Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

“ What’s the matter with you ?” Kevin said .

“ N…Nothing ,” Helen stuttered . “ What have you found ?”

“ The isolation room .”

Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her .

“They always built them inside these old cubes. Failsafe. If anyone managed to violate the integrity of the outer skin they would find nothing of interest. Everything that was really important went on inside the isolation room.”

He tapped the floor and a panel sprang open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.

“I never knew that was there,” she whispered. “How do you know so much about this cube?”

“Part of the job,” Kevin said. “Helen, I want you to go inside.”

Helen found herself drawn closer to the entrance to the isolation room. She would have to stoop to enter it. Once she was in there, would she be able to get out?

“I don’t want to go in,” she said.

“Don’t be silly,” Kevin said. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Helen peered cautiously through the door. Kevin placed a hand on her back and gently but firmly pushed her inside.

“Hey…” she said, turning to him. He filled the doorway.

“I’m going to lock you in here.”

Helen didn’t waste time with words. She flung herself at him. As he reached out to catch her, she caught his arm and twisted. She heard him grunt with pain just as she felt the sting in her leg.

Her body went limp.

“Relaxant,” Kevin said. He dragged her back into the cubicle by her arms and propped her in the corner.

“Good move there on the arm, Helen. You really hurt me. Some of our customers here will like that.”

Helen looked at him. Her lips felt numb; her words became mushy and half formed.

“Wht cstmers?”

“You’ll find out.”

“Sshl Cr.”

“Social Care?” Kevin laughed. “No chance.”

“Knws m here.”

“They don’t know you’re here. That’s part of the stealth technology of this cube. The people who designed these things didn’t want it advertised who might be attending meetings inside them. As soon as you come within range of this cube, it creates various ghost objects on any senses observing in the vicinity. It will appear as if you never came in here. You simply vanished into the woods.”

“No.”

“It’s true. Social Care may have all the best AIs working for them, but the senses it relies upon are just the same as those used by everyone else.”

Kevin looked at his watch. “Anyway, got to go. Someone will probably be along in an hour or so.”

“Wt!”

Too late. The door slid shut. Helen lay helpless in the corner of the room, looking around the mirrored walls at the slumped shapes reflected all around her. She could feel dread rising from them, filling the mirrored room to capacity.

Level Two

The steps led to a grey rubberized floor that sloped gently down towards one corner of the room .

“ Everything in the cube is at a slant ,” Helen said . “ Progressive leveling error in the initial parameters of the original VNMs .” It was all she could do to keep the longing from her voice. She could feel an aching between her legs when she looked at Kevin.

“Let’s go down another level,” he said, giving her a knowing smile.

He pressed down on a section of the floor and a hatch opened up.

“How did you know about that?” asked Helen.

“I read up on this sort of stealth cube before coming to the arboretum,” said Kevin.

They descended to the second cube below the ground.

“So what do you want with me down here?” she teased.

Kevin didn’t seem to be listening. He prowled around the room, tapping at the walls and feeling along the edges of the raised platforms that filled the interior of the room .

“ Got it ,” Kevin said, and Helen suddenly felt very small and alone .

“ Got what ?” she asked .

“ The isolation room .”

Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her .

He tapped the floor and a panel sprung open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.

There was someone in there.

Level Two, Variation A

Kevin took hold of Helen’s arm and pulled her into the room. A woman sat on the floor, gazing up at Kevin with a hopeless expression.

“Good afternoon, Mona. I’ve brought you a friend.”

Mona looked at Helen with an expression of fear and pity. Helen’s sense of foreboding turned to alarm. She recognized the woman who sat in the corner of the room, gazing up at Kevin with empty eyes.

“That’s Mona Karel. She vanished two months ago. Nobody could explain how!”

“Well, now you know,” said Kevin. “They’ll be talking about you in the same way this time tomorrow.”

He pressed his hand against Helen’s cheek. As he took it away she saw the skin on his fingers was dyed blue .

“Relaxant,” he said as Helen slumped to the floor beside Mona.

Kevin looked down at them both, then checked his watch.

“Mona, your next customer will be arriving in about four hours. Helen, you can learn what’s expected of you by watching Mona. You’ll be on duty four hours after that.”

“Please,” Mona said. She was shaking. “Please, no.”

Kevin smiled and the mirrored door slid shut.

Level Two, Variation B

Kevin took hold of Helen and pulled her by the arm into the room. A woman walked towards Kevin and kissed him on the cheek.

“Hey,” said Kevin. “You’re not Mona!”

The woman who had kissed Kevin placed a hand on each of his shoulders and gazed into his eyes. She had long, straight black hair, pulled into two halves so they looked like the carapace of a beetle. At the nape of her neck the hair was wound into a complicated bun arrangement held in place by a thick horizontal rod of lacquered wood.

Her face was utterly white save for her black lips and eyes that seemed to float over that white space, unattached. When she opened her mouth, a living red tongue ran across brilliantly white teeth. When she blinked, black lashes swept down over black irises. She wore a black kimono from which white hands and feet with black-painted nails emerged. She should have been terrifying. Instead, Helen found her strangely beautiful. When she spoke, her voice was soft and lilting, her accent vaguely Irish.

“Good afternoon, Kevin. Remember me?”

“Judy! How could I forget?” He had not been expecting this woman to be in the room, that much was obvious, but who would expect someone who seemed like a cross between a black-and-white geisha and the most sinister clown from their childhood? Strangely, Kevin seemed quite unconcerned. He casually looked around the room, searching for something.

“If you’re looking for Mona,” the woman said, “she’s somewhere safe, being counseled by Social Care.”

Helen looked on, a sense of unreality settling on her like snowflakes. Truth be told, things had seemed rather strange since she woke up that morning: the world just a little too bright, the colors just a little bit too simple. But this was a step too far. Kevin reached out into the space immediately before him and began to twist his hands, as if searching for something.

“No point activating the escape hatch,” said the woman. “I’ve taken control of this processing space.”

“Ah,” said Kevin. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out his console.

Helen looked from Kevin to the black-and-white woman, utterly confused. Kevin still seemed quite relaxed.

“No problem,” he said. “There’s always a failsafe.”