A/N: There's a chapter before this one. Double update. New cover are provided by Phinnea, support thei .treon and give them hugs!
"What is your name?"
"Oni Lee."
"Your real name."
"I do not have to disclose such information."
"I take patient-client confidentiality seriously."
"I do not have to disclose such information."
"The records we have for you are fake. Watchdog is very good at figuring these things out."
"I fail to see how that is relevant."
"If we have your real name, your lawyer could tell a story. Those tend to make the jury listen a little more sympathetically. Did Lung force you to work for him?"
"I do not have to disclose such information."
"Humans like stories. Most of them, at least. So if you tell me or your lawyer something about your past, we can try to lessen your sentence. Did Bakuda threaten you?"
"I do not have to disclose such information."
"It's in your best interest to. What can you tell me about the ABB?"
"I do not have to disclose such information."
"Why won't you?"
"I do not see how that is relevant."
"I want to help you. Can you help me?"
"Yes."
"Will you?"
"Maybe."
"Do you want to go to the Birdcage?"
"No."
"So tell me something."
"I do not have to disclose such information."
"You're a very repetitive man, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"What can you tell me?"
"This place is not like home."
A woman enters the room. I am on the ground, a simple blindfold around my eyes.
"You'll have a day in court." The words are delivered professionally. I can hear the disgust behind them. I tell her I understand. That I am aware of my legal privileges and restrictions.
"I'll bet." She snorts. "Do you have a lawyer?" She's dismissive, as if the thought itself is foolish. I inform her I do not. That I will require the state to provide me with representation if I am to be tried.
"You'll get one alright." She leaves, and I am again alone. Time passes. I exercise, maintaining muscle tone. I eat, barely tasting the slop. I rest, nights black and empty and passing almost as soon as they begin.
I exist in indifference.
One day the intercom speaks.
"You are going to be escorted to your trial. Lie face down on the floor and do not use your power. Do you understand?" I tell them I do. I comply, resting my hands above my head and closing my eyes.
The door opens and I remain in my position. My hands are secured behind me, cold steel cuffs without a keyhole, and a blindfold slips over my eyes. Rough black cloth, backed by firm plastic. I cannot see. The band tightens around my head and I am hauled to my feet. Arms guide me, and I hear an elevator open. I am moved forward, then spun around. There's the soft click of a button being pressed, and I hear the doors close. A change in pressure tells me that we are moving.
We wait. One of the guards speaks.
"Bakuda's dead, you know?"
I process the thought.
"No idea how it happend. Her corpse just showed up on the PRT's front porch yesterday. Headless." I think he is trying to shock me. It does not work.
I will not escape. The guard appears to be thinking along similar lines.
"See, she's the only person that was going to give a damn about you. Now? You've got no real legal representation, no one to break you out, and no future. How does it feel to be fucking hopeless?" His voice becomes louder as he speaks. His words are not directed at me. They're a rant. Frustration, finally given an outlet.
"Chill." The other guard sounds almost bored. "You're barking up the wrong tree. You know that he hasn't said twenty words to anyone since he's come in?"
"Strong and silent type, yeah. Doesn't mean he's not feeling something."
"Nah. The quiet ones will snap if you push them far enough. Say the wrong thing, bring up the wrong subject, and they'll twitch. It'll be small, but it'll be there. This guy?" The arm in the bored guard's hand shakes me. "He hasn't reacted. At all. Basically a vegetable."
"He killed Jenkins!" The angry guard's hand tighten on my arm. Hard enough to bruise. "You're telling me he doesn't feel anything?"
"Calm down or I'm reporting you." The words are dispassionate, but they are enough. The angry guard relaxes his grip. I stop thinking about ways to kill him.
They don't speak anymore. I stand silently. Waiting.
While I am in court, I am blindfolded. This time my cuffs are attached to the front of the table. The chains are short, but these ones have keyholes. I feel the edge of the steel circles. Police cuffs. Secure enough that I wouldn't be able to escape in public without someone catching on.
My lawyer will try to keep me from the Birdcage. He will fail. He knows this. He is overworked, underpaid, and personally dislikes me. He tells me as much when we meet. Politely.
Nonetheless, he tries. He appeals to emotion, to justice, to the ridiculousness of absolute moral standards in his opening statement. He stresses the lack of evidence for many crimes, the excessive force used in my capture, the extenuating circumstances. He tries to make me into as much of a victim as any one I have struck down, glossing over the actual violence.
His rhetoric is sound. I can almost sense the jury looking me over in a new light.
The plaintiff doesn't bother to do anything fancy. Instead, she states the facts. Frank, honest, and simple. She reads off my list of crimes. She reminds the jury that I am a murderer many times over. She uses my bondage as proof of my crimes.
After that the witnesses are almost superfluous. I have my time on the stand, and answer honestly. No one is surprised. A few others are called to testify. They vary, from wrathful to heartbroken to empty. They tell tales of loss, and at the end of each such story I feel the righteous fury of the jurors rise.
My lawyer fights valiantly, but he can read the room. He doesn't bother to try and cross-examine the men and women summoned by the prosecution. Instead he asks me about my life with the ABB.
I tell him little. The judge threatens me with contempt. I tell him it is within my rights. The judge agrees and asks if I wish to avoid my punishment. I tell him I do not. He asks if I want two counts of contempt. I tell him I do not.
It is then he realized that he was talking to a parahuman.
My lawyer makes his closing arguments, stressing the need to understand the context of such crimes. The prosecution stress the need to not let the forest distract from the trees.
The jury convenes. The jury returns. The decision is unanimous.
I will never be free again.
The ride is silent. My hands are secured in front of me, and another blindfold covers my face. This time, it is simple cloth.
A voice. Feminine, with an odd accent.
"Prisoner 599, code name Oni Lee. PRT powers designation Mover 5, Master 4. Protocols were carried out properly, with additional restraints to account for advanced hand-to-hand training. Chances of escape following internment in the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center rests at .000032, with gross deviations rising to .000107 if allowed to synergize with a Tinker. Will be processed to Cell Block W."
I feel myself move. Eventually, the cuffs detach from my hands. I rub my wrists, attempting to sooth the mild chafing, and remove my blindfold. Then I observe.
Two robotic arms, black and immense and metallic, are lowering my platform. The walls are far from me, far enough that I would need to vanish to touch them. I look up. The shaft stretches endlessly.
"Don't even think about it." The voice is flat and stern. "You've only got enough oxygen for a trip down, the doors at the top are rated to stop small nukes, and I've got automated turrets lining the shaft, all capable of predicting where you'll teleport to next. Do you understand?"
I nod.
"Good. I'm putting you with Eli Goldsmith. He's a nut job, but if you indulge in his fantasies you should be fine." I nod again.
There's a pregnant pause as I descend further.
"Is there anything you want to know?" The voice has softened.
"No."
More quiet.
"I don't get a lot of quiet inmates." There's another pause before she continues. "The last one that came here killed themselves. Are you going to?"
"No."
"They didn't hang themselves. They went off and picked a fight with a cell block leader. They weren't the first. I'd like them to be the last. Are you looking to die?"
"No."
The silence stretches on. She speaks again.
"In a few more minutes I won't be able to speak to you. This is your last chance to ask questions."
I stand still, staring up the shaft, at the retreating world. There's a sigh.
"Goodbye."
"Welcome to Cell Block W! We like to call it the party block," a lean, smiling man says. His hair is matted into dreadlocks that are bound into a ponytail, blonde with green tips, and his teeth are immaculate. "I'm Eli, the leader here. You can call me Sing-Song the Destroyer! I'll help you get set up here, just come along this way and you'll get your basics."
I receive a toothbrush, a thin pillow and a spare blanket. My cell will be far from both the door and the recreation area in the center of the room. I do not share it with anyone.
"It's the worst one, but hey! You're the new guy. The other prisoners are going to be ragging on you for a while. Just put up with it, keep your head down, and they'll lay off. If that doesn't work, just beat one of the scarier ones up and the rest'll back down real fast! I mean, that's what I did and hey! It worked out. If you're not happy with where you are, save up your cigarettes and wait for someone to die. We'll hold an auction for their stuff, and that includes their cell."
Sing-Song talks as we walk, dropping information about the prison as a whole in between bits about his personal cell block. The prison is split along gender lines, and there is a price to pay to travel between the two. The televisions channels are changed on a schedule, and you can place your name on the list if there is a program you wish to watch. The sing-along happens every three days, and it is mandatory. If the weights are not returned unharmed to their previous position he will personally tear my lungs out of my body.
"You think I'm joking when I say that, but ask anyone. They've seen what I can do. On the bright side, I was able to trade the rest of the corpse to Lab Rat for another pair of dumbells! Anyway, here we are. Home sweet home." He gestures dramatically to the single cot and toilet. "It's not much, but it's yours."
I move past him and make my bed. A pillow at the top, blanket folded at the bottom, and the toothbrush by the small basin. Then I sit down on the side of the bed and wait.
I find a routine. Up at six, announced by bird song. Collect the cigarette ration and hide it within my cell. Exercise. Return to the cell. Cleanse myself at the end of the day. Sing when necessary.
It takes three weeks to be confronted.
An ambush. I leave a memory behind, the pain of poison and tearing skin. I turn and observe my attacker, suddenly covered in ash as the memory fades.
He is bared to the waist, covered in black carapace. Four yellow eyes narrowing at me across the room.
"Running away?" His voice is high. He starts walking towards me, two more limbs emerging from his back, black shell fading to yellow stingers. "Can't run forever little boy."
Two memories. One across the room, to select a weight from the set by the bench press. One more above the man, bringing the slab of steel down onto his head. I hear shell split. Another memory takes me away from the flailing stingers. The man turns to face me, one of his eyes collapsed. This time, he runs.
I leave memories around him, swinging the weight in short, brutal arcs. Knee, elbow, face, a net of steel shattering the black shell, filling the air with grey ash. I hold my breath and strike the scorpion-man in the chest. The last of his air leaves him. When he inhales, he chokes on the fine particles in the air. I back off, staring.
Black blood flows from the cracked carapace, hissing where it hits the ground. Other people are crowding on the balconies, shouting.
"Five on the Asian fella!"
"Ten that Scarpio bites it inside of ten minutes!"
"Three to one that he turns it around!"
Sing-Song is looking down at us, twirling a knife in one hand. It's a crude thing, a scrap of metal sharpened into viciousness. He looks at me and smiles. Then he points. I look. Scarpio is standing up again, three baleful eyes staring at me.
"Kill you." He can still speak. I nod.
"You would try."
This time, I don't stop hitting him. It is only when a new pain comes into a memory that I relent.
Sing-Song is standing where one of my memories was, blowing on the edge of his knife, ash falling off of the blade. I don't recall seeing him move.
"Welp, he's dead. Anyone wants Scarpio's gear?" He looks up at the balconies, bright eyes scanning over each prisoner in turn. A few people murmur, but no one raises their hand. "What, really?" He puts on a surprised expression.
"Boy ain't got shit." The speaker is an old grizzled woman, with withered meat bound around one arm. She hacks up a glob of phlegm before spitting at the corpse. "Ain't worth blowing a ticket. I'll toss in five cigs for the lot, but only if I get his corpse too."
"Now now now Yaga, you know that bodies go towards communal issues," Sing-Song chides, shaking his head. "Now, does anyone want to bid on his stuff, and only his stuff?"
After it is clear that no one else wishes for it, I raise my hand. It takes a moment, but Sing-Song notices. He blinks once before smiling and moving towards me, the knife in his hand forgotten.
"Good on you! See this man, everyone?" He still has his knife hand around my shoulder, his other gesturing towards me. "This is a guy willing to take one for the team!"
I return the weight to its proper place, hand over a number of cigarettes and inspect my newly-gained resources. The room is closer to the recreation area, though not by much. I have a second pillow, and I net seven cigarettes. I now have nearly enough to buy a book.
When I prepare for bed, I find the knife Sing-Song had between my pillows, along with a note.
Congratulations, Oni Lee! You've made your way into the not-trash tier! Your new responsibilities include:
* Making sure no one runs off with rec equipment
* Attending meetings when asked
* Writing songs for the sing along playlist
* Not starting fights like an idiot
If you have any concerns, shove 'em because I'm the boss and what I say goes.
Sweet Dreams!
Sing-Song the Destroyer
I examine the knife. Dull compared to the weapons I had in Brockton Bay. I cannot shave with it, nor is it strong enough to take more than a glancing blow before bending. I would not choose to fight with this.
It is a start.
Bonus points to whoever can guess the connection between the two characters.
