“The sun?”
“There were others who had never been in the sun. How come they were bald? The senior Dr. Chao tried everything on us. Many died. So many. And for what?”
I could not imagine what their lives had been like.
“When I turned five, every month or so, they’d take us out, cut our hair until we were bald, then send us back in. That’s how I came to know there were others like me. Any who disobeyed or were troublesome disappeared in the next hair cycle and we’d never see them again.”
We had both grown up prisoners in our own homes, subjected to cruelties others could not possibly understand. In degrees, his was by far the more extreme, but it was a fury I empathized with.
“How did you get out?” I asked.
“We were eventually released,” Voltaire said.
“Someone had a change of heart?”
“You could say that.”
Voltaire led me out of the hall, down the corridor, up a flight of stairs, until we arrived at a huge space that could have been a warehouse. There were thousands of glass cages set up in rows as though it were an aquarium. But there weren’t fish within. There were scalps of heads, hair growing from them and swaying like plants underwater. Mechanical arms with clippers and harvesters covered the ceiling, wires and tracks giving the arms full mobility. I stepped closer to make sure I was seeing right.
“Dr. Chao never found out what exactly caused the Great Baldification. But he found a way to recreate hair in perpetuity. These are the heads of my brothers and sisters who sacrificed their lives so that Chao Toufa could produce the best wigs in the world,” Voltaire declared. “The doctor kept the skin producing hair even without the rest of the body attached by releasing timed doses of synthetic hormones into the preserving solution at freezing temperatures.”
“What happened to the bodi—?”
“Terminated,” Voltaire said to me. “After he discovered this new method, he had no need for us. So he sent us out into the world five years ago like sheep to be devoured by the wolves.”
“But that would risk exposing your secret.”
“He assumed our hair would fall out when we were back in the sun. But it didn’t. Still, it wasn’t a big preoccupation for him. He was dying of stomach cancer.”
“So what happened?”
“We slipped off his radar. As we had been sent out with nothing to fend for ourselves, we had to carve out our own paths,” Voltaire said. He furrowed his brows and stared at one of the heads in the tank. “Beauvoir, take him upstairs and wait for us.”
They were going to do something here. Destroy it? Obliterate it? Salvage the heads? Commemorate all those they’d lost? There were so many heads and so much hair. I tried to get it out of my mind that those scalps once belonged to people.
I followed Beauvoir out of the chamber.
“You grew up in one of these too?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I grimaced, thinking of her being stuffed into a compartment, tubes sticking out of her body, used for experimentation so they could provide wigs for strangers.
“You will help our cause?” she asked.
“I doubt there’s anything I can do.”
“You’re the owner of Chao Toufa.”
“In name only.”
“Names are important,” she said.
“Why are all of you named after authors?”
“I don’t know. One of the researchers gave us all our names. Maybe she loved literature. Do you like literature?”
“I usually watch the movie versions of famous books,” I admitted.
“Me too. Too bad there won’t be any new movies for a while.”
We entered the corridor with all the animal heads. Above, I saw the fresh body of Dr. Asahi hanging from a rope. Her feet were twitching and her eyes were crossed with blood. Had she been confused by the package because she had not known the group of them had been sent out to fend for themselves? Not that it mattered with her corpse hanging from above. I felt terribly sorry. Then I thought about those scalps underground and my pity dissipated into conflicted aversion.
“There’s something I want you to know about me,” Beauvoir said.
“What?”
“I did things. Things a proper man might not appreciate about a lady. I did it so we could survive,” she said.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
It pained me to think of it. I knew she was much tougher than I was. Anyone who survived down here had to be. I was in no place to judge her for anything. “You forget what I endured during the cricket matches? You do what you have to do.”
“That’s what you did?”
“That’s what everyone does.”
She nodded. “You were married before.”
“Yeah.”
“Larry told Voltaire you hadn’t made love to a woman since your ex-wife.”
“He told him that?!” I exclaimed, embarrassed and incredulous.
She laughed. “It’s okay.”
I missed Larry, even his big mouth. Did you know about all of this? How had a wig factory become involved in these kind of horrors? What was your response when you found out? I really wish you were here, old buddy.
We entered the elevator and went upstairs.
I remembered Larry talking about making the Chao Toufa documentary, exposing everything. Was this what he had in mind? Was he going to reveal all the atrocities committed here?
Why did you leave everything to me? I still couldn’t understand him. What could I do? I’d seen how quickly Voltaire dispatched of those faceless guards. He had his army here. If I tried to resist and escape, they’d have me hanging from a rope. I was not only out of my league. I was in a world of pain that was beyond my orbital comprehension.
“If you were in our position, what would you do?” she asked.
It was tough to answer because I wasn’t in their position. I told her so.
“You don’t have to tell me the answer that won’t get you in trouble. You can tell me what you’re really thinking,” she said.
That was the problem though, wasn’t it? I had no idea what to think about any of this.
“Have you been to Kauai before?” she asked.
“The island republic?”
“Yeah.”
“I haven’t.”
“It’s beautiful there,” Beauvoir said. “The whole island seceded from America and they have an artificial barrier around the island that keeps the water fresh. You can swim there and snorkel without having to worry about radiation. The luaus are so much fun and those fire dancers are the most talented I’ve ever seen. There’s chickens everywhere and the waterfalls are amazing. It’s like being transported to another world.”
“I’ve heard. I never had the chance to go though. Too expensive.”
“We have a place there. Kauai has no extradition laws and Larry helped us buy a huge ranch in Poipu.”
“Really?”
“You could come and stay with us.”
As I was about to answer, Voltaire came up.
“We’re moving into the next phase of our operation,” he said.
“The next phase?”
“This is where you need to make your decision.”