Prisms

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. A flash of light as something passes or a break in the shadows as someone moved by. She knew there was a world outside but the world she knew was within the walls.

The air she breathed, the light she knew and the water she bathed in came in to the building from somewhere else. she didn't know where. This was her world and she barely considered that there was more , her life had been indoors and the outdoors may as well have been a million miles away.

On the brief occasions she questioned anybody about the beyond the subject changed or she was simply ignored. When people came in to her part of the building she didn't know where they came from. They might live in the beyond, maybe in another building.

They didn't seem different, they didn't look different, not even smell different. They dressed the same and talked the same. Maybe this is why she had no desire to learn what was outside, nobody seemed any better then she was.

As ever she spent her time doing the normal things in life, at least normal for her. She eat and drank and washed and worked and everything else. Her role was collating and inputting reams of facts and results , these were supplied from researchers in the next part of her building. There was one man from the group who supplied her with the paperwork she edited down to bare facts and figures.

He was the man with the one window to the outside, to the beyond. It wasn't one to simply look out of, it was set high on the wall. It let in light and shadows and little else. There were enough changes in shadows to show some activity. Prisms of light shone on to the floor as the light source moved around.

The work was fairly boring and she never questioned what it referred to, what it represented was hidden within numbers and figures. The first time she became interested was when a change occurred within the figures. The numbers rarely altered , they presumably related to the same things or parameters.

Then they started to change, first subtly, then drastically. The only problem was working out what the numbers meant so that she could work out the importance of the changes. She looked back through the paperwork she had already filed in order to try and work out what they meant.

Some number rose slowly over time, some stayed around the same and some remained identical. There was enough to work out a time line as she picked up the papers daily from the man with the window. In the end, after some amateur detective work, she came to a frightening conclusion. She was the subject, she was the reason for the numbers.

The next question in her head was far harder to solve, why was she being tested and how.?

She wasn't subjected to any tests she knew of, nothing physical was recorded and as the numbers had no explanation she was nearly as confused as before.

There was nobody to ask, she was allowed to talk to others in her life building but she had long ago realised they knew as little as she did. The only options were carry on as ever or ask the man with the window.

It was a simple dilema, 2 simple answers but so hard to decided the answer. Finally she decided she had to ask, even if she was refused an answer.

The next time she went to collect her paperwork she simply asked" why are you recording so much about me?"

She was surprised to see the man slowly smile as she asked. She wasn't sure what she expected but it wasn't a smile.

"well done, have a seat" said the man with the window.

"I have been waiting for you to ask, the people before you have usually asked by now but some waited this long. There are a number of buildings here, hidden in plain sight is the phrase I believe. It looks like a block of offices but in side are the living pods, the scientists and researcher stations and the experiment compounds. We have groups of people born here, raised her and who work here until they question their existence. Once you show the ability for free thought you can move out. "

She understand the words but still not the meaning. The man with the window must have seen the confusion as he continued.

" we supply the best staff to the best and most discerning clients. They want people to do their jobs without question and only ask when something changes. This shows they are paying attention as they notice differences in seemingly never ending and repetitive tasks. As a company we struggled to find the right staff for the amount of roles we needed to fill. So obviously as the jobs werent going to change we needed to change the staff. Better still we noticed one of our biggest clients had quietly started investigating cloning. So it became obvious, to get the best staff clone and train the best staff. You will get your first job allocation soon, well done"