Glass Back

by Terrell Lawson

  Henric could see the automaton walking down the hallway. He wouldn’t have been able to keep up with it if he tried. He looked down both sides of the hallway and saw no one coming. He didn’t hear anything either.

  This must still be the lab.

  He made his way down the hallway and reached a common area with a bunch of couches lined up on the right and a tv. The left had an elevator, two vending machines and a receptionist’s desk. As soon as he got to the elevator, he noticed it didn’t have an up or down button, just a black ID scanner.

  “Seriously?” Henric muttered. He turned around and headed back to the room when he heard a faint coughing sound nearby. He stood still and listened. Following the sound, he reached a room 2 doors away from his. Gazing down at the handle he saw a scanner next to it and already figured out what he need.

  Why the hell does everything need an ID? He thought. You can’t walk ten feet in here without scanning something.

  Reaching his own room, he propped his crutches against the counter and pulled the bag out of the trash. As soon as he ripped it open he was greeted with the smell of blood. Even worse, the clothes were wet. Pulling out the ID, Henric dumped the bag back in the trash and rinsed his hands and the ID off. Hobbling to the room, he held up his ID and the door slid open. Inside was a room much like his but with a TV and flowers. A sickly looking teenage boy was laying in bed with an oxygen mask on his face. His eyes widened and he snatched it off, sitting up.

  “How did you get in here?!” He rasped, his voice only slightly louder than a whisper.

  “I... uh used my ID” Henric didn’t know what to say the guy. It had been since he’d seen an actual person.

  The teenager’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit.”

  He threw the covers off him and tried to stand. He was extremely skinny; he shook as he stood before falling back in the bed.

  “Do you need help?” Henric asked him, unsure if he should get closer.

  “Ask a doctor to bring me a wheelchair. I can’t walk.” The boy was breathing heavily, but Henric was sure it was because of anger and not a respiratory issue.

  “There’s uh, not any doctors here, actually. Or nurses.”

  The boy turned to him. “Why? No, I don’t care. Go get my dad then.”

  “I don’t know who he is, but I haven’t seen anyone here besides you.”

  “How’d the fuck did you get in my room then?!” He shouted.

  “Where’s my dad kid, don’t fuck with me!” The boy glared at him but considering his state, Henric wasn’t afraid.

  “I swear on my life, I don’t know.” Henric held up his hands. The boy watched him intently and finally realized Henric wasn’t lying.

  “Who are you then?” He asked. He looked at the badge in Henric’s hand, but couldn’t see anything.

  “My name is Henric. Henric McCathey. What’s yours?” He asked the boy.

  He stared at him without answering for a second and looked angry again.

  “What now? What’s wrong with you?” Henric asked him, confused.

  “That ain’t your name kid, because it’s mine.”

  7

  “Huh?” said Henric. “What do you mean, it's yours?”

  “Exactly what I said, it's my name. What type of joke is this?”

  “I'm serious, it's my name. I don't know what you're talking about.”

  They eyed each other suspiciously. Henric couldn't tell if the boy was joking or not.

  “What's your dad's name?” The sick Henric asked him.

  “His name is David.”

  The sick Henric’s mouth opened slightly after Henric said that name.

  “What's yours?” Henric asked him. The sick one didn't reply.

  “What's your mother's name?” He asked, ignoring the question.

  “My mother's name is Rachel, but she passed a while ago.” Henric confided.

  There was a different kind of shock on the older Henric's face, like he just figured something out.

  “Are they your parents too?” said the younger one, not even believing his own words.

  “No. At least, that's not my mother's name. Let me see that ID for a second.”

  Henric handed it over and the sick one glanced at it quickly.

  “This was his fucking plan. That bastard…”

  “What? What happened?”

  The sick Henric looked at the younger and sighed. He tossed the I.D. back and laid down, closing his eyes.

  “Get me a wheelchair and I'll explain.”

  “Why should I?” said Henric.

  The older one sat up and snapped.

  “Because you obviously don't know what the hell is going on. You don't know your way around this place, you don't know where my father is, you don't even know what you are!”

  Henric just stood there while the sick one yelled at him.

  The older Henric looked away from the kid and stared at the wall

  “Look, forget what I said. Just get me a wheelchair, and I’ll help you. We’ll find my Da… David, and get out of here.”

  “Okay.”

  Henric backed out of the room with his crutches and the door automatically shut behind him.

  I don’t know what I am? What is he talking about? Henric wondered as he walked down the hallway. That guy wasn’t making sense. But he at least seemed to know more than Henric did, so he decided to help him. He started by checking the other patient rooms, but his ID wasn’t working. None of the other rooms opened. He headed back towards the lobby and raced the receptionist’s desk. Built into the desk was a touchscreen monitor for patients to use when the receptionist was busy. Just like everything else in the lab, it had a scanner. Henric leaned his crutches against the side of the desk and pressed the ID against it, half expecting it to fail, but it didn’t. He was greeted by a welcome screen showing his dad’s name, followed by a help menu. The screen read:

  Schedule Appointments

  Manage Appointments

  Check Prescriptions

  Refill Prescriptions

  Request Aid

  Henric pressed Request Aid and it presented him another menu.

  Human

  Automaton

  Crutches

  Knee Scooter

  WheelChair (Manual, Pediatric, Power)

  He pressed the human button just to see what would happen and a sixty second timer appeared. After it hit zero a pop up appeared saying, “No one has responded to your request. Please try again later.”

  “I figured as much.” Henric muttered. He pressed the wheelchair button and selected power.

  Suddenly, the desk started sliding to the right. Henric grabbed his crutches before they fell and stood back as the wall behind the desk lifted and a wheelchair rolled out on a conveyor belt. Henric sat in it and layed the crutches across his lap. He'd always been fascinated by wheelchairs but never needed one until now. After giving this one to the sick guy, he'd come and get one for himself.

  Cruising back to the room, Henric scanned the ID and turned his crutches upright so he could get through the door. Upon seeing him, the sick guy smirked a bit and sat upright.

  “Too lazy to walk back, I see. I’d have done the same.”

  “My leg is broken, if you haven't noticed.”

  “I did, and that's how I know you don't know shit about this place. You should be fine. Come help me get into the chair so we can get out of here.”

  Henric helped him into the chair and together they left out the room.

  “Okay. Now let's go to the lobby so I can get one of these.” said Henric.

  “What? No.” The older one replied. We need to find the medicine. We do that and neither of us will need wheelchairs.”

  “What do you mean find? I thought you knew your way around this place?” Henric accused.

  “Oh I do. But most medicine is locked up, and I'm pretty sure you at least know you need clearance for damn near everything.” The older one replied.

  “Yeah, I know. I have some le
ftover medicine in my room, the robot guy left it in a cabinet.” said Henric.

  “If you met a ‘robot guy’, he's probably an automaton. They don't call those robots. Is this your room?” the older one pointed to a room that was clearly lit from the inside.

  “Yeah, let me just scoot past you to swipe the I.D-”

  “No need.” The older Henric pulled out his own ID badge and swiped it. The door slid open, much to the younger one's surprise.

  “How did you do that?” The younger Henric asked. The older one gave him his lanyard and he looked at it. There was a scientist ID card on one side and his actual government ID on the other. Henric read it aloud.

  “Henric McCathey. Eyes: Brown. Height: 5’11. Date of birth… August 17th, 1991.”

  8

  “You’re seventeen years old?!” Young Henric asked.

  “That’s what surprises you? Not the name?”

  “Well that too, but you’ve been around for seventeen years and-”

  “How old are you?” the older asked the younger.

  “I’m… twelve.”

  The older Henric shook his head in disbelief. Young Henric started to get mad.

  “What? You don’t believe me?”

  “Not really, no. We did not exist at the same time, it’s impossible. We would have seen each other, I would actually know who your mother is. I’m David’s real son.”

  “So you’re saying I’m not fucking real?! You’re saying that I don’t exist?! Do you know how stupid you sound?”

  The older Henric could see how angry he was and tried to change the mood.”

  “Let’s forget about this, just for a second. Where’s the medicine? We can heal your leg, and fix me up.”

  Young Henric glared at him before sulking across the room. “It’s in this cabinet. What happened to you, anyways?” Henric reached down and started pulling out pill bottles and canisters.”

  “Well, the person we both see as our father did this to me. He afflicted me with something, I don’t know, but it wasn’t serious. He made it look serious though, none of the other scientists and doctor’s could explain it. He had the cure all along. He did it because I disagreed with them and their practices. They were doing horrible, inhumane things. They were defying God. I wouldn’t stand for it, so he decided to take me out. I’ve been in a medically induced coma for who knows how long, and no ones taken care of me. That’s how I know he doesn’t give a shit. My muscles all atrophied and I woke up alone, two days ago. Unable to get up, unable to call for help. I was praying for death before you came along. Now all I want to do is find him and kill him.”

  The younger Henric didn’t know what to say. “Wow. I’m sorry.” He grabbed the rest of the bottles and just dropped them on the counter.”

  “Jesus Christ did you get hit by a truck or something?!” Older Henric exclaimed as the younger started organizing them by size. “The automaton gave you all those?”

  “He said he did. Or, it said. Some of these haven’t been opened though”

  “Answer the question. What happened? You wouldn’t need all of that for a broken leg. Pass me that red one, please.”

  “Young Henric tossed him a red pill bottle. “I fell off an aquarium. A really tall one.”

  “The mermaid ones?” said older Henric, reading the bottle. The seal hadn’t been broken, so the automaton hadn’t used this one. He pointed towards the cups and the younger filled one up with water for him.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah. Those are the ones.”

  The older Henric poured a bunch of red pills into his hand and counted them.

  “Don’t you think that’s too much?”

  He downed them all at once and took the water.

  ‘Nope, i’ll be fine.”

  “Dude!” Young Henric snatched the bottle from him. You’re going to overdose.”

  “No I won’t. Pass me that oxygen mask with the gas container connected to it.”

  Older henric strapped in on and started breathing heavily. “This’ll help.”

  Young Henric watched him breathing into the mask and stood there.

  “Why were you on a mondo tank?”

  “Mondo?” asked the younger.

  “Yeah, Mondo. The Mondo Mermaids. That’s what their nickname is. I don’t know the scientific name, because it’s long as hell.”

  Younger Henric noticed the older was starting to sweat, even though the room was cold.

  “Yeah, well, the tank was dirty, and it looked like she wanted me to clean the filter, so I did. I...I tried to.”

  “That’s literally impossible.. It takes a hundred men three weeks to clean the entire tank, and one of those weeks is them just dismantling the filter alone. Plus they have to coerce the animals out of their and into the main one.”

  Henric sat their in silence, every word the older said replaying back in his head.

  “I didn’t know. I thought I could help her, and now…”

  “Don’t think about that way. That mermaid, it was an abomination. It shouldn’t have existed. These scientists went against God and created so many things.So many horrible-”

  Older Henric started coughing vehemently, holding his chest. He pulled off the mask and pulled at his shirt.

  “H-hot!” he rasped. “So h-hot!”

  Young Henric helped him pull off the shirt and started to fan him with his hand, but it got worse. Older Henric started foaming at the mouth, convulsing and coughing until he finally stopped. He laid slumped in the wheelchair, unconscious, his chest still rapidly moving.

  “Hey!”

  The older Henric didn’t respond. He didn’t look sick and skinny anymore his body was fit and bulked out, like Popeye after eating spinach. Henric moved forward and put the oxygen mask back on the older Henric’s face.

  “I guess I’ll wait till you recover.” said Henric, sitting on the bed. “If that ever happens.”

  9

  Older Henric woke up ten minutes later, in a daze. “What happened?” he asked groggily.

  “You overdosed on these,” young Henric shook the red bottle. “I told you that was too much.”

  Old Henric shook his head and stood up. “It did its job. Look at me, I’m back to normal!” He tested his legs in a little dance, making Henric smile. “Your turn. You should only need one.”

  Young Henric looked at the bottle, skeptical.

  “I don’t know about this. I don’t even see a name on the bottle.”

  “It’s coded. You’d need to own a scanner or be an automaton to read the label. Just take one and we can leave. You won’t even need your crutches.” Older Henric handed him a cup of water, and he took the pill.”

  After a few minutes a warm feeling overtook his body.

  “Alright. Let’s go.” Older Henric helped him stand up.

  He stepped gingerly with his leg.

  “It's starting to feel kind of numb.” Young Henric replied, staring down.

  “Just wait. Soon your leg will be good as new. But we need to talk about this, and it's going to be hard to explain.”

  “What?”

  “Everything. Let's start with Dad. His name is David McCathey, right?”

  Young Henric nodded.

  “Right. And technically, we both think our name is Henric. That needs to change.”

  “I'm not changing my-”

  “Wasn't asking you to.” The elder replied. “I'm changing mine. My mom called me Ricky when I was younger, so I'll go by Rick.”

  Don't you have a middle name? Henric asked.

  “Yeah, but I refuse to use that.” Rick answered. “So I'll just be Rick from this point forward. Now, I need you to listen to me calmly and carefully as I explain this. Do you understand?”

  Henric nodded.

  “Good. Now, you’ve seen the mondo mermaids. Have you seen the real ones?”

  “Real?” Henric asked. “What do you mean by real?”

  “There are four types of mermaids in the aquatic divis
ion. You have seen the mondos, the huge ones that swim through the connected tanks. There are also the real ones. They are way smaller than what you normally think a mermaid would be, some barely reaching five feet in length. Their whole body is scaly and they don’t think or act like people, despite all the tests, brainwashing and torture the scientists did. They don’t like light and they aren’t even mammals, they live very deep in the ocean. There’s clone mermaids, and they either look like humans, similar to the mondo, or they just look like the real mermaids.”