Prisoner of Glass (5 page)

This time, she was allowed to sit with several men.
 
They made small talk, exchanged names.
 
But when she tried to ask about the prison, they all clammed up and looked suddenly nervous.
 

“My cellmate told me a few things,” Elspeth whispered, “but I still have no idea why I’m here — or why anyone is here.”

One of the men guffawed.
 
“What cellmate?
 
Nobody here has cellmates.”
 

And with that they all left.

Nobody here has cellmates …

Then who —?

Titus.
 
Titus was an imposter.
 
Titus had lied to her.

Somebody had been in her cell who didn’t belong there.

THE REST OF THE DAY went much the same.
 
She hadn’t finished her quota by supper, which earned her a tongue-lashing, but surprisingly not much more than that.

Then it was night — or what passed for night in this underground (
was
it underground?) facility.

And it seemed the men in the lunch canteen had been right: her supposed cellmate Titus was nowhere to be seen.
 
He’d vanished without a trace.
 

The lights cracked off with a bang.
 
Darkness suffocated her as her eyes adjusted.
 
Then, the films started up — those damn films, going all night at all hours, projected on the circular screens, their soundtracks blaring, blaring, blaring …
 

Sometimes their topic was nature: usually with a ‘red in tooth and claw’ angle, other times it was political re-education material on ‘the role of the citizen in society’.
 

But Elspeth was so exhausted that she fell asleep immediately.

LATE THAT EVENING, Elspeth heard a voice call out from the cell next to hers.

“Hey!
 
Pity puddle!
 
Keep it down!”

It was the new guy next door.
 
Elspeth had seen the guards bring him up and drop off his unconscious carcass earlier in the day.
 
Presently, he was awake and yelling at his neighbor, another new arrival who was sobbing uncontrollably.

“Leave him alone,” Elspeth yelled back.
 
She could never stand a bully.

“Hey.
 
Who asked you, Stretch Armstrong?”

“Just because
you’re
a tough guy doesn’t mean everyone here is.”

“How many Twitter followers do you have?”

“What?”

“How many?”

“Oh that.
 
I don’t do that.” Doctors hate anything that can reach us on our off time.
 
Don’t you people know that?

“Good.
 
That means I have more Twitter followers than you, which is what’s important in life.
 
Now come here and say hello,” the voice said.

Oh, what the hell.
 
Allies in here were bound to be useful, even annoying ones.
 
She rolled of her bed and pressed her face against her bars.
 
Her new neighbor was a middle aged guy with sloppy blonde hair and a paunch.
 
He was still in the tattered remains of his business suit, minus the tie, with his dress shirt untucked.
 

“James.
 
James Card,” he said, slinking a few fingers out.
 
She took them with her own lanky digits and finger-shook.

“Elspeth.
 
Doctor Elspeth Lune.”

“Eh.
 
A doctor.
 
That’s good to know.”
 
He licked his lips and then said, “So what is this place?
 
Where am I?
 
The mother of all drunk tanks?”

“You’re in a prison.”

“Yeah.
 
I can see that.”
 
She shook her head at this Card character.
 
“Well.
 
It’s finally started, then.”
 
When she gave a quizzical expression he said, “The FEMA camps.
 
The Federal Government’s been building them for years.
 
Between that and every branch of the government buying up billions of rounds of ammo — hey.
 
Did you know that even the Post Office is armed to the teeth now?
 
What does the Post Office need with hollow point bullets?”

Elspeth shrugged.
 
“Target practice?”

“Look at this place.
 
Does this look like target practice to you?”

“I dunno.
 
These guys don’t seem like Feds.”

“Of course not.
 
They’re New World Order.
 
You know.
 
NSA spying.
 
Agenda 21.
 
Black helicopters, 9-11 was an inside job.
 
This is it.
 
The end game is here and now they’re rounding people up.
 
Pretty clever, putting the actual FEMA camps underground like this.
 
Just like the Denver Airport, they —”

“No,” Elspeth cut in.
 
“It’s medical.
 
They’re testing out something on us.”
 
She wiggled her pinky, still in denial at the very existence of her digit.

“Medical?” James Card seemed to shrink.
 
That was worse than the New World Order.
 
“Like … what? Germs?”

“How should I know?”

Card suddenly looked like he wanted nothing more than to scrub himself bloody with Purell.
 
“I thought you were a doctor!”

“That doesn’t mean —” She was interrupted by the sound of an iPhone ringing.
 
“Hey.
 
What was that?”

“My alarm,” Card said, fumbling around.
 
“Huh.
 
Weird.
 
If I was home right now, I’d be waking up for a run.”

“
You still have a phone?
 
How’d you manage —”

“Oh.
 
There’s a special compartment in my suit, under the arm.
 
Goddamn TSA, no way I’m going to trust them with this.
 
All my contacts and everything are in here!
 
Anyway … this YouTube guy proved it’s pretty easy to defeat the nudie scanners: all you have to do is keep a gun flat against your body and it looks like bodyfat.
 
I figured, hey if a gun … why not a phone?
 
Of course, when I lose this weight in a few weeks, that won’t work any more …”

Never mind that!
 
“Have you tried calling anybody?”
 

“Yeah,” Card said dejectedly.

“Yeah?
 
What do you mean, yeah?
 
What happened?”

“It was weird.”

“Weird?
 
Like how?”

“I called my brother and he acted like he didn’t know me.”

“But —
you got a signal!
?
 
You were able to make a call?”

“They got to him, or tapped the line and were listening in …”

“Give it to me!” Elspeth demanded.
 
Her long bony fingers clenched the air in front of their cell.
 
“Give me the goddamn phone!”

“What?
 
No!”

“Card, listen to me.
 
It’s not like you have a charger.
 
We have to keep calling people until we reach someone who can help us.
 
If your brother is out, then let me try.”
 
When he still didn’t hand it over she said, “Card!
 
I’m not going to steal your fucking iPhone.”

“Okay … okay.
 
Wait a sec …”
 
He fumbled around.
 
“Uh oh.”

“Uh oh, what?”

“Um … oh, there we go.
 
Thank Odin, Jesus and Aquaman.
 
For a sec, it didn’t look like we had a signal.
 
Here.”
 
He handed her the iPhone.
 
Elspeth’s eyes clung greedily to the one, thin line of bandwidth.
 

She had a connection!
 
Somehow, in the bowels of this prison, a signal had managed to escape.
 
Elspeth punched the numbers in frantically.
 
When the phone rang, she nearly cried aloud in delight.

“Hello?” It was her mother’s voice!
 

“Hi, Mom?” Elspeth said.
 
“It’s me, Mom!
 
I’m okay, I’m not dead!”

Her Mom was silent for a long moment.
 
“Who is this?”

“It’s me!
 
Oh God, Mom, it’s me!
 
Elspeth!
 
I’m okay!
 
But I’m in like … sort of this jail … you have to help me.”
 
But Elspeth’s Mom was not nearly as excited to hear from her or worried as Elspeth had expected.
 
“Mom?
 
Mom.
 
What’s wrong?”

“Who is this?” Her Mom’s tone had suddenly taken a turn for the nasty.

“Mom?”

“I’m not your
Mom
, and you’re not Elspeth!”

That stung.

“Mom.
 
Don’t you recognize my voice?
 
How could you not recognize my voice?
Mom!”

“
Don’t call me that!”
 
The woman’s voice dripped with disgust.
 
“
You’re not my daughter!
 
How DARE you!”

“Why would you say that?
 
Mom …”

“Why?
 
WHY?
 
Because I’m looking at Elspeth right now!”

Elspeth’s hand flew to her mouth to prevent a torrent of sobs from erupting.
 

A voice in the background said,
Mom?
 
Who’s that?

“Listen.
 
I don’t know who you are, or why you would play such a sick joke,” her Mom said.
 
“I guess you’re in prison, and you’re lonely … so you decided to dial for dollars and see if you could get some sympathy.
 
Well, listen!
 
Don’t ever call here again!
 
Do you hear me?
 
Go away!”

Her mother hung up.

Broken, shocked, Elspeth lowered the iPhone from her ear.
 

“What happened?” James asked.
 
“What did she say?”

Elspeth shook her head in shock.
 
“I don’t understand.
 
She … she didn’t believe it was me.”

It took a full moment for this to register with Card.
 
When he’d internalized it, he said, “But … but how can that be?
 
Doesn’t she know you’re missing?
 
Isn’t she worried sick?”

“She said I was already there.
 
She could see me,” Elspeth said, numbly repeating what the voice on the phone had said.
 

“She could …
see
you?” James repeated.
 

“Yes,” Elspeth hissed, hiding her head in her hands.
 
Impulsively, she redialed her mother again — it went to voicemail.
 
“What does that mean?”

“Impostors.
 
Maybe they put impostors in our place, when they grabbed us.
 
Clones.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No.
 
Of course not.
 
Don’t be ridiculous, said the seven foot tall chick in a ridiculous underground prison.
 
Give me my phone back.
 
I tried getting web and email, but can’t get data down here.
 
I’m going to shut it off now.
 
Save what little is left of the battery.”
 
There was only 10% left, according to the phone itself.

“Good idea,” Elspeth mumbled.
 
She was about to hand it back to him when she decided on impulse to first snap several pictures of the hexagon map, being sure to include enough resolution so she could zoom in on anything she desired later on.

Only then did she give him the iPhone.

And with that, she stumbled off to bed.

ELSPETH WOKE with a start.

It was the middle of the night still, she was sure of that.
 
Close to 3:00 AM.
 
Even without a clock, her sense of time was impeccable: she could always wake at any hour and know within a minute exactly what time it was.
 

The Prison was in cacophony.
 
When she reached her bars, she saw that everyone else was already at theirs, hollering and yelling.
 
The howl of the crowd even drowned out the ever-playing movies (this time it was an obscure black-and-white film).
 

The guards had brought an old man out of his cell — a cell very close, Elspeth saw, on the same level as her own and just where the curvature began, giving her a close up view.
 

“No!” the man cried out.
 
“I will not!
 
Not this time, not again!”

“No avoiding it, Milton.” the guard snarled at him.
 
“You know that.”

“I’m not going willingly this time!” Milton yelled.
 
“I will not —!
 
I can not!”
 
Then he turned to the guard, pleaded with him: “Maybe this time they won’t notice me.
 
Maybe they’ll let me go!”

The Prison’s parakeets and parrots were in an uproar as well, squawking and circling, not able to stay still.
 
They seemed to sense danger near the old man and had retreated to the far walls.

“It’s an abomination!
 
It’s not natural!” Milton pleaded again.
 
“You can’t throw me over the edge this time!”
 
His eyes stared at the ground far, far, below.
 
The inner south pole of the Prison was lost in shadow: none knew what awaited down there, but it was certainly not good to land on.