^Paolox3_

For Your Own Good

Chapters 10-11

Chapter 10

Ames swept his arm across his desk, sending papers flying in every direction. The single noise that he made was somewhere between a snarl of human fury and that of an enraged animal. He glanced at his watch, kicked the chair, and headed back out through his half open door. He paused, returning only long enough to pick up a few of the scattered papers and cram them into his pocket. The Mainframe was still down, the only lights coming from the scarcely functioning emergency systems, and Ames was at a loss to do. The inmates could only entertain themselves for so long, he mused, before a general riot broke out. He was certain that no one could get OUT, since he couldn't even get out, but the potential for disaster was enormous. He sighed, and started down the hallway. Certainly the media had been alerted by now, and visions of reporters and locals milling around outside the front gates didn't sit well with him. Ames was a man that was accustomed to being in control. Matters had now, much to his chagrin, spun OUT of his control. His only concern at that particular moment, however, was getting everyone back to his room and under lock-down for the next several hours. With no way to get the next shift of employees into the complex, it wasn't going to be easy. His thoughts were dark as he headed for the gym, and the face from the papers that Ned had left for him hovered in his mind like a restless ghost.

"Hello, all, I'm Linda Johnson," the tall brunette with the microphone announced to the running camera, her white teeth flashing and her hair perfect. "Coming to you live once again from outside the IO Rehab Center for Boys, where inmates and staff alike still remain trapped inside the complex due to a total computer systems crash. Joining me now are Jason Means, whom we met earlier, and Max Garrison of CyberHound systems, the company which built the Mainframe computers which run the IO complex. Mr. Garrison, what are your plans now that the front gate has been, well, forced? Do you feel that you can gain entry to the buildings and restore the computer systems?"

Max Garrison looked at Linda, then at the camera. "Well Linda, getting through the doors are going to be the hardest part, since IO is designed to be totally escape-proof. Once we get in, I am confident that Jason and I can restore the system."

"The system that, according to advertising, is crash-proof?" Linda dug in.

Max flushed. Jason snorted and grinned. "That's the one," he said wryly.

"What do you think you'll find inside?" she continued, smiling at the camera.

"It's hard to say," Max began, "From the sounds of it, I'd say we're looking at replacing the main processor and probably most of its secondary systems as well..." but she interrupted him.

"No, I mean with the boys and staff. We've heard some pretty odd rumors about this place, and we can't seem to get any interviews with former inmates. Do you think there's likely to be any escape attempts or a riot?" Her tone was demanding, and she shoved the mic back at Max, who had no clue what to say.

"Well… uh… I'm not sure, ma'am. I just work on the computers," he fumbled.

It was Jason who rescued him. "From what my buddy, Ned, who's on staff here, tells me, Linda, I think we'll probably find a lot of boys with a small taste of freedom trying to find their way out, or at least find their way to safety. There are boys of all ages in there, and the smaller ones, even thought they're criminals, are sure to be frightened if some of the larger and older boys are causing trouble. You know how prisons can be."

Linda seemed to take this statement well. "Gentlemen, we won't keep you from your work any longer. Good luck on finding your friend, Jason, and luck with restoring the systems. Joining me now is Lawrence Taft, Director of Social and Rehabilitation Services for Juveniles and Chairman of the Board of Directors for IO, in case you just joined us, which is a prison for youthful offenders that has been effectively shut down and sealed off by a total systems failure of the Mainframe computer that runs the place.

Mr. Taft, your thoughts on this situation?" Lawrence Taft was not a large man, in fact, he was small of stature and looked somewhat like a rat. He squirmed under Linda Johnson's stern gaze, and the cameras frightened him. He didn't much care for the sound of his squeaky, nasal voice, and this Linda person definitely made him jumpy.

Jason and Max were headed for the destroyed front gate, when all of them were interrupted by a thunderous explosion. The noise was dreadful, and smoke and pieces of rubble fell here and there. Linda coughed and wave her hand.

"We're IN!" a voice shouted.

Linda composed herself, and despite a small chunk of plasterboard that had landed atop her overdone hair style, smiled at the cameras through the cloud of dust and smoke. The cameraman zoomed in on the main door through which Michael and the busload of others had been taken. Men in riot gear were clearing away wreckage and fanning at the smoke and dust. "Cut to commercial," someone said. Taft was trying to look demure and stepping backwards, slowly. The red lights on the cameras went off. "We're back in 2 minutes, Linda," someone announced.

"Where do you think YOU'RE going?" she demanded of Taft.

"Excuse me?" he replied.

"You've got questions to answer for Mr. and Mrs. America out there, Taft."

"I don't have to tell YOU anything," Taft snapped.

Linda Johnson smiled, a sweet but ironic smile. "Oh but you do, Larry, you do… and for starters, I'm going to rip your liver out on national TV and feed it to the press. The tabloids will be here any time, now, Larry, and you know how they are. Better to talk to me live than answer for them next week, don't you think? Now, let's warm up. We've got a minute. What's this I hear about castration at IO?" Taft groaned. "Just don't call me 'Larry,'" he asked.

Linda smiled, her white teeth very reminiscent of fangs. Taft had a brief mental image of being torn apart by lions or tigers and his remains picked over by vultures.

Max flashed his badge at the wrecking crew, and they made way for them.

They entered the destroyed front door and were confronted with a dust-filled, dimly lighted hallway that seemed to slope down. There were doors everywhere. "Which was do we go?" Jason asked.

"I have no fuckin' clue, dude," Max replied, looking over a map with a penlight.

Ned and Bolton made their way back to Michael's room. Once Ned had stripped the unconscious boy and tucked him into bed, he began to mutter under his breath. What he needed now was a blood sample, and some way to analyze it. He looked over the young eunuch's white and very dirty sweatsuit, staring at the red spots. Then he sniffed it. He sighed a great sigh of relief. Michael's clothes smelled like every boy he had contact with – at least marginally in need of a bath. Then he laughed aloud, and sniffed the red splatters a bit closer. He then licked at one. He laughed again, and bent down to kiss the sleeping eunuch's forehead.

"Whas' so funny? You flippin' on me, man?" Bolton asked.

"Spaghetti sauce!" Ned laughed, catching the large and bulky black guard in a rough embrace and waving the soiled white sweatshirt at him, "It's only spaghetti sauce and chocolate stains!"

"It sorta be lookin' like blood to me," Bolton replied.

"Nosebleeds are the second sign," Ned replied.

"Sign of what?" Bolton asked.

"First is the psychotic episodes, then the memory lapses, then stuttering. Then comes the nosebleeds and the mood swings. I was afraid that Michael had hit the nosebleed stage."

"He did seem t' be havin' a hard time talkin'," Bolton agreed.

"The endorphin levels in his brain are reaching critical levels," Ned replied.

"I dunno what you be drivin' at, Ned, but you know what I think?"

Ned stared at the guard. He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm just a guard, but I was a former inmate, ya know. But what I think is that our Mikey here's turnin' out gay, and usually the gay boys who don't be good or get punished a lot in here die. I saw it lots, back then. Cuttin' their balls off has somethin' to do with it, cause no one like Sam who got da balls ever died, like Cheng did. I think the gay ones that don't lose the desire, the 'want to,' die from somethin' to do with being shocked with that ULF thing. Why only the gay ones, I don't know."

Ned stared at Bolton, his mouth open. He had studied and dug for months before coming up with his theory, and it had taken another month of exhaustive research to put together a paper. What had taken him all of that time, Bolton had merely observed on his job. He grunted. "There's a bit more to it than that, Bolton, but you're almost totally right."

"You shot him up full of some kinda fake hormones, din'cha?"

Ned nodded. "It'll take time, and time's something that Michael doesn't have. Dammit! Look at him, Bolton! How can a castrated boy like him develop a sex drive?"

"Maybe he had it BEFORE you cut his balls off," Bolton supplied, "and that was what really really tripped it for him. Harvey dint have no balls either, and he got in trouble a LOT for being caught with other boys. If Sam hadn't done his ass in when he did, he'd be in the same shape."

"But it's happening so damn FAST for Michael, here. I don't understand it."

Bolton thought for a moment. He was about to say something when his radio buzzed. Both of them jumped.

"It's still working?" Ned asked.

"Batteries," Bolton explained, turning the volume up.

"Attention all guards. This is Mr. Ames. Please round up your respective charges and take them back to their dorm rooms. It's bedtime. Help is on the way, and everything should be back to normal tomorrow. Repeat, all guards round up your respective charges. Remain armed, AND, if anyone steps out of line, use whatever force you deem necessary to maintain order. All inmates are to be put to bed immediately, with the exception of near-graduate trainees if you need to have their help."

"He's lying," Ned said softly, turning his attention back to Michael.

"I gotta go get the others for this ward," Bolton said.

Ned nodded and sat on the edge of Michael's bed. He stroked the boy's short blonde hair a few times, then bowed his head. The sounds of the boy's pitiful howls for help and cries that he promised to be good were still echoing in Ned's ears, and tears that were not totally sadness welled up in his eyes. Unbeknownst to Ned, Bolton paused in the doorway and stole a quick glance back at the doctor and the prisoner who almost looked like brothers.

Outside the main gate, Linda Johnson was, metaphorically, having Lawrence Taft for dinner. She hit him with question after question that he was unprepared to answer. The truth, Taft knew, was far too shocking to reveal to anyone, much less this carnivorous news reporter. "So you deny the rumors that boys are routinely castrated upon admission to IO?" she asked, twisting the knife of the question in him. Taft cringed a bit, and she saw it. "Is there any truth to this rumor, Mr. Taft?"

"Nothing is done to boys here at IO that is not for their own good, Ms. Johnson," Taft replied, "We employ a broad range of counseling and therapeutic techniques to rehabilitate our young offenders so that may return to society to lead productive lives." It sounded good, by the book, but Linda wasn't swallowing it.

"Just how broad is 'broad'?" she bored in. "And what of the recent suicides of a group of inmates who were just released? Any explanations?"

"I am not aware of any suicides of former or current IO inmates nor staff, ma'am," Taft fumbled.

"Allow me to enlighten you then, Larry," she plowed on, still smiling for the camera. "In the last month, there have been four suicides in this and the surrounding areas. The first was three months ago, a young man who had just been released after serving three years at IO. He blew his head off after a broken engagement to the girlfriend who had awaited his release for those 3 years. He had been free for 5 months. The second was a 15-year-old boy who had been released after serving a year for one count of sexual misconduct with a minor, another boy. He drank himself to death with a few bottles of Everclear. His autopsy was very, very interesting, if you know what I mean. I could go on, but for our viewers, join us for our Channel 9 X-Treem segment on crime and punishments. The topic, 'Is it really for their own good'?"

"I was not aware of this, ma'am," Taft choked.

"Perhaps you'd care to join up for taping then?" she demanded.

"CUT!" someone yelled.

Linda sighed. "We're off the air now, Larry. I'm going to do this segment for the special, and let me tell you something – your office is going to be getting a lot of calls over what I'm going to say and delve into. I think I've finally got a line on a former inmate who went in as a boy at age 12 and came out without his balls 2 years later. This autopsy I mentioned, the interesting one ? Would it shock you to learn that this boy who drank himself to death didn't have ANY genitalia at all when they cut him open? He didn't have much of a liver, either. I happen to be dating the coroner, you know…" and she left that hanging.

Taft paled.

"You can't get away from me, Taft," she threatened, "This has got 'Pulitzer' written ALL over it, and I'll eat you alive if I have to to get it."

Jason and Max made their way down the hallway, forcing open each door as they went. For the most part, they were confronted with empty rooms with more doors. In a few, they found what looked like waiting areas, and nothing more. "This could take forever," Max muttered, "The floor plan they gave me wasn't too good. I think we're going to be lost soon."

Jason smiled. "I helped test this system, Max. I think I can find it." He then pulled a small device which was about the size of a garage door opener from his pocket and turned it on. It lit up, chirped a few times, then a green light began to glow on it.

"What's that?" Max asked, fumbling with his map.

"Something I added to the CyberHound2 when I tested it with them," he replied, "I thought it might come in handy someday. You know, when this is all over, I think I'll take that job with Symantec." Bolton entered the gym, and was not surprised to find a great deal of the IO inmates already having given up on their various diversions. Many of them were lying down on the floor, and a few of them looked to be asleep.

His eyes scanned the room until he saw Sam, who was sitting up against the far wall with Joey at his side. The smaller white boy was laying over with his head in Sam's lap, and he looked to be shaking. As Bolton approached, he could see that Joey was crying.

"Whassup?" he asked Sam.

Sam looked up for a moment, and something passed between he and Bolton as their eyes met. He took the smaller boy in his strong arms, and helped him to his feet. Joey pulled his hood up, and kept his eyes on the floor. It looked to Bolton as if Joey had been crying for a long time. "Looks like Jonestown in here," Bolton observed, happy NOT to see any blood anywhere.

"Pretty good day off, man," Sam stated, "Bedtime?" Bolton nodded.

"You need help?" Sam asked, with Joey still leaning heavily upon him.

Bolton nodded again.

"Any word on the computers?"

"Nope," Bolton replied, drawing himself up and taking a deep breath.

"Alright kids," he bellowed, his voice filling the gym, " bedtime. Line up and let's go. Everybody follow your respective guards and back to your dorms. Goodnight and sleep tight!" he grinned. All around the gym, the boys lined up and filed out with their respective guards and trainees.

Some of them had to be awakened, and many of them had confused looks on their faces. Bolton sniffed.

"Damn, I wish we had hot water," he observed.

"A shower does sound good," Sam agreed, as he and several other boys formed up in front of Bolton and they left the gym.

Joey clung to Sam the entire time, and Bolton, bringing up the rear, was shocked to see this emotional outburst from the boy who hadn't said ten words to him in two years.

Jason turned his strange little device this way and that. "We need to go down," he told Max.

"I think you're right," Max agreed, turning his map over and over.

"I know I am." Jason laughed.

Max thought for a moment, then his curiosity got the best of him. "Just WHY is this place so dependent on the computer? I mean, geeez, how stupid can the be? Haven't they heard of manual over-ride?"

"I think they're hiding something here," Jason replied. "Ned has a theory or three or four that we've been working on. I think we might even find something in what's left of the Mainframe when we get there. Let's see if we can find a stairwell." They found some stairs at the end of the hall and went down. The stairs were made of metal, and one could see down through them. There was a guardrail, and looking over the edge in the dim light made Jason think of the scene from one old sci-fi movie that he had seen a long time ago. A sense of vertigo set in, and he resolutely decided NOT to look out of the edge again. His small device chirped again, and the green light grew brighter. Max sighed and tossed his map over the edge.

"This place gives me the creeps," he said, "I think I'll quit when this is over."

"Imagine being locked up in here for years," Jason mused.

"I can't imagine ever working here part time," Max replied.

"Think of how the boys feel," Jason responded.

"I don't want to," Max said, looking over his shoulder as if he expected someone to be following him. The darkness was eerie, and try as he might, he couldn't stop shivering.

They paused on the next landing to rest. Max sat down, and immediately pulled his hand up and yelped. Jason laughed, picking up an empty Coke can and waving it at the startled Max. "What a mess!" Max complained, "What's up with that?" He then looked around at the rest of the landing. Here and there in the metal gridwork of the landing were bits of white lint, along with the spilled Coke, and surprisingly, an empty hypodermic. Max picked it up carefully and read the label.

"It's got code all over it, says Ativan though."

"Looks like they knocked out an escapee down here," Jason mused, "You 'bout ready?" Max nodded and got up, wiping his hand on his pants leg. They started down again.

Ames had returned to his office after making sure that all of the inmates were on their way back to their dorms. Something was nagging at him, however, and he couldn't get his mind off of the strange sound that he thought he had heard earlier. Although he knew it was futile, he started back up to the front door which was the only way in or out of the main complex. As he walked, he glanced this way and that in the dim light and began to grow nervous. He thought he heard a voice, but dismissed it to lack of sleep and worry. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and felt crumpled paper there. He cursed once, pulling the paper out to stare at the print and into the face of a young boy who had not looked up for the ID camera. His mind wandered back a few years, back to a time when work had not been the main focus of his life. He thought of happier times, before so much had gone so wrong. He cursed again and jammed the paper back into his pocket. "Fuckin' brat," he muttered, "you can spend the rest of your miserable life in here for all I care." Then he stopped and sniffed. Something didn't smell right. The usual smell of cleaning solvents and antiseptics that usually mixed with the smell of boys in need of a bath and constantly recirculated air wasn't quite right.

There was something too fresh about it, too cool and spring-like. He quickened his pace, all thoughts of his previous tirade evaporating. He ran up a flight of stairs, found the door to the main hall forced open, and blinked as the bright light of day poured in on him. There was a bit of dust hanging in the air, and the sound of heavy equipment filled his ears. He blinked several more times, and when his eyes finally adjusted, he saw that he entire face of the main entry way had been blown to bits.

There were police and construction workers all over the place, and red and blue lights flashed here and there amongst the throng of people. He ran towards the opening, fearing the worst – that someone might have escaped.

He broke through the ruined doorway and ran straight into the awaiting clutches on Linda Johnson.

Michael Baines found himself wandering down the brightly lit hallway with no idea of where he was or where he was going. The doors to the elevator had opened for him when he had allowed it scan his ID bracelet, and since he had become bored with the limited things to do in the rec room, he had decided to look around. He rode the elevator for a moment, and got out the first time that the doors opened. The thought of spending the next five years in this place didn't sit well with him, and it seemed that everyone was going out of his way to make sure that he stayed lost and confused. He began to walk down another long hallway, but stopped in his tracks about halfway down when he heard a muffled scream. He gasped, not sure what to do. Finally, his curiosity won out and he began to follow the noise. He stopped at a door on his right, listening for a while. It sounded as if someone were being tortured behind that door, so he decided to move on. He reached the end of the hallway, and found that it split in a T formation.

In front of him was what looked like a refrigerator, and he opened it.

Inside he found a few cans of Coke and box of snack cakes. "This isn't right," he muttered to himself, but he did take one of the Cokes.

He turned left, and walked on, his stockinged feet making no sounds on the tiled floor. It was warm in the hallway, and despite his worries, he felt pretty good as he drank the soda. Certainly someone would miss him soon and come looking for him, since he wasn't sure, after so many turns and doors, where he was nor how to get back. He assumed he would be in trouble for straying, but certainly, since the computer didn't recognize his ID, that he wouldn't be in THAT much trouble. He came to a door marked SEV BEHAV MGMT, but passed it by. He tried another door at the end of the hall, and found himself on a metal gridwork landing of some kind. There were stairs going up and down for what seemed like forever, and the lights were very bright. He shrugged and started down. "Geeez," he muttered to himself, "Not a fuckin' window in this place." Down he went, slowly drinking his pilfered soda.

Ned watched as Michael sighed in his sleep and rolled over. It was a good sign, meaning that the boy had gone from unconsciousness and into normal sleep.

He went down several flights of stairs, meeting no one, until he finally came to a door marked STORAGE / EXPER. It scanned his ID, beeped in confusion, but the door opened. Michael wandered in, throwing his empty can into a waste basket. There was not much in the room except for another door which refused to open and several large cabinets that sat back into the walls. He opened one, and found it full of strange looking jars. It was also cold, as if the cabinets were huge freezers. He read over the numbered tags on the shelves, until he came to one marked 23. He saw what looked like names mixed in with the codes. He looked closer at the jars.

There were four of them in each small group, and something was in each jar, suspended in a cloudy fluid. He pulled his hand back up into his sleeve, and picked up the jar marked CHENG amongst the other numbers, letters, and bar codes. He wiped the jar off, as it fogged up, and stared into it. He didn't know what it was, but it didn't look nice. What it looked like was a piece of meat suspended in the cloudy fluid. He turned the jar this way and that, and then the cold reality of what he was seeing struck him. What was floating in the jar were the Asian eunuch's severed genitalia.

His heart beginning to pound, Michael replaced the jar and stared at the others. There was one marked SAM, in which floated a rather large severed penis. In the one marked JOEY was Michael assumed to be a set of testicles. Then his eyes fell on another jar. This one matched his own ID bracelet perfectly, and floating in it were another set of testicles.

Michael gasped, his hand going to his crotch. His balls were still there.

He remembered asking the doctor is he was going to castrate him, and the doctor had told him no. Was he lying? Michael's mind raced. Something told him that he was seeing things that he shouldn't, and slammed the door. He took a step back, but before he could turn, someone grabbed him.

"What are YOU doing in here?" a gray uniformed guard asked him.

Michael's mouth dropped open and he just stared.

"Answer me!" the guard shouted, "How did you get IN here?" Michael shook his head. The guard pulled out what looked like a nightstick of some kind and waved it at him. Michael made an attempt to run, but the stick hit him in the back.

Michael moaned and tossed in his sleep, but Ned didn't wake him. Instead, he held the young eunuch's hand and fought down his own tears.

He felt himself falling, but he couldn't get up. The guard's hands were on him, grabbing him and hauling him up by the hood of his white sweatshirt.

He tried to focus his eyes, but couldn't. The guard was calling for help, and carrying him back up the metal grid stairs. Others came then, and someone was there in the hall, taking hold of him. It was a man with a rough voice, and he was yelling at him. "What did you see?" the man demanded. Then he hit him. As they dragged him down the hallway, the man continued to scream at him and strike him. He tried to curl up and protect himself, but the man wouldn't let up. He found himself being dragged into a room where two other boys were already restrained upon tables of some kind. He saw someone taking a boy in wheelchair out the opposite end of the room, a small and pale boy with closely buzzed dark hair. The boy was whimpering, and there were ugly red welts on his head. The boy on the first table, next to the one upon which they were securing him, was writhing in his restraints. He had a large rubber plug in his mouth, and an orderly was placing some kind of clamp around his forehead.

The angry man slapped his face again, demanding he tell what he had seen or what he thought that he had seen; Michael, however, was too frightened and confused to answer. The repeated blows had hurt him, and all he do was cry. He mumbled about his ID and being lost, but the angry man would have none of it. Then he heard a crackling noise, and saw the boy on the table next to him having what looked like a seizure. The orderly pulled the clamp off of his forehead and picked up a large and long needle. Michael watched in horror as the orderly handed it to a doctor who pushed it into he boy's head, just behind and under his ear. The long needle went all the way in, then the boy screamed and fell still.

Someone was spreading cold jelly of some kind on his forehead, and the horrible clamps were placed on him as well. "P-please, no!" he cried, "I didn't mean to, I was lost!"

"That's what they all say," the angry man answered, "We'll just have to a bit of conditioning and make you forget some of what you saw. This is going to hurt, Mikey, it's going to hurt a LOT, but, it IS for your own good." Michael cried out in his sleep, unable to rouse himself from what he couldn't decided was real or a dream. Ned grasped his hand tighter. If his theory was right, Michael was remembering things – things that might prove useful later on.

The shock ripped through his body, and the last thing that Michael remembered was seeing the boy on the far table. His head was shaved smooth, and there was a red line all the way around it. He fought the urge to vomit and chewed on the rubber plug on his mouth as he saw the top of the boy's head pulled totally off. Then the shock tore through him again, and he felt a hot stab behind his ear. He tried hard to scream.

And he succeeded. Michael's eyes popped open and in the waking world, his scream made Ned jump. He felt the warm hand on his, and although he wanted to run, he suddenly realized that he had awakened from another bad dream.

Ned was there, and he felt himself pulled into a tight embrace. He didn't fight it. Memories came flooding back in on him, and he let Ned hold him, feeling – for some strange reason – safe. Then he was pushed away, and felt warm hands on each side of his face. "Michael, it's Ned." There were tears standing in his eyes, which the boy didn't understand. "Are you OK?"

Michael nodded, Ned's grip on him tight. Then the man pulled him close again, pulled him into his lap and held him as if he were afraid that he might run away. A wave of shame overcame the eunuch as he remembered something – the episode on the landing. He had been afraid of Ned, and said terrible things to him. He remembered the beatings. He remembered the shocks. He remembered the horrors he had seen. Surprisingly, as it all came back to him, it didn't frighten him. It made him angry. He had no reason to fear Ned; Ames was the one to fear. "I'm sorry," he spoke into Ned's shoulder, since the man wouldn't let go of him. Then he felt a hand on top his head, and Ned was staring into his eyes. He noticed that their eyes and hair were almost the same color.

"Michael, what do you remember? How do you feel?"

"I'm f-fine, I think. I had a b-bad dream, but it's over."

"Michael," Ned said in a quite voice thick with emotion, "I'm so sorry for what I've put you through. Please don't hate me for it." Michael thought for a moment, still trying to sort out his jumbled memories. Ned had been there when he had arrived. Ned had checked him over. Every week, Ned had examined him. Some of the things that Ned had done to him were unpleasant, but he understood that he was the prisoner and Ned was the doctor and that it was procedure. Ned was there, however, and he listened. Often, during the exams, he had talked to him and then listened. Ned had never punished him, either. And even though Ned had been the one who had castrated him, after saying that he wouldn't, Michael understood something else – Ned had had no choice in the matter, and Ames hated them both. He remembered the beating, and something that Ames had said in passing when he had thought that the boy was unconscious. "Ned doesn't ENJOY his work, we should replace him."

"It's not y-y-your fault, Ned. They m-m-messed up my head b-bad," Michael offered.

"You don't understand, Mikey – Michael – I'm sorry, it was all my fault – what Ames did to you," Ned explained. He didn't know how much the eunuch remembered, but his own battered conscience would wait no longer. Michael stared at him.

"I was messing with the computer, Michael. Jason and I. We had some suspicions. Your ID was offline when you wandered off that day…" but Ned couldn't finish. He looked away, ashamed of himself for what his need to know had done to the boy, the boy who was his little brother. How could he tell him now, after his quest to confirm the boy's identity had almost killed him? "It's OK, N-ned," he said softly, moving closer to the man who had always seemed to like him well enough, the one man on staff in this living nightmare who had ever had a kind word for him, "You didn't m-mean to. YOU didn't m-make Ames b-beat me or try to f-f-fry my brain." Ned nodded, but said nothing, his arm still wrapped protectively around the eunuch's shoulders. The young eunuch felt safe and secure in Ned's embrace, and he almost felt, if things were different, that he could stay in that embrace for the rest of his life. Then the door was forced open and Bolton escorted Joey and Sam in. Michael watched them. Ned wiped his eyes and turned to face them. "I see he be alive, yet," Bolton observed.

Sam was smiling, but Joey, whom Sam was supporting, simply went to his bed. He stripped and got in, nodded to Michael once, and rolled over; he pulled the covers over his head. Ned tightened his grip on Michael, not sure how sane the boy was yet.

"Hi, Sam," Michael said.

"You OK, Mr. Adventure? Wanderin' off again, huh?" Sam asked.

"I remember the first time," Michael stated flatly.

Sam whistled, his eyes wide. Bolton's mouth fell open.

"How much of it?" Ned asked.

Michael hesitated.

"The computers are still down, Mikey," Sam supplied, "No one can punish you now," Sam offered.

That comment brought a gasp from Joey's bed. They all turned to look at him, as, very slowly, Joey sat up and uncovered his head. His eyes were wide, and he wasn't shaking. "What did you say?" he asked Sam in a small voice, as if afraid that someone might overhear him.

"I said the computers are all down, Joey. Man, what'u think's been goin' on all day?"

"You go first, Mikey," the pale boy whispered, his eyes pleading.

"What do you remember?" Ned asked again.

"All of it, I th-think," Michael replied, and as Ned picked up a notebook, Michael Baines began to talk.

"…so with two technicians headed into IO to try and fix the computers…" Linda Johnson was saying, smiling into the camera as usual. She stopped however, when she saw the man come running out through the ruined entryway. It was a man that she knew from her research. Her gaze landed on Ames, and he looked up and saw her. Both of them froze, then Linda recovered herself. "Ah, and here we have Mr. Ames, the Director of IO himself, the first to emerge from the disaster!" She waved, and ran to Ames, the cameras following her. "Mr. Ames! Mr. Ames!" She shouted, "How did you get out? Have the techs restored the Mainframe as of yet?"

Ames took in the scene with great chagrin. 'Ye gods, the media,' he thought to himself, watching Linda Johnson descend upon him like a hyena at a lion's abandoned kill.

"Mr. Ames, what can you tell us? The entire state is holding its collective breath awaiting word of what's going on inside!" She shoved the mic at him, almost hitting him in the mouth with it.

"Well, uh, Linda – is it ? – Everything is under control. The boys are all happily in bed and worn out after a day off, really. Recreation all day, you understand. We're a bit concerned about the staff being on double shift, but that happens sometimes, bad weather, call-ins, sick days, you understand. Everyone is fine, in fact, we were just discussing the repairs with the techs when I came out to see how things were going. I knew there would be concern," Ames lied glibly. If Linda wanted to play, he could play too.

"So no one is hurt, and things are just fine? I find that hard to believe, Mr. Ames," she retorted.

"Well, Linda, it's just a matter of maintaining discipline. The boys know what they can do and what not to do, and the staff is fully trained for emergency situations. Everything is under control, and in fact, if the next shift wishes to report for duty, they may enter. They'll just have to take some flashlights and push some doors open is all," Ames countered.

Several awaiting employees, however, went over to a black van and began to pull weapons from it, arming themselves as if to go into battle. One of them, taking in the ranks of the guards ready to go in, ordered, "Alright, men, riot protocol ONE. Let's not have any surprises. They may all be asleep as the boss says, but let's do it by the book. Remember, don't shoot the two computer jockeys in the lower levels." And with that, they entered the ruined doorway.

"Riot protocol ONE?" Linda demanded, waving the mic at Ames.

"Standard procedure in an unknown situation," he replied.

"I thought you said everything was under control?" Ames shifted and looked around. Everyone was staring at them. "I just came from inspecting the dorms myself, Ms. Johnson. Everything inside of IO is fine."

"We're all relieved to hear that, sir. I'm sure we can trust your word.

Now, for the sakes of our viewers and some concerned parents out there, what can you tell us about the rumors of torture, mind control and castration inside of IO?" she demanded.

Ames looked at her in confusion for a moment. Then he saw Taft heading for his car, a tan Mercedes that was idling and seemingly waiting to speed off as fast it could to escape Linda Johnson. She seemed to notice this. "Mr. Taft was less than forthcoming, Mr. Ames. It almost leads this reporter to believe that something is afoot that we don't fully understand."

"I can assure you, and the public, Ms. Johnson, that nothing unsavory is going on inside of IO and what is being done for the unfortunate boys therein is in their best interest and absolutely for their own good," he said flatly.

"Mr. Taft said the same things, sir. Now, if you will hold a moment, we'll go live via satellite to the home of Erik Anderson, a former IO inmate who was released some months ago at the age of 15 after serving three years for the crime of arson. Howard, do you have the feed ready?" she demanded.

The cameras cut to Howard at his desk, then to another monitor. On the screen was a headshot of a boy with a severe crewcut. His eyes were haunted looking – blank, and there were dark circles under them. As the camera pulled back, he was seen sitting in between his mother and father, his hands in his lap. Each of his parents had their hands over his. They sat closely together, and there were a few papers in Erik's father's lap.

"Hello, Erik, this Howard Stein of channel 9 – can you hear and see us alright?" On the screen, Erik nodded, but he didn't look up.

"Erik, we have here Mr. Ames from IO. You were released just recently weren't you?" Linda asked. There was a short delay, and then Erik nodded.

"Hello, Mr. Ames," Erik mumbled. Somewhere, a technician adjusted the audio and zoomed in on Erik's face. The boy, who didn't look 15, stared past the camera and his eyes filled with tears. "How's Joey and everyone else in 23?"

Ames took a step back. The boy on the screen was the inmate that Michael Baines had replaced, and he was talking! This was an outrage! It was also impossible. Ames fumed inside, trying to control himself. In all of his years at IO, no inmate released had ever spoken a word. Now, here was a paroled arsonist on national television, and Ames feared that the boy was about to start telling a story; few might believe it, but the damage and rumor would be enough. He realized that he was going to have to speak carefully, drawing upon the key words and gestures that were implanted in the paroled boy's subconscious mind. The right gesture here and there and few key words should silence the boy before he could say anything damning.

Ames drew himself up, scratching the tip of his own nose. "I'm fine, and so are your old roomies, Erik. They miss you. How are you today?"

Erik's shoulder moved, and the camera pulled back a bit. The boy picked up something. It was a pair of dark mirrored sunglasses that wrapped around his face. He pushed them on tightly and leaned back. "I'm sorry, sir, bright light hurts my eyes bad."

"Erik just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago, Mr. Ames. He suffered a aneurism and the damage to the visual cortex was severe," Erik's father replied coldly.

Ames cringed. Linda Johnson smiled and made an indelicate sound. "Are we to understand, sir, that Erik's aneurism may have been brought on by abuses suffered IO for the petty crime of setting fire to an abandoned barn that was a social hazard anyway?" she asked.

The feed cut back to Erik and his parents. Ames lowered his hand from his nose, a cold fear settling in the pit of his stomach. "From what the doctors tell us," Erik's father began, "our son was severely abused, and something that weakened the blood vessels in his brain was done to him.

All of his tests are coming up very, very abnormal. He has to have plenty of rest and quiet, so we can't be long here, Linda." On the screen, Erik fidgeted, his hands never leaving his lap.

"Comments, Mr. Ames?" she asked.

Ames looked into the camera. "Why the glasses, Erik?" he wheedled, trying to get the boy to look right at him so he could trip one of the conditioned responses to silence the boy. "A fashion statement, perhaps?"

"I'm blind, sir," the boy mumbled. "Are you sure Joey is OK?"

Chapter 11

"Shut your eyes, Mikey," Bolton ordered, "And no one else say a thing. Don't look at us, don't think about anything other than what you want to say." Strangely, there was no hint to the accented slang with which the huge black man usually spoke. Sam and Joey stared at him. Ned let his arm slide from Michael's slight shoulders and got up to sit on the edge of Joey's bed. Oddly enough, Joey moved slowly closer to him and leaned up against his left arm. Bolton joined Sam, and they averted their eyes. Then he glanced nervously around the room. "I hope nobody fixes that damn computer before they can get it all out," he said.

"Why the subterfuge, Bolton?" Ned asked.

"Conditioning," Bolton replied, "The slightest gesture or wrong word will shut him up just like a clam. It's part of what they get when they're asleep." Ned's eyes grew wide. Sam gasped. Joey didn't move.

"That's why no one ever heard about this place before," Bolton offered.

Michael, however, was deep in thought. He was shaking a bit, but it was from pure rage and not the least part fear. In his piping and unbroken voice, he began to tell his story of his recovered memories.

Lawrence Taft's cell phone rang all the way home and continued to ring as he entered his opulent and overdone house. The butler met him at the door, took his coat, and advised him that there were a great many messages on the machine. Taft snorted. "No calls," he snapped, heading up the stairs to his study. He entered the room, it's walls lined with bookshelves, and seated himself at a polished table of dark wood. He turned on his computer, and began to call up records. For the better part of the night, he read. He looked at prisoner profiles. He looked at medical charts.

Finally, he turned on his instant messenger under invisible mode. A flood of offline messages met him, very nearly choking his computer. Most of them were from HIS boss, the Governor, who WAS online. With a grimace, he picked up the cell phone. The screen was full of 'missed calls' error messages. Most of them were from his boss as well. The phone rang. He sighed deeply and answered it. "Taft," he said flatly.

"TAFT!" An angry voice shouted through the phone, "Just who in the name of Hell IS this Linda Johnson and what the hell were YOU doing on television talking to HER!?"

"Sir, we have a problem," Taft whispered.

"You're damn right we do. IO is the premiere institution in this country for rehabilitating juvenile offenders, and the wicked witch of the whatever-the-hell-direction she came out of is trying to make us look like butchers and murderers. What the hell have you got to say for yourself?" Taft thought. The faces on the screen stared back at him, or most of them did. Many of the boys in the IO pictures had their eyes downcast.

"Are you aware that this Erik kid on TV is suing us? He and his parents? Did you see the late news? That boy was on TV talking about castration and aversion therapy. He even offered to show this Linda woman his wound in private! We're talking class-action here, Taft, and believe you me, mister, it's not MY ass that's gonna get bitten off on this one! Something has gone very very wrong here, Taft. Are you listening to me?" the Governor demanded.

"Sir, I was unaware of what was happening inside of IO. I am fully aware now, and becoming more and more aware by the minute. I think you should look into the secure database files from the remote server," Taft replied weakly.

"Hold on," the Governor replied in an irritated voice.

Taft could hear clicking and pecking in the background.

"Standard data, the usual procedures. Now what I want to know is HOW this Erik kid got onto national television and ended up blind and…" but Taft, suddenly sick to his stomach, found his last remaining nerve and interrupted him.

"Standard procedures?" he screamed into the phone, "YOU knew? You call genital mutilation and torture and memory altering with attempted mind control standard? You say it's all for their own good? Have you seen the death rate report? Sir, I had no clue this was happening. The whole board of directors had no clue. I think you need to speak with the man in charge, Joe Ames. Find out what HE is doing in this matter. After all, HE is the one running the show at IO! How dare you lay this at MY feet?"

There was a deadly silence on the phone.

"Don't tell me YOU didn't know, Taft. I put you on that board for a reason. You and Ames go back a ways. This Linda Johnson is in the way, Taft. She's trouble. So is this Erik kid. I think it's time that Erik reverted to his fire-bugging ways, don't you? And maybe Ms. Johnson should be silenced as well? She's in the wrong place at the wrong time, Taft. Do something." The cell phone beeped and read 'call terminated'.

Taft buzzed his intercom. "Slocombe," he called.

"Yeeeees?" the butler's voice answered.

"Did you tape the news on channel 9?"

"Of course," the butler drawled.

"Bring it up to me at once," Taft ordered, startled by a beep from his computer. On the screen was a monkey animation, and it was holding a large pipe wrench. It was smiling at him.

Taft turned from the computer as Slocombe arrived with a VHS tape. He popped the tape in and watched in horror as the boy in dark mirrored glasses stumbled through a bizarre story that he swore was the truth. Taft very nearly fell out of his chair when the boy paused, took a deep breath, and said, "I'll show you, Linda, to prove it. You have to do something about them. They did THIS to me…"

"Did what?" Linda Johnson's voice encouraged the now-crying boy on the screen, "Something related to your having the aneurism?"

"No, C-castrated me," Erik replied, leaning heavily on his father's shoulder.

Taft watched the tape again and again. It was around 3:00 AM that he sorted through his messages and missed calls. He dialed up one number. The phone rang and rang. A groggy voice answered, finally. "Yes?" a soft feminine voice asked.

"Ms. Johnson, this is Taft."

"TAFT?!" she exclaimed, sounding fully awake, "My God, man, did you see Erik's interview?"

"I just finished it, Ms. Johnson. I had no idea. I'm so sorry," Taft choked.

There was another of those deadly silences.

"You really are, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It's all coming out, Taft. Erik was just the first. The rumors are beginning to be substantiated. You've got a certified eunuch on your hands, Taft, and he's talking. So far there's no word from the techs inside of IO, but I'm on call. Would you like to meet?" she inquired sweetly.

"I-I- don't know," he stammered, "It's so terrible. Please believe me, Linda, I had no clue. It was Ames' doings. I can't get that boy's face out of my mind. Meet me at IO's front gate ASAP, Linda. Bring a crew, and call the cops. Don't be alone. Hurry!" And with that, Taft slammed the phone down and dialed 911. A sleepy sounding operator took his call with the usual blather which was usually long enough to kill someone. Taft demanded a 'Code-black-G-supervisor,' and the operator gasped and transferred him.

"G-man," the voice replied.

"Taft," Taft said flatly.

"Understood," the supervisor replied.

"Send fire and police to the residence of the IO parolee from tonight's news NOW!" he demanded in his shrill voice, "I believe there's about to be an attempt on his life." Taft hung up the phone. He turned to shut his computer down, but the screen was solid red and a document was rolling out of his printer. Taft watched it finish, and then the computer quietly died… its last message being 'Monkeywrech.exe is now shutting down'.

Slowly, he picked up the paper and read it.

Jason and Max, at the urging of Jason's tracking device, forced a door that was at least ten floors down inside the IO complex. They entered the room, and found several workstations and huge pieces of computer equipment all along the walls. Max whistled. "There's gotta be 2000 square feet [185 m²] in here, at least," he commented.

Jason nodded, shining his flashlight around the dimly lighted room at the near-dead systems. "2,328 [216 m²] to be exact," he replied, "I helped test it, you know."

"Let's just fix it and get the hell out of here," Max responded, "This place almost feels haunted to me." Jason seated himself at a workstation, and while Max was digging through his briefcase, he plugged his laptop into a dead terminal's network card.

The laptop spun to life, and the CD in its drive kicked the terminal into life. The usual start up screen came on, but Jason quickly executed a file from the CD called, of all things, 'Banana Boat'. Max heard the beep and spun around.

"We got a pulse," Jason joked.

"You won't have for long," Max replied, pecking at some DOS commands on another terminal that Jason had resurrected. "The main processors are shot, and so are most of the secondaries. It seems that only emergency systems are operating, and only lights and air flow are being controlled.

Everything else is FUCKED! Man, this CANNOT happen to a CyberHound 2!"

"Well, something sure happened," Jason said wryly.

Max had pulled an access door open on one of the huge wall-mounted banks and had stuck his head inside. "Oh God, no," he mumbled.

Jason laughed.

"What?"

"Man, this thing has been smoked! I mean toasted! Get me the case with the spare parts in it, we're gonna need 'em all." Max sighed.

Jason, however, had his own agenda. As Max worked to replace dead hardware, Jason's 'Banana Boat' program began to make repairs of its own.

"You're as good as out, Mikey," Jason thought to himself.

"I'm d-done n-now," Michael choked, his story over.

They all turned back to face him, and even Sam's face was pale. Michael was shaking, his eyes wild and filled with tears. "A-ahw-ll I did w-w-was s-steal some st-st-stuff," he sobbed, his anger ebbing, giving way to fear and remorse, "a-and they p-put m-me in h-here and m-made y-you c-c-cut my b-balls off! I d-didn't mean t-tuh b-be…" but he couldn't finish. Ned gestured to Sam, who came and unwound the shaking form of Joey from his left arm. Joey attached himself to Sam then, his eyes tightly shut and his slight frame shivering badly. Ned poked around in his case, and pulled out another needle. Michael whimpered. "Noooooo…"

But Ned took the young eunuch in his arms and quietly whispered, "It's only a light sedative. It won't put you out, but it WILL settle you down a bit. Michael, listen to me – you're sick. You're sick, like Cheng was. I know it hurts, and I know they've done some rotten things to you in here. I know you miss him bad, that he was your friend and more, but he's gone. I'm sorry you had to remember it all this way, but there wasn't any other choice. BUT – you cannot get EXCITED, Michael! Listen to me!" Michael faced Ned and nodded, wiping at his eyes. He pulled the cover back and allowed Ned to inject him.

"If you keep staying so keyed up, you're going to have another episode.

The ULF punishments and the lack of hormones in your body from the castration are combining to – well – let's just say it's messing up your brain's chemical balance, OK?" Michael nodded. "Add to that some physical things about the structure of your brain, and you've got a deadly mix going on in there. We have to keep you calm, and get you some hormone replacements, or otherwise, what happened to Cheng is going to happen to you. There's much more, but I'll have to tell you later. I can't have you getting worked up anymore. Promise?" Michael nodded again and looked over at Sam, who was still holding Joey.

The pale boy was shaking his head. "I can't," he cried, "Please don't make me. He'll find out and hurt me. If I talk, he'll get me." Sam pulled the pale eunuch closer, rubbing a large black hand over the boy's stubbled scalp.

"C'mon, Joey. Computers be down, hell, they dead. No one gon' find out.

Spit it out. Mikey did, and he's still here," Sam encouraged him.

"Give him a shot of this, Sam," Ned ordered, passing the young black guard-to-be a needle.

"Tranq?" Sam asked.

"A light one, like Michael got," Ned replied. Sam did that.

Joey whimpered. "I hate shots," he said in a quiet, but flat voice. "I hate shots and being naked and everyone looking at me. I hate being poked at every week and that damn hot water hose you stick up my ass every week too."

"I know, Joey. I know," Ned replied, "But it's my job. I have no choice, not yet. Tell us what you know, Joey. We need to know if we're going to help you."

"No," he shouted, "I don't know anything! Leave me alone! Get away from me and stop bothering me! He'll find out, he always does! He hates me and he'll kill me!"

Sam held fast to the now struggling pale eunuch. He was amazed at how strong the puny boy really was. "I be holdin' him 'til that shot kicks in," Sam observed.

"Don't talk to him or look at him," Bolton reminded them, "He's been conditioned the worst. Hell, the poor boy's been broken."

Joey coughed, and his shoulders slumped. "That's just it," he said, "I'm NOT a boy. Not anymore, and I hate it! HE saw to that." One small hand made its way under the blanket, and they all knew to where it went. "Why'd he do it to me?" he asked of them all, looking from turned face to turned face, "I didn't do anything bad."

"You mean castrate you?" Bolton asked.

"Yes."

"All the boys in IO get cut, Joey, you know that," Bolton answered carefully, "And WE know, so YOU can tell ME." Ned heard the tone in Bolton's voice, and he realized that the guard had just tripped a subconscious trigger in the pale eunuch's conditioned mind.

He picked up his pad and pen.

"But why ME?" Joey demanded, "I'm not a criminal. I just did what he told me. I was good, I tried to be, but it was never enough for him, and I tried SO hard."

"And?" Bolton prodded.

"When my mom died, he got into his work more and more. I was left alone, or with the neighbors. He was never home, never had time for me. One of my uncles was gonna adopt me, but he had a fit over that. Finally, they said something and he started taking me to work with him. I'd stay in his office, follow him around. When he was off, or had a break, we'd go outside. I had to wear this red sweatsuit when I came in with him. I never saw anyone but guards in gray and adults, like teachers. Sometimes we'd play ball or stuff out there on the grass, but I was never good at that.

He'd get so mad at me. All the doctors here looked me over, but they said I was fine, just small. Then one day he was talking to one of the guards and he said I wasn't 'boy enough' for him and he was going to have to do something with me because he didn't have time for taking care of a baby."

Joey paused to catch his breath.

"So yo' momma died, and yo' daddy didn't have time for you? Maybe HE was hurtin' too?" Bolton urged softly. His accent seemed to be resurfacing.

"No," Joey continued, "him and mom didn't talk much. She was always yelling at him, they fought a lot. They said bad things to each other, lied to each other. Finally, she said she was leaving and taking me with her. He said 'good, go, just don't come back.' Then she got sick after we moved out. He came and took me home, but whatever she had was bad. They said it was cancer, and she died a little while after. It was so fast."

The pale young eunuch paused again, leaning heavily on Sam. His eyes were drooping, and he was crying again.

"So he come got you back, then he ignored you?" Bolton asked.

Joey nodded. They all seemed to realize that this ordeal was taking a great deal out of the usually reticent youth, and Ned wondered how long it would be before Joey came right out and said what Ned already knew.

"Why you think he brought you to work with him?" the guard asked.

"I was riding my bike one day while he was at work and a car hit me. I wasn't hurt, but he had a fit. Then he started taking me with him most days, and trying to do more with me, but I wasn't good enough. He made me play sports, but I sat on the bench most of the time. When I did play, I wasn't good and I got hurt a lot. He was always mad at me and yelling at me, saying he didn't know what he was going to do with me. When I started going in to the office with him that last summer, I lived in it mostly. He made me wear those red clothes, and I was always by myself, except for another employee sometimes, like the secretary or a guard would talk to me. I slept on the couch in his office at night, and when we DID go home, he left me with the neighbors." Bolton drew a deep breath, and Ned almost knew what was coming next.

"Joey, how old was you when yo momma died?"

"10."

"How old are you now?" Bolton asked.

The pale eunuch looked at the ID bracelet on his left wrist. "It says I'm 16." Bolton, who had glanced briefly at Joey, nodded. "Six years is a long time for somebody who din't DO anything."

"It didn't matter WHAT I did, I wasn't good enough for him," Joey choked, "So he brought me in one day and left me alone in a room with just a chair. I don't know how long it was, hours, but finally a voice came from the ceiling and told me to take off my clothes and get in the chair." Michael, although he knew he wasn't supposed to say anything, spoke up.

"He brought you HERE 'cause he didn't want you?"

"Yes," Joey replied, his voice shaking.

"But that's what they did to ME when I got locked up in here! The room with the chair and the voice!" Michael exclaimed.

"Joey," Bolton said softly, "tell US who HE is and why HE left YOU here."

"He didn't want me. He hates me. He told me if I hadn't been such a bad kid, or been so hard to deal with, that him and mom wouldn't have split and she wouldn't have got sick." Joey was clinging tightly to Sam now, and despite the sedative, he was still shaking. "He'll find out, he always finds out. So I don't talk. He'll punish me."

"YOU can tell US," Bolton urged, "Prisoners TELL the guards about problems." Joey took a deep breath, glanced nervously about the dimly lighted room, and then pulled the blanket up over his head again. Ned felt a lump rising in his throat. He was afraid that the confession that might be too much for the young eunuch.

"HE brought you to work with him, you said, where there were guards in gray?" Bolton urged.

"Yea, one day he said 'you're going in to work with me today, son' and when we got here, he left me in that room without making me put on the red clothes. I never knew why I had to wear them until the next day after – it was to set me apart from the boys in white. Then voice made me sit in the chair. I didn't want to, but my head started to hurt really bad and then when I sat down, it stopped. Then it told me to take off my clothes, and my head started to hurt again. I did it, and sat back down and the chair grabbed me and locked me in. I couldn't get up and nobody came for me." Ned noticed the change of Joey's tone. His shy and hurt voice was taking on a darker tone, and he could tell that the eunuch was getting angry. Ned made a note. Joey didn't seem to suffer from what Cheng had and Michael did. His records indicated that, as well as having labeled him as 'straight'.

Joey went on, and Ned knew where he was going. Sam and Michael listened, hardly breathing. Ned suspected that Bolton had put two and two together already.

"You said 'here'," Bolton commented.

"Yea, HERE!" Joey announced, "Here where the bad boys get put, he told me. Where I belonged, he told me, because I was bad and because I wasn't much of a boy anyway. Here where you wear white clothes and you don't know what time or day it is and they shave your head and doctors pick at you all the time and counselors nose into your life. He came in while I was in the chair. I was almost asleep, and it was cold. He just looked at me and said something like, 'get used to it, son, at least if you're in here I can work in peace and not have to worry about you.' I didn't understand it. I started crying, I was so scared. I just wanted to go home, but he said I was home, in a new home. He'd see me every day, and since I wasn't turning out to be the boy he wanted, he said, it was just as well and it was for my own good. Then a man came in and he shaved my head and they took me to a room like Ned's doctor office with a shower and they…"

But Michael interrupted him. "H-holy Christ, m-man! Your d-dad worked h-h-here and he d-d-dumped you here to g-get rid of y-you? Can they d-d-do that?" he asked Ned.

"Shit," Sam interjected, "dis ain't no orphans' home! You can't just be puttin' any ol' kid in here!"

Ned nodded. "But Joey's dad can do anything in here," he coaxed.

Michael stared at Joey with a look of abject horror on his face. Sam and Bolton had turned to face him, since Joey still had the blanket pulled up over his head. Michael might have been ignored by his own parents, but what had been done to Joey was far, far worse. "You m-mean…"

"He STILL works here," Bolton supplied, his large white eyes bright with anger as the clues fell into place.

"Yes," Joey whimpered from under his blanket.

"Y-you're si-six-six-t-teen?" Michael groped.

"Yes," Joey answered, "Don't look like it, do I?"

"Oh, G-g-g-god," Michael stammered.

"Shit!" Sam exclaimed, "Dat means dat… dat Ames is…"

"Mr. Ames is my father," Joey answered with a choked sob, "and he hates me."

Michael and the rest of them were almost in tears at the end of Joey's story. The cruelty with which Ames had dispatched his own unwanted son was almost beyond belief, yet there in front of them sat the proof. "I-I don't g-g-get it," Michael offered.

"It's simple, Michael," Ned answered, "Ames sees in our Joey here exactly what HE isn't himself. He had his own concepts for a perfect son and an ideal life, and he didn't get it. He and his son are almost exact opposites, and he can't stand that. His ideals of masculinity, strength, perfection, perhaps – all of which Joey is nearly the antithesis of. He sees, in Joey, failure – and that's more than his ideals of perfection can take."

Ames had shut his cell phone off on the first ring. His sense of duty told him that he should back the IO Complex, watching the repair technicians, if nothing else. He was confident that the staff on duty could handle the boys, however, since he had long since weeded out the slackers in his employ. With the main entrance blown open, the next shift would be able to get in and relieve the exhausted workers who had been trapped by the computer crash. There was no worry there, and since he had not been home in days, he decided to check his house. Besides, there wasn't much chance that anyone would call or come looking for him there. The Ames house at 4548 Parkway was almost always empty now.

He pulled his black BMW sport sedan into the driveway slowly, watching the automatic garage door raise. Another button informed the security system that he was home, and as the door sealed shut once again, he got out of the car and went into the connected breezeway. He paused to kick off his shoes, flexing his toes with some degree of relief, but then gasped as he kicked one of them out of his way. The discarded shoe flew off to the side of the room to land beside the box where shoes were put when taken off. It landed right next to a polished and black, but very dusty and long-unused, size 5 little boy boot.

Ames bent and picked up the boot, blew the dust off of it, and placed it in the box next to its mate. There was a scuff on the toe of the boot he had picked up, and as ridiculous as it seemed, he wiped at it and reached up to the small cabinet above for a bottle of black scuff patch polish.

The boot repaired, he placed it back in the box so that it could continue to wait, if for another six years, for the boy who probably wasn't coming back to wear it again. "Damn kid never took care of anything," he muttered.

But the image was there. In his mind's eye. When he walked into the house, some lights came on, and another met him. The 11x14 print hanging on the opposite wall stared at him. The little boy in the image was wearing a neatly pressed white dress shirt and a black tie with tan khakis. His polished boots gleamed with catchlights in the toes from the studio lighting, and his eyes sparkled with mischief. His white teeth shown brightly and in abundance. The gold stud in his left ear glittered, and Ames gasped. In his mind, he saw the pale and thin eunuch with the shaven head, the one who had not dared look right at the ID camera, much less smile. But the boy staring back at him was fleshy and happy, and was smiling broadly into the camera, his jet black shoulder-length hair shining and slightly curled at the ends where it was pulled back away from his face and behind his ears. Ames shook his head, and cursed the automatic lighting and security system. He pulled the picture of Joey, the boy who had left a boot out on the floor six years before, off of the wall and deposited it in the kitchen can. "Why that bitch couldn't get him a HAIRCUT I'll never know! He was a boy, for Christ's sake!" he yelled at the empty house. The house made no reply.

Somewhere a heat pump kicked over, but then there was silence.

He made his way through the forlorn dwelling to the stairs, and headed up to take a bath. A hot bath would certainly help, he told himself, as well as a short nap in a good bed and not the divan in his office. Lights came on ahead of him, and he stopped by his bedroom to turn on his computer. It came obediently to life, and connected itself simultaneously to its ISP and its remote IO server, which still seemed to be up and running. Ames breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the bath. As he turned his back, a very happy and musical monkey came onscreen, banging a pair of cymbals.

In his virtual teeth, he carried a pipewrench.

Ames ran himself a bath, steam filling the room. He lowered himself with a groan into the sunken bathtub and closed his eyes. "Fuckin' take me AWAY! Least something took HER away… not before she ruined my life though," he shouted to the empty house. There was no reply. He leaned back in the tub, feeling the tension drain out of him. He thought, naturally, of work; as the tension drained, he thought of how SHE and her son had drained him as well. But HE could fix it, of that he was sure. Jason and Max would have the Mainframe up again soon, he told himself, then everything would be back to normal. He didn't even notice when the transdermal patches on his upper arms came loose and floated off amongst the suds of the bath water.

He soaked for perhaps half an hour, and then he heard it. From somewhere down the hall came a muffled cry, no more than a whimper. Ames' eyes snapped open, and he cocked his head. There was NO way anyone could be in the house, not with the security system online. Again, the small cry, despairing and small. Jumping from the tub with a vile curse, he snatched up a towel and secured it about his waist. Even though he knew that he was alone, subconsciously, he despised his own nakedness. He crept down the hall, looked into his bedroom and saw nothing but the glow from the computer screen. He checked the closet, he checked the guest room. He checked the half bath connected to the guest room. Again, the small and faint cry came to his ears. He stared in disbelief at the last door on the second floor, a door that had not been opened in six years. It was a plain wooden door, thick and sound dampening and unremarkable like the rest – of which it matched in set. It was unadorned, but he was reluctant to open it. He approached it as if there were venomous snakes on the floor, glancing often over his shoulder.

"Why?" came the choked whimper from behind the door.

Ames jumped and yelped.

His towel came undone, and he stood naked in the hallway, gasping for breath. A sharp pain shot through his chest, and he shivered. His flesh rose up in goose bumps, and he began to tremble. His penis rose as well, not quickly, but he paid no attention and the erection went unnoticed.

Slowly, he reached for the dusty brass doorknob. It was cold under his damp palm, and it turned with reluctance, almost grudgingly. The hinges squeaked as he pushed the door open. No light came on. He fumbled along the wall inside of the doorway and he flipped the first switch he came to.

Unfortunately, it was the master switch that was tied into the house's security systems, and the dutiful electronics – sure that their young master had finally come home at last – turned on everything else in the room.

From the stereo came a song with some boys singing about "You got the right stuff, baby…" and the VCR began to autoplay as the TV snapped on.

There came a startled voice from the TV, "Michelangelo, you have much to learn…" Ames jumped again. There was a thin layer of dust over everything in the room, and he snorted in disgust at the noise. He tried to switch off the stereo and TV/VCR, cursing the absent inhabitant of the room for his irresponsibility. Instead, he pressed the wrong button and skipped to the next CD in the player. A man's voice said that "Lightning crashes, and an old mother dies…" He listened to this song for a moment or two, until the singer mentioned "the baby down the hall." Then he found the OFF button. "Right stuff, my ass," he swore. He looked around at the semiorganized chaos which was a part of the bedroom of every young boy who had ever lived. There were clothes laid out on the foot of the bed, and with a start, he realized that they were same clothes from the 11x14 picture which he had disposed of. A blue baseball cap with a white letter "A" on the front of it lay on the pillow of the half made bed. The bedspread was covered with images of green humanoid turtles in multi-colored masks, all of them holding weapons. The curtains, which were closed, were done in the same motif and the dark green carpet looked as if it could use a vacuuming. At the head of the bed leaned a new baseball bat, and on the night stand was a dusty glove and an unscarred ball. On the pillow next to the cap sat a bright red action figure with a silver face mask and silver boots.

Ames looked down, and saw the size 5 white cleats there, not in the box out on the porch where they belonged. They were worn, but very clean. He swore again, but went rigid as he heard the voice once more.

"Why?" It seemed to come from all around him. He glanced nervously around the room, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. From in the hallway he heard, "Daddy's home!"

"I need a drink and a nap," he muttered, leaving the room and slamming the door. After a few minutes, the systems assumed that the boy had gone to bed or had left. The lights went out. The fact that they had not come on in six years didn't concern them in the least.

Ames picked up his towel, made his way back to the bedroom, found a bottle of scotch, and retired back to his bath. The water had cooled, and he turned up the heat and ran a bit more of hot water. He leaned back once more, taking a long drink. "Better," he sighed. Then he heard the breathing. Slowly, he turned his head and opened his eyes.

Standing in the bathroom doorway was the boy.

He stared for a moment, his mouth open in disbelief. The boy's white shirt was torn, and his black tie was wrapped around the back of his head and in his mouth like a gag. His scalp was shaven, and his long black hair was laying on the floor at his bare feet in piles. His left earlobe was torn open. His tan khakis were stained with blood which ran freely from the crotch, dripping from the cuffs and pooling up in the hair clippings at his feet. In the boy's hand was a scalpel, bloody and sharp. He took a few steps towards the tub, his small bare feet leaving bloody footprints on the white tile floor in his wake. There were tears, unshed, standing in his eyes. One of them was blackened, an angry bruise surrounding it, and his lower lip was swollen. "Why?" he asked, the sound of his fragile voice muffled by the necktie gag, "I tried so hard." A sharp pain shot through Ames' chest again, and he pressed himself against the back of the tub. The bottle of scotch slid from his hand to sink below the soap suds. "This… this isn't possible!" he shouted at the boy.

The tears in the boy's eyes broke free and ran down his cheeks. He nodded.

"How can you hate me when I love you?" the once-dapper boy asked, waving the bloody scalpel.

Ames shook his head. "You're not real," he defended himself, "Too much work. Too much stress…"

"But I tried, Daddy, I really did," the boy replied, inching his way closer, leaving more bloody little footprints. An irrational thought flared in Ames' mind.

"Everywhere you go, you make a mess!" he yelled.

The boy halted his approach, looking down at the floor. His free hand went to his crotch. "You did this, not me," he said.

"It isn't real," Ames gasped, hugging his arms to his chest, not noticing the pale shaven spots on his arms where the patches had been.

"Was it because YOU were in there too, when you were MY age?" the boy asked, "Was it because YOU were bad once?" Ames' head began to throb. Unbeknownst to him, the monkey on the screen of his computer was asking the same questions, its virtual mouth moving in time to the phantom boy's own. "Is that why you did it to ME, too?" the boy pressed.

"I did it for your own good!" Ames shouted, the pain in his chest and head increasing.

"Noooo…" the small voice whispered through thin, red lips and shiny white teeth.

Ames groaned. The pain was unbearable now, and getting worse. His breath came in ragged gasps as the monkey asked, as the boy asked, again and again. It wasn't possible. He was seeing things, he told himself. He just needed a bit of rest and some word from the technicians.

Then the boy turned away, dropping the scalpel on the floor. It clattered loudly across the bloody tiles, and he sighed. "I love you, Daddy," he said through his necktie gag, the words oddly muffled and sounding like "Iy Wuf oo Dead-ee." Then he passed through the open door and vanished. A few seconds later, from down the hallway, came music – "Heroes in a halfshell… Turtle Power!" Ames screamed.

Max slammed the last circuit board into place and crawled out from under the nerve center of the IO Mainframe. He threw a master breaker, waited for one minute, then threw it again. Lights came on all over the room, and the computers began to whine. From somewhere deep inside of the fresh processor parts and memory chips, Jason's Banana Boat program watched as the IO programs booted up. Very subtly, it modified them. The room's main lights came on, and a voice spoke from overhead. "Emergency reboot in progress. All inmates report to dorm rooms and beds. All staff report to stations. Prepare to identify. 90 seconds to full operation. Repeat… the computer continued to blather, even as the IO ISP server came up. As the system tried to regain control of the Complex, delicious bits of data began to head for Ned's and Jason's computers at home, which dutifully wrote it all to CD R's this time. Their printers began to run, and pictures and facts began to pile up. Max scratched his head in puzzlement.

"Why is there a large banana on all the screens?" he asked Jason.

"Dunno," Jason replied, "must be a glitch." The lights suddenly all turned red and an alarm began to wail. Outside the shattered remains of the front gate and office, Linda Johnson jumped.

Lawrence Taft very nearly wet his pants, and Erik's parents – all of them summoned in the middle of the night with full police protection – tried to comfort their panic-stricken son. Linda recovered herself first.

"Hello again, I'm Linda Johnson, once more on location at the IO Rehab Center for Boys, where it seems that something is happening inside the complex. Earlier in the night, the Complex was breached and new employees made their way in to relieve the staff that had been trapped inside when the main computer crashed. We also met with Mr. Ames, the director of the IO Center, who seems to have gone home to refresh himself. Comments so far have been that no one has been hurt, and that things are well in hand.

From the looks of it, with all the lights coming back on, I'd say that the two technicians who went in have restored the systems. We'll have a full story in the morning, but for now…" Linda, however, was interrupted by Erik's father. They approached her, surrounded by armed police officers. "Linda, we have to get Erik somewhere where he can rest. If you need us, can we do it NOW?"

"We can tape now, yes," she agreed.

"Erik," Taft asked the boy, "Tell Linda what you have to. Don't be afraid of her." The blind boy nodded, adjusted his mirrored glasses, and tried to collect his thoughts. "My name is Erik Anderson," he began, "and I got put in IO when I was 12. I set an old barn on fire. I was released a couple of months ago when I was 15. I know it sounds stupid, but I didn't even know how long I was in there. When I got put in there, they shaved my head and gave me complete physical. Every week, we got examined by a doctor. Not long after I got put in, the doctor who took care of me cut my balls off.

All the boys in there are castrated, or the bigger ones who want to graduate and become guards only get their penis cut off. They didn't feed us very well, and they had something that made us have bad headaches if you were bad or broke the rules. If you saw things you shouldn't, or talked too much, they would strap you down and shock your head. Sometimes, they just put you in a straight-jacket and left you alone in a padded room while that ULF thing – I think they called it – tried to make your head explode. Sometimes it went on for days. No food, nothing. I know one boy in my dorm died while I was there, his name was Jon-Paul and he was gay, he said. I know some other boys died too, and they were gay as well. Mr. Ames hated gay boys. I think he hated us all, really."

Taft put a hand to his brow and bowed his head. "I had no idea, Linda," he offered.

Erik's father let the boy lean on him. "They did things to me, after they castrated me. They used to stick needles in my head, up under my ears. They shocked me a lot. My doctor says that's why I had the aneurism and why I can't see now," he finished, panting for breath. "Dad, Mom, can we go home now, please?" he begged, tears coming from under his dark glasses.

Linda Jones then turned to Taft, who handed her a briefcase.

"What's this?" she demanded.

"Your Pulitzer Prize, Ms. Johnson," he said flatly, then turned to Erik.

"Mr. & Mrs. Anderson, Erik, Linda, there's something else you all should know. I've never been a brave man, not until now. Not until I found out that Ames was butchering children in there for his own pursuits, God only knows what they are. They always told us 'it was for their own good,' what they did in there, but I swear to you I didn't know. Tonight, I was told by the Governor himself to dispose of YOU, Linda, and to have someone set fire to Erik's home, making it look as if Erik has backslided into arson. It was supposed to look like retaliation to his family for letting him be put in IO. That's why I called you all here and the police as well," he addressed the officers. They all nodded and looked around. "I've never been brave, as I said earlier, but I've called the FBI on this one. Ames has much to answer for, as do I. You'll all be safe now, I hope. Be well."

They all watched in shock as Taft went back to his car, the cameras following him. From the remote news van, a voice called out, "We've got CNBC uplink, Linda, feeding now, the tapes, and getting ready to go live!" From somewhere in the distance, there was a roaring of an engine getting closer, and suddenly the sky was alight with the landing lamps of a helicopter. The camera men followed it, the live feed went online, and the helicopter made a dangerous landing near the front gate. A man with male pattern baldness stepped out of the craft before it even settled, and ran towards the group.

"What's happening, dad?" Erik asked.

"I think the big guys just got here, son," he breathed. "My God, what IS this place they put you in, and who IS this Ames person?"

"My friend Joey's dad," Erik replied, as if that explained it all.

The balding man approached them, flashing a badge. "Skinner, Federal Agent!" he called out, and the police lowered their guns. Linda Johnson greeted him cooly, professionally, and asked, "Are we live?"

"Yes, CNBC in fact," she answered.

"Good. Get on FOX too. The Governor should be here shortly."

The lights went back to normal, and the Auto-voice, as the boys called it inside of IO, ordered them all to identify. "Normal operations resumed," it announced. Each boy in turn let the scanner of his room read his ID bracelet. Then the guards all called in. The Mainframe was running happily, unaware of just how badly IT had just been castrated by a virtual knife known as the Banana Boat. Jason smiled at Max as the screens all went to the geometric screen saver pattern. "I think we did it," he said.

"Good. Let's get the hell out of this hell hole!" Max replied.

In Dorm 23, Joey screamed and clung tightly to Sam. He was shaking so badly that Ned had to inject him again. He screamed again as the needle pierced his skin, and Sam held him tightly, keeping his stubbly head pressed against his muscular shoulder. Michael, his eyes drooping, leaned back against the wall. "I'm n-not put-t-t-tin' m-my head on th-that p-p-pillow," he stammered.

"No, if all goes well, you don't need to," Ned replied.

"What u be up to?" Bolton asked.

"Let's just say that the Mainframe isn't really firing on all 8 cylinders right now," he replied cryptically. Bolton smiled, his white teeth bright.

"Go to sleep boys, sweet dreams!" They all looked confused, then Sam smiled as well. "SHIT!" he exclaimed.

"N-no," Michael said, shaking his head, his blonde flat top not quite long enough to wave as he shook it.

Ned laughed and handed him a stack of papers from his bag. "Read these when you wake up, little brother," he said, pulling the young eunuch into a rough embrace. "Read 'em and think." Michael looked confused as he took the papers and put them on the night stand.

Bolton, however, was laughing, a rich throaty laugh that was full of mirth. "I KNEW it!" he cried, "You two looked it to me!" Ned, still holding Michael close, watched as Joey slid from Sam's arms.

The burly black youth tucked the boy into bed, ran a hand over his forehead, and sighed. "I think we need to get you some gray clothes in the morning," he told Sam.

Bolton was still laughing. Sam smiled again, but Michael still looked confused. "B-b-broth-th-ther?" he asked.

"I think the stutter will be gone in a few more weeks, Michael," Ned replied, "Nothing a little fresh air and sunshine and few shots of testosterone won't cure. After that, we'll see how the patches work for you." Michael raised one eyebrow. He yawned, and despite his burning curiosity, he didn't resist as Ned tucked him in and kissed his forehead. "I'll be right here all night long, just me and the laptop and Jason on the other end with Linda Johnson," he assured the slight eunuch. Michael reached out to take Ned's hand, and Ned noted the length of the eunuch's arm and fingers. "You're growing fast, little brother," he said softly, but Michael was already asleep. Ned stretched out on the vacant bed that had been Cheng's, and ran Winamp, selecting a few soothing MP3's that might help to induce pleasant dreams for his charges.

"What 'bout Ames? He gon' be PISSED!" Sam said.

But Ned shook his head. "Ames isn't coming back, Sam. He wont' be hurting Michael, or you, or even Joey ever again." Sam looked at the still form of Joey, the pale eunuch's breathing being slow and regular. "His own dad… damn. How could he?"

"Takes all kinds," Bolton replied, "But I shoulda seen it comin' when we graduated IO, I guess."

"WE?" Ned asked, "Bolton, what am I missing here?" But the large black guard was laughing again, harder this time.

"Hooooooooo-eeeeeeee, shit, Ned! Here I thought you had it ALL cookin'! Dint'chu know Ames was a prisoner in here from age 15 to 21? We was BOTH on the graduate/career list together! Hell, we was roomies for 4 years at the end!" It was Ned's turn to be startled that time. Dumbly, he shook his head.

Then he glanced at Joey, who by rights, shouldn't even exist if Ames had done time in IO as a boy.

Sam whistled in surprise. He sat up in bed, pulling his sweatshirt off to reveal his hard and muscular upper body. "Dis I gots to be hearin', dude!" he exclaimed.

"Bed check, LIGHTS OUT," the Auto-voice ordered from above.

"Piss off," Ned replied. There was a beep, but the lights stayed on. Then a strange voice came over the system. "Come, Mr. Tally-man, tally me banana…"

"Two chimps, two gorillas and me," Ned replied.

"Make it a split," Jason replied, and Ned said, "Thank you. Now, Bolton, why don't YOU tell ME about Ames and what HE did?"

NEXT PART