Matthew | Чернобог (chernobog) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-10-16 15:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | chernobog, marzanna |
I told the witch doctor
Who: Matt and Alex
What: Matt meets his new coworker
Where: The lab
When: Backdated to October 2
Matthew sat at his desk tapping his pen against the wooden top. His computer screen glowed despite being untouched for the past number of minutes. He couldn’t concentrate and would only get a few minutes of work done at a time before pausing and staring at the doorway. His office was situated off to the side of the lab with a large glass wall separating the two and he could easily look across the lab to the double doors.
The day before, he received a call from his employer. It was never good to get a call from the man and the news he had was never good. Yesterday was much the same, although at least this time he wasn’t telling Matthew to knock out a neighbor and dump him off into a strange, makeshift, research center in his apartment. The news was better than that, but still not good. Matthew had acquired an assistant, someone who would help him with his duties, and Matthew had no idea who it could be.
He had made his way to the office and glumly sat at his desk nursing a cup of coffee, watching the time slowly pass by and no arrival of the new employee, but by 10--well into the work day--he was antsy and impatient. Maybe his boss was just screwing with him, maybe there wasn’t anyone coming after all, maybe it was all a ploy to experiment on how Matthew reacted to the news. Who the hell knew anymore. So it was still a surprise when the door to the lab moved, and even a greater one when Matthew saw who walked in.
Alex strode in wearing a dark blue dress under a white lab coat. The coat had been acquired after entering the building and dropping her other items off in an employee locker; it wouldn't do to be tracking the outdoors into a sterile environment. Once she laid eyes on Matt, however, the taciturn expression her face usually wore turned on like a lightbulb and she grinned. One hand rose to waggle fingers at him.
She moved through the space, coming around the divider to Matt's desk.
"Surprise! I guess you did come through with that recommendation after all, huh?" She closed the distance between them, coming up alongside Matt in his chair; a pale hand settled on his shoulder.
Matthew stared at Alex with his jaw hanging, a hand slipping up his nose to push his glasses further up the bridge as he tried to find his voice. “How...no… Alex,” He shook his head, a million thoughts and things to say mashing together and not coming out in the right order. “You’re my new coworker? Alex, you shouldn’t be here.” He got to his feet and grasped her hands, not thinking twice about the contact and only fearful for her and making sure she could be out of harm's way.
Alex glanced down at the sudden handhold, his words surprising and, after a thought, angering her.
"Seriously? You're going to pull some sexist shit on me, Matt? You know I'm more than qualified for something like this—"
Matthew blinked and leaned back, confused at first by her outburst before understanding dawned upon him. “Oh, god, no! I didn’t mean that, Alex. No, no, you’re definitely more than qualified for what you do. You’re excellent in what you do but this, I didn’t mean that. It wasn’t about that.” He got to his feet and looked down at her, pleading in his eyes. “It’s just… just this job. There’s more about this job than you realize. I’m sure, I’m certain they didn’t tell you everything about the job position. This place… it’s not good, I wouldn’t want you involved here because it’s not good.”
Alex stared at Matt as though he'd grown a second head. She pulled her hands away from his, crossing her arms over her chest.
"OK," she said, clearly not taking a simple 'no' for an answer. "Spill."
Matthew worked at his mouth and considered telling her she wouldn’t understand, but he knew better than that, knew her better than to tell her such a weak excuse. She’d kill him. Then again, maybe that’d be better than admitting it all.
After some time, Matthew was able to form some words, even if weak and rambling. “You aren’t going to believe me,” He began, a hand wiping at his mouth as he shook his head, eyeing her all the while “But I know you won’t let up. But you have to listen and you have to let me start from the beginning.
“You know what happened with your closet door? Things like that happen all the time here. Weird, strange things that just occur in the complex, not to mention dreams. I keep having these dreams that I’m this...this creature. This demon or something. Just smoke and darkness and I float around and I’m not me but someone else and I’m searching for someone and I’m trapped.”
Alex opened her mouth to say something, but Matt rambled on; it seemed like he needed this, to say something to someone, and she was more than willing to let him let it all out. Her mind was trying to sift through everything he'd said, but she was only catching pieces here and there; overall, it sounded like the ramblings of someone under some intense pressure, and she took it at face value, rather than trying to decipher just what he was getting at.
“And then,” Matthew continued, well on a roll by this point. “Tom was over at my apartment and a fucking cat showed up. I don’t have a cat, you know I don’t have a cat, but this cat was in my apartment and we tried to catch it and I grabbed it but it slipped out from my hands and then I turned into the shadow person. Like, I disappeared from sight, I was gone, I was see through, I could move through objects.
“But beside that, this… this job. I was told to perform a series of tests on patients and I did just that. But these things happened, these beautiful and wonderful and frightening things happened to some of the patients.” His gaze lifted to the ceiling as he recalled that week and his face paled. “And one patient died and I couldn’t do anything to save him. And then… then I found out the patients were actually the people from our apartment and they had never known they were going in to be tested.” His voice faded and he stared forward, not meeting Alex’s eyes, but his own eyes filled with unshed tears.
"OK, OK..." Alex stepped forward, hands rising to his shoulders. Cats and people dying and neighbors who were patients? Everything was a muddle and she couldn't begin to make heads or tails of it. Instead, Alex opted to try and calm him down, maybe distract him, and then she could get to the heart of the problem. She did her best to press him back down into his seat, but he was too much taller than her for that. Instead, her hands gripped his upper arms, trying to be soothing. "You haven't, by any chance, been seeing a therapist, have you? Because this... this is a lot, Mattie. Just... sit for a second, OK?"
“No, no,” Matthew said, despite taking a seat. His hands reached for her wrists, holding them gently as he looked up at her from his chair. “Alex, you need to understand that I am not insane. Everyone in the apartment has experienced weird shit; look at the discussion board. But what’s worse is that this job has something to do with all the weird shit. I mean, I did experiments on my neighbors without realizing they had never agreed to the experiments! Someone died and the person’s apartment was just cleaned up and put back on the market. And now whatever is happening to them is also happening to me because I’m getting those dreams. Even worse, each person has a different dream of a different person, I’m the only one that dreams of this demon made of smoke to the best of my knowledge.”
He let out a sigh and slumped back in his seat, letting go of her wrists and letting his hands fall to his lap.
Her hands remained where they had been all along; one moved to cup the side of his face.
"I don't think you're insane, Mattie, just...stressed, maybe." Her palm brushed his cheek, and then her cold touch drew back as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You're not the only person to tell me that the building's a little off. You know those masks we got? You should've seen the look on my neighbor's face. Alice? You told me a little bit about her. She looked like there was a snake in that box, and not just a mask."
She stepped away from him, looking over to his desk and the now sleeping computer. Hands started to rifle absentmindedly through his paperwork. "Speaking of the masks, you got one, right? It'd be fun to go to the Halloween party. I think you need to blow off some steam."
Matthew blinked, surprised by her calm demeanor. She had always been good with stress though, always stoic, but it was still a jarring difference between his behavior and hers. Enough that it calmed him down...but only slightly. “Yes, I got one of the masks. I don’t know about going to the party though… and Alice…” He closed his eyes and sighed. “She was one of the patients. Her, Isobel, everyone that I’ve mentioned. Nothing happened with Alice, but with Isobel...flowers bloomed.” His voice trailed off as did his gaze and he sat there, still in his chair, exhausted from the outburst, and recalled each memory of that week with a chill. He took in a deep breath and dared to look at Alex again. “None of this is about your ability, you’re more than capable. I hope you don’t think I don’t want you here due to some sexist bullshit. But I don’t want you here because I don’t want you to be stuck with all of this, with all I’ve been dealing with.”
Alex nodded, not disbelieving him. "Matt, I'm trying to understand, I just... you need to calm down. I can't understand half of what you're saying. Someone died? Mattie, people die in trials all the time, but you can't take it personally. It's not your fault. And some of the neighbors are part of it? I mean, it's something they signed up for, right?" She let go of the loose paperwork she'd been shuffling through, letting it fall back to the desk; she leaned forward on the surface, her hands spread palms down for support. Her brows drew together, an expression of concern. "Having a cat in your apartment is a little weird, but... had you guys been drinking, maybe?"
Matthew took in a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out slowly. “No, that’s the thing. We were sitting down for dinner, there was no reason we should have seen a cat. No reason it should have changed me. You can ask Tom, he saw it too. Or rather, didn’t. He couldn’t see me at all.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and moved his hand through his hair. “And to the best of my knowledge, our neighbors have no idea they were a part of a trial. They thought they went to a spa day, it’s all they remember. Falling asleep during a massage or something. I think they were knocked out and that’s when they were brought back here. I had no idea it was without their authority.”
Alex's brow furrowed. "That's...very irregular." That wasn't what she was stuck on, though; rather, her mind went back to how he'd talked about changing into a smokey creature. The thought suddenly had her recalling a dream.
"You know, I did... I had a strange dream the other night. About a woman and a smoke creature, on top of a frozen lake. But... Maybe you're confusing reality and fantasy, Mattie. Have you gotten out of the office much today?" She'd glanced vacantly behind him for a moment, but her gaze drew back full force to his face. What he was saying was concerning, but it hardly seemed true.
Matthew looked at Alex as if she was a new person entirely, his demeanor changing slightly and becoming almost...happy. “Marzanna,” he whispered. “I think that was her name, the lady on the lake. The shadow figure, the creature I dream about, he’s been searching for her. In all of my dreams he’s just searching for her in different places while he drifts around…” He paused, a quivering smile appearing and then gone, like sunshine trying to break through clouds. He shook his head. “He was happy he found her, he talked to her and then they walked off the lake and decided to walk around in the woods. It was winter and cold and snowing. It was kind of beautiful.”
Alex stared at Matt as though he'd grown another head. She pushed away from the desk, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.
"OK, now you're starting to scare me." She swallowed, though her gaze never wavered from his face. The silence drew out for a long minute, and then Alex clenched her fists loosely. Her eyes narrowed, her mind settling on a new question.
"What is it, exactly, they have you doing here, Mattie?"
Matthew watched her quietly from his seat, his face calm and his expression relaxed. He watched her for a moment as he felt a gathering of emotions deep in his heart. It felt similar to relief, a sigh that finally the search was over. Because she was the woman the ghost creature was looking for, wasn’t she? And finally, at long last, Matthew had found her without even realizing it. It made the darkness that lingered at the corners of Matthew’s mind almost… happy.
But even still he pulled his gaze away and out the glass window to the other room. “When our neighbors were brought in, I had to inject a substance into them. It was a clinical trial, you know, to see how people would react. I took their vitals and monitored them for some time then I’d send them back out. Many of the people had nothing happen to them, but many did. Like I said, Isobel had flowers appear to bloom out of the table. Another woman grew fangs. The man who died… there was a smell that came with it and the sound of singing.
“I’ve been working on the samples I took from those people--blood and swabs from their mouths--but my boss, our boss, has had me do something else. He threatened me, I guess you could say blackmail, to dispose of one of our neighbors the other week.” Matthew sighed, his shoulders slumping, and he closed his eyes. “I had to knock him out and my neighbor, Obed, helped me drop his body off on a floor no one has access to. It looked like a testing facility and they wouldn’t tell us what they were going to do with the guy. But he hasn’t been seen ever since.”
Matthew opened his eyes and they were glossy with unshed tears. He lowered his gaze and picked at the arm of his chair. “I understand if you hate me for all of this, Alex. But maybe it’ll be good. You just started here so you could quit easily enough. Just get out. Get another job. Maybe move, that would be even better. I don’t trust the apartment but I’m there now, I feel like it’s my grave.”
"Oh, Mattie..." Alex moved around the desk, and came forward to cup his face, turning him up to look at her. "For one, I don't hate you. It sounds as though you're being coerced. And for two, I'm not going anywhere. I just moved here, and...you're not going to be rid of me so easily." A slight smile tugged at her face, even as it did not reach her eyes. Her thumbs played over his cheekbones.
"Why don't we start from the beginning? What's..." Her gaze moved up, circling the lab and his room and coming back to him. "What's all of this for? What's the purpose behind the tests?"
“I was supposed to be studying the essence of life and, preferably, how to extend it,” Matthew murmured, his voice tired. He moved a hand forward, flipping at the scattering of papers on the desk before pulling his hand back and letting the papers fall back in place. “But after all of this, I think there’s more to it...I think we--at least the people who live in the apartment, not everyone in the world--have something existing within us. Something old, something that shouldn’t exist. I think what the study is really about is that but our employers are too coy and won’t be that upfront.”
He turned his gaze to Alex and sighed. “What’s your next question?”
"Who is it, exactly, that hired you? I mean..." One hand extended, her shoulders rising and falling softly. "Who do you submit to?" Her eyes moved from cameras embedded in the ceiling. "I talked to a man on the phone; is it him? And why do you think he'd be interested in your research?"
Matthew eyed Alex for a moment but then shifted in his seat and readied himself to answer more questions. This was typical of Alex and so much like how they had interacted back on the east coast. Here they fell into their old roles and somehow it was a comfort to Matthew, more of a comfort than he had felt since he began his job in California. “I was hired by Mr. Vidal, I think his first name was Augustus, or August, something like that. I only really know him as Mr. Vidal. He’s who I send my information to, what little I can find.”
He sighed and ran his hands over his thighs, straightening out the fabric of his pants before lifting his hands again. “I’d assume who hired me is who hired you; what did he hire you for? What did he tell you you were supposed to be here for?”
Alex gently crossed her arms over her chest; she nodded briefly. "He's the one I spoke to, or, at least, he gave me that name. He said I would resume my role in supporting your research, like I was back in Baltimore; I'd also have supplies for my own studies, specifically on the impact of albinism on eyes and how it can be reversed..." She shrugged. "It all sounded a little too good to be true. I did some basic research. This place is... It's kind of a ghost town. The company Vidal owns, this Gentech... It seems to exist, on paper, anyway." She frowned.
"So he hired you, when you were at a low point, and brought you over here. Did you do...anything it sounded like he promised you?"
Matthew shrugged and looked at the papers on his desk. “The initial tests seemed on the ball, particularly when things began to happen with the patients. It’s fascinating stuff, honestly. There’s something different about them all, something different from them to anyone outside of the apartment complex.” He leaned forward and began to rifle through a draw until he found a USB drive and held it in his hands as if it were a precious thing. “That’s one of the things that scare me. We’re in the apartment as well and I’ve had similar strange things happen to me like everyone else. I think, in a way, we’re just like them. This special thing that happens to them just as easily could happen to us.” He looked up at Alex and offered the drive. “Here, listen to this when you have a chance--but not here, do it at home. It has my recordings from the experiments. You...you can hear some of the things that happen but you’ll have to use your imagination plus that. It may get you more up to speed.”
"Why not here?" She immediately queried, but showed no hesitation in taking the USB drive. Alex turned it over in her hand before pocketing it. "Are you... this is research, right?"
She took a step closer to him, lowering her voice. "Are you sure nothing's tracked out of here? He won't know?"
Matthew sighed and his earlier worry colored his face again. “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve taken work home before but I’ve kept it to myself--always to myself. It’s like his motto. This work we do isn’t meant to be discussed anywhere else so I’ve kept the work to myself. I’ve never been stopped taking papers home before but… I don’t know.”
She glanced around, noting several security cameras that weren't unnaturally stationed around the lab. Taking a step toward Matt, coming between him and the desk and one camera pointed directly toward them, she nodded at the screen.
"OK, well," she started, leaning to partially sit against the desk's surface. "How about we just treat this like a normal work day. Let's start with you showing me where you're at with everything, and then... We'll figure something out from there."
He sat up a little straighter, his eyes meeting hers, and he reached out to slip the drive into Alex’s hand, but also give her hand a squeeze. “That sounds like a good idea. Thank you,” he said, a weak smile on his lips and his hand still in hers. After a moment, he pulled his hand and turned to his computer. “Alright, let’s get to work.”