The Genesis Saga

Yet there was much left unanswered. As the trio discussed further, the door swung open yet again and Stanley waltzed through. “Isn’t this a surprise,” he said. He flourished his wrists towards the guard behind him. “If you would be so kind,” he said, with a cheeky grin and a slight bow. The guard remained as stoic as ever, not reacting to Stanley in the slightest. Once he was gone, Stanley turned back to the group. “Hello everyone, fancy meeting you here.”

“Oh no,” John whispered so silently that Adrian almost missed it.

“I guess our little group was just fated to be,” Stanley clapped. “What have I missed?” Lily filled him in on the details of their conversations. Stanley nodded along, asking clarifying questions for the parts that were unclear. “I didn’t realize the rooms would be so communal,” he said after hearing the explanation. “And to be paired with you guys. What are the odds?”

“Yes, what are the odds?” Lily frowned. “Doesn’t this seem a bit weird?”

“Maybe we just got really lucky?” offered John.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“But how could they have known that we all knew each other?”

“If this was on purpose, they must have had some way to monitor us beforehand,” Adrian murmured. “It’s a bit of a stretch though, how would they do it?”

“What was that?” Lily asked.

“I was just thinking that if they put us together was on purpose, they must have had some way to monitor us. They could possibly still be monitoring us right now. But I was thinking that may be a bit of a stretch and –” Adrian cut himself off. He looked around the room at the frozen faces of the others. “What?”

“Oh shit,” Lily breathed. “I completely didn’t think of that. Why didn’t I think of that? They surely wouldn’t just leave us all alone in here with no supervision.” Instantly, she began looking at the corners of the ceiling, trying to find any evidence of surveillance. Sure enough, in the top corner of the room was a small, dark, round, semi-circle of glass attached to the ceiling. “There,” she pointed. “They are watching us. Do you think they can hear us?”

“I’m pretty sure those kinds of cameras don’t record sound,” Adrian said.

“Do you think there are other cameras?”

Adrian looked towards the nook in the wall at the end of the room where the toilet was. It was a sad attempt at privacy and while there was toilet paper available, there was no sink. Walking over to check, he didn’t find any obvious hints of there being surveillance in that part of the room. “There isn’t any over here,” he called out.

“Lovely,” Lily said. “They’ve decided not to watch us use that sorry excuse of a bathroom.”

“At least we have a bathroom,” Adrian pointed out.

“I suppose.”

“What about under the beds?” John asked. The four of them checked under all of the beds save the one that was currently occupied by the stranger. Luckily, they found nothing there as well.

“So it’s just the one camera?” Lily huffed, eyeing the corner of the ceiling. “Thank God for that.”

“Great, we’re being watched,” John said. “Not much we can change there. We’d just better not give them a reason to look at us closely.”

“The surveillance I understand; it makes sense that they’d want to monitor us,” Stanley said. “But the tattoos,” he trailed off. “If they mean what I think they mean, then we’re human test subjects.”

Everyone in the room blanched.

“What makes you think that?” John asked. “Maybe we’re here for some other reason.”

“Because the first two letters stand for active research,” Stanley stressed. “If they weren’t doing research on us, there wouldn’t be a need for the tattoos. Which means that –”

The door swung open yet again with no warning, cutting off the conversation. “It’s time for you to get clean,” the guard opening it said. “Follow single file behind me.”

Looking at each other, the group filed out of the room, one at a time and followed the guard. They turned right at the end of the corridor. As they walked down the hall, the wall on the left opened up and revealed a shower room. There were five showers, each separated by a thin curtain. In front of each stall was a small rack with folded clothes.

“Pick a stall and get changed into your new clothes. We’ll be taking your old ones. You have ten minutes.”

Silently, each person claimed a stall. Seeing no other choice, they reluctantly stripped and entered their stalls, leaving their clothes in a heap on the floor. The water was bone-chillingly cold, eliciting more than one yelp from the prisoners. Not a single shower lasted the allotted ten minutes.

Shivering and dripping wet, Adrian found himself dressed in loose, white clothing. The new uniform consisted of a white t-shirt and loose, white pants that were held up by a drawstring. The guards had picked up all the discarded garments and had stuffed them in a large, pale blue laundry pouch that was kept near the entrance.

Once the guards were satisfied that everyone was clean and wearing their new clothes, they were brought back to their room.

“That was unpleasant,” Lily said once inside. She was noticeably shivering, desperately trying to warm up.

“I hope all our showers aren’t like that,” Stanley complained.

“I wouldn’t get our hopes up,” Adrian said. “There was only one knob on that shower, and no amount of turning made the water heat up.”

“What did put in the reservoir for it to be that cold? Ice?” Lily asked.

“Who knows. Ice would’ve been warmer than that,” Stanley grumbled.

Some time passed as they slowly warmed up. While it was impossible to see outside of the room, they weren’t fully soundproofed. Adrian could make out the shuffling of feet passing by. A group would come from one direction, only to return half an hour later. He wondered where they were going if not the showers.

Suddenly, the latch for the eyehole opened and a pair of brown eyes peered in the room. It closed before the door swung open, revealing two guards waiting outside.

“It’s time for food. Follow us. Don’t speak. Don’t run. Form a line and follow single file,” one of the guards said tersely. Adrian didn’t recognize them. There must have been a shift change.

The crew gathered into a line and walked out of their room, following one of the guards down the corridor, away from the elevators. Turning left at the end of the corridor, Adrian saw that it opened up into a mess hall.

The checkered black and white floor gave way to three large tables that sat in the center of a small cafeteria. A stack of dark brown trays lay on a rack next to the entrance. One by one, they grabbed a tray and lined up for the food. In return, they each received one bowl of pale grey gruel. Picking the closest table, they all sat down together, except for the stranger. He sat apart from the others and watched on with a shrewd expression.

Adrian looked down at the unappetizing grey sludge in his bowl. Lily looked disgusted and pushed the bowl away from herself, clearly not intending to be the first one to try it. “Do you think they drugged it?” he asked.

“No,” Stanley replied confidently, “There’s nothing to gain from drugging us through our food. They’ve already got armed guards and cuffs. We have no choice but to be compliant, so I don’t think they’d bother drugging the food.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Besides, it’s either eat this or starve.”

John and Adrian let out a dry chuckle at that. “Mission accomplished there. Adrian and I haven’t eaten in a few days,” John said. He poked around the mush with his spoon. Lifting a spoonful, he sniffed the mysterious food and grimaced. It smelled like chalk and wet pavement. He tilted his spoon and watched the food – if you could call it that – slowly slide off before landing in the bowl with a glop.

“This has to be the most unappetizing thing I’ve ever seen,” Lily said.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry enough to try it,” Adrian added, more confidently than he felt. He hesitantly brought a spoonful up to his mouth and took a bite.

He immediately spat it back out.

“Dude, gross,” John said.

Adrian reached for his water glass, trying in vain to get the taste out of his mouth. “That’s vile. What the hell did they put in there?” he coughed.

“You’re doing an excellent job of selling us on the cuisine,” Stanley said, amusement in his voice.

“Well, that just killed my appetite,” announced Lily. She pushed her tray away from her with no intention of trying the food.

“If we don’t eat this, then we’re going to starve and feel like shit,” John pointed out. “I already feel weak from the lack of food over the past few days. If this is what it takes, then I’ll eat it. I won’t like it, but I’ll eat it.”

“Eating this will make us sick and weak!” Lily spat. “There’s no way I’m going to eat this. The smell alone is already so off-putting. I’ll let you guys be the guinea pigs for this one.”

A strangled noise from Stanley got everyone’s attention. “Oh god, Adrian’s right, this stuff is nasty,” Stanley said, looking slightly green after taking a bite. “Eating this is cruel and unusual punishment.”

Adrian felt a bit better now that he wasn’t the only one that had to suffer through tasting the food. He looked at his own bowl and puckered up.

He took another bite.

The mush had the texture of congealed oatmeal and stuck to his throat as he swallowed. Quickly, he grabbed his water glass and took a sip before he choked on the food. The taste was downright horrendous. It somehow managed to taste worse than how it smelled. “I am not giving my compliments to the chef,” he croaked after his bite. This earned a small laugh from Stanley.

“Well, since Adrian didn’t throw it back up, I guess its not totally inedible,” Stanley said. “I think I’d rather go through whatever it is they’re going to do to us on a full stomach. As the French say, bon appétit,” he took a bite. Grimacing, he also had to drink water to force the food down. “This is going to be a long meal.”

A long meal it was. Every bite felt like an eternity of suffering. Everyone except Lily ate their food. It was slow going, but the guards didn’t seem like they were in any rush to bring them back to their cell. If anything, it looked like they were enjoying their break.

Once everybody was done eating, one of the guards came to check on them. Deeming them finished, they were escorted back to their room.

Feeling full, Adrian sat on a cot that he claimed as his own.

“Now what?” he asked aloud. They hadn’t been the first group to eat, and he felt as though it was starting to get late. Not that he could tell for sure. Once again, he didn’t have access to a clock.

“Anybody have a deck of cards?” Stanley joked.

“No,” John said. “I don’t think we’d be allowed any either.”

“Another straight-laced answer,” Stanley sighed. “John, you really need to get a sense of humour. Stop taking everything I say so seriously.”

“Why say anything if you don’t mean it? That’s my motto,” John replied with a frown.

“Not everybody follows that motto John.”

“They should! The world would be a much simpler place if we all meant what we said.”

“Simpler, maybe. But not necessarily a better place.”

After an hour of aimless discussion, the lights in the room suddenly went out.

“What’s going on?” Lily said, panicking.

“I’m guessing it’s night time,” Stanley deduced. “That’s probably our queue to go to bed. Who knows how long we’ll get before they come for us again. We should sleep while we have the chance.”

John, who had been pacing, fumbled around in the dark searching for a bed. Finding one, he sat down on it. His hand landed on someone’s thigh, startling him. He’d inadvertently chosen an occupied bed.

“Oh darling, have you finally decided to take me up on my offer? You could have just said something,” rang Stanley’s voice in the darkness. He placed his hand on top of John’s.

“No,” John said hurriedly, snatching his hand back. He quickly got up and moved to the next cot over. “I must have gotten the wrong one in the dark.”

“There’s no need for excuses,” Stanley tsked.

Laughing silently at their antics, Adrian turned onto his back and settled in for the night. Their light banter droned on in the background as Adrian closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.