What Comes Next (8 page)

She knew enough to realize that something as mundane as a pipe fitting or a water heater or a light fixture could lead an enterprising police officer in their direction—if one ever chose to look. The pipe fitting might be measurable in inches, not centimeters, which would tell this clever and deeply imagined detective—Linda liked to try to envision this person—that they were in the United States. The water heater could be manufactured for Sears and be a model that was distributed only in the eastern part of the United States. The light fixture might be identifiable from a lot shipped to the local Home Depot.

Having those details might just bring this fictional detective closer. He would be part Miss Marple, part Sherlock Holmes, with just a touch of gritty fake-slick television reality. He might affect a rumpled
Columbo
look, or maybe a high-tech, close-cropped
Jack Bauer
style.

Of course, she reminded herself,
he
wasn’t really out there.

No one was, except for the clientele. And they were lining up, ready, waiting for their credit card charges to be approved and then eager to watch
What Comes Next.

Linda shook her head and breathed in deeply. Seeing the world through the narrow lens of paranoia made her excited; the passion attached to
Series #4
was created in great part by the utter anonymity of the setting. It created the blankest of canvases on which they could draw their show. There was no way anyone watching could ever tell with any certitude what was about to happen, which was its great attraction. Linda knew most Internet pornography was about being totally explicit—images that left no doubt whatsoever about what was going on; theirs was the exact opposite. It was about suddenness. The unexpected. It was about creativity. It was about invention.

It could be about sex.

It could be about control.

It was about imprisonment.

It was violent.

It was definitely about life.

It might also be about death.

That was why they were so successful.

She closed the door behind her. She took a moment to adjust the mask over her face; for this first moment, she had chosen a simple black balaclava that concealed her shaggy blond hair and had only a slit for her eyes. It was the sort of headgear favored by antiterrorist SWAT teams, and she was likely to wear it frequently throughout the duration of
Series #4
even if it did feel tight and confining. Beneath that, she wore a white Hazmat suit constructed of processed paper that crinkled and made swishing noises as she took a step forward. The suit hid her shape; no one could tell if she was large or slight, young or old. Linda knew she had a considerable voluptuousness beneath the suit; wearing it was like teasing herself. The material pinched at her naked skin, like a lover interested in delivering small amounts of pain alongside larger amounts of pleasure.

She tugged on surgical gloves. Her feet were encased in the floppy blue sterile slippers that were de rigueur in an operating theater. Beneath her mask she smiled, thinking,
This is an operating theater.

She took a few steps forward.
I am newly beautiful,
she thought.

She turned to the figure on the bed.
Jennifer,
she reminded herself.
No more. Now she is Number 4
. Age: sixteen. A suburban girl from a cloistered academic community, plucked almost by happenstance from a street. She knew Number 4’s address, her home phone, her few friends, and much more already, all details she had gleaned from a careful examination of the contents of the girl’s backpack, cell phone, and wallet.

Linda moved to the center of the room, still a dozen feet from the old iron bed. Michael had sunk rings into the wall behind the frame for the handcuffs. Like a television sitcom director, he had drawn a few faint chalk lines on the floor to indicate which camera would capture her image and placed
X’s
in tape at key spots to stand. Profile. Full frontal. Overhead. They had learned in the past that it was important always to remember what camera shot was available, and what it would show. Viewers expected many angles and professional camera work.

As voyeurs, they expected the best, a constant intimacy.

There were five cameras in the room, although only one was clearly prominent and immediately visible, the main fixed Sony HD camera on a tripod aimed at the bed. The others were minicams concealed in the ceiling overhead and in two corners of the artificial walls. Only one would pick up the entrance, and that one was saved for dramatic purposes, moments when either Michael or Linda was entering the room. It would titillate the viewers because
something
was going to take place. Linda knew that at this moment it was shut down. This visit was preliminary, just the first move in the feeling-out process.

In her pocket was a small electronic remote control. She slipped her finger over a button that she knew would freeze the image being fed out electronically. She waited until the moment that the hooded girl nervously turned ever so slightly in Linda’s direction. Then she hit the button.

They will know she heard something
…

…
But they won’t know what.

She and Michael had long before learned the advantages of
the tease
in sales.

She walked slowly forward.

The girl was following her movements beneath the mask encasing her head. She had not said anything yet. Fear made some people rattle on aimlessly and helplessly begging, pleading, reverting to infancy, while others managed a sullen, doomed silence. She did not know what Number 4 would be like. She was the youngest subject they’d ever employed, which made it an adventure for Michael and her as well.

Linda took up a position at the foot of the bed. She spoke in a flat monotone that concealed her own excitement. She did not raise her voice or emphasize any word. She remained utterly cold. She was practiced at the art of delivering threats, and equally practiced at carrying them out.

“Do not say anything. Do not move. Do not scream or struggle. Just pay attention to everything I tell you and you will not be hurt. If you expect to live through this, you will do exactly as you are told at all times, regardless of what it is you are asked to do and what you might feel about doing it.”

The girl on the bed stiffened and quivered but did not speak.

“Those are the most important rules. There will be others later.”

She paused. She half expected the girl to plead with her right at that moment. But Jennifer remained quiet.

“From now on, your name is Number Four.”

Linda thought she heard a small moan, muffled by the black hood. That was acceptable, even expected.

“If you are asked a question, you must answer. Do you understand?”

Jennifer nodded.

“Answer!”

“Yes,” she said rapidly, her voice gasping beneath the mask.

Linda hesitated. She tried to imagine the panic beneath the headgear.
Not like high school, little girl, is it?

She did not say this out loud. Instead, she simply continued her monotone.

“Let me explain something, Number Four. Everything you knew about your life before has now ended. Who you were, what you wanted to be, your family, your friends—
everything that was once familiar
—no longer exists. There is only this room and what happens in here.”

Again, Linda examined Jennifer’s body language, as if looking for some clue that she understood.

“From this moment, you belong to us.”

The girl seemed to stiffen and freeze. But she did not cry out. Others had. Number 3 in particular had battled them almost every step of the way—fighting, biting, screaming—which, of course, hadn’t been an altogether bad thing once Michael and she had figured out what the rules had to be, because it created a different type of drama. That was part of the adventure and part of the attraction, Linda knew. Each subject demanded a different set of rules. Each was unique from the very beginning. She could sense excited warmth coursing through her own body but she controlled it. She looked over at the girl on the bed.
She is listening carefully,
Linda thought.
Smart girl.

Not bad,
Linda decided right then.
Not bad at all. She will be special.

Jennifer screamed inwardly, as if suddenly she could let loose something within herself that reflected her terror and could travel beyond the mask, beyond the chains that confined her, past any walls and ceilings out somewhere where she might be heard. She thought that if she could just make some noise it would help her remember who she was and that she was still alive. But she did not. Outwardly, she choked back a sob and bit down hard on her lip. Everything was a question, nothing was an answer.

She could sense the voice was moving closer. A woman?
Yes
. The woman in the panel truck?
It had to be.

Jennifer tried to remember what she had seen. It was nothing more than a glimpse of someone older than her but not old like her mother, wearing a black knit cap pulled down over her hair.
Blond hair
. She pictured a leather jacket but that was all. The blow that had crashed into her face and rocked her had obscured everything else.

“Here…” She heard the word, as if something was being offered to her, but she did not know what it was. She heard a metallic snipping sound, and she could not prevent herself from recoiling.

“No. Do not move.”

Jennifer froze.

There was an instant—and then she could feel the loose folds of her mask being pulled forward. She was still unsure what was happening but she could hear the sound of scissors.

A piece of the mask fell away. It was over her mouth. A small opening.

“Water.”

A plastic straw was thrust through the slit, bumping up against her lips. She was suddenly terribly thirsty so parched that whatever was happening took a back seat to the desire to drink. She seized the straw with her tongue and lips and pulled hard. The water was brackish, with a taste she could not recognize.

“Better?”

She nodded.

“You will sleep now. Later you will learn precisely what is expected of you.”

Jennifer felt a chalky taste on her tongue. Beneath the hood, she could sense her head spinning. Her eyes rolled back and, as once again she descended into an internal darkness, she wondered whether she had been poisoned, which didn’t make any sense to her. Nothing made sense except the awful sensation that it did to the woman with the voice and the man who had punched her into unconsciousness. She wanted to shout out something, to protest, or just to hear the sound of her own voice. But before she could form some words and thrust them past her cracked dry lips, she felt as if she were teetering on a narrow ledge. Then, as the drugs clumsily concealed in the water took hold, she felt herself tumbling.

8

What she needed to do was to both hurry up and be patient.

Terri Collins knew that the best chances to find Jennifer were rapidly sliding past, so she had to move quickly in the few areas that
might
work. But she was filled with doubt, not only of the likelihood of a quick
Here she is
success but of the actual reasons behind Jennifer’s third time running away from home. Too many questions, not enough answers.

By the time she got back to her office it was well past midnight, creeping into the early morning hours. Other than the phone dispatcher and a couple of overnight duty patrolmen, there was little activity in the building. The cops watching over the nearby colleges and suburban streets were all out on patrol or holed up at a Dunkin’ Donuts fueling themselves with coffee and sweets.

She hustled to her desk. She immediately dialed numbers for the police substations at both the main bus terminal in Springfield and the downtown train station. She also contacted the Massachusetts State Police barracks along the turnpike and the Boston Transit Police. These conversations were brisk—a general description of Jennifer, a quick plea to keep an eye out for her, a promise to follow up with a faxed photo and MISSING PERSONS flyer. In official worlds, the police needed copies of the documents in order to act; in the unofficial world, getting some phone calls and some radio traffic out to the late-night shifts working the bus stations and the highways might be all that was necessary. If they were lucky, Terri hoped, a trooper cruising the Mass Pike would see Jennifer forlornly hitchhiking near an entry ramp or a cop taking a pass through North Station would spot her in line for a ticket and all would end up more or less resolved: a stern talking-to, a ride in the back of a squad car, a teary-eyed (that would be the mother) and sullen-faced (that would be Jennifer) reunion, and then everything that had been one way before would continue again—until the next time she decided to escape.

Terri worked quickly to create the circumstances that might lead to that rosy scenario. She tossed her bag, her badge, her gun, and her notebook on her desk in the small warren of offices that the college town police department called the detective bureau but which was sarcastically referred to on the force as Gold Shield City. She dialed numbers rapidly, spoke directly to dispatchers and shift lieutenants using her best
try to move fast
voice.

Her next calls went to Verizon Wireless security. She explained to the person in a call center in Omaha who she was and the urgency of the situation. She wanted
any
usage of Jennifer’s cell phone reported to her immediately along with the identification of the cell phone tower that processed the call. Jennifer might not know that her cell phone was like a beacon that could be traced back to her.
She’s smart,
Terri thought,
but not that smart.

Terri also alerted overnight security at Bank of America, who would report if Jennifer tried to use her ATM card. She did not have a credit card—Mary Riggins and Scott West had been adamant that this indulgence was for affluent others and not Jennifer. Terri hadn’t quite believed this.