Where

Click —

Victor Langley pressed the remote in his cuffed hand. His wrists barely moved, just a flex of the thumb. Each motion was deliberate, mechanical. His eyes never left the bulb box.

With every press, all six lights flared to life.

Each time.

All of them.

Overhead, one of the fluorescents buzzed faintly. Then — flickered. A soft stutter. The light dimmed, blinked back to life. Again. And again.

Victor’s eyes twitched upward at each flicker, never fully, never boldly. Just the barest lift of a gaze, as if checking whether the ceiling itself might fall. Each time, he found Elizabeth.

And each time, he looked away.

She sat opposite him, motionless. Her posture was so precise it bordered on artificial, like something designed to sit in a showroom window. Back straight. Shoulders square. Jaw locked.

She didn’t blink when she finally spoke.

“It’s a wiring issue,” she said, tone clipped and neutral. “I apologise for the distraction. Mr. Black has already replaced the fittings.”

Victor glanced at her again — longer this time. A beat too long.

Then, back to the remote.

Click — Six lights.

Click — Six lights.

Click — Six lights.

His shoulders were beginning to stiffen, his movements just slightly more urgent. Not erratic. Not yet. But the pattern of his breathing had changed.

Elizabeth glanced at her watch.

Time was narrowing. The window, closing.

“Mr Langley,” she said carefully, “I should confess . . . this version of the device has not been successfully completed by any previous subject. Any suggestion to the contrary was intentional, and designed to prevent doubt from influencing the result.”

No response.

Victor’s focus drifted somewhere beneath the surface. His eyes had taken on the sheen of distraction — not disinterest, but over-concentration. The kind of glaze that belonged to people with nowhere else to go inside their own minds.

Click —

Click —

Click —

“Would you prefer to try something else?” she asked. “We still have time. Another experiment, perhaps.”

Still nothing.

The pace increased.

Click-click-click.

Elizabeth didn’t enjoy being ignored.

But she wouldn’t lose the session to emotion.

Not now. Not here.

“We could just talk, if you’d prefer,” she offered.

Victor stayed hunched, locked into his rhythm. His fingers gripped the device like it owed him something. A gambler pushing the last of his chips forward, trying to win back a fortune he never really had.

Then:

“M’am . . .”

Click —

“I told ya . . .”

Click —

“It upsets people . . .”

Click —

His voice was quiet. Distant. And somehow — apologetic.

Elizabeth somehow managed to straighten her posture even further, like somebody ironing a ruler. Her frustration bubbled. She was running out of time and the experiment she had chosen was obviously defective. She should have just stuck with something she knew worked, like the ink blot cards.

“Mr. Langley,” she said, a thread of steel in her voice, “I’m not particularly concerned with what you say. I’m here for the results. Not to try and fix you.”

Click — Pause.

Victor’s hand stopped. His gaze lifted slowly, as though surfacing from deep water.

This was new. An approach he was unfamiliar with.

He studied her now — really studied her.

Her words had landed.

Elizabeth didn’t flinch.

“That’s not to say I wouldn’t . . . or couldn’t assist you,” she added. “If required. I am a licensed psychiatrist, after all. But my . . . focus is elsewhere.”

She crossed her arms with a finality that required no punctuation. A line had been drawn. The rest was up to him.

Victor didn’t speak.

He looked at her.

And then — he went back to the remote.

Click —

Click —

Elizabeth sighed softly. A barely audible exhale. She glanced at the time again.

Then — Silence.

The clicking had stopped.

Victor didn’t move. His eyes remained on the bulb box, but something in his expression had shifted. There was a stillness now. Not peace, something else. Like someone testing the air for a storm.

Then, quietly:

“Where d’you think we are?” he asked.

Elizabeth’s posture eased, not much, but enough. Her fingers relaxed in her lap. She had a foot in the door. Her gaze drifted around the room, as if searching for a more philosophical answer, but finding none.

“We’re in the institute,” she said evenly. “Sunny Meadow.”

It was clear from Victor’s expression that her answer hadn’t satisfied him.

Not even close.

His face didn’t twist or frown. He didn’t sigh or scowl. He just — held still.

“M’am,” he said at last.

There was a pause. Not the kind that filled space, but the kind that carefully cleared it. He was searching, not just for words, but for the right shape of them. Like a man standing before a locked door, knowing he only had one key, and no second chances.

“I don’t expect an answer,” he murmured. “Not in words, like. Cos words . . . they don’t work.”

He glanced down at the remote in his hands, turning it over with quiet reverence.

“But maybe just . . . think about it. Hold onto it. That’s all.”

Elizabeth gave a small nod. She didn’t blink.

Victor pressed gently forward.

“Think about how ya feel. Not the surface stuff. Right down in the centre. Out here,” he gestured faintly with a cuffed hand, “it’s all noise. All movement. But, in the middle . . . there’s a shape . . . A feeling.”

Elizabeth tilted her head slightly, brow furrowed.

“Mr. Langley . . . are you asking me to reflect on how I feel? Emotionally?”

Victor dropped his gaze. His face twisted, not in pain, exactly, but effort. The sheer labour of turning thought into speech. His hair, oily and unkempt, dragged across his cheek like a curtain sliding shut.

“Yes, m’am . . . But . . . Numinous.”

He said the word softly. Like it had weight. Like he didn’t say it often, and didn’t need to.

Elizabeth’s brow lifted.

“Numinous?”

Victor nodded faintly, his chains whispering against the frame as he shifted.

“An adjective,” he said. “Means . . . how your soul feels. Not your body. That’s just meat and chemicals.”

He shuffled uncomfortably in his restraints. The sound of leather against fabric. The metallic creak of the chair protesting his movement.

Elizabeth studied him.

“Mr. Langley, I assumed our conversation would focus on your present condition . . . not my own spiritual temperature.”

His breath caught. A quiet, defeated sigh pressed through his nose.

She could feel the moment slipping through her fingers like water. And so, before it vanished completely, she reached for it.

“However . . .” she added quickly, her tone softer now. “This is your session. You’re free to use the time as you see fit.”

Victor didn’t thank her. He simply nodded, slow and solemn.

“M’am . . .” he began again, voice rough at the edges. “Think about what it all boils down to. Not what happened yesterday. Not what’s happenin’ now. Add up all the numbers. What’s left?”

Elizabeth remained still. But her mind was beginning to wander, not aimlessly, but warily. A psychologist listening to the shape of the words more than the logic behind them. He was circling something. She just didn’t know what.

Victor’s voice lowered.

“Go back,” he said. “Far as you can. Before you had a name. Before the first time someone told you who you were.”

Elizabeth’s composure faltered — just slightly. This was absurd. Why had she expected clarity from a Cactus Wing subject? Why had she imagined this might follow a logical trajectory? These were the patients the law couldn’t handle. The ones reality had already given up on. She should’ve known better.

“I know you ain’t doin’ it,” Victor said, his voice suddenly small. Defeated.

“No,” Elizabeth said quickly, sitting up straighter. “Please go on. I assure you, I’m following your instructions . . . vigorously.”

Victor watched her for a beat longer, as if testing whether the offer was genuine. Then, gently, he continued.

“M’am . . . folks’ lives change. Sure. Maybe they even win the god-damn lottery. But their luck? It don’t change like that. Not without a price.” He gave a small, tired shrug. “Money’s a good example. Ever notice how something always breaks right after you get ahead? The boiler. The fridge. The car . . .”

“I don’t drive, Mr. Langley,” Elizabeth interjected, the correction automatic.

Victor deflated slightly.

But she followed through. “I understand the analogy. You’re suggesting that if life is composed of random events . . . numbers . . . then the sum total, the core emotional outcome, remains unchanged. That no matter how variables shift, the internal constant . . . remains.”

Her tone had softened. She was no longer just participating. She was engaging.

“In essence,” she said, “you’re suggesting I will always feel the same . . . deep down . . . regardless of circumstance.”

Victor smiled. It was the faintest thing.

“M’am,” he said, “maybe there are words after all.”

Elizabeth felt it. Not triumph. Not yet. But the suggestion of progress. The faint, almost imperceptible breeze of it, traced the back of her neck like the exhale of a cracked window on a still day.

He was opening.

Not all at once, not in the dramatic fashion of breakthroughs or published case studies, but gradually. Subtly. Like frost thawing in the seams of glass.

His guard was lowering.

And with it came something else — a quiet, coiled satisfaction that rose within her like warm mercury. She was getting further with Victor Langley than any of her colleagues had. The same colleagues who dismissed her research with half-smiles and condescending nods. Who kept her office tucked away in the furthest end of the facility like an afterthought. Who called her experiments “eccentric” in meetings and “delusional” when they thought she couldn’t hear.

Well — perhaps the bulb box was flawed. But this? This was working. Her hands remained folded neatly in her lap, but her pulse quickened behind the calm. This wasn’t just a session. This was evidence. Vindication. A recordable moment that would outlive snide remarks and departmental mockery.

She spoke carefully, gently, but her voice carried the soft pressure of rising confidence.

“Mr. Langley,” she said, “as you can see . . . my perspective may differ slightly from that of my colleagues.”

She allowed herself the smallest pause.

“Perspectives,” she corrected. “On certain . . . phenomena. Ideas they may lack the capacity . . . or willingness . . . to explore.”

Her gaze held steady.

“Please,” she added, voice lowering a fraction. “I’d like you to tell me where we are.”

Victor didn’t answer right away.

The lights above them hummed faintly, then flickered once — long enough to be noticed.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

His eyes, half-obscured by the tangled veil of his hair, stayed locked on her. He was studying her, not suspiciously, but intently. Like a man watching a flame to see if it would catch.

Then — He spoke.