Sublevel 6
A.S.
It was not his job to listen in, nor did he mean to. But the boring work of standing next to the doors all day, waiting for a threat that would never come, got the best of Charles. The company was always so secretive, and even the little things he did know, Charles didn’t know what to do with them. So he kept his head down. What he knew was not important.
Honda ⏅
The soft, monotonous hum of his Volkswagen lightly shook him as Charles passed over a bump in the road. The landscape blurred past him, the golden hour radiating warmth and comfort. Charles rolled down the window and smelled the snow on the side of the road, tinted brown from the exhaust fumes and leaky diesel semis.
As the evergreens flitted endlessly, he turned down the Cindy Lauper playing on the radio, a faint static in the background.
The road turned windy, almost bending to the will of the incline.
Charles switched the channel. Tears For Fears. Maroon 5. Bill Withers. He kept Bill on for a minute, then turned the stereo off.
Charles drove until he reached a gaping concrete tunnel implanted within the mountain. He rode through and then turned right halfway. Charles’s brittle engine shuttered as he steered into the parking structure.
Next to Charles was a car he’d never seen in the building, a white Honda.
The elevator ride up to the front office was silent.
Ding!
Charles walked into the lobby. The receptionist, Madeline, looked up from her computer.
“Good afternoon. The boss needs to see you,” she informed.
“In his office?”
Madeline nodded and looked back down at her work, her brown hair discolored under the fluorescent light. Charles picked up his keychain from behind the desk, walked down the white-tiled hall, and turned left. The laboratory was always eerie and blank, apart from the occasional scientist or employee who walked by Charles’s unassuming stature.
The door was open, and he leaned and knocked on the plastered door frame. The room inside was slightly worn, and the tungsten light was warmer than the LEDs in the hallway.
“You wanted something, Boss?”
He looked up at Charles and gestured toward the seat across from him.
“Please, sit.”
Uneasily, he settled into the chair. The plaque on the desk read ‘HEAD OF SECURITY’
Charles’s boss, Reagan, did not take particular interest in him, compared to the other security guards working at the laboratory. Charles was not outstanding nor was he lazy; he believed himself to be of the decidedly average.
But that was apparently what Reagan saw in him.
Reagan slightly leaned forward, coughing.
“Hello, Charles. We’ve got a new employee filling your position on ground level.
Charles fidgeted in his chair, asking, “Am I being fired?”
Reagan’s gaze softened.
“No, no, of course not. You’ve done nothing wrong, Mr. Ackerman. You’re a loyal guard, and I couldn’t see you being fired anytime soon,” he reassured. “In a way, I’d say you’re being promoted.”
“Oh?” Charles was mildly surprised.
Reagan shifted in his seat, cleaning off his ashtray.
“You’re being reassigned to Sublevel 6. It’s higher security, so your check will be raised. The company values its employees. Just remember that your responsibility has also increased. There are some imported corporate assets down there, ones that are essential to the research of the lab. Understand?”
Charles was curious about what these ‘assets’ were, but didn’t question it, keeping his mouth shut.
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. I’ll have Micah brief you on the sublevel,” Reagan said as he stood up and held out his hand.
They shook hands.
#9EM ⏅
“So, this is Sublevel 6. This is where most of our live experiments and assets are held. Currently, there’s not much of them for whatever reason, I forgot what the scientists said,” Micah explained to Charles as the large elevator descended, the whir of the motorized chains zipping upward.
“What kind of experiments? Mice?”
Micah cleared his throat and looked away.
“You’ll see,” he said as the elevator door opened up into two curved hallways, one going left and the other, right. “The floor plan is a circular hallway, with containment cells on either side.”
The two security guards stepped into the passageway. It was dimly lit by cheap fluorescent strip lights, and the walls were a blinding hospital-white color. The air was musty and undisturbed.
“Nothin’ much to see down here, although you should probably know about #9EM.”
“What’s that?”
The sound of their footsteps echoed throughout the floor.
“It’s the only experiment on the sublevel, for now. You’ll see,” Micah repeated, rubbing his mustache. “A word of advice: remember to protect these cells the best you can. The company relies on them. You’re a security guard, so do your job, and do it well.”
“I understand,” Charles affirmed.
They stopped at a door with the tag ‘#9EM’ displayed overhead.
“Alright, I’ll leave you be,” said Micah, walking back to the elevator.
“You’re not gonna open the–” he called, but Micah was already gone.
Charles sat on a chair for a moment, studying the door. It was glossy steel, with a slidable slit to check on whatever was in there. Curious, he got up and checked the slit.
It lay on a small cot in the bare, white room. Eyes open, with a lifeless stare, curled into a ball. Charles felt a twist in his gut, his heart tightening. The experiment’s head was shaved to a buzzcut, and its face was bruised. It only wore a large white tunic and shorts.
It… was a child.
A child.
How? What? Why?
Charles did not know what to do except open the cell. He fumbled for his keycard and held it up to the reader on the door.
“ACCEPTED,” it chirped, and he heard it unlock.
Turning the handle, Charles slowly entered the room. The child noticed him, and they skittishly shielded themselves in the corner, not saying a word.
Charles crouched down to get to their eye level, and he outstretched his arm. The kid looked about ten years old. They did not budge.
“Hi,” he said to the timid child. “I’m Charles.”
They were still curled up, huddled in the corner, staring fearfully at him.
“What’s your name?” Charles asked.
He noticed the Band-Aids on the kid’s legs and a tattoo on their arm. It read ‘#9EM’
“9EM, huh? That’s not your real name, is it?”
They shook their head.
“Then what is your name?”
The child shook their head again.
Charles furrowed his brow and asked, “Do you have one?”
Again, they shook their head. Charles lowered his hand.
“Well, I can’t very well be calling you 9EM, can I? 9EM… EM… maybe I can call you Emerson? Do you like that?”
Emerson nodded. Charles did not know what he should do. Who was this child? Where were their parents? Why were they so important to the company?
He sat down, leaning against the stark, varnished wall. In the opposite corner sat Emerson. The two looked at each other, sharing the silence. There was no furniture in the room. No decorations, just white void. The ceiling was tall, and a single ventilation fan in the center filtered the stale air.
Charles broke the quietude.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Emerson shifted a little.
“I promise.”
The child looked to have dirty blonde hair, but it was hard to tell due to the buzzcut. Their eyes were a cornflower blue, and their skin was fairer than Charles’s, which was much more olive. Emerson had some level of androgyny, as Charles could not tell their gender simply by their appearance. He doubted he would get a clear answer from Emerson anyway.
Did the child even know what gender was? Or family? For all he knew, Emerson could have grown up in here.
He lingered on that thought.
Ding!
Charles heard footsteps and the murmur of a few voices traveling down the hallway.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered to Emerson. He hurried out of the cell and locked the door. He adjusted himself and sat on the chair, making it look like he never opened it at all.
Micah, followed by a few scientists, casually walked around the bend.
“Hey, Charles. The docs are just doing their routine,” said Micah.
Charles stood up.
“Oh, ok.”
“Hey, you know what, why don’t I end your shift a little early, give you a little time to enjoy your promotion?” Micah comforted as the scientists entered a code to open the door. One-seven-five-nine-eight-nine.
Gin ⏅
On the drive back, Charles did not pay nearly as much attention to the beautiful taiga surrounding him. He pondered the nature of his situation and Emerson’s. How would he go about this? The car radio was silent. He had just gotten promoted. But now Charles had to deal with this ugly truth glaring into his moral subconscious. He had to deal with seeing Emerson’s harrowing face in that harrowing room.
It had been so long since Charles had a stable, well-paying job. Would he, or could he, risk that?
Charles parked in front of his small duplex, sitting in his car for a minute or two. He stared at the steering wheel, studying the tiny Volkswagen engraving in the center.
He turned off the engine.
The birch door creaked open, and Charles dropped his keys in a little wooden catch-all bowl. Observing the stale anteroom, the disturbed security guard took off his utility belt, mindlessly grabbed an open bottle of gin from behind the kitchen counter, and plopped down on his couch.
Charles sighed. For now, he decided to bring food or something to Emerson until he figured out what to do. He took a swig of the gin.
Burrito ⏅
That night, Charles didn’t get much sleep. He kept thinking about Emerson, about what he saw that day. What should he do?
Charles got ready for his noon shift and packed extra food for Emerson. That poor child, he thought.
“Hey, Madeline.” Charles greeted as he stepped into the lobby.
“Hi, Charles.”
He saw the receptionist in a different light now. How much did she know? Was she aware of whatever experiments were happening here?
As Charles walked down the unembellished, forsaken hallways, he stopped at one of the lab doors to peek through. He’d never done this before, taking an interest in the massive, sprawling laboratory complex. Charles always seemed to stay where he was told.
The company property was boring enough, he didn’t need to see more of it.
Through the tiny window, he saw a scientist holding a large syringe, inserting the needle into a small swallow. It chirped, and the lab worker placed it in a cage. Near the back, a few employees were working on their computers. A tall woman with an imposing demeanor stood over them, watching what they did.
The Head Scientist.
Charles had only exchanged a few words with her, and they generally never crossed paths. She swiftly turned around, staring at him as though she felt she was being watched.
“Oh shoot,” he muttered and continued walking toward the elevator, picking up his pace.
Charles stood at the steel door on Sublevel 6. In his hand, the lunch bag he packed for Emerson. Inside, the child was sitting, leaning against the wall that Charles had yesterday.
“Hi,” he said to the kid. “Are you okay?”
Emerson made eye contact with Charles, their gaze softening, but unresponsive. He moved toward Emerson, who slightly retracted.
“I brought some food for you. I doubt those scientists feed you well down here,” he said.
Charles stepped forward, unwrapping a burrito he pulled from the bag, a set it down slightly more than halfway between the two. The security guard sat down on the bare floor, mimicking Emerson’s position.
“That’s for you,” pointed Charles, who then drew half a sandwich from the bag and took a bite from it.
Hesitantly, Emerson reached for the burrito. They hovered their hand over the food, then snatched it off the foil. The child studied the flour tortilla.
“It’s okay, Emerson. You can just eat it. Like me,” Charles comforted, taking another bite from his sandwich.
Emerson looked at him, then at the food in their hands, then back at him. The kid stared at his light brown eyes.
“Emerson,” they whispered.
Charles raised his eyebrows, smiling, and said, “Yes. Emerson. That’s what I’m calling you.”
They took a bite of the burrito, chewing carefully. The blank room seemed to feel bigger, as though Emerson was free.
“Thank you,” the child breathed.
For the rest of Charles’s time with Emerson that day, they were silent. He made sure to end his visit around fifteen minutes before his shift ended.
“I’m sorry. I’ll figure something out,” he lied to Emerson, quietly closing the door.
“I’ll figure something out…” he lied to himself, under his breath.
Charles did not, and could not, figure something out for quite a while. He spent his work hours with Emerson, carefully listening for Micah or the scientists whenever they needed to ‘work with the experiment.’ Charles always felt guilty when that happened, like he could have done something but didn’t, submitting himself to the company's will.
Emerson barely talked, even by the end of the fortnight. It was deep into winter now, with snow piled up outside as each day passed. Every time he plowed the driveway, every time the snowfall got heavier, Charles's heart ached.
He kept bringing food, kept sitting down and just being with the child. It was the most Charles could do.
But it really wasn’t. Eventually, he had to do something.
Fox ⏅
The Golf’s engine sputtered as Charles drove his car into the gas station. He was a bit early for his shift, so he decided to fill up.
As the security guard walked into the mini-mart, he nodded to the cashier. Charles looked around and picked up a Three Musketeers bar. Those were his favorites, and he thought Emerson would like them too. An AC unit whirred overhead, which was strange, considering that it was January.
Charles approached the clerk when he spotted a basket of small stuffed animals. One was a cute-looking fox that reminded him of one he had as a child.
Would Emerson like that? Charles wondered to himself.
“How much are these?” he asked.
“Eh? Oh, I think like three dollars. Check the tag,” said the cashier.
The security guard strode out of the store, a fox plushie in hand. He breathed in the cold mountain air, the fir trees tainting it with their distinct smell. A petrol stench mixed in, invading the freshness.
He continued his commute to the laboratory.
Charles walked past Madeline, exchanging a meaningless glance. The elevator felt louder, and the halls felt quieter. There were no windows on Sublevel 6, and the only sense of time was an old minimalist clock hanging opposite the elevator and stairwell entrance.
He sat on the chair, took a breath, and looked at the blank door across from him. Charles opened the door. Emerson was sitting on their cot, looking at their hands. They looked up at Charles hopefully.
“Hey,” he said, stepping into the room.
The light buzz of the harsh lights felt louder than it really was.
Emerson smiled. Charles got to his knees and handed them the stuffed fox.
“Yes,” they said. “Thank you.” Emerson studied the fox.
Charles returned the smile, noticing how pale Emerson was. They wheezed slightly with every breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked Emerson.
They nodded weakly. Unlike last time, Emerson was not curled in a corner of the room or sitting on the cot. Instead, the frail child stood up, smiled, and hugged Charles.
Charles didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. He accepted the embrace. He needed to do something now. His job didn’t matter anymore; this was a kid’s entire life.
“I’m going to get you out of here.”
Asbestos ⏅
A few scientists on the other side of the cafeteria murmured to each other, casually scarfing down their meals. Two lower-clearance security guards sat together. The cafeteria was a medium-sized, tiled room with low, wooden tables. The company had a small menu of relatively bland food, although they had some good pastrami sandwiches. Madeline had told Charles that they sourced the meat from a deli in a nearby town, which was surprising for a corporation like CORSAC.
A generic painting of a ship with no people on it hung adjacent to where Charles sat. His right leg bounced up and down under the table. He paused eating his bean and cheese burrito to massage an area of his back, right under the left shoulder blade, which felt tight. Charles took another bite of the burrito. It tasted like grey. Or maybe gray? He wasn’t sure. His discernment between the two was null. The whole lunch break felt quite dismal.
Charles observed the double-doored entrance of the cafeteria. Several moments later, a young guard walked in a made his way over to Charles.
“What do you need?” he asked, swallowing the rest of the burrito and clearing his throat.
The guard responded calmly, “Boss wants to talk with you.”
“About what?”
He shrugged. Charles usually felt blasé about these unexpected meetings, but he was on edge today. The guard walked away, and Charles stood up, rubbing his whitened knuckles.
The wooden door to the office was closed this time. The sign read ‘CORSAC SECURITY’ in bolded font. He knocked.
“Come in,” a voice said.
Charles turned the stainless steel doorknob and his eyes fell upon the Head Scientist, standing sternly next to Reagan.
“Sit,” she directed.
Charles’s eyes darted around the room, ill at ease.
Reagan leaned forward and said, “So it seems that someone has been interacting with test subject #9EM without authorization.”
“And?”
“We think it was you.”
“What? Really?” Charles half-chuckled. He studied the Head Scientist. She was always so taciturn, and Charles rarely spoke to her. The nervous security guard wondered if she had seen him a week and a half ago, peeking into the lab.
“Yes, really,” the Head Scientist replied. “We’ve checked the door logs. It opens every time it’s your shift. And we found this.”
She puts the small stuffed fox on Reagan’s desk.
Charles sank. He realized his imprudence. In silence, they all looked at each other. How could he have been so careless?
The Head Scientist pulled up a chair and said to Charles, “We can’t just let you walk away from this. You were a good guard.”
“I know,” Charles replied, to neither of the statements in particular.
He rubbed his hands on his thighs.
The air was rigid and apprehensive. Reagan sighed. A moment passed, and then the phone rang. The Head of Security let it ring for a while, staring at Charles, and then lightly picked up the phone.
“Head of Security. Yes, I’ll be right there.”
Reagan got up and whispered to the Head Scientist, who nodded. He pulled handcuffs from a drawer and secured Charles’s arm around the sturdy metal chair. He pulled the chair to the empty corner farthest from the door, facing him toward the corner, and lowered the blinds so that the blinding white of the mountain landscape was hidden from view. Lastly, Reagan zip-tied his feet.
“We’ll be right back. If you leave, you will die.” The Head Scientist informed bluntly, shutting the door.
The two administrators’ footsteps echoed, slowly diminishing as they walked farther away. Charles was alone. Emerson was alone.
The fox sat there on Reagan’s teak desk. It did not make a sound, peering into the back of Charles’s neck. At first, Charles didn’t struggle. He was not sure that he could accept the fact that he may have screwed up both his and Emerson’s lives for good.
What have I done?
Charles studied the stucco corner against which his face was so inconsiderately shoved. Maybe there was asbestos in there. Maybe the asbestos will kill him before the company does. Maybe he won’t have to live to see Emerson suffer anymore.
He banged his head against the asbestos once. He stuck out his tongue and licked the asbestos. He thought to himself again,
What have I done?
Charles wrestled his feet with the zip tie.
What am I doing?
In a daring act of flexibility, he lifted his feet and kicked against the wall, most likely pulling something in the process. He kicked again, the zip tie keeping his feet together tightly.
[WORK IN PROGRESS]