Prisoner of Glass (2 page)

“I think she’s a bit of a loon.”

“Yeah.
 
A bitchy-bitch-faced loon.
 
She pointed out some guy, said he was painted up or something: the guy looked totally normal to me.”

“So she’s an unreliable witness?”

“I’d say so.
 
Nobody’d believe her.”

“Really.”

“Yeah.”

Samuels smiled.
 
“Well this one’s yours, Danny.
 
You’ve earned it.”
 

Danny grinned like a ghoul.
 
“I’ll set it up.”
 

THE PLANE bound for San Francisco sped along the runway.
 
Elspeth gasped, her heart leaping in her chest.
 
She hoped she was wrong about this.
 

Nothing seemed unusual at first.
 
But it was not lifting off, was not, was not,
was not
…
 

It
should
be by now, shouldn’t it?
 
Hadn’t the other planes at about the same spot?

Maybe it was a heavier model, took longer, or something.
 
Maybe it …
 

But it didn’t.
 
The end of the runway came and went and still it didn’t.
 
It just kept going at a breakneck speed, engine screaming and howling along.
 
The sound it made was unnatural, strained.
 
The pilot evidently realized his only chance was to speed up.
 
Speed would increase lift.
 
He couldn’t understand why it didn’t —
impossible
that it didn’t —!

The plane rampaged through the chain link fence and across the roads and storage tanks.
 
Fire erupted from everything it touched.
 
When the plane plowed through several homes and finally came to rest on the bike path on the beach near Scattergood Station, it erupted into a detonation of jet fuel, twisted and wracked aluminum, and plumes of acrid fire.
 

Elspeth heard the explosion and saw the bubbling, inky smoke gushing up from the horizon.
 
She cried in alarm.
 

The painted man appeared once more.
 
He was before her, and this time, he was not smiling.
 
He simply said, “I told you.
 
Heavier than air flying machines cannot fly.
 
They never could.”
 

And then, he was gone.

AGENTS DANNY TRENTON and Fenton Samuels grabbed Doctor Elspeth Lune gruffly and dragged her into the TSA’s back rooms.
 
She was too shocked to think, to react, to resist.
 
First, her husband goes missing and then this —!

They put her in a chair, locked the room and left.

“What do we do?” Danny asked in a panic.
 
“That chick — Jesus!
 
She knew!”

“We escalate.
 
Just like we were trained.”

“But what about —”

“What about what?
 
We didn’t doing anything.
 
She came to us, remember?”

“But we were going to —”

“Yeah, but
we didn’t.
 
We’re good, bro.
 
Make the call.”

Danny nodded, finally calming down.
 
Samuels was right.
 
They hadn’t done anything wrong.
 
He was just about to make the call when the flickering fluorescent hallway was filled with a mob of police and Homeland Security people.
 
They flipped their badges up at Danny.
 
“Where is she?” one of them yelled at him.
 

Danny pointed in panic to the room holding Elspeth.
 
“There!
 
She’s in there!
 
Room 6-A.”

They barely acknowledged Danny as they sped by.
 

He didn’t have time to realize that these people shouldn’t be here: he hadn’t told anyone that he’d detained a suspect.
 

THE DOOR BURST open, and Elspeth jumped in alarm, shattering her usual calm demeanor.
 
In poured five men and two women, all dressed in dark business suits.
 
All were fit and clean cut.
 
Two more men posted guard outside the door as it was shut.

“Elspeth Lune,” one of the men said without preamble.
 
“Do you love your country, Miss Lune?
 
You’re an American citizen, right?”

She nodded.
 
Of course she did.
 
Of course she was.

“And are you now, or have you ever been, associated with any terrorist organization?”

She shook her head mutely, the impossible just now dawning on her.
 
“N - no.
 
Of course not.
 
Do you think I had something to do with —”

“What do you know about the bombing of Flight 1515 bound for San Francisco?”

“Me?
 
Nothing!
 
I tried to warn these guys about it!”

“But
how did you know it was about to happen?
”

Elspeth looked at them mutely.

“Miss Lune.
 
How did you know that the plane was about to explode?”

She snapped into focus.
 
“There was this man.
 
He
told me.
 
He said the plane was going to crash.
 
I tried to report it — ask those guys, those TSA guys who brought me in!
 
They’re just outside the door.”

The Homeland Security people looked at each other doubtfully.
 

But this gave Elspeth the fractional seconds she needed to fully recover her self-possession.
 
She was used to emergencies: she was a Doctor.
 
“Listen,” she snapped.
 
“I had nothing to do with this.
 
Ask those TSA guys, they’ll tell you I tried to help.
 
Am I free to go?”

The Homeland people didn’t answer.

“Am I being detained?
 
Am I free to go?” she repeated.

“Miss Lune.
 
We’re conducting an —”

“I would like to leave.
 
Am I free to go?
 
I am not here voluntarily.
 
Am I being detained?”
 
She knew enough about the law to realize must most people don’t: that you are free to go unless you are specifically informed that you are under arrest.

After a brief conference of murmurs, one of them finally said, “No.
 
You are
not
free to go.”

“In that case, I demand to speak with a lawyer,” Elspeth said forcefully.
 
“This situation has changed, I am now being detained against my will, and as such, I refuse to answer any more questions without the presence of an attorney.
 
I would like to call mine.”
 
She produced her iPhone.

But the iPhone was neatly plucked from her hand by one of the women, who slipped it into her pocket with a tight smile.
 

“You are under suspicion of being a terrorist,” one of the men said.
 
“As such, the National Defense Authorization Act allows us to detain you indefinitely.
 
Your previous rights as a United States citizen no longer apply.
 
In plain English: you don’t get a lawyer.
 
And you don’t leave here until we say so.”

Elspeth fumed.
 
How
dare
they!
 
You couldn’t just vanish a person and their rights like that in America.
 
That was impossible!

“I’m not saying another word.
 
I invoke my Fifth Am--”

“It doesn’t apply to you.
 
I already told you that.”

“I am a free woman!”
she bellowed.
 
“I am a citizen of the United States of America!
 
The Constitution protects my rights!
 
You can’t just magically decide that it doesn’t apply!”

There was another conference of hushed whispers.
 
When it was finished, one of the men faced her squarely.
 
“Miss Lune.
 
Thank you for your cooperation.
 
I think we have what we came for.”
 
He smiled: this time, it was a generous smile, as though she has passed a test of some kind.

Relief flooded through Elspeth.
 
Whatever
.
 
She just wanted to get out of here, for this to be over, to get on with looking for her husband.
 
All of this was a very unneeded annoyance.
 

Her guard was down, which is why one of the women was able to sneak up behind her and cover her mouth with a wet cloth.

She inhaled sharply in surprise — and fumes of some noxious variety flooded her lungs.
 
She recognized the smell as her mind clanged in alarm:
ether
!
 
Instantly, her mind became fog.
 
Her limbs were heavy as if she were on Jupiter.
 
The world tilted.

“She’s a lanky one, isn’t she?” one of the women said.
 
“We might have trouble finding clothes that fit.”

And that was the last thing Doctor Elspeth Lune recalled before warm darkness took her completely.

TWO: ARRIVAL

ELSPETH LUNE OPENED her eyes slowly.
 
The world was a wash of grey.
 
She wasn’t quite sure where she was, but she did not panic: she assumed it was yet another hotel room.
 
As her eyes adjusted, she knew it would all come back to her …
 

And in a stab of panic, it did.

Where —?

She had been with the TSA Agents.
 
They had been questioning her when …

That was the last thing she recalled.

Elspeth sat bolt upright.
 
Her vision snapped into clarity with the force of a punch.
 
She was in a cell of some sort, some kind of a jail.
 
The walls were stone and the air was sharp and cold.
 
She saw her shuddering breath in puffs of vapor.
 

There was noise — a lot of noise.
 
Something playing on a loudspeaker or bullhorn … she couldn’t make it out.

She looked down at her lanky body.
 
She was not wearing her own clothes.
 
Instead, she was wearing ragged burlap or canvas pants, tied at the waist.
 
She wore a long sleeve shirt made of the same material, drab blue in color.

Someone had changed her clothes!
 

Had she been raped?

A quick check reassured her.
 
No.
 
That, at least, had not happened.

She was on a bed, a rough metal bed with squeaky springs and an old mattress.
 
Brown wool blankets laid on it.
 
She snatched one up and threw it around her shoulders to contain her shivering.
 

A slap of adrenalin caused her mind to focus.
 
Her physician’s training took over.
 
She was used to emergencies.
 
She could function even if part of her wanted to scream.

With the cold clinical detachment of a triage, she observed her surroundings.

A toilet in the dark corner.
 
A desk and chair.
 
Two beds on either side of the room.
 
A game — chess? — Something like chess on a table.
 
The place was Spartan, but relatively clean.
 
And stone ceilings, stone walls, she was as enclosed in stone as a sarcophagus.
 
Scrawling of all sort on the walls in multi-colored chalk or marker — but she read none of it yet.
 

And bars — vertical black bars on the front of her cell instead of a wall.
 
So.
 
A prison or holding pen of some sort.
 

And beyond those bars …
 

She rose to her feet and went to look out.
 
A gash of fear flooded in her belly.

Her cell was one of many lining the inside of a massive sphere.
 

A vast open space yawned in front of her, like being on the inside of a hollowed out moon.
 
There were walkways at each level, circling around the circumference of this strange prison like lines of latitude articulated in granite.
 

In the center of this hollowed-out sphere was a massive black cylinder.
 
It was supported from above and below with black metal column that ran through it like a rotational axis.
 
There were lights on inside the cylinder, she could see that clearly.
 

There was someone home.

At various points on this central structure, several massive circular screens were attached, each pointed and angled in different ways such that all the cells of this prison could get a view that worked for them.
 
The same movie played on each.
 
It seemed to be a nature film: there was cut after cut of exotic insects crawling and then eating each other, then birds and lizards eating the insects.
 

The soundtrack to this film — music, mostly, with a man’s voice matter-of-factly describing something — blared out of loudspeakers.
 
She couldn’t tell exactly what he was saying, his voice was muffled and echoed to the point of inscrutability.

Thrumming shook her temples.
 
Where was she?
 
What was this?

The place had the electricity of a sports arena.
 
Random howling punctuated the dark — she pictured madmen in straightjackets.