A year passed. A year of intensive therapy and schooling. They moved me to a private suite in this mental institution. I had all the comforts of home minus a TV, computer, radio, or anything electronic that I could possibly use to force an escape. I had a bathroom much like in a prison cell, a toilet with no seat, handle or water tank. Nothing I could use to create a weapon.
I had a kitchen minus a microwave, stove or oven, no knives or utensils other than a plastic spoon and fork but they allowed me a small dorm sized refrigerator.
My bedroom had no windows and only a mattress on the floor. No exit except for the one door out onto a hallway. The door itself was steel and worked not on a key code or punch but an old-fashioned Klieg lock that I could have picked had I a fork, pen or paper clip. Sadly, they were vigilant about leaving any such devices with me.
My time wasn’t spent idly; one of the doctors and Albans provided me with books so that by the end of the year, I had accumulated the equivalent of a college degree from a university on par with MIT, Harvard or Caltech. In fact, Albans presented me with a diploma and told me that he had submitted all my work, papers, and tests online and I had earned a Bachelors through MIT in Advanced Computer Microelectronics. I held the certificate and diploma in one hand staring at the name in Old English Script. Lacey Hamblin Bachelor of Computer Science
“That’s not my name,” I stated. I had never told them my real name.
“It’s your real name now, Lacey. I’ve applied for a Social Security card and ID in that name for you and have a birth certificate too. Your date of birth is January 12th, 2000.”
“What day is this?” I had no way of knowing, without TV, radio, telephones or computers, I could not process the date or the seasons.
“March 15th, 2016,” he said and watched my eyes. I was in shock. My real birthday had passed, I was 16 years old and two years I had spent in this prison.
“What do I look like?” I asked. They didn’t allow me a mirror in this place nor had I anything reflective where I could see my face or judge my age.
“Older. More mature. Quite handsome. You’ve grown, too. You’ve hit the six-foot mark. Surprisingly, considering that you’ve been in this room for two years, you’re in good shape, not too fleshy.”
“A year,” I was in shock and denial. “You’ve taken another year of my life!” I went to him and the guards who were orderlies easily restrained me. I had learned early on that any attempt to attack one of the personnel brought instant retaliation and a dose of Thorazine. This time was no different except that Albans was frightened of me. He nearly dropped the syringe on my belly and caught it before it could bend the needle. He stuck me in the hip. It burned going in but its effect was immediate. I melted in their arms and was thrown on my couch. One of the goons arranged my feet on the cushions and placed my arms at my side.
Albans sat next to me. “This time has come to test your abilities, Lacey. My tests have shown your brain has healed and is sufficiently mature to handle the stress of healing someone else.”
“No.”
“Yes. I can keep you in this state and in this room as long as I wish. Or, you can go into one of the quiet rooms in the basement.”
I shuddered. I’d been there once after an episode where I had punched one of the orderlies and attempted to bribe a nurse to help me escape. It brought me a week in the dark, no food, no light and only enough room to lay curled up like a shrimp. The quiet didn’t bother me as much as the close confines and the dark.
Later that evening, just as the Thorazine wore off, Albans, two of his orderlies and a male nurse entered my room pushing a wheelchair. Without speaking, the nurse dressed me in jeans, t-shirt, winter jacket and boots, lifted me into the chair and tied my wrists and ankles. I was strapped in, a lap robe put over my knees and left the room for the first time in two years.
I tried to ask questions but the moment my first words came out, Albans ordered the nurse to gag me. Worse, they put a hood over my head that caused instant panic as claustrophobia attacked me. I fought furiously, kicking, screaming through the gag and almost managed to flip the wheelchair over backward. There were so many hands trying to hold me that they got in each other’s way. I heard Albans say in a high breathless gasp that he wanted to sedate me but he’d dropped the syringe and one of them had stepped on it.
Inevitably, one of them succeeded in stabbing me with a needle and instantly, I became limp under the mass of their bodies. In fact, I couldn’t breathe until Albans screamed at them to get off me before they suffocated me with compression strangulation.
I had already passed out from lack of oxygen and wasn’t aware of anything until someone lifted my ribcage off the ground forcing air into my lungs. That and another man had O2 going into my nose. I could hear their hushed and frantic discussions around my body on the floor so I hadn’t been out for long.
Albans checked me over looking for broken ribs, anoxia of the brain and only when he was satisfied that I hadn’t been injured (beyond nearly suffocated to death) he ordered the nurse to pick me up. Instead of being taken out of the hospital in a wheelchair, I was carted out on a gurney into the back of an ambulance with two EMTs, a nurse/guard, and Albans. The security guards followed in an SUV which I barely saw through the back door windows of the rescue unit.
I could see only a small portion of the route; I felt the twists and turns more and once we entered the highway, the thrumming of the steel-belted 17in radials and diesel engine made me even sleepier than the shot. I drifted in and out of consciousness catching snatches of conversations over my head.
“Vitals?” asked Albans.
“Stable. Heart rate went over 200 but it’s down to 66. Temp is normal, BP is 112/68. O2 levels are 98%,” the EMT said.
“I gave him 50mg IM of Thorazine 20 minutes ago,” the doctor said.
There was a blank period. I jerked awake as the ambulance applied the brakes making my cot slide forward. Mumbling a question, I waited for an answer but no one responded. Licking my dry lips, I asked for water and someone held a bottle with a straw to my mouth. I drank slowly letting the fluid swirl in my mouth before swallowing. Fell away again before I could drink more than a few swallows.
Highway 319, six miles, Albans said. Puts us downtown, the Marriot Hotel. Someone will be waiting for us. Senator---
Red light.
Not going to the hospital?
There’s a space to pull up out front. Unload here.
Cold air roused me as the back doors opened. A big bump as the gurney hit the end of the truck bed and unlocked the wheels to drop to the ground. I looked up at the concrete rotunda of a fancy hotel entrance where uniformed valets and bellman held open the doors.
We entered the lobby. Two other men dressed in nice suits, armed and with that vague military air of retired Special Forces met us. Both wore ear mics and barely glanced at me as they escorted our party into a special elevator which the two men allowed only me, the doctor and nurse to enter. It went to the 15th floor.
More armed and wired men met us and I saw Albans and the nurse were subjected to a full body pat down. Then, it was my turn and I did nothing to stop them. The EMTs had not come up with us. Albans and the nurse pushed the gurney down a nicely decorated hallway to a pair of double doors which opened before we reached them.
Standing inside was a handsome older man with slicked back black hair, dark eyes and a Latino complexion. Only, there was a grayish tint to his skin. He looked tired and lines of pain bracketed his mouth. Another man stood up and approached, his hand out to Albans.
“Dr. Albans,” he greeted as he stared at me.
“Dr. Taylor,” Albans said. “Senator Lourdes.”
“This is Lacey?” the Senator asked. “Is he ill?”
“No. Sedated,” Albans answered briefly. “He wasn’t cooperative.”
“Will you be able to use him if he doesn’t want to do it?” Taylor asked. “I didn’t give Jaimie his morphine and he’s hurting.”
“It’ll work,” Albans promised. “Once you have the blood tests for proof, you can release the funds and you’ll be all set for your Presidential campaign.”
Senator Lourdes said softly, “I had my resignation speech all prepared for next week. There are rumors about my health and speculation whether I was going to withdraw from the race.”
“Senator, after today, no one will ever guess you had Stage III liver cancer,” Albans boasted.