-MORA-
The light faded, as it always did. She didn’t like it, but it left anyway, leaving only darkness.
And dirt. There was always that.
It was almost automatic now, the desperate struggling to heave herself free of the earth. Dirt shifted and moved, and this ground had been disturbed often enough to leave it crumbled and easy to shift. She uncovered herself quickly, getting down to her waist in a matter of minutes.
Then the gun barrel prodded the back of her head, and she froze.
“Could you just, you know, give me a second here?” she asked plaintively. As the escape frenzy cleared from her vision, she saw what surrounded her: a full platoon of Legion troops, armored, angry, and loaded for bear. Shit.
The gun barrel prodded her again, and she extricated herself from the remaining soil quickly. The barrel was removed briefly--all the other Legionnaires pointed guns at her when it was--and a set of thick handcuffs placed on her wrists, behind her back. She almost laughed. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. If she tried anything, she’d end up full of holes.
They frog-marched her to a waiting vehicle, something squat and armored. A crowd of gawkers had gathered, goggling at the captured ‘terrorist’. duckers. Like bloody sheep for all they counted for. She stared hard at one of them, an older man. He refused to meet her eyes. Coward.
“It’s all under control, boys,” she heard a voice say. Female. She turned her head towards the source. It was a woman in a black trenchcoat. Tall, features anonymous behind her mask’s tinted lenses, with a knife at her belt. No other visible weapons, but if what she knew was correct, she didn’t need them. Inquisitors were the next best thing to human artillery.
“Una Ødegaard, designated Romera,” the Inquisitor said. “You are now bound by law. You are charged with the crime of high treason for association with the terrorist organization known as the Dreamers, for which the sentence is either death or life imprisonment.”
She almost burst out laughing. Organization? Hah! The closest thing to being organized for a Dreamer was wearing matching socks!
“However, given your….nature,” the Inquisitor continued, “the Empire believes that either of those would be...unsuitable.” She looks at one of the Legionnaires, anonymous in their armor and masks. “Take her to Isle Seven,” she snaps.
Una manages to quip “What is it, a supermarket?” before everything goes black.
-UNDISCLOSED-
When her vision clears, the room is white and blank. Smooth, empty, featureless. Perfect for the Empire. Stainless, clean, perfect, unmarred….OK, stop with the synonyms, she told her brain. She’s on a cot, thin mattress on a metal shelf. No edges or seams, nothing to exploit or rip out of the walls. Nothing to fashion into a weapon. One door, only distinguishable because of the small, recessed window in it. She stood and gave the nearest wall an experimental poke. It yielded slightly. Heh. She was in a padded cell. She didn’t know that these were still used, and it’s not like she was crazy. Well, no more than the usual citizen had to be.
The door swung open suddenly, revealing the shape of the Inquisitor. She dangled a pair of handcuffs mockingly. “Ready for processing, little one?” Oh, the voice had changed, become lighter, less clipped. A different Inquisitor, then. Hard to tell, between the mask, helmet, and trenchcoat. Seriously? Were they all apocalypse cosplayers or something? Granted, the end of the world had come, but still, you’d expect them to have standards.
The Inquisitor jerked Una’s arms behind her back, cuffed her, and began marching her down the hallway.
“Whoa, buy a girl a drink first,” Una says, smiling. What could they do? Kill her? Ha!
“Quiet,” the Inquisitor mutters behind clenched teeth.
Her point made, Una kept her mouth shut.
The hallways were the same as her cell- boring and white, no decorations, all utilitarian. Una hasn’t the slightest idea how the Inquisitor doesn’t get lost, but the woman leads her without pausing for directions at all. Seriously, not even a little diagram on the walls that shows the “YOU ARE HERE” map she sees at some big stores. There’s probably some poor guy who died of thirst or something somewhere!
The Inquisitress (yes, perfect, the most annoying name she can think of) finally reaches a blank, metal door. She opens it and shoves Una inside, then closes it behind her. Una can hear the soft shush of pressure equalizing after the door closes. This room is airtight. Why?
The one difference this room has from the rest of the complex that she’s seen is the presence of a single, gigantic mirror covering most of one wall. Two-way, obviously.
This is an observation room. Una begins to break out in a cold sweat.
“Attention, prisoner.” This voice, male, booms out from no discernible place. It’s anywhere and everywhere at once. “As your punishment for treason against the Empire, you will serve as a test subject for the Isle Seven Project. Said project is an attempt to uncover the biological and chemical sources of paranormal powers in humans. As a paranormal, and given your abilities, you have been selected as the primary subject. Nod if you understand.”
Una nods mutely. Test subject? There wasn’t a single way that ended well. Well, screw ‘em. If they killed her, she’d just go back to her anchor. Not even the Empire would keep a platoon of Legion troops in a local cemetery 24/7, right?
“Good. Testing begins….now.”
There was a sharp crackle and the smell of ozone, and suddenly everything was fading….
As she dug her way free, she couldn’t help but feel elation. Dumb bastards had just set her free!
Hah! Then her vision cleared, and she saw the blank walls of her cell. Oh. Shit. OH. SHIT.
Una, very briefly, went mad.
When she could think clearly again, she sighed and stood, brushing off the last crumbs of grave dust. The door swung open, revealing the Inquisitress.
“Oh, did you honestly think we’d let you go that easy?” she asked mockingly.
Una responded with an extremely rude hand gesture.
“Guess not.” The humor drops from the woman’s voice. “Come along.” She held out the handcuffs.
The second test was worse. There was pain.
After that, things took on a dull monotone. Resurrect, die, repeat daily. Always something new. They couldn’t just do horrible things, no, they had to have variety. She lost track of how long it had been. Time was not allowed in the Imperial halls.
She dug- again, stood- again, and waited. Door opens, cuffs, blank hallway, metal door, room with the false mirror. This time, there’s a chair, and she’s strapped into it before the Inquisitress leaves.
The door opens again, and a pair of labcoated men wheel some strange device into the room. This is new. Usually, she didn’t see anyone. That she remembered, at least.
The men mutter something full of technical terminology as they point the device at her. The thing begins to glow with an eerie green light. This couldn’t be good.
The world goes green.
Then it clears. She’s not dead. Huh. The chair is gone. Also huh. The walls are blackened and scorched, and the exploded remains of the two labcoat guys and their device are covering one of those walls. Big huh.
The door bangs open and the Inquisitress is there, looking like the wrath of Odin.
“What. Did. You. Do.” she snarls. Una doesn’t respond. The Inquisitress walks forward, and Una wishes very, very hard that she would go away, and suddenly the Inquisitress is...not there anymore. Una steps over the body and walks away. Free.
-UNDISCLOSED-
“Simmons. Bring the Isle Seven Director to my office. Then lock the door.”
“Yes, sir.”
