Arthur Helman wasn’t sure what crossed his desk anymore.
Oh, he knew the content as well as anything – requests, pleas, wheedles, beggings, simperings, wafflings, and simple bureaucratic twaddle – but there didn’t seem to be a good term for it now that all of it came in as electronic mail. Surely it couldn’t still be called paperwork?
Well, this morning’s appointment was a blessed relief from all that: an honest-to-goodness’-sake in-person meeting. A mixed blessing, of course, since normally an elaborate network of junior managers kept him discretely separated from all of that sort of thing with mechanical precision, but he was so bored that he was willing to pretend to be bored for half an hour as a break.
…Now if only he could remember what the fellow was here to show him.
*Ric-a-ric-ric*
You can tell a lot about yourself from what you think you can tell about someone else. In Arthur Helman’s case, he prided himself on his apparent ability to discern character through one’s door-knock. This one prickled his spine: it was just north of hesitant, west of incompetent, and only a few degrees wide of annoyed. It was the sound-based equivalent of a limp, clammy handshake.
“Enter,” he said.
The door slid open – just a crack, efficiency was at a valued premium here – and in sidled his appointment, whoever that was. It obviously wasn’t for a fashion position; the man looked cadaverous. Properly cadaverous, not its normal use as a synonym for ‘skeletal.’ There were lumps where there shouldn’t be, and a general appearance of swelling.
“Yes, yes, pleasure to meet you, etc.,” said Arthur, refreshing google repeatedly on his keyboard without raising his gaze and crisply pronouncing the period in ‘etc.’ “Take a seat Mr….”
“Salt. Porter,” said the man, who did not take a seat. “Dr.”
Arthur managed not to wince, but only just. The voice was thin, so very thin that it seemed to have been driven to whistles and screeches just to be heard. “Yes, of course. Now, what was it you had to tell me?”
“Show you.” Dr. Porter’s mouth moved compulsively, Arthur saw. It wasn’t easy to tell if he was trying to smile or eat his own tongue. Not just his mouth, too – his entire body appeared to be made up of nervous tics. “Hyptertensile fabric stronger than steel. Lighter. Many uses. Here you go.”
A bundle was deposited on Arthur’s desk without permission, about the size of his fist. With some mild misgivings, he picked it up and watched as it unfurled into a sheet of silky smoothness about the size of a tea-towel.
“Try to tear it. Hard.”
Arthur tired to tear it, and it was hard. He applied the corner of his desk, a pen-tip, and finally a pen-knife, and finally had to admit that it just wasn’t happening.
“Impressive,” he said. “And your request is?”
“Time space and labroom. Need more to make more. Prototype but no mass production yet. Need privacy. Nobody comes in. Nobody. Deal?”
Arthur didn’t even need a moment to think. Yes, for reasons he couldn’t articulate this was one of the most utterly repulsive humans he’d ever spoken to, but this was also one of the most marketable things he’d encountered in years, and he’d happily signed onto contracts with men who’d driven their best friends into bankruptcy over golf disputes. “Deal.”
The handshake was even worse than he’d presumed. Dr. Porter seemed to only comprehend fingers as things that flew out with as much force and speed as possible, and if a palm got in their way so be it.
Three months and three research assistants later, Arthur stood outside the door of Dr. Porter’s laboratory and spoke at him.
“The first says he wasn’t permitted entry. No explanation given.”
Dr. Porter’s brows convulsed, but no commentary was made. He was theoretically a good listener in that he never broke eye contact, but his apparent reluctance to blink sabotaged this.
“The second says she was refused entry three times – again, with no explanation. The third didn’t hear your reply, attempted to open the door, and says you quote ‘jumped at him,’ and screamed until he ran away. When security checked in, you said everything was fine and denied he’d ever been there.”
“He shouldn’t have come in,” whispered Dr. Porter. “You shouldn’t be here. Very delicate all very delicate. Critical stage could’ve had to start over. I need no assistants you should not send more.”
“Not even one? This isn’t a small project you’re on here. You’re supposed to be refining this thing until it can be mass-produced. Did you forget? One man can’t do that by himself, even with the budget we gave you. And that reminds me of the next item on our little talk’s agenda.”
Arthur examined his phone, which he’d laboriously learned to use over the course of eight months and several extremely patient grandchildren. He still felt that a folder lent these kind of moments more rhetorical weight, but carrying around that physical weight was a task best left to the him of a decade or two ago.
“The budget is gone. I realize that is what a budget is meant to do, Dr. Porter, but ideally there is some sort of book-keeping involved in the process. A receipt at least. Perhaps two. Where are your records?”
“Private.”
“Well, this is a private enterprise. Owned privately. By private individuals. Who are employing you to perform tasks that will make them money, privately. And if you are not more public to them about their private concerns they will throw you back into the public sphere very firmly and quickly. And where are the results for this?”
“Inside the laboratory.”
“Good. Show me.”
“Don’t come in!”
Arthur’s hand froze halfway to the doorknob, not least because Porter looked as if he’d have bitten it. He was tenser than a highwire.
“Delicate in there very delicate. Wait.” He slid in through the crack of the door as he always did, and left Arthur standing on the cusp of his own lab for three minutes like a child in detention. He would’ve been insulted, but he felt as though terrible things would happen if he moved.
Eventually the door creaked open – creaked? The place was only a decade old at best – and Porter emerged again, fingers-first. Clutched in the fingers was something silky and smooth, around the size of a napkin.
“This is smaller.”
“Different application different role different results. Emergency bandage naturally sticky surface applied to flesh speeds clotting very tough will hold you together from the inside out. Look.”
This drew Arthur’s gaze to Porter’s other hand, which he was startled to see he hadn’t noticed before, given that it was clutching a live, extremely agitated rat. The rodent was thrashing madly, teeth bared, yet seemed too traumatized to actually bite.
Porter’s fingers jumped, and the thing squealed. Red burst over his palm in the moment before the cloth covered it. Arthur hadn’t even seen him move.
“Anesthetic properties theoretically applicable but no luck so far slightly painful will have to work more to sedate patient.”
Then he was gone, and the door was shut again, shades down. There were no windows in this lab, Arthur recalled. He wasn’t sure if he’d have wanted to look inside, though.
Six months. Half a year of Salt Porter living under his roof; and it was living, he was sure of that now. The security cameras alone confirmed that he never left for sleep, and his few excursions were late-night errands to fetch big brown boxes without labels. Some of the un-noted budgetary expenses, no doubt.
He shouldn’t be there, Arthur was sure of it. Every month more and more leaked out – dripped out, more like, dripped and puddled under his desk and made him uncomfortable in his own skin. The security guards avoided the wing now. The adjoining labs had doubled their days off sick, ‘sick’ or otherwise. He’d have thrown the man out face-first by now, if it weren’t for the way every other month he was pulling out a sample for the board to drool over, a new use for his miracle fabric. A bulletproof vest, a tether, a net. The applications seemed endless, but he was so damned shy of showing them the process, and mass production was always ‘later.’
But this. This might be what he was looking for. It had taken a lot of phone calls, a lot of talking (fast AND slow), and at least one private investigator, but he’d built up his evidence, he’d built up his courage, and most importantly he’d sent a security guard ahead to open the door for him and get Porter out of his face while he carefully explained what was going to happen next. And then he’d never have to listen to that awful voice again in his life.
See, there? The door was open. His pulse was even. It was all fine, all ready, and to show how he felt about this, he thrust the door wider open still as he walked through, relishing its transgressive bang against the wall.
Well, would have. Instead it was a muffled thump. The room was a dimly-lit mess; Porter seemed to have coated every single surface with a thinly-woven trial version of his fabric – chairs, tables, cabinets, sinks… It was hanging from the damned ceiling for Christ’s sake. How did he get at anything in here?
Arthur peered at the huddled figure at its desk at the lab’s far end, the security guard standing resolutely at its side, and he shook it off. He could get the cleaning team in later, this was important. He pulled out his phone, cleared his throat, and spoke as crisply as he could manage.
“Mr. Porter. It looks like I got it right the first time.”
No reaction. Arthur began to walk slowly, like a shark cruising towards an idle surfboarder. “We checked, you know. It doesn’t matter how much pie you promise is up in the clouds, eventually we start asking who’s promising. How long did you think it’d last?”
Dead silence. Relishing the absence of the horrible little voice, Arthur pressed on. “There’s no ‘doctor’ Porter. There was a PhD student, mind you, although his name was Felix. It takes a special kind of arrogant to only change half your name, you know that? And a special kind of stupid to walk that far out of field. Your thesis wasn’t on material engineering at all, it was on – let me see here – ‘Genetics and Arachnid Intelligence in Jumping Spiders’ – and it never got published because it was speculative junk that led nowhere. Just like your work here. You’re not just a con-man, you’re an incompetent one.”
Arthur was really quite close now, and he was starting to grow irritated. Yes, Porter seemed to shut down at criticism, but he’d hoped for some spite, some fire. He’d anticipated seeing the security guard pin him down and drag him off by his ill-fitting collar.
“Whatever you were up to, it’s done. Anything to say for yourself? Anything at all?”
Porter didn’t even turn around.
“Fine. Take him out. His desk can come later.”
Arthur had only waited three seconds when it became obvious to him that something was horribly, horribly wrong. But he was a man who liked to be sure, and it was because of that instinct that he reached forwards towards the security guard and touched his shoulder.
The guard wobbled at his touch like a bag of jello, and something unpleasant and damp spurted over Arthur’s fingertips, bringing fiery pain and sudden numbness with it. He bite back a curse as he yanked his fingers back, watched the guard spin slowly in mid-air, suspended by thinly-transparent strands.
Porter. “What have you DONE?” he yelled.
No response.
Arthur supposed he’d been wanting to do this for some time, but was only just now admitting it. He balled up his aching hand and drove it into the back of Felix Porter’s skull with as much force as he could muster.
It sank in up to the wrist with no resistance. It felt like dry leather, and something tickled his wrist.
Arthur shook his arm, this time not bothering to stifle his swearing, and the body lurched free of the chair with no resistance. It couldn’t have weighed more than ten pounds, and it made a sound like dead leaves as it crumpled to the floor. Arthur himself, overbalanced, was not so discreet. He landed shoulders-first like a sack of bricks, eyes-wide. Which put him in a perfect position to see the ceiling more clearly.
Yes, there were sheets and strands and billows. And hugged in amongst them were shapes. Rats. Sheep. Mice. Test animals. Withered and dessicated like mummies, dry and empty. Wrapped up in fabric – in silk.
And nestled among them, hundreds and hundreds of little silken spheres.
Some were popped open, he saw, in that strangely clear vision that appears when the active mind is turned off.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Arthur felt his heart leap into his throat and drag the rest of his innards along with it for good measure, yet still worse than the voice – not a voice, it had never been a voice, it was a hiss, a hiss elongated and mangled into a mockery of language – was the small tight click of the door shutting.
Dr. Salt Porter was there in front of it, standing large as life. His body twitching alive, their mouth gnashing. They were jumping out of their skin, tiny eyes glittering in the darkness.
As the increasingly obscured form leapt towards him, Arthur realized that he had been screaming for the last twenty seconds of his life. It was almost completely inaudible over the seething, hissing strum of hundreds of tiny legs rubbing together.
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME IN!”