The telltale flicker of a failing ballast in the fluorescent lighting in the corner of the room had a way of drawing Miranda's eyes from the array of computer screens in front of her. Feeling her heart rate creep up at the thought of throwing her chair at the offending fixture, the young woman planted her face into her left hand and took a deep breath.
"Not now." Her lips shaped the words as she exhaled.
Miranda looked over the code on her primary screen as the software finished compiling.
"Errors: 0". The prompt read.
She collapsed backward into her chair, but quickly shot back up. As she fought the urge to look up at the camera mounted atop the array of screens, Miranda wondered if she had given off any signs of what she was up to. Would they notice the hope that her face surely displayed and scrutinize her updated firmware? She took great care to add the subroutine little by little, over the past few weeks. Weeks… Had it been that long? How could she know? It had seemed like a lifetime before they finally decided that her medications were vital. And they went as far as to disable any clock or calendar functions in every computer she had been allowed to touch. These people were thorough.
Miranda saved her work, unplugged the laptop that ran all of the screens, and stood up. Her legs barely did as she willed them to as she paused a moment to let the lightheadedness pass. It was a somber reminder of how little they gave her to eat. She found herself wondering what purpose that served as she walked to the drop box in the corner of the room and slid the laptop inside. At 5'2", she wondered what they stood to gain from starving her. If anything, it worked against her usefulness to them.
Miranda yawned as she traipsed to the mattress in the corner of the room, the same corner as the flickering light. She considered pulling the dirty thing to the empty corner behind her, the other two were occupied; one by a toilet and the other by a shower head and drain. But her short walk had left her out of breath and lightheaded. Defeated, the young woman collapsed onto the mattress and pulled the thin blanket over her whole body. It didn't block the light of the room very well but it was better than nothing.
The muted metallic sound inside the drop box signaled that her captors would not be challenging her self imposed bed time. As if to confirm her conclusion, the lights went dark. It was when the laptop was not collected and the lights stayed on that she could expect a violently persuasive visit from her hosts. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. They wore what looked like flight suits, helmets, and gloves. Clearly a deliberate means of concealing any features the men had that might give away anything about where they were. None of them had ever verbally spoke to her, there would be no accents to give anything away. All communication was done through physical notes and prompts on the computers they gave her.
The room was barren; white, somewhat dirty walls with no windows. Only a single door next to the drop box, under which light into the room. Occasionally the outside light gave away the forms of her captors as they walked by. In addition to the camera mounted atop the monitors on the desk, each corner of the room had another mounted on the ceiling.
Miranda had long since concluded that she deserved everything that was happening to her, but it didn't make it any easier. Swiping at where the tears had begun tickling her cheek, she uncovered her head and rolled onto her back. As Miranda slowed her breathing, she took solace in the fact that even if her message in a bottle went nowhere, even if she would die here; they couldn't take away her dreams at night.
Stephanie Freeman placed her crutches against a nearby tree and sat in the grass. A few hundred yards South of the 'Mogo site', this was her place to decompress and watch the red light from the sunset pierce through the surrounding trees.
While her concussion symptoms had all but cleared up, her broken right leg was not quite healed after they had rebroken it to fix the incorrect healing during her nearly two week coma. She still maintained a slight resentment that the hospital neglected to run x rays while she was comatose. Nevertheless, she was happy to finally be back to work.
"Hey".
Stephanie, startled, whirled around at the sound of Matt's voice to see him gracefully landing arms length away.
"You're back?" Stephanie, clumsily trying to get up, froze as he waved a dismissive hand and sat next to her.
"Not officially." Matt said solemnly.
Stephanie studied the young man for a moment as she reluctantly relaxed back into the grass. His hair was cut short and he had grown a short beard. He looked different from when he had come out to the public. He could feasibly don a hat and sunglasses and blend right into a crowd.
"Is this your first time back? Has Hanson seen you yet?"
"How are you?" Matt's reply came as if she hadn't spoken at all.
Stephanie paused for a moment, her eyes narrowed slightly.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know… Isn't that something you ask someone who got hurt because of you?"
"It wasn't-"
"Sure it was. It's nice of you to pretend otherwise, but I mean... I was stomping around like a psycho in a public place trying to pick a fight with an unstable girl in a flying tank with legs. Of course it's my fault that people got hurt."
Matt waved his hand toward Stephanie's leg cast.
"Look at this. I… I may as well have broken it myself. And now I've got cults gluing pictures of my fucking face on Jesus Christ statues. What a mindfuck."
"I'm fine, Matt. I got a raise, a medal, and they even got me a cake with my name on it for my first day back."
Matt and Stephanie shared an awkward chuckle as Matt glanced in all directions, making little effort to conceal his paranoia.
"I'm sorry. Regardless, I'm sorry."
"If you feel that bad, feel free to perform a miracle on my leg."
"Oh, right…"
Without warning, Matt placed a hand on her cast. An audible clunk emanated from the woman's body and then the cast split apart.
"Holy shit! You didn't tell me it would hurt like that." Stephanie barked in pain. "I was
joking, I didn't think you'd really-"
Matt stood up and offered her his hand with an apologetic smile. She glared at him for a moment before accepting the offer. Stephanie stood carefully and reluctantly began putting more and more weight onto her leg.
"Holy shit…" She repeated.
"You think they'd still make me go to medical school?"
"Either you're not funny or I'm still in shock." Stephanie replied, eyes still fixated on her leg.
"Maybe both. Anyway, for what it's worth; you definitely made things a little less shitty. You're the best government issue friend a guy could ask for."
"In light of my new miracle leg, I'll overlook your underhanded compliment."
"Fair trade."
"So did you finally come back just to fix a broken agent or…"
Matt stiffened, glancing at the ground and back up to Stephanie.
"I don't like it, I probably never will. But, I'll never get my normal life and the best thing I can do is embrace it. I never want to be some instrument for government agendas or anything like that. But, I really feel like there could be a middle ground. I think we can do more good together than I can sneaking around like some kind of super vagrant."
"That sounds like music to Hanson's ears."
"How's he holding up?"
Stephanie's eyes narrowed as she stifled a smirk.
"Right, silly question."
"Independent contractor…" Hanson repeated the words as he contemplated it.
"Yeah." Matt answered, slightly sprawled on the chair across from Hanson's desk. "It makes it feel a lot less like the government owns me, like either side can walk away if it doesn't work."
"Matt, that can happen no matter what you call it. At any time, you could just fly away or the government could pull the plug. What determines how this goes is trust. We could carry on like how we were or you can earn our trust and things get easy. Have I shown you by now that I have your best interests in mind?"
Matt looked down at the floor as he answered. "Yeah, thank you, by the way."
Hanson leaned back in his chair, eyes never leaving Matt.
"Well, I can't say that you'd have survived if you had listened to me. But we could have been better prepared to back you up."
Matt had trouble maintaining eye contact. Despite months to mentally prepare to face the man, Hanson was right and Matt was still remorseful.
"Hopefully with the comic book villainy over with, I don't have to worry about getting that angry every again."
"About that." Hanson glanced at Stephanie, standing next to Matt, now holding her camera once again. She immediately stopped the camera and shut the office door. "Miranda was taken."
Matt perked up, mouth agape.
"By who?"
"We don't know."
"When?"
"63 days ago."
"Oh shit… Oh shit! She built that thing herself. With major money and parts she could…"
"Correct."
"Do you think she still wants to kill me?"
"I don't think so, but it didn't take an expert to brainwash her before."
"Oh God. I should have-"
"No." Hanson said as he stood and walked around his desk. "If you killed her like that there'd be no going back. The people who want you neutralized would have a leg to stand on. I barely fought off those vultures as it is."
"So what's the plan?" Asked Matt, standing up as well.
"We can start by hammering out some ground rules."
"Rules already, huh?"
Hanson put a hand on Matt's shoulder, flashing a slight grin.
"Terms of partnership, if you will."
Matt ran his hands through his hair and groaned.
"God, people are trying to kill me but right now: Paperwork!"
"Welcome to our world." Stephanie quipped as she resumed recording on the camera.
"First order of business: We need to figure out this camera shit in a way that isn't so annoying."