Control

by kurushi

One-shot. Every experiment needs a control group. But The City is a very complex experiment, and it needs complex controls to succeed.

Author's Notes and Disclaimer: Don't have any rights, no offence meant, and I'm only really writing this as a homage to Mr. A.P.'s wonderful film. I welcome any and all comments and criticism, and I'd love to know how you feel about my characters and storyline.

Group 1-023, Subject "One"

It was cold and it was dark. Always. But it was always dry in the rooms beneath the city. The Misters liked it better that way, yes?

Yes. Their parents didn't understand so well. They had lived once in a world that was lightness and wet. The rooms beneath the city, well, to the parents the walls were too perfectly smooth and black. The lines in the doorways too seamless and sharp. The unexpected changes to the shapes of the furniture sometimes scared and upset them, though it only ever happened when necessary. No, parents didn't like their rooms at all.

One had learnt all of this at a very young age. One was currently comparable to test subjects that were eight Terran years old. One did not know how many of The Misters years One was, but that was part of the point of it all. The Misters, One called them. One had made up that name all by Oneself.

One was accustomed to a small amount of discomfort in the presence of The Misters, but One assumed that the feeling grew with age. One hadn't minded The Misters at the start, but now there was a small shiver at the base of One's spine. Just this last Terran cycle. Two, One's younger male sibling (comparable to six Terran years) seemed far more comfortable around The Misters.

Or perhaps it was simply because Two had a penis and One did not. One could not remember One's entire life very well, let alone Two's, and One was hardly qualified to be making observations when One was a part of the experiment itself. Penises did seem to matter to the test subjects up above, and to the parents, but then the socialised humans did all sorts of strange things. One was always slightly put out by the way that they needed so many psychological props to survive the day.

Though it wasn't surprising. From what the unpredictable and all too human Doctor had said, the parents and One and Two were the only truly stable control group. He had said that he sometimes wondered about their ability to truly represent the base-line human condition or physiological reaction to The City and the dry blackness.

One had looked at The Doctor's strange soft clothing – just like that of the parents – and replied. One's response seemed to take The Doctor by surprise, though One had spoken many times during past examinations.

"But we are useful."

One watched The Doctor's reaction, stared up at his shocked eyes through the glasses and the wrinkled scarred skin. A soft and emotional smile began to twist at The Doctor's mouth, and One felt the need to clarify that One had made a statement and not a question.

"We are useful, yes?"

That restored The Doctor to his more usual calm appearance, his skin unpuckering and relaxing around his injuries. Without answering directly, he bent and opened his medical bag to produce some items. Two brushed past One, forgetting himself and the examination in favour of the gifts The Misters had decided to introduce to their environment.

The Doctor nodded at Two and made a note in his pocketbook. Then he left Two unsupervised and took One through a series of standard and familiar questions. They were designed to test One's perceptions of self, time, and reality. Her reactions to any information she had been fed about The City.

Drat. One reminded Oneself that One was trying to avoid the gender identity and personality of The City. It made her feel less like a part of The Experiment, if she – ONE – resembled The Misters more closely.

The Doctor folded his book shut and tucked it into his pocket. He gathered his items and prepared to leave. One felt her throat raspy dry with apprehension.

"Doctor!"

He turned, and raised his eyebrows in a very human way. One nodded and spoke more calmly.

"Doctor? We are still useful, aren't we?"

That same strange twisting smile returned to The Doctor's face. His bad eye fluttered with the stress of that facial position, and One wondered why he didn't just maintain decorum and save himself the humiliation of that vulnerability.

"Oh my dear, you are absolutely spectacular and wonderful! Of course you are, you know that."

If One had been one Terran year younger, One would have smiled back. But One was growing up, and becoming better at this life every day. The Doctor lived within The Experiment, and there was no way he could truly understand her concerns. The only importance that One had to The Misters was One's usefulness as a source of control data.

"The results? Our data... we're useful for the research, yes?"

The Doctor seemed to understand. He sighed, his shoulders tensed and relaxed. One could tell she had disappointed him somehow, but for all that she liked him, she knew it was not The Doctor's opinion that mattered.

He laughed a short and bitter quiet laugh. Two raised his head in curiosity, but returned nearly immediately to his objects.

The Doctor put a warm hand on One's shoulder. "Yes. Oh yes. You are... ahem... unique individuals with such psychological resilience... it's... you're... you are providing us with exemplary data. You are indispensable to the research, I assure you."

One felt safe and proud and just a little bit less cold on the inside. One nodded sharply and gratefully, and as a door opened in the external wall of the rooms The Doctor waved goodbye with his broken smile.

But all the pride in the world couldn't have stopped One from staring up at the smooth roof and pulling a face up at the unseeing implanted control groups that lived in The City.

Group 2-001 "Alice"

Alice didn't mind her lot in life. At least, not these days. She'd felt pretty hard fucking done by, sitting in one of the concrete monstrosity government flats in a seedy area of Melbourne. Hearing people screaming and shitting in the shoebox rooms all around her. Feeling her baby heavy in her stomach and wishing that the weight of her boyfriend's fist wasn't stronger and heavier than two lives. Alice knew she wasn't the only girl he fucked. And she wasn't the only girl he'd fucked up with the drugs. She'd probably miscarry, if she lived long enough for the shit to start working.

Her arms were skinny, and there were a series of puncture wounds in them. One newer and brighter red than the rest. It was stuff like that that had her high school teachers nodding to each other and marking her down for the vocational classes. She'd have gone to uni if she'd had a fucking chance!

It was her own fault, she supposed, for being the fucked-up druggie daughter of someone just like her. The taste of her life in her mouth had been so sour that she just wanted to spit it all out. All the moisture and life in her body.

So compared to that, alien abduction wasn't too bad. Oh sure, they had taken a whole bunch of people. And sure, they were fucking with everyone's memories and running some weird tests. Alice couldn't care less. Because there was a Doctor, a real one. Well, a psychologist. But Dr. Schreber had read up on pregnancy and drug abuse cases just for her. Until there was a real hospital set up and working, he'd treated her and kept her healthy. He'd helped her bring her baby into a safe world.

Withdrawal had been a bitch. And she couldn't have it wiped from her memory like some of the others in the experiment. But it was worth it. Because not one year after that one last hit, she'd got a healthy baby girl. Who would grow up fine. Educated. Safe. No huge featureless concrete blocks or the smell of vomit in the stairwells and lifts for Alice's baby. No, because they were in a Control Group. So they got to live in this nice apartment. Huge! With nice furniture and clothing and a building full of people who were in the Group as well. Some young parents like Alice. A teacher, and a gardener and a cook. They had things to do, and things to gossip about. And nobody had ruined it yet! They all kept the secret of The Experiment easily, so adults were allowed to leave the building and walk in the city.

Alice had an allowance. Not like her government allowance in Melbourne, which paid for a shithole government flat and her shithead boyfriend's petrol and booze. She spent her money on fresh food, nice clothes, and books and toys for her baby.

Sometimes she saw a beggar in the street and felt a little guilty. Or she caught the eyes of a girl that reminded her of her own life, bedraggled and eyes surrounded by puffy dark sacs. But Dr. Schreber had reassured her that it was all just for studying the human mind. Its resilience, or lack thereof, in certain situations. That nobody died except in accidents, in The City. And most people who she saw in the streets, too right, were the ones all well dressed and smiling politely at her at the bus stop a few weeks later.

Earth had screwed her over, and if she had finally found some peace and hope and love, then fuck it! She wasn't going to let this life go, not for anything. The aliens had nothing at all on the cruelty of humanity.

She knew that she was partly trying to excuse herself from feeling bad about it. She did feel a little bad about it. But then her baby daughter smiled up at her, waving healthy pink fingers and looking around the room with bright intelligent eyes. Alice reckoned that when she was that age, her eyes would have had that zoned-out drug child look to them. That she'd have never had the brains to think about the shapes and colours of the wallpaper. Or the balls to try talking.

Cos she was talking, now. Just small things. Words like Mum, and yum, and soft-lipped attempts to mimic things like apple (awwel it sounded like) and love you (wayu). There was a two-year old girl who lived across the hall with her Mum and Dad. Jenny. She came over to be babysat on the weekends, and Alice made cupcakes and a pot of tea. Jenny would play games with baby Skye. Clapping and singing and squeezing those annoying loud toys.

When Skye went down for her nap, Alice got to talk to Jenny. Which was a lot nicer than she'd expected. She'd never imagined herself as a Mum, or even as alive at this age, let alone holding delightful conversations with a little girl about the best sort of things to put into biscuits and which books were best for little girls.

But what was best of all wasn't the unexpected opportunities and life and health. Or the company. Well, not in whole. It was that in this timeless city of a hundred thousand accents and shifting personalities, nobody picked her as an ex-druggie teen pregnancy on welfare. If they did, they didn't seem to care. And just leaving behind that baggage had taken such a huge weight off of Alice's shoulders that she'd begun to walk straighter and feel taller. She knew she'd be able to be a good Mum to Skye. Her little girl would grow up without any of the bruises – physical or emotional – that Alice had.

So yes, she felt a little guilty about the others in The City sometimes. But it was still fucking worth it.

Group 2-002 "Skye"; Group 2-023 "Jennifer"

It was boring. Skye had had an argument with her Mum, and had retreated up to the top of their building. She was allowed to stand up there and watch everyone down below in the city. See the cars shifting and hear the sounds of conversations floating up. It was the same way that she was allowed to watch out through the windows of their apartment. But there was a chain-link fence around the edges of the roof, so that nobody fell off during The Tuning, and there were locks on the windows so that Skye couldn't sneak out into The City again.

So it was boring, and it sucked. She could ask for anything from the ghouls that ran The City, anything at all. If she wanted books, or a TV, or something new to listen to. They had vast computers full of data that they searched to find interesting things and media for their control group to consume.

Maybe Skye just hated being in Group 2. Across the street, was Group 4. They were allowed to leave the apartment. All of them, even the kids. Deep down inside somewhere was the guilty knowledge that her Mum hadn't had any hope of choosing which group she'd end up in. It was all random. But that didn't stop the stinging frustration of seeing the familiar faces of everyone her age in Group 4 happily slinging the door shut behind them, dancing lightly down the front steps and jingling keys and change in their pockets.

Skye was sixteen years old. She wouldn't be allowed to leave the Group 2 apartment block until she was at least eighteen and a legal adult. Dr. Schreber had mentioned something about testing the effects of seclusion and isolation on the developing human mind, but she knew that was all bollocks. Bullshit, as her Mum would say. Skye had read enough in her dull lifeless life to know that psychologists and mad scientists never gave the game away that easily.

Her escape attempt with Jenny, running off into town to see a film together, had probably just been playing into their hands. They'd be testing how far they could push them before they broke. Or maybe just how much energy in a day a bored teen might dedicate to escape attempts. Or even just taking records of her reactions to being told that she was being held under house arrest for a psychological experiment.

She really couldn't care less. Guessing would just stress her out, and it wasn't as if anything was going to happen before her eighteenth birthday. She just had to sit tight and try to not decompose out of sheer apathy and listlessness before then. It wouldn't have been that bad, but apart from the little kids that lived up on the top floor, there was nobody else still under the restrictions.

It was Jenny's eighteenth birthday. Skye had spent years talking about it with her. They'd planned their birthdays down to the second, using maps of The City and making lists of all the shops they wanted to visit. The cafés and train stations and laundromats. All of the things they'd never been able to see before.

Skye hadn't watched her leave, that morning. But now, looking down on the street from above she wished she'd come up to spy on her. Watch as Jenny's excited feet half tripped over themselves as she went out with her parents. She almost cracked her head open in the stairwell once a week, even though she was always careful. There was this brightness in Jenny that just burnt out any caution and common sense, bursting out in chaotic brilliance at the worst of times. Some of the time, knowing as few people as she did, Skye wondered if she wasn't in love with Jenny.

Well, maybe it was just a crush. God knew that Milan, the nineteen year old who was Mr. Nesmith's son, wasn't a viable option. He'd always been a little arrogant. Teacher's son, teacher's pet. Not Milan's fault, though. It was all circumstance and environment, blah blah. But that didn't make him any less obnoxious to hang around. And just because Jenny couldn't help being eighteen two years before Skye? That didn't make the day any less boring.

Skye could taste sourness in her mouth, and felt the bitterness in her heart seeping deep through her bones. She was wallowing in self pity and was glaring hateful spite down onto the oblivious experiment subjects that smiled and shook hands and sold each other newspapers on the pavement in front of her home.

There wasn't any evening here, as such. But it was getting closer to The Tuning. Jenny would have to come home soon. Skye didn't think she could bear watching it, the happy homecoming. She headed for the door to the stairs.

The door opened just before she reached it, revealing a rushed and out-of-breath Jenny. Her hair had been trimmed shorter. It looked nice, framing her face, even if some strands were sticking out at messy angles.

She shot a wide and exhilarated grin and held up a small shiny box. "Here. I couldn't sneak any smokes, not with Mom and Dad watching. So it's just those fake candy ones."

Skye was still confused. She took the box in one of her cold hands and stared at it.

"Oh, we came back from the other end of the street," Jenny ducked her head and smoothed her hair down self-consciously. "Sorry."

They were both awkward, Skye realised. Nervous and scared. But one day in The City hadn't changed Jenny, and laughter was bubbling up out of Skye's lungs with a sharp sense of relief.

She tore open the box and offered it to Jenny, flicking the older girl in the middle of her forehead when she leaned in.

"You idiot! You shouldn't risk using the stairwell so close to a Tuning, not in your delicate condition!"

"Bah. See if I buy you anything next time I go out! Ingrate. Though we're gonna have to change our plans for your big day out... that restaurant really wasn't that great. So not worth it."

Group 3-109 "The Fat Controller"

He'd had a name once, but when the good ol' Doc had said he could request an alternate, he thought he made a bloody good choice of it. A bit of nostalgia, a welcome reminiscence of home. A joke for anyone who had been taken from the right time period to get it. And he'd only chosen it cos of his job. There was some sort of reason for it, he knew. Something about memories, and instability, and keeping track of it all being much easier than trying to rewrite everything.

But he wasn't a scientist, or an academic. He was just very good at what he did. Trains. Underground, and the few normal and raised lines. Buses. They told him where they needed things, what sort of fare adjustments they wanted. And The Fat Controller would get it done. Trains were only late when they were supposed to be. In all these years running, he'd never had a complaint once.

Well, a complaint from any of the customers that mattered. But running on time and charging the right amount wasn't the only trick he did. He kept their access paths clean and secure, using his camera systems and mind-wiped employees. He had the Express Service – a moment of genius, that – just running around. It helped to build that... oh, what the hell was it? That's right. Suspension of disbelief. One of the fiction consultants to the Doc was always ragging on about maintaining persona and faith in the illusion of The City.

Group three was full of fucking nutters. The Fat Controller was just happy that he got to spend most of his days isolated in the office with his rail charts and efficiency statistics. He was good at it all and it was a joy to be not only maintaining a transport system, but testing new limits and having the freedom to explore new ideas.

And the fake accidents were fun, too. Nobody hardly ever got hurt in them. It was all the Doc's idea. Perceived peril, and testing the perception of mortality. They sometimes had whole weeks of it, cascades of disasters and sometimes even "wars". The propaganda posters were modelled after Earth's own old ones, and some were just so optimistic and cheesy that he had kept copies of them. He couldn't hang them up or let them be seen, but sometimes he liked to unlock his private safe and unroll them on the floor. Standing down and looking at the various lies that The City had worn in its time gave him a sense of history and purpose that he'd never found before the abduction. All those people, those wide smiles.

If the subjects did get damaged too much when they were killed, then his bosses wouldn't be happy. They liked their corpses to be clean and as natural looking as possible. Made them more... comfortable. So it was also The Fat Controller's job to handle the suicides with care. He conferred with the Doc, and some of the others in Group three. They co-ordinated schedules and dossiers and knowledge. They faked train schedules and likely jumpers' psychological profiles, so that they could use dummy cars and lights and mirrors. They weren't allowed to interfere in the experiment – so any jumper near a real train would be flattened into a sack of bruised meat and bone – but they were allowed to mitigate the damage to the cadavers.

So there were tricks, and oh what tricks. Netting and pistons and padded fake walls. Stunner darts and early warning systems. Nice, sharp needles that brought painless death. They'd already chosen to die, right? So it wasn't murder. More like euthanasia. Much better than the drawn out deaths some seemed to have. Pulsing and broken and spilled out all over the rails. People didn't die fast from a hit from a train. Not if they didn't break their heads open. Fast enough, of course. They wouldn't last ten minutes. But what a ten minutes. Guttural groans and squeals of pain and horror. The sick look of some of it...

The Fat Controller would spare people that, if he could. So when he was on-shift, there was a lot to be prepared for. But he'd heard rumours, recently, of restructuring of the control groups. He knew he mightn't be around for much longer. At least, not like he was. He might be imprinted and entered into the experiment. Or placed in solitary. Or placed in charge of one of the tasks that required more contact with the other Groups... or even simply demoted.

Simons, the sensible man who was far too humourless and cold to be able to run the station properly... Simons who could never anticipate the needs of their alien taskmasters and the human test subjects... Simons had been trying to get his way more often.

Only last week, The Fat Controller had caught him in the office. Tampering with requisition orders for supplies for the suicide recovery carriages. And sometimes, there were strange unexpected alterations to the bus routes. It reeked of subterfuge and mutiny. He'd had his careful eye on Simons for a while, now.

But he couldn't afford to spend all day wool-gathering like this! The Fat Controller checked the displays on his computers, made sure that all the trains and drivers and conductors and ticket sellers and security staff were where they were supposed to be. The bustle of the workday carried him through the hours, and when he felt the tug of sleepiness he could hardly remember why he'd been so worked up in the first place.

Group 4-012 "Aubrey"

Aubrey liked to think of himself as something of an artist. Sure, he had only ever held dead-end jobs in a dead-end lifeless chunk of asteroid, floating and morphing in space at the hands of indescribable aliens that rode in the corpses of failed experiments... but within those parameters, he was a very creative and independent young man.

He liked tweed. He wasn't sure what about it spoke to him of whimsy and freedom and self expression. Maybe it was the fine curvature of the elbow patches on the jacket, or the soft occasional flecks of colour in the wool of his socks. But like it he did. And like it the ladies did, quite often. Or maybe it was just his force of personality. Whatever it was, when Aubrey dressed to the nines and cupped his bowler hat in the palm of his hand, bowing his head a little with a cheeky smile, the girls looked.

He liked to do things properly. Not everyone in Group Four exploited their freedom properly. Some of them just lay about the building and did needlework or gossiped or cried in the shower and hoped no-one heard them. Audrey made sure he made the effort, though. He had had a series of jobs. When changes were made, he received notification on very nice paper inside sealed envelopes that were discreetly and discretely addressed. Though the aliens that had abducted him were a little creepy, they did have an understanding of how things were meant to be done. A man like Aubrey could respect someone like that, no matter how strangely they behaved in person.

When he stepped out one dark and deliciously gloomy morning, swinging his hat onto his head with a practised arc of his left arm, he had no idea that the next week of his life would change everything forever. He traipsed happily along the sidewalk, waving hello to the people that retained the same imprints as the day before – it was such a pain when the newsagent changed, because Aubrey had to start right from scratch all over again there – and sometimes glancing upwards at the stars.

They were no closer than they had been on Earth, when he was a young child. The atmosphere here was just as efficient, and if they had been closer it would have been daylight all over the place, but there was something about just knowing that they were all spinning in space like a lost chunk of driftwood that made space feel so much more open and near.

The bus was a little late picking him up, which put a damper in his mood. But then he heard a marvellous conversation on the bus between two teenagers. They were talking about their summer vacations, that they'd just come back from. In Shell Beach.

Oh good old Shell Beach! It made him want to laugh out loud every time he heard it. He bit his lip, and stared out through the grimy window beside him at the city that flashed past. Anachronistic and wonderful, just incredible!

He quite liked the job that he had at the moment. It suited his sensibilities. His aesthetics. He was filling in for a stray test subject who had gone bonkers and thrown himself in front of a car, of all things. The man had been a club manager, and Aubrey had happily taken the job. One of those old-world style things. A boy's club, no women allowed. High-backed chairs and fireplaces and very expensive meals. The dress code was a bit lax, but he didn't mind. The work itself was perfection itself. All his favourite parts of life; interacting with the test subjects, indulging in a little refined drinking and enjoying the more sultry assets of the women that came in to sing in the jazz lounge on Saturday nights.

He'd checked his schedule, made sure it was synchronous with The City's master timekeeping, and there was no doubt about it; today was Saturday.

Aubrey smiled and tipped his had and chuffed hellos to the regulars he'd been getting used to. Soon enough, there would be a new subject ready for implantation into the role as club manager, and Aubrey's time would be up. But it was nice to get the recognition while it lasted.

He dealt with the books, paid off a few of the dirtier elements of society, and reviewed the hopeful applicants and their character references. But his heart really wasn't in it. He lived for Saturdays. Anytime now, he might have them snatched away. But for the moment, he was buzzing with anticipation. Sunday "morning" he would wake up depressed and hopeless, knowing that he would most likely never have another Saturday at the club again.

Oh he really couldn't focus. Honestly, it wasn't worth the pain. He left his bits and pieces in his office and headed downstairs to the jazz lounge.

And lo and behold, they had imprinted a new singer, the naughty boys downstairs! There was something familiar about her, but Audrey couldn't quite place it. She wasn't like the usual girls, either. No cool gaze of a professional singer. This... woman, she was nothing but a woman... she had more to her imprint than any before her.

There was a quick flickering desperation and vulnerability in her eyes. When she sung, her voice wasn't strong or lovely. It was faint and weak and broke in strange places. It worked with the music, but it had Aubrey wondering insatiably what had gone into making her up. Whether she'd been recruited by the staff here, or planted by the real big players in this game.

After her set, he had her sent to his office. He couldn't help himself. There was something so compelling about her that he couldn't resist. She showed up a few minutes after he did, looking a little shell-shocked and startled.

"Hello."

She let her eyes flicker across his face, then they began to dart all around the room.

"Are you all right?" Aubrey leant forwards and let his elbows rest heavily on the arms of his chair. "I can get you something to drink, if you..."

She shook her head. Her blonde curls shivered with the motion. "No, no thank you. I... I'm fine. This is just... you don't want me to..."

Aubrey wrinkled his nose in confusion. "What? Oh. Oh. Oh no, I'm a confirmed bachelor, my dear."

He actually didn't really care for either sex. Though he did love the attention, anything biological was just a bit too damp and squelching for his sensibilities. Not that she needed to know that; the poor thing probably was just scared of sexual predators.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" She sat down abruptly in the chair opposite him, and uncurled her fingers from around a purse, setting it on the desk as if she was afraid of it. "I've just been having the strangest dreams lately, and I'm feeling very unsettled."

"Oh? Well I'm in the business of keeping secrets, you can trust me."

She smiled briefly at him, but shook her head again. "No. I mean, I'm worried that they'll... this is really stupid of me, you know? I'm worried that they'll come back and do that to me again. It's just a nightmare, but I..."

Aubrey lay a calming hand across hers and made a sympathetic noise. "Hmm, yes. I know from my own experience that sometimes nightmares can seem more real than reality itself."

She gasped, and calmed somewhat. Her eyes fixed keenly on his. "Well maybe it won't hurt if I tell you, then. Do you have a light?"

He lit her cigarette in a well practised and elegant move. She took a moment to calm herself before beginning.

"It's always the same dream. Or similar, really. I'm in this trance, sort of. My eyes are closed and I can't move my body, but I'm intensely aware of the room around me."

Aubrey nodded.

"It's always a different room, too." She took a long drag of her cigarette and watched the smoke drift lazily towards the ceiling. "And I'm always a different person, if that even makes sense?"

"Oh you'd be surprised how much sense that makes to me." he confided in her.

"Then this man enters. He sometimes looks rushed or scared, other times he's injured or angry or crying. The only thing that's the same is his bag. A big, leather doctor's bag. He clicks it open, and I know that I've been hearing that sound in my sleep every night since I was born, maybe. Long enough, at least."

Her fingers were beginning to shake. Aubrey got up, feeling a little uncomfortable. He'd known there were strays, but he'd never spoken to one before. Never met one. This woman seemed like she was on the verge of breaking out of her imprint.

He fetched them both a good strong glass of scotch. She didn't drink hers, just held it. Aubrey couldn't watch the way the liquid lapped at the sides of the glass as her arm shivered, so he focused his eyes on the expensive wallpaper and the greenish shadows that his desk lamp cast across the floor.

"He pulls out a syringe, and oh God... it's too terrible. It's full of this liquid. Straw-coloured and I learnt, in a first-aid course, that's the colour of the liquid in your brain. And he lines it up carefully. He cups my skull in the palm of his hand gently, so very gently. Then he pierces me with it. The pain begins from where he shoves it in – this hot circle in my forehead. I can't feel how deep it goes, but I can feel the pressure of it and hear the sound it makes as it slides through the bone."

Her voice shook and trembled and fell over itself, unstoppable. Aubrey felt just as terrified as she did. He couldn't have interrupted if his life had depended on it.

"Then he begins to push. I can hear the small cracks and creaks as something enters my brain. I can hear the planes of my skull shifting and aching like the hull of a ship, with the pressure. And then it radiates. Hot full sharp pain in my head. It's my entire world. My eyes are shut, and it all looks red. I can feel something running out through my ears and my nose. I'm falling out, and now there are these huge cracking sounds. Too much pressure, too much, and I'm lost!"

They both jumped in their seats as her cup fell from limp fingers and cracked against the leg of her chair. Glass and scotch on her lovely looking shoes, a damp tear in her stocking.

"I mean, it's like I can feel my entire identity being erased. Just pain, and these strangers looming all around me, and being unable to move or protect myself, and I-"

The door to the office opened. One of the aliens was looking disgruntled, and was holding Dr. Schreber by the upper arm. He shoved the lame man forwards until he stumbled and took the few steps towards the woman.

Aubrey wanted to stay and watch, he felt he owed her that much, but then as the good doctor was sliding the syringe into her, her words washed over Aubrey. The pain and the pressure and the horror of it all. He didn't have to see the betrayed and shocked look in her eyes to hate himself.

He ran. He lost a shoe somewhere in the hallway, and ended up getting his sock wet with an unknowable disgusting puddle of something. But it didn't matter anywhere near as much as it might have that morning. Even if there had been a way to join the test subjects, he knew now. He knew there was a possibility that you didn't stay unconscious during the Tuning. Just inactive. That there was a chance that everyone out there felt it, every day of their lives.

So there was no choice, really. He'd never voluntarily become imprinted. Which left only one other option. Carrying on. Knowing every time he woke up that that had happened to everyone – every man and woman and child – in what counted for his world these days.

He begged off work, and he was pretty sure that his face looked considerably ill enough to convince everyone of the floor staff. He shoved his cold sodden foot into his shoe, collected his clothing, and made his way home. There was note from Dr. Schreber on very nice card, with immaculate handwriting and presentation. It was done splendidly, and was very succinct. I am sorry, it read. Aubrey sneered at it, spat on it and threw it into his toilet bowl. Then he stripped off his tweed and left it crumpled on the floor as he climbed into his bathtub. Maybe if he cried into the water, nobody else in the building would hear him. Privacy was all that was left to him.

Group 5-112 "Simons"

Simons was pretty sure that everyone from Group three was utterly mad. For starters, he'd never once seen The Fat Controller leave the station headquarters. That had partly been why the job Simons had had come up for grabs: The Fat Controller had asked The Strangers to allow for the recruitment of a lower Group member, to be a gopher. To begin with, Simons had simply carried notes between the station and the various stations of the other Group three members.

But as The Fat Controller's mind slowly derailed, Simons took on more and more. The old man was a dear, but he was paranoid and round the twist and never left his office anymore. He didn't use phones or speakers. He only slid his instructions out from his office in sealed envelopes. Simons had to walk past on the hour, no matter what he was doing at the time, just in case there came the swish and plastic flick of the packages being pushed out. The Fat Controller wouldn't let go of the envelopes until Simons had tugged the requisite number of times, cleared his throat, and knocked in the right pattern.

It all seemed a bit much, really. But then again, Simons hadn't had the misfortune of meeting their overlords in person since processing. So maybe madness came with prolonged exposure to those cool clammy animated corpses.

Today, the envelope from 9am had said that Simons was to tweak the Express service to run slower between the platforms. Apparently some of the subjects were beginning to question the veracity of the service; delays and announcements would make the whole thing seem a bit more human and natural.

Simons exhaled sharply. No matter what you did, you couldn't really make The City seem human. It was too good. That was the problem. There was something in the imprinted prisoners – and they were all prisoners, no doubt about it, even those lucky enough to be Control Group members – that was able to recognise the complete and utter synthetic nature of life. There were too many limitations on disasters and a lot of what their masters perceived as "threats" to the success of the experiment were probably the individuals and events and thoughts that would reveal whatever it was about humanity that was so eluding the research team.

Unless, of course, the Control Groups were the ones being tested. It had crossed Simon's mind more than once before. That maybe the real test wasn't regarding the nature of human identity and memory, but the actual boundaries of human sanity. What made the line between coherent conscious thought and mindless madness? When did a human cease to be human?

The different levels of Control Groups that Simons were aware of seemed pretty in-line with that idea. Some in charge of running the city, making choices about life and death. Some under effective house-arrest for all or part of their lives. There were middle-men like Simons and those in his apartment block, who were allowed to work underneath Group three. And others who were planted in day-jobs all over the city, gaining varied and unique experiences with the city's inhabitants.

Drat, he was late! He hurried to the employee's tea-room, lucky enough to run into Jack. Jack was doing the express on the shift about to start, and it was easy enough to brief him on the changes. There would be time for Simons to sit down and write a memo for the entire team after he'd taken his 10am walk-by.

Nothing, this time. Simons frowned at the door, and got on with his day. Not that he minded less work, or that he expected any more envelopes before his shift ended, but...

But he worried about the old man. It had almost been fun, some days, with the joking around and that wide heartfelt smile. He'd stride up and down the platforms; walk with Simons and the other Group fivers and tell them stories about his childhood on earth in the tearoom. They all had stories, but compared to The Fat Controller, they were so young. Just by virtue of age, he could remember trivia about all the aspects of The City. Point out a car on the street, and he could tell you which decade it had come from, which country. Whether it had ever been applauded or debased in Top Gear Magazine.

Work was a little lonely without him around. Everyone felt it. Or rather, they hadn't felt it before then. They'd had a job to do, and a life to live. The slow degradation of The Fat Controller's mind and soul had left everyone noticing the worse things about life. That old warmth felt like it had been leeched out through the concrete walls.

"Nice weather today, Simons!" Sammy, a ticket seller, called out after him as he left the main station at the end of his shift.

"Oh?" He hadn't really been looking or thinking about it. It had been that long since the last rainstorm. They only came when absolutely necessary for an experiment or effect, but now that he'd had the heads-up he could see the tell-tale signs. A shiny wetness clinging to the stairs up to street level, the humid cool smell of damp wool coats and the scowls of passengers with wet socks inside their shoes.

"Hope it lingers long enough for you to enjoy it." he called back over his shoulder.

"You and me both, boss!"

Simons didn't like being called that. It made him feel even more certain that his mind was next in line for derangement and psychosis. He pulled his jacket tighter and hurried up the steps. If it was raining, then his chances were good. Well, maybe not good, but better than usual. He'd have a while until tuning, and he'd be more likely to find the good doctor.

He got himself a coffee on the way, the thin paper letting it burn hot against his wet cold fingers. When he looked up to the sky, blinking through the soft falling rain, he couldn't see the stars for the clouds. It gave him more courage.

He found Dr. Schreber on his way to a café, halfway between his office and a very nice and affordable place. Simons had gone there with a girl, once, but he'd never been able to ask her out for a second date. She hadn't answered her phone, and he'd seen her a week later at work, wearing a long red dress and a pained smile. She hadn't been the life-hardened and sweet girl he'd started to fall for; she'd been re-imprinted as a refined and elegant lady and he hadn't had the courage to meet her.

"Ah, Simons. It has been a while since I've seen anyone from the Transport services."

Simons slowed to allow for the doctor's limp and walked with him. They had sat down and ordered dinner before Simons had caught up with himself. He'd have to word things very carefully, in a place like this. He couldn't mention any, ahem, sensitive names or subjects.

"So, how are things at the station, then?"

Simon shrugged. "Same old, really. Though I am a bit worried about the big man."

Dr. Schreber's smile fell a little. He quickly turned his attention to his sandwich.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I haven't seen him in a week or so myself, you see. I know he hates to see any... er, medical professionals, but there has to be something I can do to help him."

There wasn't any reply. Now that Simons had got the bad news out, neither of them felt much like eating.

"I'll... see what I can do. Though I of course cannot promise very much." Dr. Schreber replied slowly, and with a very exhausted look to his eyes. "And I am so very sorry, I do mean it."

Simons had bit into his burger and he chewed vigorously, swallowed so quickly it hurt. "Oh it's hardly your fault, Doctor. I mean, we all have our jobs to do, our own problems. We're all as much to blame as you are."

And Simon really did mean it. He knew, without a doubt in that moment, that at at least some point in their lives everyone in the Control Groups must have realised that guilt, that feeling of having betrayed their species.

"You are too kind, Simons. Thank you."

Simons could tell from the catch in Dr. Schreber's voice that the man really didn't believe him. Simons wondered who on earth the man went to, when he had his own psychological problems. The moment sat heavy between them, as they finished their food.

"Nice weather we're having, though."

The Doctor shifted in his seat so that he could twist without jarring his bad leg. They watched the lights from the street glistening in the raindrops on the glass of the café window.

"Yes, it is. It is indeed."

Group 6-985 "Betty" - Note, only answers to "E240"

They liked paper. She had no idea why. She'd been ripped clean from her perfectly good computing degree and comfortable plastic keyboard. And now? She was filing. They could tune half of this crap themselves, but they did so like to have something for their Control Groups to do. If they'd consulted her, she'd have told them right where they could shove her: in an unlit room with halfway decent network. All she needed was, what? Twelve people or so, with the right brains. They'd share their knowledge and have a clone of Doom or maybe even Counterstrike. They could spread time-wasting joy to the masses of the free-range and battery caged Control Groups.

But no, they liked clockwork and jazz bands and paper. So instead of doing something useful, she was copying personal information regarding the subjects due for routine re-imprinting. She took a file from the pile on the right-hand side of her desk. She placed an index card in her typewriter, and filled in the most important information. Their address, name, age, and imprint catalogue numbers. It felt infinitely redundant, because E240 knew that the Vinyl Bondage Kink Party From Mars And Beyond were tweaking the test subjects daily. That their knowledge and ability to tune and orchestrate this whole thing in the first place implied wetware capable of much faster communication, much better data storage...

Ahh fuck. And she hated how used to this crap she was getting. Her hair had used to get tangled in the letters as she typed. Now she tied it back. Her nail polish had all chipped off, and it really felt hollow and empty settling for anything less than radioactive green.

They had said she could choose whatever name she wanted. She'd looked out across the processing room, and sneaked a peak at the names people were choosing. All stupid boring pop-culture references from whatever time period they had come from. There hadn't been any reason why she shouldn't do the same. She'd gouged "Acid Burn" into her form with jagged gashing motions of her pencil.

And they'd registered her official name as "Betty". She'd refused to answer to anything or talk to anyone until she'd been at her job for a week, and had been set to the task of cross-referencing chocolate bar wrappers with their additive codes. Again, a simple job that the cunts had already probably done. No reason to have started their experiment without the right snacks in the supermarkets, after all. But it was the best job she'd had. She'd found her favourite banned additive, E240, and had spent a year or two educating her Group-mates and introducing herself to new people with that. Anything was better than Betty, after all. She hoped it made whichever undead bastard that was assigned to handle her Group well and truly sick of her.

It was a bit like culture jamming, except there wasn't any culture here that wasn't jammed. So it was really more like a personal joke. When she'd told Dr. Freudian about her change, he'd broken character from his usual tortured patience and stoicism to smile broadly at her. He'd recognised what it meant, of course. The smart wanker.

A few months after, old game manuals and scraps of paper with hand-written code on them had begun appearing in her in-tray. Hidden in the files she was due to process. It had been about the same time she'd been put into the re-imprinting department, and every time she stared without any comprehension at the broken eggshells of computing genius she felt an exultant bliss.

She mightn't be able to recover the life that she'd lost, or even the self that she'd known. But she could fucking well hold on with her fingernails dug in and her legs kicking at the people who had brought her down.

So maybe she liked paper too, a little. If she'd been working on electronic documents, there might have been more logging and surveillance. Less chances for Dr. Freudian to slip her titbits. Yeah, she could live with that. They probably would have erased memories of good games anyway, and she'd have been stuck with a truckfull of ET cartridges and an X-box, with not a compatible or playable thing in sight.

She had almost made her quota for the month, so she was taking it slowly. Rewriting in dot-point shorthand form some hilariously bad slash fanfiction she'd once read. Something, anything, to keep her mind suspended in a daydream of a life worth living.

She'd heard a noise in the corridor, so she'd snapped back to attention and slipped her slim notebook between her thighs. As the unnaturally even footsteps made their way past – probably four of the zombies from the sounds of it – she stuck another index card into her machine and flipped the next file open, copying the words automatically. Name, Chronological age at Day 1 of experiment, Sex, Imprint Catalogue numbers, any notes added to the file since last imprint.

Ping. Out that card went with a sliding wrenching of the analogue device. If E240 pretended she was in a Steampunk webcomic, it almost didn't feel as backwards and slow as it truly was. Almost. And another copy of the same. One for the file, one slit into the box in spatial order.

According to the numbered grids of The City, she fit the people in beside each other. If anyone ever really did use those cards – she had no idea where they ended up, probably in another room like this with another member of Group six – then they'd find the information organised just right, so that the end-user could plan out their path through The City and structure the Tuning to minimise risk for the imprinting teams.

The footsteps had long passed and faded by the time that she was done with that file, so when she found the scrap of paper she felt no fear or trepidation. Just an electric high. She smoothed her fingers over it possessively, then let herself get a better look at it.

And it made no sense to her. Not in the usual way. Not in a messy cut-off tag-soup kind of way. Not in a the way that she'd never really learnt Perl properly. But in a this-isn't-mine way. It was a block of text, of prose. Not fanfiction or anything recognisable. Just... words.

Confused, she followed her usual procedure. She folded it up carefully and palmed it while pretending to return it to the file. She held it tight in the join between her thumb and finger as she carried the file to the out tray. She fetched herself a glass of water and leant casually against the wall, letting the hand that was holding the paper relax into a fist.

She returned to her desk, and flipped open the next file. She sighed. She scratched one calf with the toe of her shoe. She swore, and flicked her fingers against the file, rolled her neck, then smoothly leant down quickly and scratched at her ankle.

When she came back up, the paper was securely wedged in her boot. She kicked her legs under the desk as she finished her work for the day, letting the paper sink deeper until it was painful uncomfortable under her heel.

When she'd got home and was hopeful she wasn't being directly observed; the couple across the hall were having a domestic, and Voltron knew that the fuckwits in charge loved their soapies! She unfolded the paper, slid it into an open book and lay down in bed to read it.

It was completely random crap. A kid's book. No, wait... a kid's story that mentioned a hidden code. Using code-words that involved communication – phones and ringing and bells – to mark the start and end of a passage, every tenth word in a specially written format was the true message.

Interesting. It felt like a very old-school ARG, albeit one that probably began and ended within the one book. E240 almost wished that there were page markings or chapter headers that might help her track down the whole book. But the edges of the paper were torn ragged, and she had no hope of a lucky guess. The City library wasn't open most of the time, due to the darkness in the sky.

Although, maybe...? Hmm. She didn't slip the page into her shoe-box of infornography, but took it with herself into the bathroom. She chewed on it. She picked it apart into tiny bits and shat on it, and flushed that down the drain.

Only then did she let the apprehension and excitement pull her downstairs to her letterbox. She flipped off a few of the building's less than froopy inhabitants, and returned triumphant to her room with three envelopes.

There was a bill. There was notification of scheduled holidays for various sections of Group 6; hers was due in a fortnight. There was an unmarked and unaddressed envelope.

E240 turned it over and over in her hands. When she couldn't bear the delicious feeling crawling around under her skin anymore she tore it open. The letter was typewritten. So fresh you could almost smell the bite of the keys and hear the snap-whirr of it all.

It mentioned and anecdote about finding one's calling. She inhaled, gasped and with an open mouth and her tongue poking against her bottom lip scanned down. There, near the bottom. Give us a bell.

She read the whole thing from top to bottom, repeating the words in her head as she reached the count.

you. need To be careful Groups and Numbers mean nothing In the hierarchy Keep your position eye will want Your skills creating new Memories.

It was a little cryptic, to be sure. But Dr. Freudian was the only guy who'd send her stuff like this. Who would have known, been able to set her up for this. She could tell, now, that the gifts and favours had been to groom her for whatever he wanted.

But creating new memories? Needing her skills? What skills, she just processed information about imprinting schedules, and...

Aha! Well, yes. In that case, groom away, Mr. Psycho-pomp. She only hoped that she'd be useful, and looked forward very much to making beautiful new memories for everyone in The City. Hack the fucking planet!

Group 7-574 "Charlie"

Word had been getting around. Not everywhere, mind, but the places that counted. You could see it in the spring of some people's steps, and there was the metallic bloody taste of life and optimism in the air. Although the preparations were being handled mainly in independent cell groups and tasks were being distributed to give everyone plausible ignorance if they were caught at it, you could tell that it was soon.

Charlie had been dating Alice for a year, though they'd never touched – she'd had an abusive ex before her abduction – and as they met for their weekly lunch with some others from the Group 2 and 4 apartment buildings you could hardly see for all the glittering smiles and bright eyes. Change was in the air. The Groupies, as he liked to think of them all in their friendship, had a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives.

Even the tell-tale swirl to his drink, a reminder of all that The City and the experiment was in their lives, couldn't bring him down. A young man with thick, dark curling hair leant over Charlie's shoulder to take away some of their empty plates. They didn't have to order cake, because they had a good amount of time before this waiter was due for an imprint. It was a bit of a pain, when suddenly there were new staff and menus, but this diner was pretty consistent compared to some places.

Maybe it was just diner food? Maybe it came prepared, pre-tuned to the same or similar standards. Who knew. Alice was laughing and smiling, without a glimpse of the usual ache and guilt that haunted the corner of her eyes. The shadows that she usually covered up with makeup were gone, and Charlie felt swollen inside with exultation. He hadn't realised how important her happiness was to him, until he'd been able to see her truly happy.

The cakes came, and everyone jostled and argued. Like a big family, bickering and laughing. He wanted to capture this moment, just in case everything fell apart. Life in this place had been absolute hell to begin with, and hearing the stories and rumours of the effect of imprinting on its victims – the pain and agony and the doubt as to whether the human minds really did sleep – hadn't made the situation any worse for any Groupies, and especially not Charlie's friends.

If they failed, if for some reason they were killed or imprinted, what then?

He had no idea. Whatever it was, it would be a guilt and despondency worse than he'd ever felt before. So he had to soak this up. This feeling like sunlight on his skin and the smell of the fresh clean ocean. Because he was one of the weakest links.

Alice shot him a slightly confused glance, and he smiled at her. There were only a few people in Group seven who were in on it. Less people at that level made it easier. Group seven had a very high turnover. Suicides. Members of the other groups – the groups with children and young adults – had been supplying intake needs. But pretty soon they'd have to liaise with Group three, get someone on to birthrates in the Control groups, or they'd be having to create far more stable imprints than they were capable of.

Charlie's job, was something only people inside Group seven knew about. They knew some of the secrets about the nature of imprinting. How memories worked. When presented with stimuli, the brain fills in the gaps and creates patterns.

They had had the foresight to store and copy imprint bases for the personalities of all the inhabitants of the city, at the start of the project. But there simply hadn't been the psychological knowledge that Dr. Schreber had brought in once he'd accustomed himself to the parameters and done some background research. They'd completely forgotten about the small connectors. Give a person information about themselves and their life, and they'd play along for a while.

But the key to stable imprinting was the small things. So Group seven drank very good coffee. They sat around looking at flowers and daydreaming and masturbating and stubbing their toes and being ten cents short of their bus fare. Then they had those moment removed, and copied, and redistributed throughout the populace.

So, of course Group seven had a pretty damn high suicide rate. It was better now that they'd found ways to retain the memories of the group without erasing them. Imprinting in the Groups wasn't really done, and it had taken Charlie years to recover his sense of self. Longer before they'd let him out of the isolation cells under The City and back into society.

Now, he gathered social memories. Shared something very human with the rest of his entire world. Falling for Alice had been scary at first – what if men started knocking at her door? But that mixture of longing and hope, wistfulness and protectiveness was a hit in marriage and dating imprints. Charlie's social life was pretty valuable to The City.

Which was why he was taking the risk that he was. He was copying impressions on-the-sly. Glimpses of The City, awareness of its workings, what knowledge he had of tuning and everything he'd been able to learn. He hid them in vials in a secret place underground, and they were never there when he made his following dropoff. He hoped that someone really was picking them up and seeding these thoughts and ideas in imprints. He refused to believe that the human uprising was something being orchestrated by their alien overlords. He needed to.

He needed to be making this world a safer place for Alice, and Skye, and everyone that was sitting at the table with him.

Someone, not him, had paid the bill. People were standing. He felt stupid for letting himself drift off like that, for not making the most of the moments that were left to him. But when he moved to follow everyone out the door, he felt his breath catch in his throat.

A small gentle, shy hand was pressing into his. Weaving fingers together. He squeezed back as hard as he dared, and didn't let go of Alice until he'd walked her right up to her apartment door.

Group 8-006 "Victoria"

She'd heard the rumours of dissent and rebellion, but she'd ignored them. Life on Earth hadn't ever been very good, not for any of them. Humanity was a species that was forever oppressing and being oppressed. Slavery, whether it was called by that name or by "Made in China". Bans against interracial marriage, inter-religious marriage, and homosexual marriage. Censorship in the name of art, and art in the name of a price-tag.

They had different masters, sure. But was being fed and kept in a cage any worse for humanity on average than any human rights violations or resource crises in the past? Victoria did not think so. She'd been called a cold clinical bitch back home for her views on humanity. But she maintained her faith in them. She'd been glad that the concept of industrial space-travel was far off because she knew that the second that humans found alternative resources and just one M-class planet the whole universe would be devastated.

With the concept of infinite resources and infinite economic growth, the wake-up call to re-assess human modes of life and social paradigms would be forgotten. All sense and wisdom would be lost. All hope for a future.

So, travelling through space was a bit depressing. But doing so at the hands and will of unidentifiable aliens with hidden motives was not. That was highly reassuring. The humans in this experimental toy of a city had been taken from all different time periods, and not yet had any she met shown any awareness of space travel or extra-terrestrial life.

That her aliens could travel through time was also reassuring. If her species was to ruin life for everyone, at least there were people out there with superior knowledge and technology who could mitigate damages.

She perhaps wasn't the most suitable person to be in a Group. She had very abnormal views on life and identity and happiness, compared to the humans that her aliens wanted to study. And they were her aliens. Because she had felt that she could not feel safe about the future of the universe without them, and then there they had been.

The members of Group eight answered questions, and asked their own. It was what they were good at. Some of them sometimes visited Group one, but Victoria had never wanted to. Humanity was overrated. It was these strangers that fascinated her. The rumour was that they inhabited the bodies of the dead – a rumour the strangers did nothing to discourage – but Victoria knew there was more to it than that.

"How do you animate them? Do you simply tune the body's blood and organs to function, the muscles to relax and contract? Or do you operate thin shells, full of nothing but your ethereal self?"

Mr. Hand had tilted his head to the side, the lighting in the underground room casting the wrinkles in his skin into strange shadows and ridges. "The brain controls the functions of the body, yes? This has not changed."

She frowned in consternation. They were very good at giving non-answers.

"I mean-"

Mr. Hand gave her a silent look, one that always meant that he required silence and attention. That she was being chastised. "You must know after all these years that you will not receive any answer that can satisfy you. We do not intend to frustrate you, of course..."

"Oh, of course."

"We simply have concerns that providing too much information at this time may corrupt your usefulness to us."

Victoria leaned forwards and let her eyes fall onto his wipe-clean fetishistic coat. She wondered if it was heavy to wear, or if it was simply light and practical PVC. Like a walking, belted-in body bag. She shuddered. She did not like the idea of Mr. Hand's body lying lifeless and empty on the ground. She liked the idea of his body having had somebody else in it even less. There was something about it that fit him very well.

"In that case, may I ask further questions of you today?"

Mr. Hand nodded in his detached manner. "Yes."

He agreed so readily that Victoria felt at a loss for words. She had the feeling that they – and Mr. Hand in particular – liked provoking those reactions from her. Confusion, shyness, anger... anything vulnerable and unpredictable, and you could almost guarantee that Mr. Hand would be revising the case notes or interrupting Victoria's regular schedule to enquire further.

Today, he had allowed magnanimously, was payback. Her time to ask questions.

"I understand that your bodies affect your distaste for humidity, but why photophobia?"

He stared evenly at her. He was probably touching base with the gestalt mind, deciding what best to reply with. His voice, when he spoke, sounded distant and detached. Victoria realised with amusement that by their strange standards of behaviour, Mr. Hand had been letting it all hang out. His voice had been lilting and amused, his eyes alive and alert. Not like the empty blankness that he became in an instant.

"We are simply not accustomed to the light. It is unpleasant. Also, the darkness is a key aspect of the experiment. Though we could work under lit conditions, it would not be desirable."

"I see."

She didn't know what to say, then. The reminder that they shared a hive-mind, a collective awareness, made her feel irrationally reluctant to speak. She had been enjoying her conversation with Mr. Hand and resented the thought that they might be listening in.

"What are you thinking?"

She sighed. If they were going to solve the problem with humanity then she should best be honest with them. "I was wondering about the effect that communicating with others of your species has on you."

If he'd had eyebrows, one would have been raised. "Yes?" He prompted.

"Do you synchronise awareness, or share a gestalt awareness? You've never explained it properly to me..."

"We would not want to corrupt the data..."

"Yes." She said it before he could, feeling a bit of a tingle in her chest as a frustrated look flickered across his face. When she was allowed these moments alone with him like this, she was scared more by the humanity in him than the strange.

Group 9-305 "Josephine"

Jo craved the warmth of the sun on her skin. She wasn't quite sure why, but she did. She had moved to the city from Shell Beach ten years ago now for work, and the opportunity for a weekend back home had never come up.

Sure, her mother and grandmother had caught the express in. They had stepped off smelling of salt and grass, suitcases full of gifts. Home-made jam, photographs of sunset and storms from the verandah of their house. Sometimes messy handmade pictures that her daughter had drawn.

Her daughter visited about once a month. Jo would have liked for it to be more, but with the hole inside her heart that the custody battles had torn open, she didn't have much fight left in her. So her ex dropped Jemmie off every access day to Shell Beach, and when Jo could get time off of work Jo's mum would bring Jemmie into town on the train.

Never often enough. But her small flat was full of photographs and pictures, and life could indeed be very much worse. She could have lost custody completely due to her drinking. She might have never found another job again, with the things in her medical file. Her psychological problems. If she had, it mightn't have been as stable or paid as well as her current one.

It was just contract cleaning. Anonymous and detached, she'd seen hundreds of faces and places. She'd seen renovations to apartments as parts of the city became more affluent that must have cost more money than her entire life had. Including the house at Shell Beach, the flat, Jemmie's school fees, the booze and the psychologist's appointments.

Jo closed her eyes and scratched the back of her neck, feeling claustrophobic on the bus she rode. One more stop till she could get off.

It was so good of Dr. Schreber to allow her to have these appointments in the evening. He gave her medication for her addiction and depression and anxiety that made her sleepy, that warped her sense of time. He'd also found her a cheap watch. It wasn't much, but she'd come to rely on it to pinpoint when in her day she was. It got her to work, and to her appointments. It got her to the phone for her scheduled contact with Jemmie.

She really couldn't thank the doctor enough for what he'd done for her. Turned her life right around. She knocked on his office door, expecting to hear his uneven limp and his smiling greetings. But there was nothing. There were no lights on behind the frosted glass of his door. In fact, now that she thought about it, there were none of the sounds that usually accompanied the world.

There was a loud crashing noise. Screams. Jo would have thought it was an earthquake, but there was no motion in the ground. Was it a mud-slide, a tidal wave? Everyone knew that with global warming and increased consumerism the occurrence of natural disasters was increasing.

Or was it an attack? Jo thought two things. First, she thanked all that was good and holy that she hadn't got the time off that morning; Jemmie was still with Jo's family at Shell Beach. Safe. The second was that she should see what she could see. She took a step along the hallway, making for the small window at the end. But before she could see anything other than the façade of the building opposite, there was a grinding groaning sound.

She saw something move, twist, in the distance. Her eyes could not focus enough. A rumbling vibrated up through her legs, and she felt as if she was falling.

It was the drugs – it had to be the drugs! Jo shrank into a ball and whimpered on the floor. She felt ill, vertigo. She was dying. Going to die. She would never see Jemmie again. She should have just spent the days she had left, in the warm comforting sun of Shell Beach. In the company of her loved ones.

Not like this, oh please not like this! She couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, and the very bricks of the city were undulating and swirling around her as her mind.

When she woke up, the world was surprisingly stable. She had been lifted and moved into a soft bed. There was the sound of voices. She was not in her own room. But her mouth tasted of acid and her legs felt weak. Her palms had small wounds from her fingernails.

"It is not something we thought appropriate, Doctor." the voice was strange. Disturbing. Smooth and slimy. Jo didn't want to get up and find out who owned it.

"Well we do have to agree that, ah, it was your thoughts in the first place that did get us into this mess."

There was that stranger's voice again, laughing. But the sound of Dr. Schreber's voice reassured Jo. She sat up in the bed, and blinked her eyes blearily. "Hello?"

Group 0 "Daniel"

Once he had seen Josephine safely to Shell Beach, he returned home half expecting Mr. Hand to have left already. But the man was still there, sitting in the corner furthest from the window with the blinds drawn. Daniel smiled encouragingly and settled himself in a more comfortable armchair.

"I am very glad for her sake that we had imprinted her family early this time. If we'd left it until 'Friday', she mightn't have had anyone to hold on to."

Mr. Hand nodded slowly. "Yes. Though it seems quite strange, Doctor, that you are less concerned about your own social networks."

Daniel smiled. Mr. Hand's original personality was leaking through around the edges of the John Murdoch imprint. He'd left the gaps there, the potential. He hadn't even begun to think about what would happen with the others from under the city, but there was a very good chance that Mr. Hand would be the one to bridge the cultural gap.

"Honestly, Doctor. I... having the memories of Mr. Murdoch's imprint, I find it hard now to understand how you are not as mad or murderous as I am."

Daniel sighed. There was a lot to be said for experience and empathy. It had been a long night, a very long night, but Daniel knew he should be working. Helping Mr. Hand to start learning about the humanity he'd been reaching out for.

"It's because I discovered the truth very early."

Mr. Hand seemed a little surprised, but pleased. "You were our first control, for the study. A test in the resilience of the unchanged human mind. We wanted, well, to discover whether or not we could keep control groups and secrets within the city safely."

Daniel blinked, and smiled apologetically. "I didn't mean that, Mr. Hand, I am very sorry to have, ah, caused any confusion. I meant rather the true nature of your... ancestry and heritage."

That had Mr. Hand's eyes widening. The tension and panic that he had received from his imprint were visible in the muscles of his neck, and the tightening of his hands on the arms of his chair.

"You... you knew?"

Daniel nodded. "I think we need a cup of tea, hang on a bit. I shall be... right... back."

It was hard for Daniel to bite back his smile as he imagined the feelings and fantasies that were going through Mr. Hand's mind. He had regained his composure by the time he'd handed a cup to a bemused looking Mr. Hand and settled back down.

"Not immediately, of course. But I noticed a lot of things that you became more careful with later. Some inconsistencies in your methods and stories. I had a bit of a feel of it then, but wasn't consciously aware."

Mr. Hand leant forwards, intent. "Fascinating. I did find with the Murdoch imprint that I felt some knowledge before I had processed it completely; reacted to stimuli and situations only to later realise which parts of the imprint had affected me."

Daniel inclined his head. "Indeed. So it, ah," he sipped his tea and caught his breath, "when I thought to ask myself the question that was most important, 'Why humanity for this experiment?', it began to make sense. The databases, the historical information about our home that only existed in your minds. The way that you were so certain that it was something about human consciousness and selfhood that could save your race, that we were all taken from periods in Earth's history but never later than the year 2010 C.E..."

Daniel shrugged, and looked to the bright sunny glare in the gaps between the curtains and the window frames. Daylight cast odd shadows on the furniture and made the familiar room seem new and unknown.

"Some of the others are... unhappy with the outcome of the conflict between Mr. Book and Mr. Murdoch. But that they can feel unhappiness is progress. We have, Dr. Schreber, been defeated. We have – I have – recovered our awareness of loss in a way that our imminent extinction never could."

Daniel nodded as the information sank in. "Maybe you aren't so changed as you once thought, hmm? Though I stand by what I said before Josephine woke up. Ignorance will not protect our future generations from repeating the mistakes of the past."

Mr. Hand grimaced and set his cup aside. "There we must disagree, yes? Our," Mr. Hand laughed softly, and it would probably be a strange sight for a long time, "our curiosity and greed are the only qualities that seem to persist irrespective of our concepts of self. As if they were hard-wired somewhere deeper than our minds. Awareness of the modifications and interconnectivity of our brains might not immediately change your society, but over millennia attitudes can change. Long after we are dead, you and I, past mistakes will surely be repeated."

"Well there we shall have to agree to disagree, for the moment. We can only operate within the knowledge that we have; work to prevent the disasters that we can see."

Mr. Hand had apparently had enough of Daniel's conversation. He rose smoothly, and shook Daniel's worn dry hand with his own cooler one. He had a strong grip.

"I look forward to disagreeing with you in the short time these bodies have left, no?"

"Oh indeed. I would be far more worried for the fate of us all if we weren't at loggerheads over some things."

He showed Mr. Hand to the door, walking him through the office and holding the glass door open as an act of courtesy and recognition.

"Oh, and Mr. Hand? Even with a few years of advanced technology, we all need exercise to maintain good mental and physical health. I suggest a walk, perhaps, on your way home. I have heard heard, ah, that the trees near the Group eight apartments are a lovely sight for something like that."

Mr. Hand frowned, but then his face softened. "Victoria? Doctor, I am afraid..." Mr. Hand seemed at a loss for words. "You have me at an advantage, yes? You have... observed far more about us all than we were ever aware."

Daniel shrugged. "Well we all noticed different things, I'm sure. It is in human nature. Oh, but you'll need a hat, won't you? I won't ask where yours got to..."

Daniel turned and stretched his sore muscles awkwardly. But before he could reach high enough on the stand, he heard a susurrus of movement. He looked back just in time to see Mr. Hand walking away. "I can still tune, yes?"

Well of course he could, Daniel told himself. He felt a little stupid about that automatic assumption; that John's victory had meant significant changes in other aspects of the world. The victory had been for humanity, in that re-assertion and revelation of self. It was probably something that would have to happen again, if they survived that long as a species. And there was still the question of where they were in time and space; if Earth still existed somewhere else. And if so, what it was like.

It was best to take one thing at a time. Daniel opened his curtains and blinds. It was bright, far too bright for his eyes, so used to darkness. It was a beautiful end to a story.

Except of course, that it didn't end. That made it even more wonderful. Daniel felt the bones in his damaged knee aching, and the teacups needed washing. Then he needed lunch, so he made a sandwich.

By the afternoon of the second day, Daniel was feeling a little restless. He'd gone about seeing to the Control groups, finding more permanent solutions for some of them, organising some appointments for those more broken. Nobody knew quite what to do with Group one, but for the moment the children were being given access to some videos and pictures of daylight scenes.

He supposed that he had a vocation. A career. Daniel had only been eighteen when he had been abducted, a first-year undergraduate. It had been a steep learning curve, and he'd never really seen himself as having become expert on anything in his field – there were resource texts and databases that he used to learn as he needed – but he had to allow that over the years he had probably become qualified enough.

He'd started wondering about teaching and the university, though Groups three and five seemed to be sorting all those administration issues out themselves. Should he look into sharing what he had learnt, or even publishing papers based on his studies?

The knock at the door surprised him. He left his wool-gathering and made his way to the door. He was glad he'd been in his office, or he mightn't have heard it. Before he could reach it, it clicked open. Whoever it was had realised that it was unlocked.

Daniel had expected Aubrey, maybe, unable to wait for his appointment the following day. Or a visit from Mr. Hand, perhaps. But not John.

John smiled apologetically, and held up a cardboard box. "I came into town to see Anna, brought you something from home."

Daniel nodded. "Shell Beach?"

John laughed. "Of course, where else? It's from the bakery that you always... oh."

Daniel had begun leading the way through his office, to the adjoining door to his personal rooms. But he stopped when John trailed off and stood there. The man looked defeated and exhausted. He waved the box and stared down at the floor.

"Oh? John, what is the matter?"

John appeared flustered and upset. "You don't remember me, or anything about it all, of course. I'm barging in here, assuming a friendship that we've never-"

Daniel fought the childish urge to roll his eyes or laugh, and interrupted before John had a chance to say anything more. "Of course we've been friends. Please don't feel bad at all for remembering me, John. After all, I've had nearly twenty years of having some very good acquaintances re-imprinted away, or into multiple different individuals. But there are, ah, aspects of us all that remain constant despite false memories. Our true selves."

He had to take a breath anyway, thanks to his frustratingly weak lungs. But he used that moment to take the box from John and shepherd the man towards his living room.

"John, I have mourned the loss of many memories of friendship amongst the imprinted residents of our city, but I have never felt the loss of a friendship. You have always, given time, whatever your name or situation recognised that connection between us. I hardly see our finally being on equal footing – two friends recalling forgotten and non-existent experiences – any cause for awkwardness or apology."

It had been quite a speech. Daniel felt a bit abashed at the end of it all. But he'd gotten into the habit of exposition around John in the last few days, from the necessity of it all. At least John was nodding slowly, and smiling tentatively.

He took the box back, and waved a hand at Daniel to sit down. "Look, sit down, have a break. I'll find some plates in your kitchen. And I'll tell you about what's been going on back home. I stopped by to check up on your house, before I came into town today,"

"I have a house?"

John made an exaggerated silly expression of exasperation as he handed Daniel a very nice looking tart. "Well, we only moved into town for work. Where else did you think you lived while you got your PhD?"

Daniel couldn't help but laugh at that.