"And lock it," a voice called out, and footsteps followed it away.
Stumbling around in the dark, Claudia felt along the door until she came across the same kind of ship wheel that had been on the other side. Had she no reason to believe that this stranger was the key to deciphering her hallucination, she would have preferred to avoid locking herself in an unfamiliar, dark place with an eccentric, graying man. Her heart pounded nonetheless, and more than once she had considered leaving altogether. Though, it was some bizarre sense of purpose, or more likely, her willful disregard of every shred of common sense she'd acquired prior to this point, that pulled her through these definitive motions.
She turned the wheel by its spokes and once the lock clanked into place, a low hum sounded through the darkness – echoing through a much larger space than she anticipated. Slowly, a dim, blue glow, emanating from hundreds of thousands of pin-sized bulbs lining the walls, filled the space. They looked, she thought, like the glowing specks of nocturnal plankton she'd seen in pictures, drifting on the surface of the tide, mirroring a star-filled sky above. She'd never been able to experience them firsthand, though, but this was something close. A kind of excitement brewed in her chest, and the soft blue light fell across what was a purest expression of childlike wonder. Claudia was not in a room, rather, she was on a square platform at the top of a dizzying stairwell, the lights chasing the stairs down along the walls.
The man stood at the bottom of the first flight, leaning against the railing, not casually, but more as a necessary support.
"See these?" he gestured at the lights, "One hundred percent sustainable lighting. Powered by you and me – well, not right now, since we're in here. Students and professors walk across carpeting all across campus, generating minute amounts of static electricity which in all other places unfortunately goes to waste. I modified the power grid a few decades back when they switched to carpeting, allowing me to harness the energy for the exhibit.
A snort escaped Claudia, yet the man's expression remained unchanged.
Claudia's smile slipped off her face.
"Oh…you're serious?"
The man glared, as if going far out of his way to reiterate the obvious. "Why would I lie during a tour of my exhibit? That's completely counterintuitive."
He turned and began his descent down the next flight of steps, and Claudia hesitated, before following at a trot.
"Sorry. It just seemed unlikely. I haven't heard of anything like it."
"That's because there isn't anything like it." The man had slowed, and Claudia had caught up beside him. He seemed to be struggling with the physical exertion, though he was making a considerable effort at masking this discomfort, and Claudia made a considerable effort not to notice. She drew her attention toward conversation.
"Has anyone thought of using these lights? I mean, no one's come here and wanted to buy this technology?"
"No. Well, I don't exactly remember. The last tour I gave was sometime between six and seven years ago, and the least of my problems was how everyone reacted to the lighting system."
Claudia halted on a step under a small patch of blue. She had been warily trusting, despite the trek thus far, while under the assumption that all visitors to the exhibit followed this unusual protocol – the darkness and descent. The fact that she was the first person in seven years, in this situation, after the man's mind may as well have had plenty of time to rattle around down here, with minimal outside interaction, was deeply concerning.
It was dim, though in spite of that, Claudia could see the exasperation plainly across his features. He spoke in what was possibly the softest voice he could muster, "You will not return from this exhibit diseased, dismembered, cursed, or otherwise chemically altered as long as you adhere strictly to the safety guidelines, as I verbally convey them to you throughout this tour."
"Gee thanks, Doctor Moreau, I feel much better now." Claudia's said, with more of a sting than she had intended.
The man's countenance darkened, and he addressed her in a low voice, brows twitching. "I am very, very much not in the mood to do this right now. I have a veritable plethora of things I have to do by tonight, and giving an unanticipated tour is at the very bottom of my priorities, so if you please." He waved his arm rather violently in the direction of the descending stairwell, his sleeve nearly catching on the railing. "And if not, then go."
Upon seeing her only lead hanging by a thread, and knowing full well that there would be few, if any opportunities to find this man in a better mood, and even fewer to find him at all, Claudia hopped down the steps and took up a quick pace ahead of him.
"I won't keep you from your plethora." Claudia murmured.
"I sincerely hope not."