after that, monitored my agony, and did nothing to help me.
Anger simmers somewhere deep within me, begging for release.
“Fuck you, I’m always okay. I will always survive.” I throw that last word out like the accusation it is.
He flinches at my tone and I’m glad for it, he is just as much a party to this as anyone else who has walked through that door. He’s just as responsible as anyone who has pretended I’m just another experiment in their lab. Just another charge, nothing more than a dangerous prisoner to be escorted from one cell to the next.
Getting through this Tank isn’t enough. Being okay at the end will never be enough. I pass this Tank, and they devise a new one. Put me through another brutal test as soon as I’m healed enough to take the next round of torture. Again and again, this cycle never ends as long as John has me trapped here.
I shrug Mark off, breaking his hold not only on my physical body, but on my mind. The fascination I was forming around him shattering in an instant, the walls around me building themselves thicker and taller with every breath I take. No connections. A rule as much for myself as it is for the staff here. They’re all responsible. They’re all bound for hell.
Hopefully they’ll find one as vicious as the one they’ve cemented around me.
“Are we done?” I grit my teeth, still keenly aware that this interaction could land us both in trouble.
He stands from his stool and takes a step back. His nod is as effective a dismissal as him pressing the button to unlock the room and call the Minder.
I stand and take a few steps towards the door, but something inside of me makes me stop to look over my shoulder. He’s already turned away, digging into his pocket. I don’t know what I expected, but I’m not surprised.
He doesn’t care, Madeline. Walk away.