Human Experiment Chamber

‘''I am Harvey Syton, a humble researcher working for the International Secret Service. I was delighted to find out that I was leading the ISS’ newest project, and testing is taking place primarily underground next week. Its aim is to develop an innovative and shocking method of torture which is designed to discourage potential ISS members from betraying the organisation, and as a punishment for captured hitmen from overseas, discovered to be targeting ISS leaders.''

''Over the course of the project, I will document every detail in this written report along with a video to accompany the results of each experiment. After the project has formally ended, I will suggest the best conclusion(s) to the testing based on the evidence collected.''

Once again, I thank my superiors for allowing me to pioneer this project which will undoubtedly benefit the ISS community for as long as it exists.

--H.J.Syton, human biologist, qualified researcher, SG64’

That’s the opening statement for my report. Now, I don’t blame you for thinking I’m some kind of insane genius doctor (and it doesn’t help that I’m working for a criminal organisation either), but I’m really not the kind of Frankenstein you see on television. In fact, I’ll admit that I’m a pretty nervous guy who has been hiding himself behind a flawless psycho façade for a long time.

After years in the job, I discovered that anyone, whether they begin meek or macho, can condition themselves into a state where they feel almost no empathy for anyone else. I used to go stiff at the sight of blood, but now I am able to slice a man up and pat myself on the back for a job well done. The human brain needs conditioning to keep its empathy sensors refreshed, and the more you don’t use it, the less you’ll feel sorry for random people. Still, I’ll admit I was pretty anxious about starting this project.

I know most people working for the ISS were born psychopaths, and they probably think the same about me too.

Part One
9 A.M.

It was time to meet the unfortunate victims. There were thirteen inmates who had arrived (been nicked) from a prison on the island. The purpose of seeing the subjects before taking them in was for estimating measurements and admin stuff, but I guess it was still nice to get to know them before sending them to their deaths in the most painful way imaginable.

There were two women and eleven men. As I was scribbling down descriptions on my notepad, one of the big guys tried to attack me, and although he could only go as far as the metal bars of his cell would allow, it still made me jump. I put a note to order extra restraints for this one.

I put my clipboard down and decided to talk to some of them. Many were vicious and swore in every sentence, but most of them were nicer than I’d imagined, which was actually creepy. Especially the middle aged lady who had poisoned her husband and had offered me a foot massage. I asked them what crimes they had committed, and if they were scared at all. Some notable answers included things to do with animals and my mom.

The sight of a teenager in one of the cells caught my interest. I'd never seen such a young inmate arrive here for testing before, and I wondered what crime he had committed. I asked him if he was afraid of his approaching fate, and he answered:

"I’m less scared than you are."

A thin, wide smile spread across his face. Not sure why, but I suddenly felt slightly nauseous. I convinced myself he was just bluffing and walked away quickly.

A young blonde lady refused to talk to me at all. She sat in the corner of the last cell sobbing continuously. I could have guessed that she was in her mid-twenties. I asked why she was crying, and she tried her best to convince me that she’d been falsely accused of murdering her sister. They don't lie when the tell me the most innocent-looking ones are always the most cunning.

1 P.M.

I decided to skip lunch for reasons I’m sure you’ll understand.

My heart was beating quite fast but I did my best to hide my anxiety, then called in the first test subject. I asked my scientists to set up the camera and other monitors whilst I prepared the instrument of death; I had no idea what to name it, but my little bald scientist suggested ‘Angel’s Wings’. He described it well.

I chose the macho looking guy who had tried to attack me to go first. When he walked in, I expected at least a swagger or a glare, but I got none of that. I could see it in his eyes; the guy was more terrified than he had ever been in his life. The crew strapped him into the long box-shaped metal frame. He was surrounded in what looked like a cage without the extra bars in the middle, and two flat iron bars met in in the centre of his body, both with many small, sharp spikes attached to their undersides, hovering slightly above his chest. A guard nodded at me and without warning, I pressed a button which suddenly lowered the two iron bars, plunging the spikes into the middle of his chest and abdomen. He screamed and clenched his fists as blood began oozing out, then turned his head to look at me. I raised my eyebrows.

“I’ll only start when you’re ready. Remember, the longer you wait, the more it’ll hurt,” I reminded him.

He breathed heavily, then turned his head to look at his bleeding body. Then he winced and looked away again.

“What ar’ ya gonna do to me?” He yelled.

“The bars,” I pointed, “are going to move in opposite directions until you split open.”

He took a moment to digest the thought.

“Can you hold my hand?” He pleaded, like a little child.

To hear that from a big guy like himself, I was almost amused.

“No,” I answered straightforwardly.

“Are you afraid I’ll break your bones?”

“Can I start now?”

“Then, don’t tell my family how I died. I don’t want them to know what happened to me.”

“We’re not going to tell your family anything.”

“Cheers,” he wheezed quietly, and he closed his eyes. “Fuck this stupid ass world. Just do it.”

The scientists sat opposite me with their notepads, observing, eyes wide open like hungry wolves staring at prey. As soon as I pressed the start button on the timer, I flicked the switch and prepared myself for the screams.

The two metal bars began to pull his skin apart incredibly slowly. He grimaced with his eyes closed for ten seconds and held it in for as long as he could, but when the green line on the pain monitor leapt up, his eyelids burst open and he let out a blood-curdling shriek. Around the three minute mark, his organs started to be exposed and I had to pause the machine temporarily, since he was close to passing out. I restarted it after two minutes. He was too tired to scream by the end of ten minutes, where all his organs were completely exposed, but it wasn’t until they started to slide out of him when I started to cringe.

I reminded myself that he was still alive and conscious whilst this was all happening. Suddenly, I had an inexplicable urge to vomit. I knew I needed to keep focus and watch the graphs in case he died, but my mind drifted elsewhere; though he was just a criminal, he had a family, and people that probably cared about him. What if they knew that I was the one doing this to him? I had a family too, and admittedly, I hadn’t told them the entire truth about my profession. What would they think? He was dying from something I’d created. I never thought about it in that way before, and to be quite honest, it hurt me inside when I did.

I told myself that his family weren’t here, they would never know of this, never know that I did it, they probably didn’t like him that much anyway…IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER! JUST DO YOUR JOB!

I walked to the other side where neither the scientists nor the camera could see, pretending to analyse the breathing graph in more detail. There, I gripped his hand, slippery from the blood dripping down it. He turned his head towards me and for a second, I thought I could see some sort of surprise in his eyes. I prayed that he wouldn’t spend his last seconds alive cursing me. Then, his skin ripped from his sides and dangled from the iron nails. He continued to breathe heavily for a few moments before he died, and the machine made a high-pitched beeping noise.

Swallowing, I let go of his hand and waited as his organs sloshed out of him one by one and onto the floor. The timer said 15:35.

The lady scientist stopped the camera.

“Fifteen minutes, thirty-five seconds. How was it?” I asked. She looked down at her clipboard.

“The skin stayed intact which was good, as it was on the top of the priority list for this device. It moved outwards at a steady rate too.”

“However,” continued the bald scientist, “the time he was alive fell short of the predicted time by half a minute. Also, if you were to redesign the model, we suggested some sort of appliance to keep the organs inside the body. That might improve the time.”

Their voices were calm and steady as they talked. I looked into their eyes. Cold, robotic, unblinking. I wondered if they’d ever been sympathetic to anyone in their whole lives. I wondered if they were wearing masks like me.

“Right, I was thinking that too. I’ll take it into account in the report.”

Part Two
Two days later, 4 P.M.

My boss Allman grinned the whole time as he watched the video, occasionally making unsympathetic noises such as ‘Ouch’ and ‘ooh’. These people weren’t human. Either that, or I was a lot less tough than I first thought I was.

It was time for the second torture instrument. This one was less unique than the first one, in the sense that similar things have been tried before, but it was the boss’ idea, not mine. Apparently, it was also the one which kept the victim alive and suffering for the longest time. I called for security to bring me a random test subject.

She was dragged into the room, screaming and begging. It was the young lady with the blonde hair. She shouted that she didn’t do it, and that she was innocent, but I was taking none of it. I signalled at security to strap her into the confinements.

I had a feeling she wasn’t going to tell me when to kill her, so I didn’t bother to warn her. Slowly, I took out a syringe and a small jar full of bluish-yellow liquid. I closed the box then unscrewed the jar lid, sucking out a syringe-full of its contents.

“No, please, don’t do this to me-“

I walked closer holding my poker face, showing her I was uninterested. She continued to sob and pant.

“I wasn’t the one,” she whispered as she shook her head frantically. “I know who killed her, it wasn’t me! Don’t do it!”

I positioned the syringe above her collar bone and plunged it into her neck. She moved too much, so I had to steady the needle to avoid it snapping. As the fluid entered her skin, her neck started to turn slightly blue, and her veins swelled up. She gasped in agony. Then I ran over to the laptop and started the timer. According to the measurements, she should be dead in around three days.

“Strap her head to the wall,” I told the lady scientist. “When her neck turns white, you can leave. I’m off to take a bite.”

“HARVEY SYTON!” She shrieked at an ear-piercing pitch, just as I was about to walk out of the door.

I turned around, my eyes wide open. I hated it when they called my name.

“You’re a young and smart person. You’ve got a lot left to live for. Why did you become a murderer?”

Murderer? I wasn’t a murderer. It was my job to kill murderers. And that doesn’t count as murder, does it? Who were you to judge? Something clicked inside me, and I suddenly felt feverish, like my brain was overheated.

“I would ask you exactly the same.” (Forgetting momentarily that she wasn’t a guy)

“I really didn’t, you have to believe me!”

I finally went to get my lunch. Man, it had been a rough day. As changed my clothes and came out from underground after two hours of security checks, a thought crossed my mind: how was I so sure that she was guilty of the murder? Was it faith in the justice system? Most likely. Of course, it didn’t matter whether she was or not, she was already going to die. But it felt like I needed some sort of proof, or I’d be uncomfortable living with the possibility that I’d killed an innocent for the rest of my life.

7 P.M.

Just one more hour of goddamn report writing, then I could go home. My eyes were starting to see double. But then there were the security checks again. I had to keep my profile real low working for the ISS, and that meant suffering another two hours of fatigue.

An alarm sounded and I got out of my cubicle to take a look at what was happening. Secret agents scurried around like black mice mainly towards the left corridor, so I followed them. It just happened that Allman was looking for me. He led me to the cells in which the test subjects were kept and I saw them all strapped extremely tightly to the wall, much like the lady in the experiment chamber.

Two of the cells, which I realised belonged to the middle aged woman and a bald guy, were empty. I asked my boss what was happening and he explained that one of the guys monitoring the CCTV footage wasn’t paying attention, which had allowed the two removed subjects to commit suicide by banging their heads on the wall repeatedly.

Part Three
One day later, 4 P.M.

I checked on the lady still strapped in the chamber before I began testing on the next victim. Unsurprisingly, she had stopped resisting and her body hung almost lifeless. Her whole body had turned white except for her face, which had a blue tinge. Sweat still dripped from her forehead so I gave her some water then examined the graphs, comparing them to the ones produced by the first test subject. Pain receptors detected slightly lower levels of trauma than the first, but it had a tendency to increase as the victim approached death.

Security produced a crooked old guy with the most circular spine I’d ever seen, and they looked at me as if asking whether this guy was suitable or not.

“He'll do, strap him in.”

I fastened my goggles then put on my gloves and protective clothing. He made no noise, just looked around. I was hoping that I’d started to get accustomed to the project since this was my third test already, but as I imagined him crying out in pain, I felt that inevitable sense of dread return. It was annoying me now.

He sat down on a metal chair with a circular base. Unlike the others, his eyes told me nothing; he just seemed like a man tired of being alive. The chair was nailed tightly to the wall behind it and clamped to the ground for extra security. His limbs were locked in place; his arms were spread in a T shape across the wall and his legs were fastened to the legs of the chair. Then his head was strapped into a solid square-shaped device with an iron frame, and the scientists used the two tiny metal clamps to clamp his eyelids wide open.

Using more metal clamps, the device positioned a curved block of solid green acid just a millimetre or so in front of his open eyes. A large glass box was placed over his head.

“When you’re ready.”

There was no hesitation at all.

“Ay.”

I pulled a lever, and the device moved the block of acid so that it was pressed against his eyes. He screamed, and I quickly flicked a switch above my head which first sealed the glass box so that it became airtight, then activated a heater which produced a temperature of around 50 degrees celcius.

As the acid melted, it burned his eyes and skin. The green line shot up instantly, and the device rattled as he tried to move. An hour later, there was nothing left except for patches of black, red and green. His face was pink and the skin of his cheeks and forehead was burnt raw and purple. He groaned constantly. I couldn't resist closing my eyes for a while, because I didn’t want to look anymore – there were cameras and observers everywhere doing it for me, so I didn't have to anyway. Surely, I could give myself a little comfort by saying that he deserved what he got?

I took a deep breath then opened my eyes again and turned to my scientists.

“It ends here, when the acid melts completely. One hour, three minutes.”

I pressed the last button and a blade sliced his head off completely.

Part Four
I sat at my desk, typing away.

Clank.

Abruptly, I spun around on my chair. There was nothing behind me, so I shut the door and continued writing the report. I had planned to upload the video along with it too, as I usually did, however I seemed to have misplaced my laptop, and that was a problem because I transferred the video files onto there from the camera.

The lights flickered and I heard more bumping and knocking noises, but I wasn’t sure where they were coming from. Just as I was about to get up and investigate, the phone rang and I sat back down to pick it up.

“Harvey Syton, from room SG64. Who’s speaking?”

“This is Allman.”

“Hi boss, how can I help?”

“I’d like you to show what you’ve done so far regarding your report to our newest contract killer. Treat this also as part of the ISS contract testing…”

I zoned out and stopped listening to his words. Someone, or something was slowly shifting into view of the cubicle window.

Someone with a face whiter than paper. Someone blonde, clutching her neck. She limped closer and closer to the small glass viewing pane in front of me.

I panicked, as a million questions raced through my mind; how did she get out? How could she have moved all the way across the corridor without being seen? What the hell should I do now? She turned her head and blood dripped from her mouth and nose down onto her white prison uniform. When the side of her lips curved upwards into a smile, I nearly shit my pants. There was only a thin sheet of glass separating her from me.

“Syton, are you still there? Syton?” A voice came from the telephone, which I’d dropped at my feet.

“I-I’ve co-come to warn y-you,” she spluttered. “They told me to. They said they’ll get you, a-and everyone you love.”

“What? Who are you talking about?” I yelled.

“You have…you have a brother called Joey. He lives with your parents in the co-coast. Do you know where they are?”

“How the hell did you know that?”

She was bringing up family members I hadn’t seen in ages since I started working for the ISS.

“They took your laptop. Th-they know everything about you. You can’t hide from them anymore.”

“WHO IS ‘THEY’?!”

“You’ll see.”

A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face. The problem was, it wasn’t my laptop. It was the ISS’ on which they stored the database of their employees. Furthermore, if they knew things like my brother’s name, they must’ve also been able to access it with the password. My mind was in a chaotic state, but I only worried truly about one thing: whoever ‘they’ were, they had access to information about me which they weren’t supposed to know: my address, the address of my family members.

I flicked the emergency switch and bolted the fuck out of there. Two seconds later, security guards grabbed the lady and dragged her back to her cell, following the trail of blood. I wondered what on earth went gone wrong.

Then, after I entered the imprisonment chamber with the security guards, I immediately knew who ‘they’ were. Two of the doors of the cells were left wide open, and I couldn’t believe it.

“WHO WAS IN CHARGE OF THE SECURITY CAMERAS HERE?!” I yelled. The inmates stared at us, heads strapped to the wall, smiling unnervingly.

The lady scientist ran into the chamber.

“I believe it was the man wearing the trench coat. He told me he wanted to have a word with you.”

“I’m not going to bloody talk to him, just tell him he’s FIRED from my department for neglect and misconduct! RIGHT NOW!”

She ran off without a word, and so did I, back through the hallway and into my office cubicle. Before my boss could catch me, I secured all the locks on the door and took out my personal cell phone, dialling my brother’s number. He’d ask about this mess, and I’d have to cover it up somehow, but first I had to warn him that his life was in danger.

He didn’t pick up the first time, so I tried again. I was relieved for a second when he did, until I heard the voice on the other end speak.

“Hi bro. How you doin’?”

It was cold and brittle, nothing like Joey’s voice.

“WHO ARE YOU?!”

“You know who I am, Harvey. You wouldn’t forget your own brother, would you?”

“Cut it out, and tell me what you’ve done to him!”

“If you really want to know, you’ll have to be patient.”

“How did you get past security?!”

“I said, you’ll have to wait.”

The line cut off and I steadied my breathing as best as I could, but I still wasn't able to stop myself shaking. Should I call the police? No, there’s nothing they’d be able to do.

My phone vibrated, and an email popped up. There was no subject, and the only word in the email was ‘enjoy’. Great – they found out my mail address too.

And what the hell were these attachments? The thumbnails were blurred, so I couldn’t tell what it was exactly. I uploaded the videos onto the computer and clicked on the first one, which was named ‘man 1’.

After a brief period of static noise, the picture came into view. The video quality was bad, but I could make out that it was some sort of warehouse. Three figures sat in clear view next to each other, each tied to a chair by their arms and legs. From left to right, I recognised them as my dad, mom and my brother Joey. They were unconscious and their heads drooped to the side. Panic came over me and I choked on my saliva, spluttering as I continued to watch. My family were in danger, and it was all because of me.

Someone began to talk, but I couldn’t hear his voice over the sound of the alarm and the chaotic yelling in the background. I turned the volume up and re-winded.

“…hello Syton.” It was the same creepy voice as I heard on the other end of the line just now.

A man walked into view, though I could only see him from the waist downwards. He was wearing black jeans and sneakers. Another walked followed him, who was wearing the prison uniform trousers and was barefoot. The guy in the sneakers was on the left. He poured water on my parents and Joey. They began to regain consciousness slowly, then they all went into a state of shock.

“Where the fuck is this?!” I heard Joey yell. “Who the-“

Another voice silenced him. It belonged to the teenager.

“This is for the big guy.” He pointed at my dad, who looked around, terrified.

“Wait, take the phone. Go to the other side,” he instructed at the other guy. The camera moved up and closer to my dad as the teenager flipped the chair so that my dad was lying on the floor on the chair back. When they both took out knives, I realised what was going to happen.

“No…no, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered. There was screaming and shouting in the background. They stabbed my dad just below his neck and pulled down sharply, splitting his abdomen. Then, they used the knives to cut him open, exposing his organs. I couldn’t watch, so I looked away. When I looked back, my dad stopped yelling in pain, and his head dropped.

“NO! FUCK!” I screamed, as I felt tears roll down my face. My nails had punctured the skin of my palms, and there was blood on my sleeves.

The video was cut off, and the window closed. I still couldn’t stop shaking and breathing. I clicked on the second video, named ‘woman 2’ and braced myself for the worst. But I wasn't ready for what I would see next.

The footage was shaky, because the teenager was holding the camera. The other guy was in the scene, and he put a hand over my mom’s mouth to stop her screaming. Joey yelled at him to let go of my mom, but his anguished cries were left unheard.

“This is for the blonde chick,” he said.

He held a glass bottle full of some strange red liquid, which fizzed about. I screamed when I realised what he was about to do next: he unwrapped a syringe he took from the cardboard box on the floor then extracted some of the liquid in it. He proceeded to inject it into her neck, then he chucked it over his shoulder. The chair rocked back and forth as my mom yelled in pain, and her legs kicked the chair. Minutes later, blood squirted out of her eyes and her skin turned blue as she suffocated to death.

I closed it down, sobbing uncontrollably. I felt drops of blood slither down my arms as I clicked on the final video, titled ‘man 3’.

They’d switched roles again. Now the teenager was in the scene, and the camera focused on Joey.

“Dude, bring it closer,” he told the other guy. When he did, I was able to see the stains the tears had made on Joey’s face.

“This is for the hunchback.”

His voice was almost happy. He took the bottle of red liquid from the previous clip and unscrewed the cap, laughing. Joey cried and yelled at him to stop. Both guys started laughing wildly, as he put on some plastic gloves and pinched Joey’s face. He poured the liquid onto his face, burning it pink and black. Joey’s screams were muffled out by the sound of gargling and choking. Then I vomited.

I skipped to the last ten seconds or so, as I couldn’t bear to watch it all. Both guys were in view now, the teenager holding the camera like he was taking a selfie.

“Do you know what this is?” The other guy asked me directly, as he pulled out the laptop from inside the cardboard box.

“We saw the videos you made, so we decided to make our own as well.”

“We thought it was rather fucking mean, so we decided to give you a taste of your own medicine.”

“You can’t get us. We’ll see you soon, Harvey Syton.”

“We’re coming for you.”

The two murderers laughed madly. The video turned black and the browser closed for the last time.

They split my dad open, like I'd split open the first man. They injected my mom with poison, like I'd injected poison into the blonde lady. They burned the face of my brother, like I'd burned the face of the old man. They made me pay.

That was it. I prayed the videos were fake or something, but who was I kidding? I’d sent my own family to their deaths, and they’d never even been told what was happening. Essentially, I’d killed them. Now, Karma had sealed my fate, and I was next. I understood real pain. For the first time in my life, I asked myself: why did I not have the dignity to treat each human being as a life? Why the fuck did I allow myself to take up a job which would cause not just pain and suffering for the victims, but endless grief for their families as well? Ultimately, I dragged myself into a position so low even criminals would mock my name. Anyone working for the ISS was a cursed madman. I wasn’t a psychopath, I didn’t want to be a psychopath, and I was going to stop pretending to be one too.

Someone was knocking on the door, but I ignored it. I wondered why, when I held the bloody hand of the dying man, did I not clench my fists till my nails made my hands bleed? Why, when I injected the poison into the veins of the lady, did I not cry and yell for her pain to stop? Why, when I scorched the face of the old crook, did I not vomit in disgust?

I knew what I had to do. I unlocked the door and raced past the man waiting for me outside. The boss’ office was in the building below, and I was sure he was at the scene of the discovered breakout. I took the lift down and went into the room, searching for his gun.

Grabbing it from the top shelf, I took the lift back up and bolted through the empty hallway. Employees and contract killers alike had gathered around the imprisonment chamber and an irate, red-faced Allman cursing, trying to figure out what had happened. The inmates knew everything, and they laughed and spat at him.

I pushed past them with all my strength until I found myself standing back in the experiment chamber, where only the blonde lady was still restrained. I locked the door behind me, blocking out most of the noise. She was still strapped tightly against the wall, and her face was deathly pale. Her body convulsed violently. Using what little strength she had left, she turned to look at me. I walked closer to her, then aimed the gun at her head.

“I believe you,” I said. “Whether you’re telling the truth or not, I still believe you. Because you were right, I am a murderer.”

Her face lit up. Then I pulled the trigger, putting her out of her misery.

I sat down and cried for a long time. I cried because I realised the barbaric shame I had brought upon humanity, and how I’d failed to see it until it was too late.

Someone's telling me to open the door. I have the gun pointed at my head, but I’m hesitant, because I’m afraid. On the other hand, the people I butchered were afraid – but it’s not like they had any choice. I’m giving myself the easy way out here.

I have to face it. It's time to end it here.

Part Five
The lady scientist sauntered into the research hall. She had a proud grin on her face as she looked around. A while later, everyone stopped talking and stared at her, wondering what the hell she was doing. At last, she spoke:

“Guess who’s been promoted to the role of head researcher by the boss?”

Everyone instinctively clapped with congratulation. The bald scientist sighed, then looked up at her.

“You won’t go bats and kill yourself like the other guy did, right?”

“Of course not! I’m a professional.” She emphasized the word.

“He said that as well.”

“Oh never mind.”

“Have you planned when you’re going to restart the testing?”

Her grin widened, spreading from ear to ear.

“Yes, I’ve decided. It’s going to be right now. I’m going to modify Syton’s remaining prototypes so that they produce the best results possible.”

“What? Right now? We haven’t even prepared the experiment chamber!”

“Then what the hell are you standing around for?!” She snapped. “And while you’re at it, tell Allman we need two more subjects to replace the ones that got away.”

“Whatever you say.”

Where was his laptop, containing the videos? She couldn't find it anywhere in his room, but it would probably reappear later.

She walked into the empty chamber and stood still momentarily to calm herself. She had never been more pleased in her life. This was where she would continue his work, and she couldn’t wait another second to start. She sat at the desk and began to think about his suicide, which had occurred to her as strange. Syton’s prototypes and report were both excellent, admittedly better than anything she could ever produce – he was the perfect man for the job, and it was the perfect job for him. Why a man in such a great position would want to kill himself was beyond her understanding.

And she would never understand, because she was pure evil - she had been born that way.