Facility

2

Swab marched me from my dwelling to Artificial Habitat: River, a habitat I’d never visited before. Behind the pristine white door emerged a recreation of this ‘River’, it was astounding. My heart raced at the beauty of it, the green rolling fields and the Royal blue sky, the transparent stream full of the goldest fish. Yet it felt intentionally wrong, it was too Eden-like, so clearly manufactured, so obviously a vision from an uneducated mind of the real outdoors. Swab clicked its pincer behind me to notify me to the entrance of another Guest.

“Standard Greeting, I am Guest Inferior 3197” Said the visitor. She was a woman, probably around her mid thirties, with tangled elbow length straw coloured hair and absent eyes. The regulation speech seemed to be forced out of her mouth.

“Standard Greeting, I am Guest Inferior 4286” I replied, adding a smile to hopefully put her at ease. However she seemed to have been waiting for me to say my regulation speech to allow herself to speak freely.

“Enough of this nonsense, this is my third interaction in 13 years. I need real speech, real names. Nothing is remotely real in this world. My name is Kashmir. And yours is?” Her eyes searched my face rapidly as she spoke.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. The only name I know is Guest Inferior 4286,” I said sadly, why didn’t I have this ‘real’ name, where did it go? Perhaps it was another forgotten fragment of my identity.

“It doesn’t matter girl! Just make it up, Do you really think Kashmir is my birth name- they took my birth name away!” She pulled at her hair and dragged me to the grass floor that felt little more than pixels. “Don’t worry; I reckon they have you on suppressors. Should have never taken the damn things, I never did. But the past ebbs away naturally over time, especially in here. But I’ll seize my chance now, whilst your here, I can feel my mind getting strong when I’m in human presence- these swabs must have memory blockers... yes that must be how they do it,” Kashmir clung onto my upper arm with an iron grip, all the while staring deep into my eyes. She seemed completely unhinged, what was she talking about? My mind seemed to want to reply but it seemed heavy and irretrievable.

"Now I shall tell you what you your self have forgotten, you seem to have conformed and accepted this place as your normal life. Don’t worry, many do. They forgot the lives they lead and the horrors they saw. Some do it purposely others just by accident, but some- like myself- find that the past still bleeds through,” Kashmir’s pupils dilated as she, with great effort, searched for her past hidden away in her head “Now, I can’t be sure, the details are... distorted. It’s like a forgotten thought scurrying in the bottom of your brain. I’m sure I had children, small children. We were starving, no money, no nothing. This hunger, I can still feel its hollow aches when I recall these faded memories. But I saw a Guard patrolling the streets, his ornate ruby robes glistening in the harsh sunlight. Anger pulsed through my veins. My children and I starving and him parading around our garden like a king surveying the poor, the injustice seemed to cleave my skull. I think I offered him a drink for his troubles, and knocked him unconscious. But I can’t be sure...  I remember taking his beautiful robes to a market and my memory fails me. Then I just know of these white cells or dwellings as the Swabs call it. My last interaction, about 4 years ago, was with a man called ‘Prophet’. He obviously had a God complex, but he proved quite interesting. Like me he had stayed clear of suppressors, he remembered a plot he took part in and nothing else. He was older than myself, others I have met have been older or around the same age as me. But you are by far the youngest- how many interactions have you had?”

I closed my eyes. The weight of her little speech seemed to lie upon me, rendering me useless. All thoughts gushed from one end of my mind to the other. She seemed to be infecting me. Swab stayed close to me, unmoving. If it were human I would have said it was listening intently. Finally I got an answer out.

“My 6th interaction I think, I have never been to this habitat before though. I have been to mountain, sea and ice. I have been the youngest every time,” Only now had I actually thought about this, it suddenly dawned on me that I have rarely thought about anything. Whenever I start to, Swab offers me a suppressor.

“How old are you, do you know?” Kashmir asked, rather delicately.

“17 or 19, I’m not sure which. But I don’t know how long I’ve been here,” not sure why I wanted to tell her, maybe because she had shared her past,  I decided I would tell her the dream “I can’t remember a story like you can, but every night I get the same dream. Of burning and screaming. Every night, without fail. But I don’t understand why you don’t take the suppressors. They are there to help. You talked about hunger in your past life, aren’t you happier here, where you are feed and safe? Swabs aren’t that bad, you know, you are better here don’t you think,”

Kashmir opened her mouth and laughed mercilessly, the sound of it reverberated around the river. She stared intently in my eyes, “Sure, a criminal is better off away from his crimes and his nasty world full of murder and theft, where he has a bed and three meals a day. But does he not dream of his past life, his home and does he not count down the days to return there? What kind of an existence do you lead; you are kept here like a house plant. You are kept alive, and that is all. Your dream of fire- that is the real world, child. Does that not bother you? Do you neither care nor wonder why you are here? I can only guess you must be under higher observation than anyone here,”

This puzzled me “Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Look around, do you see my Swab?” I hadn’t noticed, but only my swab was in the habitat. Kashmir grinned “My swab left me to venture here myself, and during my other interactions no other ‘Guest Inferior’ has travelled with their swabs. They could also recall a story or some sort of warped memory of why are in here, yet you only have a dream. Are you offered suppressors every time you have this dream?”

“Yes,”

“INTERACTION BETWEEN YOUR RANDOMLY ALOCATED GUEST INFERIOR WILL BE EXTINGUISHED IN TWO POINT FIVE HYPERSECONDS” this announcement came from Swab, however I knew it was actually the voice of The Informer. Time was running out, I would never see Kashmir again. Kashmir seemed to have reached the same conclusion. However something seemed to click in her cloudy gray eyes.

“You’re Guest Inferior 4286?” She said in a hardly audible voice.

“I am, yes. I already told you,” The way she was looking at me made me feel physically sick.

“I... I don’t know why I didn’t realise when you said the amount of interactions you had had,” her hands began to shake and her grip on my arm got even tighter, making the pain unbearable. “HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW? WHY DIDN’T YOU WARN ME!” she now began to shake me violently.

“Let go of me! I don’t know what you mean Kashmir! Please tell me what you mean!” But I couldn’t over power her; her hands were working her way up to my throat. “EMERGENCY INCIDENT NO.261, URGENT ASSISTANCE. SWAB! CALL FOR HELP NOW!” I screamed. Swab’s light turned red and Kashmir desperately tried to aim a kick at it, however the emergency signal had been sent.

The door to the Habitat was slid open, it was Resolvers. They wore pitch black suits edged with green and their black lifeless eyes stared down upon both me and Kashmir. Her hands began to slacken as it dawned on her she had no chance now. The cloudy eyes looked up and began to blacken until her entire eyes resembled a black snooker ball. She slowly got up and walked across to the Resolvers as if she was sleep walking, all 5 of them walked out of the habitat, but Kashmir granted me with a stomach turning blank black stare as she left