The only things in the room were a journal and a crayon. It was a trick. A method of interrogation. Every now and then, they would bring him some food and water, and every now and then, they would switch the lights on or off. Noah wasn't quite sure when it would be, since even if he had a watch, the intervals didn't seem very regular.
It was stupid. When White Knight had asked him if he wanted any outside protection for him or for his family, Noah had thought he was talking about EVOs, and he probably had been. At least, to a certain degree. But the threat that Noah hadn't thought about was other people. Providence's rival agencies, or maybe people who just didn't think that EVOs deserved to be cured.
Whoever had captured him was human, he could say that for sure. And all they wanted to know about was Rex. How did he cure EVOs? How did he make his machines? How was he not an out of control freak monster if he called himself an EVO?
And the answer to all of these questions, of course, was that Noah didn't freaking know! He was a regular human kid just trying to make sure he could pass history class and not end up eating lunch in the bathroom. It wasn't like they let him read any of Rex's files or, actually, any of the Providence files, because, again, he was a freaking teenager!
The slot in the door opened up. A tray of dry bread and water appeared in the slot.
"What's the point of all this?" Noah pleaded with the person that must have been out there "I told you, I don't know anything about the inner workings of Providence! They just tell me when Rex escapes, please!"
If there was anyone there, they were silent. Noah imagined that they were staring at him, in addition to the cameras he was certain were in this room. He took the tray and stared at the water. And the dry bread. He'd been eating and drinking what they gave him, since dying of starvation or thirst wasn't exactly appealing.
Noah made the bread stretch. It wasn't clear when he'd get more. He did the same with the water, scribbling pictures in a certain amount of pages in the journal before he allowed himself any sips.
There was no way of knowing how long he'd been in the cell, but it had to have been at least a few days. And in those days, the only human contact he'd had was a few instructions when he was first thrown into the cell with the journal and the stupid crayon.
It was blue and the last time he'd seen a crayon was in elementary school. Was it them mocking him? Telling him that they knew he was just a kid, that he couldn't stand up to their evil plans or whatever? This was stupid!
He scribbled some crude drawings of him smashing the building with a wrecking ball, and then using a dump truck to carry the remnants to the dump where drawing-Noah then set them on fire.
Hah! That would show them!
Noah ripped the drawing out of the journal and slammed it into a wall where he imagined there would be a camera.
"You like that? It's what's coming for you!" he yelled into the nothingness, suddenly filled with rage. Then, he caught his breath. There was no need to be huffing and puffing, but he was. He crumpled down onto the ground.
Then, he stared up at the ceiling until the lights went out, counting to himself. If he could just figure it out…
Unfortunately, he fell asleep before the lights came back on, and besides that he had been miscounting for a while before that. The days passed uneventfully (if they were days and not weeks, or months), but every so often Noah would've sworn he saw something moving in the corner. Something that was getting closer.
An EVO? If they'd locked him in here with a microscopic EVO, he was pretty sure they would've told him. He scribbled the paranoid thought into the journal, which he blocked with his body. Nobody had been in to take it, which meant it was the only place where Noah wasn't being watched.
They had to be watching him. Had to. There was no way they'd lock him in with a journal and a crayon and assume that he'd be completely fine. The stack of trays looked at Noah as he wrote down his thoughts.
"Stop that!" Noah said, throwing the crayon at the trays. They toppled over with a loud clang, the loudest sound Noah had heard besides his own voice. He seized the trays and started slamming them together like they were cymbals.
"COME AND GET ME!" Noah shouted. If he achieved nothing else, he would at the very least be giving the person watching the cameras a headache. He started shouting nonsense, the first few words that popped into his head.
He'd only been making the noise for a minute or two when the door opened and displayed two faceless guards, both of who were wearing some pretty impressive body armor. Noah charged at them as the door shut, swinging the trays around in both hands and fruitlessly hitting the guards.
They collected the remaining trays without flinching, and then one of the guards grabbed the two away from Noah and shoved him to the ground. The other stole the journal and the crayon, then provided brand new copies of both.
"Write." One of the guards said. It was hard to tell which with their faces covered.
"No. I'm not doing that for you! I told whoever it was at the beginning, that there's nothing I know that isn't already on some news channel somewhere!" Noah said, holding his head in his hands.
"Write." The guard said again, and then they opened the door and left. Noah shouted in frustration and threw the crayon at the spot where he imagined a camera to be.
Then he felt stupid for doing that. It wasn't like there was any other means of keeping himself from boredom. He picked up the crayon, then sat on the ground and scribbled meaningless garbage in as many of the journal pages as he could. If they were going to the trouble of reading this, Noah wanted it to be incoherent to anyone but himself.
The lights flickered on and off after Noah finished the page. The slot in the door opened, and another journal appeared. He destroyed that one in a similar manner, and the next one by ripping it apart.
The journals kept appearing. As many as Noah destroyed, replacements kept coming. Even when the crayon was nothing but a nub, the journals kept coming. Noah shredded them, stomped on them, ripped them with his teeth until he got a paper cut on his tongue.
The journals kept coming through the slot until the room resembled a hamster cage, with shredded paper floors.
Noah huffed and puffed. "Just…make it stop already! Let me go! I don't know anything!"
"Write." The loud voice of the intercom scared him more than he thought anything would, especially since it felt like it was right behind him.
"No! Screw this!" Noah sat down and used some of the cleaner paper scraps to cover his ears. Providence would be here soon. Providence would be here soon. All he had to do was wait, and ignore whatever these people wanted him to do.
Providence would be here soon. Noah put himself in the corner and watched the shadows creep around the cell. Nanites? Was he seeing nanites? Was that even possible?
Noah laughed to himself. Wouldn't that be fun? If he went full EVO and destroyed everything? He laughed again, and again, and again.
A journal popped through the slot. Noah screeched in anguish.