by Nino Cipri
“Should I stop?” they asked. Their fingers were warm against his sweaty neck. Their hands were nearly the same as Derek’s, besides the smudged black marker ink on their fingernails.
Derek shook his head. He wanted them to see it; needed someone to see it, to witness it, to confirm he wasn’t imagining it. That the defect was real, was part of him.
“Wow,” Darkness said. They leaned a little closer. “Oh, wow. That’s—”
“What?” Derek said. “Is it . . . disgusting? What does it even look like?”
Darkness’s gaze shifted up. “You haven’t looked at it?”
“No.”
“Why?” Darkness asked.
He wasn’t sure how to tell them, how the thought of looking in a mirror after the hallucinations this morning filled him with abject dread. Derek closed his eyes; it was too much to see their face and let the other voice speak at the same time.
“Scared.”
To Derek, it still sounded like the voice inside his head, the interior monologue that narrated his thoughts and actions; flat, unresonant, a little hoarse, a little tired, used to an audience of only one. Nothing like the voice he employed on the sales floor, or with Tricia or his coworkers. Certainly not the one he had practiced in the mirror.
“It’s not disgusting, Derek,” Darkness said. “It’s kinda hot, not gonna lie.”
Derek kept his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see if they were lying or telling the truth; both seemed equally devastating. Darkness was touching him so gently, like their fingers would soothe all the hurts on his body: the bruises and lacerations on his legs, the burns on his arms, the claw marks in his wrists. They ran their thumb just under the swell of his Adam’s apple, brushing the lip of his defect. Derek felt it like an electric shock.
“You don’t mean that,” he said. Why did he feel like he was out of breath?
“I’m being one hundred percent sincere right now. It’s weird and it’s freaky, and maybe you didn’t notice, but I’m kinda into that,” they said quietly, like speaking at a normal volume might scare him off. Like he wasn’t pinned down by the cool pressure of their fingers against the tenderest part of his throat. “But I’d rather die than let Dirk literally catch us with our pants down.”
“That’s a good point,” he murmured, trying to pull himself out of the gravity of but wait, I want to—
Darkness must have noticed his struggle, and moved their hand off his neck, rubbing down Derek’s shoulders and arms in a comforting, affectionate way. Unfortunately, they brushed right over where Dirk had shot him.
“What’s—” Darkness said, then cut themself off when they saw the dark stain on the fabric. “Are you bleeding?”
Derek swallowed. “I guess so. Dirk shot a defekta that had wrapped itself around my arm.”
Darkness helped him out of the coveralls. “Shit,” they said. “This looks like a burn. That’s from the INVENTERA?”
“An indirect shot,” Derek explained, wincing as Darkness cleaned the wound. It was ugly, a series of wide, irregular burns, weeping clear fluid. His whole arm throbbed. “If you needed confirmation that I am defective, I guess that’s it.”
Derek hissed as Darkness pressed a compress against the worst of the burns, but it cooled his skin, and Derek sighed in relief as the prickling, throbbing ache abated.
“Fucking Dirk,” they swore, and Derek was surprised to realize their hands were shaking. “The team used to be just the three of us, you know. Capturing and studying the defekta, not killing them. It was still shit work, and most INVENTERA teams walked off the job. When Dex ran away, they brought Dirk in to keep us in line. He’s always been a piece of shit. We all knew it was just a matter of time before he did something really fucked up. We didn’t want you to get stuck alone with him, but . . .”
“But I wanted to.” Derek’s knee-jerk admiration for Dirk was a bitter memory.
“Yeah,” Darkness sighed. “And no offense, but I wasn’t going to stick my neck out to keep you from crawling up his ass.”
“He was just doing his job,” Derek said after a long, shameful moment. “And doing it well. I thought that made us the most alike.”
Darkness glared at him.
“I’m not excusing him,” Derek explained. “This is literally his job. Exterminating the defekta. He’s trying to distinguish himself at it.”
“It’s not just his job,” Darkness said. They pulled the compress away and smoothed a sterile dressing over the burn. “Dirk takes pleasure in cruelty.”
“But it doesn’t matter if it’s painless or cruel,” Derek insisted. “It’s still his job. Our job. He’s just the most competent at it, so they put him in charge.”
Darkness taped the dressing down, then sat back on their heels. “What were you planning when you came down here?”
“Oh, damn!” Derek hissed. He’d utterly forgotten his part of the plan. He stood up and zipped up his coveralls. “Where are the rest of the inventory team?”
“Dirk is still trying to track you down. Delilah and Dex are running interference and covering for me. He’s going to get suspicious real soon, so we need to make some kind of plan.”
“Way ahead of you,” Derek said, making his way toward the wall by the cargo doors, where the automatic opener was bolted to the wall. “I’m running away.”
“What?” Darkness hissed. “Derek—”
“I know, okay?”
“No, Derek—”
Derek steamrolled over their objections. “I’ve never worked anywhere else. I don’t remember if I’ve ever been anywhere else. My memories don’t go back further than November first, and I’m completely terrified of what I’m going to find out there. But I don’t care. This is the best chance we have of surviving the night, and anything past that is a problem for Future Derek.”
“You don’t understand—wait, we?”
As if they’d been waiting for their cue, the cargo elevator doors opened, and the sofa and the SVINLÅDA, catching a ride on its cushions, made their slow way out through the aisles of stock and into the assembly area. The SVINLÅDA caught sight of Darkness and frantically clacked at the sofa to stop.
“This is the we, Derek?” Darkness said. “You’re gonna run away with the defekta?”
The sofa and SVINLÅDA both looked at Derek, as if for translation. “They’re okay,” he said reassuringly. “They’re on our side, I think.”
When he turned to look back at Darkness, though, he saw them staring at him, dumbfounded. “Do they understand you?” Darkness said.
“Yes?” he said.
Their voice rose a little higher. “Do you understand them?”
The sofa rumbled inquisitively at Derek, wanting to know if Darkness had become a threat. The SVINLÅDA clacked its support for the question.
“I guess I do,” he said.
“You can communicate with them,” Darkness said. “You can translate between us with your—” They flapped their hand at his neck. “Delilah is gonna flip her shit, she’s been arguing for months with Resource Management—”
Derek was shaking his head rapidly. “No, no! I can’t go to Resource Management! Dirk already tried to kill me, we’re getting out of here.”
He slapped the big green button on the side of the wall, and the door began its familiar, rattling ascent.
“Wait!” Darkness called.
The door rattled to a grinding stop. Derek hit the STOP button himself, not wanting to blow out the motor. He looked at the door and spotted a bright, shiny padlock attached to the door, latching it closed.
“We’re locked in,” Darkness said. “All the doors are padlocked. Even the emergency exits.”
“Why would they do that?” Derek’s mind was awash in OSHA violations.
Darkness shut their eyes, “I told you, INVENTERA teams had a habit of walking off the job. Dex ran away a couple months ago, and once they found him and dragged him back, there were a bunch of changes. Dirk took over as shift lead from Delilah, we get lo
cked into the stores, and there are, uh. Consequences planned, if we don’t meet quotas.”
“What kind of . . .” Derek started to ask, when he picked up the sound of footsteps rattling on the deathtrap spiral staircase. He grabbed Darkness and pulled them quickly back into the dark aisles of boxes and half-assembled furniture. Both the SVINLÅDA and sofa followed him—or attempted to, in the case of the sofa. It was too wide to fit into the aisles, so it settled down behind a couple pallets. Derek could feel it nervously trying to look like it belonged there; despite being a piece of furniture, it still failed to look casual.
“Can you get to the freight elevator if I distract Dirk?” Darkness whispered. “Take the defekta with you?”
“I guess?” he said doubtfully. It felt like he’d been running all night, doing nothing but trying to hide and evade and bluff and, inevitably, run away again. Now running meant leaving Darkness alone with Dirk.
“Good. Be careful.” They pinched his cheek fondly. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to this pretty face.”
They pushed him further into the aisle and then walked out into the muted light. “Hey,” they said to Dirk. They were much better at acting casual than the sofa. Derek focused on sneaking out the other side of the aisle as quietly as he could, holding the SVINLÅDA so its footsteps wouldn’t alert Dirk to their presence.
The sofa, poor thing, was trembling slightly when Derek snuck up behind it, gesturing for it to come away with him, back toward the freight elevator on the other side of the room.
He stopped a moment to listen to Dirk and Darkness, trying to gauge whether Dirk was sufficiently distracted for them to move.
“—supposed to tell me before you leave your post. Do you do this just to annoy me? I know you’re not as stupid as you look,” Dirk said.
“That’s one hell of a self-own,” said Darkness, “considering we’re the same person.”
“Maybe, but I’m dressed to regulation, and you’re dressed like a goddam freakshow.”
“I’d rather be a freak than Reagan’s pet bootlicker.”
Derek could read the subtle signs of rage in Dirk’s silence; the creak of his boots as he stepped closer to Darkness’s space, the hiss of breath. All his attention was on Darkness now.
“You think dressing like this makes you better than us?” Dirk laughed. “So that we all know how different and special you are?”
Darkness yawned, loud and fake. “Yes, yes, how dare I attempt to assert my autonomy in the limited ways I’m allowed, truly shocking.”
“It’s the opposite of shocking,” he sneered. “It’s pathetic. All of you are pathetic, with your little pointless rebellions. You think the way you dress matters? You think changing your name to a random noun will accomplish anything?”
How had he ever thought that Dirk was a leader instead of a bully? He knew Darkness was doing this on purpose, holding out every red flag they could so Dirk would charge at them instead of him. He couldn’t hurt them the way he could hurt Derek.
That didn’t make Derek feel less awful about sneaking away. His attention was split between the escalating voices behind him, keeping the sofa next to him calm, and trying to keep his own noisy thoughts from broadcasting out to Dirk. Darkness knew what they were doing, he reminded himself. Darkness was doing this to protect him, and even if he was uncomfortable with that, it didn’t mean—
“It accomplished pissing you off, and that honestly would have been enough. Maybe I should send Reagan a little note, let her know about this hostile work environment?”
Dirk hopefully didn’t realize it, but the slick veneer of sarcasm coating Darkness’s words masked a strain of very real anxiety. Derek could hear it in the way their voice tightened around the words, so different from when they were speaking a few minutes ago. They were holding their body so still, except for their hands, which were clenching compulsively into fists behind their back, squeezing so hard that Derek could nearly hear their bones creak.
Derek had told Reagan that he would sacrifice himself if there were no other choice. He’d elect to drown if there was no other way to save everyone else in the boat. How would Darkness have answered that question? Had they all been designed to answer that way, all of the D-64598s? To choose their own destruction over anything that could, so to speak, rock the boat?
Darkness had told him to go. Told him that they would distract Dirk so Derek could get away.
“And what do you think that will do?” Dirk said. “You know what happened the last time you reported me.”
“That wasn’t a report. I just relayed some concerns about your communications style to Reagan,” said Darkness.
“Which she took very seriously, and then told us to handle internally. Isn’t it great how hands-off they are?” Dirk asked cheerfully. “I hate being micromanaged.”
“Yeah, I’d hate for any of us to experience actual consequences for how we treat each other. Wonder what would happen if one of us didn’t come back? Think they’d still be super hands-off?”
They both laughed the same ugly, jagged laugh.
At some point, Derek had stopped moving. He and the couch stood stock-still, hidden by the pallets and tall aisles full of boxes. Dirk and Darkness weren’t speaking now, and they weren’t moving. Derek concentrated, but even his amplified senses couldn’t pick out their separate heartbeats or inhalations from the ambient noise of the room. They just seemed to be standing, staring each other down. Derek covered his mouth, trying to dampen the sound of his own breathing.
“Where’s your INVENTERA?” Dirk said suddenly.
Darkness didn’t speak, and Derek felt his skin prickle with sudden panic.
“Where is it?” Dirk’s voice like a whipcrack, shattering the quiet.
“Must have dropped it somewhere,” Darkness said, their casual tone too thin to mask the fear in their voice. “Who the fuck cares, I can—”
Derek heard the dull impact on Darkness’s flesh before their sharp cry.
“Where is he?” Dirk shouted. Derek, hating himself, hunkered down behind the couch, which rumbled warningly at him. He was digging his fingers into its upholstery now, nails biting into the fabric.
“Derek!” Dirk screamed into the room. “Derek, I know you’re—”
There was a crash, a body hitting cement. Derek was off like he’d heard a starter’s gun, leaping over the sofa with a hasty apology. Out of hiding, he could see Darkness and Dirk scuffling on the assembly room’s floor. Darkness had knocked him down, but Dirk had quickly gotten the upper hand, pinning them and bringing his fist down onto their face, landing it solidly against their jaw.
Derek’s vision wavered. He saw the destroyed table, the bloody embroidered cats on the table runner. All Dirk did was hurt things, and all Derek had done was stand by and let them get hurt.
Darkness’s arm fell; they’d been knocked senseless. Dirk raised his fist again. Derek grabbed one of the long, silver torque wrenches off the assembly table. He aimed for his head, but Dirk twisted at the last second, looking back. The wrench hit him at the juncture of his shoulder and neck instead. It was enough to send him sprawling, and Derek reeled in a sympathetic shockwave from the impact. Dirk had talked about Derek’s empathy as if it were a weakness; maybe it was if he couldn’t even stand to see Dirk get hurt.
It didn’t matter. Derek grabbed Darkness and hauled them up. He started toward the stairs again, but Darkness slurred, “Wait, wait,” slipping out from under his arm.
They stumbled back over to where Dirk lay sprawled out on the floor, reared back, and kicked him in the face. Something crunched wetly, loud and resounding, and Derek gagged. Darkness steadied themself, pulling back for another kick, and Derek had to hiss out, “Don’t! Please, don’t, it’s—”
Darkness looked at him, must have seen enough to understand: if they hit him again, Derek would probably drop as well. His guts were churning, and the wet snap of cartilage and bone was still echoing in his ears.
Darkness leaned ove
r and spat on Dirk instead, with a muttered but heartfelt “Asshole.”
Then they fumbled the INVENTERA out of the holster on Dirk’s thigh and let Derek lead them away, hurrying them up the stairs.
Are your wormholes spawning syndicalists?
Members of the LitenVärld family learn early on about both the dangers and opportunities presented by maskhåls—wormholes that periodically open up in our stores, thanks to the unique quirk endemic in our layout and design. All managers, supervisors, and senior employees are trained in how to handle maskhåls. But there’s another danger associated with this phenomenon:
Radicalizing our employees.
We have become aware that there are several adjacent universes with stores bearing the LitenVärld name but not our ethos. These stores have been infiltrated instead by radical agitators, who have, in some cases, violently taken over these stores with false promises of a worker utopia.
If your store experiences a maskhål, we recommend taking the following actions to protect your workers from this sort of dangerous propaganda:
Do not let your employees go through a maskhål without a FINNA, our patented navigational technology that will guide your employees only through approved alternative LitenVärlds.
Reward your employees who successfully return. Gift cards, time off to recover, earlier shift picks for the following week. Do not give them obvious preferential treatment, though; this will breed resentment.
If you must send a worker through a maskhål, remember to choose them in order of reverse seniority. If workers with little seniority are radicalized, it will be much easier to counteract this messaging.
If you are part of our D-64598 program, these workers have proven especially adept at resisting this kind of messaging from outside agitators, and are deeply loyal to the LitenVärld family. We recommend adding them to any team to counteract any outside agitation.
And above all: remain vigilant! Make sure that your wormholes aren’t exposing your workers to the dangers of subversive and radical beliefs.
Memo sent to LitenVarld managers and supervisors
