Designation 261 (The Wholeness Project)

by Catherine Miller

  She brought her trembling hands to her face to brush away tears that no longer fell, yet still she made no attempt to dislodge the cloth.

  Perhaps it was not only her hands that shook, but her entire body. Human physiology was a delicate thing. He knew much about it, how to incapacitate, how to kill, but his lessons on care were few. Enough that he might keep a captive alive if the recapture went badly, but there were no open wounds that he could tend. Unless he had missed something?

  Disturbed at the prospect, 261 leaned forward, his attention drifting from her face down her body, looking for any sign of singes, of flesh quickly opened then burned closed in a seal, keep in the blood, but perhaps doing damage to the internal structures.

  Satisfied that the side facing him was undamaged, he reached out and pushed lightly at her arm until she turned. It was a testament to her state of mind that she did so without protest, as she clearly would have done in any of their interactions before.

  That side also appeared well enough, the only sign of upset to her person the growing disarray of her hair and the tear of her skirt. And a dark strip of cloth still impeding her breathing.

  261 stood, and she flinched as he came close, his fingers working deftly at the knot he had tied at the back of her head. Perhaps that would help, now that she would be able to breathe fully.

  Her skin was slightly reddened where the cloth had rubbed, lines forming across her cheeks as if he had tied it so tightly that it had hurt. His intention had not been to harm, but to assist, but he doubted she would be satisfied with that. His actions had hurt her, and that is what she would remember.

  That thought did not settle easily.

  He hated his masters for the pain they so easily caused. For what he did to his kind and the subsequent generations. They hurt without care or consideration, and though he did not possess the ability to feel much, there was that, tainting and vibrant as it flowed so easily through him.

  It was... unsatisfactory that she would similarly equate such actions on his part.

  “You should sit,” he commanded, though he tried to measure his tone so that it might seem more of a suggestion. There was a seat for an additional pilot, but he had never used it, and it was stationed against the opposite wall, 261’s own seat situated in the middle, the other never engaged to require his to move.

  The girl blinked, but did as she was told, uncaring that the seat was not where it was intended to be, sitting down, though looking no more comfortable than she had before.

  She still looked at the screen.

  He considered shutting it off as it was clearly adding to her upset, but he could not quite bring himself to do it. The sensors would tell him of debris in the surrounding area, but he needed to know. Needed to know that it was destroyed in its entirety rather than simply crippled.

  “You could still warn them,” the female entreated, he voice small and detached, though still she pleaded for the lives of those that did not deserve it. “Even... even just some of them. The lower levels like me? Who... we didn’t know anything about...” she brought her hands closer to her body, and she tried to stuff them under her arm, only to be impeded by the cuffs still holding her wrists closely together. She glanced down at them, apparently having forgotten, and he waited for her to ask to be freed.

  The appeal did not come.

  Perhaps she did not notice them any longer, or perhaps she thought that any petitions would soundly be ignored. He was still so undecided about her, and it was a sensation he did not wholly enjoy.

  He returned to his own seat. Time moved steadily forward, and with it, his captive’s anxiety seemed to spike. She turned to him eyes full of entreaty, and he cut her off before she could begin all over again. It would only distress her, and make him question bringing her with him at all, and that would benefit neither of them.

  “If I permitted you to send a message, it would go to the communications officer, not the lowerlings you suggest. But even if it was possible, they would be given...” he glanced at the clock. “Forty-five seconds to attempt to reach an evacuation pod. Many of which have already been disabled.” By him, but there was little need to clarify that point. “So those you would try to save would instead die in fear and terror, but would most assuredly still die. Is that truly kinder? You would assuage your own conscience, perhaps, in that you made the attempt, but is it truly better for them?”

  Her lower lip trembled, and he wondered if she was going to withdraw again, to turn into the huddled mass of hair and flesh that muttered lowly and made little sense.

  Why had he brought her again?

  A thought niggled, wheedling deeper into his mind, not dissimilar to ones that the Project had tried to instil over the years.

  He had not intended it as a mockery, but her stricken look in response suggested she had taken it in such a way. That her conscience was a stupid thing, unreasonable and deficient, perhaps even selfish. But it was merely an observation that she had one at all.

  And perhaps that was what he desired. Someone free from the taint, to give opinion so that he might choose. To act of his own accord, yes, but to know what someone might think or do that hadn’t been manipulated so completely by an organisation that most assuredly deserved to die for their actions.

  The screen flashed white for a moment. There was no sound, no explosion to accompany the show of light and dark. It was as beautiful as it was horrible, and he was not oblivious to the equal juxtaposition of the watchers, as he looked on with satisfaction, and the girl with revulsion.

  He did not want to tear his eyes away, but a pressing concern made him glance over to his captive, eyeing her thoughtfully. “Are you going to be sick?” he asked grimly, already wondering if he was going to have to give her directions to the lavatory because he was most certainly not about to leave this spot.

  She sniffled, her nose clearly beginning to feel the effects of all her tears, and he silently handed her the torn remnant of her skirt to tend to it. It would do no good anymore unless he fashioned it into a gag, but he felt no impulse to do so. His commands for silence thus far had been out of necessity for their circumstance, not simply because he was displeased with her words.

  She held it for a moment, clearly not understanding its intended use, instead answering his earlier query. “No,” she murmured, appearing almost ashamed of herself for having better control of her facilities. “But I feel like I should be. We’re witnessing a tragedy and you...” She shook her head, finally tearing her eyes away to glance at him. “How can you be so cold about it?”

  He looked back at the screen. The main portion of the vessel had split, a large chunk beginning to float away from the main body as the rest began to splinter. A tragedy? That there would be no more creations, their genetics carefully plucked and tuned into something sinister and dangerous, no more thoughts implanted into unwilling minds, commanding and vengeful as they were forced to do a master’s bidding?

  Not a tragedy. A victory.

  She just didn’t recognise it yet.

  “They were not what you believe them to be,” he reminded her, not certain she had been listening the first time he had tried to explain. He would be patient with her, his surrogate conscience, and perhaps good would come of it.

  It had for 932.

  Her lips thinned, and for a moment she could see the sparks of anger cutting through her fear and despair. “I had colleagues on there,” she reminded him, quite unnecessarily. “They were kind to me, and you... you think they deserved to be obliterated? They had families! And you think just because of a grudge with the upper management, they all deserved to die?”

  His attention returned to her, and she flinched. Patience. He would have that. But he would also have her see.

  “Your colleagues,” he spat the word, wishing there had been time to show her the incubation rooms, for her to witness the perversions for herself. “Even those you claim too lowly to know any better. You think them so innocent? When they help a woman and collect h
er eggs, when they smuggle out a few extra and deliver them to a room down the corridor, for assessment and use by the host of researchers down below. But they were simply ordered to do so, yes? Not responsible for their actions. Or when they take leftover embryos and split apart their genetic structure and modify them to their will before growing them into something new, something cold, something biddable, you think those men and women deserve my pity as well?”

  He had not thought it possible for her to grow more pale, but he’d been wrong. Her freckles stood out more plainly, her eyes wells of blue that threatened to overflow once more. “What are you talking about?”

  He settled back in his chair. At least he had found a way to make her listen.

  “The Project coaxed men and women throughout the galaxy to surrender their genetic material. Most received a baby for it in return, but I wonder how many would be happy to know of what became of the offspring they did not know existed.”

  She stared at him, all innocence and disbelief, and she made it so easy to cut, to hurt.

  “How would they feel if their long-desired children were twisted into killers?” He dropped his voice, watched her shiver, and experienced a fleeting satisfaction.

  “Twisted into... me.”

  4

  He was lying. He simply had to be.

  He was obviously a murderer, so deceit would be nothing to him, weaving whatever tale best suited his current scheme, and she was not going to be taken in so easily.

  Even if something in her grew troubled, grew curious, wondering if it was possibly true. If she pushed aside her tangle of too many emotions, the horror that still flooded her veins as the images on the viewscreen showed more and more chaos, she considered.

  It was... possible. Improbable, to be certain. Research was done at the facility, of course it was, but to find new ways to help new mothers conceive, to help bridge the gap between species that were less likely to produce viable children without a little assistance.

  Not... not create hosts of babies in the lab to test on.

  He was saying these things to justify his actions. That must be it. He was trying to conjure sympathy in her for his own nefarious purposes, and she...

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” she whispered, her throat tight and aching. She wanted to sob, she wanted to rage, but self-preservation insisted she sit there quietly, that she listen to the madman, that she bear witness to his crimes so she might know what to tell the authorities if ever she was released.

  Somehow she doubted he would give her such an opportunity.

  He swivelled in his chair, the better to look at her. “I want you to understand,” he explained, though it wasn’t an explanation at all. “I want you to listen to me, and know my purpose, and then you may make your judgement of my actions.”

  She stared back at him, wide-eyed and too aware of her colleagues dying a few short parsecs away. “I already have a judgement,” she informed him, knowing it was a mistake, as when he leaned back in his chair, scrutinising her even further, she caught the look of displeasure. Fleeting, minute in detail, but there.

  “Your scope is far too narrow,” he retorted. “You clearly do not believe what I have told you, and therefore your opinion has not changed.”

  She released a shuddering breath, willing herself not to cry when the final piece of the vessel that had become her home broke apart. She scanned the viewscreen for any sign of escape pods, or perhaps other ships that had been docked breaking free delivering some to safety. But she saw none.

  Soon the explosions would cease, and the debris would begin to drift aimlessly through space. How long before someone knew it had happened?

  “You do not wish to believe,” the madman continued. “You would prefer the narrative that I did that for my own amusement?”

  She wanted him to stop looking at her. His face revealed too little, and she was certain that she was far too easy to read—her father had always said so. Told her it would get her into trouble one day.

  Clearly he’d been right.

  She tried not to think about them, about the family she had left behind and would likely never see again. Would they be informed of her death whenever someone discovered the wreckage of the Project? The thought of that alone was enough to set her lip to wobbling again, and she bit it firmly to keep from losing it altogether. Her mother...

  Her mother was not a delicate woman, her life a difficult one. But her loves were her children, and to hear that one of them had met such a violent end...

  Hands clapped together, sharp and startling, and she flinched again. “You were not listening to me,” he chided. She was growing numb, even as her body continued to shiver, and it was hard to focus on any one thing. He obviously wanted his words to hold her attention, but until he began to speak sense, she doubted they would do so.

  “I was thinking,” she explained, trying to placate him, almost decided that she did not entirely care if it failed. Her parents would think her dead. Her siblings too. And maybe that was better than the death that would inevitably come from her, a far more personal one as he would be committing it directly rather than from a craft far away.

  Watching.

  Pleased at what he saw.

  Her stomach roiled, and she remembered his earlier question. She breathed deeply for a moment, willing it to pass, as she was not going to sick up in front of him.

  She was weak enough without adding that particular humiliation.

  “And what holds your thoughts?” he asked tersely. She glanced at him, ready to glare, but found him half-looking at the screen. He did not look particularly pleased, so perhaps she had fabricated that emotion, fitting it to her perception of him rather than the reality. Considering that did not help her assessment of him any.

  “My family,” she begrudgingly admitted. She didn’t want to talk about them, not with him, but perhaps if she could stir even the tiniest shred of compassion in him, he might let her go. But she doubted it.

  “Your family,” he countered, as if the concept was both commonplace and mundane. “And what about them is relevant to this particular situation?”

  An odd way to ask her to share her thoughts, to show him her process, and she considered diverting the subject back to him. But doubtlessly that would simply lead to another attempt on his part to make her see that his actions had been reasonable. Perhaps even noble. And she was not prepared to endure that again.

  “I was wondering if I will be presumed dead. Once... once someone finds out this happened. I was imagining what it will be like when an officer goes and tells him what...” her voice caught, so able to picture the stern lines on her father’s face, likely stoic even in such news. Her mother would wait, would thank the officer for coming, perhaps even offer him some of their meagre rations and ask if he was hungry. Always the example, always hospitable. And then, when she was certain—often wrongly—that her children would not see, she would cry. Just as she had when there had been no rations for two days, and she’d had to tuck her children in with empty bellies for the second night.

  “What supposedly happened to me,” she clarified, a knot twisting, miserable and unhappy at the turn of her thoughts, her new reality.

  “If they care for you,” the madman responded, his voice dry and seemingly uninterested in this line of conversation, “then they already miss you. Your absence would only be more permanent.” He glanced at her, almost expectant, as if his rationale would give some sort of... comfort? Or merely reason away her upset, leaving behind a cold, twisted sort of logic that he clearly favoured.

  He leaned forward, the movement unsettling her, despite the distance that still separated her. “Would the alternative be preferable?”

  She did not know if he meant killing her to make it truthful, or her parents knowing what had actually become of her. She swallowed, her bones beginning to ache from her shivers, from the cut of the metal cuffs against the skin of her wrists. “I think that depends on you, and what you intend to do w
ith me.”

  He blinked once, leaning back, and she released a breath of relief at the action. She did not want him close to her, his every movement too unpredictable. She had ignored it before, but the feeling of isolation was beginning to weigh on her, the knowledge that it was only the two of them in the vastness of space, the rest of the people within the vicinity already extinguished.

  He had done that. This man locked away with her. He had killed thousands, a few of which had been right in front of her. She looked down at her clothes, at the tattered remains of a uniform for a position she no longer held, looking for some sign of blood or gore that would serve as reminder for what she had witnessed.

  But there was nothing. Even after tripping over one of the bodies, nothing of him remained on her person, smooth skin leading to shoes that even now hurt her feet, though the ache seemed terribly far away.

  The madman shook his head. “We are talking in circles,” he rightly commented. “You claim not to understand, I explain, you do not believe me. You say you do not know what I want from you, I tell you, and you do not believe me.” He gave another look to the viewscreen, longer this time, ignoring her completely as he made a perusal of the wreckage, likely looking for survivors as she had done.

  Only hoping for the opposite outcome.

  When he was evidently satisfied, he set the autopilot for another set of coordinates before turning back to her. “You are shivering, and undoubtedly cold, yes?”

  She nodded. She was cold, and her muscles ached from the shaking.

  “Then come below.”

  She looked after him as he walked swiftly to a hatch in the floor, opening it with a quick jerk of his wrist. And then he was looking at her again, clearly expecting her immediate obedience.

  It was dark in the hole in the ground, but she could see the rungs of a ladder, and he was waiting, so despite her fear, she tried to manoeuvre herself into a position where she could begin the descent.