placebo's machine

Recount 8

Recount

Her eyes really hurt, and that was all she was aware of.

So did her heart. Pretty much everything.

So she knew that all of her, hurt.

Evangeline, with a sinking feeling, began to remember what had happened.

Had it been so wrong, what she had done? She hoped that she hadn’t hurt Gabriel, but she

didn’t think so. Evangeline didn’t think that she could hurt anyone, now.

She was just human.

A part of her supposed that she should be more upset about the fact that They had lied to her for the entire duration of her life. And she was.

But strangely, she only felt distraught because she knew that she could never fly again.

And she knew that that was the wrong thing to feel, but she did anyway.

Evangeline wondered that if any normal bird had flown, for just a day, just a second, and their wings had been taken away, if their heart would ache just as much as hers did.

Especially if they weren’t really sure how it had happened.

But it had.

Evangeline didn’t want to open her eyes.

But she did.

Gabriel was sitting, facing away from her, at the mouth of the cave. It was daytime again, but morning. He seemed to be reading something in his lap.

“I’m sorry.”

She spoke without even giving her voice orders to speak. The words had just sort of spilled out.

Gabriel turned, with a small, sad smile on his face. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Evangeline sat up robotically. (How ironic. Evangeline didn’t have any reason to be doing things in a machine- esque fashion now.)

“Could you explain how it happened? Can you, even? Do you know?”

Gabriel held out the papers he had been clutching like a lifeline in his hands while he was waiting for her to wake up.

“It’s easier if I read it. Don’t stop me. You need to hear it all.” He cleared his throat and slowly began to read.

“Dear Specimen/s whom we may or may not yet be aware of in this stage,

It is with a mixture of apprehension and regret that we inform you that your body makeup is, indeed, that of a homosapien, or human being. We admit to fraud and deception for the sake of science, and plead that you hear our arguments.

The first stage of our experiment had the means that we did tell you. That is, to create a police force to help cleanse this world. However, about a month into planning, our scientists discovered that we were wasting potential in this experiment.

Enter stage two.

If a subject is able to break the limits that we had foreseen (using adrenaline or some other such natural hormone), then they shall be equipped with ‘wings’ and observed. If they are then able to apply what we call ‘The Bumblebee Effect’ (that is, flying though physics say it should not be possible), then they have graduated to stage two.

That is the stage that you are at currently.

There is a stage three, and likewise, a stage four, but we shall not delve into those as you are to figure it out by yourself.

If you are wondering, we shall explain how the flight was im/possible.

We modeled the ‘wings’ off of those of a European Swallow, and justified the wing length to body mass ratio by such. If the ratio of the swallow is 12.2 centimeters over 20.3 grams, and the average weight of a human female (as is the first one to be subjected to stage two) is 64 kilograms (or 64,000 grams), then for flight to be possible the wing length would have to be around 38.5 meters long.

Which, obviously, yours are not.

We made them quite a bit shorter (around 3.8 meters long, in actuality), meaning that flight should have been impossible for you.

If you are reading this letter, then it was not.

Sincerely and apologetically,

Facility of Mental Alteration Experimentation.”

Gabriel’s voice dropped out suddenly, without much preparation. “And that’s it,” he finished rather anticlimactically.

“That’s it?” Evangeline repeated. “All of it?”

“See for yourself,” he said quietly, holding it out to her. Evangeline took the paper, stiff from years of water damage and faded from many hands holding it in frustration.

It really did end there. Well, across the bottom were some phrases scribbled in... mud?... that insulted Them, calling them... rude names, to say the least. Whoever had written that was quite brash.

As if reading what she was thinking, Gabriel hastily said, “That wasn’t me.”

Evangeline couldn’t help it. Maybe it was because she was tired, or cold, or feeling like she was stuck somewhere between dream and reality. But a little snorting giggle came out of her, which soon turned into a roaring laugh. At Gabriel’s perplexed look she only laughed harder, until tears were leaking out of the corner of her eyes and she was clutching her sides and wheezing.

“You’re taking this well,” Gabriel finally commented. “Much better than me.”

“What did you do?”

“Threw some things. Punched someone. Cursed a lot. You know. Good stuff.”

Gabriel smiled, but Evangeline felt embarrassed.

“I really am sorry.”

“I know.” Evangeline looked at him in surprise. “And,” he continued, shrugging, “I really don’t care.”

Evangeline bit her lip, hard. “You should.”

“But I don’t.”

Gabriel gave her a hard look, challenging her. Would she argue with him? Would she try to change his mind, which he had so firmly planted on that decision?

No.

“Gabriel...” and all the armor and strength that finding the truth had given her vanished. “What are we going to do now?”

Gabriel folded the paper, again and again. “We’re going to live, Evangeline.”

“But what about...” she pointed at the letter. “Stage three?”

Gabriel shook his head. “There’s no way out. We’ve checked everywhere.”

“We.” Evangeline crossed her arms. “The first person out here was a girl, that’s what the letter said. Gabriel, who was she? She’s not here now. She must have gotten out.”

“She didn’t. Mary, that was her name. A little tyrant. But she was taken.” Gabriel looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Happy?”

“No. This forest is miserable.”

Gabriel shook his head, exasperated. “It was a rhetorical question. And you didn’t even give the right answer, at that. Jeez, you’re so weird.”

“Sorry?” Evangeline was rather confused.

Gabriel just  shook his head harder.

Evangeline pulled the blanket around her tighter. Though it had been warm the previous day, now it was rather cold. The tip of her nose felt icy, and so did her ears.

“Thank you, Gabriel.”

“What for?”

“For...” Evangeline paused. Everything, really. “For telling me the truth.”