Last time, we left Karen Zipslicer following Dr. Grieg around the Institute, being shown the experiments they perform on foetuses. The group is heading towards the end of its tour, at the ‘Decanting Room'”¦

The group stood by the exit of the maturation chambers. “Do keep up,” protested Grieg, “I can’t shepherd you all day.” Karen was last in his headcount, again. “You’re always at the back, aren’t you?” sneered Grieg. Eeyore had returned with a trolley. Upon the trolley was a baby in its womb-sac, ready to be born, but still in its jar. “And now comes a very important phase, of course,” said Grieg, signalling Eeyore to go through. “You can’t hang around during this phase,” he continued, as Eeyore walked through the next set of doors, under a sign that read: ‘Decanting Room’. “But, unfortunately, we can’t go in. There’s too much risk of infection. Only vital personnel are allowed in there.” Instead, Grieg led them left, through a different set of doors. “In that room, they’re always scrubbing and disinfecting themselves, to be on the safe side. It’s a tricky process, decanting. And after all the time and money invested on incubation, we don’t want to kill the infant at the moment we’re finally going to earn a profit. But here you can see my colleague…” His voice trailed off, as the group assembled at a window, observing the Decanting Room. Eeyore rolled the trolley in front of them. And then, without any ceremony, she sharply pulled the womb-sac from the jar, pinched it at one end, snipped it with scissors, and tore the sac open, revealing the baby boy inside. Karen felt queasy. Some of the trainees looked worse. The baby screamed. No wonder, thought Karen.

The next window looked on to an adjoining room, with the newborns lying in cots. They all looked normal, and healthy, though Karen realized that ‘newborn’ was not the appropriate word, as these children had not been born in the normal sense. The babies lay in a sequence of cots. Nurses walked around, checking on them, attaching tags to their feet, or feeding them bottles of milk. “And there they are,” said Grieg. “These are ordinary ones “” no yellow labels in this batch. The yellow ‘uns get decanted at midday. Now all that’s needed is to package this lot up, ready for delivery to their parents, or their business custodians, depending on who ordered them. It’s best to get them off the property as soon as possible. We don’t want to pay for their upkeep, or be held responsible if they fall ill, so we deliver them on the same day they’re decanted, if they’re decanted before three in the afternoon. Otherwise they get delivered first thing the next morning. As you can see, the nursery is packed right now, as we wait for the overnight batch to be sent out.” And with that, Grieg walked on. The note-takers scurried after, whilst Karen lingered, her fingers on the glass of the observation window. A nurse had picked up a baby, and was about to give it a bottle to feed. Seeing Karen, the nurse turned to the window, and shooed Karen away.

“You’ve had enough of me, I think,” said Grieg, as he led the group upstairs. Some tut-tutted and no-noed in response. Even the Gingers nodded their appreciation. “My portion of the tour is over, but you’re going to have a special treat before I hand out your first assignments. We’ve got a very important person in the building today…” having ascended to the next floor up, Grieg led the group down a brightly-lit and sparklingly-polished corridor, “… and she’s kindly agreed to give you all a pep talk on the importance of our work. And let me tell you, she certainly knows what she’s talking about. Wait, wait!” He halted and did another headcount. Karen was at the back. Her ankle bothered her again. She motioned to lean against the wall, then stopped herself, as she realized she was about to put her hand through a laundry chute. “Yes, you’re all here. Now, as I was saying, she’s one of our most important sponsors… the Institute bears her name… and she invented the artificial womb, as well as inventing vision-boxes and other modern marvels that have so improved the life of the common Lunderner. Yes, of course you all know who I’m talking about. And this is her office.” The door was already open. He leaned through as he knocked upon the doorframe. “The new trainees are here. Should I bring them in?” The response must have been positive; Grieg signalled them to enter. Because Karen was at the back, and because there was only standing room in the office, she could not see the very important person from where she stood. Grieg pushed inside, standing beside Karen. “Your Excellency, please allow me to introduce our latest crop of trainees. Trainees, this is Her Excellency, The Lady Emerald.”

In the last episode of Karen Zipslicer’s adventures, our heroine was following Grieg and the trainees on a tour of the Institute, and had just left the ‘Fertilizing Room’…

Above the next pair of doors, the sign read: ‘Implantation Room’. Grieg carried the tray with the blastocyst, the egg which had been fertilized five days ago. “At last!” he said sarcastically, when Karen arrived at the end of his headcount. The others had gathered around Grieg. He sat in front of an apparatus, in which a brownish-pink ball was held in a mesh below a steel ring, like a basketball stuck in a net, except the ball was slightly smaller, and it looked like it was made of flesh. “This is the best part,” said Grieg, “the implantation.” He pointed at the flesh-ball. “Though this looks like an ordinary ball, this was not made for sport. This is the single greatest invention in Lundern’s history “” the artificial womb.”
“You implant the blastocyst in that?” asked Ginger One.
“Precisely.” Grieg used another microscope to collect the blastocyst in a syringe. He lifted the syringe way above his head, and said “are you watching?” He then paused for dramatic effect, and swung his arm downward, stabbing the syringe into the flesh-ball, and pushing the plunger down. Karen gasped. Others clapped. “This artificial womb will do everything that a woman’s womb can do, whilst ensuring no pollution gets into the growing child, the chance of disease is minimized, and there’s minimal fuss to society. And it’s all perfectly controllable.” Karen did not like the sound of that.

Grieg took the flesh-ball from the net, and juggled it from hand to hand. He passed it behind his back, and threw it over his shoulder, whilst the trainees looked aghast, only to catch it again, then spin it on one finger. “It’s perfectly safe “” so long as I don’t drop it on the floor. And if I do, I can always make another.” He attached a sticky label to the flesh-ball. The label named both mother and father. “Now follow me,” said Grieg, passing through the double doors at the back of the room.

The next room was small and bare, and dimly lit by a single red bulb. Grieg passed the ball from hand to hand, as the trainees squeezed in. “Let the door close behind you.” Grieg waited, allowing everyone’s eyes to adjust to the scarlet darkness. He performed a headcount, then opened the next door, nodding to the sign above: “can you all read that sign? Answer yes or no, all of you!” Everyone said yes, including Karen. “Good, I don’t want you blundering around in the next room, because if you get off the beaten track, you’ll get a big dose of…?”
“Radioactivity!” said some of the frightened trainees.
“Precisely. So be sure you can see where you’re going, if you’re coming in.” The sign said they were entering the ‘Maturation Chambers’.

“As our embryos develop in their artificial wombs, they become rather like photographic film,” said Grieg, rolling the ball from one hand to the other. “They can only stand red light.” The crimson illumination accentuated Grieg’s demonic features. “Where does this one go?” asked Grieg. Karen turned in the direction that Grieg had spoken. She was startled, as a dark figure loomed, right next to her. Karen had not noticed anyone there. “Follow me, sir,” said the figure, which was a podgy woman with a miserable Eeyore donkey voice. Eeyore walked ahead. Grieg followed Eeyore. The trainees followed Grieg, with the Gingers up front, Karen at the rear. They passed glass cabinet after glass cabinet, containing flesh balls suspended from thick rubber tubes, immersed in jars of transparent fluid. The cabinets hummed. Some of the flesh balls had changed shape. They were elongated, thicker at the base than the top, with an outline of arms, legs, and heads visible under the surface. “It’s incredible science, yet so simple to reproduce,” said Grieg, “no pun intended.” He opened a cabinet with a jar full of clear fluid, but otherwise empty. Grieg pulled down a rubber cable from the top of the cabinet, and jabbed its sharp metal point into the ball. “This tube carries away the waste material, and supplies the necessities of oxygen and nutrition. The baby develops into its sac, and is suspended in this protective fluid, like so,” and he plopped the ball into the jar. “And then things get really interesting. Show us some of the good experiments,” said Grieg, to Eeyore.

Eeyore waddled through the labyrinth. It baffled Karen that anyone could navigate this murky maze. Tagging along at the back, she put her hand on Whiteley, feeling the comfort of his presence. He was sleeping again, lucky animal. Eeyore stopped at some of the most interesting “yellow-label freaks,” as she put it. One was fed special hormones to increase strength whilst reducing intelligence. Another was manipulated to become a deep sea diver, by starving him of oxygen. A third was undernourished, to make her grow small, so she could work in confined spaces. “Now for one of the specials,” said Grieg. Eeyore took them down a dead-end. But it was not a dead-end. Eeyore pushed against the wall at the end. It swung open. Inside, the group found themselves standing on a balcony. They overlooked a lead-lined room beneath. The room was filled with buzzing; the source of the noise was hard to pinpoint. A jar, with an artificial womb, stood on a podium in the centre. A man positioned a machine, rolling it in front of the jar. He wore a helmet with a visor, and the rest of him was dressed in thick leather. His machine looked like an anglepoise spotlamp, attached to a car engine, attached to a telescope, on tricycle wheels. He twisted and extended the lamp, pointing it at the artificial womb. Then he looked through the telescope. He readjusted the lamp, then checked through the telescope again. When satisfied, he took a vial of luminescent powder from the front pocket of his apron, slid open a compartment on the side of the engine, and poured all the powder inside, like he was putting washing powder into a washing machine. Then he pressed a button, and stepped smartly behind a full-height lead shield. The humming got louder, and higher in pitch, then suddenly stopped. Karen’s ears continued to ring, though there was absolute silence. “There’s nothing else to see,” said Grieg, “because the radioactivity is not visible to our eyes. But let me tell you, we blasted that baby with a huge dose. It’s very exciting work. Selective breeding, by matching mothers to fathers, is doing a lot to improve our species by picking and refining the most desirable human traits. But if we can discover how radioactivity alters the codes inside humans, we’ll be able to design people like never before. They’ll be super-people, if you like. Current mutation experiments are crude, and the test subjects always die, but we owe it to future generations to conduct this research. And with our in-house yellow-label supply, we’ve always got plenty to experiment with.”

The back of Karen’s mouth tasted metallic. She felt she was going to be sick. Karen closed her eyes, and bit her bottom lip. “It’s okay, I’ll be out of here soon,” she whispered to herself.

Grieg led them away. Karen remained at the back, shuffling her feet in her ill-fitting pumps. Her knees felt weak. Her mouth was full of bitterness. She was sure she would vomit, but fought the impulse. Karen turned down a quiet aisle of cabinets, to be alone. She leaned her forehead against glass, eyes closed, breathing shallow, sweat on her brow. When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at a baby, suspended upside-down in its jar, almost ready to be born. Born: the B-word. She steadied herself. A man in a white coat emerged beside her. He seemed to step out of nowhere. Had he been watching her all along? The deep red light robbed Karen of her sense of depth. She was disoriented, unsure of where the walls were, even as she stared right at them. His deep-set eyes were in shadow, but the light showed lines etched into his brow, and gaunt, sharp cheekbones. There was compassion in his voice. “You’d better not fall behind,” he said. “It takes a special kind of sight, to explore the recesses of this chamber.” As his face drew closer, Karen saw more of it. The shadows over his eye sockets had hidden vision-boxes over both his eyes. He tapped one with his forefinger. She arched her neck back. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said, “I don’t belong here.” Composing herself, she felt pity for him. He was another of Lundern’s fabricated monsters, roaming its dungeons. Wiping one hand across her forehead, she followed the sound of Grieg’s pack, scribbling notes and gossiping about the ‘wonders’ they had seen.

We left Karen exploring the institute in the last episode of her adventures in Lundern. Now we pick up the story with Karen about to be taken on a guided tour…

“Trainees, listen up. We shall begin at the beginning “” by which I also mean, the beginning of everyone here,” said Dr. Grieg. Some of the group snorted or chortled or tittered; Karen did not get the joke. Grieg pushed his way through a pair of swinging doors. The sign above them read: ‘Fertilizing Room’. “Are you ready?” asked Grieg. At this signal, everyone, but Karen and Grieg, pulled out their notepads and pencils. Grieg had no need of a notepad. He did the talking. Karen had no notepad. Hiding at the back, she cupped her hand and playacted holding a pencil, hoping nobody would notice the difference.

“As the sign said, this is the Fertilizing Room,” said Grieg, pulling on a pair of clean white gloves, “and this is where life begins.” The trainees wrote this down. Karen pretended to write. The near side of the room was filled with glass cabinets, an aisle running between them. Grieg walked to the first cabinet, and opened its door. “These are our raw materials “” our inputs, if you like. They’re the gametes “” what’s a gamete?” he said, pointing at a young woman near the front. “Quickly, quickly,” he said, clicking his fingers, but she did not know. “A sperm or egg,” said a ginger freckled lad. “From a male or female respectively,” said another ginger freckled lad, standing alongside the first. They must have been identical twins. “Very good, that’s right,” said Grieg. “Each parent contributes a gamete, and each gamete has half the code needed to construct a new person.” Within the cabinet, there was a rack, with glass shelves stacked from top to bottom. Each shelf was filled with flat circular glass trays, ten wide by ten deep on every shelf. “In this cabinet we keep eggs. You can see each of these have white labels, meaning they came from the wannabe mothers in Lundern’s general population. Whilst over here…” Grieg went to the cabinet on the other side of the aisle, “these eggs have yellow labels. Yellow means they came from our in-house, factory, sources.”

The others were taking notes. Karen bit her lip. Eggs? Human eggs? Taken from inside women? And those ‘in-house sources’ he referred to… were they the women that Karen had seen upstairs? Karen shivered, though the room was warm.

“Will we see the in-house sources later?” asked one of the ginger lads.
“No, Ginger One. They only interact with the doctors assigned to care for them,” said Grieg. “They have no contact with the outside world, to protect them from infections, terrorists, and such.”
“Do you tie up the in-house sources?” asked the other ginger lad.
“Are you sick in the head? We’re not barbarians. We only tie them up when we absolutely have to you, usually after they first arrive. But they soon learn to like it here, Ginger Two.”
“I’m Robert McDonald,” said Ginger Two, “and my brother’s name is Derek…”
“I don’t have time to learn names, Ginger Two! Let’s move on, shall we? Over here we keep the male gametes, the sperm,” said Grieg, walking to a different cabinet. “Whilst the eggs are kept at 37 degrees centigrade, our little boys like it a tad cooler, at 35 degrees. Now, what you really want to see,” and he spoke as he continued down the aisle, “is the process of fertilization itself “” how our doctors combine the codes to make a new life.”

Beyond the cabinets, the second half of the room held an array of workbenches and machines. Most of the machines looked like crosses between dishwashers and fridges. Many white-coated staff hunched at their work. They examined glass dishes under microscopes, poked the contents with syringes or other instruments, and shuffled them between machines. They wrote out sticky labels to attach to the dishes, or wrote up their progress in hefty logbooks. Grieg said a lot of things that Karen did not understand, though she tried. He talked about inspecting the eggs, checking for abnormalities, and selecting the best ones from each batch. He talked about washing the sperm, to remove inactive cells and fluid. The trainees took turns to sit with a doctor at his work, watching through a special microscope where two people could observe the same dish. Karen waited until last. “At the back again?” commented Grieg. Through the microscope, Karen saw the round shape of an egg. Then a needle was inserted, and a tiny individual sperm was pushed inside the egg. “And that’s how we achieve fertilization in Lundern,” said Grieg. “With the code combined, the cells now have all the instructions they need to multiply, making more and more cells until we have a complete human being. But what do we call the product of two gametes? Anyone?”
“A zygote,” said Ginger Two.
“That’s right, Ginger One,” said Grieg.
“I’m Ginger Two.”
“Does it matter which one you are? Now, the cultivation dish for the zygote is filled with yummy ingredients that zygotes love to feed on.” Grieg listed them, and the trainees wrote them down. Karen did not recognize the names of the ingredients, except for glucose, which she knew was a kind of sugar, and vitamins, which she knew were meant to be good for people. Then the dish would be placed in the ‘tank’ for five days. From the outside, the tank looked like a safe, and a brawny white-coated man was responsible for logging every deposit and every withdrawal from the tank, including the three dishes that Grieg removed so the trainees could examine them. Under the microscope, the first dish contained a zygote which had divided into two cells, the second had divided into four cells, and the last, which had been in the tank for five days, was divided so many times it was impossible to count all the cells. “And what do you we call an embryo that has developed this far?”
“A blastocyst,” said Ginger One.
“Correct, and in the bad old days, the poor blastocyst would have to attach itself to the wall of the mother’s womb “” a risky activity for both mother and would-be child! But thanks to our modern techniques, we’ve eliminated such dangers. Now we control everything. For every thousand healthy blastocysts, we create nine-hundred and ninety-nine healthy children “” much better odds than Mother Nature!”
“What about cloning?” asked Ginger Two.
“Why am I not surprised that you asked that question?” said Grieg.
Ginger Two looked blank. He turned to Ginger One, who said: “because we’re identical twins?”
“You mean, you’re clones,” said Grieg.
“No, we’re identical twins,” insisted Ginger One.
“That’s the same as a clone,” said Grieg.
“No, it’s not,” chipped in Ginger Two.
“A clone is a new human made by copying another human’s code. Hence, you’re obviously clones. Or, to be precise, one of you is a clone of the other. Which one is it? Are you the copy, Ginger One?”
“We’re not clones, because neither of us is a copy of the other. Our zygote split naturally.”
Grieg looked disgusted. “You mean, you’re genuine identical twins? Created by accident, inside your…” and he gulped heavily, “…your birth-mother?”
A number of the trainees looked sickly, or shocked, at the word ‘birth’. Grieg apologized for using such vulgar, but precise language.
“Yes, we were born in the Periphers,” said Ginger One.
“Stop using the b-word,” said Grieg.
“The b-word? You mean ‘born’?” said Ginger One.
“Stop it, I said. Don’t use that word. There’s young ladies present. You’ll make them faint. It’s bad enough that the two of you are both freaks and immigrants, without repeating the words B-O-R-N and B-I-R-T-H all the time. You must be aware that… that… that all B’s have been banned in Lundern, for the sake of women’s health and equality, and for the sake of a healthy and productive populace in general.”

Karen was glad to be at the back. If she had a real notepad and pencil, she would have dropped them by now. In Lundern, they really made babies in a factory… and this was the factory. That explained why they employed storks, like Cecilia, to deliver them.

“Can you tell us when cloning would take place?” asked Ginger Two, returning to his original question.
“We don’t do cloning here,” explained Grieg, tight-lipped. “This isn’t one of our larger production facilities. Cloning is used for mass production of basic human stock, which will be used for labour, so the quality of the product isn’t so important. And we use cloning for animals, of course.”
“What’s the problem with the quality of clones?” asked Ginger One.
“There’s too many errors in the copying process. Our clones are poorer copies of the original than you are of each other, even though clones are made by design, whilst you two were an accident. Errors in copying mean the code is degraded, and the resulting person is… sub-optimal. But now we’re falling behind schedule. Let’s press on.” Grieg flounced away. The trainees hurried after him. For a moment, Karen was left behind in the Fertilization Room. Slowly and silently, all the white-coated doctors, turned from their work, to face Karen. Spooked, Karen hurried out as well.

In the last installment of Karen Zipslicer’s adventures in Lundern, our heroine discovered other prisoners of the Institute. Now she searches for a way out…

Nobody was about. There were no windows, nor clocks, but Karen guessed it was the middle of the night. She found a staircase and went down, exiting at the bottom level. The lights down here were dim. Karen realized this was the basement. The first room she checked was used to collect the hospital’s garbage. There was a line of large cylindrical bins on wheels, all waiting to be taken out. Karen tried to lift the roll-up metal shutters to the outside; they were locked. The next few rooms were storerooms. There was a caretaker’s room, with mops and cleaning equipment, and an unlocked locker! The overalls inside were far too baggy for Karen. But the white pumps were wearable, after Karen stuffed the toes with paper towels. They were too loose for running, but Karen was glad to wear something on her icy cold feet. Shuffling about, she next found the boiler room, and after that, the laundry…

Karen lit the laundry’s gas lamps, and looked in every closet, washing machine, and drying machine, but there was not a stitch of clean clothing to be found. Her only option was to rifle through the dirty pile, sitting in a skip beneath the laundry chute. That did not appeal, but she needed to put something on, if she intended to go outside. Her gown was far too flimsy, and disturbingly revealing at the back. “Never mind,” she said to herself. The sides of the skip rose as high as her neck. Karen reached over, but only managed to pull out some dirty sheets that lay on top. She brushed the hair from her face, then carried over a chair, to stand upon. From that height it was much easier to reach in, so she did. Karen reached in, and reached across, and put her knee on the edge of the skip so she could reach further… and before she knew it, she had kicked the chair from under her and was diving headfirst into the dirty laundry. At least it was soft, she thought, as she righted herself again. Now Karen and Whiteley were inside the skip, it was much easier to scavenge for clothes, which they did, with gusto.

Though she still worried about being discovered, Karen was pleased with her disguise. The doctor’s coat fitted her well, Whiteley was snug in its pocket without bulging too much, and she pulled the surgeon’s mask over her face. Sadly, there were no socks for her cold feet. Dressed like this, she could walk out of the front door, without anyone suspecting. Now she just had to find the front door. But then she found something better: a back door. ‘Emergency exit’ was written upon it. Underneath her mask, she smiled to herself, and walked quickly towards the door, placing both hands on the bar marked ‘push to open’…

“Hey!”
Karen looked around. A thin man in a brilliantly white doctor’s coat stood at the opposite end of the corridor. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Karen looked left and right, but there was nobody else around. She pointed to herself.
“Yes, you. Come on, this way.” He beckoned her with one finger.
Karen had no choice; she had to go with him.
“Come on,” he repeated. He had a narrow face, with a long and pointed noise, and thinning hair scraped back across his scalp. He held a door open for Karen, who found herself in…

A really dark room. Much darker than the corridor outside. Too dark to see anything, at first. Her eyes adjusted, and as they did, she realized she was in a little cinema. The seats were almost filled with white-coated people. The film had not started. Karen froze for a second. She could not back out. The doctor stood right behind her, closing the door, then leaning in front of it. There were no spare seats along the aisle, so Karen walked, as calmly as she could, down to the front row. That way, she would not need to say ‘excuse me’ or brush past anyone. At the front row, she picked the seat furthest to the side. It was the worst possible place to watch the screen, but she planned to leave last, and sneak away then. The film started. It was black and white, covered in scratches, and the image sometimes skipped around the screen. The film featured two men who also wore white coats, each smoking a pipe. They stood in front of the camera, and spoke to it in extraordinarily posh accents.

Reginald: Hello. My name is Reginald Cuthbert-Ethelbert-Schubert-Smythe, and I’m joined by my eminent colleague and very dear friend, Sir Humphrey de Canella.
Humphrey: Hello.
Reginald: We’re sorry we can’t be there to introduce ourselves in person, but, by now, we’re both thoroughly dead.
Humphrey: Dead as a dodo, I’m afraid. Ghastly business.
Reginald: That’s right. And whilst we presently look like two hearty fellows in strapping good health, enjoying our fine pipe tobacco, always ready for a morning of vigorous country pursuits, or an evening of jolly roister-doistering around town, we can’t do that any more because we’re so very very dead, and we’re speaking to you now because we don’t want you to end up the same way.
Humphrey: Not yet.
Reginald: Quite right, Humphrey. I suppose we all have to go in the end. But you don’t want to go the way we went.
Humphrey: Rather.
Reginald: We may have been two of the leading scientific minds of our generation…
Humphrey: No doubt about it, old chum.
Reginald: …but we want to ensure you don’t make the same dreadful mistakes we did. So, on your first day working here at the world-beating Tolyens-Green Institute for Medical Science, we strongly recommend that you stay close to the guide during the orientation tour, and never stray off the beaten path. Otherwise, you might find yourself like a lamb to the slaughter, by which I mean you’ll suffer a short sharp blast of what did for us…
Humphrey: Radioactivity!
Reginald: Precisely. Whilst radioactivity has been a tremendous boon to the practice of medicine, if not treated with respect, it’ll kill you for sure, as sure as it’s going to kill poor old Humphrey.
Humphrey: Damned shame for you too, old chap.
Reginald: To summarize, follow these three steps and you’ll enjoy a long and healthy life in the employ of the Tolyens-Green Institute. First, stick to the safe areas as described during your orientation tour.
Humphrey: Second “” don’t go anywhere you oughtn’t to.
Reginald: And third, don’t tell a living soul about what you’ve seen inside.
Humphrey: Pardon me, my dear fellow, but what does that last point have to do with radioactivity?
Reginald: Nothing, but I thought it worth mentioning anyway.
Humphrey: Quite right! Carry on.
Reginald: So there you have it. Be sure, be safe, and keep schtum, if you want to prosper at the Tolyens-Green Institute for Medical Science. Or if you just want to enjoy a longer life than poor old Humphrey.

There was a pause as the two men looked into the camera, smiling whilst holding their pipes in their teeth, and then Humphrey turned to Reginald and said:

Humphrey: Is the camera off yet? I thought that went bally well, if I…

And then the film suddenly stopped. The lights came on, and everyone filed out of the room. Because she had sat right at the front, Karen was now right at the back. But there was no chance to escape; the doctor who ushered her in waited for the group outside. With the whole group assembled, he introduced himself as Dr. Grieg. After doing a quick headcount, he led them around the facility. Karen had no chance to slip away, no choice but to follow.

In the previous episode of Karen Zipslicer’s adventures in Lundern, Karen woke to find herself strapped to a hospital bed. She escaped with Whiteley’s help, and must now explore the rest of the facility…

Karen opened the door barely enough to peer around. She peeked with one eye. Whiteley peeked with two. The corridor was long, white, with polished floors and bright gas lanterns. And it was empty.
“Let’s go,” said Whiteley.
“Which way?”
Whiteley had no answer. He just looked up and squeaked.
“You’d better follow me then,” said Karen.
There were lots of numbered doors. Karen had been in room 439. She tried the door to room 440. It was dark inside, and the bed was empty. In room 441, a woman was lying on her side, sleeping. The light from the corridor illuminated her face. She was older than Karen, possibly thirty, and she had vision-boxes over both her eyes. Karen gently closed the door again. Another woman slept in room 442, her back turned to the door. 443 was empty. Karen turned the handle to room 444. A scream came from within. Karen let go of the handle, but the screaming continued. She looked around. Nobody was coming down the corridor. The screaming continued. Karen bit her lip, then stuck her head around the door. A girl was in the bed. She was a few years older than Karen, and terrified of her. She had also been tied down by her wrists; she thrashed her legs and body, trying to break loose.
Karen put her finger to her mouth. “Shsssh. It’s okay.”
The girl was shouting something, hysterical. Karen did not understand. It sounded like Chinese.
“Please, quiet, please,” said Karen.
The girl was fighting to tear herself free of the bed, shaking it as she did.
Karen told Whiteley to keep watch. She stepped inside, leaving the door slightly ajar. The girl responded by screaming more loudly and thrashing more violently, but she calmed as Karen walked slowly toward her, her hands held up, gently hushing her.
“I’m going to take these off,” said Karen, pointing to the cuffs around the girl’s wrists.
The girl spewed more words in Chinese, then said a word which sounded like “help.”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m going to help you,” said Karen, as she reached for one cuff. Rope had been tied around it, for extra security. Karen struggled to unknot it, talking to the girl as she did, trying to calm her. “Yes, first we’ll take these off, and then we’ll get out of here, you and me. This is tied tight, but I’ll get it off…”
“Hear somebody coming,” said Whiteley.
“Help,” said the girl.
“I’m nearly there,” said Karen. She bowed and wrestled the knot with her teeth, as well as both her hands.
“Hear somebody coming!” said Whiteley.
Karen stood and looked at the girl. The girl said “help,” again, pathetically.
“I’m so sorry,” said Karen. She squeezed the girl’s hand.
“Hear somebody coming!” said Whiteley.
Karen turned and fled, scooped up Whiteley, then slid down the corridor, diving into room 443. She put her ear to the door, and listened to the footsteps as two people strode toward them.
“I’ve had it with this one.” It was a man’s voice.
“She’s already had the maximum dose.” That was a woman.
“I wasn’t thinking of that. These vee-bees will shut her up.”
“They weren’t designed for her.”
“They’ll do.”
“What about the brain damage?”
“What about it? Nobody can understand her anyway.”
The footsteps reached Karen’s door. She held her breath. The footsteps went by. The door to room 444 was opened. The Chinese girl screamed and shouted again; she may have been swearing in her language. Karen trembled. The girl cried for help, but none came.

Then there was silence. Karen listened to her own heart’s beating. The footsteps returned to the corridor. Karen bit her knuckle as they went by. She waited until they had grown too faint to hear, then asked Whiteley if they had gone, because his hearing was excellent. “Long gone,” he said. They crept back to room 444, to check on the Chinese girl. Karen opened the door ever so slowly, ready to run if there was the slightest noise from within, but there was none.

“Hello? Are you okay?” asked Karen. There was no answer. “Hello?” Silence. As she opened the door wider, the light from the corridor spilled on to the Chinese girl, stretching from her feet upwards. She lay on the bed, serene and still. Karen opened the door to its widest extent. The light reached the girl’s face. It was graced by a gentle smile; two black vision-boxes hid her eyes. Now Karen wanted to scream; she held her hand across her mouth. Karen walked to the girl, and bowed over her. “Hello? Can you hear me?” The cuffs were gone. Karen shook the girl’s arm. There was no response. Karen passed her hand in front of the girl’s face, across her eyes. Still no response. Karen pinched the girl’s arm, then punched her in the shoulder. Nothing. The girl did not care. If anything, she smiled a little more sweetly. Karen placed her fingers on the black boxes. Their surface was smooth, and warm to the touch. “Can you hear me?” There was no reply. “Can you hear me? I’m taking these off.”
“Can’t do that,” said Whiteley.
Karen ignored Whiteley. She pinched one of the vision-boxes between thumb and forefinger, and pulled, but her fingers slid straight off. Karen took hold again, this time grabbing the black box with all the fingers of her one hand, whilst she placed her other hand against the Chinese girl’s forehead. Karen’s hand slipped off again.
“Can’t get them off,” repeated Whiteley. Karen slid her thumb between one vision-box and the bridge of the girl’s nose, then wrapped the other hand around the girl’s forehead, and pushed the vision-box sideways. It would not budge.
“You’ll hurt her,” said Whiteley. Karen believed him.
“I’m so sorry,” said Karen, to the Chinese girl. Karen bit her top lip, and held the girl’s arm in both hands.
“Us go,” said Whiteley. Karen followed, repeating she was sorry.