by Anna Ferrara
“She left with bags. I could only stay with one of them.”
Somebody shoved the shower curtain aside violently. Another slammed the bathroom door against the wall. My muscles began to quiver. I could see them vibrate.
“The toilet is clear,” an unfamiliar gruff male voice said.
Silence. So quiet, I could almost hear people breathing near me. I was doing my best to breathe without making a sound when, all of a sudden, a familiar scent entered my nostrils.
The scent of headache-inducing cologne. It was so close, so thick in the air. What was it? Cedar and mint? Leather? I pursed both lips and backed up as far as I could go.
Somebody dragged the floor-to-ceiling felt curtains open and let sunlight back into Room 103. That was when I saw him—his hair neatly-gelled, his face, freshly-scrubbed as always. He was in a business suit this time; no longer in a white coat. Three other men in similar business suits stood behind him but he was the one with the hand on the curtain and face pressed against the floor-to-ceiling industrial window right in front of me.
I sucked in my stomach, extended my neck and tried to make my body way thinner than it really was, even though it was close to impossible. My breath sounded deafening to me. I prayed it was not as loud for them as it was for me.
Dr Clark slammed a palm against the glass of the industrial window and banged hard a few times as if trying to make sure the industrial window couldn’t be opened. It couldn’t. I already tried. There was a new expression on his face—one I had never seen before. Displeasure. Calm and always patient Dr Clark was actually displeased, right in front of my eyes.
I squeezed my eyes shut. There was nowhere else for me to go, nowhere else to hide. CRO is fast as hell, Paul had said. Paul had been right. She was probably right about everything else too. Doctor Clark didn’t look like a doctor anymore. He looked like an agent on a hunt. I began to wish Paul were here. Paul would know what to do. Paul always had a plan. I really should have just listened to her!
“How the hell does a person just vanish into thin air?” Dr Clark asked.
“You tell me,” Arden Villeneuve replied. She sounded more frustrated than he did. “Are you sure that’s Blaine Thompson? Because she moves, walks and talks exactly like Lane Thompson. And I mean exactly.”
Because I am Lane, Arden!
“Like I said, Miss Villeneuve, Blaine has internalised her sister thoroughly. What the mind believes, the body enacts. If you think you’re hungry, you will feel hungry. If you truly believe you’re somebody else, you will be somebody else.”
Arden Villeneuve didn’t say anything in response to that.
“That aside,” Dr Clark continued. “Did you manage to get the diary?”
“No. She wouldn’t tell me where it was.”
“Did you even try?”
“Yes! Look, Mr…”
“Doctor. Dr Clark.”
“…Clark. I’m very tired. I spent all morning trying to find your girls and as far as I’m concerned, one of them was right here waiting for you. My part is done. I want to see you delete the footage now.”
A pause. I suspected they were sizing each other up.
“I can’t. We haven’t found our patients—”
“That’s not my problem! I’ve done what I can, what more do you want? Are you blackmailing me or something?”
“Of course not. But neither can we delete anything before we find our patients. I’ve already explained—”
“Oh for God’s sake! Fuck you! You don’t get to steal data from my computer, knock on my door in the middle of the night and tell me what to do! Get out!”
“Miss Villeneuve, please—”
“I said Get Out!”
I had never heard Arden Villeneuve that angry in real life before. It sounded more like a movie from where I was standing. Very unreal.
“Alright, please stay calm. We will go.” Footsteps moved towards the door. “But, if you do see Blaine or Paul Rafferty again, please just call us, okay? They’re dangerous and need to be put away. Do you understand that? Do not try to hide them. You’ll only be putting yourself in danger.”
“I did not hide them!”
“Okay. Okay. I got it.” Dr Clark’s voice sounded much further away now. “You have my number and... also, just so you know, I really enjoyed your last movie.”
I heard the door to Room 103 slam shut right afterwards.
Silence after that. Nothing moved. Nobody made a sound.
Then, out of nowhere, a loud crash. Glass breaking and a heavy thud. I opened my eyes.
Heavy grey felt was all I saw. I edged forward and peeped past the felt, out at the rest of the room.
The glass plate atop the tin can table that had been in front of the floor-to-ceiling industrial window was gone. Only the table’s stem of tin cans, piled one on top of the other, remained on the floor, on its side. Around it were pieces of shattered glass, Paul’s bouquet of roses, and a lamp that used to sit on the wooden locker next to the bed. At the other end of the room, by the bed, Arden Villeneuve stood with both hands in her hair. She kicked the mattress and swore.
A mix of emotions swirled in my stomach; fear was not quite it anymore. Fear was there of course—how could it not be there—but there was some other, more powerful emotion riding on it. A very energetic emotion. I clenched my teeth and realised what it was.
Confusion.
I stepped out from behind the floor-to-ceiling curtains, also thankful that all those years of shitty laborious jobs had left me so thin. Had Dr Clark been more persistent, had he pushed the curtains aside that little bit more, I would have been spotted. Easily.
Arden Villeneuve sensed my presence and turned right away. Her hand flew to her mouth. She stared at me like I were a ghost.
“Blaine,” she said.
There. I saw her say it. Blaine with pursed lips to make the ‘B’ sound. “I’m not Blaine, Arden,” I said. “There is no Blaine. I made that up.”
“Okay, sure. Regardless, you need your meds, okay?” Arden Villeneuve dropped her eyes down to the leather chair next to me, where her very expensive top-of-the-line handbag lay next to the chair’s leg. “Let me call your doctor for you.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, I do. I really do. Just let me get my bag…” She edged forward.
I put myself between the bag and her. “I mean it, Arden. I am Lane. I didn’t die. Don’t you recognise me?”
“Yes. I do. You are Lane and the year is 2033. Okay?”
What?
“Lane, your doctor cares about you, very much so, so let’s call him to take a look, how about that?”
I didn’t know. Was that okay? Was that not okay? In my experience, Wonderdrug hadn’t been all that bad, but Paul seemed to think it was hell. What she definitely had been right about was how difficult it was to get out once you were in and I couldn’t be sure I wanted to leave everything I now had access to just yet.
Arden Villeneuve jumped forward and grabbed her bag before I could make a decision. She fished out her phone and tried to dial so I lunged forward to take it out of her hand.
“Blaine, no!” She dodged and held it up to the ceiling to keep it out of my reach since she was almost a full head taller.
“You called me Lane during sex!”
“I did, yes, but... I didn’t actually mean it!”
What?! She tried to move away from me so I jumped and knocked the phone out of her hand like a basketball player would do. It fell onto the floor. She crouched to pick it up so I kicked it away and grabbed her by the arms.
“You told him I moved exactly like Lane! What if I really am Lane? Let’s talk about this!”
Arden Villeneuve didn’t reply but spent all of her energy struggling to get out of my grasp. Because she was taller, and thus larger overall, I had to use all of my core’s strength just to keep her from moving closer to the phone.
“Look, I can tel
l you everything you did with Lane! How you kissed, how you touched, everything you said! Just stop and listen to me!”
“You read it in her diary!” Arden Villeneuve yelled. She squirmed harder and turned all red in the face.
“There is no diary!”
“Yes there is! Lane left it for you before she jumped so you could experience life on the outside! You read it so many times you began to think you were her! But you’re not, Blaine! Lane’s dead and gone and you are certainly not her!”
What? Wasn’t the diary and Blaine both things I made up in the spur of the moment? Me, Lane?
Arden Villeneuve shoved me hard onto the ground and made an abrupt run for her phone. She picked it up before I could get up and put it to her mouth.
“Wait! How do you know Lane’s really dead? You didn’t see her body, right? I could still be her, couldn’t I?”
Arden Villeneuve’s face crinkled and tears sprung out of her eyes again. “People don’t survive falling from buildings nor do they come back from the dead, Blaine. Plus there is another reason I know you are definitely not her.” She took a deep breath and looked me right in the eyes, solemn this time.
My skin grew cold. “What’s that?”
“You said you missed me. Lane would never do that. That’s why I enjoyed her fucking company so much!”
What the—?
Arden Villeneuve lifted her phone to her mouth and said, “Call Wonderdrug Doctor.”
“Calling Wonderdrug Doctor,” her phone said in response.
Fuck. Paul was right again. You can’t trust anyone indeed.
The line connected right away. “Is she still there?” Dr Clark said on the other side of the line.
“Yes. Hurry!”
Arden Villeneuve ran to block the door with her body and gave me a look that said she wouldn’t be moving away from it, no matter what.
There was no chance to think properly. Either Arden Villeneuve was right or Paul was. I was either mentally unstable Blaine or Lane the curiosity. Who did I want to be more? The choice was a no-brainer.
I went to the pile of unpacked shopping bags in the corner and dug out the brass sculpture Paul had suggested before she left. A male hand in an a-ok gesture—way heavier than I thought it would be. It had the weight of a full sack of potatoes in one handy hand-sized structure and was heavy enough to make my muscles ache. I clutched the sculpture’s wrist with all my strength to keep it from slipping down onto the floor and marched towards Arden Villeneuve.
Her eyes became big with terror when she saw me with it. “Blaine, don’t!” She pressed herself against the door as if that would get her any further away from me.
“Will you let me go? Before Dr Clark comes back?”
She gulped. “I can’t. I’m sorry. They have my footage. Please understand.”
“What footage?”
“From my cemetery. Me and Lane. They said they’ll make it public if I didn’t help them get you.”
“So what? Let the public see it. You’ve done nude scenes and sex scenes before. What’s the big deal? Let me go.”
“No! I can’t! It’ll ruin my marriage. And my reputation. Nobody else must ever know.”
Oh? Her words went right into the depths of my heart like a thick dagger with perforated edges. I narrowed my eyes and stared right into hers. “So... you’re just going to spend the rest of your life denying you ever knew Lane Thompson?”
Arden Villeneuve swallowed hard and looked away. She didn’t answer.
I smiled when I realised Paul had been right yet again. Arden Villeneuve didn’t love me. Not as a whole person. That was the truth. I wasn’t good enough for anything other than exciting, unexpected physical pleasure indeed.
“Please don’t do anything you’ll regret, Blaine,” Arden Villeneuve whispered.
“You’re right,” I said and smashed the sculpture against her head with all my might. “That’s precisely why I need to do this.”
Arden Villeneuve lost her hold of her phone and sank to the ground like a puppet that had lost its strings. A large red bump appeared where the sculpture met her skin. I shoved her motionless body out of the way, whispered an apology I knew she couldn’t hear and ran out of Room 103 like a sprinter determined to break a world record.
As I ran, I realised Dr Clark and Aunt Mary had both seen this coming. I was dangerous, just like they said. Arden Villeneuve would have been fine and dandy had I been put away and locked up like they said I needed to be.
Perhaps they really did know me better than I knew myself after all.
Chapter 19
25 June 2030?
I went out the nondescript door at the back of The Canned Food Factory Hotel—past the hotel’s industrial kitchen, out into the back alley—because I knew that was what Paul would have chosen to do. When I left Room 103, I made up my mind to make only choices Paul would make because with Paul, I had always been safe. No CRO agent or doctor ever got close to us when we did things her way. Paul knew how to stay safe so everything Paul ever said was now word.
Don’t talk to strangers. Keep a low profile. Find your way back to the nuclear bunker if we ever lose each other.
Got it, Paul.
I darted from one dumpster to another, using the bulk for cover. I made sure I checked around corners before proceeding ahead and kept my eyes peeled for men in business suits.
There were no men in business suits as far as I could see. I saw only shoppers, tourists, beggars and locals holding over-priced drinks on the streets. I noticed everybody else was out in the open whereas I was the only person in the back alley amongst cats.
The cats glared at me and turned their heads away snobbishly each time I glared back at them. I got the feeling the cats hated my presence and I found myself hating theirs too. I narrowed my eyes and snarled at them with teeth bared as I forced myself to think. How did we end up at The Canned Food Factory Hotel? Which manhole did we come up from?
I recalled Paul and I, quiet as thieves in the dark of night, running through a similar-looking alleyway as air-conditioning boxes on the sides of buildings poured heat down upon us. Above us, the starless sky had been shaped like an ‘L’.
I looked up and squinted against the glare of the mid-day sun. The patch of sky above me was shaped like a ‘7’. ‘7’ was ‘L’ upside down, wasn’t it? The manhole was likely right up ahead!
I kept going until I spotted a familiar-looking manhole at one end. A manhole with the words ‘MADE IN CHINA’ inscribed on its cover.
Yes. That was the manhole we came out of alright. That was what my gut told me.
“Lane!”
A female voice. Unfamiliar. She called me Lane, not Blaine. Did that mean I was Lane for sure? Or had I heard her wrong? I turned like a deer in headlights and saw—
—a silhouette standing at the other end of the alleyway, the end which led out to the street. The blinding sunlight behind her meant I couldn’t see her face or the colour of her skin or hair. What I could see was how slender her frame was and how tall she seemed. She seemed to be in boots with a hooded jacket pulled up over her head. Her hands looked thick and unnaturally shaped, like she was wearing leather gloves.
Why would a person wear leather gloves in the middle of summer? Was her hair blonde? Did she have red lips? Was she the person who pushed me? Or was she just another CRO agent or... the police?
The silhouette moved towards me with hasty steps.
Instinct told me not to wait to find out who she was. The silhouette was not Paul, that was all I needed to know. Anybody else could mean danger or entrapment. I was better off alone. That, I had learned in my early twenties. Always better to be alone than with someone who might hurt you. I scanned the area quickly for a way to open the manhole’s iron cover.
“Listen, you’re in danger,” the silhouette said from the distance. She spoke as if trying to calm me down, with both hands slightly raised, the way hostage negotiators in mo
vies often had theirs raised. “You need to come with me. She’ll lead you to them again if you stay out here.”
I didn’t get what the silhouette meant. Who was ‘she’? Who was ‘them’? What danger? So many questions, so little time. Think, Lane, think. What would Paul do?
She would look for the crowbars she hid behind the huge silver ventilation pipe. The one which snaked all the way up to the sky. There!
Genius, Paul, I thought when I dug behind the silver ventilation pipe and found a solid metal bar within my grip. God, how I missed her.
“We need to go now,” the silhouette said, just a few feet from me now. “The Office will be here any minute.”
The Office? As in the Curiosity Research Office? Unfortunately, I was in no mood for conversation at that point. I shoved the crowbar into the side of the manhole cover and pried it open. It was not as easy as I thought it would be. The darned cover was insanely heavy; I had to kick with every last push of energy I could muster to make the cover crash to the side with an explosive clang. Manhole open!
The silhouette jumped into a run. I tried to get myself down the hole but she was pretty fast; not as fast as Paul but not a lousy runner either. Before I could get away, she was already right behind me, larger than life. “Lane, stop,” she said. I spotted her tongue sticking out as she made the ‘L’ sound. She pulled me up from the manhole in one big huff—a rather incredible feat for a woman as slim as she was—and swivelled me around so that I faced her.
Once face to face with her, my knees went weak and my heart nearly stopped from shock. I couldn’t understand what I was looking at.
The silhouette—definitely a woman—had skin that was not white or black or brown but... a pale greyish, greenish blue. Her lips were a dark shade of grey and her features looked both Asian and Western all at the same time. Now that she was close, I could see she had dark brown hair and eyes, but even so, she didn’t look entirely like a normal human being because of the colour of her skin.
Instinct kicked in again. I grabbed the crowbar from the ground and tried to smash her on the head with it but she stuck an arm out and held the heavy bar up before it even had any chance to get anywhere near her. “I’m not the enemy—”
