Remote by Donn Cortez

Parkins hadn’t done so much as twitch for hours, but Tanner gave him another shot of the Rohypnol just the same.  The last thing he wanted was for his captive to suddenly wake up and start struggling while being moved between a boat and a dock.
    That didn’t happen, though; Parkins stayed limp and unresponsive as he was hauled from the boat to a wheelchair waiting on the dock.  Tanner secured him to the chair with straps, then rolled him to the end of the dock and onto a cement walkway that lead through a stand of trees and to the base of the house. 
    The first floor of the house was set into the bedrock of the island itself, two craggy boulders flanking the entrance like embryonic gargoyles.  The door was large, oak veneer over a steel core, and unlocked.  Tanner pulled it open by the brass handle, and wheeled Parkins in to a small, windowless foyer with another door beyond it.  Tanner left his prisoner there, going back the way he came and closing the door behind him.  The lock engaged a moment later with a loud click .
    The inner door unlocked and swung open. 
     
    ***
    Nikki stared across the table.  She was in an argumentative mood.
    “Feeling lucky?” she asked.  “You should.  Congratulations, you got away with it.   I mean, we’ve been in this situation before, and it always— always --gets messy.  But not this time, huh?”
    She laughed.  “Oh, come on, cheer the fuck up.  I’m sorry you didn’t get to indulge in your little hobby, but there’ll be other chances.  Everything’s just peachy.  You’re still breathing, we don’t have to dump a body in the middle of the night, and the cops have no clue.  If this keeps going the way it’s supposed to, we’re all home free.”
    No answer.  Nikki hadn’t really expected one.
    “So just relax.  Everything’s going to plan.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see if our new guest has woken up yet.”  She got up and walked away.
    Dennison Parkins, gagged and bound, watched her go with wide, terrified eyes.
     
    ***
    It was the adult diaper that decided Jack.
    It meant a long trip, and that was one of the things he wasn’t prepared for.  He knew Remote wouldn’t choose a place too close to his own home, but he didn’t think he’d pick one too far away, either—transporting a prisoner a long distance had a high risk factor, and it would have to be done twice.  Jack had only a moment to reach a decision before his captor pulled out a hypodermic.
    Jack pushed the tiny foil ball out from beneath his tongue and over his lips, jamming it into a small space between the duct tape sealing his mouth and his skin.  He hoped it would stay there; if it got back into his mouth he could asphyxiate on it.  Remote hadn’t bothered removing the many layers of duct tape to check inside Jack’s mouth, though he had run a bug detector over it. 
    Inside the foil was a drug called Ro 15-1788.  Jack’s discussions with Remote had led him to believe the drug Remote was most likely to use would be from a particular class of sedative/hypnotics called benzodiazepines; Ro 15-1788 was a powerful chemical antagonist, able to neutral many benzodiazepines almost instantly—it was so effective that it could turn an addict’s overdose into withdrawal symptoms within minutes. 
    But being a wide-awake captive did him little good.  As well, Ro 15-1788 had a short half-life, much shorter than the benzo, disappearing from the brain within the hour—it would only give Jack at most sixty minutes of consciousness when Remote would think he was sedated, and that would be Jack’s chance.  If he failed to find a way to escape through that window of opportunity, the sedative would take effect again and he’d be at Remote’s mercy.
    And from what Jack could tell, the man didn’t have any.
    When the needle had penetrated his skin and the sedative had flooded into his system, Jack had time to wonder if this was going to be the last waking experience of his