The Prisoner of Cell 25

  Hatch took the remote from the guard and turned to me. “For your amusement, we’ll call this the Mommy Channel.”

  An image materialized on the screen of a frail, beaten-looking woman, huddled in the corner of a cell. It took me a moment to recognize who it was. My heart raced.

  “Mom!”

  She looked up at the screen as if she could hear me.

  “Mom, it’s me, Michael!” I shouted.

  “She can’t hear you,” Hatch said. “Or see you.” He stepped closer to Wade, lightly jostling the remote in his hand. “You have a choice, Michael. I was very clear about that choice. It’s time you learned this important life lesson: you do as you promise or those you love suffer.

  “See the silver box on the far end of the cell? It is connected to this remote in my hand.” He pushed a button on the remote and a light on the silver box began blinking. “I have just armed the capaci-tor. If I push this button right here, it will release about a thousand amps into the cage. Enough to kill your mother.” He looked into my eyes, weighing the effect his words had on me. “Or maybe not. It might just prove remarkably painful. As you know, the human body can be so unpredictable. Whether we discover its lethality is up to you. So, right now, you can punish GP Seven Sixty-Five or punish your mother. It’s your choice.”

  I stood there looking at the screen, my body trembling. Through the corner of my eye I could see Wade shaking as well. “It’s not my choice,” I said. “It’s not my choice to decide who lives or dies.”

  “It might not be a fair choice, but it most certainly is your choice.”

  I just stood there.

  “Michael,” Hatch said gently, “You said you were with us. You signed a binding document that confirmed your commitment. Were you lying to me?”

  “You didn’t say I’d have to kill someone.”

  “No, I didn’t. In fact, I wasn’t specific at all, was I? And that’s the point. I demanded your allegiance, whatever that requires. And right now, this is what your allegiance requires.” He folded his arms at his chest. “Or shall I push the button?”

  I looked down at Wade. Sweat was beading on his forehead and his underarms were soaked through all the way down his sides. I walked to his side, then put my hand on his shoulder. He shuddered at my touch.

  Hatch nodded. “Good choice, Michael. Now give him everything.

  That would be the merciful thing.”

  I looked down. Tears were welling up in Wade’s eyes. I still stood there, frozen.

  After a minute Hatch looked at his watch. “We haven’t all day.

  You have thirty seconds before I make the choice for you. Who will live? A good, loving mother or a juvenile delinquent who will never amount to beans? What would your mother say?”

  Something about what Hatch said resonated through me. I looked back up at the monitor, at my mother lying there alone and scared, then at Hatch, the man who had put her there.

  “What would my mother say?” I said. My eyes narrowed. “My mother would say that she’d rather die than see her son become a murderer.” I took my hand off Wade, then lunged at Hatch. Pain seared through my entire body, buckling my knees. I fell to the ground screaming.

  Hatch took a deep breath to regain his composure. He kicked me, then walked to the door. “Thank you, Nichelle. Buy yourself a new bauble.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  From the doorway Hatch looked back at me. “I’m so disappointed in you, Michael. You are a liar and an oath breaker.” He turned to the guards. “Take him to Cell Twenty-Five. Then have Tara report to my office.” He looked back at me. “Unlike you, Mr. Vey, I don’t break my promises. But I will break you. And here’s my promise. You will never disobey me again. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll beg for the privilege of electrocuting your own mother.” He turned to the guard. “Take him.”

  My heart filled with fear. When Hatch was gone I asked, “What’s Cell Twenty-Five?”

  Nichelle smiled. “Terror.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Cell 25

  Cell 25 was located at the end of the first corridor of the GP prison, the first floor below ground and one floor above level D, where Hatch had taken me for my “test.”

  Even from the outside the cell looked different than the rest. The door was gray-black and broader than the others with a large, hy-draulic latch. There were peculiar hatches and hinges and a panel of flashing lights.

  The guards opened the door with a key, pushed me inside, and the thick, metal door sealed the world shut behind me. The room was completely dark except for my own soft glow. There was no sound but my heart pounding in my ears. I wondered what Nichelle had meant by “terror.” I found out soon enough.

  It was maybe an hour after they’d thrown me in the cell that I was suddenly filled with fear like I had never felt before. Something evil was crawling around in the cell. Even though I couldn’t see it, I was sure of it. Something frightening beyond words. I was so paralyzed with fear I struggled to inhale the dry, hot air. Venomous snakes? Spiders? Thousands of spiders? “What’s in here?” I shouted.

  The room was dead space and there was no sound, not even the trace of an echo from my screaming. Trembling, I reached out and felt the cell wall but there was nothing there, just smooth, warm metal. I couldn’t see or hear anything, but somehow I just knew something was in the room with me.

  “Let me out of here!” I screamed, pounding on the walls. I screamed until I was hoarse. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I probed a corner of the cell with my foot. “It’s nothing,” I told myself.

  ‘There’s nothing’s here.” I slowly slunk down in the corner, my arms huddled around myself. “There’s nothing here,” I repeated over and over.

  I tried to force my mind to think of other things but the fear was too powerful. I began screaming again. Black widow spiders. Crocodiles. No, sharks. Great whites. “No, that’s impossible,” I told myself.

  “I’m not in water.” And yet the absurd was somehow believable.

  What was going on in my head?

  Peculiarly, about an hour after my panic had begun, the feelings vanished as suddenly as they had come, as if I’d suddenly woken from a nightmare. Not all my fear was gone, of course, but the extreme aspect of it had vanished.

  After a few minutes I slowly stood, venturing out of my corner. I felt my way around the cell. There was no bed or even a mat, just a slick concrete floor and a porcelain toilet in one corner of the room.

  I went back to the same corner and sat down again. I wondered how long I would survive.

  The next few days (or what I thought were days, since I was quickly losing track of time) passed in pain and discomfort. The cell’s tem-perature was usually high enough that I was covered with my own sweat, then it would abruptly drop until I was shivering with cold.

  Food, when I got it, was also served sporadically. The food came to me through a hatch door that did not allow light into the cell, as the door on my side only opened after the outer door was sealed. I guessed that my feeding schedule was irregular to throw off my body’s natural sense of timing. The food stunk, literally, and the first time I ate it I spit it out. I don’t know what it was, I couldn’t see it, but the texture and smell reminded me of canned dog food. I was given no water and as I began to thirst I realized that my only option was to drink it from the toilet, which I’m sure was their intent from the beginning.

  In some ways, even worse than the occasional panic attacks, was the sound—a consistent, loud, electronic beep that began shortly after my first panic attack and chirped every thirty seconds without cease. The sound began to occupy my sleep and dreams and eventually became incredibly painful as it filled my every thought. I had read about tortures like this before, like the water torture, where a single drop of water falls consistently on a bound man’s head. They say that after a while the tiny drop begins to feel like a sledgeham-mer. I believed it. After several days of the sound my head felt like it might explode. br />
  What made it even more unbearable was the uncertainty of it all. I was kept in the dark, figuratively as well as literally. Were they ever going to release me? Would it be minutes or days or years? I had no idea. I thought of Hatch’s “promise.” You will never disobey me again.

  By the time I’m done with you, you’ll beg for the privilege of electrocuting your own mother. I wondered if he was right. Could one be so physically and emotionally broken that he no longer cared about anyone or anything except survival? I didn’t want to find out.

  Intermingled with my terror and pain were thoughts of my mother. On the screen she had looked so small and frail. I doubted that she could have survived the shock if Hatch had followed through with his threat. Had he pushed the button or not? The thought of it filled me with both hate and guilt. I wished that he had just killed me instead. Didn’t he say that I was dying anyway?

  I realized that the panic attacks I was having seemed to be on a type of schedule and I wondered if it was possible that Hatch and his scientists had actually perfected a process to generate fear.

  Thirteen meals had passed. (That’s how I kept track of time.) My fear attack had just ended and I lay on the ground, drenched in sweat and trembling. I heard myself mumbling, “I can’t do it anymore. You win, I can’t do it anymore.” I felt the watch on my arm, the one my mother had given me. I couldn’t read the words in the dark but I didn’t have to. I’m sure Hatch had let me keep the watch to keep my mind on my mother. Nothing Hatch did was by accident and it certainly wasn’t out of kindness. I began to cry. “I’m sorry I failed you, Mom.”

  I had lost weight and it felt as if every cell of my body ached. If they meant to break me, they knew exactly what they were doing.

  Of course they did. They were scientists.

  As I lay on the ground, I noticed something very peculiar. In the corner of the room there was a dim light. The metal pipe that ran from the wall to the toilet began to lightly glow, not consistently, but intermittently. It’s happening, I thought. I’m losing my mind.

  I’m hallucinating. I looked away. A moment later I looked back. The pipe was still glowing, though slightly brighter now. I crawled over to the toilet and cautiously put out my hand to touch it. The moment I touched it, it went dark. Then a feeling came over me that cannot be accurately described to anyone who hasn’t felt it. I felt pure peace. It felt as if some power was pulsing through my body, pushing out the fear and hurt and replacing it with perfect tranquility. I felt as comfortable as if I were laying on my own bed at home listening to my music. Even the constant chirp sounded pleasant.

  I let go of the pipe and my pain, exhaustion, and fear instantly returned. I quickly grabbed it again. Maybe I was losing my mind, but if holding on to a toilet pipe could make me feel good, I was going to hold on to that pipe.

  Then I understood. The cell with Taylor, Ian, Abigail, and McKenna was somewhere on the floor below mine. Taylor had said that Abigail could take away pain. Abigail must be touching a pipe that ran between the two cells, conducting her power to me, much the same way I had shocked Cody Applebaum in school detention. But how would she even know I was here?

  She didn’t. Ian did. Ian had probably been watching me all along.

  He knew I was here. Was it possible that he, Abigail, and McKenna were working together to save me? They didn’t even know me. Yet it made sense. McKenna could have made the pipe glow to lead me to it. My eyes watered and I began to cry. It was not the first time since I’d been placed in the cell—but the first time that I had cried for something other than pain. For the first time in days I had hope that I might survive.

  From that point on, whenever things got bad, I went to the pipe and grasped it and immediately the pain ceased. During the “terror sessions” my invisible friends were always waiting. I deduced that Ian must be able to see when and how they were torturing me.

  I was filled with gratitude for my unseen friends and I learned that harboring an emotion as powerful as gratitude has power of its own. My greatest fear was that they might be discovered and moved to a different cell. I knew Hatch and his guards were watching me, so I was discreet in how I held to the pipe. I usually pretended to be throwing up or drinking.

  Actually, their discovery was my second-greatest fear. My greatest fear was that my mother was dead.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Lack of Trust

  I felt as if I’d been in Cell 25 for weeks when I heard the inner tumblings of the lock on the door.

  There was a slide of metal and the door opened and I saw the first light since I’d been incarcerated. As usual I was lying on the ground and I instinctively pushed myself way away from the door, covering my face from the harsh light. “Stay away,” I mumbled.

  Nichelle walked into the cell escorted by two of the guards. “It reeks in here. It smells like the giraffe house at the zoo.” She started laughing. “He smells as bad as Zeus.” One of the guards laughed.

  She took a few more steps toward me and looked down at me.

  “Hatch wants you. Get up.”

  Hatch. His name alone filled me with terror. I rolled over to my knees and elbows and tried to stand but I couldn’t.

  “I said get up!” she shouted.

  “I can’t,” I replied, my forehead pressed to the ground.

  After a moment Nichelle nodded to one of the guards and he walked over to lift me. He stopped before he touched me and looked at Nichelle.

  Nichelle squatted down in front of me. “If you shock him, we’ll keep you in here for the rest of your short, miserable life. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I won’t shock him.”

  “Why would I believe you? You’re a liar.”

  “Liar or not, I can’t stand up.”

  She looked at me for a moment, then said to the guard, “Help him.”

  The guard put his hands under my armpits and easily lifted me.

  When I was on my feet he let go of me and I collapsed back to the ground, crying out with pain. Nichelle rolled her eyes. “Carry him.”

  The guard lifted me again and this time he put his arm around me, carrying more of my weight than I was, as I staggered down the hall to the elevator. As we walked I sucked in the cool air, breathing it in like water. In spite of my pain, I can’t tell you how luxurious it felt.

  In the elevator I noticed Nichelle pushed the D button and I silently groaned. Hatch was back in the dungeon. Another test, I thought. If he asked me again to electrocute Wade would I do it?

  I tried to think of better possibilities. Perhaps I was being reas-signed to the dungeon. Maybe with Ian and the two girls. I wanted to see them badly. I wanted to hug them and thank them. The dungeon would be a Caribbean vacation compared to Cell 25.

  My hope dissipated as we walked past their cell, back to the room at the end of the hall. Back to block H, the room where Wade had been bound and where I had “failed” my test. The room’s light was on and the door was partially open. The guard carried me inside.

  There were three chairs in the room and Taylor and Ostin were strapped into two of them. Please, not them, I thought.

  I don’t know what I looked like. In Cell 25 it was too dark to even see my reflection in the toilet, but, based on Taylor’s reaction, I must have looked pretty awful. She gasped.

  “Michael,” she said.

  “Oh, buddy,” Ostin said. “What have they done to you?”

  “Shut up,” Nichelle said. “Save your pity for yourselves.”

  The guard dropped me in a plastic chair and then fastened my hands and feet with plastic ties. A large plastic belt was drawn around my waist and fastened in back. It was overkill. I couldn’t have even stood up under my own power. Only my tics seemed strong.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” Nichelle said. “No talking.”

  “You’re a toad-face,” Ostin said.

  Nichelle immediately tried to reach him with her powers, forgetting that she had no effect on
him. She walked over and smacked him on the head. “You’re fat.”

  “Yeah, well you’re ugly, and I can lose weight.”

  She sneered and slapped him on the side of the head again.

  “Ow,” Ostin said.

  “Keep your mouth shut, butterball.”

  About five minutes later Hatch walked into the room. He said to me darkly, “I trust your accommodations were to your satisfaction.”

  My head felt like it weighed a ton and I just sat there, staring at my feet.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” he shouted.

  It took effort, but I raised my head and looked into his eyes.

  Hatch wore his dark glasses and a strange-looking helmet. I turned my head to one side and my neck cracked. I looked back at Hatch,

  “What did you do to my mother?”

  “Twenty-six days in Cell Twenty-Five and still defiant. If I wasn’t so disappointed in you I’d be impressed. Be assured that she’s paid dearly for your choices, but she survived the shock, if that’s what you’re getting at. And I’m pleased. I didn’t want to discard my best card yet. Though, as you see, even without her, the deck is stacked in my favor.”

  He turned and looked at Taylor. “Don’t waste your time trying to reboot me, Miss Ridley. You have little enough of it left.” He tapped his helmet. “Those electric waves of yours won’t make it through this very special helmet your sister helped us create.” He smiled at her smugly. “Perhaps you’re wondering how we came up with this.”

  “I don’t care,” Taylor said.

  “You should, it’s quite interesting. When I was in my early twenties I did some work for the NSA—the National Security Agency.

  They’re the smart spies, the ones who break codes for the U.S. mili-tary. The NSA building in Maryland is completely wrapped in copper. It keeps prying spy satellites from listening inside. This helmet employs the same principle.”