Damocles

I remember, for certain, days did not pass without my hearing of how we were on the cusp of advancement. It was said that Mimetic Fluid would replace the intricacies in our electronics – it would be in everything that needed improving and in everything that did not. But no matter to those talking heads, because the only thing I could be certain of was that it was in my forsaken glass eye. My left iris had a liquid core, one that was effervescent and the shade of worn brass. It shook when I did, swayed when I swayed. I felt like I could hear it slosh ‘round my head. Drove me insane.

But it wasn’t like the eye dampened my visual acuity. Matter of fact, it heightened it. Felt like an owl the way my peripheral expanded. That damned miracle fluid – it doesn’t do much on its own, but in the right circumstances and the right tinkering, it’ll enhance just about anything. The Mimetics, who have reign over it, were hailed as simoniacs in some regard. The scope of its expanse still wasn’t too clear. But it wasn’t my job to question that.

It had been awhile since I had to wake up that early. I awoke by the third ring of the alarm I had set, the one fifteen minutes before I truly needed to get up off my ass. My teeth were brushed with a brand new paste. I had splurged on the expensive kind, knowing that this next job would pay well. It was set in stone, not flimsy like the kind that was dependent on how many tickets I had sold for a production. I had not washed my brush properly before using it. That was distinct in my memory, having had the taste of concrete dust stuck between my teeth the entire day afterwards. The neighbouring tower had collided into mine a little while ago, the same peril that struck my eye. Separate bubbles hover around Earth, mine being the closest. The annual rocket thrust, the one that kept the city in motion around the seminal planet, was late to activate. For a brief moment, the city of Siduous had fallen out of orbit.

I was sent to the Mimetic Tower as a willing lab rat. They needed a test subject, I needed a new eye, and I have always been one to put on a show. The Mimetics paid for the interplanetary trip to affix the eye a few days prior to the tests, saying something about the fluid needing time to calibrate. There was a fifteen minute care guide I was forced to watch after getting the implant. I walked carefully up the stairway to home that day. The video placed emphasis on two main things. Firstly, that the eye is fragile; secondly, and of much more importance than the first, Mimetic Fluid is scarce – its production burdens time and money. I tussled my feathers before the stop light, waiting to cross the path to their tower. Vehicles whizzed by. Some reminiscent of the ships that hovered in their safety above our tall enclosure, observing our scurrying amidst winding paths. The peoples of the higher globes circled ours. Many times have my eyes met their curious ones, pairs that were skeptical about our anarchistic self-ruling. But they have never once stepped foot into our city. The leather of their boots would not fare well in our rain.

The Mimetic’s tower was made of something in-between that of concrete and dough, their patented, highly malleable material that could shift at will. Every so often, the building evolved. Rooms would shift, hallways would warp evermore. I suppose it was part of their whole shtick. Constant improvement. Although, I am still not entirely sure what exactly was being improved on. I came at a time when the silver building was blinding, save for sputters of peeled paint. They were in the midst of their monthly refurbishing. Peeling revealed white concrete. The Mimetics liked to cut corners where they could. So they used the cheapest paint – which to be fair, was a ubiquitous brand in today’s day and age – and their colours would dull, chip and splay under the erosion of the staticy haze in the air. Before I entered, I straightened myself out. I tapped the sides of my nose to adjust its circular filters, of which I cashed in a little extra to adorn them with filigree, sniffling as I did so. They were brand new . The air felt empty without the city centre’s metallic fuzz.

Finalising my end of the deal meant I would not have to see to the Mimetics any more than I already have. Not directly, at least. I walked in, trying to hide the pep in my step. Told myself my alacrity had no place in a building full of collared shirts and crisp ties (learned this the hard way when I cracked a nervous joke while they had their prongs in my face). The security escort reminded me of what I was there for with a little zap in my eye socket. The distance between the entryway and the reception was far, far too grand. No chatter nor any other sound, only the clicks of my soles against the slippery floor. I tried hard not to visibly falter, or think too hard about the way I walked, because then I would forget how to. Were my arms swinging too much? Were my strides too deep? I was hesitant as I closed the distance between me and the little lady behind the desk. I could not see myself then.

“I’m here for the Mimesis trial.” The walls groaned as I spoke, its fluctuation muffling my words.

“Code?” She was not curious about my name, and tapped her pointer finger on the desk in the moments before I answered. Thud, thud, thud. Her thumb hid on the underside of the sleek surface.

I pulled out the card they had given me and uttered the numbers.

“A moment.” She had not looked up at me, not since I walked in. I suspect that she did not like the way I disrupted the pallidity of her surroundings.

She stopped tapping and retracted her thumb from under the table. “Right – behind me are the elevators. Go to the sixty sixth floor, Wing C, but watch your step. Construction’s in progress.”

I could feel – and with a modest tilt, see – her eyes on my back as I left. The elevators were matte hover pods that could go anywhere they were wired to, as long as it was under the user’s jurisdiction. I lowered my glass eye down to where the scanner was and the screen flashed the word ‘guest’, tinting the otherwise white elevator a shade of orange. I am still so entirely sure that wing C of the sixty sixth floor was what I had registered – I am just as certain that the elevator had smelled so strongly of fresh paint, to the point where my head rang and my eye watered. It did not help that on the way to my destination, the pod jostled slightly from the building’s recuperation. I was dazed for a short while after. That I can be sure of, for the metal that supports movement in my left arm was scuffed and dented by a stray rubbish bin, one I had stumbled into via a fume induced stupor.

Wing C of the sixty sixth floor was a mess. Wall panels were loose, wiring exposed and thin wisps of plastic hung from the ceiling. And there was this one panel in particular that was so thoroughly emptied, that it exposed a completely different part of the building. I, at the time, could not be confident of what it was that made that section so distinct. Sure it did not have that same sterile walls and smooth furnishings, but there was something intrinsically different. Even if you were to replicate the two sections, with decorations to the T, the air simply was different. Curiosity got the best of me. With one leg after another, I tousled past wiring to egress.

The Mimetic tower seemed to bemoan my decision. It wailed at my splinter in its innards, doubled over, and coagulated my entrypoint. I was stuck between her evolving walls. I did what you would expect me to do – clawed at the wall and all. Only when the dust settled, I truly took in my surroundings. There was a haze that filled the space. Much like home, the atmosphere was thick. Enough so that you could raise a hand and watch the air around you garble. In large swirls, the ashy air mutes colour. The filters in my nose were clogged and breathing felt thick. The walls were a chartreuse, and from the little that was bare, I saw that the floors were patchy and undecided. Tiles seeped in from the walls, but for the most part, it was an unsmoothed concrete, dark from dust and muck. The thick wires and exposed circuits were disordered. It felt as if its builders were moving a million miles a minute, without much concern for retrospect. It was hard to walk. I could feel accrued oil and lubricants through the rubber soles of my shoes. I was stepping in sludge, metal, and disuse.

I clamoured through the halls, disregarding how the tips of my toes would get caught, or how the joustles of my heels would peel melted rubber from each other. The only marks of human life, among the hall’s construction, were my small acts of destruction and droplets of sweat. The machinery would beep every so often and copper coils would peek from degraded rubber. I carried on until I stumbled upon a vent. It was covered in the same muck that sheathed my shoes. I peered through, because what else was I supposed to do besides put my modification to use? My brass eye familiarised itself with the series of rooms – each sectioned off by a circular doorway. The distance from where I surveyed and the floor was far too great. They gave me a new eye, not a new back. For a moment, a lengthy one, I simply looked at the ground. My face was pressed against the vent cover, but my arms were holding onto the pipings secured into the wall. I experienced a vertigo that urged me to fall onto the drab grey tiles. They were matte, and so were the walls. The first room had a simple screen in the middle, with the Snellen test projected onto it. A rather analog method. The second room had another Snellen test, this time with a translucent block between a chair and a screen. I suppose that was where I was to end up. The final one in the string of laboratories ended with an elevator. They surely led to more.

Eventually, the magnetic fixtures in the vent and my face loosened. I moved on. The wires in my path peeled apart, rubber torn. This time it was not neglect, but my feet that forced the copper to expose itself. It sparked a dull red. There were more vents ahead, and some rooms had movement. Eventually I stopped seeing tests that pointed to the measurement of visual acuity. Instead, I saw kettlebells and sandpaper. I saw prongs and guards. Metal restraints that were dulled and matted. If you were to be strapped down, you would not see yourself in them. It had a similar quality to the major buildings in Siduous – like its hospitals and town hall – the foundation the fishbowl came with. So they coat my city in chrome, but the reflections in the metal they poured have long dulled.

I figured that this transitory space between the visible exterior and interior has little to no upkeep. Just enough for them to keep the veins of the Mimetic Tower pumping. So long as the wires still conduct, and the breakers still work, everything else is allowed to fall apart.

Indeed, my senses were not stilted in the advent of my enhanced vision. I could see the ceiling, the ground and the broken tiles all at once as I fell. The initial drop winded me as I funneled down their friable edifice. My lungs fought against the air, which felt far too dense and too abundant in that fissure. Between burdened gasps were the whistles and hisses of hurrying debris.

Distinct was the crack that sounded at my impact. But even more pronounced was the shatter of my glass eye. In an attempt to salvage what little fluid had yet to spill, I shut my eyes. I felt the skin of my eyelids tear. My blood was bound with that of the Mimetics. The spread was cold. It slid across, it wounded, with little resistance. My body lapped up what it could. It was after my gluttony I sat up. My hands were limp at my sides and my eyes shut tight – although I could still see from the apertures of my lids. The liquid that melded my brittle bones was splattered across my face, and I wiped it across my forehead. The cold of the fluid dissipated then. It had become warm – then hot enough to melt the hair that had the misfortune of being stuck where it was. And my palm burned – it throbbed, and the heat felt incandescent. For a moment then, the air that was once so vividly seen, was only felt by my skin and smelled through my filters. My vision waned. I was so certain that I had gone blind. The Mimetic Fluid that sheathed my left hand, my eyelid, and a good portion of my face, grew viscous with exposure. It was solidifying, and with great effort, I blinked.

Blinking felt sticky. Blinking was the only thing I could do. Until, and in splotches, my eyesight remended. And this time I could see much more, and from more.

Pain still wrought my body. My slivers of open wounds were miniscule, yet abundant. I was in no rush – there seemed to be no way out. I was still stuck in the Tower’s layer of fat, except this time I had nowhere to go but up. I felt the Mimetic Fluid in my ears. The sounds around me droned – I heard past the walls. I felt the Mimetic Fluid ooze. Scattered footsteps, miscellaneous beeps and shutters, conversations. But something neared me. Hurried whispers, the uniform clacks of steel-toed shoes, and the fluttering of coats so thin they needed little movement to sound. Fluid dripped onto my thighs and onto the floor all the same. I was sat, waiting in a shallow puddle of my own liquids.

I had forgotten how yielding their buildings could get. The Tower shifts at their will. As to not stain their floors with what was spilling from my fissures, I was carefully lifted out of my refuge. My eyes needed time to adjust to all the new lights, and blinking was still so dreadfully taxing. I simply could not tell you what the journey back to the bowels of the Tower was like. But distinct is the memory of their murmurs, voices bewildered at my leaking of mimetic fluid.

Perhaps they want me to feel at home here. The room they have left me in is crudely lit, and the metalwork is akin to that of Siduous’s. It has the framework of my city. I was upreared, pressed against the wall, during my initial arrival to the room. While this proved to be temporary, retractors were placed at the edges of my fecund wounds, keeping most ajar and widening some – but nothing red was spilt, only the viscous liquid brass. The miracle fluid that they have collected from under me with their chalice. 

They have deprived me of time. What they have me hooked up to is primitive and haphazard. I am held together by chainmail and zipties. They have gotten greedier. Now, my limbs have tubes and wire fed through them, mangled and metallic. My unhealing slivers were not a great enough supply of Mimetic Fluid. The conduits sprawl out, peacocking behind me. They glimmer as they siphon – I feed the Tower and I feed the Mimetics. My days are spent watching lustrous pools form around my extensions. Movement that I can manage causes sparks to swim, and my reflection distorts.

Yet above all, tugging at my scalp is a thin string. It falters under my weight. The string’s strength hesitates under the stare of this Tower. I, sharpened with the edges of their own tools, await my fall.