Yet her dark eyes and almost golden hair gave her an angelic beauty. No matter how hard he tried, Dr. Greer wasn’t entirely immune to that. When the girl’s thin lips curled into the smiles he knew she practiced, there was always a part of him that was, almost, inclined to treat her like a human being.
She wasn’t a human being. She was a tool. His tool.
Dr. Greer took the other plastic chair that stood at the table and sat on it.
“I have big news,” he said.
The girl stopped reading and put her book down.
Dr. Greer knew that he didn’t actually have to talk. He could think all his thoughts and the girl would know effortlessly which ones were meant for her. Still, using his words gave him a feeling of agency, of power over the situation he was in. The situation he had created.
“It’s happening. It’s really happening,” he continued.
The girl nodded before she said, “Outplacement? I didn’t think they’d let that happen.”
“It’s the only way forward with you. It’s no good keeping you here where you can’t develop fully. The studies we do here with you are limited to this controlled environment. You have to be out there, living and experiencing. It’s the logical next step.”
“People aren’t logical animals,” the girl said as she threw one of her practiced smiles his way.
“I made them understand. There are conditions, of course.”
“What conditions?”
“The first three years you will be completely supervised. You don’t go anywhere without your escorts. The chip we implanted in your spine serves as a tracker, so the supervisors will know where you are. And you keep working for us. If there’s a case for you to investigate, you go to it and solve it. You will come in for monthly checkups and further research.”
The girl said nothing. She simply waited for the doctor to say the words she had already heard bounce around inside his head.
“This is a huge next step. You know that, right?” he asked.
She nodded. “I know that. How will you legitimize me?”
Dr. Greer smiled at her question and said, “You will become a citizen, of course. Have you given any thought as to what name you’d like?”
“When women don’t have an identity they call them Jane Doe, right?”
“We can’t call you Jane Doe. It’s too obvious.”
“Elring, then. Jane Elring.”
She had said the name with a strange sense of determination in her voice and Dr. Greer wondered where it came from. Had she read the name in one of her books? Did it have some kind of meaning to the girl that had no experience to draw meaning from?
“It just sounds nice,” she explained in answer to his thoughts. “I think so, anyway.”
Dr. Greer nodded. It didn’t really matter what she wanted to call herself, as long as it was a logical name for a Caucasian female her age.
He reached inside his pocket and took out a small black box. Carefully he placed it on the table, where it stood in plain sight. On top of the box stood a small button, just big enough for a thumb to press it.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked.
“That’s the button.”
“That’s right. That’s the button. Do you know what it does?”
The girl nodded. “I know what it does.”
Dr. Greer leaned closer toward the girl, making sure that she understood his meaning perfectly. There was no escaping his control. There was always his reach, his grasp on her.
“This button is your leash. The leash I contain you with. I can extend it, or I can keep it nice and short. Either way, you will listen. You will perform exactly as I want you to perform. If you don’t….”
The girl finished the sentence for him. “…Then my supervisors push the button.”
Satisfied, Dr. Greer leaned back against the shabby plastic chair. He smiled as he folded his arms and looked at her.
“What happens when somebody pushes the button?” he asked.
“The chip you inserted in my spine will send its electrical impulses to my brain. It will be extremely painful, and it will knock me out cold.”
Dr. Greer said, “It’s your leash.”
The girl confirmed, “It’s my leash.”
“If you behave, you can lead a good life.”
“If I behave, I can lead a good life.”
“And if you don’t, we will kill you, cut out your brain, and use what we learn for the next specimen.”
“And if I don’t, you will kill me, cut out my brain, and use what you learn for the next specimen.”
If Dr. Greer had heard these words repeated to him by his own daughter, it would have killed him to know she was experiencing such cruelty. Coming from Specimen #8, however, those words meant nothing other than the confirmation of his control over her.
His control over the tool he had created.
DAY 2
OCTOBER 25, 2019 – PART 2
Jane pulled her hand away from Caleb’s forehead and got up from the bed. She took a few steps back just to give him the room she knew he needed.
She had shown him a lot, maybe even too much, but when she had started it became almost impossible to stop herself. It was the first time, ever, that she’d revealed the intimate details of her past to someone. Jane would have preferred to have done it with somebody more stable, or perhaps with nobody at all, but Caleb was who she had.
He was a good man. She had known that the moment he stepped into her office for that job interview. Troubled, beaten, but with a moral compass and a determination that was clouded only by his inabilities, not his lack of willpower.
She had thought then that she might be able to help him heal from the events in Iraq he tried to hide from her and that, in return, he might help her when she finally needed it.
Jane looked into Caleb’s big, confused eyes and saw everything. The fatherless childhood that featured a strong mother figure. The dyslexia that had crushed what little hope a black child living in the projects had at an academic career. The many fights on the streets, where he had developed his instincts. The army. The black ops. John C. Reilly. Iraq…. His mind always returned to Iraq.
“Are you doing it right now? Are you reading my mind right now?” Caleb’s voice was panicked.
“I can’t turn it off. It always happens all the time.”
She watched as Caleb jumped from his bed. He took a few steps back, toward the door. There was fear in his eyes and Jane didn’t blame him. She had accepted the possibility that he would walk out on her after she showed him the truth of her past.
At the door Caleb stopped, his hand already on the handle.
“So… I have no privacy with you. You know everything about me. Everything I think? Everything I’m about to say?”
“Technically, you don’t have to talk at all, no.”
She watched as Caleb pulled the door handle downward and she heard the door open behind him. There were things she could say now that would get him to reconsider. Words that she could use to manipulate him, to bind him to her and her purpose.
“I showed you what I showed you because I wanted you to understand. I should have done so sooner, maybe. Or perhaps I shouldn’t have involved you at all. Maybe what I did wasn’t fair to begin with. There is a danger here and, like I said, it is really old and really strong and really angry. You’re in danger, I’m in danger, and this town is in danger.