Trouble Is My Middle Name

[Legion]

A dark frown crossed the hawkish features of Jane's captor at the teenager's reply, knitting his dark brows together. It even seemed that his eyes grew even more narrow than before, if such a thing was possible. Clearly, he was disappointed in his own right, though for entirely different reasons than Jane was. It crossed his mind that she might be lying to him to make herself appear useless to him in a bid to be set loose. If that was the case, it was a pointless endeavour; most of the information they wanted wasn't the kind obtained through simply asking questions. Alternatively, it was just as likely that she was telling the truth, and actually didn't know the answers to those questions. There was more than one well-documented case of alterations or outright loss of memory in ascendants who shared abilities similar to hers. That prospect enticed him, somewhat. The scientific community was sharply divided on what caused the phenomenon, and this specimen had the potential to put some of these pressing questions to rest.

"We're going to our laboratory," the man responded tersely to Jane's own question. She was curious, at least. That bode well for the study - he'd been worried for a moment that the inhibitor had totally shattered her morale. It wouldn't have been the first time that happened, and although it made for a more submissive test subject, the results were less than favourable in the long term. "For obvious security reasons, we don't disclose its location to our-" he hesitated for just an instant, searching for the appropriate word, "-residents."

Jane's captor offered nothing more substantial than that, and before she could ask anything else, he dismissively turned his attention away from her to shoot a look over his shoulder at the other young men in the van, the driver and a passenger. Like the predatory looking man, they were young, though not quite as much as she - in their mid-twenties, most likely. "What do you think, guys?"

The two men in front exchanged a brief glance and a few muttered words that were more or less incomprehensible by the time the sound reached Jane, then the passenger swiveled around slightly in his seat to face the one sitting in the back with the girl. "I think we should leave the questions for now and wait until we get her to the lab and run some tests. If she is amnesic, we'd just be wasting our time here anyway." He didn't look at Jane once as he spoke, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his companion. In fact, neither he nor the driver had even spared the girl a glance since she'd been placed in the van. It was as if she didn't exist to them - or if she did, she was below their notice.

[Jane Doe]

She closed her eyes tightly, almost reveling in the surge of pain that went through the side of her face. She closed her eyes so tightly that colors exploded on the backs of her eyelids like fireworks. She closed her eyes so tightly the front of her brain began to hurt. No matter how tightly she closed her eyes though she couldn’t remember even the simplest of the questions he asked her. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. She had the vaguest of ideas that she should know these things and that at one point her life she had known them. What had happened? What had stripped her of the most basic of her knowledge? What made her an unknown even her herself? She opened her eyes again and looked at the blank metal side of the van. Maybe she didn’t want to know and that’s why she couldn’t remember. Maybe it was all for the best. Maybe being Jane Doe was better than being whoever she had been. She bit her lip. She’d still like to know, just for the sake of knowing.

“We’re going to our laboratory. For obvious security reasons, we don't disclose its location to our residents.”

Jane felt chills run down her spine at his words though she refused to look over. What were they going to do to her? What did they have planned? Experiments and torture and in the end of it all what would she be like? She tensed in the straps around her once again. Her mind. They wanted to play games in her mind. What kind of mark would that leave on it? Jane wasn’t a worldly girl when it came to the ways of science so her imagination quickly got the best of her. Was it possible for them to take her abilities from her? They had already negated her from using them so that was only the next logical step. Jane felt her stomach wobbling and her throat tightening sharply as she held back her fears and panics.

"What do you think, guys?"

"I think we should leave the questions for now and wait until we get her to the lab and run some tests. If she is amnesic, we'd just be wasting our time here anyway."

They talked about her like she was a piece of meat. That’s probably all she was to them. Expendable experimentation that it didn’t matter what happened to as long as they got their results. Heartless scientists that viewed the world through a microscope. She shook her head lightly. She didn’t really know how she was going to get out of this one. She didn’t really think she was. She closed her eyes again and let poignant regret wash over her.

“I didn’t mean for that man to get killed…” She mumbled about the incident earlier that night.

[Legion]

Jane's rather sudden comment, which she seemed to blurt out of the blue, earned her a surprised look not only from the man who was with her in the rear of the van, but the one in the front passenger seat who had, up to this point, refused to even acknowledge her existence. The initial shock so openly worn on their faces quickly turned to incredulity, as if they found something about what the girl said to be completely ridiculous. They pulled their attention away from Jane to exchange a glance, then as the man in the front seat turned back around to face forward, his hawkish-looking companion actually appeared to comfort Jane. In his own, twisted sort of way. "You shouldn't regret it. It was you against him, and you used the tools at your disposal. Nature is about survival of the fittest, and you're far more fit to live than human waste like that mugger. Never feel guilty for using your talents to their full potential; it's your God-given right. It's what nature intended you to be."

There was no real compassion to be found in his voice, however, and the speech came off as a lecture more than anything else in the end. He was, after all, a true and pure scientist (in his own mind): dispassionate, objective, placed above and apart from the rest of the world to be better able to examine it rationally. The only law he recognized was jungle law, the old adage, "might makes right," so he didn't feel empathy for Jane's expression of remorse. He felt pity, and a little contempt, for her being so deeply entrenched in the bleeding-heart morality that afflicted society at large. Perhaps this experience would fix that...

"You had better rest, now. The laboratory is a long drive from here, and we'll be starting the tests as soon as we arrive."

* * * * * * * *

Jane's captor wasn't exaggerating when he told her of the 'long drive' ahead of them. Days must have passed, but the only indication she would have of how many would be if she kept count of the number of times it became dark, then light again inside the vehicle. Her space in the windowless rear of the van yielded no clues to their location, though if she was paying close attention, she might catch a glimpse of a road sign through the windshield every now and then. Binghamton. Allentown. Pittsburgh. Akron. Charleston. Bowling Green. Jefferson City. They stopped intermittently, and then only briefly, to fill up the gas tank, buy food, or switch drivers. At all times, one man was driving, one was sleeping, and one kept an eye on Jane. The whole process became so routine that it may have come as something of a surprise to their 'guest' when the van pulled off the road into some sort of concrete structure, suddenly casting a shadow over the interior, and came to a stop.

The two men in the front of the van stepped out, and Jane would be able to hear their footsteps coming around to the back of the vehicle shortly before they pulled the rear doors open. "Step outside," the narrow-eyed young man, once again in the back with her, ordered tersely and gave her a slight nudge in the direction of the open doors. Her captors must have anticipated that her legs might be weak after such a long period of disuse, as they firmly took her by the arms when they pulled her out and offered her at least some support. "Welcome to your new home, 459."

[Jane Doe]

She understood the concept of eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. Society was a constant competition and no matter what was going on one person had to come out the winner. She didn’t mean that she wanted to be the loser, though clearly in this situation she was, but it would have been better if things could have gone differently on the docks. Jane didn’t think herself a bleeding heart or a particularly generous person; she didn’t have anything to be generous with. Being cruel and merciless and indifferent just wasn’t the type of person she was. It wasn’t how she lived her life and she didn’t feel like it was a way of life she could ever particularly enjoy. She spent her days feeling what other people felt most of the time whether she wanted to or not. She couldn’t look down at someone who was depressed and perhaps “too weak” to carry on. She had to make that person feel at least a little better even if it was for the selfish reason that she didn’t want to feel their depression mingling with her own emotions. She stared at her kidnapper for a moment, her eyes deep and pensive.

These men could never understand her point of view.

They hadn’t been gifted like she had.

"You had better rest, now. The laboratory is a long drive from here, and we'll be starting the tests as soon as we arrive."

Although the prospect of sleeping while surrounded by strange men whose intent towards her was ominous and most probably of the ill variety Jane found herself falling into fitful slumber during the trip. She would only sleep for a few hours, a few minutes at a time and then awake with a start and proceed to stay awake for as long as possible. She spent most her time awake staring dully at her shoes. She traced the creases in the old leather boots over and over, sometimes moving her eyes to focus on a thread that was hanging off the side of an article of her clothing. She was used to traveling long distances; she was a wanderer. However, there was no fresh start at the end of this ride. There was no new adventure waiting for her. She didn’t know if she didn’t care at this point how long she had been missing or what was wrong. It wasn’t as if there was anyone to come looking for her. She wouldn’t be a face on the news or on milk cartons. It was depressing thoughts like those that forced her to occupy her mind with mundane tasks like tracing creases. The cavities of her brain that were usually occupied by her telepathy and empathy had fallen dead and silent leaving harrowing ghost echoes in her head. Sitting in the back of the van like that she felt like her mind was collapsing in on itself.

"Step outside.”

Words. Words made meaningless without thoughts to accompany them. She doesn’t need to hear his thoughts about his command but she yearns to. She didn’t move, simply staring at him and wishing that she could hear or feel anything beyond the tangible and mundane. She landed on her hands and knees when he gave her his slight push. She was off balance and ill prepared. Her face is smashed into the ruddy floor of the van. Her arms wobble as she lifts herself up in time to have the other to man grab her and drag her out, helping her balance herself on her unsteady legs. The blood rushes through her body as it becomes accustomed to its new upright position. She squints at the brightness and looks back at the van.

"Welcome to your new home, 459."

“Where… what…” she mumbled in low tones, her voice sharp and rigid against her throat. She tensed against the men holding her. “Will I be normal when it’s over? Will I be myself again?”[I]

[Legion]

Jane's abductors were by no means gentle with her as they practically dragged her across the vast concrete chamber - which appeared to be part of some sort of parking complex - but they didn't treat her roughly, either. At least, not too roughly. She was a valuable specimen, after all, so it wouldn't do to damage her before the testing even began. Unwilling to wait for her to regain her own footing, the three men led Jane into a service lift at the far end of the indoor parking lot. From all appearances, the lift looked to be in a severe state of neglect and disrepair, and didn't seem fit to move much of anything, but when the hawkish man thumbed one of the large red buttons on the control panel, it ground and whirred to life as if fresh off the factory floor. The lift lurched slightly when its brakes disengaged, then its four passengers were plunged into the dark shaft. As they raced deeper underground, Jane would be able to catch brief glimpses of some of the levels the lift connected to through the metal cage: a couple more vehicle parking levels, then a few of what appeared to be storage areas, each darker and dustier than the last. Finally, the lift eased to a stop on the deepest level of the shaft and the cage opened to a long, narrow corridor lined by exposed pipes. At the other end of this claustrophobic passage, which Jane was immediately ushered into, was a heavy cast-iron door bearing the words Secondary Boiler Room in red paint that was faded and chipped by age almost to the point of illegibility. The most interesting feature of this alleged entrance to a secondary boiler room, though, was the large electronic lock that secured it.

There was a faint, but nonetheless pungent odour of sewage that wafted into the young woman's nostrils as she was led to the vault-like door, and the ground trembled slightly with the passing of a loud, mechanical roar above their heads, like the sound of a train or subway. When they reached the other end of the corridor, one of the men swiped an electronic card through a thin slot in the lock, and a shrill buzz filled the air until he pulled the heavy door open. A gust of cool, slightly stale air greeted Jane when the door swung open. On the other side was something quite different from the long-forgotten storage areas and the rough, unkempt passage behind her; it was hardly a pretty sight, simply an underground chamber constructed of iron and concrete, but it was clean and well-lit by rows of fluorescent tubes that lined the ceiling. This part of whatever complex she was in wasn't some forgotten exhibit of the past like the rest of it seemed to be. And it definitely wasn't a boiler room.

What it actually was, her captors didn't seem to be in a hurry to tell her. They led her inside wordlessly, under a set of security cameras and down the first corridor past the window of an office, where two men dressed in plain clothing - except for the pistols holstered at their hips - sat and calmly watched the procession without any particular interest. At the end of the hall, they took a right, then a left into another corridor. This one was lined on both sides with heavy iron doors, about a dozen in all, identical to the one they had just come through, down to the sophisticated locks. The hawkish man swept his card through one of the locks, and another of his companions wrenched the door open, revealing a small, cell-like room on the other side that was just large enough to accommodate an old cot and a toilet. There were no other features in the room, save for a light bulb that dangled naked from the ceiling, and one spot where the left wall connected to the ceiling, where a half-metre wide hole had been roughly carved out of the concrete, leaving only a pair of twisted metal support rods behind.

"You'll be staying in here from now on," Jane's narrow-eyed captor announced while the other two ushered her inside. "Make yourself at home until the professor arrives. We'll begin your preliminary testing then." With that, the heavy door swung shut, and a loud, mechanical noise cut through the heavy air of the small room as it locked behind Jane.

[Jane Doe]

Ignored. She was used to that. People had a tendency to ignore the tiny hitchhiker. She had most of her best conversations with people when they weren’t even talking to her. She was tempted to say that she was able to walk on her own now, her thin arms feeling sore from being grabbed so roughly, but she doubted they would listen. Besides, she wasn’t even sure she could walk on her own. Her feet stumbled over themselves as she tried to land footsteps but that might not have been her fault. She was being pulled rather roughly and her boots were heavy for newly regained balance. She kept her focus on them for a while, trying to take at least a few steps in time with the pace that her captors had set without tripping and being dragged. It didn’t happen and she resigned herself to the stumbling and being half dragged through the parking garage. This seemed like the beginning to slasher movie to her. A slasher movie in which she was the innocent victim who had been abducted by psychopaths for who knew what.

Her head whirled slightly as she tried to take everything in as they went down the shoddy looking elevator. She wanted to know what this place was. It had to be more than just an outdoor lot. They didn’t drive all those days just to come to some crumbling concrete construction. Her minimal views of the other floors didn’t give her many hints at where she was or what was going to happen to her. All signs still pointed at very bad. Like, a bathtub full of ice and no kidneys bad. She felt the muscles on her abdomen tense nervously at the very idea of it. Then they yanked her out of the elevator and although Jane hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place everything was reinforced by the nauseating stench that assaulted her. Her eyes watered slightly as she tried breathing through her mouth rather than her nose but then she could taste the smell and it was made ten times worse by the realization. What was this place? What was going on? How did she get herself into these situations? She felt the urge to scream and with the noise that the tunnel was full of she was fairly certain she could get away with it too. When they unlocked the door to the boiler room Jane looked in with morbid fascination. She needed to know what was next. She needed to know what was about to happen to her.

Things here looked like they were being kept up. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing or what. It only meant that there were frequent visitors to this neck of the woods. She glanced the other men as she was hurried along. She glanced their plain clothes and their calm stares and their guns. She felt her palms prickle with anxiety. Jane watched as the man opened the door to the cell. She stood there not understanding until she had full few of the inside. It hit her then. This was exactly like one of those slasher movies. She dug her heels into the ground and tried to fight against the strength of the men’s bodies that were forcing her into the cage. She didn’t want to be in there! She didn’t want to be in there! She could feel the empty feeling of her powers doing nothing even when she was pushing so hard to try and break restraints.

"You'll be staying in here from now on. Make yourself at home until the professor arrives. We'll begin your preliminary testing then."

“I won’t do your stupid tests!” She yelled as the door closed her into the cell that sadly she would be calling her home. She growled to herself angrily, though more so that she wasn’t able to use her powers and at the utter failure she was on her own. She rammed the door with her shoulder and fell backwards as the metallic ringing filled the room along with her gasps of pain. She grabbed her now injured shoulder and leaned back against the uninjured door. “God damn…”

[Livewire]

The warm, sugary south Pacific air blowing in from the coast and through the open window caressed Cameron's face, the sharp scent of elephants and waffles invading his nostrils. An iceberg moved across his view through the window as it floated lazily on the sparkling azure plane of the sea. It bore a school of penguins clustered up on the summit of the mound of ice, who flapped their useless wings wildly while carrying on an animated discussion about the upcoming presidential election. Cameron didn't realise how enthralled he was in the picturesque scene until he heard a throat being noisily cleared beside him. The teenager blinked suddenly and jerked his head around, coming face to face with a scowling, dusky visage. "So are you going to play or sit around gawking all day?" Domerin Lorcasf demanded, then tossed his luxurious mane of long, black hair for effect.

"Come on, Cam, play for me," a young, red-haired girl practically moaned from where she lay on the bed that dominated the room they occupied. That was Marguerite Beausejour, one of Cameron's classmates back in northern Ontario. He'd had a schoolboy crush on her at that time, but she never gave him the light of day. Now it seemed she was always around somewhere... though lately she'd taken on some of the more, er, 'filled out' aspects of one Cassandra Redd.

Cameron blinked and snapped himself out of his reverie with a vigorous shake of his head. "Okay, okay, Jesus Christ," he muttered, and out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a brief flash of one of the sisters from Saintom giving him a withering glare, like a single frame in a film. "How about The Trooper?" Domerin swung his head to one side and flipped his hair back in excitement. Cameron took that as a 'yes'. "Okay, I'll take the low guitar, and you come in high at--"

Before he could finish his sentence, Domerin growled and shook his hair in front of his eyes. He didn't look like a pretty-boy model anymore - now he looked like he was in a death metal band. "Nooooo!" he roared in the distinctively low, gravelly voice of Nathan Explosion (front man of the biggest musical act in the world). "I won't do your stupid tests!"

Taken aback by the older man's sudden mood swing, Cameron physically recoiled and his wild, blood-hued eyes grew wide. "Wh-what...?!"

"I won't do your stupid tests!" Domerin cried again, but although the words came from his mouth, it was a female voice that spoke them this time. Needless to say, that surprised the teenager. He'd always considered himself to be pretty accepting of folks like Domerin who... er, swung for the other team, so to speak. This was starting to get ridiculous (as if a hot girl on his bed and talking penguins weren't already). A bit too ridiculous.

Cameron blinked. When his eyes opened an instant later, he was no longer in the small apartment he'd occupied in his brief stay at the Skygate Institute. He was far away from Anglia, far from the coast (the Atlantic coast), far from Domerin. Whatever high spirits he'd built up were instantly deflated by the sudden change of scenery, though more because of where he was than where he wasn't. A blank, concrete ceiling stared back down at him, bracketed by four walls of the same cold, hard, oppressive material. The sight invoked a sigh of frustration from the nineteen-year-old; this cell was too cramped for him, small, claustrophobic - worse yet, it was starting to become familiar. Cameron sat up on the thin mattress of the cot he laid on with a heavy grunt born of pain and exertion. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest as he forced them into motion, demanding to be left alone for just a while longer. He hurt. His legs hurt, his back hurt, his arms hurt, his neck hurt. It even seemed like his hair hurt. He felt like he'd been run over by a truck... and then that truck backed up and ran over him again.

For a few seconds, Cameron was alone with his pain. His breath came short and fast, restricted in party by the heavy front piece of the genetic inhibitor harness that weighed down on his chest, and the mere act of sitting up had caused a thin sheen of perspiration to coat his face and neck. That moment of internal focus was soon broken by the sound of a nearby voice softly muttering something. He couldn't quite make out the words, but he was able to identify it as feminine - which explained a lot about the dark man's sudden change of pitch in his feverish dream. Cameron rolled his head back and gave it a slight jerk to shake a few stray locks of unruly blue hair out of his sight, then glanced up at the missing chunk of wall near the top of his cell. It looked like he had another neighbour. The last one definitely wasn't coming back, after all. With another grunt, Cameron gathered his feet under him, and with no small effort, forced himself up to a standing position. His body was still too weak to maintain balance on its own, so he had to prop himself up against the wall the whole way up, and once he reached an upright position, grip the edges of the hole with his fingertips. "Hey," he called through the hole. Although there was no need to whisper, he made sure to keep his voice down to avoid alerting the men outside. "Look up. You're new around here?"

[Jane Doe]

Jane pulled her knees up to her chest as she leaned with her back against the cold metal of the door. Her shoulder throbbed from her futile attack on the door and she massaged it tenderly trying to ease the pain. Her eyes stung as tears threatened to spill over and down her dirty, swollen face. Lightly she ran her fingertips along the bruise that had bloomed around her eye, tracing the sore points of her skin up until she had buried her hand in her hair. Dirty, greasy and probably in all kinds of disarray her hair slicked through her fingers as she played with it. She needed a shower. She needed a decent hot meal. She needed to be anywhere but here. She was shaking though not from actual chills and more from fear. Her skinny legs trembled against each other as she tried desperately to hold herself together—physically and mentally. The hollowness that Jane felt from her inability to use her powers was strong and only growing stronger. She continually found herself reaching out with her mind to feel anything besides her own depression or to find any clues as to her fate. When she did these things she got none of her answers and only felt the emptiness of her mind.

Her thoughts were getting heavy. She knew this had to be a result of the inhibitor or even her own lack of coping ability about losing her powers. It didn’t change what she felt though. It was like her thoughts were being poured into a vacuum where they echoed continually and bounced off of walls that had no end. She whimpered lowly and buried her face in her arms. If their plan was to drive her insane she wouldn’t be long from it. She couldn’t remember a time where she didn’t have her powers, though to be far Jane couldn’t remember a lot of times. Her telepathy was as much a part of her as her sight or her hearing and the loss was devastating. As hard as she tried to couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of living without those abilities, living normal. She took her face from out of the cocoon her arms had made. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting by this point and she could see her Spartan accommodations. Cot. Toilet. Hole in wall. Bitterly she wondered if all the cells were so luxurious. Taking a few deep breaths she scrambled to her feet, or at least attempted to. The effort left her leaning against the door while her unsteady legs wobbled dangerously beneath her insignificant weight. Standing was hard. What was walking going to be like? Sitting in that van for that extended period of time had made her lose awareness of her body and the control over it. She wondered if she would even be able to do anything while knowing her psychic gifts were gone. She prayed she wasn’t that weak. There was a part of her that was strong, the part of her locked away in the fog of unsure memories, which could handle this. She wondered if that part of her would help.

"Hey. Look up. You're new around here?"

She fell when she heard the voice whisper to her. Her legs just gave out from under her in the moment of startled panic. Jane released a small groan as pain shot its way up her back. She shoulders shook for a moment as she teetered on the edge of it all being too much to handle and then she reeled herself back. She looked over at the hole she had only given a passing glance to before. There was someone on the other side willing to talk to her. Another prisoner from a cell adjacent. Jane lifted herself again and made her way over to a spot beneath the connection in the cells. She let her body lean heavily against the grimy wall once she reached it. Standing on tip toes Jane responded,

“What’s going on? What is this place? I was kidnapped.”

[Livewire]

Cameron tried to raise himself up to get a look at the girl in the next room, standing as high up on the balls of his feet as he could manage. The window between the two cells was just too far out of reach, however. He couldn't help the soft, bitter chuckle that escaped his throat at the irony: the first friendly face in nearly three weeks, and he wouldn't get to see it. At least, he thought it was three weeks. He didn't honestly know how long he'd even been locked up in this glorified dungeon. A month, maybe two? After a while down there, keeping track of time could get to be pretty difficult. That became especially true once his frequent 'behavioural treatments' began.

The last thought on its own caused the young man's legs, trembling from the stress of holding his body upright and burning in agony from his last encounter, to cry for him to stop. It was more than likely that if the men who ran this operation caught him conversing with another one of their 'guests', they would take him right back out for another lesson. He wasn't sure how many more of their treatments his body could stand, but he nevertheless ignored the small, fearful voice that pleaded for him to stop from the back of his mind. He knew they wanted to control him with fear, and so long as he didn't let his fear control him, they couldn't beat him. That sounded pretty good when he said it in his head, anyway.

Cameron had to think about what the girl in the other cell asked him for a few moments. He thought her last statement was pretty obvious on its own. Of course she was kidnapped - he didn't get the impression that she'd come all the way down here and gotten herself locked up in this half-star hotel of her own free will, with the well-justified fuss she was making. He spared her any commentary on that point, however. He knew his particular flavour of humour had a bite to it, and didn't figure it was something she would appreciate at the moment. As far as her questions went, though, she was actually in a better position to provide an answer than he was. He'd been unconscious when they brought him down here. "I don't know much about it myself," he confessed with a slightly frustrated sigh. "I pretty much woke up in here one day. From what I can tell, though, they're doing some kind of research on ascendants. It's a lot like that facility in Massachusetts run by the UN, but not as friendly." That was, of course, an understatement. His stay at the Skygate Institute had been brief, but he'd felt more at home in that short time than he had anywhere else for nearly five years. This place, on the other hand... could be worse, but not by very much at all. "I'm Cameron. I guess we're going to be neighbours for a while."

[Jane Doe]

"I don't know much about it myself. I pretty much woke up in here one day. From what I can tell, though, they're doing some kind of research on ascendants. It's a lot like that facility in Massachusetts run by the UN, but not as friendly."

Jane leaned her face into the wall, her body begging her to simply collapse. The grit and grime of the wall clung to her cheek and clothes the closer she fell into it. His words didn’t wash over her with any feeling of particular relief. She was hoping he would know more. His answers were like the vague things she had already been told and it filled her with confusion. If this person was already a prisoner to whatever was going and still wasn’t sure what was happening then what was actually going on? Was it so hard to tell? She gathered herself up on her trembling and uncertain legs as she made to respond through the wall.

“What kind of experiments?” Her voice was hesitant and almost fearful. Did she even want to know? Jane wasn’t sure what was better: the nightmares of the uncertain that her mind could come up with or the nightmares of the impending that this neighbor could send her way.

"I'm Cameron. I guess we're going to be neighbors for a while."

“Jane. My name is Jane,” she stated simply. It was almost as if she needed to reassure herself on the matter. She had panicked before when she was asked the simple questions of her name and age. Her mind was blank on the basics of her history and she had failed to supply even her false name in that moment. She had been embarrassed to admit to her failed memory. There was no reason to lie to what was likely to be the last person she ever spoke to. Besides, she doubted they would be asking her in depth questions about her childhood and the various other memories that Jane found herself lacking. “Do you know how many ascendants they have here?”

[Livewire]

Unfortunately, Jane wouldn't get much more comfort than this out of her neighbour, at this point at least. He wasn't very good at that sort of thing anymore after so many years of self-reliance, though he tried hard enough. Besides, he didn't see very much in this situation to derive comfort from in the first place. A sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a sigh issued from Cameron's throat, and he shifted his legs into a more comfortable (or more appropriately, less uncomfortable) position. Even the act of standing up on the thin mattress of the army surplus cot was taxing. He couldn't quite be sure what was worse, the pain or the exhaustion that wracked his body. The two sensations seemed at war with each other, waxing and waning alternately, but no matter which was dominant at any given moment, both caused every muscle to scream for him to rest, beg for relief from this over-exertion.

Cameron wasn't about to let a trivial thing like that get in his way, though. This place was run like some sort of military prison, with the 'subjects' kept separate as much as possible so that their only human contact was with their captors. It made them more co-operative, easier to break. It also made communication with each other, even small talk like this, important for keeping their heads above water in this place. For some of the captives here - like his previous neighbour, who was responsible for the hole through which Cameron and Jane now spoke - avoiding that isolation was more important than it was for others.

"Hmm. That all depends on what you can do, and what they want to get out of you," Cameron said to her question about the experiments that went on in the subterranean facility. He realised it was too cryptic an answer almost as soon as he said it, so after a brief, thoughtful pause, he continued, "They like to start things slow, with Q&A sessions and maybe a few rounds in their MRI machine." God knows how they got that thing at all, let alone got it all the way down here. "Then they ramp up to the more invasive experiments gradually. From what I can tell, how gradual it ends up being depends on how much you inconvenience them. My advice would be to keep your head down and do whatever they say, at least for now."

“Jane. My name is Jane."

A smile, though grim, tugged slightly at one corner of Cameron's mouth. She seemed strong-willed. Good. He figured most people in a situation like this would be hysterical at this point, but she seemed to be holding herself together. Of course, she was the first new person to occupy that cell since he'd come here himself, so he didn't have much basis for comparison. "Nice to meet you, Jane. Wish the circumstances were better. Maybe a bit less like a cheap slasher movie, eh?" Maybe it was a lame attempt at humour, but in situations like these, humour was really all Cameron had. Jane's last question, however, sobered him somewhat. "I can't really give you a definite answer on that, either. It seems like they only let one of us out at a time, probably as much to keep us in the dark about what's going on here as anything. From the voices I've heard, though, I count about six more besides us, maybe eight."