S.M.A.R.T. (The Subject of Mind Altering Research and Testing)

Chapter Eight

The last room was full of different odd items he could put in his room. The coffee maker was there. There was a radio, an assortment of posters and pictures and some other light stands - more paper - and some chairs. He decided to leave the search for later, and wondered if the people who ran this place really thought this was going to make him forget he was their prisoner.

The only thing he did take from the storage room was a battery operated clock radio. He brought it back to his room and put it on the desk under the lamp. He hoped it was the correct time, but there was no way to be sure. It was 11:00 p.m. He knew by now that his wife was either frantically looking for him, or had already gotten the news. He wondered if she would believe it. What other choice does she have? That man took my car. I wonder what he did with it. He wished he could answer it all. He thought about Jane and Sheila having to plan his funeral. He wondered what they would bury, and if Jane would ask to see the body. They wouldn't let her anyways, I'm right here. The thoughts disturbed him. Was somebody else to die in his car tonight? Would it be the man he saw? If it was, what could make a man do that? Money? Maybe he had a family that they threatened. Maybe he was a terminal patient doing it for something to leave behind? Or was he just a guy taking the car to a wrecker and they'd pay somebody else to say the right words? There were hundred of options, but whichever it was, the result was the same; he was dead to the world, and a prisoner to the man who had "killed" him.

Michael laid down on his bed to sleep. It was no use staying awake. He tossed and turned, thinking of ways he might escape, to no avail. He thought of Jane and Sheila, and his friends from work, and about the mud-cell. He shivered. Why me? What have I done to deserve all of this? His mind wandered until it got exhausted and he fell into slumber.

The next morning after tossing and turning all night at the thoughts what his wife and daughter were feeling, Michael had nearly forgotten where he was. When he realized, the feelings he had felt in the cave took over once again. He went and grabbed paper and a pencil from his closet. He wanted to sketch a picture of Jane for his wall. That would be his drop of water, his bit of sound. He didn't know how long he would be there or if he would make it out alive, and he didn't want to forget what his wife looked like, just incase. Last time he was captured, he had wished that he had a photo of her.

Michael was his new bed drawing the picture as best as he could when the door of his room opened. It wasn't the General, or either of his four men. It wasn't Reid, or Hall either. It was a man he didn't know. Michael put the drawing down and stood up from his bed. He didn't want to be caught off guard by anything. He didn't know this person's intentions, and had little reason to believe they were good. Michael noticed he was much younger than himself, he couldn't have been more than thirty. He wasn't scarred, his face didn't look harsh or hardened. He was 5'7, with a scrawny build. He was still half a boy. What is he doing here? Michael remembered himself at thirty. He had still felt half a boy then, but he hadn't been in a top-security prison testing camp. The man's dirty blonde hair was muffled over to the side of his forehead, under a round black cap with a flat top. He wore a white chef's jacket, and baggy checkered pants, that barely showed his black kitchen shoes. This was the standard attire of the kitchen workers there. They all had to wear the same thing, even the head chef. The organizers liked to do whatever they could to separate them from having identities.

"Oh, don't mind me." The man said, quite timidly. The hair on Michael's back that had raised up quickly eased back down. The man shuffled back out into the hall a little bit and then came back in rolling a tray. Michael could smell the food. "My name's James. You can call me Jim, though. I'll be the one who brings your meals by, most of the time. I'm the one who cooks them too, so if there is anything you don't like or something, you can let me know." Jim told him. Michael could tell that he wasn't like the General or the other men. He looked nicer, and he seemed as trapped as Michael. He wondered what he was doing in a place like this.