Dark Designs

by Flowers, Thomas S.

  “How long have you worked here, Catherine?”

  “I…”

  “Fifteen years, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know how dangerous these subjects can be. You understand why any attachments have to be closely monitored. If one of them managed to escape again and happened to go topside…”

  “Yes, of course,” Catherine said. “But I can assure you I have no attachment to the subject in Room MB-314.”

  “And that day? The incident?”

  “I… I was overworked. I needed a break. All those months underground...”

  She could see that he didn’t believe her. It didn’t matter. She was not going to tell him the truth. How could she? What would happen if those in charge at the facility knew what she’d really seen that day they introduced her to the new subject in room MB-314?

  “You know you’re important to the facility here, Doctor Mander,” Erickson said. “Your expertise in the field is unmatched. But if you start to lose focus…”

  Two weeks later, when Catherine was once again cleared to return to her duties, she found she’d been demoted to the west wing with the insects. They wanted her to spend some time studying a particular beetle which could change colour to blend in with its background. The beetle could also change the finish on its skin, from shiny to dull by filling and un-filling tiny grooves in its shell with moisture. Clever, yes. But not as interesting as the mimic octopus; and not in the same league as those subjects kept below ground. Despite everything she’d discussed with Doctor Erickson, Catherine couldn’t stop herself trying to figure out a way into the sub-zero levels.

  The evenings were warm now. After work she would drag a recliner out onto the balcony of her apartment and gaze beyond the low buildings that made up the facility at the flat scrubland beyond. Every half hour or so a security guard with two leashed Alsatian dogs would pass in front of her vision as they made a circuit of the perimeter fence. She would watch them remotely. The confused memories she’d been grappling with ever since the day of the incident turned over in her mind. At times, she was able to grasp something, some idea of what these images meant.

  I had a life outside of here once. I had a family.

  Yet all she could remember of that time were blurred images, fuzzy colours, muffled sounds, feelings.

  She knew the only way she would make sense of these memories was to get back to where it had all started, back to room MB-314.

  Trying to figure out a way to do this kept her awake at night.

  Over time, a plan began to formulate in her mind.

  She began taking lunch later in the day. She knew that Sunny Rashid often got so embroiled in his work he would forget about eating until the growls of his stomach became impossible to ignore. He’d been that way for as long as she’d known him; eating just wasn’t a priority. When he could no longer ignore the demands of his stomach, he would head for the canteen, by which time most of the other workers at the facility had returned to their posts.

  She could remember how he used to joke about it. Had to eat lunch all by myself again today.

  One day when she ventured into the canteen, she found Sunny sitting alone at a table. The canteen was otherwise empty apart from two women in coveralls who were clearing and wiping over the tables. Sunny eyed her warily when she approached him.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  With a shrug, he returned his attention to a laptop on the table to one side of his tray of food. Catherine pulled out a chair opposite him. After sitting down, she glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot.

  “Something I can help you with, Doctor Mander?” he said without looking up from the laptop’s screen.

  “I’ve been thinking…”

  “Congratulations.”

  Catherine took a deep breath, releasing the anger that had flared inside her when she exhaled. When she spoke, her voice was calm. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps you and I should get together again some time?”

  He fell still but didn’t look up.

  “You know it was good last time, right? You said so yourself.”

  He laughed under his breath. “Do you know, Doctor Mander, how transparent you are?”

  “Transparent? What’re you talking about?”

  “You know there’s nothing I can do to help you. I can’t get you back below ground. I can’t even get you back in with the octopus. They’re watching you. You’re under observation.”

  Catherine was silent a moment. She fell back in her chair and gazed at him. “Who said I wanted your help with that? I’ve been lonely, that’s all.” Sitting up, and leaning forward across the table, she lowered her voice as she went on. “All I want is someone to give me a damn good fuck.”

  He glanced up and studied her face for a moment. Then, to her surprise, he broke into a laugh. Shaking his head, he returned his attention to the laptop screen.

  Stunned, Catherine fell back in her chair. She watched as he reached one hand towards the laptop’s keyboard and ran it across the keys, before pausing and glancing sideways at her.

  “If you don’t mind, Doctor Mander, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “You okay, Catherine?”

  It was one of the technicians—Kelvin or Calvin his name was; she couldn’t remember which. He was young and keen. His main ambition, like most of the other technicians, was to go sub-zero. When he’d told her this, Catherine could remember thinking: That makes two of us.

  “Yes, thank you…” The name wouldn’t come so she skipped it. “Just got a lot on my mind.”

  “Sure,” he said. Then: “Listen, a bunch of us are going over to the east wing. They’re having a little party there for Alex Yates. You know Alex? Well, he’s retiring, so they’re throwing him a little shindig.” He hesitated. “You want to join us?”

  Catherine glanced at the clock on the wall. It had just turned five. She’d been hoping to head home around six, sit out on the balcony, see if she could work out a new plan for getting underground.

  “I’m just going to finish my notes,” she said. “Maybe I’ll join you in a little while.”

  He nodded. “Sure thing.” Then he turned to join the others from the lab who were waiting by the exit door.

  Once they were gone, Catherine wondered if she should have joined them. It would look good, she thought, if she socialised. It would make her appear normal. It would win her points if she ended up on Doctor Erikson’s couch again. She waited twenty minutes, then left the lab and headed over to the east wing where she found the party taking place in one of the board rooms. People were clustered together in groups. She noticed people eyeing her and exchanging mutters as she entered. She was surprised to see Sunny there. He stood at the end of the table where bottles of wine and some plastic cups had been set out. He’d been chatting to a young woman—hardly more than a girl really—but he broke off when he saw Catherine.

  “Doctor Mander!” he said, raising his cup in a toast to her. She saw at once that he was already tipsy. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “I’ll get my own, thank you,” she said, and reached for a bottle of white wine. After pouring a drink she turned away from him and joined in a conversation with some of the people she recognised from her brief stint working on the east wing. She didn’t notice Sunny again until he approached her an hour or so later. By this time, the party guests had started to thin out. A woman in coveralls had entered and begun clearing up.

  “I’ve been thinking about that offer you made me earlier,” Sunny said, his mouth close to her ear.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Were you serious?”

  She looked him in the eye. He appeared to be having trouble focusing his vision. “Quite serious.”

  “So does the offer still stand?”

  She laughed under her breath. “Why? Are you interested?”

  “Maybe there’s an empty meeting room somewhere.”

  “Why don’t you come over to my apartment t
his time?”

  She saw his tongue emerge and slide across his upper lip. “When?”

  She shrugged. “Why not tonight? Right after you finish here. Bring one of those.” She pointed towards the table where there were still a few unopened bottles of wine. “You can tell your wife you’re working late.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment as if he were still searching for some pretence. She tilted her head to the side, and shrugged again. She cast her eyes about the remaining guests.

  “If you’re not up for it, maybe I can ask Doctor Harrow from the…”

  “No. I’ll be there.”

  “It’s a date then?”

  He gave a barely perceptible nod; then glanced up towards the corner of the room.

  “There’re no security cameras in here,” Catherine said, following his gaze. “And there aren’t any in my apartment. There, we can do whatever we like.”

  Sunny lay in her bed, grinning and smoking a cigarette. He had one arm folded behind his head.

  “You can’t deny that we have something special, Catherine. With you it’s like—whoosh!—I can’t describe it. It’s something else entirely. Where’d you learn to fuck like that?”

  Catherine picked up a handful of clothes from the floor and tossed them to him. “You’d better get dressed.”

  He made no move to get up from the bed.

  She picked up her bra and panties from the floor and put them on. She tried not to look at Sunny’s lab coat which he’d draped over a chair in the corner of the room. When she did look, she could see the ID card clipped to the lapel.

  “How’s life amongst the insects?” he said.

  “Oh, Sunny, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  He laughed. “You know what I mean. How’s working on the west wing?”

  “Could be worse.”

  “I bet you miss being underground though, eh? The subjects there are so fascinating. Do you genuinely believe they have some kind of telepathy, like they can look inside our minds?”

  “I doubt it. I should think they base their metamorphosis on people they meet, photographs, maybe even guesswork from what they overhear.”

  “Yes. That’s why they tell us not to take photographs or anything like that inside the room with them. They’ll use whatever they can. Did you know one of them escaped once?”

  “A very long time ago.”

  “Yes. But imagine. It could be anywhere now. It could even still be here at the facility.”

  “I seriously doubt that.”

  Finishing his cigarette, he sat up at last and swung his feet over the side of the bed. “It’s something new, isn’t it? Their metamorphosis. It’s not about luring prey, or scaring away predators. If they can look inside your mind, and become someone dear to you, then they’ve got you, haven’t they? They can do whatever they want with you.”

  “I suppose,” Catherine said.

  “Where the hell’s my other shoe got to?”

  “Look under the bed.”

  Seeing him crouch, she turned towards the chair in the corner of the room and, as casually as she could, picked up his lab coat. She made to straighten it out before she handed it to him, but as she did she yanked the ID badge from the lapel in one small swift movement and dropped it to the floor. Before turning, she kicked the badge under the chair. To her relief, when she turned around, Sunny stood with his back to her, leaning forward and straightening his hair in front of the mirror on her dressing table. Done, he turned and accepted his lab coat which she held out to him.

  “Thanks. Say, is that what happened to you, Catherine?”

  “Happened to me?” she said, smiling.

  “Did MB-314 get inside your mind? Is that why it’s got such a hold on you? Is that why you had that meltdown? When it metamorphosised, did it become something…” He stood gazing into her face, looking for a reaction. “Someone you know?”

  “I’m not with you.”

  “You know it’s happened before? The subject gets inside your mind, then it finds something to become, someone close to you. Or someone you’re afraid of. Whatever it needs. It becomes that person and it has you believing it’s them. But it got you, didn’t it? It found something. It became someone you know.”

  “That’s not what happened. Honestly.” She ushered him towards the door. “Come on. Your wife’ll be wondering where you’ve got to.”

  Sunny swung around and took hold of her at the waist. “I’m in no rush. Why don’t we go again? A quickie. We wouldn’t even have to get undressed.”

  “I think you better go.”

  He began easing her back towards the bed. “Come on, Catherine. It’s just so fucking good with you. You know I’ve had a thing for you ever since I was an intern and you were overseeing my work with the amphibians. You know that, right?”

  “Another time.”

  “I can’t wait. I can’t. I have it hard right now.”

  He took hold of her hand and tried to force it against his crotch, but she yanked free from him. She gave him a shove towards the door.

  “I said another time, Doctor.”

  “Fine,” he said. He went to the door and opened it. Before stepping out into the corridor, he turned back to her, his face full of quiet amusement. “Oh, and Catherine...”

  “What now?”

  “I’ll have my ID badge back, if you don’t mind. I was watching in the mirror when you kicked it under that chair.” He laughed. “I have to say though, nice try. But did you really think that was going to work?”

  Fuck! Fuck!

  “Listen…” she said. Before she could continue, he placed one finger against her lips.

  “Shush. Tell me, Catherine. Just between us. Who do you believe is in that room? In MB-314? Who is the subject impersonating? Maybe if I can understand why it’s so important to you, I can turn a blind eye to all this.”

  “It’s not what it’s impersonating,” Catherine said, after a pause. “It’s what it is.”

  “And what is it?”

  “It’s…it’s my daughter.”

  He laughed. Anger passed through her like an itch she couldn’t scratch. Her hands formed into claws. She remembered that surge of power that had come to her the day of the incident.

  “What’s so damn funny?”

  “Catherine, Catherine, Catherine. You don’t have a daughter.”

  “I do! It’s my daughter, Sunny. That’s my daughter in that room.”

  He laughed again. She cast her eyes around the room, looking for something to pick up and smash down over his head. Nothing suggested itself. She began talking, the words bubbling out of her. She told him it was only now that she realised that finding her daughter was the only reason she’d remained here at the research centre. She had dim memories of her former life, she told him, the life she’d lived above ground, the life she’d lived before being brought here. A time when she’d had a family. For a long time, she’d believed her daughter was dead. Then she started to think that maybe she was alive, that she was in hiding, and that one day she would see her again. The day of the incident was the day she’d first been introduced to the new subject in MB-314, and discovered to her joy that the subject was her own child.

  When she finished talking, Sunny was looking at her with his head drawn back and his eyes narrowed.

  “Catherine, what the hell are you talking about? Are you losing it? Seriously, are you?”

  “I’m trying to explain. I’m trying to make you understand. My daughter…”

  “You don’t have a daughter, Catherine. MB-314 has done something to you. It’s scrambled your brain. Either that or you’re trying to bullshit me. You always used to tell me how much you hated children. And besides…”

  “I had a daughter once, a long time ago, and I had a mate.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “A mate?”

  She shook her head, realising the mistake she’d made. “I…I mean a husband. I had a husband. Once.”

  “Crap. What sort of game are yo
u playing? That person in MB-314 couldn’t possibly be your daughter. Impersonation or no impersonation.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He moved his face close to her own. “Because it’s at least twenty years older than you. And it’s male.”

  He shrugged on his jacket and moved towards the door.

  “Are you going to give me my ID badge back, or do I have to file a report?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  She turned towards the chair in the corner of the room and then she saw it, the thing she’d been looking for earlier. It was a bottle of red wine Sunny had brought with him which they hadn’t got around to drinking. He’d put it down on the chair then covered it with his lab coat so they’d both forgotten about it.

  “I’m waiting,” Sunny said. She glanced back at him. He was leant against the doorframe, staring at a mobile phone which he must have taken from his jacket pocket. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. “Was that today? Shit.” He glanced up. “Come on. Let’s speed this up. I’ve got other places to be. Get it, Catherine. Hurry up.”

  Catherine moved forward until she stood beside the chair, then turned to face the wall, putting her back to him.

  “Get it yourself.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Really, Catherine, this is getting seriously tiresome.”

  She listened to his footsteps cross the room. Glancing around, she saw him crouched behind her, grouping under the chair for his ID badge. He had sobered up some, but his movements were still a little clumsy. Casually, she turned, picked up the bottle of wine, raised it in her two hands, and—summoning all her repressed rage—brought it crashing down onto his head.

  Straightening up, drawing ragged breaths, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the dressing table. Finding the broken neck of the wine bottle still in her hand, she flung it in disgust at the face staring back at her, shattering the mirror.

  After this she turned and went into the bedroom and opened her wardrobe. Reaching towards the back, she groped around until she felt the handle of the tennis bag.

  She waited until nightfall, then she put Sunny’s body—its now various parts neatly packaged in hazardous waste bags—where she had put the other one all those years ago, in a bin at the rear of the facility which she knew to be headed for the incinerator. This took her some time as with each drop she had to wait for the security man with his dogs to pass on his way around the perimeter fence. By the time she had finished it was the early hours of the morning. Returning to her apartment, she took a shower, dressed again and put on her white lab coat. Then she took Sunny’s ID badge and headed for the facility. The mess she left in the apartment could wait until tomorrow.