The Prisoner of Cell 25 (29 page)

“You may use my pen.” Hatch held out to me a beautiful, goldplated pen inset with rubies. I read the statement again, then signed beneath it. I pushed the document back to him with the pen.

“Keep the pen,” he said. “A memento of a very special occasion.”

He leaned back and examined the document. 

“‘I, Michael Vey, hereby enroll and subscribe as a full member of the Elgen Academy and I promise to do whatever is required of me to promote and advance the academy’s work, mission, and objectives as long as my services are required.’ That’s quite a commitment you’ve just made.”

He set it back down and looked into my eyes. “Quite a promise. Unfortunately, promises are broken all the time. Like you, I need some proof. I need to see what’s behind your commitment.”

“What proof would you have?” I asked, using his words back at him.

“Simple. We’re going to take a little test. Fortunately, unlike Mr. Poulsen’s biology class, this is one you don’t have to study for.” He stood and walked around his desk. “This way, please.”

I followed him out of his office. The guards saluted him, then fell back to my side, Nichelle trailing behind all of us. My mind was reeling. What kind of test would this be?

We went to the service elevator near the back of the building and all five of us entered. One of the guards pushed the button for D. I frowned. We were going back down to the level where I had found Taylor. The elevator stopped and the door opened. Hatch stepped out and I followed him. We walked down the hall to the end of the corridor, past the cell with Ian and the girls. We turned left, then left again, and walked on to a metal door at the end of the hall. There was another guard standing by the door and he pulled open the door as we approached, exposing a long, cavernous room with bare white walls. I followed Hatch inside.

In the center of the room was a chair bolted to the floor with a man in an orange GP jumpsuit sitting in it. The man’s arms and legs were clamped to the chair by metal straps, like an electric chair, and a metal brace circled around his neck below his electric vocal collar, holding him erect. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. The man in the chair had a hood over his head that fell to his chin.

“So, Michael, you’ve told me that you’re now one of us and you’ve promised, as a full member of the academy, to do whatever is required to promote and advance the cause of our revolution. Here’s your opportunity to show me that you mean what you say.” He gestured toward the man. “Here’s your test.”

I looked at the man, then back at Hatch. “I don’t understand. What’s my test?”

Hatch walked up to the bound man and pulled off his hood. The man in the chair was not a man at all—it was Wade. “Simple, Michael. Electrocute him.”

I looked at Wade as his eyes grew wide with fright. Suddenly he screamed out, “Please, no!” His outburst was followed by a scream of pain as blue-yellow electricity arced from his collar. Hatch shook his head in disgust. “Unless he decides to do it to himself.”

I stared at Hatch, blinking like crazy. “How does killing Wade advance the work of the academy?”

“That is not yours to question,” he said. “You committed to obey, now do as you’re told. As you promised.”

“I won’t do it,” I said.

Hatch sighed. “Michael, let me explain this better,” he said, motioning to a large screen that hung down from the corner of the room like a stalactite. “Clark, turn on the monitor please. Set it to channel 788.” The guard pushed several buttons and the monitor lit up.

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.” 

45. 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, hydraulic 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 temperature 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 sledgehammer. I believed it. After several days of the sound my head felt like it might explode.

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.