Home of Dr. Bandu
0312, 12/13
Dixie stretched and yawned. For a moment she froze. She was in a bed that she didn’t recognize. She looked around the room. Beside the bed was a nightstand. In the pale moonlight from the nearby window she could see that it was bare except for a clock. The clock read 03:12.
Then it came back to her. She had been walking along the highway, her bag thrown over a shoulder. It was getting late and the temperature was steadily dropping. The night before she had slept beside the highway and she wasn’t inclined to repeat the process again. The sun had just dipped below the horizon when a lone car had come up beside her and stopped.
Inside the dark sedan was an elderly gentleman that vaguely resembled Einstein, with the white frizzy hair and bushy mustache. Dixie figured she was safe enough, so she threw her bag in the back on got in on the passenger side. Chitchat as they drove along revealed that there were no nearby hotels. Her driver was Dr. Bandu, a neurobiologist who was doing research in controlling dangerous mental patients. That was all she remembered. She must have fallen asleep in the car. But how had he gotten her up to this, obviously spare, bedroom?
Dixie got up from the bed and looked around. She was dressed only in bra and panties, which gave her pause. A quick search of the room revealed her clothes and bag in the closet. In the closet was also a full-length robe that she pulled around herself. From the window she could tell that she was on a second story. She stepped out into the hallway.
The hallway ran all the way around the second floor in a big square. Halfway around the other side was a staircase leading down. Dixie padded quietly over to the staircase and down. At the end of the hall Dixie could see a lit room. So she headed there, assuming that her benefactor would be somewhere close.
Dixie passed another staircase going down to a sub-floor. When she entered the room at the end of the hall she found that it was a quaint den-type room. Bookshelves lined three of the four walls. Against the fourth wall was a computer set up on an expansive desk that covered most of the wall. A bar took up what little space remained. Unfortunately, there was no one in the room.
Dixie walked over to the bar and started studying the liquors there. She noticed a small refrigerator underneath the bar, so she opened it and started going through the liquors she found there. “Cold Duck,” she read the label out loud. “Vodka, Wine, Wine. Hello? What’s this?” In the back of the cabinet was a beaker that had no label. Rather it had a bit of paper taped to it that bore only a large ‘X’. “This must be the good stuff.”
She pulled the beaker out and grabbed a glass from the top of the cabinet. She poured herself a shot and downed it easily. The second glass she took her time with, savoring it. “Not to thick,” she noted. “Not really an alcohol bite to it. Not what one would expect from a home brew.”
“That is because it is not alcohol,” a voice said from the doorway in a thick German accent. Dixie turned toward the door startled. There stood the elderly man who had given her a ride earlier. In his arm was a bunch of papers.
“What do you mean?” Dixie asked.
Dr. Bandu dropped the papers on the computer desk and then walked over to where Dixie stood by the bar. Gingerly he took the glass from her hand and poured it back into the beaker. “It is the passivity drug that I have been working on. The freezer in my lab is full. So I thought to keep it up here. I was not expecting guests… it was my mistake.” Bandu walked over to the wall where an intercom hung. “Karl.” He paused as though expecting an instant answer this early in the morning. “Karl!” A mumbled reply this time. “Get down here. I will need you to sit sentinel tonight.”
“How much of this have you drank?” He asked, turning back to Dixie and taking her wrist in his hand. His practiced fingers found her pulse in no time.
“You drugged me!” Dixie said, finding her voice again.
“Technically you drugged yourself. Now how much of this have you drank?”
“About six fingers total.” Dixie replied.
“That is a pretty heavy dose. But not outside acceptable limits. Your heartbeat seems fine.” He took a small flashlight out of a pocket. He turned it on and shined it into Dixie’s eyes. First one and then the other. “How do you feel?”
“Fine. A bit nervous, maybe. But otherwise, I’m fine.”
“There is no need to feel nervous. The drug is harmless. A good night’s rest and the drug will be out of your system. But it is similar to hypnosis. The groundwork for long-term effects can be laid while you are in this state. We must be careful that this does not happen again.”
A man walked into the room. He was easily six feet tall and weighed two hundred fifty pounds. But not a bit of that weight was fat. He looked like he could be a linebacker for a football team. His hair was blonde, and cut short. There was something distinctly primal in his soft blue eyes.
“Ah, Karl,” Dr. Bandu said, turning to the huge man, “take Miss Dixie up to room 12. She has accidentally taken a dose of Calm. So no television, keep discussion to a minimal. See that she is safely tucked into bed and is asleep before you let her out of your sight. Then I want you to stay with her for at least the next 8 hours.”
“Right this way, Miss,” Karl said in a deep voice. Dixie took his arm without the least hesitation.
