Work Text:
Helly R. had never hoped as hard as she was now.
It was thrumming through all her being while her glossy, polished nails slid over the mouse of the computer. Mark was leaning over the green wall he had lowered in a seemingly grand gesture of concern for her, one she knew he wanted her to notice, a silent message to tell her she wasn’t alone.
Helly R. couldn’t care less.
“Hey, how are you?” Mark said, and that was the beginning of her trial. He looked bright, cheerful, genuinely caring, as usual, and it infuriated her, just as usual.
She nodded, slowly, her eyes glued to the screen in an apparent, worshipful display of her supposedly newfound love for her work.
“Good,” she simply answered, her voice very, very soft, so unlike her own, clicking on the mouse computer. The numbers slithered across the screen, falling effortlessly in the small file box of which the use still remained a mystery to either of them.
This was it.
Her lips quivered slightly. She took a small, barely noticeable breath. Her fingers shook over the gray, smooth surface of the mouse. She hoped, she hoped, she hoped so hard she almost felt like praying.
“Yeah? Seems like you are getting the hang of the stuff here!” Mark smiled.
She smiled back at him, glancing briefly in his direction before her eyes settled back on her screen. Just like that, her hope had crumbled.
“Cool,” Mark said, still smiling. He lingered for a few seconds, his stupidly kind face hovering over her. Then the green wall was pulled up and he vanished from her eyes.
The wave of disappointment that rushed over her was perhaps even greater than the hatred that had lodged itself in her belly, like an unmovable shard of ice. Her nails scratched lightly over the smooth surface of the mouse. For an instant Helly simply stopped moving. Air suddenly blocked itself between the fleshy tunnels of her esophagus. She liked those anatomical facts. They reminded her that her body was real, that she was real, that she was truly made of flesh and blood. Well, now that she had had Mark’s answer, she would put those facts to good use.
She glanced at the green wall and heard the typical, rhythmic typing of Mark’s fingers over the spotless but old-fashioned keyboard of his computer. Each of those soft, persistent clicks was like a knife sinking into her heart, over and over. She wanted the green wall to disappear, she wanted to see Mark’s head peek above it, his brows furrowing in confusion then morph into genuine concern, she wanted him to probe and poke her, she wanted to answer with sharp and witty comebacks until she crumbled and he realized that no, she wasn’t getting hang of the stuff here, but he didn’t.
She swallowed, clicked on the mouse and watched the numbers disappear within the file box.
“I’m gonna go.”
She stood up.
“Do it,” Dylan answered casually.
Even though Helly would probably never hold faith of any religious kind, she took it as a sign. From whom or where, she didn’t know and didn’t care. “
I’m working up till the bell,” Dylan continued, blissfully unaware of the thoughts whirling behind her calm gaze. “I think I might be crushing this thing tonight.”
His eyes never left the screen. Even if there was not the slightest trace of any worshipful attitude toward the mysterious and sacred work in Dylan G, something Helly respected him deeply for, she still wished that he would have at least looked at her, just a little. She would have liked to meet the gaze of another human being, and not the black and green screen of her computer before she departed.
“I hope you do,” she said.
He didn’t look up.
“See you soon.”
Her voice bounced casually, almost cheerfully between the walls of her cubicle, but Dylan G. didn’t look up, didn’t give her a proper goodbye. She knew he had no reason to; after all, in his mind, she was still going to come back. Silly Helly R., a tad too stubborn for Lumon, was always going to come back. She felt the characteristic shard of ice growing in her belly, pushing between her intestines and her stomach. Helly walked away, not bothering, not wanting to look behind her.
The cable had been easy to find, even easier to stash under her desk. The bin had practically been a living invitation, its polished silvery surface gleaming softly in a corner of the hallway, unattended and unguarded. Helly liked to think of it as child’s play. She also tasted the bitter irony of it, the fact that all things finally went her way when she had decided to end it once and for all. The thick, smooth white cord in her hands felt real, perhaps more solid than anything she had seen or believed she had seen here. The endless, spotless white walls, the fucking screens of the computer, the ugly, horrendous green carpet, that poor, desperate attempt to imitate the grass innies would never get to see. She grabbed the silvery bin which was politely waiting for her. It felt kind and reassuring in her hands. Her nails collided a bit hard against the metallic surface, sending a tiny bit of pain through her fingers, but Helly didn’t mind. Her body was flesh, she was real. That small, unimportant sensation was more than enough proof to contradict her outie’s sayings. She was wrong, Helly was right, she was a real person and her outie was borrowing her body just as she was borrowing hers. It didn’t really matter now, Helly thought, but every victory counted, even before the end.
The elevator dinged as usual, the doors opened as usual, welcoming her warmly within its belly of flattened white and gray flesh. The cable was surprisingly easy to put in place, its thick surface coiling obediently around the metallic bar, as if it had always been meant to go there at some point. The doors closed behind her. Helly didn’t know what happened after death, or if there even was something but anything would be better than this hellish, eternal landscape of walls and hallways and computer screens and scary numbers, filled with false-looking people and fake smiles.
The elevator went up.
The noose tightened immediately around her neck. Helly’s only regret was that she wouldn’t get to see Helena’s face once the elevator would have reached its destination.
A pity, Helly thought.
The pain exploded in her neck.