Hello guys! It's coming down to finals for me so very soon I'll have oodles of time to write, but until then we'll see what I can squeeze in. Most of you have guessed what's wrong with Max so congrats (if I'm mean she'll just turn out to have a case of stress related ulcers!). If you read the second paragraph closely you'll get a real big clue as to what's going on. That's all I'm gonna say. Thank you everyone for the great reviews. Peace- SilverRain
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There are four hundred and sixty two tiles on the ceiling. Four hundred and forty seven of those tiles are pale blue, and fifteen of them are pale pea-green. Day two of my captivity and I'm already going stir crazy. Four times some tall burly guy has escorted me into a room with white walls. Four times a creepy Hispanic guy that some how still seems to remind me of my old high school guidance counselor has grilled me about my family and friends and school. I want to go home. I want my mom, and my friend Laine from boarding school, and one of Rose's strawberry rhubarb pies. Most of all I really want my computer back. Although at this point I'm so bored that I'd settle for one of Rose's cheesy romance novels. I'm scared too, as soon as I'd learned to use a computer I had looked up all of the files relating to my father's disappearance. I've seen what these monsters do to the people that get in their way, and I'm afraid that I might have to start talking soon to save my own life.
The bars on my door rattle and the scarred woman brings my evening meal. Like so many things on this island, the scarred woman is a mystery. Her body is muscular in an almost mannish way, and her face is plain and framed by short cropped brown hair. Her real identifying mark though are the lesions that cut across the visible parts of her body. Medicine has always been my second love, just behind computers. If I were to guess I'd say that she has some kind of ectodermal dysplasia, a kind of genetic disease that makes people very vulnerable to the sun. The mystery is what some girl with a genetic disorder is doing playing housekeeper on the island of the damned. Come to think of it I've seen a few people here with odd disorders. Maybe they're the cloning prototypes, Pardidos's early experiments in playing god. If I'm right and they are early experiments that were botched then I can only wonder where the parent DNA came from. I start with a little shriek as the sounds of tapping on the window of my cell breaks me out of my reverie.
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A palm frond tickles at my bare shoulder, even despite my revved up body the heat on this island is explosive and the first thing I did on landing was strip off my shirt. "Wow, you sure do got a lot of nasty looking scars on that body young man." I frown and look down at my chest, apparently the scars from the last three times I was shot and especially the time I was stabbed haven't healed completely and are still pretty visible.
"Those are just a few weeks old, you should see some of the ones that have healed away. I was once nearly gutted in Tehran and that mark lasted for almost four months." Erick just shakes his head at me.
"Well, I have done my bit and got you here now it's up to you to tell me which way this little parade is going." I raise my eyebrows at him. He's dropped us off right in the middle of the jungle, which is quite good for not being detected but not so great for me finding my way in a mile and a half canopy of trees. When I'd been here as a teenager I'd been CO and Naia had been in charge of topography so I don't really know where I'm going now.
I shut my eyes and let my other senses drift. Birds, and wind in the trees over head, running water about a hundred meters to the right, and just faintly the smell of smoke. Seawater can't be drunk so it's logical that the compound is built along the creek, if I follow the water in the direction of the smoky smell then I should find the bad guys. "This way, if we go this way we should find them."
"Alrightyo George you lead and I will follow." I scan the terrain for signs of traps or even a familiar rock but the vista stretches out with peaceful regularity. If I weren't so scared right now it would actually be quite enjoyable to be walking out here. Small multicolored birds twitter away in the trees branches over our heads and jewel toned snakes lie inert in places along the path. The green here is bright and verdant and not coated in dust and grime like it is back in Seattle. After a mile or so of walking a new and more ominous sounds join the mix. The sound of men laughing and yelling gets progressively louder and the scent of smoke resolves itself into roasted pig cooking over a spit. Light filters in more clearly as the trees become less densely packed. I hold up my hand and motion for Erick to stop walking.
"I can see what has to be the compound through the trees up ahead. We were ambushed before we made it there last time I was here. It looks like one large modern building made out of cement blocks, three stories, and two wings. Then all around it are smaller and rougher buildings that look like they house the guards and uh, other criminal guys."
"Y'all can see all that from here? Damn impressive. So what do we do now? Run in with our two guns a blazin?" Ah the temptation to say yes. Handle the danger before anyone, and particularly Max, can get involved. The oddest sensation has just started up in me and if I didn't know better I'd call it common sense, because something is telling me that I ought to wait for reinforcements. Some sixth sense is telling me not to rush in there alone.
"We have to wait for my friends to get here, Dix promised me that he'd get reinforcements out here somehow, and it would be a shame if he went and stole an airplane for nothing. For right now I say we do a little surveillance and see if we can find out where they're keeping our hostages."
"You got it drummer boy, lead on." As silent as only an inhuman killing machine can be I creep forward until I'm nearly at the edge of the tree line. Several large palm fronds are covering me from the bad guy's line of sight, and as much as I hate cold water I've ponied up the courage and gotten down on my stomach in the creek wetted forest floor. The smell of burnt pork is stronger than ever and much to my surprise my stomach lets out a growl reminding me that I haven't eaten in a day and a half. Yeah, definitely better get this over with soon, I need real food and the sooner the better.
Ten minutes tick by, and then twenty. After two hours and forty three minutes the hunger is eating away at my stomach lining, I have to pee like crazy, and the inactivity has me in a state fit for psy-ops. How I ever did this as a child is beyond me. Never underestimate the things you're willing to do when the alternative is being cut up like a frog in a lab. A small splash sounds beside me as boredom finally drives Erick to shinny down in the muddy water beside me.
"Light'll be falling soon, and these yahoos will all be tuckin into bed. I say if you ain't got paged by your buddies by then that you and me try gettin into the compound and doin a little in depth recon." For the hundreth time I check my silent pager and wonder where the heck Dix's so called reinforcements are. I only had a three hour head start so they should have been here nearly an hour ago. My patience has never been my best virtue. In fact if a survey on the subject were taken I'm pretty sure that my best feature would be in the range of something pornographic. Possibly, this says a great deal about my personality flaws.
"Alright, I can't stand this anymore. It can't do any harm if we just go in and have a look around, just remember we can't engage. Last time I came here they slaughtered us, they're a hell of a lot stronger than they look okay?"
"I didn't live to the old age of 52 by bein a fool son. Sides I'd like to see you and your friends in action, call it a curiosity." We make it up to the one of the back doors in the compound by the cover of night. I check the entryway carefully for signs of alarm wiring and find nothing so I move aside and let Erick work do some sort of jiggling with a jury-rigged lock pick. The walls are a plain cinderblock painted in sociopathically cheerful yellow. On the first floor we find very little, a large room that's probably used as a cafeteria or meeting room, some smallish cubicles that look suspiciously like the interrogation rooms that I'd been in during my run in with the Seattle PD, and an echoey stairwell that seems to lead up to the second and third floors. On the second floor we hit immediate pay dirt with some tiny cells that look like they are used to hold prisoners. The first two are empty but in the third one a small thin girl lies on the bed staring at the ceiling. Taking my chances that she's a prisoner and not one of the gang members taking a nap, I rap on the window. I'm rewarded by a small shriek and then an irritated roll of the eyes that is so reminiscent of Senator Burnhart that I burst out laughing. Here's one item marked off my to-do list for the day.