When she wasn’t providing assistance to the women or arguing constantly, she was tasked with providing refreshments to everyone involved. Getting the necessary supplies was the most strenuous activity she had to deal with, and she looked forward to this more than the unproductive experiments.
In addition to memorizing everyone’s preferences and not mixing their orders, she was also in charge of supplying nutrients to one of the successful experiments in care. Every day, a portion of liquid and solid foods were served on a bowl so flat it could be mistaken for a plate. The food had all the consistency and taste of bananas and toothpaste, but they must’ve been appealing to the Patient, since it was always licked clean.
With the meal in hand, she would make her way down a corridor filled with hundreds of doors. She’d been warned not to look inside, and with an open invitation like that, couldn’t help but take a peek. Her curiosity wasn’t rewarded since when she looked inside, they were all mysteriously empty. What was the point of having so many rooms if they weren’t going to make good use of them? She asked about the waste of available space, but was told to leave them alone, since they might come in use later.
The only room that wasn’t empty was the one she was tasked in delivering the food to. She was supposed to serve this portion and not engage with the Patient there, but she couldn’t help resist flaunting the rules at any given opportunity, and went inside to see the mystery Patient.
Much like the other identical empty rooms, the interior was surprisingly small, looking very much like an apartment with no windows. The only furnishings were a dresser filled with similar-looking clothing, a smudged mirror and a tucked bed that looked unused. The reason being was that the Patient preferred to hide under the bed, rather than on top of it. When she came in to deliver lunch, he was always hiding away. She tried to engage him in dialogue, crouching down to get a better look, but he always remained out of sight.
She despaired of ever getting a chance to see the extremely shy Patient, until one day when in the midst of taking the usual food orders, the daily experiments wound up taking longer than usual due to an unusual incident.
“The Black Dot’s made an appearance!”
With that announcement, all the other women who’d been working on their projects suddenly dumped whatever they were doing and rushed over to see the microscopic drama being played out.
“It’s expanding at an exponential rate!”
The incremental influence is miniscule!
“Following the established pattern!”
“What’s the result going to be?”
This was the first time anyone showed this much excitement over something so trivial. “What’s the big deal?” the Girl asked.
“It’s a total wild card. Every time a Black Dot appears, there’s a 50% chance that it’ll either cause the rapid evolution of the culture, or result in complete extinction.”
Everyone crowded around the magnified image of the petri dish, expectantly holding their breath, breathlessly awaiting what would happen next. The Girl couldn’t feel the excitement, being hardly able to see anything, let alone understand or care. Even so, this interruption was a welcome disturbance in her usual routine, even though very little happened.
After twenty maddening minutes of inactivity had already passed, she’d grown bored, and by the time she remembered the overdue lunch, she covertly hurried to prepare the banana toothpaste meal to cover up her mistake. As long as the Patient was still alive, she could save face. Even though she wanted as little to do with this job as possible, she had no idea what the alternative was, just that it could be worse than this. Worse how, she didn’t know, and didn’t want to know.
When she opened the door, she was surprised to see the Patient in his full glory, standing straight up, towering over her. He looked as shocked as she did, and she took the opportunity to get a better look. She’d been wondering all this time what he might look like, confident that he was absolutely grotesque, and now that she was face to face with his actual appearance, was woefully underwhelmed. He wasn’t as frightening as she thought it might be. The longer she looked at him, the less scary he became.
What struck her attention first was that his eyes were heavily dilated and far apart from each other. His mouth was open, revealing crooked teeth, some being longer while others were shorter. Also, his limbs were longer than usual, and seemed bent at wrong angles that shouldn’t have been possible. Furthermore, he seemed to be wearing too many bulky clothes. He was wearing a suit on top of a long coat whose tails extended to the ground. The worn suit seemed tailor-made to fit his unusual design, which had odd protrusions extending from various parts of the body. So far, the scariest thing about him was that the tips of the fingers were blood red.
“Sorry for being late, I lost track of time. It’s nice to meet you after all this time.” She held out a hand with the intent of it being shook. The Patient just stood there, paying more attention to the food in her other hand. From his looks and demeanor, he expressed resemblance acting much like a gigantic bug.
“Here.” She apologetically handed over the plate, but he just stared blankly, unmoving. She wondered why he wasn’t taking the food from her, then figured he must want to eat at the desk. She put the food there, but the Patient just continued stared impassively.
After ten seconds of inactivity, she decided to take the initiative. “Alright, fine, you don’t want to talk to me, go ahead. I’ll leave and never darken your presence again.” She turned away and made her way towards the door, but stopped just before going through. There was a rush of scuffling sounds, far more extensive than simply walking across the room would entail, but she still stood where she was, not daring to turn around, only barely glancing at the mirror.
“Solids... again...?”
He spoke with a very heavy accent, and it was hard to tell what he said. But at least he spoke! This was her first chance at communicating with somebody who wouldn’t openly judge her for her decisions. The more he’d talk, the more she’d get used to his mode of speech.
Slowly, she turned around not wanting to scare him off. He looked much more livelier than he did before. He had moved the plate down on the floor, slurping at the liquid, even though there were utensils nearby. Then he dribbled what he’d sucked up and sploshed it all over the solid food.
“Hey, hey! What are you doing that for?”
“Softening... food... up.”
“Use your knife and fork!” She took the utensils on the tray, and held them in a sophisticated manner with her eyes closed. “You’re supposed to hold the food daintily, and cut away portions in small increments... at least, that’s how it should be done. I can never get my knife to work properly. I just stab with my fork and tear away with my teeth.”
“Still can’t... get used... to chewing... my mouth... feels strange.”
Well, that wasn’t surprising considering the unsymmetric condition of his teeth. He spoke very slowly, and it was a struggle waiting for him to finish. It reminded her too much of her parents. Even so, she resisted the impulse to fill in the blanks.
“It was nice to see you, but I really have to get back to work.” She was in no hurry to get back to her job, but felt uncomfortable staying any longer than she had to. The forbidden allure of seeing the Patient in his tarnished glory had already worn off.
“Never... did get... your name.”
She snapped back in shock, being unused to this kind of questioning before deciding to answer, trying her best not to react in disgust. “My name is... Pease.”
The Patient took these words in confidence and responded in kind:
“I... am... Sam.”
When she left the room and went back to the station, she was met with a gathering crowd dissolving into a wave of disappointed faces. At first, she thought she was in trouble, until she realized their faces weren’t aimed at her.
“Another failure...”
“Chalk this one up for the books.”
“Any idea what caused this this time?”
“Still working on it.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“The Black Dot increased productivity of all the surrounding cells at an astronomical rate until it collapsed upon itself.”
“Sometimes it evolves at an astounding rate, sometimes it’s gradual, and sometimes nothing happens.”
“We knew it was a possibility, but it’s still disappointing to see it play out.”
“We were hoping for more, but in the end, that’s all there was.”
“We still don’t know what causes it either.”
“It’s utterly unpredictable.”
“It’d be nice if we got some warning if it’s going to be anticlimatic or not.
“Would save us a lot of time.”
That little drama was the most exciting thing that happened, and remained so for the remainder of the day. At the awaited end of her shift, it was finally time to leave, and she’d planned to take her usual detour towards Silas’ the place that sold her daily portion of Rarebit. It was out of the way, and she could’ve saved herself some time and money, but it was worth it.
As she left the Building, she had the sensation that she was being followed. This wasn’t the first time either. Ever since her first day at work, she’d been pursued by surviving stragglers of the Germ Cult, trying to recruit her back into their ranks. She’d been getting propositions from them every day, and was growing sick and tired of their ceaseless advances despite all attempts to ward them off.
“You smell familiar...”
She stopped in annoyance. Their attempts had tapered off over her persistent resistance, and it seemed like they’d finally left her alone until now. She turned to face her stalker with the intent of discouraging him off.
“I told you, I don’t want anything to do with - ” then she stopped. Instead of the Germ Cult member she’d been expecting was the menacing figure of a tall man who overshadowed her. His impressive height wasn’t what made her stop short. It was that he looked very similar to the Patient she’d been feeding.
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