3:17 AM

It could not have been that simple.

Draygoon sat wide awake on his cot as the rest of the Squad slept. The rest of them were prepared to accept that BRiT's earlier display could have cut the power to the jail cells as well as the rest of the base. They didn't know the security system as well as he did, though, and all of the failsafes that were in place.

Even if the main power source, the backup battery and the secondary generator had all been knocked out, it was only momentary. The locks, however, had turned off and stayed off. Even if the lights had flickered in the basement, why would Stardust have thought to try entering the lock mechanism after the power outage? Wouldn't she have assumed, like the entire Rook Squad, that the locks reactivated like the rest of the base's power?

Something else was up. Stardust wouldn't have risked her life to crawl into that lock unless she knew it would not fry her. Someone had alerted her to the fact that the locks were disabled, and Draygoon didn't think BRiT's outburst had anything to do with it.

He rose to his feet, taking his sunglasses and cap as he did so, and four minutes later he was at the security door.

"Draygoon, Ph.D., Class I," he muttered at the console. The door slid open to admit him, and he paused on the threshold.

Sitting on the floor, with his back against the door across from Stardust's, was a thin, somewhat pale youth with intense dark eyes that glared out from under a shaggy flop of brown hair. Healing holes in his earlobes and lips were the last memento of piercings that Rook Squad regulations had forced him to remove. He glanced away from Stardust's door momentarily to greet Draygoon politely.

This young man, Epidemic, had impressed the higher-ups in the Squad early on. Unlike many of the angry young males that had signed on, he had never questioned his placement in Class II status. He took his menial duties very seriously and so far had displayed competence and a cool head in his training.

Right now, he was focused on generating a magnetic field to keep Stardust's door held irremovably in place, since Rook had destroyed the physical lock.

"That's fine, Epidemic," Draygoon said. "Go take a quick break, get yourself a pick-me-up. She won't go anywhere while I'm here."

The younger agent grinned, standing and nodding to his superior as he ascended the stairs. Draygoon stood in the door's path until Epidemic was through—only Class I agents had voice access to this area.

"Just hang around in the war room and I'll come get you in a few minutes," Draygoon said as the door hissed shut. Rubbing his hands together, Epidemic headed towards the coffee maker, his eyes also drifting towards the drawer in which 53V3N hid all his snacks while oblivious to the fact that everyone knew how to pick the lock on it.

Draygoon grinned as he saw Stardust's door slowly swing open. He stepped between her and her escape, and she stopped in her tracks, startled.

"I'd sit quietly, if I were you," Draygoon said pleasantly. "I need to talk with your neighbor."

"And if I don't?" Stardust smiled sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him.

"I will seal you inside that cell and force you to grow until you smash yourself?"

She gasped with mock indignation. "You wouldn't hurt me. Not a gentleman like you."

Draygoon snorted.

"No, really. Any of those other young Rook Squad punks would have killed me today, but you chose to arrest me instead. You're not a brute."

"It was convenient for me."

"Say what you want, Draygoon."

"Just sit in your cell and don't pull any more bullshit or you'll find out how brutish I can get."

Her coy smile did not fade as she slunk back into her cell. Beneath his shades, Draygoon rolled his eyes and turned away from her to face the opposite door. He walked up and peered in through the small window. No one was to be seen.

From his back pocket, Draygoon produced a slender iron key. Disengaging the lock on the door before him, he stepped inside the empty cell. He eased the door shut behind him, locked it and put the key away.

Scanning the darkened cell, his eyes fell on the cot mattress, which sagged in the middle. The sheet on top crumpled and moved about on its own accord as he watched. Clearing his throat, Draygoon leaned back against the door and crossed his arms.

"You think you're pretty clever, don't you?"

The depression in the mattress disappeared, and the sound of soft footsteps filled the cell. The seat of the grungy toilet in the corner rose on its own. Draygoon sighed and turned away until he heard a flush.

"Look, I want to go back to bed. Play cutesy and ignore me all you want, see what happens," he snapped.

"What are you standing around wasting time for, then?" came the startlingly deep reply. The voice spoke softly and calmly, almost childishly, hinting at the deranged mind of the man who owned it. "Just read my mind and be on your way."

"You know damn well I couldn't make sense of any of the twisted mess in there. Were you responsible for Stardust's escape, yes or no?"

No response.

"Icarus."

His temper flaring, Draygoon gave in. Shutting his eyes, he located the room's other occupant solely from his emanating brain waves. Slowly invading Icarus's mind, he waded into a mental cacophony of freakish imagery and disembodied sounds. The only recurring concept he could gather from the random mess in Icarus's brain was a deep, penetrating fear of the cracked mirror over the sink.

The corner of his mouth crawled up in a grin as he retreated from Icarus's brain. "Why do you insist so much on remaining invisible anyway?" he sneered. "You've got no one to hide from."

"Draygoon, I swear, if you…"

The voice went silent. Draygoon had reached into his mind again, this time with a different intent. Rather than reading Icarus's thoughts, Draygoon's own brain waves overrode and hijacked them. The prisoner began to shuffle wordlessly towards the sink. Draygoon then commanded him to cast off his invisibility.

The figure that faded into sight before him was a tall, wiry young man, bespectacled and stubbled, with lean muscles that had the look and strength of steel cables. Even Draygoon's stomach turned when he looked upon Icarus's face, crisscrossed as it was by hideous, ragged white scars. Whoever had stitched him back together had done an extremely sloppy job, and had left his nose crooked, his lips frayed, and gaps in his hairline. His eyebrows were gone, burned off by the explosion that had thrown shrapnel in his face.

Icarus remained frozen, gripping the sink, wide-eyed and staring at his own image. Draygoon held him there for a good twenty seconds before releasing the mental control—and the screams would have awoken the entire Squad if not for the soundproofed basement door.

Shrieking and pleading for it to stop, Icarus threw himself at the mirror—and impacted it headfirst, shattering it and adding a fresh wound to his collection. Draygoon stood quietly as Icarus hit the floor, scrambling backwards to his cot and fading invisible again as he pulled the sheet around himself. He began muttering quietly, rocking back and forth. Red stains appeared on the sheet.

"Ready to talk yet?" Draygoon said. "I can do worse. I've got nothing but time, I'll stand right here and sort through that shithole of a mind of yours for hours until I find fears you didn't even know you had."

"Alright… alright. I was… foolish to defy you."

"More like pants-on-head retarded."

"If you move my endtable, you'll see what I've been doing."

Draygoon did so. A number of panels had been pried back from the wall and shoddily replaced. One lay on the floor, and the gap revealed the PVC pipe underneath that housed the electronics for the lock on his door. He'd evidently been searching for a long time for this exact thing, and had carved away a piece of the pipe.

Draygoon swore. Icarus, a one-time member of the Squad, had helped to build this exact place. It had been dumb-fuck stupid of them to imprison him in a cell he had seen the blueprints for.

"So you figured out how to short out the electrical locks?"

"Yes, and as you can see there, I can do it without alerting you in the surveillance room."

"Indeed. How long have they been down?"

"Weeks. It was only Stardust's arrest today that brought me someone who could make use of it."

"So the temporary power outage today had nothing to do with it?"

"The one caused by BRiT that I heard the others speak of? No, not a thing. That was just dumb luck."

Draygoon nodded slowly, producing his key again and reaching for the door.

"When you show Rook what I've done… how are you going to explain your brutality to a prisoner?"

The security chief paused in the door, turning to glance at the cot.

"I suppose what's happened tonight will have to be our little secret." With that, Draygoon closed the door and locked it behind him. He ascended the stairs and exited the basement as Icarus watched quietly from his small window. A few seconds later, Epidemic returned, taking his position at Icarus's door to keep Stardust locked inside.

Icarus glanced at the mirror that had fractured into a hundred shards. Was Draygoon really declining to inform Rook of his tampering with the locks?

Well, he would find out soon enough, Icarus decided as he lay down, sleep quickly overtaking him.