Chapter 16: Simulacrum

 

“I don’t like it.”

Magpie thumps her hand on the ground, like how she might stamp her foot. Except she can’t, since she’s squatting on the floor at the edge of the room, hunched there like a suspicious wolf, or one that’s been cornered. Not the worst place to be, considering the comfort of the padded wall behind her.

“I don’t trust what’s going on here, and I don’t think you guys do, either.”

Jarod wrings his fingers. She isn’t wrong, but this whole conversation is making him anxious. It’s bad enough that he’s had to reconsider his opinion of Nessa enough times since coming here. Now Magpie’s bringing this up, and the setting for their rendezvous isn’t entirely helping.

The closest thing to livable quarters in the entire facility would be the rooms once used to sequester the anomalies, each one furnished with the most basic amenities, but always devoid of anything sharp, anything that could be used as a weapon. Anomalies came in all flavors, but among the deadliest were the telekinetics. And to a telekinetic, something as innocuous as a ballpoint pen is a homicide in the making, a punctured throat just waiting to happen.

Up on the ceiling are a few flatscreen televisions, their edges rounded, all hooked up to entertainment systems that allowed the anomalies to play video games, or watch anything they wanted from the facility’s curated library of films, shows, and documentaries. Whatever personal belongings are stored in clear, plexiglass cupboards. Whoever occupied this room must have enjoyed reading.

Nessa said nothing about the Terminal. That’s the level where the truly hopeless medical test subjects were brought, to be treated in an environment that was about as close as it got to a hospital. If trials went well, in a best case scenario, some test subjects might have even survived. And if they succumbed to their terminal illnesses – or more likely, to the adverse effects of the facility’s testing methods – Vertex had liability waivers and entire platoons of lawyers to protect them. They called it the Terminal for two reasons: because it could either be transitory for patients who had a chance for survival, or it could be their last stop.

Now that Paragon has made a clean sweep of the facility, Jarod has an idea of what might have happened in the Terminal, with all its wards in close quarters. But if the patients succumbed to the outbreak, what about the anomalies? What kind of destruction could be wrought by an anomaly infected by Paragon?

He never asked Nessa about either the Terminal or the whereabouts of the anomalies. Maybe it’s best to leave his suspicions unconfirmed and his nerves intact. Staying in one of these padded cells might even be the better option if it wasn’t such a reminder of what happened in a very similar room, once, in a past life. He looks behind him, at the softness of the padded wall, and he tries not to shudder.

“Listen,” Jarod says. “We should be focused on where we head next.”

Getting the hell out of here seems to be the smart thing to do. They can’t be lulled into comfort by all the amenities being laid out for them. And there’s still a horde of undead, just a wall behind them. As for what’s waiting before them, who’s to say until they see it for themselves? This is where it all started. The sooner they’re out of here, the better.

“And where would we go, Samuels?” Magpie frowns. “How are we so sure there’s anything left for us to head to?”

“Maybe this is it for us,” Gabriel says.

“That can’t be true.” Jarod fiddles with his fingers. “Just can’t be.”

Daniel coughs into his fist. “You’re forgetting that we don’t really have much of a choice. We’re guests here, for as long as Nessa will have us.”

“Guests?” Tyler asks. “Or hostages?”

“Guests,” Gabriel cuts in, an edge to his voice. “For as long as we’re treated decently, that’s what we are. Nessa hasn’t done anything.”

“Yet.” Magpie raps her knuckles against the floor.

The room is tense, that much is clear. Yet for all the pressure everyone seems so relaxed to be here, Gabriel on the edge of the bed, Daniel in one of the plexiglass chairs, Tyler leaning on a wall as always, looking as comfortable as anything with his back against the cushioned surface. To Jarod, it still looks like the inside of a coffin. It was in one of these rooms where an anomaly pinned him to the wall and cut him open, after all.

“Where’s Esther?” Jarod says, by way of clearing the air.

“That’s all you can say?” Tyler snaps.

Daniel pats him on the arm. “Valid question. Don’t go on the offensive.”

“Resting,” Magpie says. “We roomed together, remember?” She scoffs. Jarod flinches. She’s never scoffed at him. “Now that that’s out of the way, what’s your take on this? Come on, Samuels. You can’t seriously think this is all above board.”

Jarod looks down at his thumb, picks at his nails. “It’s definitely strange.”

“Strange?” Magpie scoffs again. “They’ve got electricity. Running water. Gas in the kitchens. It’s like nothing went wrong here. If they’re fine, maybe the rest of the world is fine, too.”

“But Vertex has all these resources. I wouldn’t be surprised if the facility was supported by its own plants.” Jarod coughs, like he wasn’t expecting the amount of words he was able to muster. “We won’t know for sure until we check out the other side of the wall.”

Tyler’s eyes narrow. “If we’re even allowed to do that at all by that friend of yours.”

“But that’s just ridiculous.” Daniel’s eyes are wide, and beginning to fill with just a little of that ridicule he mentioned. “Vertex with its own power plant?” He looks to Gabriel, then Magpie, as if in search of another opinion. Weirdly, he doesn’t turn to Tyler.

Jarod shrugs. “The Large Hadron Collider has its own plant. Why not Vertex?”

Gabriel shakes his head at Daniel, then points down at the floor. “You don’t know how deep this place goes." He thumbs at Jarod. “Hell, we don’t know how deep this place goes, and Jarod worked here five years. There could be anything buried down there. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Vertex is rich enough to do whatever the hell it wants.”

“You talk about it like it’s an entity,” Magpie says. “Not just a corporation.”

From the ceiling, one of the flatscreen televisions flickers to life.

“In a way, it is,” Nessa chirps, her face beaming from above, a picture of serenity.

The energy in the room shifts, every one of them visibly bristling at the interruption. They exchange looks, especially Jarod and Gabriel, and everyone seems to be on the same page. She can hear them, and probably see them, at all times.

Magpie’s voice is like a whip. “Have you been spying on us this whole time?”

“That’s hardly fair.” Nessa’s lip turns up. “I wasn’t spying. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I happened to hear what you were talking about.”

“How is that even possible?” Gabriel mutters in a hush that almost makes it like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.

“Cameras everywhere.” Nessa shrugs. “Microphones too.”

Of course. An anomaly’s quarters would be top priority for constant security surveillance, or just for observation by the techs. There’s a camera up in the corner along with the nest of viewing screens. Whoever watched over all of the anomalies would have seen them looking upwards. They must have seemed so small, staring blankly at their televisions. Whoever was watching must have felt so powerful, to lord over these monstrous children, to very literally observe them from on high. Jarod has a good idea just who might be watching.

And that’s only the lenses he can see. There are others installed in here, he’s sure of it, probably disguised as mundane objects or part of the furniture. Microphones hidden here and there, too. Briefly, Jarod wonders if Nessa knew what was going on down in the locker rooms. Just as briefly, he wonders if it even makes a difference.

“So,” Tyler says, a slight grumble in his voice. “No privacy here, then.”

Nessa smiles apologetically from the screen. It’s her, only – it isn’t, somehow. Jarod squints, tilts his head, wondering what’s so off about the image, until he realizes that it’s just a three-dimensional render. The Nessa on the screen is like a wax figure or a marble statue, as close to alive as it gets, yet still uncannily inhuman, somehow.

“I can’t help it, exactly. I’m part of the facility now, and the facility is me. Isn’t that amazing?”

Jarod peers closer. “You’re just a graphic?”

Not-Nessa shrugs. “In a way, I suppose? My body is in my office right now, working on other tasks, but I can spread my awareness across all of Vertex.” The lights flicker momentarily, bringing up another rustle of activity in the room. Vents high up in the walls push out a gust of cool air, then just as suddenly stop. Jarod really didn’t need any more cold to set his spine tingling. Nessa smiles. “See?”

Magpie elbows Jarod in the ribs. “She did this all on her own?”

“Smartest person I know,” Jarod mumbles. “Smarter than I ever suspected, turns out.”

Magpie turns back to the screen, her expression equal parts awe and resentment. In another life, perhaps, she and Nessa would have gotten on like a house on fire.

“So does this mean you can hear everything we say?” Magpie’s eyes narrow.

Not-Nessa purses her lips. “Guilty. But that’s not a problem. You have nothing to fear from me.”

Jarod’s mind slips back to all those video games he ever played where an artificial intelligence went berserk, taking on human qualities and causing mass chaos and destruction one way or another. This wasn’t anything like that, was it? Quite the reverse, really, with Nessa’s consciousness being planted into the facility instead.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Not-Nessa says, grinning.

Sirens begin blaring, outside in the corridors, up in the ceiling, all across the facility. The world takes on a red hue as alarm lights cover everything in bloody illumination, once meant to alert the facility’s human occupants to the possibility of danger. That sure worked out great the first time. Jarod’s chest twinges, his hand darting out to grasp around Gabriel’s wrist.

From the screen, Not-Nessa’s avatar sighs in a faintly unnatural manner, her eyelids fluttering just a moment too soon, the muscles in her cheeks strange.

“Not this again,” the image says.

“Not what again?” Magpie shouts over the screaming of the klaxons. “What the hell is going on?”

“Remain calm,” Not-Nessa says. “Everything is fine.” The screen flickers, then goes dark.

“Fuck,” Tyler says. “What the fuck is happening?”

Jarod glances at Gabriel questioningly, and the look in his eyes says that they’re thinking the same thing. He says as much. “The last time this happened was when Robbie transformed. The entire facility was put on alert. We made it out before they locked the whole place down.”

“Then we need to get out,” Daniel says. The fear in his eyes drives a wedge in Jarod’s heart. He doesn’t deserve this, not so soon after what happened at the Hive. None of them deserve this.

“We don’t know where the threat is coming from this time,” Jarod says. “If it’s from outside the facility, then we stay put. The emergency protocols kick in and bring down the reinforced doors.”

Magpie licks her lips, irritated that she has to ask the question when she already knows the answer. “And if the threat is coming from inside the facility?”

Jarod’s chest pounds as he steadies his breathing. “Then we should have already started running.”

“We’re getting out,” Tyler declares, the authority in his voice rushing back as he speaks the way he would have in the atrium whenever he issued commands. For once, Jarod is glad for it. “Get your stuff. And we need to find Esther.”

Gabriel gathers their things, and Jarod picks up whatever’s left lying around. He slips the gun into his waistband – just in case. His instinct almost drives him to point it at the door when it slams open.

It’s only Esther. Maybe it’s the alarms, or maybe it’s the strain of running, but her face is bright red when she pokes her head into the room. “I don’t care what’s going on here. Grab your shit, we need to get the hell out.”

And minutes later the six of them stamp down the hallways, with the same urgency and fear that Jarod found that same night that Robbie turned and infected the entire facility. Maybe even the entire human race. They’ll only find out by leaving, by making their way through to the other side of the wall.

That means heading out into the compound again, and getting out onto the road – and right into the path of the swarm of zombies that followed them to Vertex. But if Nessa’s tentacles did a number on the horde, maybe it means they’ll have less to contend with when they get out. Again: only one way to find out.

“This way,” Gabriel yells. Up and up the stairs, further through the corridors, before Nessa thinks to initiate the protocols and bar the doors. But why hasn’t she? She seemed unbothered, almost like this was routine. Then again, it wasn’t really her on that screen. God, why does this all have to be so obtuse? Layers upon layers.

The sirens fall silent. The redness of the world washes away, and the alabaster perfection of Vertex comes creeping back, all these endless corridors of perfect, unmarked white. They skid to a stop.

“This is ridiculous,” Magpie hisses. “What the hell is happening now?”

“I say we keep running.” Tyler wipes at his upper lip, at the sweat on his temples. “This could be her faking us out.”

“He has a point,” Esther says.

Daniel clutches at his chest, panting. His eyes dart from Esther to Gabriel, then Jarod. “I can’t believe you people worked here. Was it like this all the time?”

Esther glowers and shakes her head, clutching at her knees. “More or less. Sometimes with the sirens, but we always knew that it meant to run.”

Gabriel nudges Jarod. “Samuels,” he says, his voice low, but not quite low enough to go unignored by the others. “Her office. It’s just up ahead.”

He’s right. Somehow they’d run close to the surface, close enough to the room where Nessa said her physical body was residing, or conducting experiments, or whatever it is she does in the office that she used when she was still alive. Old habits die hard.

“Should we?” Gabriel asks.

Jarod stares hard down the empty corridor. “I don’t know that we should risk it.”

“What the hell are the two of you talking about?” Tyler growls. “We should keep running.”

A commotion from down the hall says otherwise. Three, four, seven tentacles come whipping across an intersection, slamming into something that gives off a resounding, meaty thud. Jarod steps back in alarm, as do the rest of them.

Whatever the tentacles were grappling isn’t fighting back any longer, and they come slithering back across the intersection, seven silver pythons dragging something across the floor. The undulating mass leaves a glistening track of blood that carpets the split in the hall.

“It can’t be,” Jarod says.

“Jarod?”

Gabriel reaches for his hand, but somehow Jarod beats him this time, his feet carrying him down the corridor. Why is he going towards the blood? He knows better than this. He should be afraid. No, he is afraid, but he still burns to know.

He turns the corner, deaf to the cries behind him, following the trail of blood. He walks in the scant spots between the floor and the wall left unsullied by the gore, so he doesn’t slip. The wet streaks lead into an open door, a few corridors down from Nessa’s office. Jarod breathes deeply, then enters.

All the air in his lungs leaves in the same rushing instance.

“No,” he murmurs, taking in the grotesquerie of blood and bone and tendrils. “What has she done?”