Page 67 of Johnny

So right now it’s very important that I just toe the line and do my job.

Some of my acceptance of this life came from being sheltered. I didn’t have much exposure to the

outside world. I didn’t learn other people’s norms and socially acceptable ways of life. Living in

what amounts to a massive whorehouse was just part of my life. Who I was.

But it’s no excuse. We have TV. We have internet. We have news. I know right from wrong.

Everyone I knew seemed to also know right from wrong. We at least knew enough about it to pass

judgment on others.

The prisoners the Way keeps on these islands, they’re not innocent. None of us are innocent, not

even me. And while I don’t really know what’s going on with them or the specific reasons why

they’re locked up on those islands, I know enough.

My father told me a little bit about the program we were running. I went through a short rebellious

stage when I was a teenager. Very short. Like literally lasted a few minutes before my father put me in

my place. By this time I had been working in his lab on Osprey Cay for a long time and I started

asking questions about the people I used to log into the database over on the prison island.

At first my father said nothing. He just refused to talk about any of it. But eventually I threw a

tantrum and made some outlandish demands that came with threats about leaving and going to

America. He, in turn, told me I had no passport, I had no birth certificate, I had no choices.

Revelations like this don’t often go over well with hormonal teenage girls, so I responded in anger,

and he responded by grabbing both my arms, shaking me so hard I heard a pop in my shoulder, and

then he bent down, his face up to mine so he could seethe out the words, “Shut your fucking mouth,

Megan Machette. Or one day you will find yourself walking off a boat, onto an island, and some other

pretty young girl will be filling out intake forms on you.”

I shut my fucking mouth.

I did what I was told.

I never brought it up again.

I might not know what specifically happened to those people I entered into the database on the

prison island. But I knew it was wrong. I knew they went down to the underground facilities and I

never saw them get back on boats.

It wasn’t hard to trick myself when I was younger. I only went there four days a week. I convinced

myself that they all departed on the days I wasn’t there.