“Robyn!” The group exclaimed when they heard the name.
“What? She did her own dirty work?” Kevin asked sarcastically.
“Yes, at this time, she didn’t mind. Her father owned the company, but he when he died, about six years after we met Robyn, he left the company to her.”
“So when did she come back for your brother?” AJ asked.
“ I’m getting to that. I took that doll home and kept it hidden in my house. Our house had no locks on it, and bums were constantly coming in and out of it. I didn’t trust any of them. My mom had Jansin on January 1, making him a New Year’s baby. We got a few privileges out of that, like that the city paid for the birth, and donated a crib.”
“ My brother was a very strange baby, he hardly ever cried, and would constantly give me this blank stare. I loved him anyway, and I don’t really blame him for being weird. At least I got to meet our dad, which I really wish I hadn’t, I mean he was a total asshole.
Well, my mom and I still hadn’t forgotten about Robyn, and we expected her to show up when Jansin turned fifteen, so that he could work legally in her store. As it turns out, her assistant arrived to pick him up when he was six.
We felt so helpless, we promised this lady Jansin for a stupid doll, and she takes my little brother away from me permanently. The lady that showed up to pick up Jansin was armed with a tape recorder that had a tape of what we promised six years ago to that nice lady in the shop. See, that’s what happens when you don’t see around things.
I was determined not to let them take my brother from me like that, so I grabbed the doll from its hiding place and followed them all the way back to the shop. When no one was looking, I slipped into the backroom and followed them down a winding staircase. It led directly to Robyn’s office, but I didn’t want to risk being seen, so I watched threw a crack in the door.
I think that these horrible people forgot that six-year-olds feel things too, and at this point, I felt really proud of Jansin. He actually managed to physically harm many of the guards in the room who tried to hold him against his will. Then again it didn’t really surprise me, he learned to fight for what was his at a young age. Once, he even threw a bum that was hiding in his bed down the stairs. But that’s another story…”
“You mean that he actually picked him up?” Howie asked, bewildered.
“Oh yeah. Scary huh?” Howie nodded. “Yeah, well he deserved it.”
“Going back to what I was saying, the guards and Robyn were getting especially fed up with Jansin. That was the point where I wished that I had never, ever come down there. A guard…well…he took out his gun and…started beating him with it. I was so upset, I rushed into the room and…” Samantha rubbed the tears that were streaming down her cheeks away. “ I screamed for them to please stop, but they just continued, laughing the whole time. Each time the barrel of the gun hit Jansin, he gave me the saddest look. His leg would twitch…a bit…every time…and I just couldn’t bear to watch it any longer.
‘ Have your stinking doll back!’ I screamed at them, ‘just leave him alone!’
‘Oh so now it’s a stinking doll hey?’ Robyn had crooned from her perch at the desk. ‘Men, stop the beating for now, I want to hear this.’
They stopped immediately, and I dared to glance back down at Jansin again. It looked like his body went into shock or something, because he wasn’t moving or blinking. I could see him cry a little…and I…I’d never seen him cry like that before.
‘You can have it back, nothing means more to me than my brother.’ I held the doll out but she just laughed at me.
‘Aw, isn’t that so sweet,’ she cooed, ‘ how about that boys? Doesn’t that just bring a tear to your eye? Well, you obviously liked that doll a lot more than your brother just a few years ago. Why, he was still inside of your mommy, now wasn’t he? Well, since you don’t want the doll, I’ll be happy to have it.’
‘Will I get my brother back?’
Robyn laughed whole heartily at that. ‘No, of course not! I’m not going to make it that easy for you, little missy.’
‘Please?’ I started to cry, but Robyn just laughed harder at my efforts.
‘Well, if that’s the best you can do to save your brother, then I guess he’ll just have to continue to be beaten until you can think of a better offer.’
‘No! Please…how about I stay here, and work here forever.’
‘With your brother, certainly! I’d love to see the look of peril on your mother’s face right now when she discovers that both of her children are missing! I can assure you that no one but her and a couple of bums will care. I mean who’s going to bother wasting more tax payers money on little welfare artists like you?’
‘No! Please, that’s not what I meant!’ I shouted.
‘ Guards, stop the beating and take these two children to separate cells, I never want them to see each other again.’
But before the guards took me away from my family forever, I had one last trick up my sleeve, the first in many series of revenges I plotted for that crow. I took that blasted doll and smashed into Robyn’s cow face.
‘That’s for hurting my brother!’ I shouted as the shards of porcelain cut deep into her skin. As the guards brought me down to my cell, I laughed maniacally the whole way.”
“Wow,” Nick mumbled, “that’s just…
“Crazy, isn’t it?”
“What do they do to you down there?” Kevin wondered.
“Oh, I bet that Jansin has a lot more interesting stories about that then I do, but I’ll tell you some of the things that happened to me. They’re just starting to do that stuff with Brian, I can see, but it’s not really that serious yet. That was probably his first real shot, am I right?”
“Yeah…”Tommy said, gazing back down at Brian, who slept peacefully still.
“They probably found him the weakest, so they experimented on him first. Somehow they keep track of all the different chemicals they use, and each person they experiment on gets a different combination. Brian’s is mild even though he bled internally. It takes a week for the body to get used to it. With this drug, they’re probably studying its effects and how long it lasts. They basically use people as laboratory rats.”
“But, I don’t understand why,” Dakshana said.
“Neither do I, really. For some reason, these drugs need to be tested on humans for complete accuracy, and nothing more. I personally think that they’re trying to create a drug that takes effect over a long period of time. Six months from now, it’ll be the year 2000, and that’s how long they want to wait before the drug takes effect. When they actually create this drug, they’ll probably spray it in every place that people come in contact with, subways, houses, grocery stores, you name it. Then, six months later, everyone will get sick and blame it on the millennium bug.”
“That it is pure genius.” Howie mused.
“Will Smith doesn’t know how right he is…” AJ said, getting up from the ground. “Man my bum is sore.”
“Yeah…what they’ve basically been doing to us all this time, twelve years,” Samantha paused as AJ whistled, “is giving us needles, feeding us crap, breaking our bones, starving us, all kinds of abuse. I have about ninety escape attempts on me. I’ve only gotten out 20 times though. I know this area really well now, and I think that I can get us out of here.
As for what they do to me, the past six months I’ve been hooked up to a life preserving machine, which actually doesn’t really work to preserve lives. It keeps you alive by pumping food and oxygen directly into your body, but eventually it gives you less and less of both until it stops working altogether, in which case, you die. That’s what was supposed to happen to me, but my many accomplices somehow triggered the machine to do the opposite of what it’s supposed to do. So eventually, I got strong enough to escape. It took a long time though. Unfortunately for them, they were so sure that they were killing me that no one even entered the room to check on the machine.”
“They make a lot of mistakes, I’ve noticed. So why did they hook you up to that thing in the first place? What did you do?” Kevin asked, rubbing his chin.
“Well, they love torture exercise, but what they love even more is to watch their victims die slowly. I’ve seen a lot worse, from hanging people from their feet and beating them to death to actually burning someone alive. Over time, you really get to know these poor people who have been tricked into working for them, and it’s a shame to see one of them die. That’s why I have so many allies. I’ve talked to them, and I’ve told them my plans to escape, and they’ll do anything to see me pull them through.
The reason why I was put on that machine was because I gave Robyn a taste of her own medicine, literally. Me and my accomplice, a young man who had been in the facility since the time of his birth, plotted to escape through the sewage tunnels, one of the places we hadn’t tried yet. It took us two weeks to dig a hole under a toilet, since we were only allowed to go six times a day. The bathroom was like a public bathroom, except they haven’t cleaned it since Robyn’s father died. The toilet was attached to the tiles by four bolts, which made it a lot easier. If someone were to come, one of my accomplices would cough, and we would reseal the toilet. Sometimes the guards took off to their bathrooms, which are much cleaner, and we would dig as long as we could.
When we finally dug the hole, we attempted our escape, only to be caught halfway to freedom. The guards brought us back to Robyn, who decided that she had enough of us and wanted us shot, executionary style. When she wasn’t looking, I grabbed a needle from behind me and jabbed it into her arm with all my might. It took her completely by surprise, so we took another run for it. Too bad that it didn’t take the guards too long to figure out what was going on and catch us. Guards are so loyal. If doors are kept open, they will die. I’ve tried to reason with them, but they don’t want to sacrifice their lives. I can’t really say that I blame them.
Anyway, Robyn wanted us tortured. I got stuck with the machine, and my accomplice got injected with a lethal virus that kills you slowly. It’s all about dying slowly here. Unfortunately that poor man died yesterday. I could have saved him if only I weren’t a day too late.
Oh, by the way, before they sent me to die, they let me see Jansin for the last time. That was very courteous of them, really. I was surprised, so I made it good. Jansin took my advice too. But the machine isn’t all that bad, I’ve had worse. Robyn got the least of what she deserves. She has to wear a wig now, the stuff I injected her with triggered her hair loss.”
“Like you said, that’s the least she deserves,” AJ said, his features tense. “Oh, shit what if they’re on to us?”
“They probably know that you’re gone, but they don’t know anything about me! But we’d better get out of here. Somebody wake Brian up.”
Chapter 15
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