The Abduction of Margaret

Margaret awoke in total darkness. She'd never experienced an absence of light so absolute before, not in her entire life; even when she turned off the lights at night and drew the curtains, there was always a diffuse haze of illumination coming through the fabric from streetlamps or moonlight. Not even her childhood camping trips left her in this kind of pitch blackness-when the embers of the fire died away to nothing, the stars overhead at least shone brightly enough to remind her that light existed. But this... Margaret waved her hand in front of her face. If not for the evidence of her other senses, she would have no idea it was there.

She began to sit up, but a sick wave of dizziness passed through her every time she tried to move and she lay back down on the bed until it passed. For a moment, she wondered if she was ill-maybe the room wasn't dark at all, maybe something was wrong with her eyes as well as her stomach and her sense of balance. Some sort of brain injury? She didn't remember anything like that happening, but of course if her brain was damaged she wouldn't. Margaret felt her head gingerly for bandages or signs of pain, but she seemed to be intact. Just dizzy and confused. She tried to think back, find her last firm memory and work from there to reconstruct events.

She was in... Margaret's brain stumbled for a moment, as much from the whirlwind pace of her European trip as from her inexplicable grogginess. She'd been through six cities in twelve days, an itinerary that took her from Rome to Madrid to Paris to Brussels to Amsterdam to Berlin to... to... had she made it out of Berlin? She felt certain she recalled checking out of the hotel, getting into the tour bus and heading for Vienna. They crossed the Austrian border, and there was a, a breakdown? Yes, that was it. The tour bus broke down and the company arranged for a fleet of limousines for them as an apology.

And... yes! She could see it now in her mind's eye. Margaret got into a limo with Leroy, the retired postal carrier from Santa Monica, and Betty, the college sophomore taking a few weeks before the beginning of fall classes to see the world, and the three of them broke open a bottle of complimentary champagne. And... and Margaret vaguely remembered wondering why it was hitting her so hard, because she had more tolerance than Betty. (And a bit more body mass, she admitted reluctantly. She didn't like the way she looked in green, but Betty's sylph-like body and long, honey blonde curls made a depressing contrast to Margaret's flat brown hair and chunky body.)

She'd gone out for plenty of hen nights and gone through harder stuff than champagne, but three glasses of this made her head swim. In a discomfortingly familiar way, Margaret suddenly realized as she looked back on the moment.

And Margaret remembered thinking about asking the others if they felt the same way, but when she looked over at Betty she saw the young woman slump over sideways and collapse onto the floor of the limo. And she tried to tell the driver, but her face suddenly felt numb and her limbs seemed heavy and lifeless and the champagne glass slipped through her nerveless fingers. Margaret could recall watching it fall, but somehow it never seemed to hit the ground...

And now she was here. In darkness. Dizzy and nauseous. Margaret stumbled to her feet, a sick feeling growing in her gut that had nothing at all to do with the champagne. She took maybe four steps before smacking into a padded wall, the impact of the vinyl surface against her entire body providing her first realization that her clothing was missing. She felt her way along the room for three, maybe four steps before coming to a corner, then another four steps to another corner, then carefully back to the bed. It was bolted to the floor. The only furniture in this tiny little box was bolted to the floor.

Margaret had just started to panic when the lights came on. She blinked, the harsh fluorescent bulbs stinging her completely unprepared eyes, and for a moment all she could see was white. Then she realized that there was nothing else to see-every surface was coated with that same padded vinyl, except for the far wall which looked like it was a floor-to-ceiling television screen displaying a solid white picture. She staggered over to it and pounded on it with her fists, not from any plan but simply because it looked like the only thing she might possibly be able to break, but the plastic window in front of it simply absorbed her blows with only a slight wobble. She hit it again anyway.

Then she heard the voice. "Maggie," it said, in clipped Continental English, "if you can't behave, we'll have to put you back into the dark again." It was a woman's voice, calm and throaty and infinitely patient, but there was a determination behind it that made Margaret slowly lower her hands to her sides. Something told her this woman didn't make any kind of idle threat. And now that she could see the entire room, Margaret realized there was no visible door anywhere in the small structure. A toilet in the corner, a recessed slot directly opposite the bed... but no way out. At all.

The woman's voice softened a little. "That's better," she said. "Maggie, you'll soon learn that there are certain privileges to your existence here. Light is a privilege. Freedom of movement is a privilege. Communication with the outside is a privilege. The better you behave, the more privileges you'll be given. The worse you behave..." The woman paused before adding sympathetically, "Let's just say that you don't want to find out how many privileges you have right now, Maggie."

"Margaret," she corrected automatically. It had become force of habit by now, the word slipping out before she even realized what she'd said. It was just an instinctive response to a lifetime of Megs and Maggies and Peggys and Madges and Mamies and Midges, an endless flood of people who thought she knew what her name was better than she did herself, but as soon as it escaped her lips, Margaret knew she'd made a mistake.

Even so, the swiftness of the woman's response caught Margaret off guard. The lights went out instantly, plunging the room into total blackness once more. The screen clicked off. Even the tiny little hum of the intercom ceased, leaving Maggie in silence as well as darkness in her tiny prison. She had never felt so completely, totally alone in her life.

She tried to fill the silence, humming loudly as she felt her way over to the toilet and carefully relieved herself. The hum sounded weirdly flat with nothing but padded vinyl to echo off of, but it still kept Margaret company for a little while. She made her way back to the bed, trying to think of every song by every singer that she could possibly remember... but after a while, her throat began to feel dry, and the hum dried up into a pathetic croak. There wasn't a faucet in the cube. There wasn't any visible source of food or water at all. Margaret heard the woman's voice echoing uncomfortably in her memory: 'You don't want to find out how many privileges you have right now.' Slowly, her voice trailed away to nothing.

The darkness and silence stretched on for what seemed like hours, until Margaret began to see colored patterns in front of her as her eyes attempted to process a lack of sensory information so complete that her brain simply didn't know how to handle it. Finally, the lights flickered back into life, and the woman's voice returned. "There you go, Maggie," she said, her voice filled with nothing but praise. "You see how much easier it is when you behave for us?"

Margaret sat up, biting back her first few replies out of sheer self-preservation. She'd spent her time in the darkness thinking about just how much she was dependent on her captors' goodwill at the moment, and how very few choices she had right now. She'd read about Patty Hearst and she knew what Stockholm syndrome was, but at the same time she couldn't escape if she was starved or asphyxiated or dehydrated to death. She had to play along for now. "Yes," she said at last, trying to keep her voice polite and respectful. "Am I allowed to ask questions?"

The woman sounded pleased with Margaret's response. "You're allowed to ask," she said, "but we may decide not to answer if we feel that the knowledge would prejudice the results of the experiment. There are certain parameters we're testing with you that we consider to be important variables, and we wouldn't want to have to throw out your data." There was another pause. "Neither would you, Maggie."

Margaret stifled the urge to correct her name again, and instead said, "Why am I here?" She found herself drawing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her pale arms around herself in an attempt at modesty. She couldn't see cameras, but based on the way the woman talked to her, Margaret knew they had to be there. She didn't feel nearly comfortable enough about her body to be seen naked by strangers like this.

Another pause, as if the woman was consulting a chart or a database, and then a reply. "You're participating in an experiment," she said, almost sounding a bit eager for the chance to finally talk about her work. "To determine the amount of time it takes to brainwash an entirely unwilling subject into total compliance, without using torture or physical coercion. I'm sure you can imagine the potential uses for the data we're gathering, so I won't trouble you with the details. You don't really need to know anyway."

She went on, as calmly as if she were speaking to a potential investor and not to a captive test subject. "You were selected for suitability with our experimental criteria-primarily demographic at this time, although it was certainly important to us that you could be removed to a testing environment for an extended period without suspicion-and subsequently renditioned to our private facility for conditioning. Naturally, an important aspect of this experiment involves obtaining genuinely unwilling victims, so we were somewhat constrained when it comes to the usual consent practices. I'm afraid you'll just have to excuse us."

Margaret wasn't sure what part of that terrified her most, the phrase 'total compliance' or the chilling certainty in the woman's voice when she said, 'the amount of time it takes'. It didn't sound like she expected even the slightest possibility of failure. She really thought that Margaret's... brainwashing? The word sounded almost absurd in its sinister implications, but the woman clearly believed that it was only a matter of time before they broke Margaret's will. Before she did anything they told them to, before she stopped struggling even in the privacy of her own head. "please don't," she heard herself whimper, almost without even realizing it.

The lights went out. The silence stretched on. And Margaret learned her first lesson-it was useless to plead with her captors.

*** * *

The slot in the wall slid open, revealing a plastic bowl filled with warm oatmeal. Margaret stared at it skeptically, curling up on the bed and trying desperately to ignore the growling of her stomach and the scent of food that gradually filled the tiny room. After a few minutes, she turned to face the wall. It didn't really make it any easier.

She was pretty sure the food was drugged. Not that she could be certain-they usually waited longer before they gave her the drugged food, just to make sure that she wouldn't be able to resist eating it, but the maddening truth was that Margaret could never be absolutely positive about any part of her daily routine. Or at least, what she'd come to think of as 'daily'; she hadn't seen a clock or a calendar since they put her in the cube, and for all she knew, what she thought of as the last two weeks was really six months. Or maybe just a few days.

It all seemed so infuriatingly random. Sometimes the lights went out for long stretches, leaving Margaret with nothing to do but lie on her bed in the darkness and doze in an empty fugue state. Sometimes they woke her after what seemed like minutes, flicking the lights on and off in a stroboscopic pattern that broke through even her deepest sleep. If she tried to put her arm over her face to block it out, they only started to play blaring horns and sirens until she dragged herself to her feet. They kept her up for what felt like hours, until sleep deprivation left her groggy and bewildered, before forcing her back into silence and shadow for another stretch of enforced idleness.

The only other way Margaret had to judge time was by talking to the experimenter. Even that seemed to happen on a random basis, though, and her conversations with the woman she'd come to call 'Madame' didn't tell her anything. When Margaret tried to get a hint of how long she'd been a captive or how much time passed between their talks, Madame simply said, "I'm afraid that's all part of the protocol, Maggie dear. Consider it confidential information from now on, please."

Margaret didn't dare ask again after that. She knew all too well that even a hint of displeasure led to long stretches of silence, her only human connection cut off for what felt like days. She'd already grown to hate herself for how much she looked forward to talking to Madame, how eagerly she sought to please the other woman simply to prolong their conversations a few minutes more. (Not that she knew they were minutes, but Margaret continued to use the terms in the privacy of her own head as much out of spite as anything else.)

And despite her suspicions about the drugs, she couldn't judge her captivity by her mealtimes either. They fed her when they felt like feeding her, it seemed, sliding water and oatmeal and chicken tenders through the slot at random intervals. If she didn't eat it, they would simply close the slot again and she'd have to wait for the next chance at a meal. She thought about going on a hunger strike once or twice, just to see what they'd do... but after a while, the simple diversion of putting food in her mouth overwhelmed her resolve. With so little to do, even eating became an escape from boredom.

That was how they treated most of Margaret's attempts at defiance-with utter disinterest. There was nowhere she could go, nothing she could do to present meaningful resistance; eventually, she wound up complying simply because she had no real alternative options. The only exceptions were rudeness to Madame-even the slightest hint of disrespect in Margaret's voice brought about a swift end to their conversations, followed by hours of silent darkness-and attempts at self-harm. Madame had explained early on what would happen if she tried that.

"I know you might think that you have some leverage there," she'd lectured, her voice never losing that calm, polite, almost didactic tone, "because you think that you have more value to us as a compromised test subject than as a dead one. I will be honest with you, Maggie; that isn't actually true. If you persisted in defiance, at some point we would have to cut our losses and terminate the experiment... at which point, unfortunately, even your limited knowledge about our protocols would present a security risk we'd have to eliminate. I'm not saying this as a threat, you understand; I'm merely presenting a set of facts for you to consider."

Margaret still shivered sometimes, remembering the absolute disinterest in Madame's voice as she went on. "That said, you don't need to be afraid that we're simply going to give up on you the moment you start acting up. There's an entire spectrum of options available to us that don't compromise the integrity of our experiment, while still restricting your privileges to the point where self-harm simply becomes impossible for you. We would dislike exercising those options, Maggie... but not nearly as much as you would."

Margaret had decided not to push her luck.

Hunger strikes apparently didn't qualify for punishment, and Margaret was tempted to let this one go on a little bit longer. She'd gotten all too familiar with the sluggish, heavy-limbed sensation that hit her after eating a meal that they gave her when she was starving, a sign that her food had been drugged with some sort of powerful sedative to knock her out. No matter how hard she tried to stay awake, a full dose of whatever they were giving her on an all-too empty stomach was enough to send her slumping to the padded floor, her eyes slipping shut and her brain going numb with chemically-induced exhaustion.

The most frustrating part was that Margaret knew that if she could somehow resist, it would be the perfect opportunity to escape-all the evidence indicated that they drugged her so that they could enter her cell without risking a confrontation. She woke up to a clean cell every time; any evidence of sweat, splatters from her messy meals (they never allowed her utensils) or the residue of her awkward attempts to use the toilet in pitch darkness always disappeared after one of her drugged slumbers. That was why they used vinyl, she figured. The non-porous fabric simply wiped clean.

They cleaned her while she slept, too. Margaret always woke up freshly scrubbed, her skin bright pink and faintly perfumed with the lingering scent of some generic brand of soap. They washed and trimmed her hair, clipped her fingernails and toenails... of course, Margaret wasn't naive enough to imagine they did it out of kindness or anything. They did it so that she couldn't tell how long she'd been in the cube.

And it was working. Rome already felt like a dream, and even the familiar sights and sounds of her hometown in Indiana had started to fade away under the grinding familiarity of the numbing routine of captivity. Margaret paced the cell when she was awake, ate when she was fed and drank when she was watered, and spent the hours of darkness sleeping as though her mind switched off along with the lights. She could feel herself being reduced down to fit into her cube, losing bits and pieces without really realizing what went missing. They simply drifted off into the silence, leaving a numb, placid acceptance in their wake.

Was this what brainwashing was? Was this all it took to break her will? It couldn't be. They'd have to let her out someday, if only to test their absurd hypothesis, and when she had the chance, she would make her escape. She just needed to keep her mind together enough to recognize the opportunity when it came, let the monotony wash over her and past her and wait for the right time to act. She could do it, she knew she could. They would get complacent, let their guard down, and then... and then...

The thought trailed off into a void of uncertainty. Margaret had no idea how long they would keep her here, or what kind of opportunity she would find. She knew it would be a disaster to try to escape prematurely; Madame had made it pointedly clear that her value to them depended in no small part on her cooperation. Escape attempts didn't sound very cooperative. She would have to bide her time, convince them completely that she had been brainwashed into compliance. Beyond that, she had no idea what lay ahead for her. Following their instructions was literally the only hope she had right now.

Which meant that she couldn't ignore her food any longer. With a sigh, Margaret hauled herself off the bed and padded across the floor to the slot. If she didn't eat her drugged oatmeal now, they'd only give it to her at the next meal. Or the next, or the next... sooner or later, she knew, her resolve would eventually give out, or she'd test their patience too far and they'd just flood the room with knockout gas or something. Best to simply get on with it before it got cold. She mechanically scooped the food out of the bowl with her bare hands, glad that they at least sweetened it with enough honey to cover the medicinal taste of the sedatives. "Flavor is a privilege," Madame once said, and it was one privilege Margaret was desperate to keep.