Shay felt like she was being crushed. She wanted to sit up but there was a weight pressing on her chest, pinning her down. Her mouth was dry and tasted like she had been licking the sole of an old shoe. She also had a throbbing pain behind her eyes like the beginnings of a migraine. Then she remembered the secret elevator and the gas coming in. With an effort she managed to force her eyes open.
It took her a while to focus her vision. Eventually she found herself looking up at a strange ceiling. It was oddly curved and looked like it was made out of some kind of dark metal. The entire thing was covered with wavy ribs and reminded her of the corrugated iron roofs she had seen on some of the older storage sheds near their clubhouse. Light came from a series of large, circular fixtures running down the center of the room. She rolled her head slightly to one side and saw that the ceiling ran off into the distance. With no windows the place felt oppressive, giving her the impression of being inside some kind of tunnel. Her eyes were itching and she wanted to rub them but when she tried to lift her hand she found she couldn’t move. She looked down at her body and saw that she was laying on what looked like some kind of futuristic dentist chair. A wide metal band was across her body and her wrists and ankles were restrained by padded manacles. Wires were attached to various points on her head, arms, legs and body. When she traced the wires she found that they led to a series of machines that surrounded her. With their flashing lights and digital readouts, the machines reminded her of the different kinds of bio monitors you would find in a hospital.
“I see that the last of our guests has finally joined us,” an oddly familiar voice said.
Shay was still a little groggy from the effects of the gas and it took her a moment to locate the source of the voice. A grandfatherly looking man in a white lab coat walked over to her and smiled.
“Dr. Brooks?” Shay said when she recognized him. “Where am I? Is this some kind of hospital?”
“Don’t talk to him Shay!” a voice nearby called out.
Shay immediately recognized Paige’s voice. Hearing the sound of her sister’s voice sent a surge of energy through her and Shay felt herself suddenly come fully awake. She looked in the direction of Paige’s voice and saw her strapped into a padded couch right beside her. Craning her neck, she looked around and saw all of their friends strapped into similar chairs. Even Matt was with them. They were arranged in two rows, facing each other along opposite sides of the long room. Beside their couches each of the eleven teens were surrounded by their own collection of monitoring machines.
Dr. Brooks checked the readings on several of Shay’s monitors then took out a penlight and lifted her eyelids one at a time to shine the harsh light into her eyes. Shay winced at the brightness and jerked her head away.
“Remarkable!” Brooks commented. “The retinal structure is completely unlike anything I have ever seen.”
Shay blinked her eyes to try and clear away the blobs floating in her vision and glared up at him. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Where are we?”
“Don’t trust him, Shay! He sent those men to kidnap us,” Paige said. “He’s even responsible for those other kids around the island who were murdered.”
“Murder is such a harsh word,” Dr. Brooks said.
“I don’t know what else to call it when you kill someone for no reason!” Paige snapped.
“But there was a reason, my dear,” Dr. Brooks said, amiably. “Those young people were sacrificed for the greater good—your good, specifically. You see, as dull and unimaginative as the police can be, they can also be extremely tenacious. The unexplained disappearance of eleven young people from the same town would have generated far too much unwanted attention. And it is just possible that they could manage to uncover information that would be harmful to my research. But if we were to supply the local authorities with a plausible explanation, say, a deranged serial killer, they would have no reason to look for an alternate explanation. My work is far too important to be interfered with by the bumbling efforts of the local constabulary.”
Shay couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You mean you killed all of those kids, and cut out their eyes, just so you could hide the fact that you were going to kidnap us?”
Dr. Brooks smiled. “Ah, yes, the eyes—an effective bit of misdirection if I do say so myself. That simple act not only established continuity between each of the disappearances, it simultaneously suggested the profile of a psychopathic personality.”
“You’re the psychopath,” Magda said. “You already murdered those poor kids. You didn’t have to gouge out their eyes too.”
For a moment Dr. Brooks appeared genuinely puzzled. “You seem to be under the impression that those young people were mistreated. The truth is that they were handled quite humanely, I assure you. Although it was necessary to terminate their lives they were not subjected to undue duress. Each subject was dispatched with a single incision at the base of the cranium, separating the cerebellum from the spinal cord. Death was instantaneous and painless. As for the eyes,” Dr. Brooks continued, his voice taking on a note of disdain, “they were most certainly not gouged out. In every instance the eyes were excised with the utmost surgical precision. After all, the subjects had no more need of them, while they were invaluable to my research.”
All this talking about cutting out people’s eyes was getting to Shay. “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? You’re my doctor.”
Dr. Brooks chuckled. “Actually, I’m doctor to all of you. I’ve been your doctor since you were infants. That’s how I was able to have access to you—”
“So he could experiment on us,” Reed said. “He’s been using us like lab rats ever since we were born.”
Dr. Brooks looked in Reed’s direction. “Is that any way to describe the incredible gifts I have bestowed on you? Were it not for me none of you would possess the unique talents you now possess. Each of you has developed abilities far beyond what any normal human being is capable of. In a way, you might say that I am like a father to each of you.”
“My father doesn’t tie me up and run experiments on me!” Magda said.
“Ah, my dear,” Dr. Brooks said in a condescending tone, “the restraints are merely for your protection.”
“Don’t you mean they’re for your protection?” Tom said. “Why don’t you let me out of this thing and we’ll see how much protection I need.”
Shay looked in his direction and saw that Tom’s couch was different from the others. It was heavier, the restraining bar across his chest much thicker with his wrists and ankles secured by heavy metal shackles.
Dr. Brooks chuckled again. “All in good time, my boy, all in good time.”
“What’s going on?” Shay demanded again.
Dr. Brooks turned back toward her and smiled again. “You might call it a family reunion of sorts. Now that all of you have come into your abilities, I deemed the time appropriate for the next phase of the experiment to begin. An experiment, I am gratified to say, which has succeeded beyond even my expectations.”
“Look,” Shay growled through clenched teeth, “I’ll say it one more time: what the hell is going on?”
“There is no need to become upset, sweetheart,” Dr. Brooks said.
Shay began thrashing against her restraints. “I’m not your sweetheart, and there’s every reason for me to be upset!” Shay yelled. “You’ve got my sister and me and all our friends tied down in some god forsaken place and hooked up to a bunch of machines like some kind of crazy science experiments! Let me go!”
As she fought against the restraints a figure she hadn’t noticed before stepped away from the wall and walked to the middle of the room to take a protective stance beside Dr. Brooks. It was a severe-looking woman dressed in all black, which contrasted sharply with her chalky complexion. She had a long, angular face and wore an expression that made her look like she had just been sucking a lemon. She wore no makeup and her dark hair was pulled tightly back into a short pony tail. On her right hip she carried a
pistol, which she calmly drew and aimed directly between Shay’s eyes.
“I suggest you do what the doctor says, girl,” the woman said, “or I might be forced to use this on you.” Although she had spoken in a quiet voice there was no mistaking the menace behind her words.
Shay stopped thrashing around and looked at her. She saw that the weapon being pointed at her was not like the tranquilizer pistol she had taken from one of the men who had attacked her earlier. This gun would make a sizable hole in whoever it was fired at.
As Shay thought back to the attack, her mind flashed to Dimitri. He had been strangely quiet. Lifting her head she looked at the end of the row opposite her. Dimitri and James occupied the last two couches on that side. It took her a moment to realize that both of them had their eyes closed and were unnaturally still. She felt her heartbeat surge when she couldn’t detect any movement of their chests.
“What did you do to Dimitri and James?” Shay demanded.
Dr. Brooks reached out with one hand and casually pushed down the arm of the woman standing beside him. “I don’t think that will be necessary, my dear,” he said. Then, to Shay, “Make no mistake. Ramona, my chief of security, is more than capable of handling any of you, should you become, shall we say, unduly agitated.”
“I had a pet snake named Ramona, once,” Reed commented. “She was a cold blooded bitch, too.”
Ramona cut her eyes in his direction. “You’d better keep a civil tongue in your head, boy, before I cut it out.”
Reed stared at her for a moment, then stuck his tongue out at her.
Dr. Brooks looked at Reed briefly. “You would do well to heed her advice. Ramona does not make idle threats. As for your friends,” he said, gesturing toward James and Dimitri, “their particular talents are a bit…unpredictable. It has been necessary therefore to keep them in an electronically induced coma.”
As Shay looked at them she noticed the high tech headbands each of them wore. “They are quite unharmed, I assure you. In fact it is very important to me that none of you is allowed to come to harm. It would ruin nearly two decades of research.”
“We wouldn’t want that now, would we,” Danny said.
Shay understood why Dr. Brooks would want to keep James and Dimitri unconscious. Restraints were useless against Dimitri and even tied down James could still cause all kinds of trouble. Then it dawned on her that there were others in their group who could still act even though they were tied down. Manny in particular came to mind, but when she glanced in his direction he gave her a hard look and shook his head in a subtle but clear no. Then she remembered that he could only control one person at a time. He was wisely waiting for the right opportunity.
“As for the rest of you,” Dr. Brooks continued, ignoring Danny’s comment, “we will soon determine the specific natures of your abilities.”
“Aren’t you afraid that we’ll use our powers against you even though you have us tied up?” Shay asked. He obviously didn’t know that much about them or pretty much everyone in their group would be wearing one of those headbands.
Dr. Brooks smiled and raised his eyebrows. He turned in a slow circle and looked around at each of them. “Oh, I believe we have the situation in hand. You see, I’ve been observing you for quite some time now. While I may not be aware of the specifics of all of your abilities, I know enough. For example, aside from Demetrious and James, I know how dangerous your sister and Thomas could be if left unrestrained. And yes, I know about your little trick with birds. But, as you see, there are no birds here for you to influence. As for the rest of you, well, I imagine that were you able to do anything to affect your release you would have acted by now. Young people are so impulsive.
“As far as what you are in fact able to do, that is why all of you are here—for testing. For example,” he said as walked to Matt and glanced at one of the monitors near his couch, “from outward appearances, it would seem that Matthew here possesses no extraordinary abilities. Yet his EEG readings reveal a number of highly unusual brainwave patterns. So I know that something interesting is going on inside that brain of yours, isn’t there son?” Dr. Brooks pat him on the head as if he were a precocious toddler. Matt glared at him. After a moment Dr. Brooks laughed. “Thus far, Matthew has been reluctant to favor us with an example of his abilities. However, now that the rest of you have been brought to heel I will be able to allocate enough resources to persuade him to be more cooperative.”
“How do you know he even has any powers?” Shay said. “For that matter, how do you know any of us have these powers you seem to think we have?”
Dr. Brooks looked at her and sighed. “I suppose some background on your condition is not totally unwarranted.” He stepped back into the center of the room, folded his arms and adopted the tone of a college professor giving a lecture. “Before any of you were born, I worked for an obscure division within the Department of Defense. It was a research and development think tank comprised of the brightest scientific minds of the day. It was near the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and we were charged with the task of finding a way to enhance our nation’s military personnel. You see, building superior armament can only advance our forces so far. But if we could find a way to enhance our fighting men themselves we could create an army that would be virtually unstoppable. Some believed that the way to accomplish this was through the merging of man and machine to create a form of cybernetic being. But I never believed such clumsy constructs were the answer. While you might create a soldier who could interface with a specific weapon or vehicle better than a normal human, in the long run they were ultimately limited. A truly superior soldier must be able to adapt to whatever situation he finds himself in. Therefore, I explored the avenue of genetic enhancements.”
Tom snorted. “You mean you tried to turn people into supersoldiers.”
Dr. Brooks looked at him. “Ignoring the comic book reference your term implies, yes. And were I you, I would not be so quick to dismiss my work, Thomas, especially considering the results my research has had with you.” He held Tom’s eyes for a moment, letting the implications sink in. “That research took years of work and billions of dollars, but eventually I succeeded in creating a compound that would enable a person to achieve their maximum potential: strength and reflexes rivaling those of world class athletes, senses sharpened to incredible acuteness, the ability to rapidly heal all but the most severe injuries, and minds capable of assimilating and processing information at unprecedented rates. We were at the dawn of a new age.”
“So if you found a way to turn people into supersoldiers,” Shay asked, “why did you need to experiment on a bunch of kids?”
Dr. Brooks frowned. “There were…unforeseen side effects. In terms you can understand, the formula caused the adult subjects to burn out. Their metabolisms were accelerated to such a rate that their systems could not keep pace. Tissue damage began to appear in the more delicate organs such as the eyes and the central nervous system. Over time the subjects’ behavior grew erratic. Eventually the damage became so widespread that the subjects died from systemic organ failure. Autopsies revealed that adults are unable to adapt to the extensive physiological changes that needed to take place on the genetic level. The only logical alternative was to introduce the serum into immature subjects whose systems were still undergoing development. Unfortunately my superiors, or rather the incompetent dolts who had been placed in a position of authority to oversee my work, refused to authorize the use of infant test subjects. My funding was cut and my research terminated in order for the defense department to pursue another avenue.”
“So they shut you down,” Shay said. “The government wouldn’t let you experiment on babies.”
Dr. Brooks shrugged. “Throughout history brilliant thinkers have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. When it became apparent that they would not allow my research to advance to the next logical phase I decided that the time had come for me to leave government service.
?
??But I was still a medical doctor with impeccable credentials. It did not take long for me to secure a position as a pediatrician in a modest suburban practice. That was when my work began to show real results.”
“You injected us with that formula of yours,” Magda said quietly.
“Of course,” Dr. Brooks said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “But I did not inject only you. I treated hundreds of test subjects. Whenever diligent parents brought their offspring to me for their childhood inoculations, I included my formula as well. It was the only way to test my hypothesis.”
“You injected hundreds of kids?” Magda gasped. “What happened to all the others…or maybe I don’t want to know.”
“Nothing sinister happened to them, my dear,” Dr. Brooks told her, “at least, not to most of them. There were a small percentage of test subjects who developed adverse reactions to the formula and a few deaths were involved, but the vast majority of the subjects showed no negative effects whatsoever. Unfortunately, the majority of the test subjects also did not develop any enhanced abilities as a result of their exposure to the formula either. It seems that the same process responsible for the rapid growth in immature humans also works to cancel out the effects of my formula as it tries to rewrite their genetics. Apparently, only a small percentage of the general population has the proper DNA coding to accept the genetic re-sequencing.” He gestured around at the group of them.
“Even though your abilities did not begin to manifest themselves until puberty, all of you tested positive for a unique enzyme at a very young age which indicated that your bodies had accepted the forced mutations. Once I identified you, it was a simple matter to follow your progress as you matured.
“And as each of you grew, I noticed something that I had not anticipated. Unlike in the mature subjects whose enhancements all followed the same pattern, each of you developed in different ways. Your individual DNA’s influenced the manner in which your abilities manifested themselves, resulting in your unique abilities.
“Which brings us back to where we are now,” he said as he looked at Shay once more. “I trust that has answered your questions, sweetheart.”
Shay bared her teeth at him. “If you keep calling me sweetheart I’m going to cram my foot—”
Keep him talking, Shay. Just a little bit longer.
Shay stopped in mid-sentence as she heard the voice speaking to her. It seemed familiar somehow, but she was having trouble placing it. The strangest thing was that she thought she had only heard the voice in her head. But that was crazy.
She looked around at the rest of her friends but none of them looked like they had heard the voice. She had just about convinced herself that she had imagined it when the voice spoke to her again.
No, Shay, don’t stop! the voice pleaded. Keep him talking. You need to keep him distracted for one more minute.
For some reason Shay decided to trust the voice. Why not? She didn’t have anything to lose. Besides, she was curious to see what the voice had up its sleeve.
“So Doctor,” Shay said as she tried to come up with some way to bait him. “How did it feel when the government dropped your research in favor of the cyborg people?”
“In point of fact, the government abandoned that line of research as well,” Dr. Brooks said. Was that a note of smug satisfaction she heard in his voice?
“But you said the Defense Department shut you down to pursue a different line of research,” Shay said.
“They did,” Dr. Brooks admitted. “With all of the advancements being achieved in miniaturized electronic components and the rapidly evolving processing capabilities in computers, the powers that be decided instead to focus on developing long-range, remote-controlled, robotic attack machines.”
“Long-range, remote-controlled…? You mean drones?” Shay asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Brooks said, a note of distain in his voice. “Little more than video games piloted by over-aged adolescents in my opinion. Effective, I suppose, after a limited fashion, but the result of provincial thinking nonetheless. All they have done is to develop a new toy instead of improving the actual soldiers themselves.”
While Dr. Brooks was speaking, Ramona suddenly glanced down as something pinged on the floor beside her. She bent down and picked up a small object. She stared at it for several moments, turning it curiously in her hand. Shay was looking at her and saw light glint from something metallic. The first thought that came to Shay’s mind was that it looked like some kind of screw.
Ramona’s features drew down into a frown, then she looked up. She and Dr. Brooks were standing directly beneath one of the light fixtures that were spaced along the room’s ceiling. The fixtures were great metal rings nearly four feet in diameter surrounding thick glass domes which bulged downward. As Ramona stared up at the light above them a low creaking came from the fixture. An instant later the entire light fixture shuddered and dropped.
Ramona reacted with surprising speed, shoving Dr. Brooks out of the way just in time. She wasn’t so lucky herself. The massive fixture came right down on top of her, slamming her to the floor with a loud crash as the dome shattered into thousands of pieces, spraying in all directions.
Dr. Brooks lay cowering on the floor for several moments with his hands clasped to his head. Eventually he pushed himself to his knees and looked at the scene behind him. His assistant was pinned face down on the floor beneath the heavy metal ring of the light fixture. Shattered glass was everywhere. A horrified look came over him as he stared at the scene, then he glanced around at the teens.
“What have you done?” he gasped.
Dr. Brooks pushed himself shakily to his feet, bits of glass cascading from his clothes. He began backing away from the teens, then turned and ran across the room.
“Stop him!” Matt called out.
An instant later Dr. Brooks stopped in his tracks. He straightened and turned around, his face a blank mask.
“Nice going, Manny,” Matt said. “He was going for the alarm panel. If he’d reached it this room would have been swarmed by armed guards.”
“Now all we have to do is find a way to get off these tables,” Shay grumbled.
Tom started thrashing against his restraints. “I can’t break free.”
“Dr. Brooks’s ID can open the restraints,” Matt said. “It’s the card clipped to the pocket of his lab coat. Just wave it over the sensor on the chest bar.”
Under Manny’s control, Dr. Brooks pulled his ID card loose and walked over to Tom’s couch.
“I’m going to free you first, Tom,” Manny said, as he lay with his eyes squinting in concentration. “That way you can cover us while I get everyone else free.”
Dr. Brooks passed the card over the bar across Tom’s chest. The heavy bar clicked open as the wrist and ankle restraints also released. As Dr. Brooks turned and moved to the next couch, Tom sat up and began pulling the sensor leads from his body. Manny had the doctor free Paige next, then continue down the line. When Paige’s restraints unlocked, Tom moved to her and gave her a hand up.
“Did he hurt you?” Tom asked.
“No,” she said. “The worst thing he did was take some blood.”
Tom nodded and showed her his arm where a bandaid was taped to his inner elbow. “Me too. We’re lucky that’s all he got to do,” he said, tearing the bandage away. The pinprick had healed almost immediately. The fact that Dr. Brooks had placed a bandaid over the puncture site showed that he did not know as much about the teens as he thought.
Shay was the next to be released. After Tom and Paige helped her remove the numerous sensor leads, she shared a hug with her sister and gave Tom’s forearm a squeeze before hurrying over to Dimitri. She was relieved to find that he seemed to only be asleep. Once she had assured herself that he hadn’t been injured, she took a moment to study the band around his head. It was a solid white ring with clusters of indicator lights pulsing with some unknown purpose. She couldn’t find anything that looked like an off switch
so she reached up and simply slipped it off of his head. Almost at once she saw that his breathing started to deepen. As his eyelids began to flutter she took his hand and held it in both of hers.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she said affectionately as he regained consciousness.
Dimitri blinked a few times then turned to look at her. It took his eyes a few moments to focus. He smiled when he recognized her.
“Hi,” he said groggily.
Manny had Dr. Brooks continue around the room, freeing each of the teens in turn until he came at last back to Manny. Amanda was standing guard next to his couch and she leaned away from the doctor as he waved the card over her boyfriend. She had been standing protectively over him ever since she had been freed because she knew that he was helpless as long as he was controlling the doctor.
As Dr. Brooks stepped away from Manny’s couch Tom walked over to him. He had been busy helping James up. It had taken a little while for his cousin to come fully back to his senses after the headband had been removed but he was sitting up now and didn’t appear any worse for wear.
“Is that everybody?” Tom asked.
“We’re all loose,” Manny said. Although his restraints had been released he was still laying on his padded couch as he maintained his control over Dr. Brooks.
“You can let him go now,” Tom said as he grabbed the front of the doctor’s lab coat in a fist.
A moment later, Dr. Brooks blinked and glanced around as his senses returned. Then his eyes widened as he realized he was standing face-to-face with Tom whose expression was anything but friendly.
Before he could say anything, Tom delivered a solid punch to the side of his head. The doctor went down like a sack of wet laundry.
“That felt good,” Tom said. Then he turned and glanced around at the rest of the group. Everyone was on their feet now. As they came together, a movement in the periphery of his vision caused Tom to glance aside.
Ramona, was beginning to stir. Tom stepped over to her as she struggled to free herself. He lifted the heavy metal ring with one hand and grabbed her. He picked her up by the front of her uniform with one hand while he cocked back his other fist. For several moments he held himself poised to punch her, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
When he hadn’t hit her after several moments, Ramona smirked at him. “What’s the matter, boy? Can’t hit a woman?”
“Not a problem for me,” Paige said. Ramona snapped her head in the direction of Paige’s voice just as Paige leapt into the air and twisted around to deliver a spinning kick to her face. Ramona cartwheeled through the air from the force of the blow and crashed to the floor where she lay still.
“That’s for pointing a gun at my sister.”
Magda walked over to Paige and gave her a high five. “Nice!”
Shay stepped over to where Ramona lay unconscious, knelt down and took the pistol from her holster. Standing up again she checked the weapon to be sure it was loaded and tucked it into the waistband of her jeans. They had taken the tranquilizer gun she had come in with, but she wasn’t going to leave unarmed.
Danny looked down at Ramona then up at the hole in the ceiling where the light fixture had fallen from.
“That was pretty lucky,” Danny said.
“That wasn’t luck,” Matt said, tipping his head toward Amanda.
“You pulled that light down on top of her?” Manny asked his girlfriend.
Amanda smiled. “I just unscrewed the bolts holding it up. Gravity did the rest.”
Manny laughed and hugged her. “I love you!”
“And you have excellent taste in women,” Amanda said as she returned the embrace.
Tom said. “We can celebrate later. Right now we have to get out of here.” He walked over to the room’s only door and examined it. “I think I can get this open,” he said as he reached for the doorframe, “but we don’t know what’s on the other side.”
“The way out should be to the left,” Matt said. “But don’t force the door. That’ll set off an alarm.” He pointed to a small keypad beside the door. “We just need Dr. Brooks’s ID card and passcode.”
Tom looked around, took a few steps and bent down to pick up Dr. Brooks’s card. “Here’s his ID, but we don’t know his—”
“4, 3, 7, 1, 5,” Matt said.
The group turned and looked at him.
“And how exactly do you know that?” Tom asked.
Matt hesitated briefly. “That’s my power,” he said, with a self-conscious smile. “I can hear what people are thinking.”
“That’s how you knew about the bomb threat!” Reed realized.
Matt nodded, slightly abashed. “Yeah.” He looked at Amanda. “And that’s how I knew what you were doing with the light. It’s a good thing Shay kept him distracted long enough for you to finish with those screws.”
“So it was you telling me to keep him talking,” Shay said.
Matt frowned at her. “I didn’t say anything to you.”
“But I heard you, inside my head. You told me to keep him talking a little longer. I didn’t know what you had in mind, but I figured: why not?”
“But it wasn’t me,” Matt insisted. “I mean, yeah I was thinking about you keeping him talking, but I didn’t talk to you. I can’t. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Are you sure?” Shay pressed him. “I couldn’t place the voice at first but now that I think about it, it did sound like you.”
Matt looked confused. “I’ve never been able to talk to anybody before.”
“But you can tell us the way out of here, right?” Amanda interrupted anxiously. “You can pull that out of somebody’s head.”
“Maybe,” Matt said. “I mean, I can only hear people’s thoughts when they’re nearby and then only what they’re thinking about at the time. I can’t go searching through their memories.”
“Guys, we can figure all that out on the fly,” Tom said, getting them back on track. “Right now, let’s start by getting out of this room. Now that we’re not strapped down to those couches, I don’t think they’re going to find it so easy to keep us here.” He took the card to the door and waved it over the keypad. An amber light blinked on.
“You said 4, 3, 7 …”
“1, 5,” Matt finished.
Tom typed in the code. The light on the pad changed to green and they heard a soft click from the door. He was just reaching for the door control when Shay glanced back into the room.
“We can’t leave them like that,” she said, indicating Dr. Brooks and Ramona. “If they wake up before we find our way out of here they’ll sound the alarm.”
Matt suddenly glanced at Danny, then started to laugh.
“You have a warped mind!” Matt said. “Come on. I’ll give you a hand.”
The two of them went back into the room and bent down to pick up Dr. Brooks’s limp form as the others watched. Several minutes later they were finished.
“You guys are sick,” Magda said, shaking her head as she studied their handiwork. But a huge grin had spread across her face.
They had stripped Dr. Brooks and Ramona down to their underwear then strapped them face-to-face into one of the restraint couches.
“You know,” Reed said offhandedly, “I never pictured Dr. Brooks as a briefs guy. He always seemed more like the boxers type.”
Manny grunted. “Yeah, and I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing her in a thong.”
Shaking his head, Tom turned back to the keypad and unlocked the door again. When he saw that everyone was arranged behind him he tapped the door control and the door slid open. There was no one in sight and the group cautiously exited the room.
Chapter Twelve