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.