BOX
They pass to the ground level and Morris leads them down beige hallways.
They pass to the ground level and Morris leads them down beige hallways.
At length they enter a darkened cafeteria through double swinging doors. Low tables with molded seats attached line up on either side as they make their way into the kitchen, where stainless steel gleams occasionally in the gloom.
Morris walks to a windowless wooden door with a deadbolt and no handle. It opens onto a closet: empty, walls ceiling and floor all done in white.
On the opposite wall a bifurcate steel door, which appears to be a service elevator, and, set in the floor, a circular hole with a tight spiral staircase leading down into a well-lit space.
Taking the stairs, they find themselves in the cylindrical white tunnel Boyd described. Donk finds it difficult to estimate distances—the tunnel is straight, bright white, and free of any landmark or signifier.
“How far does this go?”
Morris smiles, points. “That way? Hundreds of miles. This way? *Much* farther.”
Morris smiles, points. “That way? Hundreds of miles. This way? *Much* farther.”
He strides down the hallway in the direction of “much farther,” still occasionally sneaking a habitual peek over his shoulder. Donk follows, trying not to lose himself in the tunnel’s snowstorm sameness.
He’s lost his bearings entirely, but after a while it’s clear to him they’ve gone far beyond the bounds of the Wales. In time, a dark gray spot appears in the distance ahead, which reveals itself as they draw near to be a steel vault door.
In the door’s center is inscribed a rectangle showing a narrow red stripe on the top and one on the bottom, and an expanse of white in between. Stamped into the steel below, an insignia: 
“We’re here,” Morris says. “This way.”
There is, to the left side of the vault door, a doorless entry opening onto a room, as snow-blind white as the tunnel, but carpeted in red, and sparsely appointed with objects—a desk, some chairs, portraits on the walls of a succession of increasingly antiquated-looking men...
... —once again providing Donk’s eye with a much-desired sense of perspective and shape.
One object in particular diverts attention from all others: a steel box, the size of a double-wide coffin, resting upon a gurney.
Donk is immediately and instinctively repulsed and entranced. Something about its surgical, clinical, precise existence emanates suggestions of unnecessary amputation, of physical invasion, of scalpels effortlessly splitting abdominal fatty layers, making ...
... micro-metrically specific compromise of dural sacs and vital membranes, precisely executed excavation of critical internal components, of gleefully witnessed fates worse than death.
Morris watches Donk closely.
Donk regards him blandly.
Donk regards him blandly.
“I confess I was surprised to have been approached with an offer of partnership,” Morris says at length. “In a place like this, I expected to fight for position and advantage. But you offered your assistance from the start.”
Donk says nothing.
Donk says nothing.
“And I can’t deny that you have been…effective…at expanding the effects of the Fritz Act, as desired. I can’t help but wonder why someone with skill and influence would give over so completely to mine.”
Donk says nothing.
Donk says nothing.
“Are you frightened?”
“It’s not a question of fear.”
“You know I might kill you.”
“I think it’s unlikely.”
“It’s not a question of fear.”
“You know I might kill you.”
“I think it’s unlikely.”
“You intrigue me. It’s possible you’re the first intriguing person I’ve met in a year.”
Donk has nothing intelligent to say to this, so he says nothing, which allows Morris to keep telling him things.
Donk has nothing intelligent to say to this, so he says nothing, which allows Morris to keep telling him things.
“You aligned yourself with me, before you even knew of me. That’s rare. Very rare.”
“I get feelings. I follow them.”
Morris shoos this thought away with a microscopic shrug.
“I get feelings. I follow them.”
Morris shoos this thought away with a microscopic shrug.
“You appear to have function. I may have sent you to help me without knowing I was doing it. Maybe you’re a lesson of my rise rather than my struggle.”
Morris pauses, as if to invite comment. Donk, utterly confused by all this, keeps mum.
Morris pauses, as if to invite comment. Donk, utterly confused by all this, keeps mum.
“You’re going to live for now. But it’s important you don’t think I’m placing any trust in you when I tell you the things I’m about to tell. Which is why I wanted you to have a look at this.”
Morris rises and walks to the thing in the middle of the room.
Morris rises and walks to the thing in the middle of the room.
It’s all right angles, a perfect steel box. The gurney upon which it rests has a panel of some sort built into it.
In a corner of this panel is a keypad, into which Morris now swiftly keys in a complex sequence, causing one side of the thing to lower with a sigh, revealing a mass of tubes and metal instruments.
There is a powerful light emanating from inside.
There is a powerful light emanating from inside.
Morris releases two catches on either side of the box’s lid and lifts it up until the stems lock into place. “What I do with my true enemies,” Morris says, “I put them into an oubliette."
"What I do with allies who fail me, I put them into an oubliette."
"What I do with strangers who have no function, I put them into an oubliette.”
An unbidden sound comes from Donk. Morris, taking it for fear, looks pleased. “Let me show you how it works,” he says, with a clinician’s detachment and a hobbyist’s enthusiasm for minutiae.
“Here are the most obvious restraints. Extra-strength Velcro, NASA-caliber, more than ten times the hook density. Difficult—” demonstrating with a grunt—“to open, even with two hands.
Here for the wrists, here the elbows, here the shoulders, hips, knees…but the Velcro is only the second line of defense.
These—” indicating a series of small U-shaped brackets set within three shallow grooves running the length of the padded space—“latch into the tenant’s harness—full body, high-quality nylon, fully breathable, untearable, firm. You can’t struggle against it.
Only authorized movement is possible—but there is authorized movement. It’s necessary to prevent the total atrophy of the musculature. We keep the body strong, you see—” at this Morris jabs some buttons and ...
... robot arms in the guts of the oubliette begin gyrating in controlled rhythmic ellipses—“the crèche has enough space to allow mandatory exercise of limbs and core.
Tubes provide hydration here, nutrients here, voiding waste here and here. Weekly, we flush the crèche with antiseptic and water, to prevent bedsores and other skin ailments—the hydraulics lift mouth and nose out of the stream.
A tenant can stay in my oubliettes a long, long time without fatality. Decades. A lifetime.”
Donk peeks deep into the crèche, imagines the merciless hug of Velcro straps and harness, the latches hooking you into your coffin at forty-eight points of non-articulation, paralyzing you along the spine at the back of the heels, the elbows, knees, ankles, wrists, thighs ...
... a trio of latches in isosceles formation along each shoulder blade, a parallelogram affixing your skull to the back of the crèche, tiny, recessed, so reticent that ...
... were you to find yourself interred in an oubliette you’d never guess they were there, you’d never understand the cause of your total immobility.
Donk notices the interior is mirrored, and it comes to him: the bright lights from within make sense. Not even the escape of darkness.
You’d have nothing to watch but yourself, losing your mind, day after day, year after year.
Perfect.
You’d have nothing to watch but yourself, losing your mind, day after day, year after year.
Perfect.
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