And let the wrong ones in...Day 41 part 1

“My hand is killing me, more my wrist actually, but damn, not since Miss Huppuch's class in middle school have I had to write so much.” Ross rolls his wrist around and stands up away from the wall in which he was sleeping against.

“Yeah, I never got in trouble in school, so this is a first for me.” Liz sits up from her cramped position on the floor against the wall.

“I find that hard to believe.” Jim smirks and stretches his body groaning and shaking off the morning.

“I’m going to be a writer when we get out of here, I’m going to write all this down and I’m going to make millions, and on the inside jacket its going to say ‘Hey Cipher, suck it.’ Yeah, that sounds good.” Ross tries to lighten the mood and lunges in his stance, stretching out his legs in a bizarre fashion.

“What the hell, all the writing is gone?” Anne stands and looks at the wall, hers and all of the other walls in the room that had been being written on as part of the day 40 torture have been wiped clear and no longer show anything. “How is that possible?”

“How does Cipher do half the stuff he does around here, this room, the P90s the weird traps and crap, it's like science fiction movie stuff half the time.” Jim runs his hand over the wall to see if he can feel any moisture or determine how the wall was wiped clean.

“I know how he does it.” A man with a beard that seemed to go up as high as his cheek bone just barely below his eyes approaches them. They had seen him around the room obviously over the past 40 days, but none of them knew him.

“What’s your name again friend?” Jim offers his hand in greeting.

“Oliver, my name’s Oliver. You’re Jim, and you’re Anne and Liz and you’re Ross, everyone here knows you guys, some of us however, we try and stay out of the spotlight.” He shakes Jim’s hand and nervously looks around the group.

“I’ll pass on any spotlight, despite my dreams of movie stardom. You said you know how he cleaned the walls.” Ross shakes Oliver’s hand.

“Clean the walls, get rid of the bodies, kidnap 100 people in a day, I know how he does all of it, I know who Cipher is.” Oliver looks around to see who else is listening.

“Who is he?” Anne moves closer.

“Come on its, obvious. How do you get 100 people in a room like this? Have this type of technology, like self cleaning walls and floors. How do you have a small army of soldiers at your disposal?” He whispers, growing more nervous.

“What are you getting at? Like government conspiracy type stuff?” Liz raises one of her eyebrows and asks him with a look on her face that screams (this guy is crazy).

“No, well yes, but not in the way you’re thinking. This isn’t like when the government put out TV shows like the Munster’s and The Adams family to make the American people feel comfortable with monsters walking amongst them, but we know that failed. But yes in that a conspiracy is when someone who is extremely powerful and cunning achieves something malicious secretly. So unless everyone else in the world knew we were going to get kidnapped, yes the conspiracy was to kidnap us, but…but...who, who could pull it off and have all of this at their disposal and not get caught or even show the slightest bit of fear that they might get caught, who? Who?” He looks at each of them in the face and keeps asking, who? Who?

“The government?” Jim looks at him. “Why would the government do this?”

“What has Cipher been saying since day one, he wants us to be stronger Americans, who else had said that in their speeches? Whose tag line was America is great, together we’ll make it even better.”

“Come on man, no way. President Winters?” Ross looks at him.

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t vote for him.” Liz chuckles.

“Neither did I.” says Anne.

“Yeah, I didn’t vote for him either.” Jim looks at Ross.

“No, I voted for the woman.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Hey guess what kids, none of us did, not one person in this room has voted for President Winters, not one. Coincidence? I think not.” Oliver nods his head.

“That’s just crazy talk, the president didn’t kidnap us, cause people here to die and then broadcast it on the web.” Anne says the words with as much conviction as she can while still letting them have a sour taste in her mouth.

“Why haven’t we been rescued?” Oliver pokes her arm. “Why when the first person was let out of here did she go running and tell the police where she was, what happened and a man hunt begins to track us all down? Because, the government, their in on it, and the President, well he’s the guy behind it all, he’s pulling the strings, he knows what’s what.”

“You’re just guessing.” Ross pokes his arm.

“You ever see a P90 gun before you got here? Think they sell them at Wal-Mart in the sports section? Those are government issued weapons to elite black op teams.” Oliver rants a bit louder and continues to poke.

“How do you know that, were you in the military?” Anne leans in more, slowly feeling as though maybe she doesn’t want others to hear her concerns, or show that she is letting Oliver convince her.

“No, it was in a ….” He pauses.

“It was in a what? Documentary?” she asks him.

“No, a, um, you know Army of Two. From there.” He retreats back into himself slightly.

“Army of Two? Is that a training film or promotional campaign?” Anne looks over at Jim and Ross.

“It’s a video game! Army of Two is a video game. Seriously dude, that’s what you’re basing this all on? A video game?”  Ross gives his shoulder a little shove as if to say cut it out.

“No! Not just that, but come on, think about it, why hasn’t anyone come for us? Either he’s killing the people who leave here, or moving them to another room, or the government is delaying any type of rescue attempt, it has to be. Cipher is the President, I’m sure of it, listen to him talk next time, he’s got the same mannerisms, the same pauses and inflection, his voice might be disguised but that is him, I know it.” Oliver begins to regret telling the group and starts to back away from them, until he completely walks away from the group and starts to head over to the center of the room so that day 41 can begin.

“Sometimes we let the wrong ones in this group.” Jim pulls his tag from his pocket and starts to walk over to the center.

“We going to tell Daniel about all this?” Ross looks to Liz.

“I think Daniel is going to have different questions for us today after what Bonny did yesterday and what Rene said to him.” Liz pulls out her ticket and walks with him.

“What was that all about? How come she didn’t give him a different tag?”

“I don’t know.” Liz sees Daniel from across the room; he looks just as pissed as he did when they parted ways the night before.

“Wait. You two don’t know?” Anne looks at Liz and Ross. “I thought we weren’t talking about it because we were afraid.”

“Know what?” The two respond in unison.

“Why Daniel has the number 100?” she stops walking but before she can explain more the buzzer goes off and everyone is assembled in the center of the room to begin day 41.

I kept the right ones out... Day 40

The light comes on, the buzzer goes off, they hate the buzzer, but after 39 days of this some have actually learned to sleep through the morning wake up lights. Daniel stretches pulls his 100 tag from his pocket and the number 73 from his pocket as well. The number 73 has blood on it both figuritevly and factualy, he's never bothered to wash it off nor show it to anyone else, for the last 19 days he's said very little about Dalton other than he knows he's dead.

Ross sits up a few feet from him, makes some odd mouth noises, adjusts his glasses and looks over to Daniel. "Good morning." he smirks scratches his chest and stands up and offers his hand to Daniel to help him up. "Today's Bonny's day isn't it?" he says to Daniel as he too stands and scratches.

"You know it is, we talked about it all last night."

"Ah yes, it was hard to hear everything with the buzzer screaming every 20 minutes or so, and not to mention you mumbling all the time now." Daniel slaps him on the back and walks over to the others.

"I don't mumble." Daniel mumbles under his breath.

"What're you mumbling about now?" Liz walks up to the two of them, with Anne right behind her.

"I don't mumble!" Daniel shoots back.

"Yeah you do, its been like over two weeks now since Cipher jilted you on actually meeting him, really dude, you have to let up on that, look around there's a hand full of us left."

"There's like 30 of us, you must have big hands." Jim joins the fray.

"Hey don't make fun of my hands." Anne puts them behind her back and moves away from the group.

"Dude, not cool." Ross passes by Jim and heads over to the center with Anne.

"What I say?" Jim looks to Liz.

"You don't make comments about a girls hands, its like saying something about her feet." she pats him on the shoulder.

"What's wrong with her feet?" Jim asks

"AAhhhh! Shut up." Anne growls at him. "Can it be your day to leave."

"Nope, its my girls day to leave." Renee walks up with them to the center, Bonny right in front of him, she has tears in her eyes but says nothing and just smiles at the group.

The group assembles and awaits for the monitor to turn on, it buzzes and lights up and there sits Cipher, in the same clothes and mask they've seen him for the past 40 days. "Hello everyone, glad to see no one took their life yesterday with that little annoyance you had to deal with all day."

"Little annoyance? It was like the worlds loudest and worst fax machine ringing in your ear every fifteen minutes!" Scott shouts at the monitor.

"Whine, whine, whine, when you all get out of here, and I truly hope you all do, you'll be able to sleep through a plane crash. You should be thanking me."

"I'll be happy if I could just sleep again." Anne nuzzles next to Ross.

"So where is Bonny, our number 40, come forward please." Cipher awaits at the monitor as Bonny steps up and waits for the door to light up for her to leave. "Are you ready to go Bonny?" Cipher asks, and the group thinks, what a stupid question.

"Not yet." she suprisingly replies, she turns from the monitor and faces Renee. "Renee these past 40 days you've kept me safe, you've kept me sane, I know you get out tomorrow so don't you dare do anything stupid over the next 24 hours." she touches his face and glides her fingers down his jaw line. She looks over at Jim and Ross, "You two, you keep him safe, understand me."

"Yes mam." they both reply, smiling happy to see the person who's become their friend get her freedom.

"And you two..." she looks at Anne and Liz. "Don't be afraid of what you're feeling in here, its real, I know it is, you never know how you'll meet someone, it could be the best circumstances, it could be the worst, but if somethings there between you and someone else, don't ignore it, flames shouldn't be ignored they should be stoked to see what happens." she smiles and runs over to hug the two women. 

"Time to go Bonny, the group has some important things to get to today." Cipher encourages her to rush. "I feel like the Wizard in Oz. Hurry up now, you've said good bye to the lion and scarecrow." Cipher chuckles but no one laughs with him.

Bonny kisses Renee, a long slow kiss where they hold each other's faces so gently, their time here started so bad, and it got really worse before it finally got a whole lot better. She runs over to the lit up door and steps inside but places her hand on the edge of the door, keeping it ajar. She looks back at the group and shouts out. "Daniel!" 

Daniel looks over to Bonny, he knows they didn't start out on the right foot but after a sometime they actually grew closer. After he returned to the room after the Dalton incident she went out of her way to talk to him, to try and make him feel better and console him. He always suspected that maybe she knew, that she sensed that he had blood on his hands since as he knew, she had some on hers as well. She never said anything to the group however, when anyone asked what they were talking about she would say "Art." or "Just you know...things." and that would be it. He raised his hand to her to say good bye and she raised hers in return. She shouts again "Be careful and get answers!" 

'Get Answers' he thinks, what does that mean? He looks at her oddly, his hand still in the air as well as hers. Hers is clenched in a fist and as she opens it he sees several tags fall to the floor inside the room. His eyes pop as he realizes she had more numbers, numbers she took and lied about giving back, lower numbers! Lower than his 100, and she kept them from him. Her door closes and she's gone and so are those tags.

"What the hell was that?!" he looks to the group and no one answers. He runs to Renee. "Hey man! What the hell was that?! She had lower numbers?! Why didn't she give me one! She said she was my friend!"

"She was your friend, and she did give lower numbers away, just not to you, she couldn't and that's all I'm telling you, and its for your own good." Renee pushes him to the side and walks away.

Daniel runs over to Ross, "What is going on here?!"

"I swear to God, I have no idea." Ross holds grips Daniels shoulders trying to calm him.

"I'm sorry Daniel your question will have to wait its time for Day 40s adventure to begin." Cipher comments from the screen as if he were the host of a children's show.

"No way! I want answers! NOW!" 

The P90s enter the room on the upper balcony and take aim at Daniel.

"I'm not going to shut up! I want answers now!" he screams again regardless of the red dots dancing across his chest from laser scopes above. 

"You're friend doesn't know whats going, on, some people do, but I had to keep the right ones out of this little scheme, but if you're not going to cooperate today, fine. P90s, 'Beta 4'" Cipher sits back in his chair and the P90s remove their lasers from Daniel and take aim at Liz, Anne, Ross and Jim. "Ready....Aim...."

"Wait! Stop! Fine." Daniel sits down and shuts up.

"Excellent. Now everyone split up, groups of eight to three walls one group of six to the south wall, Daniel you go to the south wall, Daniel's groupies you head to the North wall." Ross hears Ciphers and turns around as he was already heading to Daniel.

"This isn't over." Daniel mumbles and heads to the South Wall.

Day 40 begins.

Previously in Mr. 100 Days.

(Daniel)

Cipher, an evil genius of a villain was able to kidnap 100 men and women from across the United States on the same day. He has them housed in a large room with no visible doors, windows or points of entry. Water is supplied to them via a trough located on each of the four walls and food is delivered sparingly.


Each person from Day 1 was given a number, that number is equivalent to the number of days you stay in the room and also equals your release date. Each day they are there Cipher tests the group through various forms of torture both physical and psychological. He has told them that their days in the room are being broad casted over the web for the world to watch and that after his experiment, which they are all a part of, America as a country will be stronger for having survived such an incredible tragedy.


A main group of the 100 people seem to be at the forefront of this tale.


#68 Ross, a young man in his early twenties is trying to get through this ordeal with his wit, sense of humor and a constant pop culture reference. Back home he was just a retail worker with few people in his life, so here he has tried to be strong for others. He has even given his previous number of 52 to a young women whom he seems to be smitten with.


#52 Anne, a young woman in her mid 20s, she is scared and praying every day that she can return to her previous life. She has a man waiting for her back home, but has found her self drawn to two individuals here in the room. Ross, who she spends more time with all the time, feeling something for him. Unsure if that its love or a sense of something else as he's saved her life several times while in the room, and a woman who has grown closer to her than any..


#63 Liz, she started off in the room as the leader of the women's group, keeping them safe as much as she could as not only did the women fear their situation, but some also feared the men they were trapped with in the room. She has slowly moved away from this group trying to get all the women to interact with everyone. Her new friends include:


#84 Jim, the spiritualist of the group who believes that prayer and positive thoughts will get them through this ordeal. He constantly stands up to Cipher, not always putting him in the best situations but he stands defiant in Cipher's face of evil.


#75 Scott, a prison CO reluctant and defiant like Jim in the beginning was recently put in a room by himself where he seems to have made a bargain with Cipher and quite possibly this might not be his first deal, unbeknownst to the others in the room of course.


#41 Bonny an attractive woman in her 40s and Renee a strong athletic man also in his 40s have come together as a couple in the room despite the tragedy and horror that has gone on around them. While the two started this adventure a bit despicable, they have tried to make amends for their ways. Bonny originally had the number 21, after stealing it off of a dead body, but has exchanged that number for the number 41. Renee has vowed to keep Bonny safe until that day comes of her release and every day after that since he'll be released the following day.


#73 Dalton, a young man in his early 20s had the number #73 and had become good friends with Ross and one other. He was offered a deal with Cipher that would reduce any one's sentence, including his own by 50 days. He accepted the offer but made no mention of whom would be getting the 50 days off their total. However the point is null since the deal cost Dalton his life. He had to portray himself as Cipher, he was assured he would be safe, and all he had to do was to convince one of the others to not fight back while in the room. However by revealing the secret that this man's wife and son are actually dead, and by antagonizing him by saying that he's forgotten their memory pushed him to the point of violence and he attacked Dalton, killing him. That man was Dalton's friend:


#100 Daniel, also known as Mr. 100 Days, he hold the tag 100, unsure on how he got it as he was knocked out and when he awoke his original tag had been traded for the 100 marker. Cipher has told Daniel that he won't reveal to the group any of his secrets including that he's responsible for Dalton's death, he and his group of P90s will keep his secret.


The P90s are Ciphers security force, the occasionally enter the room, armed with P90 machine guns and full body armor that hides their identities. Their job is to keep the room in line, and clear bodies when needed. 


Since last we saw the group Nineteen days have passed, they have suffered 1 more fatality and 9 people left in the past 19 days. Somehow other who had died previously left the room with some early numbers. A total of 30 people out of the 100 that started remain... this begins volume 2 of Mr. 100 Days.

Volume 2

Next week begins the next volume in Mr. 100 Days.
I am working right now to have the first volume printed with art for each of the days.
Be prepared for the previous twenty days to start disappearing from online once the book is published.


Thank you to all my readers and followers.


I promise Volume 2 will be just as exciting with some great new twists in the ongoing saga of Mr. 100 Days.