Subject 11

3

On the fourth day, during their second of three daily meals, 2 said to the group, “This is getting to be cruel and unusual punishment. I didn’t figure we’d have to go without coffee. I’m a big-time coffee addict, and I’m getting withdrawal headaches.”

“Coffee?” said 10. “How do you think I feel? I’d strangle a puppy for a cigarette right about now.”

7 was watching as 1 gave 6 her bologna sandwich in return for his orange and a sandwich bag full of grapes. She spoke up, “You know, you really shouldn’t be trading food.”

1 looked back at her icily through the narrow lenses of her glasses. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“I think the idea here is we all eat the same.”

“And why would that be?”

“I don’t know — in case the food is drugged or whatever.”

“In case the food is drugged? I don’t think they need to trick us into taking drugs; we do it willingly every morning. And if it is drugged, then I’ll eat some extra drugged fruit and he can eat some extra drugged bologna. I’m a vegetarian and I’m not eating meat; too bad. This is between 6 and me.”

“Whatever… I’m just saying.”

To divert the conversation from hostility, 5 cut in, “Yesterday 7 and I were exploring for hours and we saw some interesting things.”

“Like what?” 6 asked around a mouthful of sandwich.

“Well, we worked our way all the way around to those buildings opposite this one — you know, that you can see outside the windows here?” She gestured across the room toward the looming windows with their small cloudy panes. They projected golden afternoon light across the floor in a grid like a giant chessboard.

“So the buildings are all connected,” 10 said. “Or did you get outside?”

“No — just for the hell of it we tried every door to the outside we found. They’re all locked. Anyway, the last building we poked around in is in rough shape — really old. Must have been derelict long before this one got retired. The walls are all damp and black from mildew. Nasty. Where the plaster is broken away you can see the bricks underneath, and some of the floors feel like they’re going to collapse right under your feet.”

“But tell them what we found over there,” 7 urged her.

“In one room with a couple empty file cabinets and an empty desk, there was a big wooden table or maybe it was a workbench — and it had doll heads on it. Doll heads all lined up, standing on their necks. Some were small like Barbie heads, and some were old baby doll heads, made of cracked rubber. Very weird.”

“Ah, kids have got in here over the years,” 8 said dismissively.

“There were ten doll heads,” 5 said, holding his gaze with an intense expression. “I counted them.”

“Okay… ten doll heads. Big deal.”

“Five were lined up on one side of the table, facing five heads on the other side. Just like we’re sitting now.”

“Oh wow,” 9 said, and she hugged herself with a visible shudder.

“Oh, one of us here must have done it as a joke.” 4 grinned around the table at his companions. “Fess up, one of you!”

“Could have been Dr. Onsay,” 2 suggested, “or some other tester. Maybe they have a camera set up and were just waiting for us to find that.”

“It’s nothing,” 8 said. “Kids. Just kids.”

“Tell them the other thing we found over there,” 7 said.

5 resumed, “In that same really rundown building, we found stairs going down into a basement. Believe it or not there were lights on here and there, just like on this side, so we decided to go down and have a look. There wasn’t much down there; just a lot of big old water pipes on the walls or the ceiling. But we did find one funny thing in the basement, in this narrow little dungeon-looking corridor with an arched ceiling. It was more of that same graffiti like in our confessional.” She nodded at the closed door across the room. “Covering one whole wall.”

“Really?” 1 said. “God, what is it with that graffiti, anyway?”

8 barked a laugh. “What’s up with graffiti? It’s just fucking kids! Come on!”

1 turned to him. “Don’t you feel funny when you’re in the confessional? Doesn’t staring at that graffiti too long make you feel dizzy?”

8 grinned at her and said, “No. But staring at you too long makes me dizzy.” He winked.

“Oh please.”

2 turned to look at 3, seated beside him. “Hey, you wanna go over there and have a look after we eat?”

“Huh? To see doll heads and more graffiti? I don’t think so.” The small, attractive woman detected the disappointment and embarrassment in 2’s face and nudged him with her elbow. “Let’s just take a walk around here in this building, where it isn’t moldy at least.”

2 brightened. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Those heads could’ve been left by my rival mafia,” he joked. “As a warning to me.”

“Don’t worry — I’ll protect you.”

8 had overheard their plans and, still grinning, said, “Hey, I want to go with you two. You trying to hog that pretty little lady all to yourself, Mr. 2?”

2 glared across the table at the other man, who wore wire-rimmed glasses and a full beard as if to compensate for his fine, receding hair. “I’m not stopping you. But I’m not inviting you, either. Ever heard the expression three’s a crowd?”

“Don’t you think it should be up to the lady if somebody wants to hang out with her?”

3 twisted her full lips in a pouty sneer and said, “Do whatever you want — it’s a free country.”

“Jeesh… okay then, forget it. I can see when I’m not wanted. Maybe you two can find a bed in your travels.”

2 stood up so abruptly that his tumbler of water tipped over. He pointed at the other man and snarled, “Watch your mouth, asshole!”

“Okay, whew, take it easy!”

4 had risen from his seat as well, and put his hand on 2’s arm. “Be cool, man, he’s just fuckin’ around a little.”

“I don’t need to hear that shit.” 2 slowly sank back into his chair.

7 leaned close to 5 and whispered, “They’re watching this, I’m sure. They love it — it’s what they’re counting on. It won’t be interesting for them if we don’t go for each other’s throats.”

“It’s spooky out there,” 9 said, still hugging her arms as she stood at a barred window, peering out into the crisp blackness of night. Distantly, tiny yellow windows glowed as if floating in the inky air. They were windows in the older building across the way; the building 5 and 7 had explored the day before.

Several of the test subjects were doing their laundry in a room in which a modern washer and dryer had been set up for them. At the start of the experiment, they had each been given one extra pair of white hospital scrubs. While the washer and dryer churned, the sound of spraying water came from another chamber beyond. This was one of two shower rooms that had been prepared for them, both containing no more than a flexible hand shower attached to a faucet, with a drain in the tiled floor. No bath tub, no shower curtain, not even a door in the room’s threshold. One shower room was used by the women, the other by the men, and as there was but a single shower hose in each room the subjects had taken to showering at different times of the day to avoid waiting in a line. Some of them had protested at the coldness of the water, or at this mode of showering altogether, but 3 had said, “This is how I always showered back in my country.”

“And what country is that?” 7 had asked her, but as if she regretted her words, 3 had not answered.

The sound of spraying water ceased, and moments later 1 stepped into the laundry area, wrapped in one of the two white towels she’d been given and drying her hair with the other. 9 turned toward the females’ shower room to take her place, while 1 slapped barefoot into another, larger room. Here, the cinderblock walls had been painted halfway up from the floor in a dull red color like old dried blood. This was the females’ sleeping room. 1 went to where her sleeping bag was rolled up. Some of the others left their sleeping bags spread open on the floor all the time, but 1 was afraid of bugs or even mice stealing inside.

She was changing into her clean set of scrubs when she looked up and saw that young 7 had trailed into the room after her, and was watching her as she removed her towel, revealing her still damp body. “Is something wrong?” 1 asked sharply.

“No… sorry… I was, um, just reading your tattoo, there. ONE LIFE TO LIVE.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I have a philosophical tattoo, myself. Here.” 7 turned around and lifted her top with one hand, pulling down the back of her pants with the other, to reveal a tattoo nestled in the small of her back. In flowery, scrolling type surrounded by sparkles were the words LIFE’S NO STORYBOOK.

“Cute,” 1 said. But she didn’t show her own lower back tattoo, of a Mobius strip. She donned her clothing as quickly as possible.

Looking elsewhere awkwardly, 7 stammered, “I like your glasses… they’re cool.”

“Thanks.”

“Um… so you’re a vegetarian, huh?”

“My Mom died of cancer. I try to live healthy to avoid the same fate.”

“Oh man… I’m sorry about that.”

Glancing toward the young woman as she straightened the hem of her top, and feeling a little guilty for her snappy tone, 1 said, “So you found more of that graffiti, huh?”

“Yeah.” 7 took this as an invitation to face her. “That makes three places I know of in this facility, including the confessional.”

“The confessional! Shit!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Usually I do my confession early, but today I put it off… and then I forgot about it altogether.”

“Oh wow. Well you’d better go do it now, then. I’m sure they keep track of these things. It’s what we’re getting paid for.”

1 looked toward the doorway to the sleeping quarters dubiously. Reluctantly. “Yeah, I know.”

“What’s wrong? You afraid to go over there alone? It’s just a couple rooms over. I can go with you, and wait in the cafeteria if you want.”

1 was still uncomfortable with the young woman’s attentions, remembering how she had seemed to be staring at her exposed body. “No, that’s okay,” she said. She slipped on her stylish glasses with their white frames. “I can go alone. Like you said, it’s not far… and I’ll only give them a couple minutes, just to make it look good.”

“10 and I were trying to figure out what this place was,” 9 said to the wall in the closed confession room. “He says factory, but I was thinking hospital or prison. I didn’t tell him I’ve worked in real estate. Or that I wasn’t much good at it. Had the smarts, but just not aggressive enough. Anyway, to be honest his guess is as good as mine. I never exactly sold abandoned… whatever this property was, before. I’m curious how much you paid to rent it.”

Restless in her chair, she knotted her hands between her legs as if in secret prayer. “But I don’t know — now I’m feeling sorry I ever agreed to this. It’s really not enough money to be living like this, even for a short time. Drinking rusty water, showering in rusty water, living in this place that’s probably full of toxic waste, with these… people.

“I’m not even sure what the point of it all is. Today 10 said Dr. Onsay told him it was a study in ‘social integration.’ I said Dr. Onsay told me it was a study of ‘temporal distortion.’ I’m sure that’s what he said. 10 just laughed and said, ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ Then he thought about what I said and he asked me, ‘Did you say he?’ And I said, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘Talking about Dr. Onsay, did you call her a he?’ And I said, ‘Her? What do you mean, her? Yes, Dr. Onsay is a man.’ And 10 said, ‘Well, I guess I can see how you might think that. She’s definitely on the masculine side. But the person who interviewed me was a woman.’ And I said, ‘Well, he was definitely gay, but he was definitely a man.’ Maybe it wasn’t even the same person. Maybe there are a number of different people working on this project, and they’re all using the same fake name.”

9 yawned, and went on, “But you know who you are, right Dr. Onsay?” She was about to rise from the office chair and go seek out her sleeping bag, when she settled her weight again and said, “Oh… right before I came in here I was finishing up my clothes and towels in the laundry, when I looked out the window in there and I saw someone standing in one of the lit windows in that old building 5 was talking about at lunch. It was just an outline, but it was definitely a person looking back over this way. It gave me the creeps, because it felt like they were looking at me, too. It was probably one of our team, gone over there to poke around. But it might have been you, too, huh Dr. Onsay? Right? Could’ve been you — or one of you.”