Project Home, Part Two

Sam's descent into the Blackwater project has spiraled out of control, as she's hunted in the center of her own mind.

Sam’s phone rang, dragging her from her slumber. She sat up in bed and was greeted by closed shades and the cozy darkness of her bedroom. It was just another Sunday morning.

Sunday was one of her jogging days. It was also the day she went to battery park, sat on the center bench, and relaxed by looking out over the sea wall and watching the shipping traffic go past.

Except phone read 330AM which confused her why someone would call her this late on Saturday night. Then she saw Talia’s name on the call and it the call gained a terrible urgency.

“Talia I’m here, what’s wrong?” she said.

“Sam. I need you to count sixty seconds, now, into the phone, please,” Talia said.

“What? It’s the middle of the night. Were you out partying?”

“Just do it.”

Sam mumbled it through her confusion.

“Okay…I counted eighteen seconds here. Seems your time is moving a bit slower here.”

Sam’s confusion gave way to horror. She leapt from bed and yanked back her shades, revealing a pale overcast sky penetrated by the skyscrapers of New York. From here, she could see over the sea wall and across the chopping black waves to the Brooklyn skyline.

“I was hoping I’d just fallen asleep and dreamed it all,” she said as the delusion she could just wake up and be back in her real apartment melted away.

“What happened? I thought you had to find something for yourself,” Talia said.

“There is, but this place is freaking me out. There’s something in here, chasing me,” Sam said.

“Can you describe it for us?” Talia said.

“I don’t know. It’s been following me. I wanted to just go home, hide, and wait for the twelve hours outside to complete. I’m sorry I’m a coward, I’m a coward, I’m a coward,” she said. The wind picked up outside, throwing her words back at her. “Can you see it?”

“We are. I monitor your vitals while the techs tell the Doctor and myself what you’re doing,” Talia said.

Had they seen where she’d arrived? Sam wondered in sudden burning embarrassment. Surely Talia had seen her land on the edge of a building and read the thoughts going through her mind. Hadn’t she heard her cry for help. “I don’t know what I expected. It’s so empty in my mind. As I should have expected because I have no fucking personality. Just numbers.”

“Well, time to put something in it then. Maybe you need to go back to your office and find yourself?” Talia offered.

“Okay, okay,” Sam said. Her mind was rushing through all the horrors of what could be waiting for her. She bit her lip and tried to get it to slow down. The wind outside picked up until the roaring inside her head equalized with the wind blowing outside. Only then could she talk again. “Talia?”

“Yes Sammy?”

“I’m sorry I was such a terrible sister growing up I know both our parents spent all their time on me having meltdowns and needing special education and ignored you. I never knew that was happening, or even thought about it. I’m so sorry,” Sam said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Talia said quickly. “Just get out there and find all those knots in your brain.”

Okay. “Call me if something’s wrong,” Sam said and hung up.

4AM. Morning routine but four hours early. She could do this, she thought as the familiarity took hold. Put the coffee to boil then make two eggs and have a cup of fruit salad. Drink coffee then shower. When her coffee machine produced good coffee, she felt she’d have a good day. When hot water burst from the shower, she knew she would. She went through the ritual on comforting autopilot, until she got to her closet and stopped.

What to wear to chase down a monster in your own mind? She almost went for sports clothes and sneakers, but that was what she wore running and only for running.

She grabbed a black sweater and belted up a pair of billowing silk pants in royal blue, then added black tights for warmth. No jewelry. She grabbed her office boots, which weren’t running shoes but had far more comfort than heels. The pants also had pockets that let her stuff the taser in and draw it with ease. She threw her raincoat on and headed to the door.

The wind died down as she headed down her hallway. Some of the doors had lights behind it. She heard voices behind one and eagerly pressed her ear to it. They were streaming music, but she felt human touch so close she had to knock.

No one answered.

Sam sprinted the stairs down to her lobby.

Her building was a modern neo-skyscraper, built atop the bones of a century-old skyscraper. When the arcology had been built, the taller buildings had all been divided between above and below ground with a steel floor at the appropriate floor. For security purposes. Except for here in the Village, where the hippy spirit had never died a string of protests had forced landlords to kill property value by allowing the under city to access the same facilities as the higher-class residents.

Sam had moved here in the hopes of getting Talia to follow her. Even if her twin refused her financial aid move above the arcology, she’d still be living legally in the same building. Talia had declined and stayed in the apartment they’d inherited from their parents in Brooklyn.

Sam pushed through the door and the cold air hit her. It was dampened by her heavy clothes so all she felt was a faint nipping of frost. A perfect day. She stared up into the blank sky and wondered if it could snow.

The sky stared back at her. It hadn’t changed at all. It had been waiting for her to return.

This is my own mind, I’m supposed to be in control, she thought. She looked up fifth avenue instead. The skyscrapers rose thousands of feet. Even from here she could see the World Financial Center sticking a kilometer in the air, on the site of the old UN headquarters. It was a straight shot to work. She took it, and tried not to look at the sky as she did.

Her favorite coffee shop was open. She’d visited it the morning of her attempted jump. However a quick look told her it wasn’t reflecting that last memory.

Instead, the shop reflected a visit she’d made on a Saturday ninety-eight days earlier, with laptops open and the same three lattes on the counter: a large and two smalls. Sam snatched the big one up and settled a months-long curiosity by tasting it.

Vanilla latte. Too sweet but the caffeine was the only thing steadying her so she took it with her when she left.

Why was it stuck on this memory in particular?

Right. She’d come there with Talia, to pitch the idea of moving her into the same building.

“It would be great. You’ll be in a safe neighborhood, and we could be together whenever we’re not working, instead of one of us crossing two boroughs to meet the other,” Sam jabbered on over her own coffee.

Talia had done the night shift at the hospital. She rubbed her eyes as she leaned into the rim of her extra-large. “Sam. I can’t afford the rent here.”

“It’s much cheaper in the down levels but you’re not segregated into the lower city,” Sam said eagerly at her great idea.

Where were the words coming from? Sam thought and stopped on the sidewalk to look around. The conversation continued through the city streets.

“Sammy, it was a good thought and I really appreciate you bringing this to me, but I won’t be moving anytime soon,” Talia said. The words wafted from out of the air itself.

“Why not? You’d be here,” Sam had complained.

“I’d still be in the lower city, Sam,” Talia said.

“Yeah, but you’d be much closer than you were before,” Sam said.

“It’s not the same thing as being out.”

“It’s much better,” Sam said.

“No. You don’t understand because you live in the upper city full time, okay? You just walked into that top finance job mom and dad helped you get and they even moved you into your apartment too. I’m from the undercity and every time someone looks at my address they know. I had to fucking work all the extra school hours to get here,” Talia said.

“But, but…”

“I’m sorry Sam but talking to you is like talking to a brick wall sometimes. Actually, it’s more like you’re talking to a brick wall instead of me,” Talia said.

A thick sleet fell. It soaked down Sam’s collar even after she pulled her coat tight and mixed with the street dirt to turn brown and running. She quickened her pace up fifth.

The conversation repeated over again, emerging from thin air, to torment her.

You can’t even control your own mind, Sam thought. Thank god you can do numbers or you’d be in a halfway house.

The wind picked up. Sleet no longer got down her collar, but it slapped her in the face over and over. She threw up her hand and kept walking.

When she passed a storefront with warmer lights than the rest, she stopped short to look.

Hanna’s art gallery. She passed it every day. Most of the time, she came home too late to catch it open but an average of one day a week she came past it.

Tall girl, sheet of straight black hair, clearly went to the gym and wore shirts to show that off. Always walking around with a paint-scattered apron and a smile on her face. Every time Sam passed, they made eye contact and said hello.

Her name was Hanna by her nametag. She’d tried to talk to Sam a few times, but Sam had made quick talk and excused herself out with ‘I need to go to work.’ If she talked to her, she’d drive her away. That’s how it worked because she was talking to a brick wall.

That was what her mother had warned her about, and what Talia emphasized every time they got into an argument. Hanna would lose interest the moment Sam tried to talk to her, like every other girl had. So Sam had just been happy to have their little ‘hello’ every day.

People are confused, I can’t handle it. I give up, she repeated the same thoughts from before she’d tried to jump.

A hand gripped her shoulder. She spun around and yanked out the taser. The street was empty to the car parked on the far side.

Sam chewed her lip, then turned back up the street.

I should have talked to Hanna, she thought as she went.

The Firm’s building loomed overhead. Fifty-second street, second level. The clouds had closed in until it vanished into grey nothingness. She couldn’t see her floor and if there was only one light on.

“Sam.” A voice said. She stopped short in a puddle and looked around her. She was alone on the street. Except for a few open windows above her.

She grabbed her phone and dialed Talia’s number.

“Hello, you have reached the number of Talia Rittel. I can’t get to you right now but please leave me your name and number and I’ll get to you soon as I’m back at my phone.”

Sam shook her head and lowered it. That was when it rang.

“Sam, the techs say you just tried calling me what do you need?”

“Something is here following me. Can you see it?”

“I can’t. Listen, can you count to sixty again?”

She nodded and did so. “What did you get?”

“Ninety-two. That tracks with our previous studies. There’s no correlation between time flow out here, and inside your mind,” she said. “Now, what is chasing you?

“It just said my name. And earlier, it was replaying the conversation we had in that coffee shop, out loud and not through any speakers. Remember, the one where I wanted you to move into my building?” Sam said.

“Hang on, we’re going through the data,” Talia said.

“I’m sorry about that conversation,” Sam said. She didn’t get an answer. She checked her watch. She’d lived sixteen hours in her own head. How long was that in the real world? Would she be waiting for hours while Talia made a quick check with the technicians?

She looked around on the spot. The buildings, the lights, and everything had not changed since she’d run out yesterday.

“Talia?” she said.

She got no reply. “Talia, I’m sorry.”

The lights in the skyscraper all shut off. Sam froze on the spot, taser white knuckling in one hand and phone held slackly in the other. She looked up and down the building until she saw movement.

The front door cracked open.

Every instinct screamed at Sam to run, but this time she dug her heels in and stuck to the spot. This was what she’d wanted, right?

The door swung open. Sam saw herself emerge.

It was an emaciated and angry version of herself. Its cheeks were pinched tight to show off its bones. Its eyes were tired and sunken in their sockets. It wore Sam’s clothes from yesterday, but they were baggy against its skeletal body.

Sam understood what it was immediately. “You,” she said. “You’re what I’m looking for this whole time.”

The figure took a step forwards.

“I came to find all the knots in my brain, and I found you,” Sam said.

“Hey Sam,” Talia said. Sam set it to speaker.

“Talia, I found it.”

“What?”

“My…those knots I was telling you about in my brain. It’s standing right in front of me,” Sam said. A gust caught her face, then picked up into a cold sleet-filled wind that drove the warmth from her body.

“That’s great. Listen. You’re nearing the end of the twelve hours, but we’re not sure about pulling you out.”

“Haven’t you done this before?” Sam said. She paced across the street. The figure didn’t cross it to match her but turned on the spot to face her.

“Yes, but we’re still in the experimental phase. That’s why we haven’t gone to clinical trials. The technicians say you need to get back up to where you woke up on,” Talia said.

The ledge. Didn’t you see me standing right on the ledge? Sam thought.

She walked forwards. A little smile came across the thing’s face. It walked towards her.

Sam’s nerve broke. She backed away, then took a side street. There was a freight entrance on the side of the building. She’d gone that way once. Now she retraced her steps down an alleyway, past a string of outdoor cafes with meals going cold and half-eaten on their tables. She turned right. There were dumpsters on the arcology, just hidden back here and she had to scoot by them, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

“Sam, can you hear me?” Talia said. The wind snatched her voice away but Sam caught it.

“I am, I’m trying,” she said.

“Where are you going?”

“Side entrance.”

“I need you to get back up to your office,” Talia said.

“Yeah, I know.” She stopped at the freight. The triple garage doors were sealed shut. Before it stood that gaunt figure, staring at her.

“Sam, the techs can see nothing in front of you.”

Sam hung up on her because she needed to concentrate. The figure started walking forwards. What was she supposed to do? Kill a dream? After she’d tasered that man in the subway she’d never gone there again, just walked to and from work and learned to enjoy the open air. The thought that he’d been intending to stab her and she’d done self defense hadn’t slowed her own horror. His head had hit the standing pole over and over with a metallic thump of something hard hitting something much harder.

The approaching figure’s footsteps made the same metallic thump.

Sam aimed the taser at it, but it didn’t slow. She pulled the trigger. A wire shot across and buried in its forehead, and the weapon crackled in her hand.

It didn’t slow as the wire went slack. Sam dropped the taser and backpedaled, putting a car between them. The figure kept turning to face Sam. The car groaned as its door bent. Its frame bent and buckled as it split apart around the figure.

Sam ran. Every other day, she went jogging for thirty minutes to maintain cardio. She was grateful for that as she shoved herself between the dumpsters and back out onto the street.

She didn’t realize her panic was leading her right back home until she turned onto fifth avenue and down the street. She stopped herself short.

You’re going back to the one place this thing will know you’re going to. You can’t think, you’re just running, she thought and cursed herself out. She turned around towards the office.

It was standing on the double yellow line, waiting for her. The wind had picked up to a gale, but its clothes didn’t even ripple, while hers were trying to haul her into the gutter.

Sam kept her eye on it as she began walking down the middle of the street. She decided she’d keep going past her apartment. Maybe she could weave through the Village and lose it. Or go into the undercity. What would the undercity look like in her mind? She had not been down there in a month. Subway access stairs everywhere but the village descended past the undercity to reach the stations.

Maybe she’d get to the seawall and just jump over the side. Would drowning wake her up?

It matched her step by step until she stopped. It kept walking, so she spun and resumed walking. Now the gap had closed by three steps.

Sam thought briefly about just stopping and letting it reach her. The unknown of what would happen yawned like the pale grey void pretending to be a sky. This thing had destroyed part of her life already. It had to be worse than just dying.

She hit a cone while she wasn’t looking and fell flat on her back. She gasped and leapt up, then looked back and saw it had halved the distance.

The warm glow of the art gallery appeared ahead. It drew Sam into it.

She turned into it, shoving the door open with her shoulder. She stumbled, dripping onto a thick red carpet and then shoved the door shut.

Her doppleganger stood on the other side, staring. Sam backed a step away, then looked back. The art gallery continued to a door at the back. There had to be a back exit.

She looked back and saw her doppleganger had vanished.

Sam backed further into the gallery. Whichever side it came from, she’d run to the other way. Yet the doppelganger didn’t reappear. The wind howled outside and the windows went opaque with sleet, but the cold didn’t penetrate.

Her gaze turned to the paintings themselves. They were on ornate golden frames and buildings. A sign called them the ‘neo-classic style.’

The first she saw was an obvious self-portrait. Hanna had painted herself bare back to the viewer. Her skin was ivory white, and the waves and beach around her vibrant living colors.

It was beautiful, and she’d only see it through the glass door in real life.

Her phone rang again, and she grabbed it. “Talia!”

“Hey, I’m here. You’re fine, this is still just an experiment in your own mind,” Talia said.

“You see it?” she said.

“I see it, it’s confusing, because of how complex the sensor nodes to look into your brain are,” Talia said. “A better way to say it would be that we saw it past tense,” she said.

“Can I count to sixty again?” Sam said.

“Yes, begin,” Talia said.

Sam counted again. “Sixty,” she said.

“Fourteen,” she said.

“So how long has it been since I got in here?” Sam said.

“Less than you’ve experienced,” Talia said.

“Can you give me an exact time?” Sam said as frustration grew.

“We have techies that can worry about that. I’m worrying about getting you past that thing and up to your office.”

“This thing, I’ve realized that it’s not a monster. It’s me. It only appears whenever I get angry at myself. It’s me, it’s what I’ve been looking for the whole time. I need to confront it here,” Sam said.

“I think you should head back to your office,” Talia said.

“Why?” Sam said.

“That’s where our sensors say you need to go. Behind you!” Talia said.

The back door buckled inwards with a crunch.

Hearing Talia only sharpened her determination. She dug her heels into the carpet and waited. “No, I can’t. Can you stay on the line?” she said.

“Sam, I’m worried I’ll distract you, okay? I’ll call you back when you’re in your building,” Talia said and hung up.

Sam stared up at the ceiling, wondering if she could make eye contact with Talia through the layers of the dream, and the neural sensors of the neural framework. What had happened to their relationship? Had Sam antagonized her twin that much? She’d seemed as happy with her as always when they’d been at the clinic. Sam replayed the memory over and over, searching Talia’s facial expression for anything she’d missed. Her own rage built as she accepted that she couldn’t tell.

Talia hadn’t even noticed she’d tried to kill herself. She’d somehow angered Talia that much, that her own sister would use her for her own ends. That had to be it, right? Why else would Talia be obsessed with getting her back in her office? Something was there Talia wanted.

Maybe getting there would help her make up for how much damage she’d done to her own sister’s childhood, Sam thought.

The back door splintered. Plastic shattered at once, then clattered into a million places all over the gallery.