Trouble Is My Middle Name

[Jane Doe]

Jane was in one of someone else’s moods. She hated when that happened, but sometimes control just wasn’t enough. Sometimes people were just so angry or distraught that it seeped through like raindrops past a leaky roof. In these situations she would rather hear their thoughts than feel their emotions because at least with thoughts she knew what was going on and wasn’t left wondering. Her telepathy told her why someone was sad or angry and then the case was closed with no loose ends. Her empathy just thrust random emotions onto her with no direction or reason. Not only could she feel the emotions of whomever in the make shift casino was the most devastated but those emotions became her own. She herself was nervous and upset even though she was winning. Well, she wasn’t winning per se so much as someone had hired her to make sure they won. Jane didn’t mind because she was getting a cut of the money and she didn’t really know how to play any of these fancy card games.

She sighed lightly and pulled her eyes off of the crowds that were causing her such distress. She needed to focus on the game. Even a few seconds of distraction could cause them to lose a hand and in turn Jane would lose her head. She brought her hand up against her face and ran her knuckles along her jawbone at the very thought. She didn’t want that. She really didn’t want that. Forcing a smile she placed her small hands on the card table and gripped it tightly trying to push these negative emotions out of her tiny body and into the area around her. Maybe she could make them mess with the minds of the other card players just as her mind had been messed with. It wasn’t her main objective though so she really didn’t put too much thought into that.

She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Sometimes it was difficult to manage. It was simple to lock her mind up save for the occasional knock on her mental door that echoed past and inside, but opening up again was a lot harder. It was especially harder to open up and only try to get one or two minds and not the whole bunch of them hounding her at once. She had to go slow and tentative like. Her eyes flickered off of each of their stoic poker faces. They were all mobsters or gangsters or whatever they called themselves. Jane only had one word for them: dangerous. She knew more about how dangerous some of them could be then anyone, after all she was the one running around inside their heads and catching glimpses of what they were thinking about. Her only thoughts before she opened the floodgates completely were that she hoped they were all just thinking about poker this time. It would make things so much simpler that way.

At the end of it all Jane felt like the mobster she had worked with was putting on a little too much of a show. She thought he looked a little too shocked he had won, but that was just her opinion. She wasn’t here to critic his acting skills. She wanted her money and then she wanted out. He looped his arm around her skinny waist and grinned at her. She smiled weakly at his pockmarked face. She already knew he wasn’t attracted to her from thoughts he hadn’t even bothered to hide so she wasn’t scared of anything like that. Jane still didn’t like his hands touching her. He wheeled her around to the front of the table for the other men to see. “My lucky charm,” he laughed at them before taking her and the money out onto the docks where his car was parked. Jane was just glad this was all winding down.

“Nicely done, kid, nicely done,” he said while counting the money in his backseat. Jane stood outside the car of course. She wasn’t afraid of certain things from him but she was still afraid of him. She did trust him to give her the cut she deserved. It wasn’t the first time they had done business. She figured it wouldn’t be the last either. Originally, she had thought she would circulate between the men but once this one had seen what she could do for him he hadn’t exactly been willing to let her go giving her gift away. She assumed that if she helped others that he could also be accused of cheating and would probably be murdered. She wondered if she would be too. “I'll see you next week.” He said finally handing over the wad of bills. Jane took it and stuffed into her jacket pocket. “Buy yourself some new clothes, kid, you look horrible.”

Jane stayed on the docks, wandering around aimlessly. That was something she did well. She glanced down at her tattered tights and dirty boots. She could afford to buy new clothes but what was really the point. She wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Maybe next time she would make him think she had on nicer clothes just so she wouldn’t have to hear him talk about it. Carelessly she began to bite her already bitten nails, her eyes staring at nothing in particular as she roamed in the darkness. A young girl with so much money on her in a bad part of town… Jane Doe seemed to just be asking for trouble.

[Legion]

The small dockside "casino", if a seedy dive with a few card tables and a questionable alcohol selection could even be called that, was populated with the usual riff-raff that frequented Anglia's dilapidated harbour district that night. While the more "respectable" members of the criminal community gathered inside, where street thugs and gang-bangers didn't dare cross their cousins higher on the food chain, the environs surrounding the small establishment were fair game. In general, the human vermin who hung about behind stacks of forgotten crates and inside long-abandoned storehouses were smart enough not to target anyone who came out of that place. No matter how alone and vulnerable they might look, chances were they were under the protection of some mobster or hitman who wouldn't take lightly to petty muggers messing with their girls and the like. Then again, the maze of piers, platforms, stacks and structures wasn't exactly a high-surveillance area. It wasn't unheard of for one of the mobsters' guests to get lost on the walk home, even if they'd been to the docks many times before - and it was in those situations that identities were mistaken and "accidents" happened.

As was often the case when a young woman like Jane Doe asked for trouble, it didn't take long for trouble to answer. The two darkened forms that detached themselves from the long shadow cast by a nearby lamp post were either particularly daring, or particularly new to the turf; the mobster hangout wasn't even out of sight before they began to stalk the girl. They did have the presence of mind to keep their distance, however, letting Jane lead them deeper into the derelict section of town until they were sure there were no witnesses before they made their move. While one of the shadow-cloaked men quickened his pace to close on Jane from behind, the other ducked into a warehouse and ran ahead to slip through a door on the other side and cut off any potential escape from the front. Within a few strides, the thug stalking the young woman from behind had caught up with her enough to be confident to address her. "Hay! Gehl!" he shouted in a loud, clear voice heavy with a nearly impenetrable Bostonian accent. "Slow dahn a minnit, sweet heaht! We wanna toalk to ya!"

The second vagrant stepped out of the shadows directly in Jane's path, his ugly, scarred features and gap-toothed grin seeming to take on an almost inhuman quality in the faint moonlight. He was easily the smaller of the two, though he tried - unsuccessfully - to hide the shortcomings of his stature under a bulky, out-of-season winter coat. "Me and my buddy saw you leaving the mob's little clubhouse back there, and we figured we ought to... introduce ourselves." This man was, mercifully, much easier to understand, though that came as a mixed blessing when he spoke again and punctuated his words by brandishing a slim pocket knife. "'Course, how well we get to know each other depends on how thick that stack of bills you got is."

[Jane Doe]

Jane was used to traveling in seedy parts of town. Those were the easiest parts to make money in. The nicer the neighborhood the more the people wanted to know about you and Jane couldn’t give them that information. It wasn’t that she was withholding anything either she just didn’t have any information to give them. She could tell a person what she ate (or didn’t eat) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She could tell a person her assumed name and how many people she had talked to in the past weeks. She could tell a person the last town she stayed in and whether she liked it better or worse than where she was now. Those things were easy to remember. Those things were simple and unimportant and no one ever asked about them. People always wanted to know the difficult questions like how old was she, where was she from, where were her parents, what was her real name. Those kinds of questions made her head hurt worse than a million screaming minds. They made Jane want to faint and sometimes she would find herself reacting violently to even being asked those questions.

That’s why Jane preferred the places like the docks. The dark places where people didn’t ask too many questions because they didn’t have answers for you either. Jane may commit petty crimes to earn her money but she would rather do that than remember. It was the lesser of two evils. Really, who was getting hurt by a little theft here or a little cheating there? Jane never did anything big. She would never murder or kidnap or rob a bank. She wasn’t strong enough to do any of those things and she certainly didn’t have the criminal mastermind needed to execute them. She barely had a mind for the things she was doing now. Putting a little more spring in her step Jane reached out a little with her emotions hoping to find someone happy nearby that would cheer her up. She still wasn’t quite right from the card game. People with gambling problems really knew how to depress her. Instead of finding even the slightest cheer Jane felt a chill run up her back. She spun around just as the first thug began to speak.

"Hay! Gehl! Slow dahn a minnit, sweet heaht! We wanna toalk to ya!"

Jane’s heart must have split in two because she felt it sink into her stomach and jump into her throat all at the same time. She turned her shaking frame back around hoping to be able to start off in her original direction, hoping there was another girl she hadn’t seen, hoping everything and anything anyone had ever hoped in situations like these. Of course, that only made it worse for her. She only made about two quickened strides before the other one appeared in her path and caused her to skid ungracefully to a stop on the slightly damp dock. Her knobby knees knocked together in what seemed to Jane as the loudest noise she had ever heard apart from her pounding heart and wheezing breathes. All together she must have sounded like a malfunctioned locomotive. The thought was so ludicrously calm in her mind that she almost smiled. She wished the gravity of the situation wasn’t hitting her so hard so that she could have at least done that.

"Me and my buddy saw you leaving the mob's little clubhouse back there, and we figured we ought to... introduce ourselves. Course, how well we get to know each other depends on how thick that stack of bills you got is."

The smile came, but at the completely wrong moment. It came as she watched him pull his pocket knife on her. Of course they wanted her money. Everyone wanted money. Couldn’t they have done this when she was near the casino with all the big tough men with guns and bodyguards and stuff? She would have been so much braver over there. She wouldn’t have needed to be brave over there because she would have been safe! She swallowed, pushing her heart back into her chest, and tried to angle herself so she could see both thugs. Where were the men in spandex when you needed them? Off rescuing scantily clad women, Jane answered herself.

“Say, guys,” she started hesitantly. Her voice was weak and wavered with nerves. “couldn’t we work something out that didn’t involve a knife?” She wanted to tack on that she wanted to keep her money as well but she decided that she would save that for later. It’s better to pull out the aces only when the time is right, after all. She exhaled. She calmed down. She could do this. She could do this Then, despite everything, she smiled an innocent smile that spread across her face plumped her cheeks to an even further childlike appearance. “What’s violence ever solved?” She questioned with a little confidence and a little more cheer. She couldn’t let the situation bring her down. She had to become happy and cheerful because as she was becoming happy and cheerful and friendly she was pushing the emotions onto the thugs. And praying that it would save her.

[Legion]

The small, ugly man standing in front of Jane didn't even pretend not to find her reaction to his sudden appearance the funniest thing he'd seen all day. He threw his head back and barked a cruel laugh as the girl stumbled about and laboured to recover her composure. This was the real rush for him; more so than the small sums of money he took in from mugging passers-by on the docks, he derived his real pleasure from making people afraid. He liked being a predator in this jungle of steel and concrete. He liked the wild, frantic look in his victims' eyes when he pulled that knife out. He liked how it made him feel like he was somebody, instead of nobody. The laughter soon faded, however, and his amused expression was replaced with a perplexed frown when the girl actually started smiling. Was this chick on drugs or something? That wouldn't be completely unreasonable - after all, who knew what the mobsters did with their whores in that place?

The thug appeared to actually consider Jane's suggestion that he put the weapon away, a momentary frown creasing his already wrinkled, leathery brow. She was just a skinny little prostitute, after all. Probably a heroin junkie, judging by her thin frame, selling her body out to the mob for drug money. Not exactly someone he ought to be afraid of. After a brief moment of consideration, the ugly man closed the knife and put it back in his pocket, then showed off his mangled teeth again in another wide, predatory grin. Of course, he thought it was all his idea... though from the way his larger partner narrowed his eyes at him, it was apparent the man behind Jane didn't share his logic. Not surprising - he was a big, dumb oaf anyway. "Alright, sweetheart. The knife's put away, and it'll stay away so long as you co-operate." The thug raised his other arm, and his open, waiting hand slid out of the bulky sleeve of his jacket. "Now, let's count that whore cash. Don't play stupid either, we seen that guy hand you a nice, big load."

Behind Jane, the big man with the accent snorted a laugh. The noise sounded more like it came from a pig than a human being. "Hah! Good one, Nahm."

[Jane Doe]

Jane felt relief hit her body so strong when the man put the knife away that she thought she would collapse. Things always seemed a little brighter when there wasn’t a weapon being waved around in your face. It’ll be easier now, she thought eagerly, to make them just go away. The jerks. She gave the small man, though he was still taller than her, another smile grateful that her plan had worked at least this far. With the knife out of the picture Jane could calm down at least a little bit. She could think more clearly, feel more clearly, and in the end deal with these two lowlifes the only way she was able to deal with anyone. Jane was too small and too thin to anyone on in a physical brawl. She relied on her ascendency in situations like this. Really, she relied on trickery and persuasion.

"Alright, sweetheart. The knife's put away, and it'll stay away so long as you co-operate."

“Of course, yeah.” She responded eagerly, nodding her head in an exaggerated almost cartoon manner. She didn’t want to start trouble with this guys and she didn’t want to hurt them. For some reason Jane felt that if she wanted to she could really hurt them with her powers. She had never done it before but something whispered warnings in the back of her mind about being careful. It made her nervous, but for them.

"Now, let's count that whore cash. Don't play stupid either, we seen that guy hand you a nice, big load."

To herself Jane mouthed the word ‘whore’ as the thug continued to speak. She was a little shocked to say the least. Is that what people thought of her? They thought she was a prostitute or something? Her cheeks turned red in humiliation despite everything that was going on around her. She wasn’t a whore. She was a partner to that mobster when it came to the card games. Was he telling people that’s what she was? Was he lying about her to save his own skin? Was he using her? Somewhere Jane could swear she heard the ripping of paper as her thoughts came to a screeching halt and she once again focused her eyes on the thugs. The smile that lighted to her face was smirk like and mostly one-sided. It brought the flare of mischief and trouble to her bright blue eyes. She brought her shoulders back and pushed her chest out. Her hands she put on her hips. Jane’s demeanor was one of confidence all of sudden.

“You’re a pretty big man, huh? Tracking down the mob’s pets when they’re alone and making accidents happen. Real big man that gets his kicks picking on little girls alone on the docks. What’s the matter? Mommy didn’t love you?” Her smirk turned to a snarl. “I didn’t get this money from being some heroin junkie prostitute, but thanks for the vote of confidence. I got it for being an Ascendent so get the Hell out of my way or I’ll make you even shorter than you already are.”

It was as if Jane had become a whole other girl.

[Legion]

The mugger called Norm seemed to be quite pleased with himself, clearly oblivious to the fact that he was being played by his would-be victim, rather than the other way around. The fact was, despite being the 'brains' of his and his partner's little two-man operation, Norm wasn't all that bright in the first place. He was the sort who got through his life as it was by manipulating those around him - big thugs like the towering man behind Jane especially - to do his dirty work. He wasn't so good at figuring out when he was being manipulated, though. That made things much easier for Jane... until, of course, he managed to upset her and dashed all of those happy, peaceful feelings away. The young girl's sudden change in demeanour did anything but intimidate the thug. Quite the opposite, at Jane's verbal retort, Norm actually threw his head back and belted out a loud, roaring peal of laughter.

Until Jane Doe uttered that three-syllable magic word. As soon as the girl revealed that she had been using her ascendancy to help the mobster win at card games, the mugger's howling fell suddenly silent, and a look of mixed shock and revelation took up residence on his tough, leathery features. So that crook in a suit was her client after all. She was just offering services of an entirely different and infinitely more interesting sort. This changed the entire dynamic of the two muggers' encounter with the girl. Suddenly, Norm wasn't interested at all at Jane's hard-earned wage. That was pocket change. It might buy them a meal or two, maybe some ass-ugly company for the evening, but it wouldn't be good for much more than that. The girl herself, though... she had value. Real, potential value, the kind that almost never came along for bottom-of-the-barrel muggers like them.

The thug behind Jane reached the same conclusion soon after, his dull grey eyes suddenly lighting up as if a switch had been turned on in his head. The big man was by no means stupid - well, at least not compared to his partner - but it still tended to take him a little while longer to put the pieces together. "Jeesis. Hay, did'ja heah that, Nahm? The gehl's one'a those ascendants!" the larger man exclaimed excitedly. "Ya think we should take'eh to the mahket?"

The short man standing in front of Jane blinked, and briefly raised his eyes to look at his partner over the young woman's head. "The what?" Norm asked incredulously.

"Ya know, the mahket!"

"Make-it? The fuck're you going on about now?"

"Goad damn it, the mahket! Mahket!" the bear-like thug repeated, by now visibly becoming frustrated. "Em, ay, ah, kay, ee, tee!"

The short mugger blinked again in confusion, but when he managed to piece together what his partner was spelling a moment later, the perplexity that twisted his unattractive features melted into understanding. "Ooooooh, okay. Christ, why don't you try speaking English for once?" Norm grumbled irritably. Sometimes that damn accent really got on his nerves. His full attention returned to the girl then, and he tossed Jane an unkind, toothless smile. "Yeah... let's do that. Give her a little something to make her more co-operative first."

In this context, "a little something" could have meant any one of several things. A syringe filled with some kind of tranquilizer. Perhaps a jolt from a taser. Neither of these men were that sophisticated, though. Instead, the big thug standing behind Jane raised his hands over his head with a predatory grin, and swung both fists down toward the back of her head.

[Jane Doe]

Jane’s jaw clenched at the sound of the mugger’s laughter. Her back teeth slid over each other rather smoothly considering she was grinding them into each other in frustration. Teeth grinding was a bad habit of hers and for all she knew she might have actually worn them down. No one took her seriously. No one realized what she could do if she really wanted to. Jane could take playing mind games to a whole different level. Jane could actually play games with your mind as if were play dough, rolling it around between her psychic powers and forming it into pretty new things. It took a lot of effort to get into someone else’s mind and use telepathy as an active rather than passive power. These guys didn’t seem too bright though and Jane was angry. It made it all the simpler.

Her jaw unclenched as she watched the muggers’ disposition change. However, they weren’t running scared at the possibility of her using an unnamed power on them. They seemed almost happy that she had informed them of her special talents. Jane squinted a little, more out of habit than out of necessity, and took a gander at what was going on beneath the cruddy exterior of her attackers. Jane preferred looking at thoughts rather than listening to them because she could look at someone’s thoughts and hear her own distinctly at the same time. Thoughts could get intermingled and confusing fairly easily. It came in flashes like it usually did when she wasn’t looking for anything particular. Words. Phrases. Idealized snippets. She pulled back quickly when she stumbled upon something startling and horrifying. It also didn’t bode well for Jane. She hoped she had misinterpreted the idea of “being sold” though she couldn’t conceive how.

She took a wobbly step back as the muggers talked to each other. The back of her boot dipped down and hit nothing but air as she backed herself up towards the edge of the dock. Through her jacket she could feel the crisscrossing of the wooden beams that were keeping her from falling backwards. Would it really be so bad to fall into the water? Especially at a moment like this when that route would be the quickest form of escape? She drew her attention back to the thug as he turned to her. His smile made her skin crawl and her mind race with other ways to get away from these bozos. She was coming up pretty empty in the heroic plot department.

"Yeah... let's do that. Give her a little something to make her more co-operative first."

“Protect me!” Jane screamed at the second thug, her eyes squeezed shut against impending attack as her mind reached out in the most powerful form of persuasion. She hadn’t needed to shout it since her mind was already defensively telling him to do something but the yelling was a reflex.

[Legion]

At first when he heard Jane's exclamation, Norm's less-than-attractive features were arranged in a confused expression. 'Protect me' was a strange thing to say, considering the only other people around to 'protect' the girl were the ones she needed protection from! The initial moment of perplexion passed after a few seconds of dumbfounded blinking; then, the mugger threw his head back and howled with laughter. "'Protect me'? 'Protect me'?!" he roared, countless creases forming across the cracked surface of his cheeks as tears sprang from the corners of his squinted eyes. "'Protect me', she says! Like she thinks some hero 'n shit'll come save her! You hearin' this, Murray?"

There was no way the other thug didn't hear it, standing not five feet away as he was, but the blank expression he wore on his suddenly-slackened features said otherwise. Murray had never been known for his keen intelligence or sharp wit. As a man who only barely made it to the status of a high school dropout, with an unflattering IQ hovering somewhere in the high eighties, his few friends on the docks had long ago come to expect a certain level of vapidness from him. The stupid, slack-jawed expression on the bear-like man's face was something Norm was quite used to seeing. What gave him pause, though, was the way Murray's eyes had suddenly lost focus and glazed over, where normally they would have become narrow and quite determined as he struggled to grasp some simple, yet elusive truth. The sudden, uncharacteristic look his partner gave him, coupled with the fact that it only came over Murray's face after the girl's outburst, actually caused the smaller mugger's heart to skip a beat. "H-hey, what's the matter with you?" he demanded hesitantly.

At the sound of the other man's voice, the towering thug's eyes abruptly snapped into focus, and his deer-in-the-headlights expression twisted into a mask of fury. Murray shoved Jane none too gently and an almost bestial roar tore free from his throat as he charged across the intervening space between himself and his partner with outstretched arms. Wide-eyed with fear and surprise, Norm found himself frozen in place, unable to do anything but sputter incoherently as his partner bore down on him. The two petty criminals collided with a loud smack!, and both men were thrown down to the dock, one screaming in fury, the other in terror. They wrestled in a tangled mass of limbs for a moment, rolling across the thick wooden planks while Norm intermittently shouted, "What the hell are you doing?!" and "Get offa me!" The commotion lasted for nearly half a minute, until the large man's rage-filled howl became sharp cries of pain, which then subsided into silence. After a moment, a labourous grunt issued from beneath the suddenly still, 250-pound mass of human flesh, as Norm managed to roll his partner off of him, revealing his knife buried to the hilt in Murray's blood-drenched shirt.

[Jane Doe]

Jane’s brain was flooded by a warm, oozing sensation. Her head felt heavy and all throughout her body she was filled with tingling feelings. The fact that she felt these things reassured Jane; it meant everything was working according to her ill thought out plan. She could hear the gears turning slowly and with difficulty within Murray’s thick head. She could hear her mental demand echoing throughout from the thread that had been thrown between them. She even heard more than saw the attack as it took place. Jane was too busy turning around in the other direction and making a swift exit out of there. She wanted to be as far away as she could when everything came to a screeching halt and the fight was over. She wanted to be well on her way to freedom.

Of course, tonight just didn’t seem like Jane’s night. She never untied her mind from the thug’s, she couldn’t unless she wanted to have them both on her tail again, and when he got stabbed she felt the sharp pain just as drastically. She tripped on her feet as she buckled slightly in pain and slammed down against the dock with full force. Her forehead smacked the moist wood with a low thunk and the dull pain distracted her for moment from the sharp and excruciating one she was holding that didn’t even exist on her body. She writhed onto her side and pulled her scraped knees up to her chest. Her tights were torn and blood was seeping onto her shirt from where she had no doubt caught herself on a loose board or upturned nail. Carefully she let go of the other person’s mind just as coldness began to overcome her. He was dead. She didn’t want to feel that.

Her body still ached though from her own injuries. Her legs were bleeding, her forehead scratched and bruised, and one of her wrists felt like she might have twisted it. If Jane hadn’t been a fighter before she was even less a fighter now. The knock on the head made the dim lights of the docks blurry all around her and Jane felt the prickle of panic all through her. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself mentally if she couldn’t use her powers. She could barely see straight and that was from the fall so it had to be a head injury and that had to impair her powers. She bit her lip and tried to use her shoulder to move her way along the boards of the dock.

[Legion]

Now he was mad. Among the small circles of street thugs and petty criminals he associated with, he was known for being a lot of things: greedy, heartless, amoral, depraved in some senses. Being easily goaded or angered was not one of those things, so it was quite an accomplishment that the young girl had managed to do just that. Of course, killing the closest thing a man had to a best friend was one sure way to raise his ire, and even though it was his knife that had sliced Murray's belly open and spilled his insides all over the dock, the surviving mugger blamed Jane for all of it. "Goddamn freak!" Norm spat at the night, as the girl had run off out of sight by now, and retracted the pocket knife before charging off into the dark evening shadows in hot pursuit of his fleeing prey. In his gut, he was aching to wrap his hands around that skinny throat and squeeze the life right out of the girl. The more rational side of his mind reminded him that she was worth a lot to him alive (especially now that he didn't have to split the profits with his partner), and nothing at all if dead. Jane Doe was lucky in that respect. From a certain point of view.

The young woman didn't give her pursuer much of a chase, as it turned out. Norm wouldn't have even begun to suspect that driving the knife into his friend's abdomen had the effect it did on Jane's mind, so he was very pleasantly surprised when he found her not very far away from where Murray had fallen on top of him. The thug's pace slowed from a run to a leisurely walk when he saw her crawling helplessly on the dock, and a cruel smile twisted his leathery features at her soaked and battered state. He took his time approaching her, more to be sure that she wouldn't throw out another surprise when he got close than anything else. "Ya know, if a grade-A piece of meat like you didn't fetch such a good price, I'd reeeeally make you pay for what you just did," he announced when he finally reached her, kneeling down and grabbing a handful of her shirt with one hand while his other closed into a fist and cocked back over his shoulder. "I guess I'll have to let you go with a black eye. Say goodnight, sweetheart." Before he'd even finished his last, Norm's fist shot down at the girl, determined to finish the job that the mugger had started on her head when he'd stabbed his partner.

* * * * * * * *

Several Hours Later...

Consciousness would not return easily to Jane, even hours after being thrown into the darkness by her attacker's final blow. Although she might be able to grasp at awareness for a few brief moments here or there, she would find herself oddly numb and lethargic. Of course, the short, leather-faced street criminal named Norm wasn't nearly strong enough to addle her brain that much, which was precisely why the shady individuals he'd passed her off to in an old derelict warehouse had taken a few extra precautions.

"You didn't knock her out, did you?" asked a young man, not five years Jane's senior, as he pulled her eyelids open with his thumb and forefinger and shone a small pen light held in the other directly into her eyes, one after the other. There was a hint of displeasure in his cold, yet handsome features; the emotion found its home most prominently in his furrowed brow and the downturned corners of his mouth.

The other person in the darkened room, a tall, middle-aged man with a close-cropped, copper-hued beard in a dark grey pinstriped suit, shook his head from where he stood off to the side of Jane and the man examining her. "We didn't want to risk any side-effects to her brain, so gave her a deep-consciousness sedative while we waited for you to come with that," the second man explained, tipping a slight nod toward the cumbersome harness wrapped around Jane's shoulders. "You must be running quite an operation if you have a genetic inhibitor kicking around. They government doesn't tolerate just anyone having equipment that blocks out ascendants' powers, and the only people outside the military I know of who can even afford them are--"

"So what's this, then?" the other man interrupted as he gestured toward an angry bruise that was beginning to spread around Jane's eye.

"The man who brought her in got a little rough with her." There was a hint of irritation in the bearded man's tone, directed at the petty criminal who had 'acquired' the young woman for him more than the glorified college intern he was dealing with now. He already knew what Norman's little infraction meant... "Apparently she killed his partner, and he got a bit spooked."

Indignation flashed briefly in the narrow, wolf-like eyes of the younger man, but the expression was short-lived and he quickly regained his steely composure. It was enough to let the other know that he was unhappy with that particular bit of information. "You realise this changes things. Even the most minor brain trauma has the potential to make this subject worthless to my employer." He fell into a thoughtful silence then, quietly contemplating some thought or other while he brushed aside a stray forelock of his slicked-back hair that had fallen in front of one eye. "We'll pay a third now, and the rest once the preliminary tests confirm she's in good condition."

The man in the suit was visibly relieved by the offer, which was apparently more generous than he'd expected. "Deal, deal. Alright, load her up!" He waved at a pair of burly men standing just outside the small area illuminated by a single overhead light. The two figures detached themselves from the shadows and hoisted the girl by her bound arms out of the fold-out chair they'd set her down in. They were surprisingly gentle as they carried her wordlessly across the floor to a waiting van and placed her in the back, now that their 'client' had made a fuss about her physical condition. It was clear that they weren't thinking of her as a human being not to be manhandled, though - to them, she was just a fragile piece of cargo. Meanwhile, the man in the suit handed off a small, black case to Jane's new keeper, and the pair exchanged a few, hushed words.

The double doors on the rear of the van were slammed shut, and for a few minutes, Jane was left alone, save for another man in the driver's seat who didn't even seem to acknowledge her presence. Before long, one of the rear doors opened again, and the severe-looking young man slipped inside. "Drive," was all he said while he settled himself in beside the bound-up girl and opened the case that the other man had given him. As the vehicle groaned to life and began to move, the man in the back removed a small syringe from the case, filled it with the clear liquid from a vial he also found inside, and carefully slid the needle into Jane's forearm. He pushed every last drop of the fluid into her, then pulled the syringe free and set it back into the case. "If you can hear me, the sedative should wear off soon."

[Jane Doe]

The books were being shredded. Jane walked in on it and was startled. Why were they shredding the books? Why by hand? There were so many books in that house. This would take all day, all night. She walked closer to the bookcase and stared down at the busy workers. They didn’t acknowledge her presence. They were completely absorbed in their task. Frustrated suddenly Jane—who for some reason felt that she was younger here—grabbed the book out of the hands of the nearest person. She closed its tattered pages and looked at the cover. The title washed over her and she dropped the book and stared at the person. It looked at her now. It was faceless. Jane screamed and ran out of the room where the faceless monsters were tearing up books titled “Jane’s Infancy”, “Jane’s Childhood”, and whatever followed after or came in between.

She was running through the hallway, trying to get away from the horrific library, when she realized she wasn’t in the hallway anymore. She wasn’t in the house anymore. The walls had disappeared into night air and storage units. The plush carpet was replaced with slippery wood. She stopped. She felt older again. She couldn’t remember now why she was running if she wasn’t even in the house. She felt the knife in her side and the cackling laughter from behind and realized she had been running from this the whole time. She ran faster now the fact that it should be impossible because of her injury never occurring to her as sped down the docks. The streetlights, few and far between, became blurred in her peripheral vision but she knew that if she stopped running for even one moment she would be caught.

The end of the boardwalk loomed ahead of her. She could feel the pressure breathing was putting on her chest. Her shoulders were tight from her physical labor. Her whole body ached but she refused to give in to what would most likely be her demise. Her foot hit the last solid piece of dock and used it as a springboard to launch into the air. If she was going to jump she was going to land as far away from dry land and the nightmares it held as possible. The water was coming up on her fast. She anticipated the force with which she would hit and how hard it would hurt and how cold the water would be. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant trip. Jane took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"If you can hear me, the sedative should wear off soon."

Jane gasped her way into consciousness. Sputtering and coughing breathes that scraped the inside of her throat with their harshness. Her eyes fluttered briefly and barely. The blue of her eyes was bright even as her eyelids continued to hover so closely overhead. She glanced for a moment at the man next to her, more so looking for where the words that had become so jumbled in her fight to wakeup had come from. Jane closed her eyes almost immediately upon setting them on the man and winced drastically to herself as she felt the pain in the side of her face. Where was she? Her head lolled like some broken flower. There was a burning in her stomach, hot and painful. It was tightening and as it constricted Jane could feel everything she had eaten recently laying there heavy. She inhaled a wavering breath and as soon as the air hit her mouth it turned sour and metallic. She felt her mouth puckering at the taste that her saliva was laden with. She groaned, hiccupped, and then vomited.

[Legion]

It was easy to tell from the sharp look the narrow-eyed man fixed on Jane that he was less than pleased. What exactly agitated him wasn't so clear, however. Was it the distressed state his new 'purchase' was in? Was it the fresh, pungent-smelling vomit now covering the floor of his van (not to mention his shoes)? Was it that he resented having to do this sort of work – he didn't look like the sort of person who would normally be involved in these shady underworld activities – and Jane purging her stomach was just the final straw? But the young man said nothing about her dramatic awakening, and merely produced a pen and notepad from his jacket pocket and began to scribble a few notes, clearly an indication that no answers to those questions were forthcoming. “They did give you too much sedative...” was all he said at first, muttering softly to himself more than Jane.

After a few more seconds passed, he flipped the notepad closed and stuffed it and the pen back into his pocket. Then, for the first time since she awoke, he looked directly at Jane. “Let me start by assuring you that everyone here is completely safe from your 'abilities', in case you get the idea to do what you did to the man on the docks to us. That harness you're wearing is a genetic inhibitor: it's specifically calibrated to your genetic code in order to block access to your psionic talents.” The man made a slight gesture with his hand to indicate the heavy collection of restraining straps and electronic devices that was fitted tightly about Jane's torso. “It would be a much better idea for you to co-operate with us than to try to resist or escape. You're more valuable to us with a fit body and mind, so you can rest assured that we don't intend to harm you. Do you understand?”

[Jane Doe]

“They did give you too much sedative...”

Jane flicked her gaze over to the man. His voice was more a footnote to the pulsing in her temples than anything else; she couldn’t really listen to what he had to say. Her body was sore, her head was aching, there was obviously a black eye blooming, and her mouth tasted like throw up. The girl spit onto the floor attempting to get the final taste of the act out of her system. Of course, she could smell her own regurgitation and enough time stuck in the back of a van with that scent wafting around was plenty to make anyone want to vomit all over again. Jane was determined to try and keep whatever was left in her system exactly where it was. She wasn’t sure what was going on since everything on the past few frames of her brain had gone a bit blurry but it was obvious by the constraints that none of this was good for her. From what she could grasp this seemed an awful lot like a kidnapping. Still, even if she was being kidnapped it was no reason for her to have to be covered in throw up. No one liked throw up. Not even kidnappers.

She leaned back as he stared at her, his eyes cold and leering. Jane found herself compelled to pull away and yet unable to look away. She was by nature a curious person, but who could blame her? When someone has the ability to listen and see into the minds of others and is constantly told that it isn’t something they should do curiosity tends to get the better of them. Jane experienced that curiosity at a young age. What was wrong with looking and listening in her special way? Why was it considered so naughty? Why did people get so upset when she did it? Try as she might not to overhear and overstep her boundaries the desire to know, the urge to inform herself was always too strong. Jane was inquisitive and she had the ultimate tool to satiate her questions. It was like giving fire to a pyromaniac and telling them not to burn anything. You were asking the impossible. Jane stared into the man’s eyes and felt her desire to reach out and simply know grow and grow and grow. She couldn’t understand why she wasn’t feeling anything. There was no happiness, no anger, no contentedness. There were no idle thoughts about dinner, about the throw up, about what he was going to do to her. Her jaw locked in frustration. Her powers didn’t require a push usually. They were just there. It was not using them that required the exertion. She didn’t understand. She wasn’t focused on not using her abilities so her body should have been flooded with the very essence of this strange man. She didn’t understand!

“Let me start by assuring you that everyone here is completely safe from your 'abilities', in case you get the idea to do what you did to the man on the docks to us. That harness you're wearing is a genetic inhibitor: it's specifically calibrated to your genetic code in order to block access to your psionic talents.”

She stopped in mid-breath. Her thoughts came to a screeching halt. Every pain and discomfort in her body became insignificant as the man made his delicate gesture. She had felt the contraption of course but she had assumed it was just there to hold her down. That had barely even bothered her. She was far from claustrophobic. She knew her body was fragile and petite compared to most people while her mind was strong. If they tied her up who cared? She could make them untie her. She could escape because she had her mind and the mind was boundless. That’s what she had thought anyway. That’s what had kept her from panicking. She tensed against the constraints. Her mind tried to reach out and control and free itself. She didn’t feel anything except the sharp pangs of her headache. Jane turned her gaze to the floor.

“It would be a much better idea for you to co-operate with us than to try to resist or escape. You're more valuable to us with a fit body and mind, so you can rest assured that we don't intend to harm you. Do you understand?”

“What do you want with me?”

[Legion]

The man's narrow eyes watched Jane carefully, scrutinizing every move she made, every expression that came across her face, every last tiny twitch of her muscles. There was more to learn from this little interview than just what the teenager said. Her body language and physical reactions potentially had as much to tell him as her words did. Amateur kidnappers like the dockside thug who had brought Jane in to the Market would have just gleaned the obvious: that the girl was afraid. He saw beyond the mere surface emotions playing across Jane's features, however, digging through to something deeper and much more interesting.

Although his own sharp features didn't waver in the slightest from the cold, detached mask he had arranged them in, he felt a sudden, electric tingle of excitement in the pit of his stomach at what he caught in Jane's eyes at the moment she realised that she'd been robbed of her powers. It was more than the look of someone who had just lost their trump card. The subject is distressed by the loss of her telepathic abilities. Fascinating, he reasoned silently, and took a moment away from his careful examination of the girl to pull his notebook and pen out again and jot down a few notes about this development. He could scarcely imagine himself how Jane must have felt at that moment, but he guessed that it might be akin to losing one's sight or hearing. Because of how late in life many ascendants manifest their power for the first time, ascendancy is extraneous to their sense of self. For many of the other talented young men and women he had previously encountered, being deprived of the ability to leap impossible heights or throw lightning around was an inconvenience, albeit a pretty large one. For this girl, it seemed to be something more significant than that. He could only hope this didn't lead to psychological damage in the long term...

"Information," the man responded deftly to Jane's question while still scribbling onto his pad. "I'm part of a scientific team conducting research on the ascendant gene, and you can help us learn quite a lot about that. Some of our experiments require rather... invasive procedures, but you can minimize the discomfort yourself by simply answering all of our questions to the best of your ability." He flipped over to a new page and flicked his eyes up to regard Jane. "We have a long drive ahead of us, so let's put that time to use. First, your name, age, and hometown."

[Jane Doe]

Jane was more than distressed by the loss of her abilities. Jane was broken by it. Any fight or spunk or spirit Jane had in her was gone with that knowledge. He was along the right path to assume it was like loosing her sight or her hearing because in Jane’s case her gift was very similar to that. Her empathy was turned on almost constantly and this sudden inability to feel what was being felt around her was almost deafening. Then there was the fact that she knew that she couldn’t use her telepathy if she wanted to. It wasn’t like she went about constantly using it but it was always a comfort knowing that she could. Now that comfort was gone and her security blanket had been pulled right out from under her. She felt alone, vulnerable, weak and most of all powerless to stop anything that was about to happen to her. And who knew what horrible things where about to happen to her?

"Information. I'm part of a scientific team conducting research on the ascendant gene, and you can help us learn quite a lot about that. Some of our experiments require rather... invasive procedures, but you can minimize the discomfort yourself by simply answering all of our questions to the best of your ability. We have a long drive ahead of us, so let's put that time to use. First, your name, age, and hometown."

Jane really doubted she would be much help. Her powers weren’t as amazing as others she had heard about. Why wouldn’t they want to study some of those? Why study something as simple and mundane as telepathy? She looked back at him, her face a mask of something akin to disappointment, and listened as he talked about the procedures that were to follow. She tensed. Invasive? What was that even supposed to mean? She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know actually. In her mind she had a picture of sterile white rooms and gleaming metal instruments. It didn’t reassure her that she knew it wasn’t a glimpse of his mind and only her imagination. She would have liked to know for sure what was going to happen. She would have liked to be able to get away.

“Where are we going?” She interrupted, curious as to where this long drive was taking them. She looked down again at the soiled floor of the van. Those questions. She didn’t know the answers to those questions. She had a name as in what she introduced herself as though it was clearly not her name. She had a clever approximation on her age but she couldn’t really be sure. That last one was really throwing her for a loop though. Hometown? She had no idea how to even begin to go about giving an answer to that one. She turned her eyes back to him. “I… I don’t know any of those things. I can’t answer your questions.”