by V. St. Clair
The next picture was a painting instead of a picture, and it was nothing more than a series of differently-colored splotches. Confused, Ana raised an eyebrow and said, “Random paint smears?”
“What do you see in it, Ana?” Ms. Tofta pressed her. “Tell me the picture your brain paints with it.”
Frowning, Ana said, “It looks a bit like a giant fish, I guess.”
The instructor said nothing and simply flipped to the next page.
And so it went, seemingly for hours. Ana had no idea what the other woman was hoping to glean from this exercise, but she flipped through most of a book full of different photos, paintings, and sometimes even single words, forcing Ana to explain what she saw. It went on so long Ana was growing bored and complacent, so she almost missed the ping in her brain, telling her she was in danger when she made eye contact with Ms. Tofta in between photos.
Her mouth dropped open slightly as she considered the threat, unsure of where it was coming from. She had obviously pulled it from the instructor’s mind, but that didn’t mean the threat was coming from her specifically. Even worse, she hadn’t gone deep enough to understand the details of the danger, because to do so was to risk discovery of her true Gift. But without those details, she might not know what she needed to do to escape.
“Ana?” Ms. Tofta pressed her, eyes alight with interest as she returned Ana’s gaze. “Is something in this picture registering with you particularly?”
Ana glanced down at the paper. It was a photo of a bright purple plant.
“No, I’m sorry…” she shook her head to focus. “Purple plants.”
Ms. Tofta’s expression was oddly neutral as she flipped the next page over, and Ana risked another glance at her eyes. The warning pinged again inside her head, and her heart rate increased as her adrenaline began to kick in.
“Is everything alright?” the instructor pressed her.
“I—I’m in danger from something,” Ana admitted, looking through the flexi-glass walls on either side of her to see if there was anything obvious there. None of the other occupants seemed to notice anything wrong; they were all focused on their own interviews.
“Are you?” Ms. Tofta asked calmly, and then Ana understood. The entire lesson today had been worthless, a distraction; the instructor was simply trying to distract her and force her to focus on something menial and boring, to see if she would still know when she was in trouble. Whatever was coming for her, Ms. Tofta had arranged it.
Ana whirled around to look behind her just as the man grabbed her, forcing a hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming and dragging her backwards out of her chair and onto the floor. Other people were looking around now, confused and shocked, though no one moved to help her while she struggled to fight off her captor.
His gloved hand was covering her mouth and nose, making it hard to breathe, and Ana fought with all her might to get him off of her, to no avail. Ms. Tofta remained in her seat, calmly watching Ana fight for her life as the air left her; was the instructor actually going to let her suffocate to death here?
She passed out before she got the answer to her question.
When Ana woke, she had no idea how much time had passed since her struggle against the mystery assailant. It couldn’t have been terribly long, because practicum was still in session, though it looked like it was beginning to wrap up for the day. Ana was still lying on the floor exactly where she had been during the struggle, arms and legs splayed out uncomfortably.
Nice of no one to position me more comfortably or make sure I was alright.
Coughing, lungs aching, she struggled to her feet and glared at Ms. Tofta, who had packed up most of her things but was still sitting in her chair with an annoyingly casual look on her face. Ana hated the woman.
“What the hell was that about?” Ana coughed between words, clenching her fists in fury and resisting the urge to attack her.
“I wanted to know if you were still able to detect danger when your mind is occupied elsewhere,” the instructor answered unrepentantly. “It seems you can, though not fast enough to be helpful, in this case.”
“You could have just asked me that question and I would have told you the answer is yes,” she threw herself back down into her chair, glaring across the narrow desk between them and wondering how disrespectful she could be before she got written up for it.
“As much as I trust your word, Ana, you know we have to fully vet your Gift before we can truly know the extent of it,” Ms. Tofta explained calmly. “Now, back to business: how did you become aware you were in danger?”
Careful…Ana reminded herself. This could become dangerous for her very quickly if she revealed too much about her mental process.
“The same way I always do,” she responded, annoyed. “I just felt a warning in my head and my adrenaline started pumping, so I looked around for the source of the danger until that giant oaf grabbed me from behind.”
“You didn’t seem to be aware of it when you were looking at the pictures,” Ms. Tofta observed evenly. “You only appeared to notice it when you glanced at me in between pages.”
Ana had really hoped she wouldn’t notice that.
“Like you said, my mind was focused on the pictures you were showing me, so I didn’t recognize the warning at the time. It was only in between them I was able to realize there was trouble coming,” she lied.
The instructor frowned slightly, unsatisfied with the answer but unable to tell if she was hiding anything. If she really believed Ana was holding back or lying to her, she could push the issue and file a formal request with the administrators to procure some Veritan to use on her. Since Ana could reveal some truly disastrous things under the power of Veritan, it was important that Ms. Tofta believe she was being straight with her to avoid the interrogation.
“Look,” Ana exhaled heavily, allowing her frustration to show, “I don’t know how I get these signals in my head when danger is coming, or why they can’t be more specific so I know where the threat is coming from.” This was a flat out lie, but one she needed the instructor to believe in order to stay out of trouble. “As far as I can tell, there isn’t anything making it easier to pick up on the warnings, though as you’ve seen, my being preoccupied with something else can make it harder for me to get the message in time. I don’t think I have any more untapped potential I haven’t shown yet, and it’s so wearing to keep trying new things that I know won’t work.”
Her feigned sincerity must have worked, because Ms. Tofta looked less suspicious of her now, though still disappointed. Ana supposed if her instructor was working for the Provo, it must be her greatest dream to discover some really rare and powerful Gift the Provo could use to their advantage.
It probably pays well to sell out your peers, she thought bitterly.
“I can understand your frustration,” her instructor assured her kindly. “But we must be diligent, or we might miss out on identifying dormant Gifts. Won’t you feel better once you know for certain you have discovered all there is to know about your ability, so you don’t face any unpleasant surprises later in life?”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right…” Ana lied fluidly. “How much longer do you think it will take before we can be sure I’m tapped out?” Please let me out of this awful practicum before I go insane or get myself in serious trouble.
“I don’t want to set a timeline for our progress together, or it will only create a sense of failure if we do not achieve it.”
Nice bit of weasel wording there…
Ana nodded in acceptance of this and stood up, glancing at the nearest clock.
“Then I will see you in a few days for our next session,” she offered politely, though as far as Ana was concerned, if she never saw Ms. Tofta again it would be too soon.
“Until next time,” the instructor bid her farewell, watching with shrewd eyes as Ana turned away and left the testing room.
Her body felt shaky and unstable in the wake of being attacked—adrenaline burn al
ways left her feeling like she was going to fall apart at the seams for a few hours afterwards—but her mind was oddly clear. She walked calmly to the bus stop right outside the Illucept building and waited for one the counterclockwise loop, which would get her back to Building-9 the fastest.
If I head out in the next half hour, I should be able to get a message to Hera and be back before curfew without too much issue. There might even be time to eat dinner while I’m out.
She would drop her things off in her room and then make her way into downtown Silveria, to a hangout called Club Roxx, which was run by some of Hera’s people. Once there, Ana would be able to pick up a wig and a change of clothes from the back and sneak out again, able to fool any surveillance that happened to be in the area.
What could possibly go wrong?
6
Maxton Mercuria
The door shut and locked behind the Major named Topher with an awful sense of finality. Despite being one of the enemies, his presence had meant safety for Max. Whatever corruption this Fox guy was a part of, his colleague seemed to know nothing about it.
Naïve fool.
Or was it all an act? Were they playing the good-cop/bad-cop game with him as a new strategy for getting information from him, and this was just the opening act, meant to trick Max into believing this Topher guy was on his side? He almost snorted in disbelief at the thought of a truly “good” Provo, much less a Major.
Either way, he was alone with Fox now, the one who had been torturing him for weeks in an attempt to get him to use his Gift to locate Hera. Since they had fallen into such a routine by now, Max was expecting more of the usual questions today: where is Hera hiding? Can you open a door to her? Who else is part of her rebellion? Do you want the pain to stop? Have you seen anything suspicious at the Academy? Do you know any code-words or secret phrases Hera uses…?
Fox didn’t seem to care that he didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, as long as he got to torture Maxton for a while afterwards to vent his frustrations about it.
So Max was surprised when the first words out of his interrogator’s mouth today were, “What did Topher say to you, and what did you say to him?”
His mouth dropped open at this deviation from their normal routine, and he was halfway through answering the question he had expected before he realized the mistake.
“I have no idea where Her—huh?” he asked lamely, mostly to buy himself time to think. If these two Majors were working together, surely Fox wouldn’t be in here asking what the other guy said to him—and why did he look so surly about a visit from one of his colleagues, anyway? Was it possible these two weren’t really working together after all?
Is there some sort of division within the Provo-Major itself that no one knows about?
“What did Topher say to you?” Fox reiterated, fingering the hilt of his ion-sword as though longing to draw it from his belt, activate it, and cut him in half with it—though apparently they didn’t work in here because of the magnetic field on the place. Maxton added it to the mental list he was compiling of the various defenses this room had around it preventing him from ever escaping. Not even his Gift could take him out of here, though not for lack of trying. Max had been trying desperately to open a door out of this place for weeks, with no success.
“Not much,” Max lied on the spot, deciding that if there was some schism within the Provo, he wasn’t going to be the one who pointed it out to them so they could mend fences. Besides, that Topher guy had given him some pain meds and water, so even though he was the enemy, he was currently the enemy Maxton was rooting for.
“What did he say?” Fox pressed angrily, moving closer to the floodlights and preparing to don his own dark glasses to prevent him from being affected by their blinding light.
“He wasn’t here very long at all,” Max blurted out quickly, desperate to avoid more pain. “He didn’t seem to know much about me when he came in, so he asked how long I’d been here, why I wasn’t being cooperative with your investigation, and what my Gift was. I was just about to tell him about my ability when you showed up and he left.”
Fox didn’t look like he was sure whether to believe him or not. Maxton hoped his captor wouldn’t feel compelled to ask him about it under the effects of that awful truth serum, which burned his veins and made his entire body ache for days afterwards. Since he’d already had to endure it on two separate occasions, he hoped Fox believed him to be tapped out on useful information by now, because he wasn’t sure he could survive a third round of poison.
“And what did you tell him? Tell me the exact words,” Fox pressed him, paranoid and angry.
This guy seems to be a lot more worried about Topher than I thought he’d be, Max reflected with interest. This was especially noteworthy since Topher seemed very young for a Provo-Major; all the other ones he’d ever met or seen on the news were between thirty-five and sixty, but Topher looked like he was in his twenties.
“When he asked how long I’d been here I said I wasn’t sure—since there aren’t any windows I have no idea how much time has passed, though it feels like it’s been a few weeks. When he asked why I wasn’t cooperating with you, I told him it was because I didn’t know anything about Hera or her resistance group, like I’ve been telling you since the beginning,” he added snappishly. Fox didn’t react visibly to this. “Like I said a minute ago, I was just about to tell him about my Gift in more detail when you came in, because he thought it was just something to do with unlocking doors. I assumed you sent him in here to work me over before you came in today. Was I not supposed to talk to him?” he trolled for information in his most innocent voice.
Fox pursed his lips slightly and said, “You are to comply with any member of the Provo-Major who makes a request of you,” not rising to the bait. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, pulling them over his hands. “Well, now that we are alone again, let us pick up where we left off earlier.”
He began powering up the electrodes on a cart beside him and Maxton clenched his teeth as fear pinged through him. How much longer were they going to torture him before they just killed him and let him rest?
Major Fox tapped one of the electrode clamps against the metal counter to test its potency. Sparks of light burst from the place where they made contact, and a dull buzz filled the room momentarily.
“Good. Now, Max,” Fox said his name as though disgusted by it. “Where is Hera hiding?” He smacked Max lightly on the arm with the electrified clamp before he could even answer, and a horrible jolt of pain shot up his right arm, down his torso and out through his right leg. His muscles seized up, tensing fully and completely beyond his control until all the electricity had passed through him.
Max writhed uncomfortably on the cold floor, drool touching his chin from where he had lost control of his facial muscles on one side.
Could anyone even hear his screams in here, or was he truly alone?
“I…don’t…know…” Max grumbled, struggling with speech as his body convulsed from the after-effects of the shock.
“You must not have heard me properly the first time,” Fox smiled nastily. This was all a game to him. “I said…” He stood over Max like an armored god. Max hated everything about him, from his curly ginger hair to his freckled, tan skin, to the malicious smile always darkening his face when Max was in agony. “Where...” another smack with the electrode, “—is…” another one, “—Hera…?”
Max had no idea how much time had passed when he regained consciousness, only that he was alone and it was completely dark in the room. Every muscle in his body ached, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as last time, courtesy of the painkiller Topher had given him beforehand.
When it wears off I’m going to hurt like hell, though.
At least it seemed to be lasting a while, which meant it was the good stuff.
Topher did pull it off of his own utility belt, Max recalled dimly. Of course he would only use the best for himself.
There was a gentle drip of liquid somewhere nearby, though Max had no idea where or what it was due to the total darkness enveloping him. Fumbling around to pull himself up from the floor, his hand slipped in something wet and slick—hopefully not his own blood. His lips felt dry and cracked again, despite the hydration pill he’d had earlier. Electrocution really sucked the moisture out of a person.
Fox had been a bit more zealous than usual when interrogating him this time; possibly the unexpected visit from Topher had unnerved him. He asked the same dozen questions over and over again, punishing Max severely each time he couldn’t answer, whether he had actually been given time to respond or not. Max contemplated just making up a location the next time Fox asked him for Hera’s whereabouts and plans, just to see what would happen. The Provo would have to let him out of his cell to transport them there—assuming his Gift was behaving properly—and he could either escape captivity or infuriate them so much they killed him on the spot. There didn’t seem to be any other way to get around this endless series of days and nights spent in this hellhole, and Max was tired of being tortured and beyond the hope of rescue.
Resolved on this new course of action, he tried to make himself as comfortable as possible on the hard wooden bench with the straps on it, to garner whatever rest he could manage. If he was going to make a bid for freedom, he would need his body to cooperate with him as much as possible. It would be nice to get another hydration capsule and a few more painkillers before then too, though he had no idea how much rank Topher could pull within the Provo-Major, or if he was ever coming back here again. Perhaps he wasn’t important enough to demand another visit to Fox’s prisoner, if he was even still interested in him.
He wasn’t expecting Major Fox to return for quite some time, so he was stunned when he heard the telltale sound of the locks clicking out of place and felt the magnets in the room pull his wrists and ankles to the floor.
