She was repeating it louder and louder before droning of the lift covered it. But when she was tossed into her chamber in about half an hour (the hissing and clanking of sonaser wasn't going to end all this time), she didn't seem to be able to prove her point of view anymore, though she would've been happy to do it. Her ponytail was half-loose, and her pinkish lilac coat held obvious tracks of fight: a fresh hole here, a burn there.
"Freaking losers!" Erfin shouted and shook her fist at the ceiling hatch which slammed shut. "Freaking spoonheads!"
Skasis hurried to open his box, and the rest did the same, except for Kaster, who was a bit late, involved in his task.
"What did they do to you, Erf?" Lionel was the first to ask.
"Nothing harmful", Erfin replied sarcastically. "Weighing, measuring every inch of me, analysing my inside and outside... Blood, skin, sweat, tears and all. Reflexes and everything. But they treated me like a lab animal and called me 'alien' or 'hybrid' all the time. I asked politely once and twice, but no. Then I tried to convince them. And those slobbery guards... I guess they would've done the same if they made chops out of me".
"But you held to the end", Alice stated.
"Yeah, just as my name requires".
"I didn't mean that. Noble to the end".
"Ah..." Erfin blushed. "If you're interested, it's almost the same. 'Ere' means 'until', 'fin' means 'end'. To the end".
"Lemme guess, Wilf gave you such a meaningful name?" Alice asked.
"Hmph". Erfin shrugged.
"How's it going, Kaster?" Jamie entered the talk, having paid attention that Kaster was working at the same bar as before, but this time closer to the floor.
"You can congratulate me, I've cut it in two", Kaster replied, tip of his tongue sticking out with tension. "Now I need to cut it in three..."
"So this kind of energy is not affected?" Trouty asked, slightly offended. "Unfair".
"I think it's because you're touching the floor all the time, and the sensors here are set to give you a punishment or else", Rhodie mused. "Sonaser is like a battery. Works in right hands only and with those who know how to use it..."
"Wish I could try and seduce those scientists once again", Jenny sighed. "Kidding. War-heads, then science-heads".
"Wonder where our Doctor is", Five muttered. "And Johnny-Jimmy, and Paul. They're not hybrids".
Another sound of lift approaching made them finish talking and close the boxes again. This time River was to play the role of 'lab animal'. Unlike Erfin, she preferred to keep her thoughts to herself (which was surprising - her full name appeared to be River Donna Storm, and all the Impossible Kids sometimes tended to behave in sharp and rude way, thanks to their father's origin!). But then Kaster compensated this by letting out a long roar of anger:
"DAAAAAAAAHHH! Right on time!"
"Never mind him, the sonaser batteries are dead", Alice explained, having opened her box. "Told you to replace them with never-ending energy sources for the normal sonic. Bah! You're able to wear out even those things which work forever without being recharged".
"Don't be a bossy-boots, Alice", Trouty asked. "Kaster, can you pass the sonaser to me? Let's try an alternative. After all, energy can be used not only for healing".
"How do you know?" Hamish asked.
"Something's telling me that during regeneration there's enough energy to charge batteries for a couple of years, and we don't need too much here, unless you added an upgrade again", Trouty replied, waiting until the sonaser was passed to him. "A wee little copy".
"Fine, but you'll be the guilty one if it's broken", Kaster murmured. He trusted his best invention (best apart from mechanical cat Charity, hand-made bouncy copy of Thing from The Addams Family and some more especially lucky trials), though reluctantly, only to the Doctor and Kyon Turlough, whose manners were quite similar to his own. Lots of energy and nowhere else to spend it (Kaster spent it, inventing things, and Kyon preferred sports, like skateboarding and rollerblading). Wish he was here... But now there was no other choice. Perhaps for a while.
"What's he doing?" Jamie asked when Trouty got what he wanted and concentrated, brushing the device with his fingertips.
"Attempting to find a new use for his energy", Rhodie explained. "Trouty's able to heal damages, but here it's not visible... and not too effective, I'm afraid".
"Incoming", Skasis informed, and they closed the boxes once more (Trouty hardly managed to do this on time and hide the sonaser because he was close to success and overfilled with tension). River was returned to her cell, and this time the scientists did not take anybody with them. Perhaps they already had a plan... or worse. This time the "white men" simply walked past their cells, watching them as if they were zoo animals or lab rats. And with a bit of disgust. Most of the kids preferred not to respond to this attitude, and only Alice, Erfin and Kaster became exclusions: Alice and Erfin blew raspberries at the observers, and Kaster showed them a very obscene gesture. Thank goodness the perception filter for the communication boxes and the wire putting them together worked perfectly well: the eyes behind goggles were skipping it, as if they were just air.
After the scientists left, nobody wanted to begin the talk - the mood was gone. But in some minutes a loud gasp broke the silence, followed by heavy breathing and whisper:
"Alice? I think it worked. Here".
Now it was Trouty's turn to take a nap (he fell asleep as soon as he climbed onto the slab of metal replacing a bed here), but Kaster, on the contrary, set to work with doubled power, having seen that his sonaser was recharged now. No one knew how much time passed before there was another clank, and Kaster's head poked from behind the bars, followed by his hand clutching a meter-long metal stick - a fragment of bar he managed to break.
"Heeh, thank you, Green Lantern Trouty!" Kaster, slightly disappointed that the addressed one was exhausted and didn't hear him, squeezed through the gap between the bars that stayed solid and put the fragment back on its place, so it was hardly seen there had been a disturbance. A classic detective plot: someone vanished from the locked room... Kaster walked to the console in the middle and began studying it. "Hmm... Hey everyone! Climb onto your beds, I'm going to try these out!"
"What - these?" Erfin didn't have to wait till the proof: as soon as Kaster flickered with something on the control panel, wave impact of energy affected all the rooms, but didn't hurt anybody. "Careful there, Skinny!"
Kaster went on toying with the switches and buttons until he seized himself by his hair and groaned.
"Marvellous! It seems like none of these is for opening doors. Only for punishing! Right, let's try handicraft methods..." He measured the room with steps, rubbing his chin. "Fivey! You said you've tried to open the hatch with your sonic, but it didn't move, eh?"
Five shook his head:
"No, it didn't. Maybe I'm too short".
"It's no matter for sonic waves if you're short or not. They reach their target", Kaster mused. "And what if I try to open them from the outside?"
"It can work, I think", Rhodie pointed out and opened her box. "Erfin, River, did you pay attention how the hatches were opened when you were brought back?"
"Suppose it'll be no trouble. They opened mine in a mere moment, but I didn't see in which way", Erfin replied, and two crimson spots appeared on her cheekbones - she felt uneasy for her "performance" and not paying attention.
"They used some remote control, I saw it", River added.
"Great! But how am I going to get up there?.." Kaster raised his head and put his hands on his hips, thinking how he was going to climb onto three-meter-high (at least) roof of the cell ring. But then Hamish decided to give his idea:
"We cannot squeeze through the holes, but our hands can. Suppose some of us could raise you up, like cheerleaders do".
"Great idea, Hamish!" Skasis caught up. "Jenny, will you be able to hold half of Kaster's weight if I hold the other?"
"You doubt me?" Jenny grinned. "Watch and learn, grass-head".
She stuck her hands out of her cell close to the wall it shared with Skasis's cell, laced her fingers, and Kaster, panting, began climbing up, having put one foot on them and holding on the bars. Skasis joined Jenny, and Kaster put the other foot on his laced fingers, having finally grabbed onto the roof and attempting to get upwards (this took quite a time, and despite all their patience and wish not to show their discomfort, Jenny and Skasis couldn't cope with it. Laws of physics took over them - soon enough their hands began trembling, while Kaster was fulfilling another law of physics, the one about center of gravity (his upper half was almost on the roof, while the bottom one needed to be supported).
But finally Kaster was there. For half a minute he was sitting, catching his breath, then jumped up and examined the hatch right in front of him - the one over Jenny's cell. Thank goodness much force wasn't needed to open it - just a bit of sonic impact.
"Guess it's like Pandorica", Kaster assumed, pulling the hatch open - it appeared to be quite heavy. "Easy from the outside, difficult from the inside. Would've been worse if they took up the principle of Timelord mail..."
"Ahem-ahem!" That was Erfin. Like her mother, she didn't want to stay without attention for a long time, while her brother was more of quiet kind. Like little Wilf. "And how are you going to get us out?"
"He could require my wire", Skasis put in cheerfully. That was a good sign - if he began putting rhyming words together, that meant he was enthusiastic. "I invented it. It's tough stuff. The boxes will be our masking made during multitasking".
He untied the knot on the wire, Jenny clewed it up, having taken the boxes off it, and tossed it to Kaster through the hatch. Now it was for the most difficult part: there were no objects to which the wire could be tied, so Kaster decided to wait until there was a possibility to get Jenny out. After all, she was the heaviest here, and he wasn't as strong as a full-blood Timelord of his type, like Skasis.
First of all Kaster walked to the hatch of Five's cell. The smallest, so should be the lightest... but it appeared to be not so easy, mainly because Five couldn't climb the rope and wasn't too physically developed. Kaster had to take his favourite red Converses and crazy stripy socks off just not to slide into the cell: the soles slid against metal, and bare feet could stick to it better, though not too much. He had to pull Five upwards, like a bucket of water from a well, but eventually he coped with it.
Beginning with this, the task of getting everybody out became much easier each time, if not to count that Kaster was hardly standing straight by the time they got Alice out. Now the only prisoner in cell was Jenny.
"Eleven kids, one adult. Hold on", River commented.