Melissa awoke, as she did each morning, to the insistent buzzing of the collar around her neck. Much as the 18-year old girl would have liked to ignore it, just as she’d always ignored the beeping of her alarm clock back in her old life, she knew from painful experience that, without a response on her part, the buzzing would only grow more insistent until, finally, the collar delivered a stinging electrical zap, with worse to come if the first punishment didn’t result in compliance. So, stifling her grumbling at being roused, as always, too early, Melissa rose and stood in the center of her cell.
The girl’s cell was a metal box, one axis just long enough to lie down, the other half as long, and just tall enough to stand up. The floor was a mat of some sort of foam padding beneath a rough cloth cover. The walls and ceiling were bare metal. The only things that broke their regularity were a small mesh screen through which fresh air entered the box and a plastic hemisphere of clear plastic which protected the lens of a camera, recording everything in the cell.
Someone looking through that camera would see a short teenage girl of average build, standing at attention, arms at her side, legs planted about shoulder width apart, looking forward with a pointedly neutral expression. Her hair, a dark brown, had once been cut in a short bob, though it had started to outgrow that style, reaching now almost to her slender shoulders. Aside from the thick metal shock collar around her neck, Melissa had similar metal rings circling her wrists and ankles, the inside lined with rubber, the outsides with four small D-rings spaced evenly around the diameter. Other than that, though, she was completely naked.
Melissa stood, waiting a minute, then another, then more. Nothing happened fast in this place, she’d learned. They happened when those in control decided they did, not before. She’d have to just wait. At least the buzzing of the collar had stopped, no longer threatening her with a shock. Eventually, one of the narrow walls, opposite the camera, popped out of place from the rest of the cell and slid aside. Though she could see the room beyond, its bare walls painted a dull shade of grey-blue, Melissa remained standing where she was, waiting.
Finally, a small voice from a speaker built into her collar spoke. It was an electronic voice, showing no emotion or clue to who was behind it. “3 will exit the cell.” ‘3’ was Melissa’s designation here in the dungeon. She was forbidden from using her real name, the punishment usually being an immediate shock, followed by being made to wear a punishment gag the next few days. “3” will assume pose 7.” The voice added to the instruction.
Melissa stepped out of the cell, the door sliding back into place as soon as she left. There, a foot or two in front of the door, a large white ‘3’ was stenciled on the gray floor. The teen stood, silently adopting one of the poses she’d been instructed in: hands clasped behind her head, one shoulder cocked higher than the other, one leg ramrod straight, the other bent forward and to the side. She held the pose, waiting.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw movement as three other girls, two on her left, the other on the right, stepped out of their own cells, found their places and adopted whatever poses their collars had instructed them. “We’re like puppets.” Melissa though, “dancing to electronic strings.” After another minute passed, the captive girls silently holding their poses, their unseen puppet master gave the invisible strings another tug.
“Zone 2, Point 3, walking pace.” The voice instructed. Melissa turned to the left, finding herself staring at the back of another girl about her age. She was nude, apart from her collar and cuffs, with dirty blonde hair which reached down her back nearly to her pert, round bottom. Ahead of her in the line was a tall, dark skinned girl with thick, curly black hair. Having received the same instructions, they started forward at about the same time Melissa did, as did the fourth girl behind her, a short, cute asian girl.
From the room Melissa thought of as the ‘cellblock’ the girls marched into their main living space. It was a large, open room, the floor space broken only by a couple support pillars. It had the same blue-grey walls and grey floor and ceiling. Along one wall were a couple narrow windows, set high up off the floor. Behind iron bars, bright morning sunshine could be seen. Despite the clever illusion, Melissa was certain all that lay beyond the bars were LEDs. Spread around the room, positioned to cover every possible angle of the room, were a dozen or more cameras, like those in the cellblock.
The floor was painted with more stenciled numbers and letters and thin white lines, marking out points and zones. They allowed their controller to puppet the girls around here as well. ‘Zone 2’ was what the teen thought of as the ‘dining room’. It held a small, round table, bolted firmly to the floor, with four plastic chairs spread around, each positioned over a stenciled number, 1 through 4. “1” and “2” must have received the same instructions, because they likewise went to the table, taking their places as their numbered seats. “4”, meanwhile, went to another part of the dungeon. Tucked into the wall was a metal shutter. Behind it was a dumbwaiter. Through it, whoever was running this place sent things down, or possibly up, to the girls, including their food.
Sure enough, as soon as “4” walked up to it, the shutter rolled up automatically. Inside were several trays with covered dishes, which she extracted. Seeing the petite girl stride back to the dining table, four trays balanced carefully on her arms, Melissa guessed her fellow captive must have been a waitress, once upon a time, though there was no way to confirm that. Along with using their names, the girls were strictly forbidden from discussing their pasts, who they’d been before coming here.
Melissa had, up until one night some eight or nine months ago, been an ordinary High School student, looking forward to graduating and going to college, though she hadn’t yet decided what she would study. That all changed in a flash. The teen had briefly woken up in her bed one night, seeing the dark outline of a figure looming over her, to her knowledge the only time she’d ever seen her captor. Before she could rise or even speak, the figure pushed a rag over her face. The knockout drugs soaked into the cloth worked quickly and the teenage girl passed out. The next time she’d awoken, she was lying in her cell, naked but for the collar and cuffs. She’d been let out, to meet her fellow captives, 1 and 2. 4 Had arrived a couple weeks after Melissa’s abduction.
4 passed out the trays of food. Breakfast this morning proved to be sausages and eggs, with toast and orange juice. Like good puppets, the girls waited until they were given permission to eat, then tucked in. As they ate, the girls chatted in soft, quiet voices. That morning the topic was, once again, who their captors were and why they’d gone to such trouble to hold them captive. Melissa though it odd their mysterious jailers should strictly forbid the girls from sharing the most innocuous details about their old lives, but allowed them to freely speculate on their captors. Perhaps the wild guesses amused them.
1 remained convinced this was the work of a single, insane individual. 2 and 3 figured there was no way a lone person could puppet the actions of four girls at once. He’d have to sleep sometime, for one, and guessed there was a whole group of puppet masters working together on this, though they couldn’t agree on the why. 2 was certain this was all some secret, government experiment and the four girls its helpless guinea pigs. Melissa, on the other hand, figured the cameras were broadcasting their plight to viewers on the dark web or something. 4 still stubbornly insisted it was aliens…or perhaps lizard people.