Leprechaun Logistics and the Unlucky Winners

It's amazing how fast you stop fighting against the inevitable. Less than 48 hours after becoming a prisoner in the Leprechaun Logistics lab facility, I was going about life as normal. The fact was, I was trapped and I knew it. I was trapped physically, I was trapped legally.

Two days ago, I woke up to a mysterious $20,000 in my bank account that hadn’t been there before. Within minutes I was told that I was a lucky winner. They should have said unlucky winner.

For $20,000 I got an elite luncheon, a sweet makeover, and a contract to basically become a lab rat, imprisoned for life. However long that ended up being.

I should have noticed when I came into the Leprechaun Logistics facility that it looked more like Fort Knox than a night club. But two days ago I wasn’t smart. At least, not as smart as after the fog.

They’d pumped me and the twenty other unlucky winners full of some strange fog that made the survivors a little more than human. We were faster, smarter, stronger. At least, most of us were. One man named Jose was barely still alive after the fog. Seven of the other winners were dead.

“Tamika Monroe,” came a garbled voice from the speakers above me. “Please see Dr. Charles.”

They’d called. Now I had no choice but to see Dr. Charles. If I didn’t go, they would come get me. If I fought them, they would taser me senseless and drag me to Dr. Charles’s lab, drooling like a baby. What a way to treat a lady.

I clenched my hand into a fist and punched the cement wall.

Crunch!

Dust drifted down from the wall as slowly as pain twisted up my wrist and arm. I’d left a small, cracked dent in the gray cement. My first had taken the worst of it. My dark skin had big purple bruises and a few cuts, right next to the clover tattoo I had on the back of my hand. I rubbed the sore fist, backed up and slumped down onto my bed, pouting.

There was a knock at the door and I knew if I didn’t go out, they would come in, and that wasn’t any fun. I got up and opened the door. It was only unlocked when they called me to go somewhere.

Two guards stood outside, armed to the hilt with those damn tasers. We walked together down the hall like I was Rhianna, ready to go through a wild crowd of crazed fans. I liked to pretend they were bodyguards, there to protect me, because I didn’t like knowing they were there to hurt me if I didn’t do what they said.

We stepped into Dr. Charles’s lab and he was pacing. The doctor was probably sixty years old at least, with curly white hair contrasting against his dark Hispanic skin. I’d taken to calling him Chuck, just to get on his nerves.

He looked at me and then at his watch. “You’re late.”

“Fire me.”

He ignored me. “Let’s start with the blood work.”

I always came at the same time of day. Apparently, the blood work had to be taken at specific intervals. Good. Now I knew another way to get on Chuck’s nerves.

I sat down as Chuck prepared the vials. He barely even blinked before he poked the needle in my skin and took my blood.

Once we were done, he glanced at his watch again and sighed. Then he noticed my hand. “What happened here?”

“Fist bumps with my best friend. You’re starting to become a pretty good friend, Chuck. Want to fist bump?”

“No. I want an x-ray. Do you think you may have broken it?”

For some reason he sounded excited about the idea that I may have broken my fist. What a great guy. “Nah. I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll just go back to my room now.”

Chuck looked at my bodyguards. “Take her to x-rays right away.” He looked back at me. “How long ago did this happen?”

“What, this? I was born like this.”

I hadn’t been this sarcastic before the fog, but the whole prisoner thing pissed me off. If I couldn’t fight against Chuck physically, the least I could do was fight emotionally. He didn’t seem to care, though. Sticks and stones could break my bones, but words would never hurt Dr. Charles.

“Kipling, encourage her to inform me of the time of this incident.”

One of the guards reached for his taser.

“Five minutes ago,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to taste that again.

Chuck waved us away and grabbed his little black notebook, jotting something down and completely forgetting that any other humans even existed.

I frowned and let my bodyguards escort me safely out. Can’t be too careful. Never know when a crazy fan might attack.

***

I slumped in the chair, waiting for the x-ray tech to call me back. I hated being bored so I re-read the diary of Anne-Frank from memory while I waited.

The experiment they’d done on me had given me a photographic memory, which had come in handy the last few days. When I wasn’t being poked and tested for their little science experiment, I was usually left alone in my room for hours at a time with nothing to do. Reading was my new pastime.

I was in the middle of a particularly poignant passage about Anne’s feelings of isolation and loneliness when I heard my name.

“Tamika Monroe?”

I looked up, expecting to see another version of Chuck. Uh, definitely not Chuck. He had a well-trimmed beard and dark chocolate hair that was long and wavy. He smiled at me and my heart jumped out of my chest and danced a jig around the waiting room.

I reeled it back in and shoved it into a bowl of ice water, figuratively speaking. Sure, the guy might look pretty, but he worked for Leprechaun Logistics, the company that held me prisoner. No thank you. He was not lover material. He wasn’t even friendship material.

I put a serious look on my face and got to my feet. He must have caught my vibe, because he dropped the smile and led me back to the x-ray room.

He put a heavy vest over my shoulders and took my hand, positioning it properly on the table. He took an x-ray and then came back, holding my hand again for a new position.

I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see how red my face was. He might have been able to sense the heat pouring off my skin, though. I could tell he was feeling the same things I was. Ever since the fog, my hearing could be precise enough to pick up heart beats. His was clattering.

Cool it, I told myself.

“Okay, don’t move.” His voice was so close to my ear that I could feel it in my hair. He left the room again. There was a beep as the x-ray engaged and he came back in.

“We’ve got the pictures we need. Thanks, Tamika. You were a great patient.”

I was trying to stop the words from coming out, but I didn’t succeed. “You’re welcome.” What? No, he wasn’t welcome. He was working for the bad guys! For Garret McNamara. While my mind was preoccupied calling myself stupid for what I’d just said, the next words came out of my unguarded mouth. “What was your name?”

“Erik.” He flashed a smile that could have knocked me out. “Erik Burman.”

“Well, I never thought I’d say this here, Erik, but it’s nice to meet you.”

He nodded and looked down. “Thanks,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” I asked.

He hesitated a moment, looking as if he was trying to decide what to say. At last, he said, “About your knuckles. Looks like you’ve got a couple broken bones.”

I could tell he was lying. He wasn’t sorry about the fist. He was sorry that I was a prisoner.

“Thanks.”

***

Lunches lately were not as glamorous and fashionable as the first luncheon I’d eaten at Leprechaun Logistics facility, but I decided to glam it up with a necklace and some earrings. The thirteen of us survivors all looked despondent and depressed. By now I recognized everyone’s faces. I’d introduced myself to all the unlucky winners and had become good friends with two of them.

I sat down by Anya and asked, “How was your prison sentence today?”

Anya groaned. “The usual. You know, lift these weights, do those math problems. Yada yada.”

I looked at Jose. “How about you?”

“Still sick,” he said. He looked sick.

“I’m sorry.” This whole thing sucked. I’d already lost one friend, she hadn’t made it through the fog the company inflicted on us without our knowledge or consent.

“How was your day?” Anya asked.

“Well I broke my fist.” I held up my hand. “Chuck was pretty excited about it.”

Jose shook his head. “Of course Chuck would be excited about that. Sick bastard.”

Anya burst out laughing. I chuckled a little but I didn’t feel like laughing. How could anyone be masochistic enough to do this to other people? They’d killed seven of us already.

“I’m gonna find a way to get us out of here.”

“We can’t. We’ve already looked,” Anya said.

I shook my head. “No place is absolutely perfect. I mean, people escaped from Alcatraz.”

“Yeah,” Jose said. “Three succeeded out of thirty six who tried it.”

I looked at Jose and then Anya. “There are three of us.”

“I’m not sure I want to go,” Jose said.

I looked at him like he was crazy. “Why not?”

“They’re trying to stabilize me. They’re trying to make me feel better. If I leave, will I ever get better?”

“You think they have your best interest at heart?” I asked. “They already killed seven people. And they don’t feel bad about it.”

“I might take my chances with them.”

“They’re some severe chances,” I said. “What if they…”

I trailed off as I noticed a hissing noise. I looked to the air vents to see that a thick white fog was flowing out of them.

Oh no. Not again.

“Go! We have to get out of here!” I yelled.

Everyone else noticed the fog as well and chaos erupted. I grabbed Jose’s arm and dragged him across the floor to the door, pulling on the handles.

Locked. We were locked in!

“Hold your breath,” I told Jose. I did the same as I leaned back and kicked at the door. It didn’t budge. It was made of solid steel.

Others pushed me away, trying their own strength on the door, but no one could get it to move.

The fog wrapped around our legs, inching up our bodies, and it fell constantly from the vents.

My lungs were screaming for a breath. I watched as one-by-one the other people around me started giving in to that basic need. They all fell to the floor.

Don’t make me do this again!

I felt a hand grip my arm and turned to see panic painted across Jose’s face. His skin was flushed as he tried to hold his breath, but I knew he couldn’t hold it forever. I couldn’t hold it forever, either.

He took a breath, and screamed.

I gave it one last try, slamming my body against the door, hoping I could break it open. The force was enough to make me gasp and the fog flooded my lungs. I felt the familiar sensations. Racing heart, shallow breathing. I heard the thumping of my feet on the floor as I endured another seizure.

The last thought that went through my mind was; we were definitely the unlucky winners.

This wasn’t worth $20,000.

Stay Tuned for Episode 3