Twenty-Four
About an hour later, when Penny was so hungry it felt like her stomach was gnawing on her backbone—as her very Southern mom would have said—the door to the dormitory/prison opened and a normal looking humanoid woman came in. She looked to Penny to be in her early to mid forties and she had short black hair and guarded eyes.
There was something different about her, though, Penny thought. She was the first humanoid person, other than her fellow prisoners, who wasn’t smiling like a loon.
She doesn’t look like a Disney cast member, like all the rest of them, Penny thought, watching as the woman brought in a hover-cart loaded with large, frosty glasses filled with some kind of thick white liquid. In fact, she doesn’t look happy at all.
“What is this?” Shurla asked as the woman attempted to hand her a glass.
“Is it some kind of milk shake?” Penny asked. That was what it looked like, anyway.
“It’s a protein shake,” the woman answered evasively. “What flavor would you like?” she added, addressing Penny.
“Uh—they all look the same to me. Is this that Mother’s Milk stuff everyone kept talking about?” she added.
“It’s a protein shake,” the woman insisted. “And you pick the flavor this way.” She reached for a small metal canister on the end of the cart and opened it. Inside were lots of little flat sticks that looked a little like tongue depressors to Penny.
“What are those?” Shurla asked, suspiciously.
“They’re flavor-sticks,” the woman said patiently. “Just think of what flavor you want—I recommend something sweet—press the stick to your tongue and then stir the protein shake with the stick. The flavor you thought of will be instantly transferred to the shake.”
“Do we have to use the sticks?” one of the other prisoners asked, frowning.
“Well, no.” The woman shrugged. “But I’d recommend it. The shake doesn’t taste like anything at all unless you flavor it. It’s like drinking a big glass of cold glue—not very nice.”
“I’ll try it,” Penny said. She knew she ought to refuse the stuff they were offering her, but by that time she was so hungry, she would have eaten or drunk almost anything.
She took the flavor stick the woman was offering and pressed the end of it against her tongue. Wondering if this could possibly work, she thought as hard as she could about a peanut butter-banana malt shake from Bo’s, her favorite ice cream shop back home. Then she dipped the stick into the frosty glass of what appeared to be vanilla milkshake the woman had handed her and stirred it around thoroughly.
The liquid in the glass remained the same color, which gave Penny serious doubts.
There’s no way this is going to work, she thought, as she took an experimental sip. No way it can—
Suddenly the flavors of peanut butter and banana and malt powder swirled across her tongue. The shake didn’t just taste similar to the one from Bo’s—it tasted identical.
“Wow!” Penny looked up at the woman in surprise. “It really worked!” She took another, bigger sip. “It tastes exactly like what I imagined!”
The woman offered her a wan smile.
“Told you. The flavor sticks make all the difference.”
“Let me try one,” Shurla said grudgingly and the other women asked for their shakes as well.
Penny felt guilty—she hoped she hadn’t inadvertently convinced all the other prisoners to drink something that was somehow bad for them. But she’d been so hungry. She just couldn’t resist.
She took another sip of her shake and the familiar flavors conjured up pictures of childhood. Walking to Bo’s on a Summer evening with her mom and dad and her little sister, Jenny… The four of them ordering their favorites and then sitting at one of the picnic tables under the spreading oak trees… Her parents asking about how school was going or planning the next family vacation—the next adventure, as her dad used to say. They hadn’t been rich but they’d had an old RV and every summer her parents would take off work for at least two weeks so they could drive to one of the national parks or…
“Honey, you’re crying. Are you okay?” Shurla was looking at her with concern on her face.
“Oh, uh…” Penny sniffed and wiped at her tears. “Sorry. It’s just that the taste of this, uh, stuff, really brought back some memories. I guess I just miss my planet and my family, that’s all.”
“I miss Hell’s Gate and the Lucky Lounge,” Shurla said and sighed. She lifted her chin. “But don’t get down in the mouth, honey—we’re gonna get out of here—you’ll see.”
“How?” Penny looked around to make sure no one was listening, but the woman who had passed out the protein shakes was gone and the prisoners were alone in the dormitory.
“I don’t know.” Shurla got a stubborn look on her pretty face. “But I know we’ve got to do it. There’s something wrong with this place—something really wrong. I mean, the way all the people are so happy all the time? That’s not natural.”
“No, it’s not,” Penny agreed fervently. “And what do you think happened to the poor girl they dragged out of the exam room? What do you think ‘recycling’ means around here?”
“I don’t know and I don’t want to find out,” Shurla said grimly. “We have to get out as fast as we can, Penny—before the same thing—or something worse happens to us.”
“I’m with you,” Penny murmured. “If we could just get out of this building I think we could find the way to the exit pretty easily. But what about the jungle and all the poisonous plants?”
“If we stay on the road they used to bring us here, we shouldn’t have to touch any of them,” Shurla pointed out. “We just have to hide and wait until they open that energy gate again and then slip out when nobody is looking.”
“Then what?” Penny asked. “Just follow the road?”
“As far as it leads us,”
