Authors: Allison Maruska
Levin pointed down the hall. “I’m guessing we’ll find more empty rooms this way. Have you seen anyone who works here?”
“No. I was wondering about that.”
“Should we go to the first floor? I’m a little worried you’ll see someone you know there, too.” He winked to her. She scowled at him in return.
They reached a stairwell at the end of the hall and headed downstairs. Levin poked his head out the door.
The first floor looked nothing like the other two. The rooms teemed with people–employees–working together at tables and computers. Nothing suggested any kind of scientific testing was occurring.
The windows between the rooms and the hall made it easy to see what the employees did, but they also made it easy for the employees to see uninvited guests snooping around. A woman made eye contact with Levin, pointed at him, and yelled something, but he closed the door and told Rana to run up the stairs before he heard what she said.
With his heart racing, Levin yanked open the door on the third floor and bumped into a large man standing on the other side. He towered over both siblings and looked like he lifted weights for fun.
“You two need to come with me.” His voice boomed through the stairwell. Levin swallowed, guessing the guy could pick him up and throw him with little effort.
The man held the door open, and they joined him in the hall. “Go to the elevators.”
He walked behind them past the room that housed their siblings. Levin glanced inside and made eye contact with Brent and Scott. The man pushed them onto the elevator, though he didn’t physically touch them. He pressed the button labeled “B.”
“Where are we going?” Levin asked.
The man stood in silence. Levin tried to swallow the lump in his throat.
The elevator opened into a dimly-lit corridor, and the man pointed to the right. “Walk to the room at the end of the hall.”
They left the elevator and walked with the man following close behind. When they reached the door, the man reached between them and unlocked it.
The room was large enough to hold a sizable group and contained no furniture. A short stage stood against the far wall, and the fluorescent lights, gray carpet, and dark gray walls gave the space a cave-like feeling.
“Wait here.” The man left the room and locked the door behind him.
Rana and Levin looked at each other. Levin pulled his phone from his pocket. “Damn. No signal.” He clenched his jaw.
Rana walked towards the stage. “Now what?”
“Good question.” He joined her in examining the space. Rana opened a door on the same wall as the door leading to the hallway. “That’s a restroom.”
“I wonder how long they’re planning to keep us down here.” Levin walked to a door next to the stage, opened it, and found an empty closet. He walked to the middle of the room, crossed his arms, and stared at one of the walls. “I guess we wait for someone else to come in the way we did and find out what’s going on.”
****
Rana sat with Levin against a wall and asked, “Do you think Mom is here?”
Levin rubbed his neck. “Yeah, I do. They’re just seeing what they can do with us before we find her.”
“Why?”
“Probably to make us think they control us. We’ve done everything they wanted us to do since they took Mom, so in a way, they have controlled us. After we find her, though…” He shook his head and glared at the opposite wall, “We should all drop off their radar. Go somewhere really remote, you know? I’ll get Maggie back, and we’ll make a new life.”
“Are you going to marry her?” Rana smiled teasingly at him.
“I hope so.” He gazed at his shoes, though obviously not thinking about his shoes.
The door opening startled Rana. The large man escorted Brent, Isaiah, and Jeremy inside. Levin jumped to his feet and walked two steps before the man closed the door and locked it.
Jeremy approached them. “Levin, what is this place?”
He glared at the locked door. “I don’t know. That door is the only way out.”
Brent and Isaiah explored the room, just as Levin and Rana had done when they first arrived.
“What’s the stage for?” Isaiah asked from across the room.
“Maybe they’ll put on a show for us later.” Rana laughed.
Brent left the empty closet and joined the group. “W…w…where’s Dayla?”
“We found a group of PR kids on the second floor who have the same father she does. We left her there so she can get to know them. We planned to go back for her.” He shook his head. “I hope she isn’t scared.” He turned his attention to Jeremy. “Did you leave Eliot in the room?”
Jeremy nodded.“ Brent and Scott saw the big man leading you two down the hall. Scott left right away saying he wanted to find out what happened. The three of us waited ten minutes before deciding to find you ourselves. I told Eliot to stay behind. The big guy found us on the second floor and brought us here.”
“I wonder if that’s what they’re doing,” Levin said. “Waiting for us to leave–to disobey their directions–before intercepting us. We might not know their plan until everyone’s here.”
“That could take a while,” Jeremy said.
The five sat in a circle on the floor. Rana and Isaiah compared high school experiences, and Jeremy shared funny stories about his P.E. students. Brent listened. Levin sat facing slightly away from the group and towards the door without contributing much to the conversation and drumming his fingers on his leg.
Rana took her phone from her pocket and checked it. “We’ve been here for almost two hours. I’m hungry.”
“So am I. When the big guy makes his next delivery, we can ask him to bring us some food.” Levin stood and walked closer to the door. The rest of the group followed, and everyone sat back in their circle.
Half an hour later, the door made noise. A different man–this one also large and intimidating–led a group of people with dark brown skin into the room. Levin jumped up before the man closed the door. “Sir, we need some food.”
The man studied Levin before shutting the door.
A few minutes later, the man returned carrying large, canvas bags. He put them on the floor and left again, locking the door behind him.
Rana looked into one of the bags. “There’s a lot of bread in here–like twenty loaves.” She looked into the other bag. “This one has jars of peanut butter and jelly.” She dug into the bag and removed three plastic knives.
Levin took one of the knives from her and faced the group. “Who’s hungry?”
Levin and Rana prepared sandwiches, and the group members talked while they ate their meager meal. Rana did the math: based on the amount of food they were given, at least fifty more people would show up eventually. That, or this food was supposed to last a while. What could they be planning that required everyone to gather in a large group?
“Do you guys know where your father lives?” Jeremy asked between bites.
A woman who appeared Levin’s age answered, “Yeah, he’s American. He lives in New England somewhere, but they wouldn’t tell us where exactly. Do you guys all have the same father?”
“We do. He’s Greek. They didn’t tell us exactly where in Greece, either.”
She laughed.
“What were you doing when the big guy caught you?” Levin asked.
An older boy answered, “We got tired of waiting in that room. We decided to look around. He found us in the hall.”
“Did you leave anyone behind in your room?” Rana asked.
“Yeah. We left the younger ones with my sister. She’s sixteen.”
“Do any of you know why we’re here?” Levin asked.
The older woman answered again after a few silent seconds. “Well, we thought they wanted to do genetic testing. I’m starting to doubt that, though. Seems like they’re pulling everyone together for some reason.”
The door opened as she finished speaking. The man who brought in Levin and Rana reappeared, this time escorting a group of five tall kids with reddish-brown hair. One of the boys covered his nose with a paper towel.
Jason jogged to Rana. “Oh, there you are. Dayla thought you forgot about her. I told her we would look for you, but Gigantor found us and brought us here.”
“What happened to your nose?” Levin asked the injured boy.
“I tried to run past the big guy. He hit me.”
Rana swallowed. Apparently, PR wanted them all in this room badly enough to use force. That would make an escape more difficult.
The day slowly passed as the room’s population grew. Four hours after Rana and Levin arrived, Dayla appeared with what looked like the remaining members of Jason’s group. By then, around forty people occupied the space. They had spent the previous hours in furnished rooms surrounded by empty rooms in different parts of the building.
Rana scanned the crowd, counting on her fingers and categorizing.
Jason approached her. “So bored you decided to do math?”
“I’m figuring out how many fathers we represent.” She pointed to the different groups. “Greek, Scottish, American, Chinese, Venezuelan. And I bet more will show up.”
“Why do you think they chose fathers from all over the world? Looks like the mothers all live in the U.S.”
Rana shrugged. “Maybe the Project Renovatio organizers planned it that way to make the fathers hard to find. Or to make the mothers easier to monitor.”
As the hours passed, the group grew increasingly restless. Arguments occurred between some of the siblings, and a few of the younger kids cried. Rana wrung her hands. They wouldn’t handle being locked up much longer.
There had to be a way out.
She wandered to the stage and examined its floor and the wall behind it. There were no seams in the carpeting. The closet next to the stage appeared intact; each wall was sturdy and without cracks. Maybe they could climb through the ceiling tiles in the bathroom.
As she headed that direction, the others from the third floor joined them. Janie and Dayla found each other immediately. Daniel scanned the room, connecting with Levin, Brent, and Jeremy when they waved him over. Levin pointed towards the door and leaned towards his brothers.
They’re planning something.
In a few minutes, Levin led them to where most of the others had settled on the floor.
“I would like to leave. Is anyone else interested in doing that?” he asked loudly enough to get everyone’s attention. He clasped his slightly trembling hands in front of him.
Many nodded, while others said “Yeah” or “Please.”
“We have an idea. Enough of us are here now to fight off whichever big guy arrives next and escape.”
The woman with the American father raised her hand. “We still have family in our room. How do we get them out?”
“We’ll need to move quickly. Here’s the plan: when ‘Gigantor’ opens the door,” he paused for the giggling to subside, “Jeremy, Daniel, and I will push him into the hall and hold him. Brent will lead the rest of you past us. Don’t look back. Get as many on the elevator as you can.” He looked at the woman. “Start with those of you with family in one of the rooms. After you get them, take the stairs to the first floor. I think there’s an exterior door you can use by the stairwell.”
While everyone stood, the three men waited by the door for their opportunity. Rana claimed a spot at the back of the group, and her nerves gathered in her stomach. This had to work. She picked at her fingernails as the minutes ticked by and watched Levin wipe his hands on his shorts.
The lock clicked, and the door pushed open. Levin didn’t wait for them to enter the room. He curled his head and slammed himself shoulders first into Gigantor’s chest. His brothers joined him, pushing against the man’s arms and shoulders. They knocked him down and pinned him to the floor.
“Go,” Levin yelled. The kids ran past the brothers. Brent led the group, and Rana brought up the rear.
Gigantor squirmed and grunted but stopped long enough to say something. “It’s no use.”
“What do you mean?” Levin pressed his full weight into the guy’s shoulders.
“Trying to escape. They need a key to open the elevator. And I’m wearing a wire. The people upstairs can hear everything. Someone will meet them at the elevators.”
“We can’t open the elevators,” Isaiah yelled from the front of the group.
The man chuckled. A moment later, the elevator doors opened, revealing the other big man. He pointed a shotgun at Brent’s face.
****
Two hours after the gun-toting man pushed everyone back inside, the room’s population had doubled. Rana couldn’t believe the big guys allowed Levin and his brothers to return to the group with no reprimand. Apparently, PR didn’t view them as a threat.
The last detainees to arrive said they’d planned to leave when the big guys intercepted them. They represented three more areas from around the globe: Canada, Egypt, and Russia. A few mothers sat among the young members of the crowd, and Rana assumed that like Jason, most of the older siblings brought the younger ones by themselves.
The new arrivals helped themselves to the remaining peanut butter and jelly ingredients while they waited to learn what the Project Renovatio people planned to do with them. Twenty minutes after the last group arrived, the door opened again. A middle-aged, bald man wearing Dockers and a burgundy golf shirt entered, walked across the room, and stood on the stage. The kids sitting on the stage joined the others on the floor. The man stood silently, studying them all.