Read Moron's Guide to Surviving the Space Race Page 18
Gabby stared into the blackness, waiting on her next meal. The only time the strange voiced woman would turn on the lights is for meals. She tried counting the meals to get some sense of time but it wasn’t really working out. Too many times she had tasted the same soupy mush that she was informed was a protein and vitamin rich meal. It tasted like runny snot to Gabby, but if she didn’t eat it she would die. She would be damned before she’d let that robotic voiced bitch do her in.
She didn’t have any cravings anymore. The shock of everything changing so drastically and all the fights she was having with whoever her jailer was eliminated those. Gabby remembered everything she had read on moondust and all of the rehabilitation stuff always said that the cravings lasted for months unless someone was using the substitution drugs. Then they would last for a year. But the substitutes would eliminate them however until the year long cycle of pills was complete.
“Hello?” Gabby called out. She knew the woman was listening. She was always listening.
“Yes?” Came back the simple response. Once again, no emotion in the voice whatsoever. It was almost as if nothing could phase whoever it was keeping her captive.
“Could you ask John to stop by please?” Gabby asked her
“No. He is busy. Do you need something?”
“Someone to talk to would be nice. Going pretty crazy over here.” Gabby explained. Gabby held back from making any comments that would attempt invoking sympathy from her captor. Those were met with very harsh punishment. Last time she had done it, she was up for an extremely long period of time listening to eighties punk music and the lights flashing on and off.
“What would you like to talk about?” Came the response.
“Why you’re doing this to me? Right now I feel like you’re torturing me for whatever reason. I don’t really have cravings anymore, the food is crap, and I really can’t go anywhere.” Gabby made sure she was careful to keep any sort of whine out of her voice.
In answer, at least from what Gabby could gather of the timing, a video conference feed began playing on the screen in her room. It was John and that scum bag Fred talking about Gabby. When she heard John all but verbally confirm that he had killed her, Gabby felt a stone cold shiver spike down her spine.
“So I am going to die.” Gabby said to herself.
“No. If we wanted you dead, you would be dead. What you are going to do is begin to act like a decent human being regardless of whether you are one or not. Then we are going to find you a new home where you can be whoever you want to be. Have you taken any time to think about the things you have done?”
“More than I ever want to count.” Gabby stopped herself from going forward with the discussion and then something inside her broke. She just didn’t care any more. She’d been stuck here for so long she didn’t even know what year it was anymore. She had gotten so used to the punishment that the voice was doling out that now she welcomed it because at least that was normal. If anything about this situation could be normal.
“You know what? I don’t feel bad anymore. At first, I hated you people. Then when the withdrawal was driving me insane I felt so stupidly bad about EVERYTHING. Then after a while, I realized that you know what? I can’t do ANYTHING to fix it. I screwed up. Oh well, people screw up all the time. I’m not going back to my old life and I want to puke every time I think about using again. So bring it on. Do your worst. I’ve beat myself up so bad over everything and now, I just don’t care anymore because you can’t do anything worse to me then I’ve already done to myself.” Gabby stared up into the compartment.
She didn’t even know where the camera was, but she hoped that they saw the look of refusal to feel any further pain and remorse over her actions. She waited for what felt like an hour for the lights to turn off, or the music to start playing or anything to happen. At that moment, the door to the compartment slid open quietly. Gabby turned to see if someone was going to come through it.
“Is this another trick?” Gabby asked.
“You are free to walk around the ship. We are on our way to Theta system to pick up a cargo.”
“Why? Why let me out now?” Gabby asked.
“You have been onboard for a month and a half by the way. It is April 12th, fourteen thirty-two in the afternoon.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Gabby informed the disembodied voice.
“Would any further captivity serve any purpose?” The voice asked.
Gabby didn’t have an immediate answer to the question so didn’t say anything. She simply stood up and walked out the open door.