that made me feel like I was about to be assaulted by a force more powerful than mine.
“No need to be afraid, Mr. McKeown,” she said, the first person to use my actual name in the whole proceeding.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m just here to calm you,” the woman said, not realizing that her odd appearance was doing the complete opposite. “It’s a long trip to where you’re going, and this will make it much easier.”
She pulled a small, non-descript case out of her jacket pocket and opened it to reveal an inhaler, like an asthmatic might use.
“Ready?” she said.
I looked around, “For what?”
“No need to be afraid,” she said, raising an eyebrow as if she found my squeamishness comical.
“What the hell is in that?”
She shrugged, “It’s a muscle relaxant.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “You take it.”
“Mr. McKeown,” she said, “You’ve been remanded to the custody of the Utopia Prison staff. I am the deputy administrator, Carla Dressler. This is all part of the protocol.”
Ms. Dressler looked at the guards and sighed.
“I do this five times a month,” she said, cocking her head aside to get a good look up at me. “Now please, we’re wasting time here.”
I shot a glance at one of the guards behind me, but the plexi-steel canopy over their armored helmets didn’t allow me a look to his face.
“I have a feeling I’m going to regret this,” I said, opening my mouth and leaning down.
Dressler stuck the inhaler into my mouth and pressed the release valve, filling my lungs with a cold mist that tickled and made me cough.
“Just a relaxant, huh?” I said, but already the chemicals were coursing through my veins, pounding through my body, and I was hit by a sudden wave of euphoria and dizziness that made me fall to my knees.
“Fucking bitch,” I said, slipping into a deep sleep.
I woke aboard a prop-driven plane with a rear-boarding ramp, most likely a C-130 or C-141, surrounded by guards sitting along the walls of the craft. I was lying prone on a cold metal trolley, hog-tied by power-dampening manacles. I needed to go to the bathroom, but none of the guards responded, until my pleas became louder, and one of the guards laughed.
“Why don’t you just shit yourself?” he said, drawing a few tired chuckles from his companions.
I ripped the manacles from my hands and feet and stood, listening to their distressed gasps beneath their masks after witnessing a feat they couldn’t believe.
“What if I ran right through the cockpit, and knocked this bird out of the sky?” I said. “Any of you guys have parachutes?”
One guard stood, his knees were literally shaking.
“I need to use the head,” I said, flexing my shoulders and cracking my neck. “Or this plane is going down.”
“Sure,” he said, leading me to the back of the plane.
After I was done, they threw a hood over my head and put the manacles back on, this time treating me with a little more care and respect. Between the dark and the motion of the plane, I felt tired again and drifted off to sleep.
I could have fought them, torn the guards out of their cute power suits and made the pilot fly me wherever I wanted. But then what? I had come to realize that I wasn’t a villain. It wasn’t in my nature. Apogee had captured my essence in one sentence, “you haven’t had to grow up yet.” Well, Hashima snapped me out of a thirty-odd-year funk.
The plane’s rough touchdown woke me, and after a short taxi, they rolled my trolly down the back ramp. It stopped at the base to get me to my feet, letting me walk the rest of the way. We had arrived somewhere hotter and far more humid than where we’d left. My undershirt was sticky with sweat and the jumper was clinging to my skin before I had taken the last step off the rear ramp. Someone ripped the hood off my head, then they led me across the steaming tarmac into a large warehouse or hangar. I was standing in front of a massive metal device that reminded me of the interior of an oil rig, with coiled wires jutting from everywhere, leading to a control center manned by a trio of men wearing lab coats. The machine was like a mini refinery, abuzz with electrical power and readout meters, with heavy wiring leading to a series of thrumming generators. The device had more in common with something you would find