By three in the afternoon, the bunker had a lonesome, dead of night feeling.  Project LARS was on alert for another transformation, and the day shift was stretched thin.

The girl lay on her bed in a fresh uniform of a white t-shirt and blue jeans.  Her head was buried in her pillow, but her body was rigid and had none of the telltale peacefulness of sleep.

She looked completely different from the scrawny, pale creature that was carried out of the enclosure just after dawn.  Unconsciousness had slackened her features.  Her mouth drooped open with a thin line of drool spinning its way to the floor.  Her hair hung limply from her unsupported head.  Soaked through with sweat, the blonde tresses were tangled and stringy.  Her naked skin was covered in a slime of perspiration and grime that accentuated its pallor.   

Someone had washed her off and brushed out her hair.  They'd cleaned the slurry of sweat and dust shaken free from invisible cracks and crevices by that powerful beast.  Removed the minute shards of plastic and shavings of steel embedded in her flesh.

In a subconscious response to her recent nudity, not an inch of exposed skin was visible.  Her arms were curled up underneath her, and her hair completely covered the side of her face and neck.

Jamie whispered into the microphone, "Amy, are you okay?"

The curtain in front of him was closed, and he watched the monitor that was set down below the window.  It was angled upward to give the occupant of the big leather wingback chair a view of the bedroom.

"Horus wanted to be here for you today, but he's sick.  My name is Jamie.  Would you like to talk?"

Jamie sat there with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.  Guilt gnawed at his bones and chewed its way through his thoughts.  His presence in the OC had made him complicit in the evil of the place.  He had been there and observed with the rest of them.  He got to watch the monster take her over and leave her spent on the floor when it was done.  And for the people in that room, it wasn't a great and horrible thing that had happened to an innocent girl.  It had been a fascinating and intriguing thing that had happened to a horrible thing.

Perhaps this was why he volunteered to take the day shift – to work off some of his sins.  But there were other more selfish reasons mingled into the decision.  He knew he would never sleep if he went home.  And by staying for the day, he could avoid being there at night.  He would not have to bear witness again and stain his soul with another layer of filth.

He waited to hear a response from her, while at the same time he kept one ear trained on the door to the OC.  So far it was still quiet and empty in there.

That was where he was supposed to be.  He shouldn't be in the office.  He wasn't allowed to make contact with her.  The consequences of getting caught were unknown, but he knew he didn't want to fall victim to them.  He risked it anyway.

The moments slipped by in silence.  Amy only seemed to force her head deeper into the pillow.

"I have a sister about your age.  Her name is Nadia.  I haven't seen Nadia in a very long time."  He spoke softly.  In the small space, he sounded like he was giving a confession.  He remembered a time not long ago when he would lie in bed late at night and whisper his secrets, as Glen slowly fell to sleep next to him.

Glen had once told him that he loved being lulled by Jamie's rich, honeyed voice.  It was all the encouragement he had needed to make it a ritual on hard to sleep nights.

"She lives far away.  And I haven't been able to go home for a long time.  But we write letters to each other.  Long letters where we talk about our lives and our dreams."

Jamie paused for a glance at the monitor.  Amy showed no sign she could hear him.  If it wasn't for the red lines on the audiometer that spiked as each word was spoken, he might have thought that they weren't penetrating her prison.

"Nadia likes The Hunger Games.  Have you read that?  I know you like to read."

Did this girl like to read?  Or did she read because books were the only distraction she had from her boredom and confinement?

"In her last letter, she said she wished she was here, in America, so she wouldn't have to wait for the movie to come out.  It's not in theaters where she is yet.  Have you seen it?  I haven't read the book, but I saw it in the theater last month, so I could tell Nadia if it was good or not." 

Lies.  It was all lies.  He made up stories about Nadia and who she was.  The truth was that he had no contact with her since he told his parents about Glen.  His father would not allow it.  That had been the price of truth.  The hard trade: the family he would make, for the family he once had.  He had been cut off completely, in exchange for the freedom to pursue a life with the man he loved.

He had no idea what Nadia read, if she had any friends, what made her happy.  All he had now were the stories he made up.

   He kept talking, no longer to make Amy feel better, but for his own sake.   A fear that silence would lead to a black void filled with nothing but despair.

"You like music, don't you?  You asked for some a few days ago."  She had made the request in a session with Benning, while Jamie had been spying on her from the OC.  He hastily added, "Horus told me you did."

"I like music too.  I play the guitar a bit.  Just a little bit.  I don't know many songs.  I used to play it for Nadia when she was little and sing to her too.  I haven't done that in a long time.  But music, even if it's just on the radio, always makes me feel better."  He paused not sure at all where his own mind was leading him.  "It's ironic this place is called The Music Box but there is no music.  I guess the music box is broken."

There were data and communication lines to the outside world, but no radio or TV in the bunker.  The electronics ban meant there were no cell phones, no iPods, no MP3s.  Jamie even had to leave his wristwatch upstairs because it had a microchip in it.

Gray walls and no music.  They couldn't have designed a more dreary and joyless place.

Jamie didn't have a guitar in his hands but all the chords came back to him, and his fingers began to find their position on the imaginary frets.  If he closed his eyes, it was almost like the last time he visited home.  He was in Nadia's bedroom in the big old house outside of Ta'if.  The wind rustled the leaves of the pomegranate trees outside her window.  He had played Let It Be and Nadia clapped her hands with glee, forgetting all about the coloring book on the floor that had captured her attention when he first sat down. 

"More!  More!" she demanded in English, showing her American brother she could speak it too.

He decided on an Otis Redding song from his small repertoire and placed his fingers delicately along the neck setting up to strum a G.

"Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be sitting when the evening comes."  The words sputtered out hesitant at first but they grew in confidence, as he remembered the lyrics.  Without the accompanying music, the song sounded sad and forlorn.  An elegy for Jamie Haddad.

He sang it as much for that little girl in the cage, as he did for Nadia half a world away, and for Glen in their empty house in Oakland, for the person who could hear him, and for the people who would never hear from him again.

His eyes were closed, fighting the tears back, when Amy turned onto her side.  She scrunched up the pillow under her head and stared at the curtain beside her dressing table.  A look of understanding released the tension in her face.  The hard creases of sadness and anger relaxed, while she listened to the hollow voice filtering in through the speakers.