Authors: Simon Strantzas
After attaching the sensor wires to Sanderson's head and body, Rose closed the door to the room and then looked through its tiny window to make sure everything was in place. She then returned to the control room to join Fisher.
"He's ready to go," she said. "How are things on this end?"
Fisher entered data into the central console and tested the microphone. He walked Sanderson through a short series of exercises to test and calibrate the sensors. Then Fisher called up Room One's video camera. It had been outfitted with a light-gathering lens to boost the signal and give them a better understanding of how well the patient slept and what he or she did during surges in the graphed activity. What it showed was Sanderson lying on the bed covered in circular sensors, his sagging arms behind the back of his neck. He was looking straight up and was caught by the camera with his mouth stretched wide in mid-yawn. The lens gave the black and white image an otherworldly look, overly-heightened and enhanced, but when Fisher looked closer he saw a dark cloud over Sanderson's head, obscuring it like some dark halo.
"Is there dirt on the camera?" Rose asked, squinting at the obstruction. It was as though her words caused it to wriggle across the screen. Fisher hoped Rose had not noticed how startled he'd been by the movement.
"It's probably a fly trapped in the room."
"Should we do something?"
Fisher considered for a moment.
"
Doctor Wy
says we shouldn't stress the patients out once they've taken their medication. If it's still there once he falls asleep, maybe you can go in and shoo it off the lens."
Rose nodded and then looked back at the monitor.
"Hey," she said. "It's gone already."
Fisher wondered how long it would take to return. They
always
returned eventually.
Sleep labs are funny things, Fisher mused, sitting behind the console filling out his daily reports. One would imagine no place quieter, and yet it still was not enough. Needles scratched across paper, computer consoles beeped when processes were complete, telephones rang to ensure the work was progressing normally; each cast a ripple of noise that barely registered on its own, but
en mass
they caused tempestuous waves in his calm. If he could, Fisher would have worn his noise-cancelling headphones throughout his shift to block out all but the direst sounds and communications, but it was impossible. Instead, he had to suffer the tumult and recognized that as far as jobs went it was the one most suited to him. He'd grown used to most of the noises, and he had managed to suppress the amount of anxiety they inflicted on him to a background level that, if not ideal, was at least manageable. Rose, on the other hand, was far more disruptive, and there was little he could do to quiet her. He
liked
Rose as much as he could, and he kept hoping she'd eventually come to understand his affliction, but nothing stopped her from taking any opportunity to speak to him. Her words were like flying insects that buzzed in his ear until he paid them attention.
"Did I ever tell you what I did?" she asked him. The sentence seemed to have started much sooner in her head.
"What do you mean?"
"About my daughter? About those bullies? I don't think you'd approve," she said, impishly. "Normally, I wouldn't have done anything in case I caused more problems for her, you understand, but it was clear that none of the teachers cared that those bullying girls were stepping up their attacks. Something needed to be done. So I did it."
"You confronted them?" Fisher tried to picture Rose on the school grounds, threatening two children. "I suppose they were terrified?"
Here, Rose's proud smile faltered and she turned back to the medical histories she had been sorting for
Doctor Wy
. "No, they weren't. They weren't frightened at all."
"What were they then?"
"Nothing. They were nothing. Their eyes were cold and black and empty. And the noises those girls made --"
A rapid banging interrupted her. The noise was so loud and sharp it drove cold sparks along Fisher's body like an electrical current. His tongue was bleeding from where he bit it but his teeth would not stop chattering. Rose however looked unfazed.
"There's someone at the door," she said.
Through squinted lids Fisher saw a pair of shadows move across the windows at the front of the lab.
"Find out who it is," he said, hands across his ears, "and get them to stop."
Rose sighed and picked up something Fisher didn't see from the desk. She looked back at him, holding up her keys, before shaking her head again. He looked over his shoulder at the camera footage of Sanderson's test. The display showed the patient lying motionless, the graph lines on the console barely moving. Thankfully he had not been awakened.
At the door Rose spoke to someone who stood just out of sight. Fisher hazarded uncovering his ears, but though the banging had ceased it had been replaced by the drowning noise of construction that the open door permitted through. The mere sight of the unlocked door unnerved Fisher; he felt the dread of a half-forgotten nightmare squeezing his chest, and took a step forward to see who stood there hidden. The sight of Martin Breem jittering into view was not a relief.
"You shouldn't be here," Rose said, following Breem inside. "Wednesdays are your day. You have to leave or you'll ruin --" Rose's voice faltered as she saw the dark bruises running down Breem's arms. It was clear the man had been crying; his whole demeanor radiated both weakness and hopelessness. He looked at Fisher as the words tumbled out.
"My ulcers are back, and I haven't slept in days. There's something really wrong; I can
feel
it."
"Mister Breem, you know we can't have you in here."
"Why?"
"Because the experiment will be compromised," said Fisher, "and that compromises everyone."
Breem began to claw at his face. "Don't you get it? Don't you see what he's doing? Oh, God, I thought maybe you'd be different, but
you're all the same
." He dropped to his knees and started sobbing. Fisher looked at Rose who quickly mimicked downing a drink.
Fisher checked his watch. What were they going to do with Breem? The night was barely at its halfway point and the Sanderson trial could not be interrupted.
"Help me get him to Room Three, Rose; at least until he sobers up."
"But didn't Wy say--"
"I know what he said, but what choice do we have? We can't put him back on the streets like this. Look at him."
The two of them carried the weeping Breem to the empty room furthest from Sanderson. From that room Fisher knew it was impossible to hear anything in the next. Fisher himself had taken refuge there when the noise in the lab became too much for him, and yet once he and Rose carried Breem in, the drunken man stopped crying and looked dazed-eyed at the intervening wall.
"What -- who's there?"
"Nothing to worry about, Mister Breem. Just rest and when you feel better we'll get you some breakfast."
Martin nodded slowly, then hiccoughed and lay down on his side to face the intervening wall, hugging his bruised arms to his chest.
"I tried," he said, just as Fisher and Rose were about to leave. He did not move as he spoke. "I tried to see the doctor for help, but I couldn't find him. He wasn't there."
"I'm sure you just missed him," Rose said.
"No, he wasn't
there
. There was no office. It was like he'd never
been
there. It was empty. Why wasn't he there?"
"I just spoke with
Doctor Wy
this evening," Fisher offered. "He's
definitely
still there. You must have gotten off on the wrong floor. Now, go to sleep, please."
They waited, but Martin Breem said nothing more.
Once outside the room Fisher could hear the telephone ringing, and its soft trill immediately put his teeth on edge. He winced and waited for Rose to answer it. She did so with a put-upon sigh, then after a lazy moment listening pushed a button and handed the receiver to Fisher. "It's Wy. He's checking in. Again."
"Hello,
Doctor Wy
."
"Who's in the lab tonight?"
Fisher hesitated. "Pardon?" How could he already know about Breem?
"Which patient is there tonight?"
"Oh, um . . . It's Sanderson." He looked at Rose but her expression was inscrutable.
"Good, good. I have Sanderson on a new permutation of the drug. I’m hopeful he sleeps through the night on this one."
"He may, but he looks awful. Tonight his skin --"
"A side-effect, nothing more. Once it's working I'll worry about fine-tuning it. How long has he been asleep?"
"About two hours."
"And how are his readings?"
Fisher tabbed through the consoled software until he found the sensor readings.
"A little more erratic than usual but still within the normal range. He's in REM right now."
"Good. Watch him closely and report anything new to me at once. I have strong hopes this configuration will be the key."
Fisher hung up the telephone. Rose shook her head; he already knew what she was thinking.
The bulk of the nights in the lab were spent monitoring the polysomnograph, which recorded not only the subjects' heart rate but brain activity as well. The results were recorded in a series of jagged lines across the bottom of the console display, and Fisher was able to mark off any anomalies that he noticed. Despite the signs Doctor Wy warned him about he had never seen anything out of the ordinary, and as a result spent much of his time catching up on his reports and charting previous nights' sessions. He had to match the audio and video footage with the graphs and mark where any changes in one were reflected in the other. It was simply a matter of adding flags to the graph at each time something occurred, and then noting an explanation in the supplied field. The work was tedious but quiet, and as he did it Rose often spent her time cleaning the remaining two rooms and preparing them for their next occupant. She was hampered by Breem's presence in Room Three, and her nervous pacing put Fisher on edge.
"I'm going to have to wash that bedding again. It probably stinks now."
"I'm sure it will be okay," Fisher said. "It's only for tonight. The room would have been empty anyway."
"It
does
seem a waste of space to be testing them all one at a time. I can't believe Wy thinks we can't handle even two at once."
"It's not that we can't handle them," he said. "It's that
Doctor Wy
doesn't want them in contact with each other. He says it will taint the experiment. I don't think he wants them discussing their symptoms."
"Do you think that's it, though? That that's the reason?"
"What other reason could there be?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
They both turned at the sound of something falling outside the control room, but as Fisher recoiled Rose stood and walked out to see what had happened. There was a shadow briefly across the doorway but no doubt it was Rose's own. Nonetheless it took Fisher's heart a few moments to stop racing. As it did so Rose returned to the control room.
"Well I can't see anything out there. Maybe those guys across the street dropped something outside?"
"Possibly," Fisher said.
There was a pause.
"Hm. That's weird," Rose said. "The camera in Room One isn't working."
Fisher walked over to the console and tried to call the room's details up but when he hit the command to display the video feed the picture was black. Fisher checked the connections; the feed was good -- the camera was sending information properly but the computer wasn't receiving it.