The Basement Complex was much smaller than the other wards, and not a single inch of its cramped interior was wasted. It consisted of a single windowless corridor, with six doors lining each side, and it was brightly lit with dozens of fluorescent bulbs. The ceiling was a series of winding metal pipes as thick as pythons, while the floors and walls were made of shiny white tile. It was like being on board the damn mother ship. There was also a common area for socializing purposes, but it was a small space with only a few chairs and plants, shoved in the corner like an afterthought. Only three people could comfortably fit in it at one time. It was hard to feel any sense of privacy---which was probably the whole point.
Sophia’s own room wasn’t much better. It was slightly larger than a roomy closet; the only furniture was a bed and a dresser. The lack of fresh air was lamely compensated for by the presence of a small humidifier on top of the dresser. The small sphere glowed softly in the dark at night, and she would spend hours gazing at the shadows it cast on her wall. During the day, it was periodically re-filled by a surly looking man in grey scrubs. She tried to ask him for his name several times, but he had only grunted at her and left the room. As time passed, she discovered that what she missed most was having a window. She felt like she had been down here for years; the absence of natural light and seasons made it difficult to determine much beyond that.
Clara came down every day and personally escorted her to her Mastery Sessions---though truthfully they were more like standoffs. Clara would try to get her to perform mental surgery on the unlucky patient of the day, and Sophia would tell her to kiss her ass. The doctor would then reach into her pocket, extracting a vial filled with a drug Sophia learned was called praetereo. Jamming her full of this swill was one of Clara’s favorite methods of discipline; it made Sophia’s skin feel like it was being bitten by thousands of microscopic spiders. She woke up on the floor more times than she could count, scratching her arms until they bled beneath her fingers. Even when she was spared this particular ordeal, she felt lethargic and useless on a daily basis. Maybe it was the lack of sun and fresh air. Or maybe they were drugging her without her knowledge. Either way, there wasn’t much she could do about it.
The worst part was that despite her valiant efforts at resistance, hunger would eventually take over, and she would give in and feed on whoever was brought to her room later that evening (usually the same person she had refused to “eat” earlier). Reynolds’ sneering voice echoed through her head: You’ve never been truly hungry before, have you, Sophia? Turned out he was right. So much for taking a grand moral stand. It made her hate herself more than she already did.
***
Her dreams were punctured by horrible nightmares again, and so eventually she stopped sleeping. She would sit bolt upright in bed, deliberately making herself uncomfortable, and stare at the glowing humidifier on her dresser. Her waking thoughts weren’t much better than the dreams. All she could think about was the people she wanted to see and couldn’t. She wondered what had happened to Felicity. Had Jack killed her by taking so much of her Time, or was she locked up somewhere enduring God knows what? She missed Val. And Sybill. And Mom. And Jude. She had tried to project to him multiple times, but it was no use. His signal was obscured, locked behind mental obstructions that made projecting feel like swimming through syrup. She thought about how her mother’s power had been described as some kind of psychic “wall.” Was Clara creating something similar around the Basement Complex? Sophia had tried projecting to other residents on the floor, but that didn’t work either. It was like the ability had simply...left her.
***
“How many times do we have to do this, Sophia?” Clara said coolly.
Sophia was lying on the floor, scratching her arms raw as she clawed at the invisible insects, her body twitching as the hellish swill coursed its way through her veins. Clara was still talking. She sounded like she had a mouth full of cotton balls. Sophia struggled to focus.
“…once you’ve decided to be reasonable.”
The door slammed and there was a long silence. After what felt like years, the feeling of crawling insects receded. Sophia’s skin was cold and smeared with blood; her stomach rumbled loudly. She dragged herself into a sitting position, her face burning with shame and anger. Groaning, and entertaining vivid fantasies of Clara getting thrown out a window, Sophia hauled her aching body into bed. She stared up at the ceiling, panting with exhaustion. Tiny spots popped before her eyes. Coming down from the injections was almost as bad as the effects of the injections themselves. She wished she could talk to Jude. She hoped to sweet baby Christ that he was okay, that they hadn’t done anything to hurt him just to spite her. Reynolds had already drugged and murdered one of her friends; he clearly wasn’t above such tactics. She wished she could reach out to his mind and warn him, or at least check on him, but they still weren’t working and these stupid drugs weren’t making anything easier---
Wait. The drugs.
She sat bolt upright, wincing at the ensuing throbbing headache. When had they started giving her praetereo? Was it around the time she had lost her ability to project? She tried to think. Clara had been jamming that needle into her arm ever since her transfer to the Basement Complex. It was always under the guise of Sophia being “defiant,” but if she became obedient, would the shots suddenly stop?
She put her theory to the test when Clara came in later with her next “meal.” This time, it was Samantha. When they entered, Clara looked at her with a challenging glint in her eye, but Sophia went and sat on her bed without comment.
“Let’s do this,” she sighed.
Clara cocked an eyebrow. “What, no soap box to climb up on this time?”
“Nope.”
“Did common sense finally kicked in?”
“More like an aversion to that shit being in my veins every day,” Sophia said moodily.
Clara smiled. “That is a good reason to behave.”
Sophia grunted. The Session proceeded as usual, leaving her feeling satiated but guilty. She was so ashamed that she couldn’t even look at Samantha the whole time.
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Clara strutted out, leading the little girl by the arm. Sophia lay back down on her bed and waited until they were all locked in their rooms for the night before trying her projection powers again. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, trying to block out the hum of the humidifier, the creaking pipes in the ceiling, the occasional groan from another resident through the walls. She willed herself to slip into the field of consciousness and find Jude’s thread, to mentally call out to him. Nothing. She tried again. Still nothing. After the seventh attempt, Sophia felt despair well up inside her chest like an inflating balloon. Had she really lost the ability? Panic ripped through her. She was going to rot down here for the rest of her life. She was going to be tortured and used for as long as Reynolds wanted and then she was going to be disposed of in any manner he chose. And there was nobody left in the world to care.
Sophia jumped up from her bed and rushed to the door with her fists raised.
“Let me out!” she screamed in panic, pummeling the wood with her fists. “Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
“Let me out! I don’t belong here! Let me out!”
Bam! Bam!
“Let me out!”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She broke the skin on her knuckles. Blood streaked across the door. But she kept banging. Pummeling. Shrieking. Until---
“Shut up!” A male voice bellowed. He pounded on the opposite side of the door. The whole thing shook. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll come in there with enough drugs to force you into a coma for the rest of your life!”
Sophia stumbled away from the door, biting her lips to keep herself from sobbing.
“You’re one of us now,” called a soft voice in the hallway. It was followed by loud laughter, which only ceased when the man bellowed for silence again.
Sophia curled up into a fetal position on the floor and did not move for hours. After a while she must have slept because she awoke with a start in the middle of the night. The room was dark and stuffy. The air thrummed with a noise she couldn’t locate. She blinked, willing the sleepy fog to leave her brain, and realized it was the humidifier. She stared at it with slitted, unfocused eyes. It seemed to float above the dresser, a sphere of pulsating yellow light, bobbing in the sea of darkness around her. Ripples of air stirred around the glowing orb. It was the steam pouring from its spout. Swirling in the blackness, catching the light, a net of gold on black…
Sophia sat up, wide wake now. The staff filled that thing up every morning. It spewed its steamy contents into her room all day long. She climbed to her feet, crossed the room, and picked up the humidifier. She paused for a moment, thinking, then she turned, went over to the toilet in the corner of her room, and emptied the humidifier’s contents into the bowl. She gave it three definitive flushes, and then stood watching as the swirling water took the poison down into the sewer where it belonged.
***
She emptied the humidifier every morning for a week. After the surly-looking man filled it and left the room, she would wait a few minutes before springing up and throwing its contents into the toilet. Clara had stopped giving her the shots---and now it was obvious why. She figured Sophia was still getting a full dosage of praetereo every day through their little friend on the dresser. It felt good to finally have the upper hand. You never knew how long it would last around this hellhole.
Then, one day, her powers came back.
After her first “meal” of the day, Sophia was staring at the humidifier, dark thoughts of revenge swirling around in her mind, when it suddenly flew backward and smashed into the wall. When she went over to inspect it, she saw that she had cracked it. She gently set it back down onto the dresser, then turned her gaze to one of the pillows on her bed. It sprang into the air and slapped against the door before falling to the ground with a gentle thud. Sophia grinned, feeling giddy, and looked down at it. After a few seconds it rose into the air and floated back over to her bed.
***
Hey, loser.
Sophia? Jesus Christ! Man…it feels good to have you in my head. Now THERE’S something I’d never thought I’d say.
I hope I’m not interrupting anything.
Just my morning shit.
Lovely. So how’s life above?
I’m surprised you’re still alive. Everyone is saying you lost it and that’s why they locked you up. What’s it like down there?
Sophia smiled. Despite his breezy tone, she could feel Jude’s profound relief. It expanded like a cool dewy cloud across his mind. She tried to match his nonchalance as she projected back:
It sucks monkey nuts. Clara is a psycho and Reynolds is her dark lord.
I’m surprised. They both always seemed so sunny.
I gotta get outta here.
Understatement of the year, sweetheart. I can help you with---
With a gasp, she opened her eyes and found herself on the floor, her nose smashed against the ground. She had overdone it again. But the sound of Jude’s voice was burned in her mind. She felt a pinprick of hope flare up and burn from deep within her chest. She had a lifeline out of this mental and emotional prison. She had won---for now.
***
You’re getting pretty good at this, Soph.
Where are you?
As far I can get outside the building. You don’t recognize it?
You’re next to a tree. There are a lot of those.
I’m in the garden, smartass.
Oh, hey, nice.
What’s your end game with all this anyway?
I need practice stretching my boundaries. Eventually I wanna be able to contact someone outside the facility.
You mean like the cops?
Maybe. I might know a guy.
I’d trust a tarantula in my pants before I’d trust them. They won’t do jack shit..
But they’ve investigated Reynolds before. He’s gotta be on a list or something. A few have even visited the Institute, remember?
Yeah and clearly it came to something because Reynolds is behind bars now. Oh wait.
You know what, Fitzpatrick? I never thought I’d find something uglier than your face, but then your attitude comes along and eureka.
Well before you came into my life blowing sunshine out your ass, I used to do stupid things like engage in self-care.
Sounds boring.
You know what, it really was.
They lapsed into a comfortable mental silence. Sophia toyed with the connection, enjoying how it felt to keep their signals entwined. It was an intimate sensation, like dancing with someone without quite touching them. After a while she started to feel a little strange, so she said:
How are you doing anyway? They aren’t threatening you or anything, right?
What? Sophia? You there?
Ah—yeah, shit-----
She opened her eyes. She was breathing hard. It took over an hour for the headache to subside this time.
***
One night, when she was trying---yet again--- to avoid sleeping, Sophia went through the box Clara had brought down from her old room. She was surprised they let her keep all her old stuff. The notebook Reynolds had given her a long time ago, filled with her mother’s research, was still there, as were a few art books and her old therapy journal. She wondered if Reynolds or Clara had read it to make sure there wasn’t anything incriminating. Then again, perhaps they didn’t care if there was because in the end, it didn’t matter. She was their doll, and they could make her dance whenever they liked. The fact that they weren’t wrong made her vision go red.
But they had underestimated her. Reynolds knew she was powerful, but at the end of the day, he thought she was nothing but a Defective. He was too arrogant to think that she might pose a real threat to him. She’d make him regret it.
She was going to burn this place to the fucking ground.