Chapter 12

The next morning Natalie is up, showered, and ready to go before the clock on her tablet has turned to 6 AM. She starts a new diary entry for Day 3 of their time at The Center.

Around 10 AM, according to the clock on her tablet, the locks on her door click open. She gets off the bed in time to see Emily standing there, fully dressed, with tears in her eyes.

“No. No. Not you too!” Natalie says and begins to cry.

Emily crosses the distance between them and takes the younger girl in her arms.

“Shush. It’s Ok. It is really Ok.” Emily says holding her sister tight.

Natalie, seeing The Controller standing at the door, lets go of Emily and walks over to the man with her fists balled. She starts to hit him as hard as she can and his moves his arms up to protect himself.

“You can’t take her!” Natalie screams at him “You can’t take her! I will be all alone!”

Emily grabs Natalie from behind and pulls her away from The Controller.

Natalie feels the older girl pull her down onto the bed.

“It’s Ok Natalie. I promise. Just give him a chance to explain.” Emily says with her voice cracking a little.

Natalie cries for a moment or two more, her head buried in her hands, and then, when she is finished, she puts one arm around her older sister and rests her head on her shoulder.

“Go ahead,” she says to The Controller, “Tell me why I have to be alone.”

The Controller comes into the room and leans against the wall. He doesn’t meet Natalie’s eyes and he actually looks a little sad.

“Emily is going to California. There is a actor out there, TV and movies, who is gay. He doesn’t want people to know that, thinking that they won’t want to watch him anymore. So, he wants a wife. Emily is going to be that for him.”

“So, she is getting married?” Natalie asks.

“Technically. But since he is gay, the relationship will never be consummated. They will be together for three years, and then divorce. Emily will get paid $500,000 a year, plus a $500,000 bonus at the end. Then, she is free to do whatever she wants.”

“Won’t people we know see her? Wont they recognize her?”

“No. She is going to modified like your parents. Nothing major, but enough to change her appearance so she can’t be recognized.”

Emily squeezes Natalie a little closer.

“You are missing the bigger picture. Once I am done, I am free to do what I want. Like move back here. Or close to here,” Emily says hugging her sister again, “And he said he is going to give you a computer so that we can video chat. That will be good, right?”

“A computer? Great. So, I stay here? Or do I get sold to some rich fucker who makes me his wife?”

The Controller looks over at her. His face is expressionless.

“We will discuss that this afternoon. After Emily leaves. We have a lot to talk about. I will give you a few minutes to say goodbye.”

The Controller leaves and two sisters embrace once again. They cry, and talk, and then cry again.

Finally, the man sticks his head in.

“Time to go Emily.”

Emily, kissing Natalie on the head, gets up and walks out of the room crying once again. She stops outside the door, turns, and waves. Natalie waves back

The door shuts and locks.

Natalie lays face down on the bed and goes back to crying. Duke hops up on the bed and lays next to her. She buries her face in his fur.

When the crying finally stops, Natalie rolls over and looks at the blank white ceiling.

“All alone. Except for you,” she says to the dog. Duke just looks at her.

“I guess I should eat.”

Natalie gets up and goes to her MRE stash, but she isn’t very hungry. She opens up a can of soup, heats it on the stove, and then eats, barely tasting it.

She sits just waiting for The Controller to come.

Eventually she hears the locks open and she stands up. He walks in carrying a bag.

“Please put these on while I take Duke. Come on boy.”

The Controller takes the dog, leaves. He doesn’t close the door. Natalie opens the bag to find a red t-shirt, jeans, socks, and shoes. There is even a pair of white cotton panties.

She gets dressed and sits on the bed to wait.

The Controller comes back and walks in.

“You didn’t lock the door. You didn’t even close it.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s Ok Natalie. There won’t be any more locked doors from now on. Come with me.”

She walks out in the corridor and he motions for her to follow. Instead of heading for the Sex Rooms, he walks her to the left and deeper into the complex.

“You didn’t give me a blindfold.”

“No more blindfolds,” he says over his shoulder.

They walk down several hallways before they come to a room with two double doors standing open. The Controller walks inside, and Natalie follows.

It is a conference room with a long shiny wooden table and expensive looking office chairs around it. At one end of the room is a large screen with speakers mounted in the walls above it.

Two of the chairs are pulled out and at each one has a plate with a sandwich, chips, and a pickle. A can of soda, for each of them, sit next to the plate. A stack of bottled water, with a bucket of ice and cups, sits in the middle of the table.

There is a laptop computer next to one of the chairs.

“Take this seat, “he says guiding her into the one without the laptop.

She sits down and looks at the food. She isn’t really hungry, but it does look good.

He sits down behind his own plate and picks up the sandwich.

“Eat. Afterwards we will go over everything.”

Natalie picks at her food, eating most of the chips, the pickle, and half of the sandwich. When she is done, she leans back in the chair and looks at him.

“So, is this where you bring people to tell them where they are going to be sold.”

The Controller, pushing his plate away, looks at her and sighs.

“I am sorry Natalie. I am sorry about your family. But maybe, if you listen to me, we can make some of this right. Or, at least, less painful.”

Just then there is knock at the door. Natalie looks over to see Tabitha, dressed in all black but with her mask off, standing at the door.

“What the fuck?” Natalie says looking at the girl, “I thought you left! You’re the assistant!”

Tabitha ignores her.

“Did you get Emily to the plane?” The Controller asks.

“Yes, “Tabitha says, “Safe and sound. She is on her way.”

“Good. Please leave us. I will come find you after we are done.”

The redheaded girl looks at Natalie and then leaves without another word.

“So, she was what? Bait? She was working with you this whole time.”

“Natalie, I know you are upset. You have a right to be. But please, let me show you this presentation and it will explain a lot.”

Natalie, her patience wearing thin and full of emotions she can barely control, flips him off and leans over and smacks him as hard as she can.

“Ok,” The Controller says rubbing his cheek, “I deserve that.”

There is silence between them for a minute.

“So. Show me.” Natalie finally says gesturing to the laptop.

The Controller opens the laptop and pushes a button on the table. The screen at the end of the room comes on and a picture of three-floored underground building shows on the screen. It is labeled “The Center”.

“You already know we are in Colorado. We are actually located about an hour outside of Colorado Springs. You have only seen the top floor of the building. The dormitory’s, the holding rooms, and the experimentation rooms.”

“Experimentation rooms? You mean the Sex Rooms. The places you forced us to have sex.”

“Yes. The two floors underneath this contain research labs and storage areas.”

He clicks the keyboard and a map replaces the building. There is a star west of Colorado Springs.

“This facility was originally built for the military. They were going to test some sort of weapons, I don’t know exactly what, out here where no one lives I guess they thought it would be safer. The only people around us for thirty miles are ranchers and they don’t trespass on our land.”

He taps the button on the laptop and the screen shows 10-foot high fencing running along a clear land boundary. There are signs reading “Electrified Fencing”.

“The military never took delivery of this place. Once it was built the people who run our organization bought the place and then had the records erased from the military’s inventory. They renamed it The Center. There are no records this place exists.”

“So, who are these people?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know any names of faces or any other information. In fact, the first time I ever really met one that gave me a name was when Sheik Abdul came here for Kathy. Or, Bunny, I guess. And I am not even sure if he is a real Sheik or if his name is even Abdul. That is just what they told me to call him. I have conference calls with them. Some of them. Every other day.”

Natalie looks hard at The Controller. She believes him, despite her bitter feelings and pain.

“They are like some sort of secret society?”

“Yes. Very wealthy. Tremendously so I imagine if they can afford to have done all this.”

“What is all this?”

The Controller sighs and clicks to the next slide. It is a picture of over 100 people, taken outside, all in lab coats gathered in a group and smiling. The Controller, looking much younger, stands in the middle.

“Ten years ago, I was contacted by a recruiter. My background is in biochemical engineering and I was working in lab in North Carolina. The recruiter told me that he had a job offer for me. He said it was an advanced private lab and that I would have to work in total secrecy with no contact with the outside world for at least three years. But that I would be paid over $1,000,000 a year and be part of the groundbreaking research that would change the world. Who could pass that up?”

The Controller takes a sip of his soda and then continues.

“My parents died when I was young. I had no other family. I didn’t have a boyfriend. And the money was good. Very good. So, I agreed. A few weeks later I was here, along with that group of people you see there. All scientists like me. Biologists. Chemists. Computer engineers. All, as we later found out, with few or no real relatives or connections. Disposable people.”

He clicks to the next slide. It shows groups of scientists working in a lab.

“We worked in groups of ten and were forbidden from talking with anyone in the other groups about our projects. I was part of the team that worked on compound 2. The gas. We were told that our research was to help the government plan for long-term space missions, but that didn’t make any sense. We were working on drugs to amplify hormones and super-charge arousal. Chemicals that could change DNA. What use is that in space?”

He clicks the button again and a picture of a robot that looks like a four-legged crab fills the screen.

“Well, the nanotechnology project has space applications, but again no one knew what any other team was working on. We didn’t ask questions. We had good food, good pay, and the best and most advanced equipment money could buy.”

“What happened then?”

“We succeeded. Well, there was some help from outside. Documents and research from outside labs, that I guess they bought as well, helped us a lot. Compound 3 was developed first, so they put the people working on that onto other teams. Then compound 1. Then 5. Then, in quick order, all of them. The nano-tech team actually finished ahead of us, but we didn’t know that until the end. Finally, everything was done, except for the actual human trials”

“When did those start? Who was in them?”

“We were. See we had a big party to celebrate finishing everything. I guess I got a little bit too drunk. I remember going back to my room, laying down on my bed, and closing my eyes. The next thing I remember is being tied down to a gurney and shoved into a modified MRI machine.”

“To do what?”

“Reprogram people. Hypnosis. Flashing lights. Sounds. The whole nine yards.”

“And that gave you your powers?”