Caitlyn zipped her “carry-on” suitcase closed and rolled it beside the door. Arak had said she didn’t need to bring clothing or toiletries as those could be created, but who went on a two-week trip—to another planet, no less—and didn’t pack even a change of underwear? Maybe she wouldn’t like Krinar clothes or shampoo. Or maybe she needed to assert her independence a tad more.
She gave him credit—despite his obvious reluctance, he’d allowed her to return to her apartment. In actuality, she’d have preferred to spend the night with him but thought it best for her “independence project” to insist on going home. He’d followed her in his vehicle to ensure she arrived at her apartment safely, walked her to her front door, and then planted a searing kiss on her lips that had nearly melted her resolve. One more might have done the trick, but he’d spun on his heel and left.
Caitlyn booted up her tablet to see what Viral News was reporting. She’d sat down to watch while spooning a breakfast of yogurt and granola into her mouth.
The doorbell rang.
She glanced at the time on her tablet and shook her head. Wouldn’t you know Arak would be early? She almost forgot to check the peephole but then remembered. She didn’t want to begin the trip with a safety lecture, so she rolled her eyes and peered through.
What the hell?
She undid the dead bolt and flung open the door. “Mike? What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time. I’m leaving on my trip. I expect Arak at any moment,” she fibbed. Mike’s conspiracy theories had gotten old.
“That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“No. Discussion closed. Goodbye.” She started to shut the door.
Mike shoved his palm forward, sending the door crashing into the wall.
“What are you doing?” she yelled.
Barging into her apartment, he forced her back and slammed the door. His face screwed up with intensity, and a bolt of fear zigzagged through her. “Get out!” she yelled and dove for her phone.
He snatched it out of her hand, and she charged for the exit, but he grabbed her arm and swung her around.
“Stop it. Get out! What’s wrong with you?” Had he gone nuts?
“You’re not going with him.” He shook her.
Oh god, why had she opened the door? “Help! Help me!” she screamed. Would her neighbors respond? She lived in a building where people kept to themselves. Mind-your-business was the unwritten rule.
Mike threw her phone across the room and clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling her cries. She clawed at his wrist and tried to bite him.
The front door opened.
Two men she’d never seen before burst in. “What the hell is going on? Hurry the fuck up,” one of them said.
“She’s fighting me,” Mike said.
Damn straight. She tried to stomp on his foot but caught only the edge.
“The hypo’s in my jacket pocket,” Mike snapped. “Get it.”
Hypo? She stomped and twisted. His hand muffled her screams. Her heart pounded so hard, she thought she would throw up.
One of the men dug into Mike’s jacket and extracted a needle. He flicked off the cap, jabbed it into her arm, and depressed the plunger.
For a couple of seconds, nothing happened, but then fuzziness seeped through her body, the sedative spreading with every pump of her heart. Her head and limbs grew heavy, rubbery. She slumped against Mike. As if they had weights attached, her eyelids drooped. She blinked, jerking her head, fighting to stay awake. “No…” she moaned. “Why…”
Mike dumped her on the sofa and grabbed her phone from the floor where it had landed. The last thing she recalled was him scrolling through her cell.
* * * *
Something stung her left cheek. Then again. Caitlyn twisted her head to slip back into a cocoon of nothingness.
“Wake up. Come on. Wake Up!” She frowned, trying to place the familiar voice, but the memory slid away. Fog beckoned.
“She should be coming around. How much did you give her?”
“Not much. Caitlyn, wake up!”
Crack!
“Stop,” she said. “Stop it.”
“Open your eyes.”
She forced her eyelids open. Blinked to focus. “Mike?” She frowned. “What…”
Brows knitted, her former producer leaned over her. Behind him, seated at a small table, were two men she didn’t recognize. Who were they? Where was she? The last she remembered—
Caitlin jolted awake. She was strapped to a hard wooden chair, her ankles bound to the legs, her wrists tied behind her back. The men at the table stood up. They weren’t the intruders who’d barged into her apartment but two new ones. Her blood froze with fear, but she forced herself to put on a brave front. She tossed her head. “What’s going on? Mike, what are you doing?”
“Saving you from yourself,” he said. “You won’t believe me now, but you’ve been brainwashed by the K.”
The other two men approached. “I’m Dr. Grayson, and this is Denton.” The older one peered at her over the top of his glasses.
Doctor? Had she been injured? Why was she tied to a chair? She tried to twist her feet. The restraints were tight. She wouldn’t be going anywhere.
“Why am I tied up? Who are you?” She glared at them while trying to memorize their details so she could report them if she ever got out of here.
The “doctor” was middle-aged and graying at the temples. Behind his bifocals, his brown eyes were sharp, assessing. In jeans and a tweed blazer with elbow patches, he reminded her of a college professor. The other guy had a baby face and wore black pants with a white shirt and a skinny black tie, like a missionary.
Mike folded his arms. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of. I’m sorry it had to come to this, but I couldn’t let you leave on vacation with that Krinar.”
That’s what this was about? If he objected to a supposed resort vacation on Earth, it was a darn good thing he hadn’t known she’d planned to go to Krina. “What business is it of yours what I do?” She scowled.
“And where am I?” She eyed contractor-white bare walls, cheap spotted carpeting in need of cleaning. A sagging sofa in a hideous rust color was pushed against the wall. Next to it was a jumbo-sized suitcase, the kind no one used anymore because when you filled them up they exceeded airline weight restrictions. Her little roll-on, the one she’d packed for Krina, sat beside it.
The scarred table where the two men had been sitting could have been a thrift store castoff. Light-blocking mini-blinds were closed; illumination came from a tarnished cheap chandelier dangling over the table and a sputtering floor lamp to her left.
“You’re in a reeducation center,” Grayson answered.
This dump housed a reeducation center? She almost laughed, except for the seriousness of her situation.
“I’m a psychologist,” he continued. “Denton is one of my grad students. Our expertise is in indoctrination reversal of religious cult victims. We’ve been hired by the Resistance to help those who’ve been brainwashed by the Ks.”
“I haven’t been brainwashed—you’re with the Resistance?” She jerked her gaze between the men and Mike. She didn’t know what floored her more, that they saw her as a victim of mind control or the man she’d worked with for a year belonged to the underground rebel movement.
Mike nodded.
“And…Jack?” Was the big boss with Resistance, too?
“I’m the only one you need to worry about,” Mike said.
“That means yes,” she guessed then wished she hadn’t. The more she let on that she knew, the less likely they would release her. The situation was starting to make sense— the discussions in Viral News staff meetings about how ineffective world governments had been in curtailing the spread of the Ks’ influence, that the only way to defeat them was through education in hopes of stirring a grassroots revolution. Had the story angle of exposing the Ks been her idea—or theirs? Now, she wasn’t sure. How could she have worked with rebels and not realized it?
I need to get them talking. Learn as much as I can. “Why do you think I’ve been brainwashed?”
“Your attitude changed overnight,” Mike said.
He should talk about brainwashing. He and the higher-ups at VN had planted the idea in her head that the Ks were bad. At first, she’d had an open mind, had been willing to wait and see what would happen. Bombarded by negative messages, she’d become wary, suspicious.
But after meeting Arak, she’d reverted to what she’d previously believed. She wasn’t about to tell Mike or the other men that. She had to get out of here. “Brainwashing doesn’t occur overnight,” she scoffed.
“Ks are experts at mind control,” Grayson said. “With susceptible people, indoctrination can occur quickly.”
Oh, so she was a “susceptible” person, now? “Ks don’t have mind control power.”
Denton, the missionary-looking man, shook his head. “That’s what all the victims say.”
These people were delusional—and naïve. If the Ks did have mind control power, they would have used it during the invasion and avoided the Great Panic altogether. And if they could indoctrinate someone overnight, she doubted these guys could undo it.
She looked at Mike again. “If you and Jack are with the Resistance, why did you send me into K Technologies?”
Her producer flushed. “We had no idea you would succumb to their…persuasion so quickly. Ks like young human women. Sending you in was the best way to get video of the inside of one of their facilities, get an idea of how they operate.”
“You used me as bait? You thought they were dangerous, and you sent me in anyway?”
Mike reddened further. “I tried to watch over you via remote, but you lost the equipment. And, like I said, we assumed you would be resistant to their charms.”
Instead, she’d been thoroughly charmed. Had fallen head over heels in lust and love with a tall, muscular, commanding Krinar. What would Arak do when he came to pick her up, and she was gone? “Where are the other two men who came to my apartment?”
“They were there to help me move you,” Mike said. “They went on to another…job.”
The Resistance was kidnapping other people, too? How long would it be before the movement stopped trying to “help” those they perceived as K sympathizers and sought to eliminate them for colluding with the enemy? How strong was the Resistance now? She’d thought most of the membership had been captured after the failed invasion at Lenkarda, but maybe that had martyred them and revitalized the rebellion.
Mike had knocked her out, injected her with some sort of sedative, but how had they gotten her out of her apartment without drawing attention? Her neighbors kept to themselves, but surely they would have reported three men lugging a body. Wouldn’t they?
“How did you get me here?”
Mike’s gaze shifted to the luggage beside the sofa.
“You stuffed me in a suitcase?” Yeah, they were real concerned about her well-being. They shoved her in a travel bag like dirty laundry.
“You weren’t in there long—only until we got you in the van.”
“Oh, well, then, all right,” she said sarcastically. “How long have I been in this apartment?”
“A little over an hour,” Dr. Grayson said.
“How long do you intend to keep me?”
“As long as it takes.”
“What time is it?”
“Why?” he asked.
“How can the time be top secret?”
“Because she’s supposed to meet the K, the one named Arak,” Mike replied. Whenever he mentioned Arak by name, his mouth curled like he swallowed something bitter. He looked at her. “It’s about eight.”
She’d answered the door about seven a.m. Allowing time for the scuffle, packing her into a suitcase, and hauling her out to the getaway vehicle, they couldn’t have moved her too far away from her apartment. Not with LA morning rush hour traffic. Arak would be arriving at her apartment about now—if he wasn’t there already, wondering what had happened to her.
“If you’re assuming he’s going to find you, he won’t,” Mike said. “He won’t search for you.” He withdrew her cell phone from his pocket. “I texted him, as you, and told him you had changed your mind about the trip and had left to visit your family back east.”
* * * *
Why wasn’t she answering the door? Arak knocked harder, this time, and cocked an ear, listening for movement. Nothing. He rapped again. “Caitlyn. It’s Arak.” No answer. He glanced at the other units. No one peeked through their blinds, and the courtyard below was deserted.
She could be in the shower where she couldn’t hear the knock, but his foreboding increased.
Waving his wrist over the lock, he shot a beam at the tumblers. Click. He pushed the door open. “Caitlyn? He stepped inside. The living room lights were on, but there was no sign of her. He called her name again and peered into the kitchen. Vacant.
He strode into the hall. Traces of humidity and the scent of her shampoo wafted out of the open bathroom. She’d showered. He entered the bedroom. The room was empty, her bed neat. Where was she?
Reentering the living room, he scanned the area. A bowl of half-eaten yogurt and granola sat on the coffee table, her computer tablet next to it. He picked it up, tapped the screen, and VN’s website popped up. He frowned. She’d made her bed but left a dirty dish on the coffee table and was still logged onto her computer. Didn’t make sense. Had she run to the store?
He reached for his phone just as a text came through.
I can’t go on vacation with you. I don’t want to see you anymore. I’m going back east to visit my parents. Don’t try to contact me.
Bogus. The message hadn’t come from Caitlyn. Something had happened to her. She had doubts about their relationship, but she wouldn’t jilt him without facing him. She wouldn’t have referred to the trip to Krina as a “vacation,” and if she had fled, she wouldn’t have left her computer still logged on and a dirty dish with half her breakfast still in it.
The biggest tell? Caitlyn didn’t have parents. She was an orphan.
She’d been kidnapped.
On the slim chance he was wrong, he dialed her number, hoping against hope she would pick up and say she was stuck in line at the store or even that she had left him and fled.
The call dumped into voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. If she was all right, she would recognize his number and call him back. If she wasn’t okay—he didn’t want to leave a message for someone else to find.
He shoved his phone into his pocket and spotted a small blue object on the floor next to the coffee table. A cap—the kind that fit over the tip of a syringe.
Rage ignited in the pit of his stomach.