Orphan Black ficlet: The Doctor Is In
Title: The Doctor Is In
Spoilers: Orphan Black
Word count: 747
Disclaimers: I don't own the rights to any of Orphan Black. I don't normally write fanfic for TV shows, so I know this will probably be really stilted. The "moral terror" exchange at the end is quoted from Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, which also features the fabulous Tatiana Maslany.
Also available at: pithia @ livejournal
Summary: Dr. Zell thought he knew everything about the clone project. He was wrong.
The darkness wasn't absolute. Light played on the edges of Dr. Zell's mindscape, and he tried to move towards it, but thick ropes bound him to something by the shoulders, waist, and ankles. He could hear muffled shouting and the occasional ring of a doorbell. Halloween already? he thought, wondering if his captivity might be some stupid fraternity prank. He'd been spending so much time in the lab lately that he didn't know where October had gone.
"Sarah? Maybe you shouldn't be here when the doctor wakes up." It was a feminine voice, smooth and cultured, very close to his left ear. "You're just going to fly off the handle. Why don’t you go upstairs and hand out the candy, and Alison can come help with the interrogation? You can be . . . like Punk Alison or something."
"Seriously, Cos? Need I remind you what Alison did to her own husband—with a glue gun?" Another female voice—English, or perhaps Australian. But while the first speaker sounded calm and collected, this one sounded strained, hiding fear behind bluster. "I'll be fine. Just wake him up."
The distinctive odour of smelling salts stung his nose and the doctor flinched. "What in the wor—oh god." The blood drained from the man's face as he looked back and forth between the two women. "They didn't stop. They—they said they'd stop. They did it again."
The two women stood in front of him, and to an untrained eye at a fleeting glance, they might have seemed different enough. A casual bystander might mistake them for twins. But Dr. Zell had been trained to see the similarities, to work ratios of forehead to nose and shoulders to hips in his head, and while the two had obvious differences, the truth was undeniable: more clones had been created.
"Hold up. What do you mean by again?" The louder woman's anxiety morphed into proper anger and she pushed his chair against a wall, making him wince. "Who are 'they'? Where are they? Why are they doing this?"
"Sarah." The second clone gently pushed the angry one away and crouched in front of his chair. "Dr. Zell. My name is Cosima; this is Sarah." She gestured at the first clone, who started pacing. "I'm sorry things happened this way. We're just looking for some answers. I'm guessing you know what we are. Do you know . . . why we are? Who made us?"
"I thought they stopped," the doctor muttered. "I swear. They shut down the labs. I was there when they burned the files."
Cosima straightened up, her eyes stormy. Dr. Zell knew that look all too well: All scientists wore it at some point in their career, the mixture of clinical curiosity and moral dismay. "So you're saying there were clones made before us?"
Dr. Zell shut his eyes. Looking upon the two identical women was too upsetting. "It was wonderful and horrible all at once. The first batch started out so well, so strong, but then they started getting sick. . . ." He slumped as much as his restraints would allow. "Dr. Perkins treated them worse than lab rats. Late at night, in secret chambers, he carried out his reign of moral terror."
"Isn't that mortal terror?" Dr. Zell looked up to see a third clone, more prim and proper than the other two, look in on the interrogation from the doorway. He had no doubts that this small but immaculate room belonged to her.
He shut his eyes again, wishing for the elusive absolute darkness. Instead, his mind fed him images of a dozen identical pairs of anguished eyes, echoes of a dozen eerily similar screams. Bodies strapped to beds, tubes threading in and out of their flesh like Celtic knots. Women who had never had the opportunities of these three, to have lives outside of a lab, where their tongues spoke different languages and they could choose what images and experience to feed into their brains. "No," he said softly, his admission nearly drowned out by the doorbell and a loud bellow of Trick or Treat! "You can untie me. I won't run. If I could trouble you for a cup of tea, I'll tell you everything I know."
The clone in the doorway looked sceptical, but at slight nods from the other two, she nodded in kind. "I only have Earl Grey," she replied stiffly on her way out. "It's not grocery week."
theartofmadeline
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