The Whitechapel Project

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Previously on Whitechapel

A hospital patient wakes up in a padded room with a massive headache. The only clue he has to his identity is a plastic bracelet with the letters “VI” printed on it. As he tries to figure out who he is and what’s happened to him, a man dressed in business casual clothing steps into the cell. The patient realizes that the well-dressed man is his captor and imagines slashing at him, only to find the jailer in a bloody mess at his feet. The patient steals a card key from the corpse and opens the cell door, all the time trying to understand this ability to kill with his mind.

Episode Two – Honor

I push open the door to my cell and look out. The hallway is a rounded tunnel of crumbling brick, stretching to the left and right under the faint glow of a few naked bulbs. There’s a rusty metal door in front of me, a solid plane except for a curved handle and small empty frame for a sign of some kind. I step out onto the floor, which is just as cold and gritty as the one in my cell. I don’t notice the door swinging shut behind me until I hear the dull click of the magnetic lock. The frame on my door says “Subject VI,” and the card reader looks much newer than anything else in this tunnel.

I look down at the card in my hands. It’s a plain white card with a black magnetic strip on one side. Idly flipping it over, I only find the words “Whitechapel Project” printed in the same font as the letters on my bracelet. What is the Whitechapel Project? Some kind of government experiment? A medical study? A corporate project?

I almost fall to the ground as the headache comes again…

… and now I’m walking on a different concrete floor. I can hear the rumble of a subway train, but there’s white smoke everywhere, and I can just barely make out a rounded wall and the vague forms of people all around me. A man is coughing, trying to yell for everyone to put their hands on the right wall and follow it to the exit. He starts to repeat the order, but his voice collapses into thick, hacking coughs…

I bend over, taking huge, deep breaths, trying to avoid choking. I barely notice the nausea creeping back into my throat before it fades away again, along with the migraine. A couple more deep breaths and I’m upright, if a little wobbly. The plastic bracelet slips down my arm as I put my hand on the right wall and start walking toward the next pool of light in the tunnel.

The walls curve slightly to the right, and soon I can see another pair of doors facing each other in the tunnel. Both are shut, but the one on the right has a card reader like the one by my cell. I swipe the card and open the door, only to run right into the impenetrable darkness of the room. I slap blindly on the inside walls, looking for a light switch. No luck.

I haven’t seen anyone else, but it’s probably only a matter of time before someone notices that I’m gone. I put my hands out and shuffle carefully into the room, looking for something, anything that provides light. My toe slams into something hard. I hear it crack, and the sudden unexpected pain fills my leg. It feels almost cleansing after the slick, nauseous pain of the migraine. I start to fall over, but my hands land flat on a large object — a table or something — and I’m able to stop my fall. I grope around until I nearly knock over something heavy and metal, which feels like a lamp. I find a switch and push it in with a solid click.

I’ve run into a desk. Not some flimsy balsa wood desk from Ikea, but a big mahogany monstrosity that’s right out of a Victorian study. The computer on the desk isn’t much more modern, a boxy slab of tan plastic connected to a keyboard with a curly wire that reminds me of an old telephone. Pain shoots with each step as I stumble back and close the door — apparently this one doesn’t swing shut like my cell door did. My toe is already turning dark red and purple — probably broken. Fuck. I shuffle back behind the desk and slump into the black leather chair to rest for a second.

The office looks to be the same rough shape as my cell, though the padding has been replaced with a pale green color that keep the hospital theme in my mind going. The floor is covered in a thin ivory-colored carpet. There’s a small table with a couple of chairs off in the corner, and a framed black-and-white photo of some soldiers from World War I or World War II wearing those huge gas masks that make you look like an insect. They’re crouched in a trench, holding rifles against some unseen enemy. Next to one is what looks like a wiry black dog wearing its own gas mask, which is little more than a canvas bag with glass lenses. It looks equal parts terrifying and ridiculous.

I stab at the power button on the computer a few times, but nothing happens, so I start to search the desk. There’s a black duffel bag underneath that I pull out. It’s a workout bag — gray towel, gray socks, gray sweat pants, and a plain gray T-shirt. There are even a pair of gray sneakers at the bottom. I dump everything out on the desk and quickly rip off the flimsy gown so I can use the towel to wipe off the blood and vomit still sticking to my skin. My toe screams as I try to put on the shoes, but I ignore it. It feels so good to wear real clothing again.

The first drawer I open has the usual office detritus — discarded black binder clips, half-used pens, scissors, and a nearly-empty bottle of pain killers that I quickly snatch up. The pills taste dusty as I dry-swallow them. There’s also a small key on a thin wire loop that I take.

The next drawer is locked, but the key smoothly opens it. All praise human laziness. Inside is a stack of blank paper with no letterhead. On top of it is a worn leather case, zippered shut. I pull the metal tongue smoothly along its track, and open it to find a small stack of currency. I recognize American and Canadian dollars, British pound notes and a couple of Euros, but the rest of the money is foreign to me.

I also find a Whitechapel Project ID card with a picture of a balding man and the name “Harold Tucci.” He has some gray business cards that just have his name and a phone number. It’s depressing that the mint green walls are the most colorful thing I’ve found so far.

I sit back and take a moment to think. I know Whitechapel is a neighborhood in London. (How do I know that? Best not to dwell on that too much right now.) Is this facility somewhere in England? Am I English? I look back at the stack of money. Some of this looks vaguely European, so wouldn’t I know what they are if I was English? On a hunch, I grab one of the pieces of paper and a pen from the drawers, and write a single word across it:

HONOR

Not “honour” with a “u,” which would be the British or Canadian spelling. I guess I’m American, then. Maybe I should have a cheeseburger to celebrate.

I start to take the money out of the case, and I find a scrap of paper mixed in the stack. It looks like a to-do list — file paperwork, update report, update Six’s vitals…

I look back at the bracelet. VI is the roman numeral for six. Is that my name? Probably not, but that’s what this project is calling me. So why am I called Six? Were there five more like me? Is it some kind of codename? Or do these people just have an unhealthy obsession with sci-fi television? I snatch the scissors from the desk and hack the bracelet off of my wrist. I’m tired of looking at it. I’m tired of asking myself questions that I don’t have the answer to.

The bottom drawer is also locked, and the key doesn’t work. I check the desk again for another key, but there’s nothing. Out of frustration I kicked the drawer with my non-broken foot. The crack sounds like a gunshot in the silent office, and the drawer slides open a little. I pull it out the rest of the way and reach inside, and I touch cool metal.

I carefully pull the pistol out of the drawer. It feels heavy, awkward and uncomfortable in my hand. I look it over, but nothing looks familiar about it. I wonder if it’s loaded.

Suddenly I hear a clanging sound outside the office. Some kind of alarm. I don’t know if it was from kicking the desk or someone noticing I’m not in my cell, but I have to go, now. I set the heavy gun on the desk and start stuffing the bills into the pockets of the sweat pants. The pain in my foot is fading a bit, so I stand up, ready to move toward the door.

Knock, knock, knock. Someone’s at the door.

“Dr. Tucci?” I can’t make out the voice, but it sounds American. “The alarm’s going off. I need to come in and check on things.”

Damn it, damn it, damn it. Now what do I do?

Should I try to bluff my way out of this?

Can I scare him with the gun?

Or should I try and kill him?

The choice is yours.

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Episode Two in Spanish

Episode Two in French

Author’s Post-Mortem

Episode Three – Escape