The Institute

Everleigh was huddled in the concrete corner. She looked around her gray, concrete cell. She was "special"; usually the cell doors were made of glass or steel bars, depending on what contained the lonal best. But Everleigh had concrete everything: door, ceiling, floor, walls.... She shuddered, her entire back cracking at the movement; the large pops echoing off the thick walls. She felt claustrophobic, and she brought her slim legs up to flat chest, and wrapped her bony arms around them. Her body went into a series of never ending shivers and her sensitive throat began to itch. She rubbed her long, thin neck with her pale skeletal fingers; willing the itchiness to stop.

Everleigh closed her eyes, the itching wouldn't stop, and her shivering subsided. She held herself tightly, slightly rocking back and forth. She didn't want to be in this small, horrible cell. She wanted out; she wanted to be elsewhere. Yet, Everleigh didn't know what elsewhere was. She only knew three places: her cell, the lab, and the interaction room. She knew the corridors and the elevators, but she didn't consider those places. However, those were the only places Everleigh knew existed in reality. Everleigh began to put herself back in her nightmare world: a barren wasteland filled with rotting animal corpses.

Her breathing quickened as she relived that fear of a scientist: the maggots were crawling, burrowing into her hair and tunneling into her ears, eyes, and mouth; blood sucking butterflies and moths; the stench of her body slowly rotting. This gruesome nightmare held more comfort to Everleigh than her cell; than this prison. Everleigh let no sound escape her, and she didn't tremble; slowly, Everleigh became still and silent. Her breathing was so slow, it was if she weren't breathing at all. As Everleigh delved deeper into the nightmare, her body calmed itself.

A loud thud of concrete against concrete broke Everleigh back into her cruel reality. A male guard roughly kicked Everleigh to her side, her head banging against the wall, and snatched her frail looking arm, harshly making the young girl stand up. The guard then dragged the thirteen year old lonal out of her cell. Everleigh kept up with the guard's brisk pace, but every once in awhile the guard would yank Everleigh's arm to be cruel. Everleigh was used to this treatment. They continued down the corridor, prisoner and prison-keeper. The concrete floor was cold and hard against Everleigh's bare feet, but she didn't mind it.

Soon, the guard practically threw Everleigh into the interaction room, shutting and locking the large titanium door. Everleigh got to her feet, and looked about her surroundings, seeing other lonals. Quietly, Everleigh went to a free corner, and sat down. Her only plans were to get back to her horrible nightmare, since any nightmares were much better than the tests that were about to be done on them at any second.

Marston Elzac, a loner lonal, was in his cell. Metal at the touch but gives a shock for Marston. HIs power, teleportation, his weakness, electricity. As he was sitting on a rubber chair. He heard footsteps echoing, and saw a guard. The guard opened the cell and grabbed Marston by the collar of his shirt. "Go, now!" the guard ordered.

As Marston was getting out, the guard put handcuffs on Marston. He knew what this meant, 'try anything funny, and I'll shock you.' They walked down the corridor and finally made to the interaction room. The guard uncuffed Marston and pushed him into the room. He saw Everleigh, but not anyone else. He walked towards a wall and sat down. HIs wall, where he always sits. He looked at Everleigh. "'Sup?" he asked.

Bille paced the small, dank room she had been rudely thrown into only twenty four hours previously. She was extremely bored and wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Billie had heard about the institutes and wisely stayed as far away from them as possible. Now due to a stupid accident she had wound up inside the belly of the beast. She replayed the events of her capture in her head cursing herself for her idiocy.
It had started off as a normal day, she crawled out of the cave she had been sleeping in and set off in search for food and water. She squinted at the crude map she had recently aquired off a cartographer for a brace of rabbits. A small dot signified a nearby town which hopefully would have access to clean water. After an hour's walk and a short meal of ginginberries she reached the unamed town. It was very rare for towns to be named nowadays as they come and go so quickly. Billie never went near towns or cities with names because it usually meant they had been standing for a while and had a chance to become prosperous. Prosperous cities meant that there would be soldiers. Soldiers with technology that could detect a lonal like her.
It took only one small glance at the town to realise the cartographer was working for the soldiers. Instead of a quiet little hamlet she had stumbled into the outer reaches of an institute. She was too trusting, she realised that and the little old man who had given her the map had played her like a violin. An alarm went off within the sompound before she even had a chance to turn around. As she sprinted through the forest of dead trees she heard the distinct whine of the soldiers hover bikes. Billie glanced around desperately in hopes of finding cover but there was nothing but baked dirt and burnt up wood. The only thing she could do was fight and maybe get a hold of a hover bike herself. The soldiers didn't even come within striking range before they began shooting tranquilizer darts at her. The first impacted the ground next to her left foot and the second she deflected using her telekinesis. The men's minds were out of reach for her to take control of and the bikes were far too heavy for her to move with her mind. Only a few seconds passed before she was hit in the thigh and then she took another to her shoulder. She had a brief sensation of falling before she woke up strapped to a table.
Billie shivered at the memory. She had been so terrified. Waking up and being trapped in an unfamiliar room with cold metal pressed against the bare skin of her back. Fortunately, they had left her bra and underwear on and for that she was grateful. Billie kicked the wall of her cell. She was frustrated. After the intial examination which hadn't been too intrusive the only fun she had had was when they had thrown her into a room with a bunch of man in heavy body armor. She assumed they had wanted to know the extent of her powers and she was all too willing to show. She managed to take down two guys before the rest took her out. Now she estimated it to be six hours later and her stomach was growling like a wild thing. There was a groaning noise from outside the cell before the metallic door slid back to reveal a heavy set man with short blonde hair.
"Finally!" exclaimed Billie. "Do you have any idea how starving I am?"
"Shutup!" said the man as he struck Billie heavily across the face. "You will come with me." The man grabbed her by the wrist and hoisted her up before shoving her roughly out the cell. Billie didn't attempt to fight back she was still weak from the fight earlier and she was certain that the water they had given her had been drugged. Since drinking it she had been unable to sense the minds of anyone nearby and she had not even been able to telekinetically move a small pebble she had found in the corner of the cell.
Billie shuddered at the screams that emanated from nearby doorways. She was thankful that her cell had been virtually soundproof. The simple black dress they had thrown onto her itched like mad but she resisted the urge to scratch in case Mr. Slappy behind her wanted a round two. It didn't matter because he decided to hit her anyway when she accidently walked passed the door which she was supposed to go through. The guard threw her into the new room and slammed the shut behind her.
"You have serious anger management issues!" she yelled at the large, metal door. There was a loud bang from the other side of the door in response and then silence. Billie looked around the room and was surprised to see two other people with her. One was a guy who gave her cheeky grin. He was kinda cute. The other was a skinny girl who was hugging herself tightly in a corner. She kept rocking and had her eyes tightly shut. Billie wasn't the most meaty of girls but this girl made her look obese. She smiled at the guy and leaned against the wall opposite him.
"Hi I'm Billie, whoare you guys?"

A double shift. Brilliant, just what she wanted out of life.

Operative Fox stood in front of her locker, tying her hair back into a low ponytail, hoping to keep it from her face....and minimize the likelihood of anyone getting a handful of it. She was a tall, quite athletic woman, a form built through honest work...as supposed to any sort of deliberate training. In some ways she still had that...although working on the ranch was considerably different from manning such a place.

It was certainly more dangerous.

She drew her kevlar vest from the locker and strapped it around her torso, checking the velcro fastenings with care that there wasn't a gap left that someone could stick a shard of glass or a stolen scalpel. It seemed clear. Her stab vest had saved her enough times that she didn't like going on duty without it...not that it'd help her against powers though.

Finally she hooked her cross pendant from the top shelf, saying a quick prayer before clipping it round her neck and stuffing it into her shirt. An appeal for protection could not hurt considering the sort of things she faced every day.

Suited and booted, Lyda Fox made her way out of the locker room to take a loot at the rota. It had a tendency to change in a rather erratic fashion. 'Fox, L.: Pick up 24, transport to Interaction.'
Simple enough.


Lyda made her way to Doctor Beckett's laboratory. That was generally one of her least favorite times of the day....despite being one of the safest. Beckett had something of an attitude, and she didn't really care for it. On the bright side, at least the subject in question was pretty easy to deal with. Caddie was always pretty placid, if not friendly.

If only more of them could be like that.

------
An old, halogen bar light buzzed somewhere overhead, its light failing to bring a healthy illumination in the room, bathing it in more of a sickly grey, metallic sort of glow. The room was quite small and unadorned, the linoleum floor starting to come away slightly from the concrete beneath, and small chips of paint beginning to pull away from the plaster. It was far from squalid, but had a sort of under-tended quality to it.

Caddie sat on the edge of the table, swinging her bandaged feet back and fourth while she held onto the layers of gauze and tape fastened over her ribs. It was hidden by her dress, though she doubtlessly felt it. Beckett's latest 'adjustment', of which there had been many. She'd gotten fairly used to her form being altered. She couldn't count the number of changes...not that that meant a lot considering how prone she was to forgetting things.

Doctor Beckett was sweeping about in the middle distance, busying herself with some other matter of great importance. Their relationship was not a hostile one...though neither was it an especially close one. They had a mutual agreement to a degree. Caddie behaved herself and tolerated the acts of vivisection exacted on her, and in return she was allowed a measure of freedom, insofar that she could wander around Beckett's laboratory when it suited her.

She tipped her head back, gazing up at the halogen bar light overhead, lifting her hand in order to see the rays beam through the layers of crepe bandage, showing the shadows of her slender fingers beneath. She fancied if the light were brighter she might see further...to the muscles and tendons beneath.

The Lonal was shaken from her reverie by a knock on the door.

Lyda stepped through moments after, much to the chagrin of Doctor Beckett, who looked over in distaste.
"Can I help you?"

"Miss Beckett, I got orders to take 24 over here to interaction."

The Doctor rolled her eyes irritably.
"That's Doctor Beckett to you, Fox. I didn't study for nearly a decade to be called 'Miss."

Lyda bit the inside of her cheek, deciding not to rise to it.
"Alright Doctor Beckett, can I take her now?"

"Fine. Go ahead."



Lyda rather gratefully let the Good Doctor get back to her good works, and turned her attention to the girl perched on the edge of the table.
"C'mon, hurry up. I'm due up on floor D in ten minutes. Don't wanna upset the boss man." Lyda responded.

Caddie hopped over to the guard and followed her into the corridor. They walked along quietly, and the Lonal made no attempt to run off of go after Lyda. She never did. In general Caddie could be trusted to behave herself, and so Miss Fox was happy to let her guard down.

Soon they reached the interaction room and Lyda snapped her cardkey through the lock before allowing the subject to step in.

Caddie looked round with a start as the door shut, giving a dull metallic thud. She discovered herself in a room, facing several other people. She had some recollection of one or two of them, but the young woman's general social ineptitude didn't really make for a very productive time when she was called to interact with her kin.

Leant forwards, one hand to her ribs...which felt a little..unstable for lack of a better word, she lifted her hand and gave a tentative wave to the others.
"Hi there!" she greeted, taking on a characteristically upbeat tone.
"My name's um...Cadwyn...Caddie...everyone calls me Caddie...not that there's that many everyone....there's Mis- Doctor Beckett...and Miss Fox....and...you three...so...you can call me Caddie."

She had rather a tendency to ramble, especially when nervous, and this sort of thing made her nervous. Generally, she was pretty certain of what was expected of her...but this interaction thing....she was never quite sure what she was supposed to be doing.

Everleigh stayed quiet, casting her dark gaze around the room. She ignored the boy who had spoken to her, her throat couldn't deal with him right now. She didn't even look at the new girl, with brown hair, or the small 8 year old. However, she did focus her attention to Lyda. Everleigh didn't feel like talking to other other lonals, or listening to them. She knew what this was: a test to see how lonals could act with one another after being imprisoned for so long; or if they would be the "savages" the scientists always said they were to be. Suddenly, Everleigh snarled to herself, irritation in her eyes.

Her mind wandered across the group, realizing more were to come. How many others would she have to deal with? She counted six guards in the room, that meant at least two more were to come. She stood up and began pacing the length of the room, her pugnicious behavior getting the best of Everleigh. Everleigh's hair whipped around her face as she stalked back and forth across the room before she rudely shoved past a guard. Everleigh was known for this behavior of indecency, so the guard quickly took the butt of his hand gun and used it to strike Everleigh across the face.

From the force, Everleigh fell to her knees and spat blood; black blood. Her spine jutted out from the thin fabric of her clothing and she shuddered. She breathed heavily, then slowly, calming herself. She was put back into her place; she was no longer fiery. This was how Everleigh was trained to calm down: physical abuse. She slowly stood up, already a purple mark forming on her cheek and she went back to her corner, and sat down... as if nothing had happened.

"You can call me Caddie," said the little girl. Billie smiled and held out her hand, "Hi Caddie, I'm Billie, this is Marston and I don't actually know the name of the girl in the corner." Caddie gave a tenative smile and shook Billie's hand gingerly.
"Her name's Everleigh," whispered Marston. The girl in the corner, Everleigh, suddenly stood up and began to pace around the room before shoving one of the guards. The guard violently attacked her and Billie and Caddie gasped as the girl's spine suddenly jutted out from her clothes. A few silent seconds passed before Everleigh stood up and sat back down in her corner. Billie whirled around and shouted at the guard, "What the hell is your problem? She didn't hurt you there was no need to attack her like that!" The guard didn't hesitate to hit Billie over the head with his rifle and she fell to the ground. Her head was throbbing and she was about to get up and give the guard a piece of her mind when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Marston, "Don't bother. These assholes won't listen, to them we're just mindless animals that need to be beaten when they get aggressive and sometimes when they're docile."
"Well that's awesome," said Billie rubbing the side of her head. She could already feel a massive bump coming up.
"I'm guessing you're a newbie huh," said Marston.
"Yeah, I've only been here a day and I already want to get the hell out of here," she smiled. "How long have you guys been here or don't or I want to know?"

(I'm really sorry dudedude889, first time doing this, I didn't know, I won't do it again I promise)
Billie smiled at Caddie. She seemed really sweet, a little scrambled perhaps but sweet.
"That's awful. I can't believe you've been here that long." Billie shook her head in disgust, she'd heard rumours of the institutes and the horrors within but now she was going to see the cold truth. She wanted to ask Caddie about her parents but decided that would be rude and so for the moment refrained.
"I think when this Beckett said 'in one ear and out the other' she meant it as a figure of speech. As in you don't retain information for very long. It stays in your head for a few seconds and then you forget it. I'm pretty sure you have a brain," she laughed. She took a quick gaze around the room, Everleigh hadn't moved and Marston seemed to be sleeping. She didn't say anything to either of them, there was nothing she could say that would help comfort them. She knew nothing about the trials and tribulations that they had endured. Still she wished she could beat up the trigger happy guards. But without her powers there was no chane of that happening. She scratched at her shoulder. This dress was itching like mad, and it wasn't flattering at all. She looked across at Caddie who was staring at her. The girl looked like she needed some human interaction. Well lonal interaction. Actually interaction of any kind looked like it'd do good.
"So who is this Beckett you mentioned?"

Caddie edged over slightly in the direction of the new arrival, Billie. It was a very nice change to find someone speaking to her, let alone speaking to her in a civil way, and it ignited her enthusiasm, increasing her willingness to talk, particularly considering the fact that she'd been asked a direct question. It was only polite to answer. If her time with Beckett had taught her nothing else positive, it had instilled in her the value of courtesy.

"Beckett is uh...I dunno what the term is." she admitted.

"She's a Doctor...a very smart Doctor with degrees and certificates and a white coat and everything. Has some lab rooma to herself...and that's where I am most of the time...'cept when Miss Fox takes me here and I just kinda sit around and wait for an hour or something. Been with Doctor Beckett since I was way younger....since before I can remember I guess. She says I'm her...er...project. Says she wants to improve me...and that the reason for all of this stuff..."

She lifted her arm to indicate the various layers of bloodstained bandage, gauze, a surgical tape tied around her forearm in a haphazard fashion, to the point that all the skin on her arms and hands was entirely obscured.

"She says she made me faster...and stronger. Sometimes end up doing tests to see if that's right. Don't mind having to run...or jump..or swim...or break stuff...but I don't like it when I have to kill rats...I kinda like rats and I feel bad after that. I don't think Beckett minds killing rats...I've seen loads of dead ones in her freezer...but Beckett has a lot of weird things in her freezer...she once told me if I didn't shut up she'd put me in there."

Caddie seemed a little surprised by Billie's reaction to her explanation. She'd never really though of her situation as especially unfortunate....not that she had a whole lot to compare it to, she couldn't actually remember any other sort of life.

She shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't mind, I guess. It kinda uh...hurts sometimes...but it could be worse right? Yeah...it could be worse."

Life with Beckett was not exactly pleasant. It ranged from neutral to horrific from an objective standpoint....but for Caddie it offered her stability and a level of certainty in her life. She liked having some sort of structure to her life, and Beckett provided that for her...but at the expense that she was stuck as the subject of vivisection at the hands of the doctor. She knew what to expect.often what she had to expect was bad...but she'd gone through it all long before and had become used to most of what Beckett did to her.

"Don't really want to make trouble....get into fights...like some people do." she added after a moment, beginning to toy with the bandages on her hand in an absent-minded fashion.

"Caddie," Billie gazed into the girl's eyes intensly trying to convey a level of deadly seriousness, "It could be better. I've traveled to so many places in my life, met a lot of people and none of their lives compares to yours. Everybody I've spoken to have had better lives than yours. Could it be worse, sure but not by much. Sometimes in life you've got to fight, you've got to be cruel to make the world a better place. You could..." Billie drifted off. She just realised that there wasn't really much Caddie could do. There wasn't much she, Billie, could do to remedy the situation. Billie finally came to the conclusion that she might be stuck here forever and end up like Caddie, or Everleigh or any one of the hundreds of poor people looked up in this giant torture chamber. If she had been scared before it paled in comparison to the terror she now felt. Caddie was staring thoughtfully at her face. Billie hurridly smiled, "Don't worry Caddie there's always hope." Though she said this more to comfort herself than Caddie.

Marston was lying unconcious on the floor before she even had a chance to respond. She glared at the guard who had tasered him but held her tongue. It wouldn't do any good to have two unconcious bodies in here.
"Don't worry Marston," she whispered softly. "There's always been hope and there always will be. That's the one thing they can't take away from us." Although hope comforted her, it didn't technically help set her free. But as long as her hope was strong her fire would continue burning.
There was a sudden clicking noise from the corner of the room. A young girl stepped out of the shadows and walked slowly towards Marston's body. Billie stayed silent mesmerised this strange, little girl who had seemingly materialised from nowhere. She must have been there the whole time without her knowing. She would have been able to sense her if her powers had been working but the assholes had taken that away from her for the time being thanks to that stupid, drugged water.
The girl felt Marston's face as though searching for something hidden in his countenance. A guard suddenly stepped aggressively towards the girl and she let forth an ear splitting shriek. Billie grabbed her ears and groaned in pain. When the terrible noise had abated Billie withdrew her hands from her ringing ears, her right hand was red with blood. She could still hear well enough but her ears throbbed painfully. She knew she was out of her depth, should she join in the fight?

Billie decided that fighting was her best bet. Hope was a thing to be shared and by golly she was going to give it to these poor bastards. She sweeped her leg round taking down the guard nearest to her and leapt to her feet. She snatched up the taser the guard the little shrieking girl had taken down and without missing a beat tasered a guard who was barreling towards her. Caddie was muttering something about rats and doves when suddenly cracks erupted all around her sending up clouds of dust.
"You...you really should not b-be doing that..." said Caddie nervously as Billie brought her knee into one of the guards groins and sent him down with an elbow to the back of the neck. Suddenly a guard was on her and they were grappling with each other on the floor.
"Caddie," she spluttered. "There's a world of doves and happy rodents out there, outside the walls of this hellhole." The guard punched her in the eye and Billie suddenly saw stars. She brought her knees underneath the guard and sent him flying over her head. She got up carefully trying to keep her balance.
"You have to help me," she pleaded. "If you use your powers I promise I'll take you to a place full of adorable, little creatures who you won't have to harm. You could be happy and have lots of animal friends if you just help me." The guard grabbed her around the stomach and drove her forcefully into the wall behind her knocking the air out of her lungs.
"Caddie!" she cried desperately.