"When Omicron came, we all thought it was just a pharmaceutical company. They rose throughout the world quickly, with revolutionary technology and scientific breakthroughs; we didn't even consider the possibility that there was something wrong with the way they created their products. We lived our lives, while they steadily grew. We thought we were safe in our not-so-little world of special abilities, but after a while we realised our world wasn't only our world anymore."
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Claire woke up the next morning with an empty and rumbling stomach; she couldn't remember the last time she had eaten. The last few days had been a blur of action and rampant emotion, but it was quiet here. If she wasn't so horribly aware of where she was, she supposed that she would feel content, even safe.
The bunk above her creaked uncertainly as Desmond moved around. The boy had talked and talked and talked. Claire had a feeling that he would have talked to himself even if she wasn't there.
"Claire, you awake?" Desmond's voice drifted down, full of curiosity and eagerness.
"…Yeah." Claire whispered back.
"How old are you?"
Claire felt her eyebrows rise in surprise. Out of everything he could have asked, he wanted to know how old she was. Age had lost all meaning for Claire, ever since she had learnt that she would remain the way she was until the day someone decided to put a bullet in her brain. If she was asking him, she would have asked what his ability was, or what was that thing digging into his head. "I'm twenty-one." She replied after a moment. "Why? How old are you?"
"Nineteen," Desmond replied. "…I think. I've been here for a long time, I'm not even sure anymore."
Claire propped herself up with her elbows and poked her head out from between the bunk-beds. "How long do you think you've been here?"
"Um…" Desmond's voice wavered uncertainly. "I remember I was brought here a week after my birthday, so… I think about seven years, maybe."
"Seven years?" Claire exclaimed disbelievingly. Desmond had to be wrong, he had to. "It can't have been. Omicron has only been around for about half that!"
"I told you, I wasn't sure." Desmond responded defensively. "It's been so long."
Silence fell between the two. It was too uncomfortable for Claire's taste. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Desmond said softly. "I think it's better here anyway. I hear the guards talk sometimes. They say that people like us are dying, and that it's only a matter of time until we're all gone."
Claire nodded slightly before realising that Desmond couldn't see here. It was true, every word. "You said 'people like us.'" She said. "What can you do, Des?"
The top bunk creaked again as Desmond poked his head out from over the top, looking down at Claire. The metal rods digging into his scalp gleamed in the artificial light. "I used to be able to think about moving things, and they would. They call it telekinesis, but I don't know." Desmond answered eagerly. "But I haven't been able to do it since they put these things in my head."
"Have you tried pulling them out?"
"They told me that I would… die if I tried to." Desmond replied. Claire noticed a flash of fear streak across his face as he spoke. "I don't want to die, Claire."
"No, I suppose not…."
"You suppose not?" Desmond sounded confused. "You sound like you want to."
Claire shook her head vehemently, "No, of course not! It's just…." She fell silent, meeting Desmond's openly honest gaze coolly. He wouldn't understand; few people did. Some used to covet her ability, now the only thing Claire saw in those same eyes was pity.
"You're strange." Desmond smiled down at her.
Claire let out a bark of amused laughter. Desmond was probably exactly the same as he was seven years ago, blunt, childlike, uninhibited. His isolation from the rest of the world hadn't allowed him to mature as he should have. It was so sad, so pathetic. It wasn't funny, but Claire couldn't help but laugh.
She suddenly clamped her mouth shut and whirled around on her bunk as the sound of metal sliding against metal echoed briefly through the cell. She glared at the door as one of the guards who had brought her in the previous night peered through the now open metal grate before nodding in satisfaction.
Claire had to resist the temptation – the urge – to back up against the wall as the cell's door was unlocked and pushed open, revealing a pair of guards and even worse, Doyle, standing there. The guards were serious, their mouths clamped shut and their hands tightened around their weapons. Claire wasn't even remotely afraid of them; it was the excited and anticipating grin that decorated Doyle's face which made her want to curl up in a protective ball. Just the thought of his eyes on her was enough to cause shivers of disgust to snake through her body.
"Well, well, well." Doyle announced as he stepped into the cell. "Getting to know each other, are we? Having fun?"
Claire didn't reply, and the sudden stillness from the top bunk told her that Desmond was equally as afraid as she was.
Doyle's smile only seemed to widen at their silence. "Now, now, don't be shy, we're all friends here." At their continued silence, Doyle's mouth drooped slightly in disappointment and his eyes focused on Claire wickedly. "You should be excited most of all, Pretty. It's testing time!"
Claire involuntarily shivered. This was why no one envied her ability anymore. Claire didn't know her limits, but everyone knew that when she was captured, others would find those thresholds and push past them.
She tried to back away as the two guards who accompanied Doyle advanced on her, but she couldn't move, she was rooted to the spot, whether by fear or something else Claire didn't know. She wanted to struggle, cry out, but her body refused to obey her commands. Unwanted tears began to form in her eyes as the guards hauled her out from her bunk and pulled her roughly towards the cell door, her body was moving on its own accord, heedless to what she wanted to do.
Somehow Claire managed to move her head and look back at Desmond. He was staring at her with that very look in his eyes she hated: pity. He knew what was going to happen to her and it terrified him.
Her head suddenly whipped back around of its own accord and her eyes met Doyle's. The amused glint in his eye had only seemed to grow. Claire felt his hand touch her chin lightly and her head moved from side-to-side.
"Not even a bruise." Doyle said thoughtfully, his grin being replaced by a reflective expression. "I heard that you were hit more times than I have fingers, but you don't even have a scratch." Doyle looked at her knowingly. "Why is that, I wonder?"
Claire stiffened as soon as Doyle's finger touched her chin and glared at him furiously. Doyle's grin returned and he gestured with his hand. "You ready, Pretty?" he asked mockingly.
"Screw you!" Claire spat heatedly.
Doyle leaned in and brushed his fingers across Claire's jaw. "Keep that fight in you for as long as you can, Pretty. It'll be all the more satisfying when I break you down."
The guards began moving, tightening their grips on Claire's arms as they walked. They needn't have bothered, no matter how much Claire fought it, her legs just moved on their own. Behind her, she could hear Doyle say a scathing comment to Desmond as he locked the cell behind him.
"What's going to happen to me?" Claire asked as soon as she felt Doyle falling into step behind her and the guards.
"Use your imagination." Doyle replied pleasantly. "I'd rather not spoil the surprise."
Claire repressed a second shiver and tried to retake control of her body, but no matter what she did, she couldn't control her actions. What's going on? She thought numbly. Is it Doyle? She tried to look over her shoulder, but her head remained rooted in place.
"What's wrong, Pretty?" She heard Doyle ask in that disgusting, knowing, tone of his.
She didn't reply, instead focusing on the corridors in front of her as the group walked. They hadn't come through this way when she was brought here. Left turn, right turn, straight ahead; it didn't take long for Claire to completely lose her sense of direction. She tried to focus on something, anything that would help her drown out the faint screams that slowly grew louder and louder in her ears.
They eventually came to a stop in front of a pair of steel doors. Claire stiffened as Doyle brushed passed her and pressed his eye against a retina scanner attached to one of the doors. He remained still for a moment until the device let out a sharp confirming beep.
Doyle straightened and gestured with his hand. Claire's body moved again of its own accord. She glared at Doyle's pleased smile as she was led into the gleaming room through the doors.
The first thing Claire noticed was the distinct absence of colour, a trait shared with the rest of the prison. Glassy silvers and metals reflected by the luminous lights jumped out her as she peered around. Several doors were placed at regular intervals around the area, each with a sickening glow emerging from the crack between the door and the ground. Ventilation grates were placed frequently across the roof, Claire could almost picture the shafts that connected them, hidden by the steel ceiling panels.
Scientists and doctors barely paused in their work to look at her and the guards as they walked by. Claire didn't know if guards bringing in prisoners were natural occurrences in their work, or whether they simply just didn't care. Claire suspected the former.
Claire heard a monitor beep on her left and she turned her head to look towards the source of the sound. A scientist was leaning over a steel table, exactly the same type as all the other ones spread out across the room. Claire's eyes widened in horror as the scientist moved away revealing the woman lying flat across the table. "Elle?" Claire breathed. Elle's skin was pale, death like. Claire would have been sure that the other girl was dead if it wasn't for the heart monitor that beeped sporadically above Elle's head. Tubes and wires threaded in and out of Elle's body, each one linking with a series of monitors displaying tallies and numbers that Claire couldn't understand.
She hadn't even thought about what had happened to Elle after they were captured, she remembered Audrey saying that Elle was to be brought to research, but after that… nothing.
"Worried about your friend?" Doyle asked mockingly. "I wouldn't be; she's probably the safest person here. Well, at least until she wakes up, then I make no promises." He laughed as if he had just told a great joke.
Claire looked at him sharply, but didn't say a word. Her mind was in turmoil. She tried to struggle, move her limbs, scream; bite. But her body remained perfectly still; she couldn't even open her mouth anymore.
Abruptly, they were on the move again, making their way towards one of the doors with the sickly neon light. Doyle rapped his knuckles on the door and grinned down at Claire. "Now I expect you to be a good girl while your in there. I don't want to hear that you've been…difficult in any way."
The door opened and Doyle winked, tapping Claire's bottom as he pushed her through the door, and into the testing room within. And then all thoughts and feelings of anger were replaced by fear.
Claire couldn't stop trembling as a single guard pushed her roughly back into her darkened cell and slammed the door behind her. The testing had gone on for hours, just little things at first, blood tests, body scans, nothing invasive. It didn't take long for the scientist to confirm her ability. He had been overjoyed, excited, and that was when things had escalated.
The pain was gone, but Claire remembered all too well.
She rubbed her eyes and walked shakily towards her bunk, her whole body was exhausted; she could barely summon the energy to put one foot in front of the other. Her stomach groaned with hunger, but she was far too nauseous to eat, even if there was a scrap of food inside the cell.
A metallic clang sounded from above her, causing her to jerk slightly in surprise. She looked up and tilted her head, all thoughts of the testing suddenly vanishing from her mind. "Desmond?" she asked softly. She hadn't heard her cellmate move, he hadn't made a sound.
"Des?" Claire repeated as she stood up and peeked over the top bunk.
Desmond wasn't there.
Claire frowned as another sound echoed from above her. She grunted slightly as she pulled herself up onto the top bunk, ignoring the sharp protests from her drained limbs. Her breath came in sharp pants as she rose to her knees and scanned the cell from her new vantage point.
She blinked back reflexive tears as her head suddenly collided with something hard. Come on, Claire! She thought savagely. You've had harder hits than this! She patted her head tenderly, feeling the small gash created by the collision close over and heal within seconds.
She turned her head cautiously and lifted her hand. Her fingers brushed metal and Claire frowned. A ventilation duct? She thought in surprise. She hadn't even realised that there had been a duct attached to the wall, she had been so consumed she hadn't bothered to look around. No wonder Desmond sleeps up here.
She raised herself higher and peered through the opening in the wall. The grate was swinging open; the soft stream of air flowing through the duct was causing it to collide with the concrete wall.
Mustering the little strength that remained in her body, Claire smiled and pulled herself into the duct.
A/N: Sorry for the wait, this chapter was long overdue. School caught up with me for the last time. I just graduated high-school – insert WOOT here – and finished my last couple of NCEA assignments. So I'm basically free until University late February. And now I'm rambling, so on with the story. Oh, and a big thank you to all of my reviewers!
