This is THEY 5

 “Yeah, I tried listening it it. It’s just nonsensical noise. I thought it might be in another language, so I asked around, and nobody can make it out. Turns out there are similar recordings, but they’re virtually identical, save for the gibberish over the important parts. What’s interesting is that the incomprehensible stuff is different in every language.”

“And there’s a six-month waiting list.”

“Don’t count on it. It was six weeks when I woke up. I suspect they’re intentionally inputting mistakes, just so they’ll never have to release one.”

“So, what have you found out so far?”

“So far, it’s determined that this place is not a hallucination, hologram or daydream. And I’ve got the welts to prove it.” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal his arm marked with self-inflicted pinches and cuts. “Figuring out what this place is, is easier than what it’s not. At first, I thought this place was an organ harvesting farm, but that didn't mesh. There's too many patients who stick around for long intervals, and very few are shuttled out in a hurry. Then I thought that we were being kept for a meat processing plant, but that doesn't fit either. We're being replaced at too slow a rate to be considered worth being eaten. The closest explanation I can come up with is that we're being kept here for observation, but that hardly flies. We're too young to be considered elderly invalids, yet are treated with kid gloves.”

He took a deep breath, warming up to his subject. It was clear he’d been thinking long and hard about this, and delighted in telling his findings, despite having told it multiple times already.

“Half of the people here are typically curious about this new world we've woken up in, while the other half are mindless zombies wandering the hallways. It's like there's some kind of drug or brain-sucking machine that's making the populace compliant rather than contemplative. They give us dozens of factoids, but also don't want us to think too much. Then there's the guards carrying weapons, though they never seem to use those against us. They’re called Hole-Punchers.”

"Hole-punchers?" I repeated amusedly.

“Sounds funny, huh?”, he agreed. “But their power isn’t. See this section of the wall?” he said, pointing to an area that looked recently redesigned. “Some solitary patient acted out, screamed, "I can't take this any more!", started creating a ruckus, and was quickly apprehended by the guards. His voice was still audible through the doors, then quickly faded, until the whole incident was little more than a bad memory. Then, there was a loud noise, shaking the whole building to its core, that didn’t make sense until much later. Somehow, in the process of carrying his screaming form outside the room, the Hole-Puncher got deployed. Those things can only be used by the original holder, so he must’ve done something that really ticked them off.”

I looked at the wall, rubbing my palm over the surface, trying to find where the indent was made, but wasn’t having any luck. “Where did you say the shot was fired? I don’t see it here.”

“Of course not, you’re standing too close. Step back a little.”

“Further.”

 

“Further.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Further.”

I stepped back until I was practically pressing against the opposing wall. That was when I noticed - there was a concave ring stretching from the ceiling to the floor.

“You mean - this whole wall was removed right where the poor guy was standing??”

“What?? No, he’s still alive. He wasn’t in the way when it was fired. Anyways, at the next lunch (Breakfast? Dinner?), the same man who'd made such a reaction was escorted back by the same guards, only this time, he showed no resistance on his part. His expression was completely drained of life, like the dozens we’ve seen earlier.”

I marveled at the perfectly concentric oval circle and how seamlessly the cracks had been filled in. Unless you knew exactly where to look, you wouldn’t even notice there was anything wrong in the first place. If it wasn’t for the fact that it came from the result of a devastating powerful device, I would’ve been more repulsed and terrified. Sensing my reaction, the guy answered my line of thinking;

“Which leads me to wonder just what these Punchers are for, since they’re certainly not intended for humans. There's an air of secrecy that permeates the place, as if everybody knows something, but is reluctant to let us know about it.”

He took a breath and continued. “So far, I’ve been asking the patients here, since I’m more likely to get any helpful answers from them than from the staff. So let me ask you; Before going into the freezing chamber, what’s the last thing you remember?”

I closed my eyes, and was surprised at how much I struggled with this thought experiment.  The only things coming to mind was a vast expanse of tedium with the occasional unidentifiable emotion.  I could barely recall snatches of my life before coming into this new location.  It was as if everything prior had been washed away, leaving a blank space.  As far as I could tell, my entire life had become defined by being in this mysterious facility.

If I were a clone created from the ground up, then I should’ve looked similar to everybody else.  And if I were a replacement, I should’ve looked like the last guy who... disappeared.

“I remember coming out, but before that... nothing.”

“...do this....”

“You sure?  No faint echoes?  No disembodied voices?”

“Well, I’ve been hearing these weird incomplete sentences.  They come at random intervals, and I hadn’t really noticed them until you pointed them out.”

He stared at me.  “Could be transference.  You're probably picking up trace dialogue just before your cryogenics.  When exactly do these voices happen, and what are they saying?”

“They seem to pop up sporadically.  I haven't gleamed their whole message yet.”

“Write down the words you CAN make out.  They should mean something eventually.  Do you remember what you used to do before getting frozen?”

“I’m not sure, but I think I was an accountant.  I seem to be pretty good with numbers.”

“Well, that’s something at least.  Most of the guys here don’t know what they were.”

“What about you?  What did you - ”

“There’s also the matter of the building,” he said, dodging the question entirely.  “You know how they keep shuffling us around into new rooms?  There’s a bizarre way of getting around that they don’t know can be exploited.”

“How so?”

“First, tell me what you’ve observed so far.”

“Well, at the end of the timer, they shuffle us into the next room, while the guards scan the room we were in for any stray stragglers not picking up the pace.  If the guards aren’t in the room with us, then they’re in the previous room, and they show up if someone makes a ruckus, or an alarm goes off.”

“Pretty good.  But you missed something - the guards don’t go after anyone moving too fast to be caught.  You don’t have to run - just keep at a brisk pace that they overlook you, and go after the much easier stragglers.  It’s like they’ve got a blind spot for rapid movement - they only go after people who are too slow.”

As he said this, I was amazed to see his analysis play out in real time.  Just as he said, the guards were herding the reluctant crowd towards the door, while ignoring the few who were gleefully evading their reach, until those guards gave up and focused on the unruly herd.  Soon, there were just a few of us left, save those who exited via other doors, and the room was empty.

"I'm not surprised they're short on staff.  They're practically running on fumes because they're diverting all their attention elsewhere.  You want to see?"

I agreed.  What else was I supposed to do?

“Now that the main group’s ahead, we can take our time to explore our surroundings.”

He opened the nearest door, then quickly closed it, wandered over to the next one, walked through, then hesitated before choosing another random door out of dozens in the hall, opening and closing them at random.

“Are you lost?”

“I’m not lost!”  He shouted, sounding irritated.  “I just need to get my bearings!  Just a sec...”  He took out a piece of paper with random scribblings on it.  Then he folded it until it resembled an origami fortune teller.  He opened and closed the paper flower while opening and closing various doors.  “It’s not my fault.  The interior structure of this place keeps changing.  But there’s a few consistencies.  If I just keep going this way... we should be back on familiar - AH!”

He opened the door to a messy hallway that looked the same as the others.

“There’s a subtle marking near one of the doors at the far end.  Once you notice that, the rest becomes easy.”

He picked up and put on a white lab coat that’d been left behind on a chair.

"It's easier getting around than you think.  They don't really pay attention to anyone not in uniform.  And they're easy to find if you know where to look.  All that’s needed is one of these fancy-looking coats, and you can get around looking all important.  Have you seen those posters they’ve spread all over the walls?”

I thought back to the Wanted posters that were visible when I was being tested. I dimly recalled seeing those same posters on the edge of some walls where TV sets were blaring loudly. They seemed to be ubiquitous, yet malicious.

“Yeah, they’re everywhere. What about ‘em?”

Just then, a shadowy figure started walking towards us from across the hall. It wasn’t somebody I recognized, but he wore the same kind of coat my friend was wearing.