Year Two.
Rule #1: Do not go outside
"Ready?"
The small girl nodded excitedly, avoiding her caretaker's gaze and fidgeting with the zipper on her sweater. Lisa knelt down to gently pry her hands away from the dangling piece of metal, but decided not to reprimand her this time - she had every right to be nervous and no way to express it.
"Pulse," Lisa instructed, and the Project obediently tilted her head to the side, allowing the woman to press two fingers to the side of her throat. A little fast, but that was to be expected. What really worried her was the fact that the girl seemed to be panting lightly even at room temperature despite not having exercised recently, though it didn't seem serious enough to indicate a bigger problem than being a bit out-of-breath.
"Breath slower - you're hyperventilating," Lisa frowned, taking the Project's hand in her own, "Remember to stay close to me, and don't go wandering off."
Her charge nodded again and obediently followed her caretaker out of the Watching Room down the hall to the elevator. She had gone upstairs a few times with Dr. Schreyer, so she knew the drill and even remembered which button to press for the ground floor (which wasn't too hard as the building her Rooms were beneath only had two floors above ground).
"Why am I in the basement?" she asked suddenly, watching the elevator doors close with a dull thud moments before the car began to ascend, "Couldn't I live upstairs? I could have a window and you wouldn't have to ride the el-uh-vay-tor every day when you come to see me."
Lisa almost smiled at the innocently curious question and compelling argument. The girl usually didn't talk much - very little, in fact, when compared to the average two-year-old - but her vocabulary and communication skills were already far greater than any 'normal' toddler her age.
"We don't want to risk exposing you to too much sunlight until we know more about your condition, and I really don't mind the ride," Lisa assured her, stepping out of the elevator car into the brightly-lit laboratory hallway, and after confirming that it was empty, led the Project after her as they moved towards the north end of the building.
"Am I allergic to the sun?"
"Not exactly. I'd compare it to erythropoietic protoporphyria - though simply put, instead of swelling, your skin density increases," Lisa corrected her, then recognizing the confusion on the girl's face quickly added, "You can ask Mister Lee about it when he comes to take samples on Monday."
The Project didn't reply, frowning thoughtfully and still breathing somewhat heavier than normal, but she didn't complain or speak up again until the pair had nearly reached the north entrance of the facility.
"Is that what he means when he calls me a 'savant'?"
Lisa shook her head, fishing her keycard out of her pocket before remembering that the door outside would likely be locked since it was past working hours. No matter - as high-ranking personnel, she had her own key to the building below which the Project resided.
"I think he's referring to your good memory and how well you are doing in math. You're very smart for your age, you just… develop differently compared to most children," Lisa explained, fishing the key out of her pocket. Stormkrigeren remained silent, likely thinking the new information over in her small head, and stared past her reflection on the glass doors to the dark parking lot outside. There wasn't much out there besides asphalt, some grass and bushes and cars, and the chain-link fence separating the compound from the nearby highway, but out there one could see the sky. Stormkrigeren could only remember seeing the sky once or twice before, but only at night when the sun was down so it was safe for her to go out to other nearby buildings for various medical scans Dr. Schreyer or Lee or Anklow couldn't do in her Rooms. She liked the sky - it was big and dark blue and gray and smelled like wind - but she didn't much like going Outside. She got headaches when she went Outside, but she was okay with the pain if she got to see the sky.
Lisa heard the door click as it unlocked, requiring only a small turn of the handle and a light push to open it and step outside. She had known the risks of taking Stormkrigeren out of the building into an uncontrolled, unregulated environment - hell, she had been one of the original caretakers for the child and had written the damn reports condemning the subject's exposure to sunlight and normal atmosphere. There was a reason Herr Luthor had an entire complex of specially designed and atmospherically regulated Rooms built underground for a single child - every single time she had been exposed to sunlight or too much oxygen, her body had reacted badly. But what Lisa had not reported was that the subject was gradually growing stronger, her reactions less dangerous, and her tolerance much higher. Stormkrigeren was still 'allergic' to sunlight and oxygen (if allergic was even the right word), but one could overcome allergies by exposing themselves to the allergen in small doses. Which was exactly what Lisa was doing.
She turned the handle with her free hand and quietly pushed the glass door open, letting in a light breeze that smelled of cut grass and wet asphalt. Little Stormkrigeren stiffened beside her caretaker, gripping Lisa's hand tightly The subject was a strong little thing - she'd tolerate the heavy air just fine and hopefully with no bad side effects. Lisa suspected the worst thing that could happen to the girl was a headache and possibly a brief asthma attack, though that was highly unlikely. She'd be fine - she hoped.
Dr. Schreyer ushered the girl past the threshold and onto the sidewalk outside the LexCorp Research Facility building, still holding her hand to make sure she didn't wander off - not that she was likely to. Stormkrigeren had gone off with supervision exactly once, and luckily had been quickly found wandering around the Watching Room, but was severely reprimanded by Herr Luthor afterward - a little too severely, in Lisa's opinion. Now the subject was always just a little too willing to stay close and obey every order presented to her, and Dr. Schreyer was almost afraid that her curiosity had been crushed at too young an age. But despite her suppressed exploration, Stormkrigeren still questioned the world around her with fascinated interest - which was exactly the look on her little face when they stepped outside.
Lisa felt the little girl tighten her grasp on her caretaker's hand as the pair stepped down onto the asphalt of the parking lot and out from beneath the overhanging roof. For the first time in a long time, there was nothing but sky above Stormkrigeren's head - dark and gray and wide and-
The sky was full of stars.
Lisa had told her about stars, how they were only visible when the sky was free of any heavy clouds and looked like little lights or a dusting of flour stuck in a big black blanket. Stormkrigeren didn't think they looked like lights or flour - they looked like… stars. Flickering stars, small stars, loud stars.
It was loud Outside. Very loud. She could hear wind and grass and cars on the nearby highway and the humming of the electric fence and the whine of the security cameras and Dr. Schreyer's breathing, and what Stormkrigeren thought might have been Dr. Schreyer's heartbeat too, mixed up and jumbled in all the noise. Her ears rang with the effort of trying to shut it all out, failing miserably as each sound bored its way into her head, shouting, yelling, screaming, her own heart thundering like-
"Darcie?"
Stormkrigeren inhaled sharply at the voice and nearly cried out in pain from the stimulation. She quickly covered her ears with her hands and squeezed her eyes tight shut, trying to shut it all out, waiting for it to go away, it had to go away eventually, didn't it?
"Darcie? Черт побери, keep breathing. We're going back inside - just hold on."
She whimpered softly when rough arms wrapped themselves around her, squeezing, crushing, carrying, dragging her up off the ground and back inside. The overwhelming scent of Dr. Schreyer's lavender soap invaded her nose as her caretaker scooped her up, jostling her up and down as the woman ran, her footsteps only adding to the already unbearable noise before Stormkrigeren was finally set down and the jostling stopped.
The lights hurt her eyes like needles when they went under her skin the wrong way, but Stormkrigeren briefly peeked long enough to recognize that they were the bright lights of her Room and not the little security ones in the laboratories upstairs. That was good - it meant she wasn't on the ground floor or outside anymore, and she was in her Room where the sounds didn't hurt her all the time - but they were still hurting her now. There were too many moving lights and rough things and loud sounds thundering like a hurricane in her ears and nearly drowning each other out, yet she could still make out a few sounds that she knew, like the buzzing of the lights and the pop of the refrigerator seal.
She opened her eyes, squinting so the brightness didn't hurt as much, and saw Dr. Schreyer hurrying towards her from the kitchen Room, a juice box in her hand. Stormkrigeren brightened up at the sight of the little cardboard box, recognizing the label immediately and knowing that there was orange juice inside. She liked orange juice - it had a nice taste and Lisa always got her the kind that didn't have the bad pulpy bits in it and the juice was actually the same color as it said on the box.
The loud noises went quiet for a short moment when she happily accepted the juice Dr. Schreyer handed to her, catching the straw in her mouth and taking a long sip before the flavor suddenly hit her.
It tasted wrong - bad, very bad, too much and all over her tongue and she couldn't get it off. Stormkrigeren panicked, wanting to get the taste to go away and separate herself as far as possible from the bad taste, dropping the juice box in her efforts to get it as far away from herself as possible. The hurricane of sounds suddenly returned, more deafening than before as she tried to cover her ears and shut it all out, making herself small so the noises and the lights wouldn't find her.
"Darcie," Lisa sighed, her voice tinged with annoyance, but she patiently picked the box up and righted it so it wouldn't spill, "Can you tell me what's wrong? Were you having trouble breathing?"
Stormkrigeren shook her head, hunching her shoulders and covering her eyes against the bright, flickering lights trying to get into her head, flashing and humming and screeching-
"'S loud," she whispered, flinching at the sound of her own voice roaring in her ears.
Lisa simply nodded, "Yeah, it does get a bit loud in a big city sometimes. That's just how it is, but you can get used to it eventually."
No, no, she didn't understand - it wasn't just loud Outside, it was loud inside her Rooms too - it was too loud and bright and she tried so hard, uncovering her eyes even though the lights and the sounds hurt so much, but she didn't try hard enough-
"I-I didn't get to look at the stars very long."
"That's all right," Lisa assured her, gently passing the little girl her juice, "You can see the stars some other time."
Stormkrigeren only nodded and obediently sipped at the straw, trying her best to ignore the overwhelming flavor and constant flashing of the lights. It was a little easier now - the sounds were still loud, but quieter than they had been before, and the lights didn't seem to flash as quickly, and she could breathe a little easier. Maybe she was getting better at shutting it all out. Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much next time she went to see the stars.
V*V*V*V*V*V*V
She soon realized that there might not be a next time. Not after Lisa got in trouble.
Stormkrigeren could hear Herr Luthor yelling at her in the Watching Room. He was always very loud, especially when he was mad, and he sounded very mad today.
No one was allowed to take the subject (she had figured out long ago that 'the subject' was her) outside unless they got proper uh-proo-val forms from Herr Luthor himself, and even then she couldn't be outside for very long - only long enough for her to be moved between buildings, he said. There was too much risk of her either being seen by someone who didn't know about the Project or even her having some sort of medical ee-mer-gen-see. The Outside was dangerous, and who knew what might happen to her - she might stop breathing or go into shock or hurt herself during a sensory overload (that's what Dr. Schreyer called it when Stormkrigeren heard or saw too much of everything).
Lisa got mad too and yelled back at Herr Luthor that the only way such medical ee-mer-gen-sees were pree-ven-tuh-bul was if Stormkrigeren developed an immunity to them through exposure. She said some things about grah-dj-oo-al acclimation and allergies that Stormkrigern didn't quite understand, but Herr Luthor did. He was quiet for a bit, probably thinking about what Lisa had told him, before deciding that he would reconsider exposure therapy in a few years when the subject was older and more was known about her physiology and potential reactions to the Outside.
Lisa thanked him (though she still sounded a bit mad), and Herr Luthor left the Watching Room to go back up to the Outside. A few minutes later Lisa came down to Stormkrigeren's Room, looking maybe a tiny bit mad still, but she just sounded tired when she told the girl to run and get her workbooks. Lisa didn't say anything about what Mister Luthor had said, but Stormkrigeren had heard all of it anyway. It would be a long while before she got to see the stars again.