~one~

 

The screams had stopped years ago – with the worst of the pain over, I no longer vocalized agony. The tears of despair were dried, the ability to produce them gone.

I was unchained, no longer confined. But free? No. Never again. I had been recreated, not reborn. My life, my body, was a tool, a weapon, a means to someone else’s end. The idea of escape, once a deep itch, now seemed ridiculous. Why would I escape? That would mean I had somewhere to go. I was where I belonged, with nowhere to go but my cell and wherever I was to be sent.

The little blind girl, abducted, tortured, used as the subject of an experiment in wicked biological abominations, now the abomination herself. Me.

I am the vengeance of the Harpy, the foul breath of Hel; I am Enyo and the Morrigan, the Keres bound in one body.

My name is Morta…and I am no longer blind.

 

ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ

 

“She makes me feel a little ill, Vic. Besides knowing what she can do, there’s something else. Something, I don’t know, disconcerting about the very air around her when she enters a room.”

“Of course there is. What did you expect? We told you what she is when you first signed on here. Why is she bothering you now after all this time? Now stop irritating me with your idiocy and come help me choose the weapons for her session this afternoon.”

I could hear them. They knew I could hear them, even through the heavy steel door. They also knew I was aware of how little they cared if I was listening. Fine. But was the mention of weapons supposed to get me excited about the day’s training? At one time, maybe.

Sun gleamed through the small window in my cell, through thick metal screening embedded in the translucent glass. I’d been awake for nearly an hour, my body clock jostling me out of sleep at the same time it did every morning. Other than putting my hair up, I’d done nothing else.

I pushed myself off the edge of the bed and stood in the grey-white patch of light, naked, stretching, waiting. My clothes would be brought with my breakfast. I closed my eyes, face raised to bathe in filtered starfire, my inner stop-watch ticking off the remaining seconds. Seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…

“Open up, Morta.”

I shook my head at the predictability of my keepers and smirked, the only expression I allowed myself that wasn’t a scowl or a blank stare. The door wasn’t locked, but Frida’s hands would be full with my things.

As always, she looked away when I opened the door. Why? Modesty? Disgust? I never could figure out which. Whatever - I owned neither. “Thank you.” I took the light stack of folded clothing from her left hand, laid it atop the covered tray trembling in her right – she wasn’t a strong person at all – and relieved her of her burden. Poor thing.

A step back, I used my left foot to shut the door in her face.

Ten minutes later, my breakfast of raw fish stuffed with raw super greens finished, I got dressed. Today’s outfit, a long-sleeved body suit that fit like a coat of paint, was light blue. Yesterday’s had been red. How lovely. Variety.

A knock was followed by the door swinging open – ah, yes. My master, Victor Polydon. I stood straight, saying nothing. What would I say?

“Ready for your morning run, Morta? I brought these.” He held out a pair of ankle weights. “I thought we’d go to the dunes. We haven’t had to run through the sand for a while. It will do you good.”

We…As if he’d ever make the effort to run at all. I nodded, taking the weights, and bent down, strapping them on.

“How was your meal?”

I shrugged. He wanted me to talk. Too bad.

“That good, eh?” A chuckle that meant nothing.

I offered him one of my smirks.

“Let’s go. I’d like you to complete at least ten miles before you break for lunch.”

Forcing myself not to look sideways at him as we walked down the corridor, I gave a quick nod. Why was he going so easy on me? Ten miles was nothing – I could do nearly three times that before lunch time and feel no strain, even with the ankle weights. Even through sand.

We stepped outside where the light showed its truer self, warming the air with its distant flame. Nice day. The building from which we’d emerged was not nice. Featureless cement walls with few windows enclosing a cold space divided into corridors and rooms. Nothing more.

The black vehicle that reminded me of a shiny, malevolent scarab crouched in the curved driveway. First meal of the day – me. I got in, devoured in an instant when the door was pulled shut, waiting in semi-darkness to be fully digested. We began to move.

“What is the driver wearing, Morta?”

I had to answer that one. A light tightening of the muscles around my eyes, and there: the black divider between us and the front seat was no longer an obstacle to sight. “Blue jacket, white shirt, no hat, black slacks, short brown boots, watch.” The driver had no taste.

Once in a great while I would be allowed a magazine to peruse before bed. From those brief moments when the glossy pages became my windows to the rest of the world, I learned what the human race thought about clothing. Fashion. Everyone on the pages slim like me, but not. I doubted any of their sleek bodies hid what mine did under the skin. I didn’t know much else about these people, but I knew that brown boots with black slacks and a blue jacket would not be a look any of them would adopt. Ever.

Victor was speaking again. I held back a yawn. “What shade of blue?”

Darker than my paint-on suit. Oceans. “Cerulean.”

“Excellent. But you didn’t mention his socks.”

“He isn’t wearing any.” Just the hair on his ankles and the sweat on his toes. Good thing I wouldn’t be anywhere near him when he took those boots off.

“All right.” He said nothing more for the rest of our fifteen-minute ride.

Relief. I hated the sound of his voice. That sound would get him killed one day. Another smirk – third of the day. Record-setting.

An inlet off the Atlantic Ocean where the water was never warm. I could no longer recall the name of the town I had lived in as a child. If the ocean had been anywhere nearby, I hadn’t been aware of it. All that child knew were voice-sounds, inside-the-house sounds, out-in-the-yard sounds, and weather. Tastes. The feel of things. But not darkness. Being blind doesn’t mean you see dark. It means “see” has no meaning. Instead, you ideate thoughts, you define colors by tactile experience. Black isn’t a color and I could never have imagined it had I not been given this unnatural, horrible ability to see.

The car stopped; I heard seagulls, and when the driver opened my door, I looked up. Four of them. Their flight paths floated in crisscrossed ease as they searched for prey on, under, the water.

The line of dunes, low sandy hills that stretched for well over twelve miles, began here and wandered to the left of where I stood by the side of the car. To the right, the sand was flat, the inlet a wide curve of chilly sparkles banded by a narrow beach.

“All right. Start.” Victor had come around the back of the car from his side and pointed at the dunes. The ankle weights fit snug around the top of my bare feet – I never wore shoes, never thought to wonder why. Straightening, I gave a nod, and began to run.

Ten miles through sand was ten miles of peace. The exertion exhilarated the part of me that loathed inaction, that hated living in a ten-by-ten cell. Five miles up the line of dunes, and five back. Too easy. Over too soon.

Victor looked up from something he was reading on his iTablet, nodded, handed me another set of weights, these smaller. Wrist weights.

I frowned.

“Put them on Morta. You didn’t think I’d only have you run ten miles, did you?”

My curiosity about that had almost encouraged speech to ask why, but silence was being rewarded, and I shrugged.

“Probably not,” he murmured.

I strapped on the wrists weights, bounced a little on the balls of my feet. What now?

“All right – on your hands, ten miles. Same route.”

I could run on my hands on flat ground, on grass, on cement, even up small hills. Through deep sand? I’d have to close my eyes and run blind. Well, that was something I could do. But when I sank into the sand with my feet, my upper legs pulled me out and kept me going. Sinking up to my elbows or shoulders…

“Go, Morta. It’s getting late and we have a lunch meeting.”

I blinked. Yes, I could do this. But why? Was I being punished? A brain pattern, my unnatural eyes boring into his. “DROP DEAD.”

His natural eyes widened. “Morta! How dare you!”

I hadn’t spoken out loud, but suddenly wanted to laugh. The idiot. I suspected that he forgot from time to time that I could do that. I turned away, went into a hand stand, and took off.

Ten miles through the sand this way was longer, but I did it. My hair was full of the gritty stuff, as were my eyelashes, my lips spared because I’d compressed them the entire time.

On my feet once more, I raised an eyebrow at Victor and crossed my arms. How easy it would be to snap that neck. How satisfying to punch into his chest and pull out his heart.

He looked at his watch. “Good timing. Let’s get back. We have some new weapons for you today, and a new instructor.”

Great. A new instructor. A new pain in the ass I would have to obey. Fine.

“I expect you’ll give him the courtesy of speaking to him.”

Do you, now. Maybe. I nodded. Him, but not you. Nope. Bastard. You murdered my mother. I couldn’t see you doing it, but your voice became imprinted on my mind that day, your mean laugh, your bored sigh. I smelled her blood in the room, and later on you, Victor.

After twelve years in the cold cement building where I had become a changling, I still had not spoken more than perhaps as many words to this man. This bag of sentient pus.

I had survived everything he’d done to me, accepted it, learned to live with it, chosen to use it as instructed. For now. I might never run away, but that didn’t mean I’d have to allow this bastard human to keep breathing the same air. Yes, I would stay. He, on the other hand, was on – as I read in a magazine and found appropriate – borrowed time.

 

^^^^^^^

 

“Hello, Morta. I’m Gideon.”

Gideon. Okay. Looked like he was in his late twenties, early thirties. Handsome but not pretty, strong build. Reddish-brown hair cut short, no waves. Copper-brown eyes surrounded by black lashes and lid folds that described someone who either smiled a lot or scowled too much. Maybe both?

Victor had more or less shoved me into the room and left without making any introductions. No one else was here except the sniveling sycophant with whom Victor had been speaking outside my room that morning. His name was Pruitt and he meant as much to me as the centipedes I saw slithering into floor cracks in the corners from time to time.

“I heard I was going to be given new weapons.” There. I’d spoken. After all, this Gideon had not yet given me a reason to shut him out.

“Did you. One physical weapon, yes. The other is not.” He looked over his shoulder. “Bring me the rifle, please.”

Pruitt stopped whatever noisy thing he was doing by the far wall and trotted to us, a black rifle supported in both hands. “Here you go.”

Taking it, Gideon nodded, then raised an eyebrow, and Pruitt returned to the other side of the room.

“I’ve used rifles before,” I said, looking at the weapon. It had no scope, no strap, and was painted entirely a matte black. Similar to an AR-15 but…different. Where was the clip?

“So I’ve heard. This one is new. Take it.”

Gideon tossed the rifle and I caught it with one hand. Good weight, evenly distributed, nice feel.

“How old are you, Morta?”

“Sixteen. Other than the lack of a scope and ammo clip, what makes this different?”

Something in Gideon’s eyes shifted. Not in an ominous way, but what – ah, shock. I’d seen that before. Why shock? That I could grab the rifle one-handed? Of course I could. I didn’t have regular muscles under my smooth, tanned skin. Nope. Gideon spoke over my thoughts so I turned them off and listened.

“For one thing, it doesn’t use regular bullets. The ammunition is, for lack of a better way to describe it, energy spheres. And while the rest of us who use these need scopes, I’m told you don’t.”

I nodded, fascinated. Energy spheres? Wow!

“Show me.” He pointed to the other wall in front of which various kinds of standing targets had been attached to the floor.

“You have to switch them on. They’re too easy to hit while stationary.”

“I’ll do it!” Pruitt called.

So the slimy-brained creep had been listening.

After hitting a switch nearby, the little man gave us an idiotic thumbs-up as the targets began to bend, some vibrating, others twisting, some flapping backward and forward so fast they were hard to see. For the moment. For anyone but me.

“You can hit those?”

“I can…Gideon, yes?”

“Yes.”

I raised the rifle, activated the wave-pattern that lived somewhere behind my retinas, and the targets became circled by overlapping gauges, each with a cross in the middle defining their centers. The ones moving rapidly appeared to slow down, the ones twisting seeming to straighten, the ones vibrating looking like they’d gone still. As far as Gideon was concerned, nothing would have changed.

My smirk reappeared – number four! Ain’t I somethin’. I lifted the rifle, my finger curled around the smooth trigger, chose a target, and watched with astonishment as the non-bullet, after finding its mark dead-center, left a scorch-edged hole.

The next target went the way of the first. When I was done, Pruitt deactivated them and I could see that they’d have to replace these with new ones.

“Damn.”

Why was Gideon surprised? Didn’t they tell him about me?

“So you’re a dead-shot. No wonder…”

“No wonder what?”

“No wonder they want to deploy you as a sniper.” Gideon shook his head.

Sniper. I didn’t like that word. It was too sharp, pinched, ugly. Like Ellen, Victor’s companion. If I had to use a word to describe her sour features, I’d use “sniper.”

“What is the other weapon?”

Gideon smiled. “You won’t need the rifle for this. Put it down and follow me, please.”

He led me into one of the labs off the hallway outside the practice room, and asked me to sit in the chair. Yes, the chair. Not a nice, comfy seat. The chair. The grey metal chair with straps to hold me down at the wrists and calves. The cold, hard chair above which the brain-probe device hovered, waiting to be lowered over my head. That chair. I found myself disliking Gideon, but his words made me rethink that.

“Looks like something that belongs in a torture chamber – sorry. Victor told me to use this room. Said the other labs were in use.” He shrugged.

“Of course he said that.” I climbed into my least favorite seat in the house, the chill of the metal seeping through my clothes. “Now what?”

Gideon crossed his arms and frowned. “I was told you have certain psionic abilities. Were you born with them?”

Seriously? “Of course not. Psionics aren’t possible in the natural world. It’s something that happens when neural pathways are invaded by electricity and mutated, enabling the person to use parts of the mind that are otherwise off-limits.”

“You mean unused.”

“No, I mean off-limits. We were never meant to be able to kill with a thought, regardless of what science fiction says – and yes, I read Dune.”

“So…so you’re saying you can do that?”

I bit my lip, realizing this guy had had no idea what he was getting into when he agreed to work with me. “I can do all sorts of things no one should be allowed to do.”

His frown got deeper. “Like what?”

“LIKE THIS. NOT PLEASANT, IS IT. I CAN ALSO MAKE YOUR HEAD EXPLODE IF I WANT TO. UNDERSTAND?”

Gideon’s frown had been replaced by a horrified stare as I’d spoken into his head; he took a step back.

“Don’t worry – I wouldn’t do that to you. Victor built in a failsafe: if I kill anyone here without him removing a specific chip he embedded somewhere in my brain, my own head will explode. He loves me so much.” I looked away, not wanting Gideon to see how homicidal discussing Victor made me.

“But you could kill someone who wasn’t from here?”

“I believe that’s the point.”

After a few seconds of silence, Gideon stepped closer to the chair. “Listen, Morta, I’m only here to help you develop a new skill, something that won’t hurt you, but which I’m told will be of great use in dealing with enemies of the State.”

“You don’t sound so confident any more.”

“I – well, I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Probably not. So what is this new skill? Pruitt called it a weapon?”

“Using a few of the non-invasive probes, I’m to train you in controlling the emotion centers of…yes, well, I was wondering how I could possibly do that, but it seems you’re already capable of getting into people’s minds.” He reached up and drew down the probe device. “Victor showed me which ones to use, and said these would only adhere to your skin, nothing worse.”

Yeah, Victor totally lied. None of the probes did that, which was why they were called probes. As soon as Gideon place one on my head, a long, super-sharp, super-thin needle would pierce my skull and enter whatever hemisphere of my brain it was supposed to educate. And yes, it hurt. When I had work done on my teeth, the dentist here worked with no anesthesia (I’d read about lidocane and all that in another magazine, so I knew everyone else on the planet was given relief from nerve pain when they got their teeth fixed – not me, though). Anyway, the probes were that kind of pain, but on my scalp.

“Morta?”

“Go ahead.” I decided not to tell him the truth. Yet.

“All right. Here we go. Now when I finish attaching these, and turn on the scanner, I’ll need you to close your eyes and listen carefully to my instructions, okay?”

“Okay.” At least Gideon hadn’t strapped me to the chair. I guess that was something.

The procedure took four hours, during which the pain never stopped, but at the end of which I had the ability to destroy a person’s psyche by making them either so ecstatic they would be incapable of moving or thinking; or so upset they’d be suicidal. If only I could use these on Victor! Ha.

As Gideon removed the probes, he noticed the splotches of blood beneath each and asked me about them.

I smirked…lost count at this point. And said, “You honestly didn’t think this wouldn’t have to be invasive to work? There’s no such thing around here as a non-invasive probe, Gideon.”

“Oh, crap. I am so sorry! Did it hurt?”

“Yes, it hurt. Are we done?”

“I don’t know – I’m supposed to test this new ability before reporting to Victor.”

“Can we test it on Pruitt?”

He gave me one of those narrow-eyed stares. “Are you allowed to do that?”

“I doubt it, but I’d sure love to.”

He nodded, his smile crooked. I surmised he didn’t like Pruitt much either. “I don’t see why we can’t at least try, but I don’t want him to see you. I assume you don’t need to be in the same room?”

“No, but I do have to be able to see the person. There’s an observation window in the practice area. We can stand in the room looking out, and if Pruitt is still in there, I can see if this ability is working.” I always knew when something done to me had been successful, and this one was – no doubt about it.

A few minutes later Gideon and I were standing in the small, cold room one floor up, staring through the wide window that doubled as a mirror on the other side. Sure enough, Pruitt was still messing around in the vast room below, this time putting things into a metal equipment cabinet.

I stepped closer to the glass and stared at him for a moment. Pleasure or sorrow? Hmm. Now which of those two had that piece of turd given me the most of during the past eight out of twelve years? Rhetoricals. Gotta love ’em.

The new set of worms crawling through my head were activated along their set pathways as I focused my stare at Pruitt’s balding head. A second or two later, he dropped what looked like a stack of metal plates, and turned around, shaking his head. Activating my ocular magnifiers, I could see that tears had already begun coursing down his acne-scarred cheeks, and a second after that, he plopped down onto the hard floor, legs stretched out in front of him, arms over his stomach, and gave vent to sobs so loud we could hear them even behind the glass.

Pruitt stopped long enough to raise his arms over his head, his hands clenched; his mouth dropped open and he screamed, “No, no, no!! No, no, no!! Let me die! No!! Why?! No, no, no!!”

If I hadn’t been concentrating so hard, I think I would have managed another smirk. Unfortunately, as Pruitt’s misery increased, so did the pressure in my head, and it was getting worse every second. I was killing him, which meant I was killing myself. Surprising, really, since this wasn’t a direct rupture of his organs. This was emotional, and shouldn’t have affected my failsafe. But perhaps it was because I knew the human hemorrhoid would eventually commit suicide…

“You can stop now, Morta. It works.”

Suffer, you little bastard! If I can take it, you can!

“Morta? Morta! Stop! Don’t do this!”

Gideon’s desperate pleas broke through, but I wasn’t sure it mattered. The thought of Pruitt bashing his own brains out with a dumbbell or something like that was such a good one, I no longer registered the pain in my own head.

Besides, who said death would be a bad thing for someone like me?

~two~

 

In the end, I decided to let Pruitt live. With this new “talent” I might be able to entertain myself again at his expense. Nice.

In the meantime, Gideon was glaring. Oops. “Sorry.”

“Are you all right?”

Do you care? Really? “I’m fine.” A residual headache – nothing more – fading now.

“Good. So we know you can inflict extreme sorrow, but what about pleasure?”

I raised an eyebrow. Maybe he should find out first-hand –

“And don’t even try to use this on me, Morta. I may not have your talents, but I do have several abilities of my own.”

Was that a threat? “Who, then?” And what kind of pleasure? Now that was a good question…

“One of the staff, I should think. Who has been especially nice to you?”

“Nobody.” Didn’t even have to think about that one.

Another Gideon frown. “Come on, Morta. Surely someone has treated you well.”

“Frida.” She never looked at me, treated me like a pariah, but had never actively tried to harm me. Maybe after this she would soften up a bit.

With a nod, Gideon put a hand to his ear. Bluetooth. What a strange name for that kind of technology. “Send Frida into the practice area. Tell her she is needed to clean something up, er….” He glanced out the mirror-window, nodded. “Some kind of liquid needs to be mopped up. I believe it’s urine.”

I came as close to laughing as I ever had – Pruitt had wet himself? How delightful! And how had I missed that?

Gideon was gesturing at me to join him by the window. “She should be here in a moment. I want you to make her feel joyful. Nothing more. But joyful enough to immobilize her.”

“Joyful. Okay.” I nodded, determined to disobey. Someone like Frida had most likely never really enjoyed the company of men. Why not let her enjoy the unique of ecstasy of being with one? Not that she couldn’t do such a thing to herself, but I doubted she was the sort who would ever touch herself that way. Pity.

“Morta, I mean it. Just joy.”

That surprised me. “Is one of your abilities mind-reading?”

“No, but I do know how to read micro-expressions and general body language. I’m also adept at summing up a person’s predictabilities. So leave her alone – make her joyful, without the physical euphoria, all right?”

“And if I disobey?”

“You’ll find out I’m not as nice as you seem to think I am.”

How disappointing. “That’s okay. Neither am I.”

“I never thought you were. As I understand it, being nice is a state that’s been more or less programmed out of you.”

I shrugged. “You – ”

He raised a hand. “She’s here. Wait until she’s about halfway across.”

I watched Frida’s progress, noting for the first time that she had a left-sided limp. Since the only time I ever interacted with her was at the door of my room, I wasn’t surprised at my ignorance of her disability. Curious only.

“Now.”

“NO SHIT. I KNOW WHAT ‘HALFWAY ACROSS’ LOOKS LIKE.” Ignoring the sense of anger radiating off Gideon’s body, I stared at Frida, allowing my new neuro-friends to move, this time along a different path.

Music. Sweet, brilliant music bathing her innermost being…light…a thick envelope of love, adoration, hope. All hers. Everything good bathing her soul in waves of magnificent, gentle, pleasurable light. There you go, Frida. Embrace it.

Below us, the woman had stopped dead. With her back to us, I couldn’t see her face, but didn’t need to. She raised her head, then her arms, and began to turn in a slow circle. At 180 degrees, her smile came into view; eyes closed, tears dribbling over colorless cheeks, smile growing larger. Her arms came down and she hugged herself. A moment later, turned away from us again, she went to her knees, head still raised. And for the first time since meeting her, I heard her laugh.

Like Pruitt, Frida’s vocalizations were loud enough to make it past the thick glass in front of me.

“Enough for now, Morta.”

“Jerk.” The poor, pathetic woman was experiencing what could well be her first moments of real happiness…

“Now, Morta!”

“Go to hell. Fine.” Stop, worms, stop. Go back into your closet. I turned away, not wanting to see Frida’s reaction.

Instead I heard it.

Wailing. Awful, drawn-out wailing. The sound of outrage, of sudden, deep loss. Of course – what else would she have been feeling right then?

Morta the hormonal teenager wanted to leave the room and try to forget. Morta the abomination turned back, fascinated, wanting to see what Frida would do next.

By this time, the woman had made it to the other side of the room where she stared down at the wet stain on the cement. Her shoulders drooped and she shook her head. I allowed my eyes to magnify her figure and saw her hands were trembling. A moment later, she turned to the left, went to a supply closet in the adjacent wall, and returned with a mop and a bucket.

“I’m bored, Gideon. May we go now?”

We didn’t return to my cell as I had expected, but took the corridor leading to Victor’s office instead. Was Gideon required to have me with him to confirm all that had occurred? I failed to see why, knowing cameras would have been recording everything. Those intrusive electronic eyes even lived in the corners of my cell, in the bathrooms, everywhere except (I had come to realize) Victor’s office.

Gideon opened Victor’s door and gestured for me to enter first, then shut the door behind us.

Without look up from whatever it was he was doing with his iPad, Victor told us both to have a seat. “I take it things went well?” He still hadn’t looked up.

“They did.” Gideon, not me. I had nothing to say.

“Good. I’ll need to adjust her failsafe, but that’s not a problem.” Victor raised his glance and stared at me.

A second later, the door opened again and two men who I had dubbed Ogre #1 and Ogre #2 several years ago came in, one of which jabbed me in the arm with a hypodermic.

The word “jackass” was the last thought I threw into Victor’s mind before oblivion struck.

 

<<<<<<< 

 

I awoke to darkness. From the familiar smell of whatever detergent they used to launder my sheets, I knew I was in my cell. From the lack of light, I knew I had been out for a long time, the daylight gone. A moment of introspective communication with my internal clock and I knew it was nine in the evening. My brief visit with Victor had taken place at four-thirty-six…about four and a half hours. What had they done that required so much – ah. The failsafe chip.

Smart, really. I could have destroyed Victor at any second, so of course he’d had to move quickly, get me sedated before I could use my new “weapon” against him. The severe headache I’d experienced when afflicting Pruitt told me that killing Victor would have killed me, too, but maybe I’d been wrong. After all, failsafe’s design involved physical action on my part, not mental. So why the intense pressure?

That may have represented the worst of it had I gone through with Pruitt’s destruction, but now I’d never know. Still, what dear Victor didn’t seem to understand was that other thing – “talking” into his mind involved far more than accessing the verbal centers of his brain. While speaking to him in that way, I could also speak to the place that controlled muscle commands. The heart was a muscle. Stupid Victor. Shutting him down would be like shutting a window. That easy, that simple.

But not yet. Too many things still needed to be learned, and besides, with his death would come my permanent eviction from this place. So much to discover about that world out there…When I knew how to survive among others without attracting attention, Victor would find not only his heart come to a slow, painful stop, but every nerve and muscle in his body would simultaneously be twisting, melting. His would be a vile, horrific end. I came as close to smiling as I believe I ever have.

Food. The next thought after all that – food. I stood and removed my outfit. Being unclothed represented the only freedom I knew. Undoing my hair, I shook my head, letting the thick, white-gold waves fall about my shoulders, past my breasts, down to my waist. No mirrors existed in this place, so I had to rely on the distorted reflection of my face in the dark vehicle windows to tell me my probable looks.

I wasn’t ugly. That was it. Because of the curve of the glass, my features were spread sideways a bit. So were Victor’s; by accounting for how the window glass widened his facial details, I was able to surmise my own.

One afternoon when I was six, Pruitt had made a snide remark about my eyes. He called them “creepy.” Of course I had to know why.

“Because they’re not a real color.” He had sneered and turned away.

“What do you mean? How could they not be a real color?”

I remember that when he turned back to answer, his expression reminded me of the face Victor had made when someone – one of the few women who worked in the building as cooks and maids – had put salt in his coffee instead of sugar. “Because. Amber isn’t a real eye color. Now go away.”

Amber. I’m still not sure how that translates to human iris pigmentation. But at that point, having woken up after the sun had long since gone, and not at all sure if I was going to be given supper, I used the mental pattern I’d been taught to make those amber eyes of mine emit enough light so I could see in the darkness.

The door opened, light flooding in and negating my ocular illumination. I switched it off and crossed my arms.

Victor, accompanied by Gideon, stood on the threshold, the former looking at me as if nothing were unusual, the latter gaping.

“Polydon…she’s…”

“She never wears anything in her cell. Does that bother you, Gideon?”

His eyes widened for a second before being averted. I recognized the tiny muscular reactions – he liked what he saw yet was afraid to let me see his pleasure.

“Would you like me to get dressed?” I had spoken to Gideon. What Victor would have liked was unimportant.

“Please.”

“All I have is what I was wearing before.” I only mentioned this because the blue one-piece garment fit so close, almost no distinction could be made between being dressed and nude. Well, except for my nipples and pubic hair.

Victor was shaking his head, irritation oozing from his aura. He took out his com. “Frida, bring Morta a dress.”

Her voice, barely audible, whispery, asked if I needed undergarments.

“No. Just the dress. Our guest is uncomfortable with her current state.”

We waited, no one speaking, Gideon staring at the floor. Laughter would probably have felt good but I had no ability to do that. I smirked instead. Of course.

Victor filled the last few seconds by explaining that there was no lighting in my cell, that it wasn’t necessary, to which Gideon muttered something that sounded like relief. I hadn’t bothered to intensify my hearing to catch his exact words. Why bother?

And then Frida had come and gone and Victor was tossing a flimsy green frock at me, one with a soft under layer of lighter green, the outer layer sheer but darker with small sprigs of lavender splattered all over it. Not my favorite. I slipped it over my head, wishing I could be left alone.

Perhaps Gideon’s? As I passed him on the way out the door – Victor announced that we were going to go have a meal together – Gideon told me I looked beautiful.

Beautiful. Me. The abomination. No.

“I didn’t realize your hair was so…so long.”

I shrugged, wondering what we would be eating, especially since my diet was exclusively raw. Sushi, perhaps. That way, even Gideon could partake, assuming he didn’t hate the stuff.

Wrong. So sorry. Steak. So rare that it was purple in the center, my portion was larger than theirs. At least that concession had been made. However, the vegetables were steamed, and I nearly gagged. They tasted like sodden paper with salt and garlic. Nasty.

“The vegetables are delicious,” Gideon told Victor after several mouthfuls.

I began to dislike him again.

“Is the steak cooked to your liking, Gideon?” Victor sounded like he cared. Uh-huh.

“Perfect. But I, er, notice that Morta’s is barely cooked.” He nodded at my plate.

“That’s how she eats. In fact, I’m sure she’d be even happier had we not cooked it at all, isn’t that right, dear?” The bastard raised a brow at me.

As if all this social politeness crap was going to trick me into speaking to him. Ha. I shrugged and took another bite of the steak. He was right, of course. The seasonings weren’t too bad, but that burned taste on the outer part was only tolerable because the center was so raw and juicy.

While we ate, Victor talked about nothing at all. He talked. Blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then more whatever stuff. He always did this when he had something important to discuss once the meal ended. Never during. I couldn’t say why. Didn’t care.

But then the plates were cleared, I was given a goblet of cool water with lemon and lime slices floating in it, Victor and Gideon sharing a bottle of wine. And Victor began.

“The United States military has tasked me with finding someone to help with a few difficulties they’re having in one of the Mid-East countries – I’m not a liberty to say which. They know of our projects here, and that I have a, er, ‘secret weapon,’ so to speak which I’m willing to loan them to prove their funding hasn’t been in vain.” He smiled, sat back, sliding his wine glass off the table. He winked at Gideon and took a sip.

Slapping him would have been wonderful. Slapping him so hard his neck broke would have been better. I sipped at my water. Soon enough.

“I take it you’re referring to Morta.”

I could almost see the words, “Of course I am, you idiot,” floating over Victor’s head. “Naturally. That is, if what you’re telling me is true about her training session today.”

Now the words, “No, I’m lying…moron,” seemed to float over Gideon’s. How entertain these two were! “It is. Every detail.”

“Well, we already knew she was a dead-shot, but now with this new rifle and her added psionic ability, it seems we have an impressive weapon to offer the troops.”

Gideon nodded, but gave me a sideways glance, his body tense. I considered him for a moment…oh my god! He was offended! Not by me, but by the way Victor was talking about me! Stranger than strange…

Victor was babbling again. “I haven’t told them her age or gender, but when they see what she can do, it won’t matter.”

“Are you sure about that? And is she bullet-proof? Or bomb-proof?”

Was he concerned because he cared, or because I would be hard to replace?

Victor shook his head. “Neither, but she might as well be. I’d like to see someone try to hit her with a bullet – with anything at all, for that matter.” He chuckled and drank some more wine.

Hilarious. Ha, ha, ha. Yes, I could move fast enough to avoid a bullet, even a storm of them if necessary. But a bomb? We’d experimented with that a bit, but a lot of work remained for me to feel confident I could escape a much larger blast than they’d been using on me.

Gideon was nodding. “I see. The reaction of the soldiers should be interesting. What if she’s captured?”

“Ah, that’s where her new abilities can really come into play!”

At that point, being discussed as if I were elsewhere no longer bothered me. I wouldn’t have spoken to Victor in any event, but the way Gideon kept casting glances at me told me it bothered him a great deal. How sweet. No, really. Yeah, I couldn’t have cared less.

The dress was annoying me. I wanted to take it off, but knew Gideon’s reaction would be somewhere between physical excitement and fury, which in turn would get me punished by Victor in ways that could precipitate me killing him far sooner than I’d planned. Killing Victor – the greatest thrill of my existence. What happened to me after that would be an anti-climax, a big yawn.

“Morta, I think we’re done here. You’ll have three more days to practice with the rifle and hone your psionics, especially the newest ones, and then you’ll be escorted to an Army base from which you’ll be deployed on a mission. Think you’re ready?”

Think you can stop trying to get me to speak? I nodded.

“Excellent. Please go to the practice area now and spend the next two hours working with the new rifle, end with your strength training, and then go to bed.”

I glared, flashing a downward glance at my outfit.

“Ah, the dress. I don’t care. If you’re comfortable working out in it, fine. You can practice naked if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you don’t mind being ogled by the guards and other personnel.” This time, Victor smirked.

“BASTARD.” I stood, pulled the dress off over my head, dumped it on the table, and went out.

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Publication Date: 09-09-2016

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