Labme #7

“Let me get yellow rice, spicy shrooms, Labme 7, and a side of pickled veg.” The tall man said impatiently rocking in place once the line moved and it was his turn to order. The thin woman behind the register raised an eyebrow.

“Labme 7?” she repeated pausing and looking up at the man for the first time.

“Yes. What are you out?” he laughed at his joke but no one around him smiled. Lab-grown meat – or Labme as they called it didn’t need a farm. They made it in vats with the other proteins they couldn’t grow, numbered it according to type. You really couldn’t run out so long as there was a working computer and usable refuse. The woman directly behind him took a small step backward as if to give herself more than the required 2-meter space.

“No sir. Anything to drink?”

“Water.” He said and the woman behind the register pursed her lips, typing in his requests.

“Fingerprint for the water. Face the camera for the rest. Your number is 32.” The woman said as the light on the screen flickered from red to green when the camera scanned his face. The tall man placed his thumb on the keypad and snatched it away as it pricked him drawing a minuscule amount of blood. He looked around nervously then shrugged and walked off to wait for his order.

He ate alone and in silence with his eyes on his food, not looking up once. The water he consumed in small reverent sips, eyes closed, savoring the purity of the unflavored liquid. He sat at a small table in the far corner of the dining hall and didn’t notice that the area grew quieter around him. When he finished, he looked up and realized that he almost had the room to himself, and a woman in a smartly fitted suit stood nearby, her face obscured by the mask covering her mouth, nose, and chin.

“Mr. Douglas. If you could come with me.” The woman said and he looked at her in surprise.

“What for?” he said and looked closer, recognizing the uniform. Sweat gathered under his arms and on top of his upper lip. He wanted to wipe at his mouth but didn’t, not wanting to draw attention to his face.

“Mr. Douglas I am what we would call the easy way. I can leave and allow my associates to take you in. Their methods are not as agreeable as my own.” She shrugged as she said this, her voice without inflection.

Greg Douglas darted his eyes around the room and saw that uniformed guards stood at every entry, their masks, and matching uniforms a faded grey. He looked at her again and nodded, rising from his seat, and leaving his tray behind on the table. She handed him a mask with her gloved hands, bright red and thick with no design, and waited while he hooked the elastic around his ears.

The walk to the lift passed swiftly, he felt hemmed in by the trio of guards in front of and behind him as he followed the neatly dressed woman to the doors and inside the small car. The digital billboards in the lift cycled through their ads three times in the ride from the 10th floor down to the 30th. Greg watched the numbers with growing trepidation. Why had he done it? He’d heard the rumors, but he couldn’t help himself. It was a craving. They’d told him it would come but he hadn’t believed them, hadn’t wanted to believe. Then couldn’t stop himself from ordering it three days in a row.

The doors slid open, the quiet woosh overloud in the silence. Only the sound of the Under and their echoing footsteps filled his ears as he followed the woman down the winding passage and into a small sterile room. He’d heard about them but never seen them. There were so many rumors about what they did down here, in the government-controlled floors beneath the city. Down in the Under. They called it the Under because it lay under everything. It was the bottom of the whole world, and anything could happen here. Anything. A single chair sat bolted to the floor at the center of the room over a shining metal grate. The walls of the room were clad with the same grey metal except for the large glass window the chair faced. The woman gestured for him to enter and stepped back, allowing him to pass and then closing the door behind him with a quiet clang and hiss.

He paced the room for some time before finally sitting in the chair. There was no sound from the speakers high on the wall and the window was black as if waiting for someone to enter the room beyond. He sat nervously tapping his foot before rising again to pace the confines of the room, his mind racing. Why? He knew that’s how they catch you. Even if there wasn’t any proof there were enough rumors saying the same thing that he’d suspected this one was true. It hadn’t mattered. Didn’t matter. Even standing in this room waiting for god knows what it didn’t matter, he wanted more. He couldn’t understand it. Hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking for it again. The fabricators in his pod wouldn’t make it. You could only get it in the dining halls. So, they could track it. So, they would know. He sat in the chair again, rocking a bit in the seat wondering why they were making him wait.

“Number 7 is a test.” A voice said startling him from his reverie. He jumped out of the chair and wandered into the corner farthest from the mirror.

“What kind of test?” Greg asked and there was a pause that went on so long he thought he’d imagined hearing the voice in the first place.

“The kind we use to sort. You know most people never have it again after the first time. We serve it to children to make sure we didn’t miss anyhing, but sometimes things slip by. That’s why it's an option in the dining halls.”

“Things slip by?” Greg parroted and began to pace again, his mind turning the phrase over and over to find some meaning.

“Things.” The voice said and Greg reached up to touch the side of his face, the place where the thin skin-colored bandage covered the weird spidery rash.

“Why do you say things?” he asked but he knew, oh he knew. His hands started shaking and he clenched them into fists hiding them behind his back as if the cameras couldn’t see. The cameras always saw. That’s how they knew. No hiding here. No secrets except the most mundane.

“You can cooperate. Let us have it, Mr. Douglas. Let us take it alive so we can learn and protect others from your fate.” Greg backed away from the window until he hit the wall, a fine sheen of sweat forming on his skin despite the chill to the air.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said, his voice barely more than a whisper. The low derisive laugh that came through the speaker held a mocking tone that sent a chill down his spine.

“Oh, but you do. We will have it. The question is, will any part of you survive its removal? We can make it easy for you. A bit of light, a little nap and in the end you’re free.”

“How can you be sure that I have it? How do you know?” he shook his head trying to deny the inevitable. His finger throbbed in direct mockery to his questions. They knew, there was little chance they weren’t sure.

“Come now. Don’t be foolish Mr. Douglas. Don’t waste your time, you have so little left as you are now.” Greg closed his eyes as anger rose in him, bubbling up like a fountain in response to the futility of it all. The isolation, the disembodied voice all compounding the feeling of helplessness.

“Free? You say I’ll be free? When you’re going to make pudding of my brain to get at this thing? How can you even say it without laughing? How can you lie so easily?” Greg said and began to pace in short angry strides, his fists beating at his legs in tandem with his steps.

“Free like we all are free living in this stinking nightmare of a city on the tiny strip of land left for humans on this godforsaken planet? Hiding from the things we created to try and save us? That kind of freedom? Or do you mean free of care because I’ll be a gibbering drooling invalid without the capacity for deep thought and emotion, so I won’t care anymore? Won’t be able to care?” his voice rose to a fever pitch, his throat aching with the effort.

The silence in response to his outburst was not unexpected. When he calmed himself he walked over to the window and pulled the bandage off his face, exposing the rash to the unseen person or persons watching him. Then he turned and walked over to the chair, sat down, and began to cry. How long it lasted he didn’t know. His face felt swollen, and his shirt was wet along the hem where he’d used it to wipe at his eyes and nose during his fruitless fit of despair.

“Wel,l Mr. Douglas?” The voice questioned and Greg leaned his head back, closing his eyes and smiling bitterly.

“No, I think you’re going to have to just kill me first. I’d rather not be around for the second act of this farce.” Greg replied sitting up to look at the darkened window. The lights came up and he could see a half dozen officials and his wife seated in the adjacent room. Her face was pale, and her bottom lip trembled with the effort to hold back tears. He lifted a hand to his lips and blew her a kiss then nodded, and a green light illuminated him where he sat.

Then everything went dark.