September 5th, 1964
The fever had set in today, and Gemma oscillated back and forth between sweating like a pig and being chilled to the bone, but at least the headache finally seemed to plateau. It still cut a sharp, persistent throb in her sinuses and eyes, but served to distract from how cold Gemma felt. She kept her blanket pulled around her tightly, even as she left the bed to eat her breakfast, making herself into a puffy marshmallow shivering at her tea table.
After breakfast, Gemma sat herself on the bed with her back to the wall with the window into the next cell, bundled up in her blanket, and waited for Dr. Verloc. When he arrived, they shared the space, but neither spoke. He didn’t even announce himself or greet her today. He simply let himself in, leaned against the wall by the door, and favored her with a glance every so often. Gemma sincerely wondered what these visits were meant to accomplish. Verloc did not seem the least bit interested in her or her condition or how she was adjusting to the switch between Blackberry and Coconut.
“What are you actually doing in here?” Gemma asked finally, her voice weary. “I can’t imagine you’re finding out much just standing there.”
“I’m observing,” Verloc said tersely.
“Have you observed anything interesting yet?” Gemma asked, trying to put on some of her flirtatious charm but her tone faltered midway through and she came off snappy instead. She felt too sweaty and shivery to convince even herself that she was up to that approach in this condition.
“Not particularly,” Verloc huffed. Gemma grumped to herself. Too good to talk to lowly test subjects apparently. She still had her plans for easing herself into his awareness as non-threatening, but Gemma thought that worked better as a closer. If she asked after him and, later, gave him her compliments, that’d be the note he’d leave her cell on and return to it on the next day. Letting him loiter in here for fifteen minutes every day and saying nothing up until that point though made that approach sudden and awkward, negating its charm. She needed to get him comfortable with talking, even if it wasn’t about anything useful.
An errant thought surfaced for her then. Something Clive Hamilton, chronicler for The “O” Courant, had related once in the bullpen. It wasn’t advice per se, more of an anecdote. Something about how some politician from America circa a million years ago would ingratiate himself to people who didn’t like him by asking them for favors. There was a particular story about this guy asking a rival to borrow a book. That rival then started regarding him as a friend, because one would not lend a book to an enemy. Clive said he sometimes used a similar angle to get ins with people who ordinarily thought a visit from his desk was not worth their time. Maybe if she asked Verloc for something, he’d be more chatty, even if it was only to tell her no.
The counter-intuitiveness of this tactic was sufficiently tricky to make up for how she’d have to play pitiful to pull it off. Nonetheless, she was willing to debase herself if it got her closer to the story. It wasn’t like she could look any sadder than she already did.
“Could you please just… talk to me a bit?” she asked, affecting an air of timidity. She hit him with pleading eyes and added, “It’s… lonely in here, Doctor.”
And while Verloc did seem to take an interest in her request dripping in supplication as it was, his last vestiges of suspicion dropped the second she uttered the word “Doctor” and he snapped to genuine attention at that.
Oh-ho-ho! A magic word! Gemma thought. She wondered if he knew just how visibly he reacted to it. She’d have to be spartan with its use so he wouldn’t realize its power over him, but she found herself with a very good card in her hand.
“What do you want to talk about?” Verloc asked. Gemma only just kept herself from rolling her eyes, her hidden elation at his response to her use of his honorific plummeting as she realized he was still going to make her work for it. Of course he’d put the onus on her, shivering as she was, to get the ball rolling. She needed something frivolous, but not her closer question.
“Did you get any hot dates from that So Mod one-sheet?” she asked.
Verloc groaned.
“No,” he said. “What I did get is a parade of dizzy girls demanding an audience. Every day. Multiple times a day. And they forget I’ve already turned them away, so it never tapers off.”
“You haven’t given any of them a try?” Gemma asked. There had to be at least a few of them who weren’t total toads, right? After all, the mask did wonders for a girl with a plain face.
“I am working non-stop, trying to give this town what it wants. I don’t have time for that,” Verloc said. He crossed his arms and harrumphed about it. “I tried to get the magazine to print a retraction, or to lie and say I picked one of them, or anything to get the interruptions to stop. But they refused. Apparently a fashion rag has a ‘certain level of journalistic integrity to maintain’,” Verloc complained with finger quotes. “They sent me a note on the blower the next day, saying they fired the girl who wrote the page. As if that solves the problem of the line of suitors at my door every afternoon.”
The very notion of So Mod being that defensive of its “journalistic integrity” and that firing seemed to be the So Mod way of dealing with anything that threatened it made Gemma snort. She felt much more gratitude to Margaret’s forgiveness for retractions in comparison.
A pair of dots connected for her then.
“That girl wouldn’t happen to be Mary Ann Evans, would it?” she asked, rallying a bit at the possibility that just occurred to her.
Verloc shrugged noncommittally and said, “It could be? It sounds vaguely familiar.”
“Oh, that’s delicious,” Gemma said.
“What?” Verloc said, his guard jumping back up at Gemma’s vindictive delight.
“Oh, no, no, no! See, Mary Ann works at The “O” Courant now,” she explained quickly so as not to lose ground with him. “Ladies’ Page. She covers recipes and millinery trends now. She acted like she came over because we have higher readership. She didn’t say anything about getting fired.”
Verloc huffed, having nothing to say about that, but Gemma had a continuance to play still.
“For what it’s worth, Mary Ann told me about Sally and she was on your side there,” Gemma said. “Apparently Sally is quite the piece of work. Never unattached, but always looking for an upgrade.”
“I hardly need some dirt-digging muckraker to tell me that Sally only used me to get ahead. If I didn’t see it then, I certainly see it now,” Verloc snapped.
That was more abrasive a reaction than Gemma wanted. She’d tried to commiserate, but he responded by lashing out at her. So he didn’t want to be empathized with. Verloc was probably the sort to think himself logical rather than emotional (although in Gemma’s opinion, any time a man thought that, he ran almost entirely on emotions). But if he thought himself logical, then maybe he’d appreciate some data to parse?
“Well, that’s just the pattern Mary Ann noticed. But I noticed something else,” Gemma said. “You’re the only one Sally’s dated in the last ten years who was anywhere close to age appropriate. She usually aims for men with twenty years on her. Following Mary Ann’s pattern, she should have gone for Dr. Haworth, not you.”
“So?” Verloc said.
Gemma shrugged under her blankets.
“It’s a data point. An outlier. Maybe it means she actually did love you, and what you could do for her was incidental. Maybe it’s a coincidence.” Verloc’s look of pensive consideration at that notion felt like they were getting back on track. “Once this clinical trial is over and I can leave, I’ll be able to dig into it and find out.” Verloc shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other and checked his watch. He pushed himself off the wall, indicating that it was time to leave.
“What color was your hair before?” Gemma asked.
Verloc fixed her with a quizzical, suspicious look. “Why all the questions about my hair?”
“Because it’s the most interesting thing in this room,” Gemma said, settling back to lean against the wall again.
The corner of Verloc’s mouth hitched up and he conceded an answer. “It was red.”
“Hmm,” Gemma replied while she got comfortable. “I can’t see that. It feels like the white is more… you. Striking.”
Verloc didn’t say anything to that, but he looked a tiny bit flattered as he let himself out.
Not one for saying “thank you” either, Gemma supposed as she rearranged her blankets to keep more heat in. Today had been terribly productive though! She’d need to thank Clive with an appropriate gift when she got back to the office. Mary Ann too, the twat.
—
After all her consideration the day before, there were only two ciphers Gemma could see being usable in this situation. The problem with most of the ones she knew was that they were transpositive or substitutive. They relied on already having access to letters or numbers to sub for themselves. What she needed here was a code that could be conveyed with something else first. Hand signals or knocks on the glass or blinks even.
Two was not a lot of options, but she hoped against hope that Haworth knew one of the codes she deemed fit for use.
Holding her blanket around herself with one hand, she stripped off her top sheet again with the other and twisted it into her writing tool. Gemma wrote out “Do you know” on the floor with her sheet rope and tapped on the glass to get Haworth’s attention. He’d been sitting at his tea table, propping his head up on his elbow in boredom, and he appeared to welcome Gemma’s interruption. He stood and walked around his table to see what she had written on the floor. When she saw that he’d read the first part of her message, she started writing the second.
She arranged the word “Polybius” and then made a square shape with the remainder of the sheet. Gemma was particularly hoping he knew this one over the other because it would be easier. The look of confusion on Haworth’s face was disappointing though. He shrugged and shook his head no. He didn’t know what it was.
Gemma, undeterred, rearranged her sheet again, this time to read “Pig Pen Code”. When she was finished, she looked up from her message and gave him her shrugging gesture of questioning.
Haworth frowned at the message and shook his head. He didn’t know what that was either.
Gemma’s shoulders slumped under her blanket. It’d been a long shot, but Gemma had high hopes this would work and her disappointment that it didn’t made her feel chillier.
She’d really been hoping he knew the Polybius Square because it would have made things as simple as they were going to get. Each letter a two digit number, neither digit ever higher than five. They could have done one digit on each hand. It would have been perfect.
Haworth stood at the ready still, waiting for more communique.
Biting her lip, Gemma wondered to herself how patient Haworth would be to work out her charades and notes. Maybe, if he was willing to try, she could teach him how to use the Polybius Square code. She spelled out “Polybius” with the square at the end again with her sheet and then gestured at herself, the corners of her blanket still clenched in her fists, then arced her hands towards Haworth, as if to give him gift.
Haworth understood her gesture, nodded and shrugged an agreement, although he had a dubious look on his face. He agreed to try at least so Gemma set to explaining how the Polybius Square worked.
“Imagine a grid” she wrote out with her sheet and waited for Haworth’s confirmation. He nodded along. She rearranged the sheet to say “5 by 5” and appended the square shape at the end.
Haworth held up two fingers, then five, and then made a square shape with his fingers. 25 squares?
Gemma pointed at him excitedly, grinning and giving him two thumbs up with her blanket corners balled up in her fists. Then she reworked the sheet rope to clarify, just in case, “25”, the square shape again, “in grid”. Haworth nodded his understanding. Gemma spelled out “5 by 5” again, just to be sure. Haworth nodded again, a little impatient this time. Gemma shot him an apologetic look and gestured appeasingly at him. She just wanted to be sure he understood.
Okay, so he had the grid. Now to explain the code. She wrote out “A is 1, 1” and then looked up. Haworth was looking so she pointed at the comma for emphasis. He needed to understand these were coordinates, but the comma might be hard to discern in sheet rope. He seemed to think he was following along though, to judge by his open and attentive expression, so Gemma went on.
“B is 1, 2” she wrote with the sheet, and pointed again at the comma for emphasis. Haworth nodded along again. He then made a C with his left hand at her, but switched to his right when he noticed that it would be backwards from her side of the glass. Then he held his hands flat and parallel to each other, one over the other: an equals sign. Then one finger on his right hand, and three on his left.
Gemma clapped her hands together and pointed at him again, and said “yes!” aloud even though she knew he couldn’t hear. She shook two thumbs up at him again. Now to try it out! She waved her hand to make sure she had his attention and held up her fingers, slowly going through the coordinates to give him time to work them out.
2,2 1,5 3,2 3,2 1,1
Gemma.
It took Haworth longer than she thought he’d need to decipher her message, quick as he had been to understand her explanation of the code itself, but eventually he pointed at her. She nodded and gave him her two thumbs up again. Then she gestured at him to try.
Again, it took him even longer to work the code out and then convey it to her, but eventually, he attempted to reciprocate.
2,3 1,1 4,3 4,3 5,5
Hassz.
Gemma’s eyebrows scrunched at her decryption. Hassz? That wasn’t- oh, she forgot the most important detail. She went back to her sheet and spelled out “I & J share.”
Haworth frowned at her message, but after a moment to think about it, he nodded in concession, as if to admit that, yes, there were twenty-six letters of the alphabet, one too many to fit on a grid of twenty-five squares. He should have noticed the problem when she spelled her own name and it read “Gella” to him, but maybe he just corrected for her without thinking about it. Haworth tried again with this new information in mind. 2,3 1,1, it took him a moment to re-envision the grid before he went on, 4,2, 4,2 5,4.
Harry.
Gemma gave him a thumbs up, pointed at him, and started slowly numbering out a new word for him, waiting for him to nod acknowledgement of each coordinate.
2,2 1,5 3,3, 2,4 4,5 4,3
Genius.
When Haworth worked it out, he snorted bemusedly, swatted at Gemma and mouthed “no”, but he looked very pleased with himself nonetheless. He then pointed at her. Gemma smirked and nodded in smug agreement. Haworth let out a “ha!” that she could almost hear at her cheekiness.
Now that they had the Polybius Square down, Gemma waved her hands again to get his attention and held up a V sign with her fingers. She added the wavy hair gesture Haworth had done the day before just in case he forgot the V stood for Verloc. Then she drew a house with her fingers the way he had and gave him her questioning shrug.
Why Verloc’s house?
With careful deliberation, Haworth spelled out his answer.
1,4 1,5 4,4 3,4 5,3
Detox.
Then, after a moment, he started signaling again.
3,4 2,1 2,1 2,4 3,4 5,4
Off Joy.
Gemma’s eyes went wide as she decrypted his addition and dropped in the space. Harry Haworth, creator of Joy, had spent six months at Verloc’s house getting off the drug. Well, it was no wonder he’d been hidden away at that. The Executive Committee wouldn’t want it getting out that the very inventor of Joy was no longer on it.
But why? There were people who couldn’t take Joy due to intolerance, and the occasional Downer (like herself, she supposed although she didn’t really think of herself as a Downer) who chose to get off Joy. This situation sounded like neither. She gave Haworth her questioning shrug again. Why?
He looked up, probably thinking about how best to succinctly explain. Though the Polybius Square was affording them much more in the way of communication, it was still limited. It was best to use one-word answers and whatever explanation for Haworth’s need to get off Joy didn’t seem to fit. But they had nothing but time in here, at least until the hourly status check. Gemma was prepared to watch and decode as much as Haworth would tell her.
Eventually, Haworth started signalling again.
1,1 1,3 1,3 2,4 1,4 1,5 3,3 4,4
Accident.
He’d had an accident. Not at all unheard of. Joy did tend to make people accident-prone. Gemma began signalling back at him.
1,4 1,5 4,4 1,1 2,4 3,1 4,3
Details. And then her questioning shrug to make it a question.
Haworth shook his head no. Then he tapped his head and shook it no once more.
He had no memory of the accident. Of course he didn’t. Gemma cursed under her breath. Then a thought occurred to her. She flashed a V sign again and mimed speaking. Haworth didn’t understand so she grimaced for a second and set to signalling with the code.
1,4 2,4 1,4 5,1 4,3 1,1 5,4
Did V say. And then her question shrug.
Haworth nodded.
Gemma frowned. Then signaled some more.
1,2 1,5 3,2 2,4 1,5 5,1 1,5
Then she added her question shrug and gave Haworth a pointed look.
Believe?
Did Haworth believe him? Haworth started to nod, but then stopped. He looked away for a moment, his mouth pulling into a ruminant line. Gemma watched as he considered the question. He apparently had believed Verloc, up until Gemma’s question posited that maybe he shouldn’t. He squinted in thought, but eventually he gave her a reluctant nod. Curious, Gemma thought. She started signalling again, but then thought better of it, opting for the sheet rope instead. She rearranged it once more.
Yes, but caveats and her question shrug.
Haworth nodded.
Gemma shrugged again and Haworth pursed his lips, thinking again. Then he signaled.
3,4 3,2 2,4 4,3 4,3 2,4 3,4 3,3
Omission.
Ah. Haworth believed Verloc about the accident, but thought he might be omitting information about it. Things were getting interesting!
Gemma started in on another word when she saw movement through Haworth’s observation window. The nurse was approaching from the far hall to check on them. Haworth saw the look on Gemma’s face and turned to see the nurse checking on Plantagenet too.
Her blanket flaring out like a cape, Gemma spun around to kick her sheet rope under the bed where the nurse wouldn’t see, while Haworth started pacing as if he’d been doing so the whole time. The nurse stopped in front of his window, gave him a cheery wave, which he reciprocated to her apparent delight, and she took a brief note. Gemma could practically see the woman drawing a smiley face on her clipboard. The nurse’s glee dulled when she moved on to Gemma’s window, where Gemma too had taken up pacing, looking like a bored ghost in her blanket. The nurse scribbled a few details and walked on.
Gemma looked back to Haworth’s window and gestured skeptically at the observation window. What the hell was that?
After a beat, Haworth gave her a rakish grin and a wink.
“Oh my gooood,” Gemma said, rolling her whole head exaggeratedly. These nurses were absolute fools to fall for that. Haworth stood on his side of the glass, chuckling silently at Gemma’s dramatic reaction. Gemma flashed two fingers with the flat of her hand to Haworth (as opposed to the other way which indicated they were speaking about Verloc) and then pointed at his patient board. We’ll see what she thinks in two days.
Haworth stopped laughing, considered, and nodded sheepishly. Then he started laughing again as he settled back in at his table to wait, as it was almost shower time.
As first on the cell block and a lady besides, Gemma always got to go first and she was looking forward to it as she felt sticky and gross from being under her blanket all day.
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