[Original Novel] The Background of Your Memories, Part 8
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Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
I shrugged off the compliment and told him in no uncertain terms that something felt off about this place. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something’s wrong here, isn’t it.” He backed away. “No! Nothing’s wrong! Nothing! Everything’s as normal as can be! Always has been!”
Before I could press him for more, he turned tail and hurried off the way he came. The baffling encounter only increased my curiosity. Further down the hallway, I came upon a bathroom. Inside was more or less what I expected, a series of stalls and a large mirror taking up most of the near wall with a row of sinks under it.
I studied myself in the mirror. Neatly ironed grey suit, grey pants, white button down shirt and a black tie. Though really, they could be wildly clashing colors for all I knew. Then I saw it. Gliding slowly along the overhead rail, which intruded even here.
It looked something like a cluster of metal instruments. A security camera, a light, a microphone, various small sensors...and the barrel of what I assumed to be a gun. All of it mounted to a pivoting base which hung from the rail by a pair of rubberized wheels.
It made a quiet grinding, trundling sound as it slid along the rail, slowly circling the bathroom. I continued watching it...but only through the mirror. The warning in my office sprang to mind, that I was never to look at them directly.
Suddenly it stopped, then turned to examine me. I made a show of washing my face, fixing my hair and so on. Seemingly satisfied by the ruse, it then slid out the way it came, door opening automatically for it by some motorized mechanism as it left.
Holy hell. What the fuck was that? I thought about hunting down the fellow from the hallway and asking him, but concluded he’d probably be tight lipped as before. What is this place? Why build those rails? Why isn’t there any color?
I whispered, quietly as I could, that I wanted the helmet turned off. When nothing happened, I whispered a bit louder, but with the same result. Finally, my voice now trembling, I demanded that the helmet be removed as loudly as I dared.
Still nothing. Did he leave the room? Slowly, another possibility dawned on me. Could I have...fallen asleep? I’ve never had such a vivid dream though. I tried all of the cliche methods for waking up, like pinching myself and holding my breath.
If it’s a dream, it’s stubbornly persistent. I could try looking at the moon, except that every window I tried simply looked out onto more office buildings, packed together so tightly that nothing else was visible. Not the sky, not the ground below, just endless concrete and windows.
I gave up on it for the time being and resumed exploring the place. Every door looked the same, and the few that I opened revealed offices identical to mine. “Oh, sorry” I said when the office I’d barged into was unexpectedly occupied.
“Not at all, friend. But what are you doing here, rather than in your office? Are you on break?” I shook my head, unaware until then that anybody took breaks around here. He frowned. “Well that’s hardly normal then, is it? Off you go.”
There was a strained cheer to his voice and demeanor that unnerved me. Like the subtly twitching grin of a man held hostage by an offscreen gunman, assuring his family through a video camera that everything is fine.
I now had at least the beginnings of an understanding. Some sense of why anybody would remain here, why they would pretend nothing is out of the ordinary. But I also didn’t care to learn any more than I had to in order to escape.
Is escape even possible, I wonder. Wouldn’t there just be more office buildings? Then more beyond that? What if it’s one huge contiguous structure? The hallway certainly seemed to extend into infinity, from what I could see of it.
When I found the break room, the air was thick with smoke. A cigarette hung from the lips of absolutely everyone present. About a dozen of them, all dressed identically. All men with black hair, pale skin and samey looking faces, smoking like a couple of chimneys.
“Say fella, aren’t you gonna smoke?” one of them asked as I stood there taking it all in. I politely declined. He seemed disturbed by it. “What do you mean, no? Everybody smokes because it’s normal. You want to be normal don’t you? Of course you do.”
He handed me a cigarette. I gave up and placed it between my lips, holding it steady while he ignited the tip using a stainless steel lighter. I puffed a few times to satisfy him, after which he resumed mingling with the others.
“So...what exactly do you all do here?” They stared back in confusion. One tipped his hat and scratched his head. “Well, er...we work. This is “work”. As in “going to work”. Why do I have to tell you? You new or something?” He shared a chuckle with the others.
I told him that in fact I am new, but that he didn’t answer my question. “What sort of work gets done here?” A short silence followed. One of them volunteered that sometimes he sits at his desk and types on his typewriter. Another nodded, looking relieved. “See? There you go.”
But I wasn’t satisfied. “What exactly do you write?” He looked at once irritated and anxious. “Look buddy, you’re new. You obviously don’t understand how things work around here. That’s why I stopped by your office earlier and wrote you a little something to help you get started.”
He stared intently at me. I thought back to the contents of the note. As I did so, the other men suddenly shifted subtly. Tensing up, their eyes wide. I heard a quiet, raspy metallic sound behind me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
It’s right there, isn’t it. Right now. Behind me. I dare not look, I dare not say anything. Everything in me wanted to turn and face it, fighting that urge required a degree of discipline I did not realize was in my possession until now.
The others looked this way and that, staring off into space. Not at anything in particular, just straining as I was not to look at the dangling cluster of machinery just behind me. “S-say fella” one of them nervously stammered, “why don’t I show you the ropes? Come to my office and I’ll show you a thing or two about how to fit in here.”
I eagerly nodded, still fighting the urge to turn around and look at the presence I felt just behind me. The suited man got up from his seat and headed for the hallway, gesturing for me to follow. As I did so, I heard the familiar raspy grinding of the thing following us.
We just kept walking until the sound faded. Did it lose interest? Is it capable of that? It’s a machine isn’t it? Just how intelligent can it be? I still didn’t feel safe enough to peer over my shoulder. Even when he led me into his office, I didn’t let my guard down.
He held his index finger to his lips. Then plucked a pencil from the mug on his desk and scribbled something on a sheet of paper. “Carry on some sort of banal conversation with me. It can hear us everywhere and is attracted to any behavior that is out of the ordinary. While you do that, help me move the file cabinet.”
I read over it again, confused until he actually began to wheel the file cabinet away from the wall. “Oh, ah...ahem...work is going very well lately, wouldn’t you say?” I’ve never been much of an actor. But then, I’ve also never had any need to act convincingly until now.
“Indeed” he replied as he finished sliding the cabinet across the room, revealing a hole he must have knocked through the wall some time ago. “I estimate productivity is as high as it’s ever been. Everything’s exactly as normal as it should be.” He frantically waved me towards the hole.
I ducked through. He followed, pulling the cabinet behind him to once again conceal the hole. I began to speak but he shushed me, gesturing once more for me to follow him. I couldn’t understand the space we now occupied. There shouldn’t be this much space between the walls, surely?
It looked utilitarian. A rusting steel framework propping up the paper thin walls, steel pipe snaking this way and that, both along the walls and overhead. What little light there was to see by intruded into this space through the slots in ventilation grates.
Stay Tuned for Part 9!