Chapter Ten: Planning

(A/n- Arrrrrrg! My computer crashed last week (or at least I thought it had crashed). No one bothered to look at it until Sunday morning! Then it turned out IT HADN'T CRASHED! One more time everybody ARRRRRRRRRG! And I had school off ALL last week. I could've been writing soooo much, but noooooo! Another classic case of stupidity! Oh well, I know I haven't posted for two weeks *curses her self mentally* but PLEASE keep reading. And review please! I live for reviews. I want to know what you guys think, and hint hint, I'm getting more hits than reviews…Anyhoo, like I said sorry for the delay. Trust me it won't happen again.)

Trouble with planning was that I knew to escape we'd have to take a subtle approach. I knew that I could easily blast a hole through the wall and we could use that as our escape. Of course then there's the problem of probable people on the other side of the wall…so that option was out. Amori tells me endlessly that I'm awful at subtleness, and sometimes I agree with her. I prefer to go in and get it over with, and while I'm not as bad as say, Logan, I'm pretty bad. The good thing was I had my friends to help me decide how we were going to get out of here.

The first thing we decided we needed to do was discover the routines that took place inside our prison. Since we were inside a cement room that wasn't easy, and the only things we were really able to discover was that food came three times a day. Eight in the morning, twelve noon, and seven in the evening. Three guards would come in; one pushing a cart and throwing out food, and the other two holding guns that were over kill for anything walking on two legs. None of us captives were allowed to leave the cell, but they brought new people in almost every day. We could hear constant footsteps on the other side of the door. A twenty four hour guard. Wonderful. And we couldn't tell just by the footsteps how many there were.

We discovered that a lot of the younger kids (the nine and ten year olds) in the room with us weren't mutants; it was just their parents. Their captors had just grabbed whole families out of their houses. One this was for sure…this kinda thing sure as hell ain't legal. The kids were just stuck in the middle of a whole genocide project. Ok, maybe genocide is to strong a word, or then again, maybe not. What ever it was, after five days of watching crying kids cling to parents or cry out for them I was totally pissed.

After watching routines for five days, and coming up with the same thing each day, we started trying to figure some way to get out. Our first plan was to have Kurt 'bamf' us out. It was brilliant! Until he reminded the rest of us that he could only teleport to places he knew. That was a problem as we didn't know where we were, and unfortunately he had his limits so even if he could've he'd have to do it shifts and it could take days because he'd have to regain strength in between bamfs.

Next we looked to the little slit in the ceiling. It was very small, about one a half feet long and ten inches wide. No one could fit through it naturally and no one had a particular power that made them able to slip through it. We thought about widening it, but the ceiling might cave in, and that would defeat the whole purpose.

It was frustrating not to be able to do anything, but there weren't a whole lot of options. People offered other ideas, but we couldn't make any of them work, either for fear of killing some one or it was just impossible.

*~*~*

The guards never talked to us when they came in to give us food or when they were making routine checks. They came in quickly and went out. If they needed someone they'd just look around for a second, and then grab the person they were looking for. The people who came back said that it was a bunch of tests and drawing blood. So of course none of us were too eager for our turn. When the first person was dragged out we thought maybe they'd be able to give us a layout of the building, but upon returning people always said the guards made sure they couldn't see where they were going.

I was grabbed while I was talking with Remy and Kendra. I didn't fight it; I figured it wouldn't have done any good. The guard had a tight grip on my shoulder and move of resistance could have resulted in serious pain and/or injury. Outside the door of the cell my holder grabbed my glasses from my face. I flinched, and shut my eyes so as not to kill us all.

It wasn't along walk. We went up a flight of stairs then took a sharp right and stopped. I could tell we were in a room. It was brightly lit and there were at least three people in it. Someone shoved me roughly and I fell onto what I thought was a mattress. I felt straps going around my wrists and ankles, and then heard two other people entering the room. A body was thrown down close to me and strapped down as well.

"Where're the needles?" a voice close to me spoke. It was a male voice, low and gravely.

"Here sir." This time it was a girl with an English accent. "Remember what the gent said. One vial only.

"You don't need to remind me." Gravel voice snapped.

The girl didn't say anything. I guess she handed him the needles because I felt something pierce my skin seconds after they finished talking. It was quick but painful. It felt like they were using a vacuum cleaner to draw my blood. When they withdrew the needle I relaxed waiting for whatever would come next. There was nothing for the next fifteen minutes, and I could tell they weren't doing anything to the person next to me either. 

My thoughts turned to the rest of my friends, escape plans, the other people in the building, and then finally the meaning of life. It was a long fifteen minutes, heck it coulda been longer, I certainly couldn't see my watch.

"Do you want me to do this?" the girl asked gravel voice.

"Do it right! This has to work." Gravel voice sounded nervous.

"Don't be mad if it doesn't go right." The girl said. "We've only had three months."

I felt a shiver run down my body, and I tensed waiting for another needle. One of them moved around to where they'd lay the other person. I felt the person tense like I did and heard the hiss of an injection gun. Next came pandemonium.

The person next to me screamed, along with the female doctor. Vibrations were coming from all around; the room was literally shaking. I heard what sounded like something ricocheting of the ceiling. Curiosity getting the better of me, I unconsciously opened my eyes to see what was going on.

"Now we've got two of them!" The girl could barley be heard over the noise.

"Close your eyes!" Gravel yelled loudly. "Close your damned eyes!"

I became immediately aware of what I was doing and closed my eyes. Apparently the person next to me decided to do the same because all of the vibration and noise stopped. Soft hands slid over my face and thankfully I felt the familiar cool of my glasses covering my eyes. I opened my eyes immediately to see who it was next to me.

I caught site of the doctors first. The gravely voiced one was a middle-aged guy with graying and balding hair. He was tall but stood hunched over. The cigar hanging on the side of his lip told me all I needed to know about his voice. The girl was blond; her hair was back in a sever bun. The graying doctor was taller than her, but she stood straight. She wore glasses that pointed at the side, adding more to her strict look. She reminded me a lot of 7 of 9 from Star Trek.

It was hard to turn my head, as I was still strapped down. Oh well, it was damn lucky for those doctors that they hadn't undone the straps. When I saw who was strapped next to me I had to do several double takes. No, it wasn't Amori, I wouldn't have been as angry as I was if it had been her. Over the years I've learned not to worry too much about Amori, she can pretty much take care of herself. Amori wouldn't have cried in a situation like this, she wouldn't have curled up into a ball, but then, Amori isn't an eight-year-old little boy.

"What the hell…" I muttered quietly, looking at the boy in front of me. He was still crying, curled in a ball on his bed. They'd unstraped him, while setting a pair of glasses like mine on his face. The kids black tousled hair was falling in his eyes as he cried, making him look even more helpless.

"Unstrap the other one." The old man made a vague gesture towards me. The woman looked at me and suddenly her strict demeanor dropped. She looked positively scared out of her mind. I guess my glare really is as bad as Amori says, and right now I was really angry. One look at that kid did it.

The woman eased forward tentatively and reached forward to undo the straps, but her look changed again. She started to look evil; Mystique evil. I thought for a second maybe it was her, but a strong feeling told me we defiantly weren't dealing with Mystique. Just some random loon.

Brownie points for me. I didn't attack her as soon as my arms and legs were free. No, I waited a good twenty seconds until the silence became thick in the room. Then I jumped off the bed and tackled the woman. I'd have gone for the older man, but (a) he was to far away and (b) I didn't want to break his back or anything.

I rolled with her on the ground until I pinned her down and I was looking down to her face. Not forgetting the doctor I grabbed her clipboard from her hands and threw it with perfect accuracy at his head. He moaned at the impact and slumped not yet unconscious to the floor. Though he was still conscious I wasn't too concerned.

"What the hell did you do?" I said almost growling. "And I want details."

"We discovered how to fuse DNA." She said hurriedly, encouraged by my raised fist. "So the government decided they wanted a super army. It's easiest to fuse it in children so we made sure to grab a bunch of kids when we took the mutants."

I raised an eyebrow. "Explain the DNA part."

Her breathing was speeding up. "Children with mutant parents have dormant mutant genes if we take DNA from other mutants and work with it a little, then inject it into the children they gain the powers of the blood donors and we…gain an army. We chose your blood for the test run because your powers are destructive."

"I fell out of a plane. That's why I have to wear ruby quartz. It's not genetic. Why is it happening to him?" I asked.

"That problem was easily corrected." A small smirk escaped. I looked back at the crying boy. If you looked carefully a tinge of purple was visible around his eyes, like he'd been beaten. I punched her. Hard. She deserved it.

"Let me get this straight." I said through gritted teeth. "You beat a kid who's, like, eight at the most, just to get a section of his brain to stop functioning. Then you strap him to a chair, blind fold him, again scaring him to no bounds, and then you inject him with my blood, so he now has my uncontrollable mutant abilities." I hit her again. "Lady, I have two things to say. Firstly, you'd better start thanking who ever pray to that you're not dealing with my cousin, 'cause she is a lot worse than I am. And, secondly…you need to rot in hell, along with the hunch back over there."

I gave her one last jab in the stomach before getting up. To my surprise she followed suit a few seconds later. She didn't attack or touch me though. She just watched me as I made my way over to the bed where the boy was. I didn't ask him any questions, I just picked him up. He attached himself to me tightly as if I were a lifeline.

"He's coming back with me." I said simply. The woman doctor nodded and shrugged.

"That's the way it was planned. His parents aren't in this facility. They might not even be alive anymore." She laughed at the look on the boys face as she said it. "He's yours. Yours here, yours if you escape." She put a pleasant smile on her face and walked over to the older doctor. He managed to get up with her assistance but he looked tipsy. "Now then, I'll call a guard for you. They won't blindfold you any more no need. I want you and your mutant friends to try and escape. It'll be like cat and mouse, or cops and robbers. You try to leave, and then I catch all of you!

"Like a game. Won't it be fun? And if you mutants loose... you're mine, and I'll repeat my activities that Toby and I shared with all of you."

Oh we were so outa this place!