“What are we going to do now?”
Sam was despondent over a situation she had no control of. When she did not answer, he hoped she might be busy making escape plans. He hoped she knew another secret tunnel or a way out of this creepy copper mine. However, her mind was on other things. She was deep in thought reminiscing about a happier time when she and Amina Green were in the tree house together. It was there that they made a solemn blood sister promise to look after and protect each other for all time. They were going to be spirit sisters until the end.
When Amina did not come to the tree house that fateful evening so many months ago, the bond between them thickened. It was time for Sam to step up to the plate and keep a promise. She was not allowed to join the search party for Amina at night but spent days walking through Twin Rivers showing Amina’s picture to hundreds of people. She dared to walk through scary alleys calling out her name. Nobody knew what happened to her.
A month later, the official search was called off. However, for Sam and a promise, the search never ended. She understood that there was no way of finding her in this world so she would search in another world. For weeks after, she sat in her tree house trying to hear through the ethereal Amina’s voice calling for help and saying where she was. Her obsession with Tarot Cards never yielded results but she refused to give up. Now, when hearing Amina’s voice coming through Gary’s strange contraption, determination to keep a promise strengthened.
The Tarot Card reading, the crystal ball and the praying had only yielded capture and imprisonment in the copper mine that she had promised her dad she would never go near. Her thought was now of another promise, the one her dad made to her, a promise to always be there for her in time of need. As she was now realizing, some promises are from the heart and can never be fulfilled. Her promise to protect her blood sister and her dad’s promise to be there for her turned out to be as substantial as a soft morning breeze. Sam was not in a good place, physically or emotionally.
Gary was no better off. As he sat beside her, he too grew despondent over their imprisonment. It was so much easier to escape from impossible situations when only imagining them. He could jump incredible heights over fences and charge through a burning building. He could fly through the air and lift a bus off a child but here, in the cruelty of the real world he could not even open a door. His world of pretend and imagination was a much safer and better place to be than here. Little did he suspect what was about to happen to them was something his fanciful imagination could never conjure up.
Suddenly the door flew open and both were jolted out of their dejected thoughts. A burly guard stood in the doorway practically taking up the whole area. Gary hoped that he was not as mean as he looked. With both kids looking up at him, he snarled,
“On your feet munchkins, the boss wants to see you.”
Once again, as if they were dangerous criminals, three guards escorted them through a maze of endless tunnels. The guards never said a word to them, marching silently with determined steps. However, Gary was not silent. He pestered them with endless questions about where they were, where are they going, what was going to happen to them? Their only response was silence. Sam however had one word for him.
“Shut-up.”
Demetri Warric was in a good mood. Sitting at his desk he mentally played with the stacks of money he was going to get for only killing the Doctor whom he hated anyway and two pesky children. All three were easy kills. The hard part might be to convince the children to reveal how the hell they managed to break into this secure compound. It was something he had to know. His funding depended on it. He was not as concerned for the breach as the pompous accountant was, for after all they were only children. What harm could they possibly do?
He thought it might be better to question them in a relaxed surrounding. When the door opened and they were marched in, he indicated for the guard to walk them over to the couch. After they sat, both watched as Warric sat across from them in a lounger. Looking at them, he tried his best to project a kind and caring expression. Gary fell for the ploy while Sam looked straight through the mask and saw only an evil man. Forcing a smile, Warric did his best to relate to them. He asked,
“Are you hungry?”
At the thought of a cheese burger, Gary’s eyes lit up. Though famished, Sam stayed frozen in her distrustful scowl.
Although there was no response to the offer, Warric looked past the children to one of the three guards at the door and said,
“Run over to the cafeteria and get these children something to eat.”
At a loss, the guard expressed confusion. It would have been a lot easier if he was ordered to kill them. He had no idea what to bring back. Not knowing what to do, he simply shrugged his shoulders. Warric then looked to Gary and asked,
“What would you like, cookies, pie, ice cream?”
Gary’s answer echoed both excitement and simplicity.
“Yes.”
Sam’s stern eyes looked to the mean man and said,
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
Furious at the delay, it was hard for Warric to fake a pleasant demeanour for this long. He pointed to the other guard and said,
“Escort this young lady to the bathroom.”
In a questioning manner the guard pointed to Warric’s private office bathroom. Understanding the horror of it all, Warric was quick to blurt out,
“No you fool. There must be something out in the hall.”
After Sam was marched out of the office, Gary looked to the nice man and said,
“I have to go to the bathroom too.”
Warric’s pleasant mask fell off to reveal a stern face. He looked to the remaining guard and demanded the same of him, with one addition,
“Make it snappy.”
Exasperated and getting edgier by the minute, Warric sat waiting for the children to return. It was a small wonder that he never bothered to even think about having children of his own. Perhaps the revulsion was compounded by the fact that as hard as he tried, he could never entice a woman into the matrimonial bedroom. The first to return was the guard sent after food. Warric pointed to the coffee table and the large plate was unceremoniously dropped there. He returned to the door and took on a more pleasant task befitting his character as a stern security guard. A few minutes later, both Gary and Sam were escorted back into the office.
Sam sat stoical on the couch staring straight and hard at Warric. Gary snatched up a few cookies as well as the only piece of pie on the platter. Eager to get on with it, Warric directed his speech to the only one not stuffing food into his mouth. He said to Sam,
“Now, as I’m sure you are aware, you two have illegally broken into a restricted and very secure compound. However, I will make you a very generous offer. If you tell me how you did that, I’ll arrange to have both of you home to your parents nice and safe. If you cooperate with me, tell me how you got in, I will not have your parents arrested and jailed.”
Gary was willing to accept the offer and would have told him everything except for one thing, his mouth was full. Sam on the other hand understood that nothing was that simple. Her goal was not escape but rather what she now snapped out,
“Where is my friend?”
Suddenly fearing that another kid was running around somewhere in the facility, Warric thought another problem had presented itself. He carefully asked,
“Another friend? Is that person here in this compound as well?”
Sam retained her stern façade.
“You know she is. You kidnapped her.”
Still confused but alert to the dangerous possibility, he asked,
“Who did we kidnap?”
“You know who. My friend Amina Green. I know she is here.”
Upon hearing that name and although shocked to an unbelievable level, Warric tried his best to retain a look of innocence.
“But how could you possibly think that?”
Again Sam stayed firm and said,
“I j
ust know okay.”
It was not possible for the whole compound, all the caves, tunnels and the secret crystal cavern to suddenly cave in and collapse around him all at once. It just felt that it had. The sudden collapse of his security system and the possibility of losing his funding was as shocking as sitting on an electric chair when the switch was pulled. Regretfully accepting that this girl knew how to get onto the compound deep into a secure zone and now this, knowing that they had kidnapped a girl and were experimenting on her, he changed tact. Trying not to show shock, he attempted a smile and asked,
“Well, that’s certainly a fanciful accusation isn’t it? What on Earth makes you think we would do something as terrible as that?”
Gary swallowed the last of the cookie and blurted out,
“She told us so.”
Sam understood that it was not entirely true. They were only looking for her because of Amina’s strange voice coming through the computer parts Gary had stolen from here. Warric’s eyes opened wide and his heart started racing. This was serious and needed to be corrected right away.
Warric knew that Amina was deep in the tunnels and experimented on in the synergy enhancement laboratory. There was no way she could have said anything to these kids. She could not communicate anything. That was the whole problem with the experiment, her and the two others had not located the proper synergy to control the crystal frequency. Yet, here were two children telling him that they heard her voice. He had to find how she was able to do that and how the frequency became strong enough to escape the Factory.
It was useless talking to the stern one, so he concentrated on the weaker of the two. Trying to look friendly, he asked Gary a simple question.
“What is your name?”
Gary looked to Sam who was looking at him in a strange way. With stern eyes she was trying to communicate for him to keep his mouth shut. However, he saw no harm in telling the nice man his name and so looked at the platter of cookies and said,
“Gary, my name is Gary Albright.”
“That’s a nice name. Where do you live Gary?”
“On Jasper Street with my grandmother.”
Staying with a sympathetic tone, Warric said,
“You are in a lot of trouble Gary. I think it might be better if you start talking to me right now. Tell me why you think you heard Amina talking to you.”
To Sam, that was a confession that she was really here. He would not be so concerned if she were not here. Not wanting his grandmother to know that he had broken into the Factory, Gary wanted to take advantage of the nice man’s offer to let them get home if they cooperated.
Gary again looked to Sam for advice. Her firm face was still in place and this time she was slowly shaking her head. Not understanding the ‘shut up’ signal, he turned back to Warric and started his bid for freedom.
“She told us she was in someplace really dark but didn’t know where it was.”
Warric drew the obvious conclusion.
“But that doesn’t mean she is here. Why did you come looking for her here?”
Sam suddenly answered that question with a loud and nasty burst.
“Because she communicated to us through computers that came from here. If she could do that then it means there is a connection between this place and her, that’s why.”
It didn’t make sense to Warric that kids could somehow get their hands on high security laboratory computers. Great pains are taken to destroy everything on site associated with the experiment. However, what he did know for sure was that somehow they knew the name of the girl down in the lab who was hooked up to the synergy circuits.
They were attempting to strengthen her brain wave frequency but so far have been unable to transmit that energy beyond even a few feet. Yet, somehow and in some way, Amina was able to project her thoughts almost two miles beyond the lab. Warric needed to know how these two were able to receive her thoughts. Clearly the coveted missing frequency was in the computers stolen from here.
His preferred way of extracting information from prisoners was through torture. In the old days, the better days, it was a proven system. However after the lengthy court cases in the old country and near escape to here, it was a method he had bitterly learned was not acceptable anymore. There were better ways to get information now. One of those ways was in their laboratory down on level seven, where the syringes and drugs were. However, it became clear that at least for now, cookies and donuts seemed to work better than torture and syringes.
Warric took the platter and held it in front of Gary and said,
“Cookie?”
Warric watched the boy shove a cookie into his mouth and tried his best to ignore the crumbs soiling his sofa. He said,
“Gary, I need to know how you managed to get hold of high level security computers from this facility.”
Gary did not understand the ramification of what he was about to reveal. In all innocence and ignorance he told the nice man how his dad gave him some broken and useless computer parts from here. With an accusing expression Warric looked up to the security men standing at the door. Judging from their looks it was clear they now understood the great flaw in their security system.
Sam was still intently staring at Gary trying her best to mentally project ‘shut up’ commands to the tattle tale. Gary, either not seeing the command or ignoring it, continued with his bid for freedom.
“I like to get electronic stuff and solder them together. It doesn’t matter to me if it works or not, I just like doing it. I soldered some old radio and television tubes into a circuit board my dad got from here but I don’t know how we heard the voice through it all.”
Then, as if to protect himself and Sam from harm, as an incentive to hurry up and be released he added,
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was doing a bad thing.”
By the way Warric smiled, Gary was sure that he had been forgiven.
Warric was very careful with what he said next.
“And where is this bundle of old tubes and useless computer parts you invented?”
Gary went into a long story about how Grandma Ruth had shown him all the radio and TV parts in the basement. When the collection of soldered parts got too big for his desk in the bedroom and he was told he couldn’t do it anymore he moved everything up to the attic. Warric patiently sat through the story of how the boy’s grandmother could not walk upstairs and why his secret was safe up there. Warric asked,
And all that equipment is still in your attic?”
“Yes.”
“And you live on Jasper Street?”
“Yes.”
Sam cast frustrated eyes to the ceiling.
That was all Warric wanted to know. His funding had been assured. There was however one good point made by the creepy auditor Otto Schmidt, ‘get more children’. What if these two, or at least one of them had what they were looking for to strengthen the synergy frequency. Obviously Doctor Fran Jorden had acquired a sense of conscience and absconded with the money thereby cutting off their source of special children. What if these two never really heard Amina though this impossible collection of wires and tubes but rather through the special mental ability they were looking for? It was time to find out.
Warric stood, thanked Gary for the information and as promised would now release them. He looked to the guards and said,
“Take these two delightful children to the front gate and drive them home.”
There was suspicious hesitation on all three guards. They knew they could not do that. That all changed when Warric added,
“Perhaps take them through level three and the synergy laboratory.”
All three understood and their concern disappeared. Gary grabbed one more cookie and followed the guards out of the office. Sam was not as pleased as Gary about their release. Something felt terribly wrong.
Chapter 28
Knowing that he would eventually have to repay Deputy Grant Lloyd for the blown contract killing of the Doctor over in Valley N
orth, Rick was desperate to get his hands on some quick cash. As far as the money goes, it did not matter that he was given the wrong address, or so he thought. Fact of the harsh matter was that he had foolishly spent the money before the job was done. He knew of one house alleged to have a lot of cash hidden in it and that was now his destination.
Because of heavy rain and blurred vision through a smeared windshield and it was in the middle of the night, it took longer to drive back to Twin Rivers on the winding highway than usual. Once through town he turned onto Jasper Street and parked across the street from his target. From his truck, he saw that the house was dark, just as he had hoped it would be. It was not Ruth Albright he was concerned about for he knew she was still in the hospital. What concerned him was his kid.
For Rick to inherit the property and the lucrative shopping mall, he would need Gary out of the way as well. However, it was too early to eliminate him. The old lady had to go first making Gary the sole beneficiary. Not knowing that Gary was a prisoner up at the Factory, this late at night he thought he must be sleeping in his bedroom. He knew he had to be stealthy not to wake him up.
After pulling a flashlight from the glove compartment and stuffing the semi-automatic into the back of his belt he once again braved the rain and snuck up the driveway to the back door. At the door he put on his gloves and jimmied the lock. Once in the kitchen he was not sure where to look for hidden cash, he just hoped there was lots of it in the house. To his reasoning, her bedroom was the most logical place to look and so followed the beam of light into her room. Just to make sure that she was still in the hospital he checked the bed. It was still made. Closing the door, he turned on the light and began a hopeful methodical search.
The Factory Page 16