After watching the professor leave, the female researcher let out a sigh of relief and slumped into her chair.
Only she and the bespectacled man who had just made the rounds remained in the monitoring room.
She glanced at the young man's impeccably composed face.
Then she complained dejectedly, "The professor has such an oppressive presence. Whenever I'm in the same room as him, I feel like he's stealing all the air!"
The young man looked up and smiled gently. "Keep your voice down, Xia Yu. If the professor doubles back, you're done for."
The female researcher's name was Xia Yu. She sighed, a wistful look in her eyes.
"Wang Ke, do you think our laboratory is too cruel...?"
Wang Ke was the young man's name.
He looked up at the wall of monitors, at the test subjects dressed in pure white patient gowns, sitting motionless in their rooms.
They had no personhood, like so many lab rats kept for experiments.
Wang Ke sighed too. "It is cruel... but there's nothing we can do about it."
Soon it was mealtime. Wang Ke and Xia Yu were on duty that day, so they were also responsible for handing out the food.
Wang Ke heaved a huge iron bucket onto the cart. It was filled with thick, milky-white mush.
That was the test subjects' food.
A mixture of nutritional powders, blended into a thick paste with neither flavor nor aroma.
Wang Ke stirred it with a ladle, then scooped some into one of the bowls Xia Yu had neatly laid out.
They were right outside Test Subject No. 001's room.
Xia Yu tapped gently on the iron door and called softly, "No. 001, it's mealtime."
A tiny figure rose from beside the bed, blinking his curious eyes at Xia Yu beyond the