Facility- Chapter 11
#11 of Facility
Having nothing else to do I go about the rest of my day in an almost awkward silence. I set up some more experiments, eat dinner, brush my teeth and eventually go to bed. I can definitely feel that that part of me is still very much interested in continuing what I was doing the other day, especially with that lovely scent floating around. Bob seems to be very put off and distracted by it, even going so far as to shower again to try and remove as much of that scent as possible, as if her very scent was unwanted. Even still, thoughts of her body haunt my dreams and make for a somewhat pleasant night, even if somewhat unfulfilled and I wake to find myself having been doing a bit of self-groping. Bob has thankfully already left, though it is odd in that I didn't even hear her wake up and these ears are getting pretty good at picking up sounds like that.
I don't even see her at breakfast and I'm starting to wonder if she's all right. I do end up finding her when it's time to go check on the latest results. Which is still unfortunately nowhere close to being good enough to use. If only I could figure out what was missing from the batch we tried on Bob, at least that one wasn't too much of a failure. But Bob seems to be incredibly distracted right now. Her expression seems somewhat clouded and withdrawn and she's almost not really much of any help beyond confirming what I could take from the results and what we've run so far. It's almost as if her mind is focused on some completely different topic. And yet when I ask if anything's wrong, she just gives me a rather dismissive shrug.
Something definitely seems to be wrong with her, but then again her scent isn't nearly as strong as it was and I can see her staring off into the distance from time to time. I think later on today I may have to try and do something to help cheer her up. I'm pretty sure she's just regretting having to go through what she did a couple days ago and how she probably thinks I took advantage of her or something. And to be perfectly honest, now that I think of it I don't think we've really ever done anything together since I woke up.
There's always been this sort of language barrier between us. In the beginning I was somewhat resentful of what she did to me, though I'd imagine she had a pretty good reason to do so. But that language barrier pretty much limited the vast majority of our interactions beyond teaching me what to do and what not to do. And recently, our idle time has been spent in much more enjoyable acts, though that was the result of a serum acting as some sort of massive aphrodisiac. You know, it's weird, I never really even went so far as to ask her her name, especially when we had that whiteboard available. Can I even really call her Bob anymore? Bob's much more of a boy's name than a girl's.
Though I suppose that is another concern I might consider to be a potential issue. Considering how far along my transformation has progressed, I'm actually somewhat surprised that I haven't been getting more and more competent at being able to understand what Bob says. Then again, Bob doesn't even really say that much to begin with. At most it's usually small barks or other short noises that seem more like trying to draw my attention more than anything else. On top of that Bob hasn't lost any competency with the English language. So, odds are it isn't a matter of not being able to understand what language she can speak as she no longer can speak the language. That there is no new language, just physiologically no longer able to speak the old one.
I make a point of sitting next to her during lunch and try to make small talk but it doesn't really seem to be doing all that much. She's simply too distracted at the moment. It's as if either her mind is in a fog that she's struggling to break free or she's just so distracted by some train of thought running through that brain of hers that she seems barely cognizant of her surroundings. On the plus side, that scent has drastically reduced, which means I'm not having to fight myself doing something unthinkable just because of the close proximity. Unfortunately, it doesn't really seem to be having the effect I would truly have preferred and eventually I'm just forced to resign myself to for the most part having to work practically solo, and just hope that she comes back around to being helpful sometime soon, particularly before my own transformation has completed. I know I am being selfish in this regard and that I should consider the fact that she is a person too that can have real emotions and issues, but she did get me into this mess, literally, and I'll be damned if she doesn't contribute to getting me out of it.
Don't end up really getting all that much done and in an act of frustration end up taking it out on the treadmill. Not so much of attacking the treadmill as using it to push myself as hard as I can, probably almost a bit too hard and eventually end up falling off. Nothing I seem to have been doing had any effect at getting through to Bob. And though I want to give her some space, I'd at least like to know what's going on in that head of hers. She won't communicate with me in any regard. Just keeps staring off in the distance or giving sluggish responses at best, though I do see her quite frequently clenching her hands together in front of her.
Growing more frustrated at the situation I make a point of ignoring her for a while, though I do find her near bed time staring out into the night over the flower bed. But not having any other real response I brush my teeth and make my way to my own bed. Sleep is restful enough, definitely much more easily obtained when not having to deal with that particular bit of stirring from my own anatomy. Hopefully we'll be able to get some work done tomorrow. And this is made even more hopeful in that when I wake up I find that Bob is already out of bed. Perhaps she even went to go ahead and read the results. But when I get up I find that not only is she not in the lab, but I can't seem to figure out where she is anywhere in this facility.
She doesn't respond to any of my calls and I even go so far as to try and place my ears to the ground to see if I can hear her through the ground like you see all those movies but cannot hear anything but my own breathing and maybe the normal hum of electronics. Meaning she's not making any sound right now or my ears haven't degraded to the point where I can pick up stuff like that. I am able to sort of track her by scent. Or at the very least I can still smell traces of her. But they are all several hours old and just suddenly end in one of the hallways.
This doesn't make any sense? How could she just have vanished seemingly into thin air? Was it her inattentiveness? Was she deemed no longer useful and thus removed just like the board was? I get so caught up in the notion of trying to find her that I don't even notice that it's already lunch time and I haven't even started doing any of the experiments. I quickly get a couple done and then go into the rec room, but instead of going onto the treadmill I just sit down in one of the chairs and consider things. She had to have gone somewhere. She certainly seemed distracted by something.
I suppose there is one easy enough possibility; she found a way out of here. I know that this building is much larger than what I have access to. And I also know that there is a way that they can get in since they removed that board. Perhaps the reason we can't find a way out is because the door is very well hidden. The door to outside is extremely well hidden if we didn't know where it was and had it open all the time. With that once I have set up my experiment I begin looking at the interior wall very closely, trying to see if I can find the slightest imperfection.
But going through the entire interior wall I cannot seem to find anything at all out of place with the wall. I even go about putting my nose to the ground like a dog, walking along on all fours trying to get the most accurate spot of where her scent stops. But I'm not that skilled at it yet. And so I decide my next course of action is to do what I'm guessing Bob had done, which is to simply wait them out. It's quite possible that there is a panel around here that is just so thoroughly laid flat that you'd never find it if you didn't know exactly where it was to begin with. But if I stay around long enough, perhaps I'll be able to catch them when they try and do whatever. That's what I'm guessing she did. And so I go ahead, take my shower once everything is said and done, brush my teeth but instead of going to bed try to find a good spot to try and camp out and wait in ambush for them.
But then something rather strange seems to happen. I'm staring along the wall, listening intently on what all may or may not be going on, and then suddenly I seem to be back in my own bed, waking up with the morning. The strange part is not so much that not only did I not even get to the point of just pretending to rest my eyes as I let sleep overtake me but that I managed to not only get back to my bed without any memory of it but also had swapped into my nightgown again while doing so. Meaning either there's a gap in my memory, or they knocked me out and dragged me back. At any rate that whole plan is a bust. Does bring some interesting information in the grand scheme of things. It does mean that they have a lot more control over everything than I had thought, what with the ability to knock me out cold and move where I am. I get up and begin wandering around but again, see no sign of Bob anywhere. Heck, now there's not even any sign of her scent on anything. Her bed is still there, but there is no sign of her scent on it at all. Heck, as far as I am able to discern, it's almost as if the bed has never even been used. The pillow looks completely fresh, the springs feel brand new. It's as if while they had me knocked out someone went in and completely swapped out her bed for some reason.
So I'm just going to have to accept the fact that she's gone now and I'll likely never see her again. Either They took her and sent her somewhere else or she decided she had had enough and took the plunge in the garden. Though I suppose in either case it might explain why it was that she was so distracted yesterday. If she knew what was coming that would definitely keep someone's thoughts occupied. But then how did they communicate with her? There are no trashcans really, and definitely none that could really hide something like a note. The whole thing just reeks of mystery. But I have more than enough time to consider it for now. Without anyone else in this facility I'll have to find something to occupy my own time. Means a lot of trips to the treadmill, I guess.
And I guess it's time enough to take stock in just how inhuman I've become. I'm down to only four foot four inches, barely taller than a child at this point, definitely would be considered a little person and Bob was still shorter than I am currently. My tail has grown to over a foot and a half long and my fur has gotten to the point that with the exception of maybe along my stomach there really isn't any more skin showing on my entire body, the vast majority of it is at least an inch and a half long and the tail fur being an inch longer than that. Though on that note my tail has almost grown to a length of twenty inches. I get distracted for a moment playing with it. I know I really shouldn't, that I should be trying my hardest and doubling down on finding a cure while there is no one else to distract me from the task. But at the same time I'm already starting to have some trouble even really remembering what that sense of normalcy is. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to remember who I was, not so much in what I did, but in what my body looked like. How it felt. I have a vague idea of how tall I was, but the very concept of walking with my heels down now is starting to feel like a foreign concept.
Of course, something else that is starting to become quite concerning is the fact that it's starting to become harder for the pressure plate to go down far enough to start taking all the readings. For now I'm fine, I just have to jump a little bit in order to get it to click into place. It might be a good idea to also go through and see if I can perhaps find a few weights that won't be simply taken away from me to help with the process. But with that assessment done I go and set up the next round of experiments and then head out to go get some food. Without anyone else here my thoughts tend to wander a bit more inward than before. In particular, this particular time it's about the color of my fur. Both Bob and I have a white fur. So I have to wonder is the color that is consistent with everyone of whatever race that serum turns us into? which would imply a more northern species and yet I don't feel too overheated in this fairly temperate region.
And that brings me to question something I hadn't even thought about until now. What all was the serum actually doing with my genetic code? Was it just transforming me into what I would be if I was whatever species I'm becoming? I do know it is changing my genetic code but without Bob to compare my DNA against, it'll be hard to tell if it is me just being converted to that species, or me being converted to a specific individual. Because that is also possible. I could be slowly turning into a sort of clone of whatever subject the original serum is based on. I suppose, thinking on that, the answer would be actually very useful information to know. If I am being transformed to one specific individual or to a specific species would change how a cure would be approached. If I am being transformed into a specific individual, then I can go about changing the specific individual and then set that back to what my original DNA, which might be extremely difficult given not having my normal DNA anymore. If it's a species change, then it's to change back to my species. Certainly am not all that good at all that much philosophy. As a scientist I've always figured the best place to be is to be given a problem, then solve that problem and let other people try and figure out all the more thought experiments. And I guess if I had a more open mind then I could have simply asked Bob back when she was around for her input on my thoughts. Though I could never understand a word she said, it doesn't change the fact she did still understand me and could respond.
But I set up my experiment and go about the day. With nothing else to do to really take over my time I make a bigger effort to try and explore this place more fully; try and see if perhaps I can find some indication to the answer to my question even though I highly doubt that I will be able to. Even still, if nothing else it gives me something to do during the off-hours. I don't have anyone else to talk to or spend time with or anything. All I have as options are run on the treadmill, stare out at the garden and explore the labs. And one can only do the first two for so long before just going bored. Besides, if I can figure out what all the equipment in the other labs are I can have a much better understanding about what all is going on. Unfortunately, it turns out that though there are quite a few labs in the facility, most of them have been practically swept clean of any sort of equipment that could allow me to gauge what they were for or mainly had a lot of computers that were not in any way connected to any power source. I did find one lab that had a fuming hood, so clearly there were some chemicals in use in this area at some point or another.
Naturally wanting to keep up the effort of fixing my current condition I do periodically leave to go back and set up a new experiment. And then it's back to exploration and coming up with ideas on what all this place originally was for. It's more than clear it was originally designed for a lot more people here than are currently here. Meaning that either something befell them, or they moved into other parts of this building. Or a combination therein. The best guess I can come up with off the top of my head is that they were experimenting with something or other, someone became the first victim of the serum and then they simply quarantined this place off. Why the need to keep bringing in new people to solve it when they might as well have just let things play out then deal with the victims in whatever way necessary once it had run its course. The fact Bob injected me meant it wasn't contagious, and whoever was the originator of the serum must have finished his transformation so long ago they've probably all but forgotten who they were. Though I suppose I could always amuse myself with the notion of the conspiracy that they are recruiting us for something or other. That the search for the cure is just to keep us busy and non-destructive while the transformation takes place. Then they'll simply pick you up and do whatever they needed to. Of course this only really works well if the mind is changing as well, and it didn't seem to be the case with Bob.
Perhaps they knew they were leaving and that's the reason they were so quiet and unresponsive that last day. They were up and out of bed long before I woke up. Add to that the fact that I know they can move us around after a certain point since they had put me into bed yesterday. This means they could have slipped a message to Bob that they were coming to pick her up, and her distraction was the result of not knowing how to properly say goodbye, if she was even allowed to do so. Instead she simply stood back and let me carry on things by my own, knowing that the next day I'd be alone anyway. It would have still been worth being told about it before she left. After a long, hard and disappointing day I eventually decide to just go ahead and give up for the day and head off to bed, pretty much collapsing into it and drifting off to sleep before I even register closing my eyes.