8.
OFFLINE. TIME ELAPSED: --:--:--
Astrid opened her eyes to a soft, high whine. At first, she thought that she was somehow back at her mother's house in New Jersey, and the dog was worrying at the door. There sounded another whine, and she placed it as agony- was the dog hurt? Astrid sat up, rubbing the mist from her eyes.
It was Walter. Astrid bit her lip as her chest seized with emotional pain. He was curled into a ball on the floor beside the cot, his chest heaving slowly as his breath escaped his hands, pressed across his mouth, in sharp whimpers.
Astrid frowned with sorrow. The poor man was so sick. This place was poison, and time had completely saturated him, until he could not even escape into dreams. Astrid found herself falling into a habit she often practiced to calm herself; she sang softly.
"The best is when you say the worst is over
It's like saying we had luck with a three-leafed clover and you
Kept saying that over and over
And I still catch you looking over your shoulder and it's
Okay, I know, the only times you really loved me
Were the times when you were sober…"
"What song is that?" Walter asked quietly, "I don't recognize it."
"I don't know. They used to play it on the radio all the time, and it just stuck in my head. I used to sing in my church choir, actually."
"Is it your favourite song?"
"I don't know. Do you want me to stop?"
"No. Your voice is very beautiful." There was shifting in the dark, and he uncurled and lay on his back, "Probably the best I've ever heard, actually."
Astrid suddenly felt very self-conscious, "That's not true. You just haven't had a basis of comparison in a million years."
"True. But even so, I would still consider your voice amazing."
"I don't usually sing to people," Astrid admitted, "I mean, it's different, when you're in a choir- everyone adds to one voice, to make it more powerful. But when it's just me… I just sing to myself. Or my cat." She lay down on her stomach, watching him over the side.
"Then perhaps you think of me as a frightened animal," Walter said softly.
Astrid was silent.
Walter shut his eyes, the points of light suddenly extinguished in the dark, "I don't mind. Crazy folks are animals, really. They need someone to take care of them- like the savages."
"Savages?" Astrid questioned.
He nodded, his features flexing tiredly, "The savages. It's a literature reference, Huxley. Savages are what comprise and conduct our modern society, a society run on the savage desires of human nature. These savage desires cripple us with things like fear and morality. To eliminate these savages would be to at last allow society to move forward, to evolve."
Alarmed, Astrid asked, "but how would we defy the very thing that makes us human?"
"We would have to forget everything we have learned. In a sense, society has moved backward. The time when we were at last free to explore routes of science unhindered was the time that we were considered 'animals'."
"From what you say, we would have to forget everything we know. And then we wouldn't be able to move forward at all," Astrid pointed out.
"You see how there is no possible way to remove the savages," Walter smiled, "humans are incapable of moving beyond their limitations. We were made to self destruct. Almost as if God is afraid of us, isn't it?"
"The whole world would have to be crazy," Astrid said.
Walter chuckled quietly, "The whole world is crazy, miss Aspen. It is only deemed as wrong or right by which side of the machine you stand; in its path, to hinder progress and the loss of humanity by slowly allowing it to kill itself? Or behind it, to fuel it, and loose your own sense of humanity while insuring the immortality of something that no longer exists?"
"Which are you?"
"You were quite correct in your assumptions. I'm an animal. As are you. A savage with enough brains to know that what they are condemns them. We cannot change what we are, and to go against such rules is to face horrible repercussions- not that I didn't anyways." Walter was silent for a few moments, and he opened his eyes again, looking serious, "By the way, how is the Cold War going?"
xXx
This time, she had opened her eyes. She had fought back the fear, suffocated the numbers in her mind, and forced her lids to lay away from her tear-filled eyes.
And she could remember nothing. She was back in the room once more, the haunting sound of the distant chimes seeming to echo behind the noises that she thought she could hear. Olivia let out a sob despite herself. What was this place? Was any of this real? Was she even real, any more? What did it matter, when and if they came to get her? If there was blood under her fingernails, blood causing the sheets to cling to her stinging legs?
Olivia began to count her pulse again, and cursed at the numbers aloud. And, for once, the counting stopped. One ounce of mercy she would spare to herself, for now.
She got to her feet, the pain enraging her as her body burned with fury and fever, and she pointed her chin defiantly for an audience that did not exist, as she strode to the bathroom, reaching in to start the shower. She stripped away her clothes, draping them across the small, steel towel bar. She stepped under the icy stream and shivered, a small, inaudible noise of agony escaping her throat. If she were going to be here forever, she may as well get used to it.
The pink of her cold toes reminded her of the ice cream, and she felt disgusted. She'd been a real idiot, to do what she had. These people that were holding them were not kind- they may as well have fed her poison, for all it mattered. They had been testing her and doing things to her for an immeasurable amount of time, did she think that she would get a reward?
Olivia slowly lowered herself to her seat on the rough floor of the shower booth, and began to gently stroke the blood away from her cuts with her fingertips. They were burned shut, of course, and she bit the inside of her cheek as she was forced to pinch open a blister, allowing the stinging liquid within to escape and be washed away. She rubbed away the dead skin with her thumb roughly.
Minutes later, Olivia stepped out from the shower, roughing the water away from her skin with the featureless white towel. Pink spots of diluted blood discolored it, as she pulled it away; the same shade of pink that the ice cream had been.
xXx
In another place that could as close as a breath away or on the other side of the world, Peter was dreaming through the dull, relentless pain.
The morning had been chill, when he had gone into the living room early to watch cartoons, only to find his father asleep on the couch, the sheets tangled about his sprawled form. Peter had watched him for a while, listening to his father's soft breath, "Dad?" Peter asked at last, his nose beginning to run in the chill, and he shivered under his thin pajamas. He was not a dull child- he knew what this meant.
Walter's face twitched against the pillow.
"Daaaad?" Peter tried again, reaching out push his shoulder repeatedly.
Walter sighed, his eyes blinking open, and he squinted, "Good morning, Peter," he said hoarsely, his voice deep from his slumber, "I'm interrupting your cartoons, yes?"
"No," Peter lied.
Walter coughed, rolling onto his back to rub his eyes with his fingertips, "I'm sorry, Peter. I'm very tired."
"It's okay," Peter answered.
"Give me ten more minutes, and we'll go to the park today. Deal?" Walter smiled, shutting his eyes again.
"Okay," Peter said. He turned away, rubbing his cold arms. His father suddenly grabbed him, pulling him onto the couch and wrapping him in the sheets, "dad!" Peter giggled, struggling away as tickling fingers attacked his ribs, "stop!"
Walter smiled into his son's hair, kissing him on the forehead, "I love you, son."
It had been the last time his father had kissed him.
"Dad?" Peter asked, "Did you and mom fight again?"
Walter sighed, "No, Peter. Your mother is very tired, so I let her have the whole bed, last night."
He knew that Walter was lying, "You let her have the bed every time you come home," and his father was not home very often, "is she sick?"
"No, Peter."
"Are you sick?"
Walter did not answer, shutting his eyes against the pillow.
"…You and mom aren't friends anymore, are you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You fight all the time. Friends don't fight. You hate each other," Peter pulled on the front of Walter's white undershirt, biting his lip, "don't fall asleep. Don't."
"I love you and your mother very much, Peter. Please let me sleep."
"No!" Peter said, growing angry, "All you and mom do is lie to me! I'm not stupid!"
Walter opened his eyes again, "No, Peter. You are a brilliant child, of which I have no doubt. And I know what we do isn't fair, and I'm sorry. But I can't explain it, not yet."
"Are you going to leave, dad?" Peter asked, his eyes bright with welling tears, "mom says that you're going to go away, that someone is coming to get you and take you away, and I'll never see you again. Are you sick?! She said you were sick!" Peter hiccupped, rubbing away his tears with a trembling fist.
Walter swallowed, and whispered softly, "I'm not going anywhere but to the park with you today, Peter. I promise."
Another lie. But with all he was, Peter wanted to believe it.
"Come on, son," Walter smiled, ruffling his hair playfully, "don't cry. Get up and help me make pancakes- I can always use a taster. With chocolate chips, do you think?"
"Why don't you like them with eyebrows?" Peter asked, rubbing his running nose on his sleeve.
"They remind me of someone I knew a long time ago. Upsy-daisy," and he hefted his son up in his arms, setting him on his feet. Walter reached for his slacks.
But of course, he had to remember that day. His father and mother had fought over pancakes, for chrissake, and she had run Walter out of the house. Peter running to his room in furious tears as the Vista Cruiser's tires crunched the gravel in the driveway and faded away. The police returning a month later, to announce that his father had gone missing. The panicked phone calls, his mother's crying and cursing, moving into a small apartment, and, at last, Walter's funeral.
He did not want to give his father the credit for ruining his life. Time and time again, he had hoped Walter had gone to hell. Perhaps Peter's wish had come true. But, lost in his sad, distant dreams, he did not know how far Walter would go to save his precious child from his own, terrible mistakes.
xXx
OFFLINE. TIME ELAPSED: --:--:--
_SUBJECTS A24 AND O21 INCAPASITATED. AWAITING DATA FOR STAGE ONE. INICIATE STAGE TWO Y/N?
N
_STAGE TWO DECLINED. STATE REASON FOR SEQUENCE SUSPENSION Y/N?
Y. Subjects A24 and O21 currently showing signs of chemical and psychological rejection. Awaiting further analysis before continuing with amnesia sequence.
Sequence currently suspended.
xXx
Okay, so the pancakes are an ongoing theme that I stole, and really should drop. But I can't help it *sob*!
~F