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-=@) Project Lloraine (@=- |
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“Lloraine.”
The way she said it was musical, with a slight Spanish accent that slurred the two L’s into something exotic and mysterious. He tried to say it that way, but it didn’t sound quite the same.
“No last name?” he had asked, that day he’d first been assigned to ‘the project’.
“Of course not.” The angel had looked at him strangely, her caramel forehead puckered a little in confusion and her clear gray eyes frowned, “Why does one person need more than one name?”
“There are too many people to have just one name per person.” She looked at him with undisguised wonderment, her clipped ash-gray wings opening and closing a little so that their shorn tips brushed the sterile-white wall of the holding cell behind her.
“Aren’t there that many angels?” he had asked, laying down his clipboard with genuine curiosity in his young Latin face.
Lloraine’s delicate frown deepened, and she hugged her elegant legs against the flat chest of her paper examination gown, “I don’t know.”
He was quiet for a moment as he observed the angel huddled on top of the low stainless-steel table; watching her butchered wings rustle against the rough paper gown, the two small plastic tags clicking together amongst the soft feathers, and the way she nestled her chin on top of her smooth clasped knees, so that her dark, dark waves of hair—hacked short with a pair of sterilized surgical scissors—hung no more than a few inches around her rich tan face. She glanced uncertainly up at him from behind a few stray dark wisps.
She had the clearest, brightest eyes he had ever seen.
And still, so startlingly full of innocence.
“Allow me to introduce myself, miss Lloraine,” he had finally said, holding out his own large hand. It felt clumsy and overbearing when it closed around hers, so smooth and small and delicate.
“My name is Dr. Martin Dominique. Just ‘Martin’ is better.”
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The narrow halls of the “research facility” smelled like a mixture of ammonia and rubbing alcohol, and the speckled squares of the ceiling were uncomfortably low to even a man of average height like Dr. Dominique. It made him feel like he was stooping whenever he moved from one section of the Facility to another.
“Research facility” his a**.
It was just a prison with obscure scientific intentions on the side.
Just another remote isolated division of the Institution, smothered in windowless whitewash and high-level security.
Dr. Dominique ran a hand restlessly through his neat black hair, a hassled expression creasing his serious features. He adjusted his frameless glasses and checked the angry stride his calm walk had developed into down the claustrophobic hallway, reaching absently into his deep labcoat pocket to run his fingers over the little winged figurine he was delivering.
He’d found it in a small shop window, outside in the real world. Outside the sterile brightly-lit rooms of the Facility, each one locked with a code and keycard; past the blunt, hostile-looking guards beside every one of the outer doors; outside the perimeter of security cameras and barbed wire, and at least an hour’s drive from anywhere. It was like commuting to a separate world every day at five A.M.
The little blond angel statue was perched on the squat white end of a Roman column, it’s chubby little hands pressed together and clumsily-painted black eyes cast skyward, while an invisible wind tossed it’s little blue robe out behind it’s tiny white wings. The ceramic cherub had looked dolefully up at him from the glass shelf in the shop window as dozens of people passed behind him on the sidewalk, their reflections on the glass seeming distant and alien.
Those people knew nothing; and that was the way the Institution liked it. It conveniently lessened the pressure of moral obligations, which made more experiments like Lloraine’s possible.
Martin ran his thumb over the statue’s round little cheeks and point of a nose, looking hard into it’s shallow painted eyes. Lloraine had loved the idea of tiny little angels you could hold in the palm of your hand.
“Do they move? Can they fly?” she had asked him, her clipped gray wings fluttering excitedly behind the shoulders of her paper examination gown. It was completely amazing. Lloraine smiled so wholeheartedly for someone who never saw the light of day. And despite how little she had, she never asked for anything.
She had seemed disappointed when Martin had smiled and told her no, they were just little statues of angels, not real ones.
“Are there lots of them?” Lloraine had continued, as if determined to find something wonderful about these tiny fake angels.
“Yes,” he had answered, watching her fold her legs up under her and smooth the paper gown across her knees on the low metal table. She had been looking at him expectantly with her bright gray eyes, as if there absolutely must be more to say, and he almost felt guilty for not having anything else to tell her.
It was a moment before Lloraine glanced around the cell and then down at her hands. The electric whirr of the security camera in the holding cell broke the silence as she shifted again, sliding gracefully down from the tabletop, her lacerated wings opening to balance as she moved, plastic tags clicking. The sound of her bare feet padding on the white linoleum floor echoed slightly as she walked across the cell, her smooth face pensively downcast, with the fingers of one hand pressed over her lips, thinking. Her roughly-cut hair fluffed off of the back of her bare neck in a dark mass of waves, falling across her almond skinned cheeks and blending with her eyelashes, the uneven ends brushing the corners of her lips. When Lloraine looked up again, the question was written all over her, in the way her hand still hovered close to her mouth while the other was clasped to her flat chest, and the bright light of the cell reflected in her gaze.
“Do they all look the same?” she asked, and then covered her mouth with her hand again, her wings twitching uncertainly.
“No,” Martin had said, wishing he could think of more to say, “There are all different kinds of them.” He was already preparing himself for her next question, but when it came, it took him by surprise nonetheless.
“....Do.... do any of them look like me, Martin...?” she had looked at him pleadingly, as if she were desperate to hear his answer, that slightest of frowns wrinkling her smooth forehead under her dark hair.
‘Yes’, he wanted to say, ‘there are whole legions of angels like you’; but that wasn’t true, and no matter what his answer was, it wouldn’t make her happy. He had the hardest time opening his mouth to form the words, and even then he hesitated.
“No...” he had said finally, “I’ve never seen any that look like you.”
After that, it had taken a little finagling, but Martin had insisted that a small shelf be installed inside the holding cell. Nothing complicated. Just a plain white shelf with steel fastenings that was screwed into the wall at shoulder level. Lloraine had gotten very excited, and she ran her hands all across it’s edges while her tagged wings perked and fluttered, trying to guess what it was.
“It’s flat, Martin. Is it a table?” Lloraine’s gray eyes had been so wide and bright with curiosity, and her lips were open in a smile. Standing next to it, she had looked back down at the shelf and run her hand across its length wonderingly, murmuring, “A little narrow table stuck onto the wall...”
He had laughed out loud, “Yes, sort of.” And then he’d had to smile at her puzzled frown.
“But what’s it for?” she asked, that familiar pucker wrinkling her forehead. She really wasn’t joking; she’d never seen a shelf before. The wide pout in her eyes and the tilt of her head proved she was absolutely confused.
“It’s a shelf. You keep things on it.” he’d explained shortly as she stared at the thing, fingering the square edge thoughtfully.
“What kinds of things?” she asked without looking up.
“Things like this.” he’d said as he pulled the first little statuette out of his labcoat pocket, and held it up for her to see in the middle of his wide palm. It had been a small rendering of Gabriel, about four inches tall with flowing auburn hair and high, folded white wings. The little painted gold trumpet in its hands, pointing down at the angel’s feet where they peeked out from under the bright blue robe, was fused to the thing’s lips, and the angle of it’s head was tilted and dreamy.
Lloraine’s whole face had broken into an openmouthed smile of dazzling amazement, and her wings opened up wide behind her, halved gray feathers sticking out at odd angles. Her sparkling gray eyes were riveted to the little figurine, and her grin was so wide that for the first time, a row of white teeth showed, as if the amazement could barely be contained on her face.
“Martin! Martin, it’s an angel! Look at it!” Lloraine had cried, her wide eyes fixated on it. Her wings pulled together as she leaned her face down to it, quivering ecstatically so that the plastic tags jingled. Her hands were clenched tightly together in front of her chest as she crouched down just a little, the paper examination gown crackling, almost as if reaching towards it might scare the little statue away. “It’s so small, Martin!”
“I know,” he said, his own grin remarkably wide, “Here,” he held his hand with the little statue farther out towards her, “It’s for you.”
If Lloraine’s smile had been bright before, then this one was blinding. The gray stubs of her wings were raised out almost above her head, and it looked like her caramel smile might split with joy. She tucked some of her straying hair behind her ear with the most fluid movement of her hand, and very carefully reached for the figurine, curling her fine almond fingers carefully around the frozen folds of blue robe and white wings as if the thing were made of diamonds. She made a little sound of awe as she lifted the little Gabriel from Martin’s palm, and just looked at it, turning it this way and that in the bright light of the holding cell.
“Wings, Martin! Look how big they are!” Lloraine said, running a finger down the arch of white ceramic feathers, where the figurine stood cupped in her dark palm. “They’re so beautiful, Martin, they’re white!”
“Mm-hmm,” he nodded a little, just watching her from behind his rimless glasses.
She pressed the little angel statue to her smooth cheek with the tips of her fingers and laughed, her tagged and clipped wings gently stirring up the ammonia-scented air and making the hem of her short paper gown drift. “He’s beautiful, Martin, thank you. I love him.” Holding it in front of her face, she touched the side of the angel’s little face with her finger, “Gabriel; that’s his name.”
“But, how did you know?” Martin asked, a puzzled smile tweaking the corner of his mouth, “I never told you.”
“I didn’t know anything,” Lloraine said, smiling at the little Gabriel, her gray wings folded contentedly on her back against the ties of the paper gown. She looked up at him then with that smile, opening her hands around the little treasure as if to show him; “But what other name could he possibly have?”
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Dr. Dominique slipped the little blond cherub into his pocket again as he passed a security guard in a blue-grey uniform, standing at the end of the white hall beside a large steel-grey door. Without sparing the guard even a glance, Dr. Dominique clasped the wad of manila files he’d been carrying under his arm and reached into his breastpocket for his identification card. Flipping the slick piece of plastic right-side-up, he swiped it through the device protruding like an ugly scab from the grey security door. A small red light on the side of the device flashed green three times and an electric lock somewhere inside the doorframe released.
He grasped the cold industrial handle and twisted, jerking the heavy door open onto another, much shorter hall. Dr. Dominique walked briskly through, hearing the door close behind him with the echoing hiss and clack of the lock resetting, beyond the smart rhythmic tapping of his shoes on the white tiles. He continued down the short hallway, passing the criss-crossed glass windows of testing rooms with different kinds of equipment lining stainless-steel tables and walls, the ceilings inside these rooms slightly higher than out in the narrow linoleum hall.
The last room at the end of the short hall was the Surveillance room, where Lloraine was kept under twenty-four-hour observation inside the holding cell. In order to get into the holding cell, one had to go through the room where three high-level security guards sat watching a wall full of video-screens, and there was also a special keycard required to open her cell door. When Martin reached the dimly-lit Surveillance room, it was packed with people.
All six of his “colleagues” were standing in a tight circle of white labcoats. As soon as he entered the room, they all turned to look at him, bluish light from the video-screens reflecting off their various glasses and identification badges.
“Ah, wonderful timing, Martin,” the Senior Executive said stiffly, starting forward from the group’s ranks, “We were all about to... discuss a few matters concerning you.”
The man’s name was Dr. Xavier Schloder. His voice was almost a growl, and his eighty years of age showed in his hard pouchy eyes and leathery wrinkles. A few liverspots dotted his scalp through his thin steel-gray hair, and there was a slight hunch in his shoulders that made his head bob when he nodded.
“What kind of matters, Dr. Schloder?” Martin asked, the tone of his voice stained with a noticeable undertone of distrust.
“Well, frankly, Martin,” the old man’s face scrunched when he frowned, “everyone here believes you may be getting too involved with this project, emotionally. Scientists should never do more than observe and analyze; and that opinion is not only my own.” The senior executive stood with his hunched back straight, both wrinkled hands in his labcoat pockets, lifting his chin in order to look up along his nose.
The five other men in white labcoats were coming over and slowly reforming their circle on either side of Schloder; Lyman and Burns crossing their arms and looking resolute, Kelliss, Jarvik, and Stele with their hands in their pockets like Schloder, all fixed Martin with their judgmental stares. Even the security guards sitting in their seats in front of the monitors had swiveled around to watch what had quickly become a public trial.
Schloder cleared his throat gruffly but dutifully, “The Institution has trusted me to keep this project running smoothly,” his beady glinting eyes searched Martin’s face as he spoke warningly, “If anything should so much as threaten to become a hindrance, then I will have no choice but to have you taken off this project.”
Martin looked around at the stern faces of his colleagues, Kelliss, Stele, Lyman, Jarvik, and Burns, and then at the grim wrinkled frown of Senior Executive Schloder. He shifted the wad of files and reached up to remove his clear glasses, a smirk of amusement turning the corner of his mouth. Martin bowed his head and shook it a little, as if he couldn’t believe he had heard right. His soft chuckle was little more than air, as he laughed irreverently through his nose at his colleagues’ attempt to make him nervous.
“What exactly is so funny, Martin?” snapped Kelliss, clearly angry about being laughed at, “You’re a danger to this project, and if need be, we will have you removed.”
When Martin raised his head, his neat black hair was falling over his eyes, shadowing the cold amusement that was dancing behind the lenses of his rimless glasses as he put them back on. Kelliss’s glare faded into something like alarm, and the rest of his colleagues’ faces became sharp with wary confusion.
“You misunderstand me, gentlemen...” Martin began darkly, now holding up the stack of files, clasped in front of his chest with both hands, “It is beyond me to altogether halt this abomination of a ‘project’. But...” he paused, casting his gaze around at each of the six men, “...but... there is nothing on this earth that will keep me from my Lloraine.”
The circle of scientists was dumbstruck silent; their glances flickered from the six file-folders neatly labeled with each of their names in Dr. Dominique’s handwriting, nervously around to the others in their circle, and then back to their black-haired colleague’s steely face. The Senior Executive’s jowled mouth worked furiously, as if he were chewing his tongue in outrage.
Dr. Martin Dominique calmly but firmly tucked the stack of folders under his arm once more, and gave a brief nod as he left the circle of unnerved scientists riveted to the floor in the middle of the security room. He skirted around them, past the row of confused oblivious security guards at the monitors, and stopped momentarily in front of the holding cell door. He produced his special-access keycard from beside the cherub figurine in his pocket, slid it through the scanner, and opened the door into the bright white room.
“Martin!”
Dr. Dominique firmly closed the door behind him without a backward glance.
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Lab report #113:
The subject reacted poorly to today’s experiments. (Data sheets and observation notes attached.)
Due to a ‘minor disagreement’ that got out of hand during testing, Dr. Martin Dominique has unanimously been reassigned to another project. We have placed a request at the Institution for a replacement with, hopefully, the same qualifications.
End daily log.
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Lab Report #114:
Subject is unresponsive to all environment-oriented tests. Use of force proves to be ineffective. (Data sheets and observation notes attached.)
We received notice that another qualified doctor from the Institution has accepted to fill the gap in our staff. No further information has been received.
End daily log.
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Lab Report #115:
Subject is exceedingly uncooperative. Heavy sedatives required make testing impossible. (No data.)
We received a fax from the new replacement, name of Dr. Luther J. Pike. He has some very enthusiastic new ideas to bring to the project. We are eager to put them into effect. Dr. Pike should be arriving from the Institution in about two days.
End daily log.
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Lab Report #116:
An unknown assailant forced entry to the lab late last night. The assailant destroyed all the equipment, disabled the sprinkler system, and set fire to the lab’s computer room. While the files were being evacuated and the data transferred, a small explosion in the holding cell allowed the subject to escape.
Due to recent events, the project has been suspended indefinitely.
End log.
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 Mitsukeru Furidomu · Tue Feb 26, 2008 @ 06:41am · 1 Comments |
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