"Why should I help you with anything? You've been nothing but rude to me ever since I got here," I asked between bites of my lunch.
"Because I can make it...worth your while," Lin said in a conspiratorial whisper.
Lin had been one of the first people I had met on the island. She was short, stout and perpetually grumpy.
"How?"
"I can set you up with Mae Li," Lin explained quietly.
Mae Li was a rather gorgeous Chinese girl that I'd met on a few occasions but had failed to strike up any real conversation or even a reason to have a conversation. She apparently had no interest in sailing, tennis or any of the other sporting events I hosted.
"Who says I'm interested in Mae Li?"
"You're American. You people get off to that type of thing," Lin said with a sneer.
I rolled my eyes. Lin was had chosen to align herself as Japanese today, apparently. From what I'd been told, Lin's father was a US serviceman that had been stationed in Japan, where he'd met Lin's mother, a full blooded Japanese woman. Their daughter, Lin, was of mixed race and could speak English and Japanese fluently. The girl was also freakishly smart, like everybody else at TITS. Lin had been one of the first people I'd met on the island and she was honestly one of my least favorite as well. The girl seemed to enjoy tormenting me simply because I was male and American.
"And if I were to agree, which I'm not saying I am, how would you accomplish this?" I asked.
"Mae Li lives next door to me and we hang out occasionally. If you help me out, I'll invite you over the next time she comes to my room. I'll make introductions and leave you two alone. But first, you have to do me a favor," Lin explained.
The idea was tempting. I was craving emotional and physical connections with somebody. My afternoon with Sarah had been amazing. But the woman had, best I could figure, left on the first seaplane off the island in the morning after our nautical rendevoux.
"What do I have to do for you?" I asked with trepidation.
Lin smiled, causing her dimpled double chin to firm up.
"Come by room 314 tonight at 8. I'll explain then," she said quietly, then departed.
That night at 7:55 PM, I tried the closed door to Room 314 in the main building. It was unlocked of course. My stomach turned slightly as I entered the room. I wasn't entirely confident in what lay ahead of me. Lin was certainly an angry woman. She had disliked me from the word "go". I could only imagine that Lin had some sort of menial task in store for me. Like many of the researches there, she viewed me as a simpleton to be used for manual labor and nothing more.
Whatever.
If it got me in Mae Li's sphere of influence, I'd do whatever heavy lifting was required. I needed a workout anyways.
Lin was seated at a work table, furiously typing on a laptop, just as I had seen so many others on this strange island. She looked slightly upset, as always. She had an upturned lip that made it seem that she'd just sniffed a fart, or some other foul odor. Her dark hair was tied back in a rather severe bun and she wore a white lab coat over blue jeans and a button up white blouse.
"Have a seat please," Lin prompted.
I sat at the table, opposite the young researcher. Lin pushed a small stack of papers in front of me and gave me a ballpoint pen.
"Fill these out please, then we will begin."
I looked at the paperwork. It was a health questionare. The forms could have been lifted from a general practitioner's office. Or at least, the first page looked pretty standard.
"What is all this for?" I probed, confused.
"Baseline information."
"Baseline information for what?"
"For a test."
The game was growing tiresome already.
"A test of what?"
Lin smiled and produced a vial of a faint blue liquid.
"This. It's a synthetic version of adrenaline."
"Lin, I don't know about this..." I started to protest.
"It's perfectly safe. I've even tried it myself. It gives you a burst of energy like a pot of coffee but wears off after half an hour or so. It has been animal tested. It has been tried on humans. I'm just doing a bit of additional testing before its passed off to a pharmacutical company for full double blind testing and then general sale," Lin lectured.
"I'm not sure Lin..."
"Look. You want something. I want something. It's all perfectly safe I promise," Lin continued.
I eyed the liquid medicine, considering the offer. I was also considering how lonely I was.
"I'll do it," I conceded.
Lin leered happily as I took the drink and gulped it down. The taste was a strange mix of strawberry and some other flavor that I could not place.
"How long does it take to kick in?" I asked.
"Oh it usually doesn't take long at all..."
My stomach turned upside down at that moment. The room began to swim around me.
"Lin, I'm not...I'm not feeling too good..." I slurred.
"Oh, that's perfectly normal. It should pass pretty quickly," Lin reassured.
It didn't feel normal. I felt drunk. Really drunk. And sleepy too. Why was it so hard to keep my eyes open? I laid my head down on the desk, hoping that the room would stop spinning soon. Then darkness consumed me entirely.
A period of time passed that I could not measure. Slowly, my senses returned. The room was, fortunately, stationary. Strangely, I was now looking at the ceiling while lying on my back. I rolled my head to one side, seeing Lin nearby. The woman was fiddling with her cell phone and was ignoring me. I tried to sit up, but found that my arms and torso were burdened with some unknown weight.
It was at this point that I looked down to see a white sheet covering my body. Further examination showed that I was now on an examination table of some sort. As far as I could tell, I was in the storeroom at the back of the laboratory. There were shelves filled with unused medical instruments and cabinets all around.
Again, I tried to move my arms and torso and again I was stopped.
Then I felt the leather restraints on my wrists, ankles and across my stomach. What made this even more disturbing was the realization that I had been stripped of all of my clothes.
"Lin, what the fuck is this shit?" I cursed at the woman.
"Oh, Michael. Nice of you to join me finally," the girl greeted with a sneer.