So the guards got inventive.
Which was the real objective of the experiment: to see how far good, decent, ordinary people would go…
…when pushed.
By day three the experiment had devolved into bloody chaos. The more sadistic the punishments, the more the prisoners redoubled their efforts to revolt and strike back against the guards. By day four Dr. Pritchard decided to terminate the experiment. Later that same day a group of prisoners broke into her private observation room and held her hostage. By day five Dr. Pritchard was stabbed to death and a male prisoner had taken her place as Prisonmaster. The guards mounted a daring attack against the rebel prisoners, which ended in a two-day standoff. When outside observers from the quasi-governmental agency demanded that the rebel students come to their senses and surrender immediately, the students cut the communication lines. The same outside observers quickly discovered that another group of prisoners had destroyed the elevator leading down to the facility; the prisoners, apparently, had decided that no guards would be allowed to leave alive. By day six the guards had broken into the command center and retaken control of the facility. Martial law was enacted, torture. By day seven a new rebellion was formed.
Chris “Pags” Pagano became the new Prisonmaster of site 7734.
He spared his roommate’s life on the condition that he agree to be a prisoner informant.
Pags was the psychology major. He came equipped with a bagful of mental tricks. The one thing he knew was that if any of them were going to make it out of there alive, he would have to assert absolute authority over the survivors.
So he became absolute ruler of the facility.
With the help of his roommate, Bobby, who remained a prisoner out in the “general population.”
By the end of the first week everything had devolved into absolute savagery.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, after days of zero communication, the university held a top secret summit meeting with the quasi-governmental agency.
God knows what had happened down there in that former military installation. If word were to leak, it could destroy the university. A few people paid lip service to a rescue operation, but that was quickly ruled out in favor of containment. The quasi-governmental agency suggested a simple way to put a lid on the problem: pump cyanide down into the prison, seal it up forever, and come up with a cover story for grieving friends and family. The quasi-governmental agency, which some were referring to as the Industry even back then, said they had specialists for this sort of thing. Experts who could arrange an accident, deal with lawsuit control, deflect media inquiries. The Industry gave the university the illusion of choice; by the time it had agreed, containment plans were already in motion.
But shortly before it came time to destroy the facility and kill everyone inside, someone in the Industry thought it over. This truly was a unique opportunity, and could be useful down the road. The location was handy. Not far from the university, practically under the noses of everyone. The last place anyone would ever look. And the place could be kept running at minimal cost.
Almost self-sustaining, really.
Standing there in his secret chamber, Bobby didn’t deliver this saga to Eve and Hardie. He merely said,
“Bobby and his roommate, Pags, volunteered for an experiment, and it didn’t turn out the way they thought. They couldn’t come home.”
“You are Bobby Marchione,” Eve said.
“I used to be,” Horsehead said. “Not anymore. Just like the prisoner over there used to be Chris Pagano.”
“Guh-huh-HUH. HUH. HUH!”
“Oh, God,” Eve said. “Chris…?” She crawled over to the gurney and lifted herself up to look at Prisoner Zero. “I didn’t even recognize him…”
Hardie didn’t give two fucks about “Bobby” or “Chris” or anybody else. He needed to find a way to distract old Horsehead here and take that button away from him. Come on, Eve, look at me. It’s two against one here. If we team up we can knock old “Bobby” here on his ass.
But she was too preoccupied with Prisoner Zero on the gurney. Did she really recognize him? Or was this some kind of angle she was playing?
“Eve, step up onto that gurney with him,” Horsehead said. “The bottom is insulated. It will protect you from the shock.”
“Hey,” Hardie said. “No more shocks. I’ve had enough with the fuckin’ shocks already. In fact, why don’t we—”
Horsehead held up the shock trigger. “If you’re going to vomit, do it now before I push this again. Because this is going to knock you out, and I don’t want you to choke to death. Eve, get up on that gurney.”
“Bobby,” Eve said. “Please. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“No? Fine. We’ll sort it out later, when you wake up.”
“Listen to me, Bobby.”
“Good-bye.”
But before Horsehead could press the button, Eve yelled—
“It’s me, Julie!”
26
I haven’t the faintest idea whether this is a rack on which the lovers are tortured, or something with pegs to hold the shining cloak of romance.
—James M. Cain, in conversation with screenwriter Vincent Lawrence
TECHNICALLY, JULIE LIPPMAN was dead.
When she couldn’t find her boyfriend, Bobby Marchione, Julie asked her father, one of the biggest political donors in Pennsylvania, to call in favors from all over. Every attempt—legal or otherwise—was deflected. Nothing sinister, nothing dramatic. Just a firm invisible hand pressing back against her shoulder, and a whisper in her ear: Oh, no you don’t. But Julie refused to give up.
She had taken advantage of two male friends, offering booze and hinting at sexual favors…all in return for unearthing this one little casket in a California graveyard…
And then they showed up.
Men in suits, carrying guns, blasting a warning shot into the air, threatening to blow their heads off unless they dropped to their knees and knitted their hands behind their heads. This changed everything for Julie. Now the invisible hand had a face. What kind of graveyard employed men who wore suits and swarmed out among the tombstones like professional killers?
But Julie kept such thoughts to herself even as she was charged with trespassing, a charge that caused her father great embarrassment and even more expense getting it quashed. In return she had to promise to enter a treatment facility to help deal with her grief. Julie, however, was not grieving. It was impossible to grieve over a person who was still alive. They…
THEY
…had her boyfriend somewhere, and he was being held against his will. She knew this in her heart, but she also knew it in her head. If Bobby was dead they would produce a body. And if Bobby’s body was in that casket, then they wouldn’t have stopped her from digging it up. No body meant that he was alive. And it was just a matter of time before she found him. On her own.
There were attempts at normalcy. Julie was even briefly engaged to a cop whom she’d chatted up one night at a nightclub in Old City Philadelphia to learn what she could about finding missing people. Oh, the horror and scandal in the Lippman family during those few months!
But Julie was too focused on her search for Bobby to focus on anybody, or much of anything, else. The cop went on his way; Julie continued her hunt. THEY were at the center of it all.