The Newcomers
By Numbers 28, 36, and 43 (AKA Princess Cora, Lennon Star Glitter McCartney, and Sir Captain Delyon [in that order])
A/N: This is actually a fanfiction for the 60's TV series The Prisoner, but ff.net doesn't have a category for that. Anyway, this first chapter is written by No. 43.
Chapter 1
Flight 743 to Bucharest began to approach the coast of Europe. Inside it, amid the groups of people on business trips, attendants and tourists, were three teenage passengers; a girl with dark eyes and hair, another girl with sandy-blonde hair and blue eyes, and a boy with sandy-blond hair and blue eyes. They were looking out of the windows and chatting.
"I did a research paper on Bucharest last year," said the boy. "I wonder what it'll be like."
"Same," said the blonde girl. The dark-haired girl giggled and said, "I won't have to do any homework there!"
An attendant who seemed to have had the basic human decency sucked out of him came up to the group.
"Whaddaya want, kids?" he asked in the tone of a grumpy old man who hates youth and can't wait until they're all grumpy old men and they can talk about Tommy Someone and Jimmy Someone Else who they knew in the war.
The boy requested a small Sprite. The girls were looking out of the window.
"Whaddaya want, already?" the man repeated.
They continued to look out the window.
"I want to go there!" said the blonde girl.
"Me too! Looks like a really cool place! Hey Caleb!" the dark-haired one called.
"What is it?" Caleb (for that is the boy's name) replied, turning to face the window. "Cool!"
He saw an island, seemingly a kind of seaside resort. "I've never seen that place… or heard of it, for that matter. I've seen a few maps and aerial photos of this area, but that place…"
"Come off it, Caleb, it's just a hotel or something. They probably wouldn't show it on photos," AnneMarie (the dark-haired girl) told him.
"I'm a busy man, kids!" yelled the attendant. People reading newspapers began to stare at him.
AnneMarie and Katy (the blonde) requested bags of corn chips. The attendant went away and the teenagers continued to chat for the rest of the flight.
Upon arriving at the hotel in Bucharest, AnneMarie, Katy, and Caleb were exceedingly tired. They walked up to check in, not noticing a sinister-looking black car pull up near the hotel.
"Your rooms are on the second floor…" The clerk explained the location of their rooms and gave them their keys while a man in black wearing a top hat came out of the car and walked into the hotel, surreptitiously spying on the young adults.
Katy walked up to Room 2A, walked in, and started to unpack. That's strange, she thought. I could have sworn that man was just following me. She continued to unpack and thought nothing of being followed until a white gas filled her room…
AnneMarie was in room 2B, too tired to unpack. She was about to get into bed and rest when she heard, or thought she heard, someone walking up to 2A, Katy's room. I'm imagining things, she thought. I must be more tired than I thought… She did not require the gas coming through her keyhole to go soundly asleep…
Caleb, thinking to himself about the "hotel" he had seen out the plane window, began to unpack. His room was 2C. He would have preferred 2Q, naturally… He heard footsteps pacing around the hall and walked towards the door. A foolish thing to do, since as soon as he did, he saw some sort of gas entering his room through the keyhole and fell, unconscious, to the ground…
AnneMarie woke up as tired as she had gone to sleep. Sun was streaming in through her window, although the curtain was pulled down. She decided to open it to get a look at Bucharest in the daytime… She pulled up the curtain and gave a start. It was not Bucharest at all that greeted her through the window but the "hotel" she remembered seeing from the plane. She looked around the hotel room. It was identical to the one she had gone to sleep in. How on Earth did she get here? She kept wondering to herself until the hotel phone rang…
Katy woke up, confused. Hadn't some kind of gas come through her door? Oh, well. It must have been simply a dream. She rolled over in bed and noticed a small card on her nightstand that she had not noticed last night. "Welcome to your home from home," it stated in an unusual font. She sat up, wondering. Had the card been there the entire time? That seemed to be the logical conclusion until she happened to glance out the window…
Caleb opened his eyes and immediately wondered what he was doing on the floor. He got up, brushed himself off, and then remembered the strange occurrence of last night. He put himself on his guard and looked through his belongings to see if anything had been taken. Everything had been. He opened his closet and found a new jacket, black with white trim. That's odd, he thought. Why would someone take the trouble to steal my stuff and leave me a new jacket? He decided to go and report it to the hotel officials when he too looked out the window and was shocked by seeing the "resort" that AnneMarie and Katy had been staring at yesterday. He went into a panic and looked wildly around for no apparent reason before calming himself down and beginning to think logically. What could he do? Could he get back to Bucharest? Could he… His phone rang. He walked over and picked it up.
"Ah, I trust you enjoyed your journey?" a male voice came from the phone.
"Who is this?" Caleb shot back.
"I can understand your distress," the voice replied. "Come and see me. Number Two. The Green Dome."
Caleb walked out of his little suite (directly outside, there was no rest of the hotel surrounding it) and began to walk around looking for this Green Dome. Soon he was relieved to see Katy walking up to him.
"Caleb!" she called.
"Katy?" he replied. "Do you know where we are?"
"No."
"I got a phone call asking me to come to some 'Green Dome.'"
"Same."
"Do you know where it is?"
"No, but there are some people over there. Let's go ask them."
The two walked over to a group of people sitting on a small cliff overlooking a beach.
"Excuse me, sir," Katy called to a bearded man. "Could you tell me where the Green Dome is?"
"You're new here, aren't you?" the man asked distastefully. "And you're children."
"That's not our fault, sir," Caleb retorted. "At the moment, we happen to be very confused children, and we'd like to know where the Green Dome is."
"All right," said the man. He directed them to the Green Dome at the top of a hill. Caleb and Katy walked up and knocked on the door. A short man in black, apparently a butler, opened it and showed them to an automatic metal sliding door. It opened and the two walked in.
"Welcome," said a voice from the center of the room. There was a spherical chair with its back towards the two. "I see you've made it. Your friend Number 28 is already here." AnneMarie, seated in a faux leather chair, waved.
"Number 28?" Caleb asked incredulously. "She's AnneMarie! You think you can…"
"Calm down, calm down," said the voice from the chair. It rotated, showing a clean-shaven blond-haired man sitting in it. "In this place, everyone is known as a number. I am Number Two. She is Number 28. You," and here he looked at Caleb, "are Number 43, and your friend here," he gestured at Katy, "is Number 36."
"Before my name is taken away and a mathematical expression put in its place," Caleb said coldly, "I would very much like to know what I'm doing here. Why have you abducted us? Please explain, Number Two," he said in mock respect.
"This place is called the Village," Number Two told Number 43 (for from this point on Caleb will be referred to as No. 43, Katy as No. 36, and AnneMarie as No. 28). "We take people here to learn from them, mostly. There was one here once who had resigned from a secret agency. We wanted to know why."
"What do you want to learn from us?" asked No. 36.
"Nothing. That is not why you are here. Some, and this includes you, are taken here because they know too much."
"What is it we know that is 'too much?'" asked No. 28.
"The whereabouts of the Village. We can't have people telling others about 'this cool hotel we saw out the plane window on the way to Bucharest.'"
"If we signed an agreement stating that we would not give anyone the information about this place," asked No. 43, "will you release us?"
"I'm afraid that wouldn't work," replied No. 2. "You see, promises can be broken. For the time being, we are not letting you go. Are there any other questions?"
"Many," said No. 43 icily. "But not for you at the moment. We know the general location of this place, yes. But that does not mean we may be held by you. We may not be given numbers, indexed in a database of people who know too much, then put in a prison, interrogated and be expected to behave within the community's norms. World law prevents this, Number Two. Our lives are our own."
He left the building, followed by Nos. 36 and 28.