The Island: The Real Story
(note: Life doesn't always get wrapped up in neat little epilogues; neither does this story. This picks up after Chapter 2 of 'The Island' and continues the story from there.)
Chapter Three
'The Island' - Cell #4 - 4/19/89 - 7:00am
"Sommers! Up and at 'em! We're taking a walk."
Jaime rolled over, stretched and looked up at the two guards standing outside her cell. In addition to a gun in each man's belt, they each held a taser in their hand.
"Go to hell," she snarled at them. She could hear the ominous buzz that told her the tasers were on and ready. "You do whatever you gotta do to me. I'm not going with you." Jaime rolled over on the paper-thin mattress and faced the wall, her back to the guards.
"See, that's where you're wrong," one of them told her. "It's not you we're gonna hurt. Get Goldman out here," he barked to his partner.
"No!" Jaime immediately sat bolt-upright and sprang to her feet. "Leave him alone. I'm coming," she said, conceding defeat. She knew if one of her bionic power sources took a bolt from the taser it would probably kill her, but she couldn't allow them to hurt the man who had never been anything but kind (and, yes, loving) to her.
One guard walked in front of her, leading the way, and the other walked behind, the taser in direct contact with Jaime's back. Oscar sat with his head leaning back against the metal wall, resigned to his own fate but terrified for Jaime. She had gone through resistance training - against hypnosis, interrogation and various ugly forms of persuasion - at the OSI, but he feared for her spirit, her mind and her very life up against the barbarians who now had her in their grasp.
'The Island' - Chris's Apt. - 4/19/89 - 7:30am
The guards took Jaime up two flights of stairs and down a brightly-lit hallway that looked more like an apartment building than a prison. They stopped in front of an open door, roughly shoved her inside and then closed and double-locked the door. Apartments don't lock from the outside, she noted to herself.
The person who used to be Chris Williams was seated at a table next to a sunny window. She knew now that some basic part of him had been altered or eliminated. Her Chris would've been ballistic over her rough treatment by the guards. This Chris merely smiled warmly at her.
"Good morning!" He was way too cheerful. "You hungry?" he asked Jaime. "Got all your favorites here: Belgian waffles, two kinds of fresh berries, real whipped cream." Jaime looked longingly at the food for a moment. It was a far cry from the hard roll and water that had been shoved into her cell that morning. "It can really be quite nice here, Jaime," Chris told her. "Every need, every want taken care of. No worries, no danger -"
That did it. "Have you completely lost your mind?" Jaime was furious, and frightened. "Are you even in there anymore? No danger? Was that an imaginary taser I just had jabbing me in the back on the way up here? Toy guns they're carrying? No worries? How about one of my dearest friends in the world locked in a cell, his life threatened if I don't cooperate? I'd break this window and run right now, except they'd still have Oscar!"
"Jaime," Chris said calmly, " you just need to get used to life here. I promise, it's not -"
"Shut up!" Jaime punctuated this by throwing dishes, food and then the table itself across the room, creating an unbelievable mess and an even worse racket.
The door flew open and the guards were instantly upon her. She was zapped with the taser and, before she could recover from the jolt, injected with the contents of a very large syringe. Chris stood over where she'd fallen to the ground. As Jaime's world began to buck and spin wildly, he simply shook his head.
"Jaime, don't be stupid. It doesn't have to be this way." The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was her former lover, smiling down at her injured, prone body.