A/N: Hey all! Posted this chapter here so I could also share some news: I've figured out where to host this story! h t t p : / / groups . yahoo . com / group / prisonerxyz /
Join that group, and all story updates will be e-mailed to you (or you can set it so you can just check the website for updates; I've posted instructions). No more updates
will be posted on ff . net because I'm afraid of violating policy (it gets explicit fairly soon).

Cheers! ~ onelildustbunni


-3-



The Y line is lead to a shabby building, with grey walls and concrete floors, but it is filled with rows of cots. He can barely believe his eyes—bunk cots. With blankets. And cheap
curtains in between them. Nothing else, but still. They are assigned cots, so no internees are left out.

His first night in the cot is like heaven. He has the bottom bunk, by a window. He wonders if X got one, too, and if she's thinking of him. He can still remember how her mouth felt,
two little pink pillows, potato flavored (which he realizes is not very romantic). He realizes that he has thought more about this kiss than any of the other five or so he'd experienced
before, probably because it was more meaningful. It was goodbye.

A few nights go by, then he hears whispering in the cots around him—internees introducing themselves to their friends. The guy sleeping on top of him dips his head over the side
and begins to whisper to him. His skin is golden colored, and he seems friendly. He says his name is Josh, and that he was a healer on a mutant rights force, before all of this happened.

He likes the other boy, and gradually gets to know a few of the others as well. They whisper and joke every night about the guards, imagining what they'd do to them if they could
get their powers back. He becomes the center of the group, having virtually the best power for revenge (before a boy named Santo, who is made out of rocks).

-x-

Exercise. Once a day, all the males are taken out, in groups of five, for a walk around the quarters building. They pass by a chain-link fence that divides them from another building,
which he has assumed are the female quarters, having seen a few hanging around it. He watches the building carefully through his window every night, hoping to see a female (about
any female at this point, it has been a month since the change and he has not seen one since then) but cannot make out anything.

At the fence, something catches his eye, and he turns, last in the line of boys being walked. There—his heart skips a beat—X is at the fence, her fingers curled into the links, her eyes
watching him warily. "Keep going," she mouths.

He hesitates, then steps closer to the fence and touches her fingertips through it, just lightly. He'd like to touch her longer, but he must keep up. He knows it would be bad if a
guard found out about his friendship with X.

X's lips part and she stands there like a deer in the headlights, her eyes frozen on his as their fingers remain connected. Then he turns and walks away, after his friends, after his
guard, and leaves her clinging to the fence, watching him with her livid green eyes.

-x-

"Dude…I saw you today," Josh whispers from the top bunk, his eyes peering over the edge, upside down at him. "With that weird girl. Do you know her?"

"X?" he asks, his hands folded on his stomach. "Not well. She helped me when I first came here..." he paused. "She's a bit strange, yeah, but I wouldn't call her weird. She's good people."

Josh stares at him. "You haven't heard the stories?" he asks.

He sits up. "Wha? No…there are stories about her?"

"That's X-23, dude," Josh whispers. "She's so dangerous they let her keep her name, so no one would make mistakes. They almost classified her omega, but she wasn't powerful
enough. She killed, like, a hundred guys before they got her in here."

He raises his eyebrows. "Really? Just a hundred?" He knows Josh elaborates a lot; he tells tall tales.

Josh's eyes narrow. "Fine, don't believe me. I'd stay away from her if I were you."

"I don't have much choice," he points out. "Did you have a piece? Before this, I mean?"

Josh looks dull all of a sudden. "They killed her."

"Oh." He is surprised. "I thought it was still illegal to kill us. Hence the cots."

"Not for long," someone murmurs from a cot on the side. "They'll find a reason soon enough. It ain't that hard."

Everyone is silent.

The silence remains as everyone has fallen asleep. His eyelids grow heavy and he slips into merciful sleep, that takes him away from here.

"OUT!!!" screams a guard, running in with a machine gun.

Boys tumble out of their bed, startled. He hits the floor, having been immersed deep in a dream. A glance out of the window tells him it's not even dawn yet.

"Everyone up and out! Got work for you hens!" Another soldier announces. The boys blink and rub their eyes, blearily.

"Government sent through the orders that you earn your keep now!"

Dawn finds him sawing away at pieces of metal with a hacksaw in a big, dimly-lit room. He blinks away dream crumbs and tries not to cut off his own digits. It is hard work, and the
supervising guard takes pleasure in suggesting what will happen to him if he doesn't meet the quota. He tosses another sheet of metal on the pile and tries not to glare at the man.

At noon, they are allowed to stop for ten minutes, and their bowls are filled with a potato each—and, astonishingly, a steamed carrot. He wonders if they are beginning to soften
up on their views, when Josh whispers they're probably planning for them to work twice as long for that carrot.

He is right. The work extends well into the evening. It is midnight when he finally is allowed to drop the hacksaw. It clatters to the table, and his palm throbs, the skin shiny and
bubbling. Blistering. He was a rich boy. He has no calluses to protect his skin. In fact, he's never had to do work like this in his life—slave labor.

"Where you think you're going, bitch?" the guard asks, a man his age, casually aiming his pistol at his head. He freezes and looks up slowly.

"I thought we were done," he says. His words echo in the now empty workspace.

"You're done when I tell you you're done," the man says. He pauses, smiles slowly. "Aren't you the Keller boy?"

He blinks. Oh, god no, he recognizes him. He used to go to the same school as man. He used to snub him on the playground. This was before his parents decided to send him
to private school.

"Funny how things work out," the guard continues, the gun barrel pointed right at his forehead, between his eyes. He hears the click, as the guard cocks the gun, preparing
to shoot. He feels a bead of sweat begin to collect, and he stares back at the man, realizing he could die right here, right now.

Would he be better off?

"Give me a good reason not to kill you right now and be a hero for my country," the guard says between clenched teeth.

"It wouldn't be right," he says, his voice barely coming out.

The guard grins. "That's a bad answer." His finger moves to the trigger.

Click. Click. Click. The round is empty.

"Bang," the guard says. "Get the fuck out of here or I'll shoot you for real."

He leaves, quickly.

-x-

Time passed on, a month, then another month. He grows thin, emaciated, like those who have been at the camp the longest; at the same time, the hard labor forces what little
resources he has into forming wiry muscles, making for an odd combination. He's never been in bad shape, but he is definitely the most muscular he has ever been, right now.

The world is waiting for their officials—in their cushy offices, and catered meetings, in their elegant clothing and groomed appearances—to decide the fate of mutantkind. Will they
exterminate them? Will this be carried out humanely? They are far too expensive to maintain, a burden on their government; hence the forced labor. In the meantime they are
trying this, to ensure their existence won't cost humanity anything.

This isn't the only factor to consider, however. Omega-level mutants are a real problem—there have been escape stories, of these special individuals overcoming the dampening
devices and escaping. Entirely too dangerous to be allowed to live and breed. The government argues over whether to execute only O-class mutants, or to exterminate the
whole she-bang. Wipe their hands of the whole mess. They would have to carefully re-examine their grading system, if selective genocide is chosen.

This would be expensive to research.

Something will have to be decided soon.

He wishes they would be allowed to see the news, to read articles. To know what is going on. All he knows is the few conversations between the guards he and his friends have
heard rumors of or eavesdropped on personally.

The females, surprisingly, are another source of information. Some Y's have friends in the X sector—women who will do anything to survive, and have found guards to cut deals
with. He supposes this has always happened, in these situations. He wonders if X has sunk to these levels, and hopes not. He doesn't like the idea of one of the gun-toting
assholes with his trigger fingers groping her prominent bones.

Another government initiative is put into action—experimentation. A truck arrives, and suddenly both X and Y sectors are full of shouting guards, ordering them out, to line up
by the wall of the building. There is fear that it is a firing squad, but this does not turn out to be the case.

Across the fence, he can see the females lined up as well. His eyes find X in the lineup. She is unchanged, except for a bruise blossoming over her eye. She stands with her
back ramrod straight, chin in the air.

A guard walks down each lineup with a list on a clipboard, using the barrel of his gun to point at individuals. People pointed to are hauled away by other guards, some
with their heels digging in the dirt.

The gun passes by him and his friends. He relaxes as the man points to others—then, on the other side of the fence, he sees the gun point to X-23.

He jerks, ready to run to the fence, but she looks at him—straight at him—as the guard takes her by the shoulder, his hand a claw on her shoulder—and she holds her finger to her lips.

Be quiet.

Something about her face is so commanding that he knows she is right.

He didn't think he could do that, but he bites his lip and watches them lead her away, willing himself to be still. It is the hardest thing he's ever had to do.

Later, Josh tells him that they were selected people to experiment on. He is horrified as his friend describes, graphically, just how the subjects are treated. Josh says he busted places
like that, before. When he was free. He feels worse, like a worthless asshole, staying quiet.

Even though he had no choice.

-x-

He doesn't sleep for nights, then sleeps poorly when he finally gives into exhaustion. He dreams. He dreams that she's curled along his spine, but he's cold. His neck feels wet. He rolls
over and she is dead, with a bullet in between her open eyes, still alive. Still vivid green.

He wakes up sweating every time.