Sweet Eternal Torment Ch. 05

Ignition fuel on a banked fire. Before long her fingers were dug into the muscle of his shoulders like claws. It was all heat, heartbeats and breathlessness. She didn't know how long it lasted but she hadn't wanted it to end, despite standing out in the open where people would see.

None of the passion she felt in his kiss showed on his face when he pulled away. He said nothing afterwards, just smiled and went on his way. It was as if she imagined the whole thing. She almost wished he hadn't bothered to kiss her at all. Now she was frustrated again.

It made her more determined to make her mind up one way or the other about her past. Dithering wasn't settling either issue. If she wasn't prepared to know the worst of what happened then she knew she should let it go and concentrate on her relationship instead. If she was prepared; she should dive straight into the mess and get it over with quickly. -Like ripping off a band-aid.

What Scott said gave her a lead if the inclination to investigate took her.

In the end, she had to be honest with herself and admit she'd intended to give curiosity free reign from the beginning.

Catsy waited around the corner from the records room. Unfortunately, the room was in a high foot-traffic area. There were too many staff members in the hallway to risk trying to slip in. People were going back and forth from their offices to a coffee room not much further down the hall. Most of them carried papers as well, which made her think there must be a photocopier or shredder in the same room. She didn't know most of them. They weren't doctors so they had no reason to have any direct contact with patients. A few she recognised in passing. Some things you never question if they've always been there growing up. They were background noise.

If she wanted to get out of there one day, perhaps paying more attention to the smaller details of the Centre and its inner workings would help. No wonder getting out had been such a pipedream for her. -She knew nothing. -Noticed nothing. Scott probably had every staff member's schedule memorised.

The hall eventually emptied. Catsy stepped out from the corner but as she did, another staff member stopped in someone's doorway. They sounded like they were having a leisurely chat about office gossip. At this rate she'd have to wait until they went home for the day. Office workers were amongst the only ones who didn't live onsite. She supposed it wouldn't be too much longer before they finished. However, she needed to be back before then if she didn't want Scott searching for her.

Back behind her corner she went. The longer she stood there; the more suspicious she looked. There were people going past her as well. The looks she got ranged from basic curiosity through to downright disapproval. This was harder than she thought. She obviously hadn't thought it through very well. Her loitering would draw the attention of the guards soon and she would be dragged away. There was no time to wait around longer than she absolutely had to. She peeked around the corner again as the final straggler disappeared into his office.

Catsy pounced on the opportunity and sped to the door of the records room. About the same time as she realised, to her dismay, that it was locked - a guard at the far end of the hall started towards her. He hadn't been in her line of view from the corner. If she tried to charm him, would he have a key for the door that she could swipe? The beeper on the guard's belt went off and he stopped to check it. Catsy didn't move. He turned away to get his phone out. He was making a call now? What happened to apprehending the trespasser? Catsy almost felt inclined to pout over being cast as insignificant. The guard kept looking back at her as if she was the topic of his phone conversation. -Not entirely overlooked then.

The call ended. The guard looked chagrined by what he'd been told. He emptied his pocket; apparently looking for gum. Slipping it in his mouth, he acted as if he'd been called away and left. -Leaving the contents of his pocket on the ground. Catsy was astonished - had he done what she thought he had? It could be a trick or maybe someone was on her side. Either way, she didn't want to dally in the hallway longer than she had to. Another worker would surely come out soon. No more time for hesitation. Catsy dove for the rubbish the guard had left. -Ticket stubs, gum wrappers and a ring of keys.

'Thank you!' Catsy whispered.

Shutting the door behind her, the task ahead suddenly seemed daunting. The records room was cluttered. There were filing cabinets lining the wall on her left and along the back. Four rows of metal shelving and boxes stood in the space in between. There were also large boxes stacked in the closest corner which made getting to the filing cabinets difficult. She really hoped there was a filing system. Whether or not she'd be able to understand it was the next matter. On inspection, the dusty boxes in the middle held mostly personal items. Everything was bagged and labelled with numbers for referencing. She guessed there would be corresponding numbers in the patient files. Everything was catalogued. Despite their lollygagging; the office workers apparently did their jobs sometimes.

She dropped the items she'd pulled out of the boxes and dusted her hands. It really was a bother to get to the cabinets from the door. Getting to the old psych files must not have been high on anyone's priority list. There was a small gap between one of the higher boxes and the shelving that she was able to scrape through by climbing up a ways. She almost fell out of the other side. The disturbed dust made her cough her way back to normal breathing. Once there, it didn't take her too long to find Matthew Harrison's file. It was indeed three volumes. You could only fit so much in a manila folder and the third looked fit to burst as it was. Matthew was well on his way to volume number four. The size was daunting. She thought it might be simpler to read her own file but gave up when she couldn't find it anywhere. They must have more than one records room.

She opened the first volume to start at the beginning. As a child, Matthew read as being fairly normal - for their kind at least. His summary listed him as a multi-compat. From his creation date she worked out that he was little more than ten years older than her. Clones reached physical maturity quickly. That was what made the breeding program viable. It usually took twelve to fifteen years for males to reach their prime; women took a little less. Matthew also only had one doctor listed as overseeing his education and welfare - where usually two were assigned to each clone. In a way the doctors assigned to a patient's care were meant to be "parent" figures. Catsy's suspicion about the relationship between Matthew and Dr Harrison was starting to carry more weight. Dr Harrison, along with Dr Raleigh, had been her carers growing up. She reluctantly had to feel some pity for Matthew for having only Dr Harrison. Dr Raleigh had been a source of light for her in this dark place.

There was no mention of Dr Harrison being Matthew's father in the first volume that she could see -which is what she suspected he was. Why someone—even Dr Harrison—would clone and incarcerate their own son; she could not fathom. Towards the end of the file, it reported Matthew growing out of his mild manner and starting to act out. He was stealing peoples' things - favouring anything with a sharp edge or pointy end. What followed in volume two were injury reports from staff. A lot of people quit as a result and that led to Matthew's eventual imprisonment in east wing. There seemed to be a lot of reports detailing experimentation on him. She couldn't be sure if his acting out was the cause or the result; the file was so jumbled. That was, until she read the experiment findings. After that she was quite sure Matthew's acting out was because of what was being done to him. The experiments involved operations where organs were removed and then the connecting tissue either side was reattached minus whatever organ had been taken out. The reports said that Matthew's body had to be kept partially open for days to observe the regrowth of the organ. The process was monitored to keep track of how long each organ took to regenerate. For some reason Matthew had the capability to regrow missing organs. Catsy had to wonder if that had been the purpose of his creation. TLT was harvesting his organs. The file didn't expound on where they were bound or why. If his body had been kept open for days, Matthew might have been awake for some of that. No one could have stayed sane after being put through that process repeatedly. There was no care spared for Matthew's state of mind, not even from Dr Harrison. -Though Matthew did undergo regular and comprehensive psych evaluations which took up a large portion of the file.

Hundreds of operation and injury reports later, Catsy began reading reports written by Dr Harrison on Matthew's compatibility with other female clones. Matthew had rejected the idea of going anywhere near females that had reached maturity, despite being biologically an adult himself. Trying to force him had caused panic attacks. He had lashed out at more than half of those presented to him. A couple of the first ones had lost their lives due to Dr Harrison's lack of proper supervision. That's when children had been taken to him instead in the hopes that he would bond with them enough to carry that connection into their adulthood. Catsy knew she must have been one of them before she got to her own report. She got as far as reading her age before she threw the file down. She had been seven years old.

It was stuffy and warm and Catsy had a driving need for fresh air. She pressed her back against the comparatively cold steel filing cabinets behind her. She rubbed the dampness from her forehead with the back of her hand. There was a strange kind of melancholy to be found in reading a file like Matthew Harrison's. She thought her own childhood had been bad enough but others had experienced worse here. Her perception of TLT was somehow distorting into something even more darkly twisted.

She took a deep breath and bent over the file to finish reading. It wasn't very informative, but she'd known it wouldn't be from the other reports she'd read thus far. Dr Harrison had thought she would be a good match because her genes were fairly good and he believed she'd grow into an attractive woman. He'd wanted to pair her with Matthew. Luckily, for whatever the reason; that had never come about. The report said she was unharmed after her visit with Matthew, though she was in tears. It didn't say why. Perhaps she would never find out. At seven she would have appeared about fourteen - just the age that Scott said Matthew liked. She started crying not knowing why. She put the files back where she found them. It was time to go.

When she got to the door she turned back. With thoughts of Scott and the past on her mind it was hard not to think of reading Scott's file while she was there. She didn't have much faith that she would gain admittance to a records room again anytime soon -not without help. She got as far as opening the filing cabinet for "N" -she could see his thick file sitting there in plain sight- but she stopped herself from pulling it out. His past was his own business. If there was anything she needed to know, she wanted to have faith that he would tell her. As tempting as it was, she slid the drawer closed. What he'd done in the past didn't change the man he was now. -And the man he was belonged to her.

Someone was waiting for Catsy outside the apartment. It only took a moment for her to recognise Theo's partner. The woman had her hands on her hips and looked about ready to start pacing until she saw Catsy coming.

Charlie bore down on her brandishing the angriest look her face could manage. 'You're late! Where have you been? And why are you so dusty...?'

Catsy had forgotten that she'd asked Charlie to teach her how to cook. It was part of her plan to educate herself in preparation for life outside the Centre. 'Sorry, I lost track of the time. We can get started now,' she said as she dusted herself off.

Charlie's moods tended to change as if triggered by a switch. 'Great! I thought we could make enough for all four of us. -Saves me cooking again later for Teo.' Catsy unlocked the door and Charlie twittered on behind her. -Looked like Scott wasn't home yet. 'We don't have to eat together, but I wouldn't mind doing that one night next week. What do you think?' Catsy hadn't had many cooking lessons so far. She barely knew Charlie since the woman didn't reveal much of herself at any one time, but it was already so easy for Catsy to see herself in Charlie. She found that she was closer to calling Charlie a friend than any of the women she'd known before her. Besides, Charlie had such a way about her that she could make you forget what was worrying you even with the most ordinary subjects. It was a gift all her own - her commitment to the mundane.

'That sounds good. I'll tell Scott when he gets home. What day do you reckon - Thursday? He doesn't get back until late that day so we could take all the time we want.'

'Lovely! Your place it is.' Charlie was always inviting herself over. It was pushy, yes, but Catsy was okay with that. As Catsy opened the door to invite her in, Charlie made an odd high-pitched noise, making Catsy jump. 'Oh! I need the ingredients for the curry don't I.'

With the ingredients for a chicken curry in Charlie's arms piled as high as her chin, Catsy had to smile. Charlie dumped it all on the kitchen counter. Several containers and cans rolled away from her but she managed to steady all of them before they fell. Catsy picked up the onion that Charlie had unwittingly dropped on the way. With her hands on her hips again and a grin on her face, Charlie looked fairly proud of herself.

'You'll want to put that in your freezer for a good half hour before tackling it. -Unless you like crying for no good reason.'

Catsy turned and placed the onion in the freezer, along with a second one that Charlie passed to her.

There were many things that could make a child cry; they were innumerable. So rationally speaking, it might have been nothing more than a raised voice that had set her seven year-old self off. -That almost quieted her emotions.

Of course, she'd also had the mental capacity of a teenager at the time. -And she'd blocked out all memory of both the man and the building. There had to be a reason for that.

For a moment that thought paralysed her. She needed Charlie to keep talking.

'Did you know you were paired with Theo as soon as you met him?'

Charlie's laughter tinkled out of her. She'd already found cutting boards and knives and was crushing garlic cloves with the back of a cleaver. She motioned for Catsy to start on the chillies. 'I'd leave the seeds out unless you want it super-hot. -Don't rub your eyes either.' She sighed and slid Catsy a sober look, 'what makes you think we're paired?'

Catsy was surprised. 'I just... It's so obvious you love each other... I thought you must be.'

'Multi-compats can't be paired, as far as we know. Besides, a pairing doesn't guarantee a love-bond. It doesn't even guarantee that they'll treat each other well.'

'Doesn't that mean you feel some pain when you touch Theo?' Though Catsy never thought she'd see the day—Charlie blushed.

'I believe he feels it a little more than I, though the pain isn't constant. That's how multi-compats differ - their pain varies only with the quality of the genes in whoever they're touching. I feel a little to begin with due to "what" he is. But... we love each other very much and we don't let that get in our way. After so many years, it feels quite normal.' Charlie glanced at Catsy frowning down at her thinly sliced green chillies. 'You shouldn't pity us. I would explain further... but perhaps not yet. It would only embarrass you, I think!'

Catsy hummed thoughtfully and emptied the chilli seeds into the waste bin.

'That's really given you a case of the DTs.'

'Huh?'

'-Deep Thoughts. Don't let it bother you, Cat.' Charlie flipped the chopping board, 'can you put two cups of rice on to boil while I dice the chicken?'

If a multi-compats' pain was only based on the genes of whomever touched them - no wonder Theo had wanted to shake Catsy's hand - it would have been less painful than touching his own partner. Catsy was quite sure that if it were her in Charlie's position, she wouldn't be able to help feeling jealous. Catsy wouldn't blame her if she did.

Scott returned just as they were adding the final ingredients to the chicken and vegetables cooking in the pan. What Catsy could see of his face as he bypassed them to disappear into the bedroom; was a forbidding mask indeed.

'Are you getting hungry yet?' Catsy called after him.

There was a delay, 'not especially.'

Catsy turned to Charlie, 'he didn't have to say anything to me, but he could have at least acknowledged your presence.'

'I think he nodded...? Don't worry about it. He's never been very friendly. I didn't expect that to change.'

Once they finished cooking the meal they served it up into bowls. Nothing much was said after that. Charlie took her two bowls and left Catsy with the recipe before taking her leave. Catsy didn't feel hungry anymore. She left her own bowl to cool on the bench. She could re-heat it later.

Catsy found Scott in the ensuite. His arms were braced on the sides of the sink and his face was dripping wet.

'What's wrong? I take it the meeting you had didn't go well.'

'No. I don't think it did.' From his tone she knew he didn't wish to talk about it. He wasn't saying much at all to her these days about what was bothering him. -Not that he had before, but she'd hoped it would change.

'Dinner is on the counter if you want to eat it while it's hot. -Chicken curry. Charlie tells me it's only a very simple, quick way to make it but it did smell appetising.'

'Yes... I might do that.' Scott straightened from the vanity. He gave his face a quick rub with the face cloth beside the sink. 'It does smell great, thank you.' He managed a smile, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. Catsy felt her face flush.

Scott chose not to see how she'd awakened at his barest touch. She was too responsive and he felt dangerously tempted. He left her there - he could almost hear her heart thudding in response to him - but knew it could just as easily be his own.

He ate his dinner alone in the lounge. By the end of it he felt a little better; more at ease, after he'd had a moment to calm down. Irving had concocted another serum to try and counteract the jack-up but judging by the mind-numbing impulse he'd felt even as he'd walked in the door and seen Catsy cooking with Charlie; it was yet another failure. He'd been waiting - hoping - for it to pass and be replaced by the degree of arousal he deemed normal, but it had never come. Then she had stepped into that cramped bathroom with him and he'd known that there was no chance of his affliction abating yet.

Catsy hadn't emerged from the bedroom. He deduced that she must be napping. The idea of napping with her was an attractive one - safe. He would never attempt anything while she slept. He'd made sure of that by dulling their body contact through a pillow. It had been safe so far. But when Scott entered the bedroom and saw her hands on her breasts and between her legs, he abruptly shut the door. -A little harder than he'd intended.

His body was suddenly screaming. He felt light-headed.