Jayfonork

Craig Morey
4 August 2019


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When Agent Mitchell woke up he found himself in a well lit room, slumped on the floor. He felt groggy. The last thing he could remember was the explosion in the containment room, with warning lights flashing and alarm klaxons blaring. Here everything was quiet, other than a slight ringing in his ears. As his vision came into focus, he saw that he was not alone in the room. From his vantage point on the floor, he could make out two figures in white lab coats standing near the door, and a third figure, a man in a suit, sitting at a small table in the center of the room. There was an empty chair next to where Mitchell was curled up on the floor. All at once he lurched up off the floor and seated himself in the chair. The blurry vision, the ringing in his ears, the feeling of tiredness, all started clearing away rapidly.

The man across the table looked thoughtfully at Mitchell. "I'mm Sorr-ee," he pronounced, in a strange, forced sort of way. Sorry for what, Mitchell wondered. He didn't recognize the man as anyone who worked at his department of the research facility, but the badge the man wore identified him as a special agent of the corporation, like Mitchell himself.

The agent thought for a minute, then opened his mouth and said "Eetillisuff lusheps uh oot ooey trop-snart nack eew litnuh peels oot tewp eeb oot nih-ohg roy."

Mitchell's eyebrows went up in confusion. It didn't sound like any foreign language he had ever heard. It barely even sounded human. Why was the agent speaking gibberish? Mitchell looked at the him with concern. "I don't understand. I don't know what you're saying."

The agent continued. "Eeross my... Ooey plehh oot ood nack eew nih-thun zrayth."

Was there something wrong with the agent? Looking around the room, Mitchell saw that the two men in lab coats didn't seem concerned at all by the man's nonsensical speech. They were staring intently at Mitchell himself, as if they expected him to reply. On the table facing the other agent there was a pen and a pad of paper. Mitchell saw written on it two lines: "MOOER NEMNAYTNUCK UTH NID NEPAHH TOW, LOPEEP OOEY RAH OOH, NA NIH-OHG STOW" and "OOEY NATSREDNUH EEAHT NACK EEAW, AYKO OOEY RAH". Was it written in code? Was the agent having some sort of stroke?

Presently the agent picked up the pen and started writing. When he had finished, Mitchell spoke to him slowly, trying to enunciate clearly. "Are you okay? Why can't I understand you?" The man just looked at him, then said "Lechim neh-jay, eem nats-rednuh ooey nack."

The man wrote another line in his pad. Mitchell looked in desperation at the men in the lab coats. "What's going on? Who are you people? What happened in the containment room?" The men continued staring at him without any change in expression. Mitchell looked again at the pad of paper. To his surprise, the pad was now blank. That's strange, he thought, I hadn't noticed him turn the page.

The agent continued speaking in his strange gibberish. "Ooahn sudj zdruwkab mooer uth ootnih d-claw ooey tath raywuh ooey rah."

This was ridiculous. He needed to figure out what was going on with the containment room.

"Zneveets neh-jay zih main eeahm, lechim neh-jay."

Mitchell got up and walked out of the room. He half-expected the men in lab coats to try to stop him, but they just looked at him in alarm as he left.

Exiting into the hallway, Mitchell was met with a face he recognized, one of the research facility's security guards. The man's face was white with shock. He looked at Mitchell with horror. "Dahg hohh," he let out meekly.

"What? Listen, what's going on here? What's the situation in the chronophage containment room?"

The guard's look of shock changed to one of confusion. "ayko ooey rah, lechim neh-jay!"

Mitchell hesitated a moment, then turned and started walking down the hallway in the direction of the containment room. Was it him? Was there something wrong with him that was preventing him from understanding anybody? Something wrong with the part of his brain that handles language maybe? But no, looking around the hallway Mitchell found he could still read the emergency exit sign and the label above the fire extinguisher just fine. It was just the agent and the security guard that he couldn't understand.

Coming around a corner in the hallway Mitchell saw something that stopped him dead in his tracks. Approaching from the opposite end of the hall were two figures in gray jumpsuits. They were facing away from him and approaching by walking backwards, with a brisk unnatural-looking gait. Mitchell wasn't an expert on the science behind what the facility here was researching, but he knew that walking backwards was supposed to be one of the probable side-effects of exposure to the chronophage. Did that mean the containment cell had failed after all?

As the technicians in the jumpsuits drew closer, they both looked over their shoulder and stared at Mitchell as they walked backward toward him. Mitchell pressed himself against the wall of the hallway in horror, hoping they would simply pass by. He knew the chronophage wasn't supposed to be contagious, but the way the men were walking and staring at him sent a shiver down his spine.

The two technicians walked a few feet past him, but then came to a stop and faced him with grim expressions. One of them moved like he was going to grab Mitchell's shoulder, and Mitchell tensed up and prepared to make a run for it down the hallway. But before he could, a voice called out from the hallway behind him. "Sap mihh tell!" Mitchell spun around and saw a woman in a lab coat, frowning at him. The technicians stepped back, paused, and then continued walking down the hallway in the direction Mitchell had come from, still walking backwards.

Had the whole facility been exposed? Was that why he couldn't understand anybody, because they had all been exposed to the chronophage? Almost running at this point, Mitchell continued down the hall toward the containment room. As he drew closer he was half-expecting to hear the alarms still going off, but the hallway was quiet other than the sound of his panicked breathing. He wondered how much time had passed since the explosion. He looked down at his watch. Thirty minutes, almost. 

Wait.

He stopped so suddenly that he nearly lost his balance. Putting a hand on the wall next to him to steady himself, he slowly brought his wrist back up to look at his watch again.

Oh, God. He felt dizzy. He closed his eyes for several seconds, then opened them to stare again at the watch.

His eyes hadn't deceived him. There was no doubt about it. The second hand on his watch was moving in the wrong direction.

His blood was pumping so hard he could hear his heartbeat in his ears. He steadied himself, and began walking again toward the containment room. Those technicians weren't the ones exposed to the chronophage, he thought to himself. It was me, I was the one exposed. I'm the one who's moving backwards. The reason I can't understand anybody is because they're talking backwards. Well, no, he thought. They're talking forwards, and I'm hearing them backwards.

He staggered into the containment room. Aside from all the technical equipment and computer monitors, the room's only other occupants were a man and a woman wearing the uniform of company paramedics, looking at him with concerned expressions. Mitchell began to feel dizzy. Just inside the doorway he saw a clipboard—his clipboard—lying on the floor. As he walked past it, the clipboard jumped off the floor and into his hand. One of the paramedics grabbed hold of him as he staggered into the room, and helped him down to the floor. He suddenly felt very weak.

"Ooahn puh nih-kayw zeehh," one of the paramedics said, then paused. "Luffwa ooahh."
 
The other one replied. "Dsoapskeh neb znowmuss snow reteb nih-teg oan zrayth yayss yayth, jayfonork uth thiw."


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