Chapter Text
I was looking at the schedule planned for everyone today and the information on the children, and something didn’t seem right.
“Hey, why are, like, all of the children here terminally ill?”
Greg paused in his own preparations and came to look at the stack in my hand. He looked concerned, but not surprised.
“They all were recently born within the last few years. I think the parents didn’t want the hospital bills, so they put them up for adoption. I wonder if The Doctor had a say in them.”
I remember a conversation in school about some families who can’t deal with children with disabilities, and a nursing student mentioned the number of children born with disabilities who are abandoned by their parents. Most were due to drug exposure. While we are not close to a hospital, I don’t doubt we have contact with several.
“Oh, I asked about it. It is the easiest way to get test subjects without concerns of people asking why there doesn’t seem to be any for adoption. Their deaths are not questioned, and we seem like a good company for taking these children in for their last time in life. It also saves other orphanages money on resources.” Camryn walked over carrying a couple boxes of surgical gloves and disinfectant wipes.
“Then are we prolonging their lives, or their suffering?” I felt sick with the idea that I would be performing my first surgery to turn a child into a toy, and it didn’t help that I was likely going to prolong the suffering of a child with cancer.
“I have a recommendation for you.” Dr. White walked over. “Don’t ask questions if you don’t want to know the answer. It helps get through the day.”
Dr. White has been working here longer than the rest of us, and he actually knows what the secret is with the Poppy dolls. He wasn’t given the same kind of contract as us, but is in the same boat about not being able to leave. There is a chance he will get to retire, though, so there are some positives in his life here. I would never ask him, but I think he was one of the people who worked on The Prototype.
“Okay, new question. This child has cancer and it is spreading. Are we sure I am not about to give a toy cancer?” I held up the profile of a three year old girl I was ordered to work on.
“The organs you will be using are the brain, heart, lungs, and digestive organs. All children have been carefully monitored and confirmed that none of these organs show signs of cancerous cells.” Dr. White explained.
We continued to prepare for our respective surgeries, and checked that all tools were cleaned and accounted for. We spent the last week studying the process The Doctor has laid out for us, and the terminally ill children were to be our practice. If we succeed, the children will get to live longer as toys, if we fail, then the preferred subjects are not sacrificed. Part of me hoped we would not be able to succeed, but too many failures will result in me being used.
I thought the surgery was going to be the worst part of this. Unfortunately, I was so very wrong. After the surgery is completed, we are to sit and watch the toy until it shows signs of consciousness and write what all we observe. They were all confused and scared. If they were able to wake up, their movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. I associated it to when dogs wear booties for the first time. From what others have said, many can’t talk, and we are lucky if they can focus enough to listen to our instructions.
Experiment 1009 was the one I was observing. She was a little Bobby Bearhug plushy who kept falling over from turning her head. I had to keep it together as I asked questions and wrote down what happened. While she could hear me, and follow simple instructions, she had no voice, and any movements that involved turning her head would just result in her falling over. More than once, she nearly fell off the table and one of the others would have to catch her.
1009 couldn’t cry, but her breathing and heart rate showed signs of distress. I don’t blame her, as she was only three. I kept watching as her oxygen levels continued to lower, and her movements continued to slow down. Once I confirmed one of her lungs completely stopped working, I stopped the normal examination and laid her back down. Her heart rate spiked for a couple of minutes as the oxygen levels plummeted and she finally died.
“Time of death: 17:32.” I was lucky enough to not have to do an autopsy, as I wouldn’t know what to look for, and instead confirmed my report to send to The Doctor.
I walked back to my office after dropping off the report and grabbed a tea pack and my mug to boil some water. I wanted something to help me relax, and I was ready to cry in the safety of my office. I don’t think my coworkers would still be working, as none have survived as long as The Prototype, for some unknown reason, but I doubt anyone is interested in talking after today’s assignment.
It is stupid, but I want to curl into a ball under my desk and pretend I do not work here and didn’t just kill a child. Ironic, and it made me physically sick. I was small enough (i.e. starved enough) to sit under my desk in relative comfort and I let my tears finally fall where nobody could see me. There was a camera in here, and the walls were not entirely sound proof, so I couldn’t just sob my eyes out, but there was no stopping my tears. My body shook with the sobs I held in and my eyes burned with salty tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t keep holding my mug without risk of dropping it, so it sat beside my chair slowly losing its warmth and over-steeping the bag. Everything felt like it was too much, and like nothing at the same time.
I vaguely heard a knock at the door, but that could have also been my elbow hitting my desk, and I didn’t have the will to move. Whoever was at the door ended up just coming in and I covered my mouth and held my breath so I wouldn’t be found. There was movement in my office, but I didn’t hear any voices. Instead of watching the opening, I just closed my eyes and buried them in my arm until whoever it was leaves again. I didn’t want anyone here to see me like this: weak.
“Why are you on the floor? This is completely unprofessional of you.” I heard the voice of Pierre and I almost puked.
He was the reason I was here and having to do this. He planned for me to be put in a situation to do surgery on one child, then showed me the results of the Prototype and promised to do the same to me if I tried to leave or tell anyone.
“Mr. Pierre, please. She is still basically a child herself. Give her time.” There was a softer voice speaking to the bastard.
It definitely wasn’t the Doctor. I don’t think he has even looked at me since that first surgery, and he wasn’t there to supervise this one. Couldn’t be Camryn as the voice belonged to a male, so I guess it is Dr. White.
There were shuffling of feet and the door shutting, before the sounds of someone sitting down beside me, but still giving me my space. After a few moments, the voice spoke again.
“Your drink is getting pretty cool. You should start to drink it now. The warmth might make you feel better.” It was Dr. White.
He didn’t say much about my emotions, just made a simple observation and a suggestion to solve a couple problems: my emotions, and my ignored drink.
“How do you do it?” I croaked out.
“Hmm?” He simply tilted his head.
“How do you work here? Do all of this and still smile?” It made no sense.
“I think about the good I was doing when I started. This wasn’t something we were always doing, and Ludwig probably would have tried to stop it if he knew the extent of the experiments, but I started here always with the intention to help the children, and for a while, that is what I did.”
He pulled out a small personal pack of Kleenex and offered me one. “There was an accident that cost Ludwig his adopted daughter and he was distraught. While I can’t talk to you about what happened, saving her is what caused what we are doing. It started out with rats, but soon moved on to children, and any willing adult. There is a different goal I keep in mind with every experiment that might be different than the Doctor’s or Pierre’s. That is in regards to the children we were experimenting on.”
I had to slide down a bit to lift my head, but I finally looked at him and took my cup in my hands.
“It is awful, the children are being put in a situation they can never return from, but the chance to save them from dying of terminal illnesses in a painful way is something I can hope for. I don’t like what I do, but their lives up until the point we put them under was spent fighting an illness ready to kill them and having the best moments of their lives when their parents otherwise abandoned them to die. We are learning our mistakes and getting closer to having some survive longer than a couple of hours. Eventually they will survive and can go on to live new lives.”
“But what happens when we run out of terminally ill kids?” I know they wouldn’t stick to just those going to die, but did Dr. White think about that?
He was silent for a moment. “I hope I don’t have to do that, but it isn’t my choice anymore. Nor is it your choice to just leave. We will continue to do what we think is right, and when that is no longer an option, we do what we can to survive.”
And that was the truth. The moment we were hired, our only choice was to decide if we wanted to survive. We no longer get to decide on what is right or wrong.
“I hate it here.”
“You don’t get the choice to leave anymore.”
We sat in silence for a while as I processed what I did, and what we both would have to do. There was no way I was the only one dealing with this, but I didn’t want to go around asking others. I did appreciate Dr. White coming and just sitting with me while I processed the child I basically killed.
“If this can help you, then I recommend you try to not think of them as human. Once they are the subjects for experiments, do not think of them as human. There is only so much the human mind can handle. Start to draw the line at what you will spend time caring and grieving for.”
With that, Dr. White stood up and started to leave my office. “Oh, before I leave. Pierre came in to let you know you could leave early, as long as all your documentation was completed and correct. Since you weren’t working on it, I figured you were done.”
I nodded my head, but he couldn’t see me. With a last goodbye, my door was opened and shut again leaving me alone. I made the decision to finish my tea before leaving, and I would decide tomorrow if I was going to come back, or if I was going to try and run away. It wouldn’t be the first time I tried.
I was right in that I wasn’t the only one affected. The next day, Camryn walked up and hugged me once I walked in. Greg sighed in relief as she seemed to finally let him go and he ran to the coffee machine. Nobody seemed to be in a happy, or in a talkative mood, but Dr. White kept a kind smile on his face and let us know the assignments we had for the day.
I finally learned his smile was rarely genuine, but he kept up a facade for the benefit of others. I could fake a smile, and make sure that the factory workers wouldn’t notice it when I finally went to lunch. It was something I had while being harassed by my classmates, and something I learned from watching my parents interact with those who snubbed them. I hated the fake smile, and I never wanted to use it, but now I see it is inevitable to have to learn.
“You all are going to hate it, but at the end of the week, there are more surgeries planned for you to participate in. Try to learn from your past mistakes and be better this time.” I heard Dr. White say over Camyrn’s head as she squeezed the life out of me.
My back popped from how she gripped my torso. I almost fell if she wasn’t holding me so tight. I had to hold my breath until she let go to limit the pain I felt. Pierre walked past us as I heard Camryn take a breath to argue, but she stopped and just held onto me until after he walked past.
Finally she let me go and I took in a breath. “Why?”
“Yesterday was the worst and I didn’t see you before you left. We are in this together, so we need to keep an eye on not only our own mental sanity, but each other's, too.” Camryn explained like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Greg just shrugged and took a long sip of coffee. It made sense what Camryn was saying, but I didn’t want to go around checking on everyone who works with us. That would just be too mentally taxing and I don’t really talk to anyone else.
“I think there is a memo on your desks, and feedback on the experiments from yesterday from The Doctor. I recommend reading over them at least a couple of times before Saturday. “ Dr. White spoke while looking back towards the other offices.
“Uhg! Fine, then I will go and deal with that, but if it is nothing but critiques, I might have to beat somebody up.” Camryn grumbled as she finally walked away.
Greg sighed and followed her to his own office and left me with Dr. White. “If it is too much to care about all your coworkers, then pick a few you feel most at ease or closest to you to care about. I know you are not the most social even within the office.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. See you later.” I spoke before heading into my own office to see what kind of memo was written about yesterday.
Research Team
Congratulations on your excellent work and dedication to this company! I have seen and read through your reports and am pleased with the progress I am seeing. Keep up the good work and I know we will see great progress in the coming months.
This is also a reminder that you should read over your contracted obligations from when you were hired. Every single one of you is important to the work we do here, and the company would be very different without your hard work and dedication to your jobs.
Pierre