Experiment 438
Chapter 11
438 sat in her nest, her brows knitted together in focus as she carefully examined the metal object in her hands. The comb was shiny, meticulously engraved, and now it was all hers. Ushar sat a few feet away, a book in his hands, his feet propped up on a crate as he waited for her to interrupt him. She always did have so many questions, not that he minded. He would answer them without complaint. The way her eyes lit up when he explained things to her made his chest warm in a way he wasn’t quite used to yet.
“What’s this one called?” she questioned, pointing out the image of a planet that she didn’t recognize. Ushar glanced over, the shadow of a smile gracing his lips as his eyes followed her finger. “That’s Mustafar.” 438’s dark eyes sparkled with excitement as she repeated the word to herself. “Pretty.” She nodded. Ushar let out a laugh. “Most people wouldn’t use that word to describe it, but sure.” She traced her fingers over it and moved to the next. “And this one?” This time, Ushar put his finger between the pages of his reading material, using it to hold his place, realizing that she had no intention of allowing him to read in peace. He didn’t mind. “That was once called Ilum.”
He beckoned the girl with a wave of his hand, watching in amusement as she padded over. She sat a few inches away from him, still hesitant, as she always seemed to be with the knights. He glanced down at the gap between them and set his book aside. “Come here.” 438 stared but didn’t move an inch. Ushar let out a sigh, more fond than impatient. “Let me show you.” Before she could get another word out, a large arm snaked its way around her ribs, pulling her to him until she was pressed against his side. She could feel the warmth radiating off of him. She could smell his scent: leather book bindings, ink, and something sweet underneath. She stiffened for a heartbeat but ultimately decided having her questions answered was more important than the fact that she was now touching one of them.
Ushar grabbed her hand, guiding her finger back to the metal object and tracing the carved indentation. “Feel that, bunny?” She nodded, her hand trembling beneath his grip without meaning to. “Those are the ice canyons. Almost everything there is covered in snow.” 438 furrowed her brows. “How do you know?” she replied, her tone skeptical. “Because if you looked out that viewport right now-“ He leaned in, pointing across the hall toward the large window that 438 had spent three months adamantly avoiding. “-you could see it.” She stared at where he was looking, her ears flattened against her head in fear.
“I don’t like that viewport,” she announced matter-of-factly, shaking her head. “I’ve noticed,” Ushar replied with a low chuckle. Silence settled between them for a long moment. “Is that where they keep more experiments?” she asked quietly. “Failures?”
The way she said it made it clear she was trying to piece together how all of this worked. “No, bunny.” Ushar shook his head. “It’s a weapon.” That didn’t seem to help. Weapon. She had heard that word before. It was what they had called her when they first found her.
“A weapon for what purpose?” Ushar paused, considering the question carefully. 438 had no understanding of politics. She didn’t understand war or rivalry. Explaining any of it would only leave her more confused. “To keep the peace.” 438’s head tilted. “How?” Another thoughtful silence. “By reminding everyone what disturbing that peace might cost them.” She frowned at this. “They don’t listen?” Ushar’s hand, which still rested on her waist, rubbed slow, soothing circles into her side.
“Sometimes they don’t.”
“So then what? The weapon hurts them?”
The man gave a half nod. “If it must.” 438 looked back down at the tiny planet carved into the comb, tracing over it with her fingertip. “That seems sad.” Ushar watched her for a long moment before answering. “Sometimes it is.” They stayed that way for a long time, pressed close as she thought up more questions to ask. She hung on his every word as he answered them one by one. His large hand drifted from her waist to her back, his thumb pressing into her spine and tracing the lightning stripe with careful determination, trying to see how close she would let him get.
It wasn’t the first time he had done this. For three months, he had been silently testing 438’s boundaries. It started with a hand resting beside her own, then he brushed her shoulder when she would sit next to him as he read. It slowly progressed. A careful pet to her head, the brush of his knuckles against her cheekbone. He did it so slowly that she didn’t notice herself becoming accustomed to his touch. He always waited, always stopped the moment she tensed, but that day, she didn’t.
Across the hall, Cardo noticed it first. He looked up from the piece of machinery he’d been repairing, but he said nothing. Kuruk followed his gaze, fixating on the interaction between his brother and the girl. Then Trudgen. Then Ap’lek. None of them interrupted, not wanting to ruin whatever was happening. 438 continued asking questions, seemingly unaware that she was leaning farther and farther into Ushar, so close that most of her weight rested comfortably against his side, but Ushar noticed. He kept his expression carefully neutral. He knew that one wrong reaction, one comment, one movement that she deemed too fast, and she would be gone.
“What is this one about?” 438 asked suddenly, her attention shifting to the thick book resting beside him. Before the man got the chance to answer, she leaned across him to reach for it. The movement brought her closer than she had ever come before. Reaching farther than her balance would comfortably allow, she instinctively pressed her face against the center of Ushar’s chest for support. She didn’t seem to realize she’d done it. Her nose rested against the black fabric of his shirt as she took one slow, absentminded breath, her fingers finally curling around the worn cover before she pulled the book free.
The room around them went completely silent. Ushar didn’t move. The others stared, but no one said anything. 438, completely unaware of what was happening around her, flipped the book over in her hands with fascination. She pressed the book into him, looking at him expectantly. “Read it.” Trudgen did his best to cough away a laugh from across the room, amused by how demanding the bunny could be. Ushar raised his eyebrows at her. “What’s the magic word?” 438 blinked once, then again. “Magic?” She didn’t seem to understand that word. It was one that she hadn’t heard before. Her brows drew together in confusion.
After a moment of deep thought, she seemed to come to a conclusion. Without another word, she stood, padded over to her nest, and began digging furiously through the pile of carefully collected treasures. Vicrul looked up from cleaning his weapon. “What is she doing?” he pondered, a fond smirk on his face. “Strategizing,” Ap’lek replied. Her hands found what she was looking for, and she stood, triumphantly hurrying her way back to Ushar. She stood between his legs, holding out a sweet she had been saving. “Reward?” Ushar covered his mouth, trying and failing not to smile. “I was looking for ‘please.’” She frowned. “But since you’re cute, I’ll consider this an acceptable substitute.”
Ushar opened the book. Without thinking, 438 settled back against his side exactly where she had been before, as though it were the most natural place in the galaxy to listen to a story. They all settled back into their tasks and listened as their brother read aloud, his tone even and smooth. He stroked her hair with one hand, holding the book with the other. Slowly, 438’s head began to lull, her eyes falling shut every once in a while before she adjusted herself in an attempt to stay awake.
Eventually, Ushar glanced down. “Go lay down before you fall over, bunny.” He laughed. 438 blinked sleepily. “I was listening.” Ushar nodded, shutting the book and standing to guide her to her nest. “I know.” Reluctantly, she moved, padding across the hall and disappearing into her nest. One by one, the men of the hall settled into their nightly routines. Vicrul disappeared into his quarters, giving each of the men a “Goodnight, brother,” as he went. Trudgen stretched, muttered something about an early briefing the next day, and left for his own bed. Ap’lek extinguished the last of the training lights before retiring himself as well. Kuruk lingered only long enough to tell Cardo goodnight before his heavy door hissed shut behind him.
Soon, only Cardo remained. He was bent over his workbench beneath the dim glow of the night-cycle lights. The steady clink of tools against metal echoed softly through the otherwise quiet room. 438 curled in on herself, hugging her arms to her chest with a happy sigh. For the first time in a long time, she felt completely safe. She wasn’t waiting for someone to come and wake her with bright lights and sharp tools. She wasn’t thinking about what might happen to her if she was suddenly deemed a failure. It seemed that, no matter her results, the knights didn’t care. They saw her as more than just some experiment. That was something she was going to have to get used to. The edges of her vision blurred as her eyes began to fall shut, sleep threatening to take her under at any moment.
Then she heard it.
A sharp, high-pitched humming sound took over her senses, loud and overwhelming. She shot up in her nest, her ears pinning against her head in search of relief. It was a sound she hadn’t heard before, unfamiliar and horrid. She grimaced and let out a pained breath, but after a moment, it stopped. Cardo’s attention had turned to her, his brows creased in confusion. “Are you okay, 438? What’s wrong?” he questioned, pushing himself away from his workbench and approaching with quick, heavy steps. “What was that noise?” she asked, hoping the man would have some kind of logical explanation as to what could have been going on.
Cardo was silent for a long moment, listening, trying to hear whatever it was that she was hearing, but nothing came. “I don’t hear anything, bunny.” He paused for another moment, focusing. But again, he only heard the silence that had taken over the room. “Is it still happening?” 438 shook her head, which seemed to perplex him. Cardo was an observant man, even when he was focused, even over the sounds of his tools. But he hadn’t heard a thing. How he hadn’t heard it was beyond her. The noise had been so piercing that her head ached a bit just from the volume of it. “Did it sound mechanical? Maybe it was me.” She shook her head again, hard. This wasn’t the kind of noise that the knights made. Yes, they were loud, but that was different. “It was like an alarm, but it only lasted a few seconds. Now I don’t hear it anymore.”
There was a beat, then Cardo’s face seemed to soften. “Did you have a nightmare again?” She almost wanted to glare at him for suggesting she was unable to distinguish between dreams and reality, but she refrained. “No. I heard something.” This wasn’t uncommon when it came to 438. She had nightmares about the lab often, and to her, they felt real. She would wake screaming, pulling at the fur that lay at the base of her ears, telling the men to get away from her out of terror. This must have just been another case of the same issue.
He reached a large hand out and brushed her hair away from her sweat-beaded forehead. He stroked her cheekbone with his knuckles, trying to comfort her from whatever it was that had her so worked up. “You are safe, 438. This hall is a fortress. I’m sure it was just an alarm down in the lower levels that you picked up with these oversensitive ears.” He gently rubbed the base of one of her ears before standing. “I will listen more carefully. If I hear anything, I will personally go make it stop. How does that sound?” 438 paused, staring up at him with skeptical eyes, but eventually she nodded. He had never lied to her before, and she didn’t think he would start now.
With that, he stood back to his full height and settled back onto his workbench. 438 tried to relax, to lie back down and let sleep take over, but the air around her had changed. She pulled her blankets closer, making the nest even smaller, hoping that might calm her racing heart, and for a moment, it did. That was until she heard it again. Slowly, her eyes panned across the room until they landed on the giant man who was carefully taking apart a malfunctioning weapon. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look up. He simply kept working, completely oblivious to the shrill sound that threatened to split her skull in two.
Only I can hear it.
The realization made her stomach twist in a way that brought bile up her throat. There was something wrong, and if only she could hear it, maybe it wasn’t the ship at all. It was in her head. Her fingers curled tighter around the blanket. The scientists had always warned her that experiments failed. Components wore out. Subjects became unstable. She swallowed hard and forced herself to stay quiet. She couldn’t tell the knights, not until she knew for sure.
Across the hall, Cardo continued working, clearly making an effort to be slightly quieter than usual, hoping the bunny would find sleep once again. If only he knew what was going on inside of her head. The steady clanking of metal against metal filled the silence. Every few minutes, he would glance toward 438’s nest, making sure she was still settled before returning to the weapon in his hands. A long time passed. The weapon was finished long before he stood. He set it aside, rubbing a big hand over his tired face.
His eyes drifted over to the nest one last time. She hadn’t seemed to move, which satisfied him. She appeared to be calm. Finally, he allowed himself to stand. With a yawn, he made his way across the room directly to her. He brushed a hand gently over the top of her head, rubbing his thumb into the fur at the base of her ears before disappearing into his quarters. The metal door hissed shut, cutting off the sound of his heavy footsteps. 438 stayed frozen there for a long moment, listening for any indication that the knights might still be stirring, but no sound came.
The hall was empty now, occupied only by the flicker of the fire and the sounds of 438’s breathing. Slowly, she sat upright, and once again, the piercing noise returned. She flinched immediately, both hands flying to her ears for comfort as the sharp, torturous hum sounded off. Grimacing, she stood from the nest and began searching. She dug through every crate in the room, she pressed her ears against the walls, and she even rummaged through the kitchen and medical rooms in search of anything that could have possibly been making that sound, but she found nothing. Everywhere she walked, the sound followed her, the volume never changing.
That was all the confirmation she needed. It wasn’t coming from the hall. Defeated, she returned to the nest and pulled her knees to her chest as a quiet cry escaped her. Once again, the humming returned, but this time, something else happened as well. This time, something beneath her skin vibrated with it. Her eyes dropped toward her feet. Another faint pulse of movement, right in the heel of her foot. She reached down, her fingertips brushing over the nearly invisible scar there. The moment she touched it, something hard beneath the skin pushed back against her fingertips.
Her breathing stopped, and her eyes went wide with horror. This wasn’t just some hallucination. She wasn’t broken or coming apart. There was something there that she had long forgotten. Sitting beneath her fingers was something impossibly hard. Not bone, not muscle. It was metal. A violent shiver raced down her spine. She hadn’t thought about it in years. She had learned it was better to just forget it. But now, it was the one thing that could threaten her place here, in this strange environment where she finally felt some sense of peace and calm. Something that had been put there long ago.
A tracker.
