There was the low murmur of voices coming from beyond the door beside them, perhaps another patient that actually possessed the claimed appointment that had given them entrance, and Cydrin grabbed Clairy’s arm, pulling her quickly to the corridor beyond.
They were early, perhaps too early, as there seemed to be few people milling about. It worked in their favour at the moment, but a part of him worried that not everyone that needed to be expunged would be so.
But he comforted himself that most, if not all, of the doctors and researchers lived in barracks within the confines of the station, so it should not matter if they were on duty.
They made it to a lift, and Cydrin considered whether it would be prudent to draw his blaster. The doors were closing, and Clairy was holding up well enough, though she was pale and quiet beside him.
And then a hand shot out, the doors immediately retracting to allow entrance.
“Sorry,” a man apologised, smiling at them both entirely unnecessarily. “Due for a shift and the ruddy computer never woke me.”
Cydrin eyed him speculatively. He did not appear to be a doctor, not given the muted colour of his uniform, utterly lacking in the pristine white that the medical staff liked to boast.
If he was to guess, Cydrin would suppose him to be a member of the maintenance staff, whose sleeping quarters could not possibly have been stationed so near to the consultation rooms.
His fingers itched to grab his weapon, to question the man and his motivations before demanding to know if their presence had already been detected.
But Clairy was so close, and he dared not risk using his blaster within such a tight area. Ricochet was relatively low with this manner of weapon, but not entirely null, and he would not risk hitting her.
Hands could do it well enough, but so could another dose of pharmaceuticals...
The man was jostling his leg, seemingly anxious to be off of the lift. “You gonna tell it where to go?” he asked his companions? “Know it’s rude to cut, but if you aren’t sure then can I just...” He glanced down at Clairy and Cydrin’s attire, evidently noticing that they did not quite belong in this lift—not if it was for staff rather than civilian visitors.
If that was its function, Cydrin wondered why they had not bothered to require an access code for its use.
Sloppy.
“You folks lost? I really gotta get going, but I guess I could take the time to point you in the right direction...” His face indicated that he most certainly did not want to do any such thing, and before Cydrin could act and negate any more worry for a shift that would soon cease to exist, Clairy piped up beside him.
“We can manage, but thank you. You get where you need to go.”
He smiled at her, his relief evident. “Thanks.”
Only then he did provide an access card, and a retinal scan, and Cydrin looked at him in disbelief that he would take two strangers into a restricted area, simply because of tardiness.
The man was clearly dishevelled, and Clairy’s cheeks were pink as she glanced over at him. Evidently she noticed something that Cydrin had failed to comprehend. Something that would lead to her mortification.
The lift began to move at a rapid pace, the movement always slightly jarring to the equilibrium as pressure and frequent shifts through the shafts were not the kindest on human physiology. But they were efficient, and that is what mattered most.
To his credit, the man’s focus on his destination meant that he was not interested in plying them for details on their purpose, and unless Clairy had wished to indulge him, the process would have been met with a swift end. Cydrin was losing patience.
He would not pretend that they would remain ignorant of two foreign presences for long, and he could not sacrifice precious time. Not for a life that would be spared only by, hopefully, less than an hour.
The doors opened, and the stranger hurried out, sparing them a quick glance before shrugging his shoulders and going to his post.
Clairy had meant to speak, her first word partially vocalised before it cut off abruptly, evidently taking in the sight before her.
The pods.
Or, at least, some of them.
The doors began to close, and that was fine by him, but Clairy’s hand shot out and she took a step forward. He would not permit her to exit, not when viewing them was not at all their purpose, but she seemed mesmerised by their existence. Had she not truly believed it before now?
There were fairly mature specimens within the confines of the tanks, and Cydrin was certain that if they were not already conscious, they soon would be.
It was only a matter of another month, perhaps two, and they would emerge.
The rest of their training ready to begin.
He reached out and pulled Clairy backward. “We must go,” he informed her tightly. He did not know the direction of the inevitable surveillance cameras canvassing the rooms, but he would not risk Clairy being seen.
Not yet.
Not until the work was finished and they were on their way back to his vessel.
“That’s where you were born?” Clairy asked as he drew her back and touched the panel to shut the doors. “That... that horrible place?”
He supposed she did not mean the exact location—he did not believe that his existence had begun in this particular facility, no—so he did not bother to correct her.
“Yes,” he answered simply, his mind already drifting to their next location.
Only to be briefly distracted by the feel of her hand twining through his.
For what purpose he could not begin to imagine.
14
Clairy watched as Cydrin selected engineering as their next destination and she swallowed, clutching at his hand. She shouldn’t be surprised that his plans were similar to what he had carried out before. She knew what to expect now, but that did little to settle the dread in her belly.
“I am not certain that man was a member of staff,” Cydrin cut in, looking down at their twined hands without expression.
Clairy cleared her throat, trying to force some kind of moisture back into her suddenly dry mouth. “Maybe,” she hedged, not wanting to go into the details of what he apparently had failed to notice. The man’s buttons were hastily done, and he had missed quite a few around his nethers, suggesting that he had been up to some kind of tryst and lost track of the time.
“I should have detained him,” Cydrin said with a frown.
Clairy shook her head with a sigh. “They’ll all be dead soon so what does it matter?” She shivered, mostly at her own dry way she could speak about such horrors, but she was still shaken from the small glimpse she’d been given into the truth of Cydrin’s history.
It was so cold there. Not merely in temperature, but in feeling. To see those men suspended from the ceilings, trapped in viscous fluids far beyond when they should have been...
That was Cydrin.
Was it any wonder that he had emerged lacking in so many fundamental qualities established in childhood?
Empathy being one of them.
But feeling the warmth of his hand in hers, that was not exactly true. He had compassion for her. For how she was treated, how she lived.
What she thought of him.
All of that mattered to him, regardless of his upbringing—if it could even be called that.
He was capable, even if it seemed... selective.
Clairy had seen the rise and fall of the nurse’s chest as she helped place her on the abandoned table. He had not simply shot her for the convenience of it, and that was a change, however small of one.
The lift settled at engineering, and she closed her eyes as Cydrin produced the blaster. He eyed her hand again and she wondered if she could delay things, even for just a moment, if she kept hold of it.
He was struggling, that was plain by the way his eyes flitted from their hands back to her, entreaty in his expression. To be released, to receive her permission to do what was next, but her heart was beating rapidly, i
nsisting that she keep him close, to stop this.
But another, more insistent voice, demanding that the Project be shut down, that their atrocities be known.
She bit her lip, and let go.
To her surprise, Cydrin pulled her behind him, away from the doors as he nestled them just out of view before releasing the doors, engineering coming to view.
And the host of people working there.
It was not the silent, near-forsaken place of the last facility. This one teamed with workers, bustling about and arguing amongst themselves, though she noticed from her scant view that a few of them did not work quite as robustly unless two uniformed men were standing directly behind them.
She could not quite make out their words, not all of them at least, but a few drifted towards her hiding place.
“Not again,” one said to... someone.
“Sir, we’ve been checking for weeks. There’s nothing wrong...”
“Check it again!” another insisted, and Clairy was certain she heard the subtle hints of a longsuffering sigh.
The doors slid shut again.
Clairy looked up at Cydrin, curious why he had not acted. His blaster was at the ready, but he had not moved out to use it. There were a great many targets, yes, but they were unaware of the threat towards them, so surely it would not be that difficult.
She rubbed her hands against her trousers, wondering how she could think such things.
What was she becoming?
Cydrin’s hand delved back into his pocket, his face set to one of intense determination.
“There’s a lot of them this time,” she murmured, doubtful that her voice could carry through the closed metal doors, but unwilling to risk it. His movements were hurried, and she could not blame him for his urgency. Not when there was no door-lock and any could enter from the other side at any moment.
She stood, her shoulders pressed tightly into the corner of the lift, and she chewed unmercifully at her lip. “Maybe we should come back,” she offered lamely. “Later in the day, or at night. Surely any higher-ups that are demanding diagnostics like that won’t keep to a workman’s schedule.
Cydrin said nothing, a few canisters appearing on the floor beside him as he knelt. She did not ask what they were for, as she remembered the gas well. Her breath hot against her face, trapped as it was in the makeshift mask he had constructed from her skirt. She remembered how her eyes had burned, the tears that did little to wash away the numbing fog.
The terror she felt that had reduced her to a heap on the floor, the very same that was threatening to well up now.
It had been simple before. Dreadful, but simple.
And now he was frightening her with the unknown of what was coming next.
He tapped something into the lift’s panel and it moved upward slightly before he paused it, and she supposed that was some measure of security if it would not automatically open to someone’s command.
But it would summon a member of the maintenance staff should they attempt to hold it for long.
To her surprise, Cydrin held out a uniform, remarkably similar to the one the maintenance man had worn. Still he said nothing, but she reached out and took hold of the fabric, as that seemed to be what he wanted.
“Am I putting this on?” she asked, desperate for some clarification.
When Cydrin began unbuttoning his own attire in favour of the new one he had selected, she took that as answer enough.
She stared, momentarily shocked at how unashamedly he was undoing fasteners in her presence, but she quickly whirled around, her cheeks flaming. She had done wrong in looking, she told herself. He didn’t know that his modesty was something to be protected, and she should not take advantage.
“Change, Clairy,” he ordered, his voice hard.
Her fingers were shaking and it made the process much more difficult than it should have been. She was all too aware that time was short, and that dulled some of the shame she felt when she had to allow her shirt to drop onto the lift floor, knowing that much more of her skin was on display than her mother would ever have allowed a strange man to see.
But he wasn’t strange. Not in that way. He was Cydrin, and...
And it was all very complicated.
The uniform was all sewn together, so her trousers had to go next, meeting her shirt in her sad little pile on the floor before she scrambled into Cydrin’s selection for her.
Clairy should have expected him to be so prepared—evidently this is what he did. What he had been trained to do. To think through every eventuality and be expected to see that the optimal outcome prevailed.
But it made her wonder what else was tucked away in that cube of his, and what else she would be doing before day’s end.
“All fasteners should be utilised,” he informed her when she turned back to face him, seeing him dressed in pristine fashion, looking utterly intimidating in the black uniform done up to his throat, lacking in any softness or hints of pleasure about his eyes.
He did not look like the man she had shared so many weeks with as her sole company.
Maybe she looked the same, but she doubted it, doing up the final two clasps and looking back to him for approval. She did not think she could look as severe as he did, regardless of her motivation.
“Will I do?” she asked quietly, what she might have teased onboard his ship feeling strained and unnatural given their current circumstances.
Cydrin gave a tight nod. “Remain close to me. Do not engage with anyone. We are there to perform a task, and that is all.”
Clairy’s eyes widened. Did he truly mean to access the computer consoles with all those people milling about?
She was going to bungle this. Her fear was too close to the surface, her hands trembling against the strain on her tumultuous emotions, but she nodded anyway, knowing she could not stay in the lift.
The canisters were distributed to clasps around Cydrin’s waist, the uniform evidently meant to accommodate such additions with ease. He turned back to the lift screen but before he did anything, he hesitated.
“You have performed... more than adequately,” he complimented.
And she had not the least idea of what to say in response.
The guilt would come later, she was certain. When the full weight of her complacency surrounded her as she tried to fall asleep. But to her shame, some part of her was... pleased that he was pleased.
And before she could dwell on that, or even formulate any response at all, the lift was moving downward once more.
She wanted to reach out and take his hand, to have him lead her out and to wherever they were going with some sureness that they could not be easily separated, but they were workers, and she doubted that such gestures would be looked well upon. And she certainly was not about to draw any unnecessary attention.
A few glanced up at their entrance, but only in the quick way of things when an environment had altered. Once seeing the uniforms and Cydrin’s purposeful stride, they returned to their duties—though she heard more grumbling as she passed.
She felt sorry for them, in a multitude of ways. But anger also, as it was their work that saw those tanks put to use. There could be no pretending that these men and women were ignorant of what happened on this station to the fullest. Not when their systems were the ones supplying the power, when they would be monitoring temperatures and life-signs, feeding environmental controls and ensuring everything was in order.
She did not allow herself to look at their faces. Did not allow herself to mourn. Now was not the time. She would focus on the goal, on putting an end to a very great wrong, and wrestle with her conscience later.
Cydrin did not lead her to a console. Instead he took her to the end of the room before he released a panel from the wall, nodding his head that she should enter. It was an enclosed space, running what appeared to be the length of engineering and beyond, and farther along she could make out the rungs of ladders leading... elsewhere.
She got down on he
r knees and entered, because she didn’t know what else she could do.
Cydrin followed, closing the panel behind them, lighted strips along the bottom of the tube illuminating their way.
“We will be travelling upward,” he informed her when she glanced back at him for guidance. There was enough space that he could have manoeuvred around her if he wished to lead, but he made no movement to do so. Did he fear that she would rush back out if he was not there to stop her? A part of her wanted to, unused to enclosed spaces such as this, but she was well aware that she would find few friends amongst the crew. Most especially if she told them the truth about their coming.
And so she crawled, and then she climbed when she was told to do so. There were offshoots along the way, but Cydrin seemed intent on a specific location, so she continued upward, urging herself not to look downward, even to peek at Cydrin for guidance.
It was only after her arms were tired and she was certain he intended to keep them climbing forever, he instructed her to enter the rightmost tunnel, and she did with some relief, allowing herself a few breaths before he scrambled after her. He paused before coming off the ladder, and at first she thought he was studying their surroundings, trying to ascertain if he had selected the correct path. But when she opened her eyes she caught him staring at her instead.
“I can keep up,” she promised him, not knowing quite what he wanted her to say, but knowing she could not become burdensome either.
“That was not in question,” he answered back, before gesturing for her to continue.
It was an awkward thing, to crawl, and her knees were not overly pleased by it. She would have thought that to create such a vast station, the engineers might have had pity on the maintenance staff and constructed passage tall enough for a person to stand upright, but she supposed that would have meant enlarging the station in compensation. Was that a bad thing? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was quite tired of crawling, and she vaguely wondered if Cydrin had considered kneepads when packing his potential necessities.
But eventually the tunnel opened, not to a vast room, but to a large enough one to stand, and that was all she was hoping for. There was a machine lining both of the walls, lights blinking in seemingly random fashion, mechanisms whirring and humming, presumably as they should.
Designation 261 (The Wholeness Project) Page 19