Project X

The Looking-Glass

You were the best fuckin' test subject I could have asked for.

A backhanded compliment, if ever there was one. I could have laughed, if I wasn't afraid of throwing up.

"Test...subject," I repeated, once I was capable of speech again. My voice sounded cracked and dry, as if I hadn't used it in years. I sat back and said it again, running a hand through my hair, feeling it shake as my fingers tangled through the dark coils. "Test subject."

Axl was watching me. The expression on his face showed an odd mixture of pained curiosity and blankness, that enraged sort of blankness that is borne of such fury, that the human face simply becomes incapable of expressing it.

I looked back at McKagan, feeling my bowels knot.

"Were you in on this?"

He motioned to the folder still in his lap. "Up until now, I knew about as much as you did."

"Of course. Who would voluntarily get their balls electrocuted?"

I only realised I'd said that out loud when McKagan's eyes snapped to mine, an icy glaze that passing over them like a sheet being pulled over a corpse. That look should have scared me, but it didn't. I turned to Axl.

"The sleeping pills. It was the sleeping pills, wasn't it?"

He nodded, pressing his lips together and then leaning forward.

"Saul, I..." 

I reached behind me to scratch my shoulder and he flinched at the movement, as if expecting me to lash out at him. For the first time, I wondered if I should. It dawned on me that I should feel angry. Furious, even. Vengeful.

I didn't.

Maybe it would kick in later. Or maybe the drug was defective.

Or, maybe I was defective.

Perhaps idiotically, the main thought blaring brought my mind was but how could it have been the sleeping pills? It was an unopened pack and the blister said it was amobarbital....it said. I read it. I checked.

I made sure I checked.

The fact that Axl could very easily package his own drug, and print whatever the hell he liked on the label and on the aluminium foil, felt like a bigger shock than anything else.

But they put me to sleep. They did. They worked as sleeping pills -

PLACEBO.

The word blared angry and loud in my mind. I closed my eyes, and I could see it flashing beneath my lids, red and obnoxious.

PLACEBO PLACEBO PLACEBO PLACEBO

"Saul?"

I opened my eyes. McKagan had tilted his head, one eyebrow raised. "Still with us?"

I stared at him, then looked at Axl.

PLACEBO PLACEBO PLACEBO PLACEBO

I opened my mouth, and when nothing came out, I closed it again. He was the one to look away first, one hand coming up and running over his collarbone, gripping his shoulder, his whole body curled in on itself as though he was very cold.

McKagan uncrossed his legs and stood. He held the folder up in one hand and waved it a little.

"I think you know, Axl," he said, "that your little drug wasn't working."

Axl didn't reply. He gripped his shoulder tighter and glared at the floor. McKagan continued.

"You kept a very informative log, here, you know. Very thoughtful of you."