The Medic

The next time Brianna or the Man saw any person, it was for the Man to be taken away. There came the sound of footsteps from beyond the door. It sounded as if there were a great many people coming, and she sat up straight to get a good look, as she sensed the Man do the same.

She still disliked the man, but the intense and all-consuming hate she had felt had waned quickly. It was difficult to carry on hating someone with such intensity when they were your only company for two weeks. Well, she guessed that it was two weeks, but the only thing she had to judge it by was the frequency and number of the bowls of thin gruel. She wondered how her grandparents, and Olivia, were. Her thoughts turned to them whenever she and the Man fell into silence. Were they looking for her? Did they even remember her? Had their memories been wiped? Were they secretly glad to be rid of her? She knew that it was a pointless form of self-torture to think such things, but she couldn't help it. The long days in the dark gave her plenty of time to think as well as to learn about her energy. She wasn't so scared of it anymore, but it was dangerous, she knew, despite Man's attempts to convince her to the contrary. The energy was far too perfect to be anything but dangerous. She did have to concede though that it was not, in fact, addictive, as she had first thought.

The footsteps drew closer, and it was even more apparent that they were many in number. Then came the jingling of keys, and the "snick" of the lock as it let go. The door opened and there was a moment in which no-one moved. Then, six armed men moved out of the door to point their guns at Brianna. She snorted. As if the bullets could hurt her when she knew how to absorb their energy before they even fully left the barrels, or put up a shield of solid power. Just to be safe, she concentrated and extended tendrils of energy to encompass the guns and steal any energy they released. Another half a dozen men made their way out of the doors and trained their guns on Man. Brianna extended more vines of energy to encompass those guns, to find that Man already had. She touched his energy with hers, and her responded by sending a wave of reassurance towards her. He must be incredibly lucid to do such a thing. Another three men emerged from the doorway and the front one unlocked the door to Man's cage.

"Man? Where are you taking him? Man!" She rushed to the corner where the two walls of bars converged, as the now handcuffed Man was taken out of the cell. Brianna extended her mind towards the guards, but they knew almost nothing. They were to get the Man and bring him to the medic.

"Who's the medic?" Man said.

The guard who was guiding Man from behind jerked the arms he was holding and growled, "Shut up."

Brianna was terrified. She was going to be left alone, in the dark without anyone for company. Her energy was beginning to swirl around her, and the guards steadied their gun hands and tensed their fingers over the trigger. She couldn't be left alone in the dark. But she was. Man was dragged out of the door and the guards who remained backed out, keeping the tips of their guns trained on Brianna the whole time. The door shut with a metallic bang and the lock clicked back into place. The cells were plunged into blackness. There was silence. Even the noise of the old-world mechanic system above the cells had stopped. Brianna was alone. She began to sob into the silence, still leaning against the corner of the bars.

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Man was confused. He was sure that they would take Girl first, when they decided to ask questions. Never mind. He didn't know who the Medic was, but he was sure that they were important, because they commanded the guards. He reached out with his energy to feel the surroundings. The walls were very thick. They were all concrete, and reinforced. The walls on the staircase weren't painted, but the walls beyond the door at the top were. They were all a sterile white, and Man was lead down corridors with innumerable unmarked doors. Everything was white. The black of the guards' uniforms created a contrast which made Man's eyes ache. It was a side effect of perfect eyesight. Man chuckled. It was so worth it. He was being led down dozens of identical corridors. Another quick scan of the guards' minds confirmed that he was being taken to see the Medic. The corridors were becoming as boring as the cells back downstairs, when the guards stopped. The door they stopped in front of was the only one which looked any different. This one had a pale golden plaque which simply said "Medic". Man chuckled again as he was roughly shoved through the door. It was best to let them feel as if they had power. Though he could easily hurt them, he didn't want to make them feel any more hostility towards him, in case they proved to be useful or disloyal to their employer.

His handcuffs were removed and he was sat in front of a white desk in a white room. The man behind the desk was wearing all white too. He was around fifty, and his hair was black peppered with grey. He had laughter lines around his eyes, yet he also had worry lines. His nose was large and hooked, and his lips were thin and pale. His eyes were dark blue, like deep tropical oceans, and they held an intelligence which most of the human population was sadly lacking. Man chuckled again. This strange, slightly underweight figure was clearly the Medic. He was regarding Man carefully, and seemed to be waiting for something. When that something was apparently not forthcoming, Man chuckled again, because that almost rhymed. Then, the Medic reached into a drawer in the white desk and pulled out two files. He opened the top one and began to flick through it. Man read his surface thoughts and laughed a real laugh this time, not a chuckle. The Medic had already read the file, many times. It was all for show, and to keep him waiting. The Medic looked up, startled by his seemingly random outburst. It made Man laugh all the more. It was a long while before he had recovered enough to speak.

"You, Medic, are extremely amusing." He stated.

The Medic looked up again from 'reading' the file. He raised a dark eyebrow and then looked back at his file. A long while later, he put the file down and looked up again at Man.

"Mr Damen Satorenati," he began, "It is such a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance." Man struggled to keep his face impassive. He so hated that name. He had stopped thinking of himself as Damen when he had discovered the key to energy. Now, he was just Man. He didn't need the name. He didn't want anyone to use it. He didn't respond to it. He refused, outright, to even acknowledge the use of it, under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. His reaction to hearing his name for the first time in a long time was obviously being watched very carefully, so he needed to evaluate his reaction carefully. Reacting violently could get him several places he didn't want to go, yet so could a passive reaction

"They have not called me that for almost two years now," he said.

"And what do they call you?" said the Medic.

Man hesitated. Did he really want to reveal anything even the slightest bit personal to this Medic, this unknown factor? He decided that gaining a small amount of trust from the medic would be better than having none at all.

"Man," he replied, "they call me man." The Medic sat back in his chair and made a thoughtful noise, then opened his mouth to speak again.

"And why," he enquired, "Do they call you that, when you are nothing of the sort?" Man was stumped. He knew that he was not human anymore, but he still considered himself to be a man. He chuckled. He was not sure he had ever been a man, though he had been a boy for a long time.

"Why do they call you Medic, when clearly, you are not?" he retorted. The Medic laughed.

"You are quite clearly becoming impatient with idle conversation. I'll get to my point. Are you going to tell us how you made yourself like this?"

Man pretended to consider this for a moment, and then laughed. "No." he replied.

The Medic laughed too, but stopped abruptly.

"I thought not. Now, next question. Do you care for her, your creation? Girl, as you call her. Miss Brianna Mills, your child, of a fashion. Would you mind terribly much if we were to, say, dissect her? What would happen if we tried? Would she live? Would we be attacked by her powers?"

Man was shocked. Initially, he had cared little for Girl, beyond that she was his creation and therefore his responsibility. However, he now felt differently. He felt fatherly towards her. She was more than his creation, she was his child. He knew that she did not view him exactly the same, but he did not care. She was his Girl, his daughter, his creation. He would not let them harm her.

"You wouldn't. Surely, you wouldn't. What of her human rights? Actually, there's a point. You cannot keep us locked up in those cells. We have rights and you are violating them."

The Medic seemed unconcerned. "But you do not have rights, Mr Satorenati. Especially not human rights. You are not human any longer, remember? You seemed quite proud of it previously. You evidently did not stop to consider that now, neither you nor your child has. Any. Rights." The Medic finished his sentence punctuating each word more than was really necessary and ending with a smug smile.

Man started laughing. He laughed and he laughed. He laughed until tears poured down his cheeks, until his throat was hoarse. He laughed until no sound came out, until he was sat there gasping for air.

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He was taken back to his cage shortly after. There was a moment, before the door closed behind them, when he wondered if he should escape. A chuckle escaped him. What would escaping achieve, when he no longer had any rights to anything? Nothing. It was a good job he didn't need to excrete much anymore, because it would really smell down there if he or Girl did. He began to laugh again. He laughed and didn't stop until he saw them taking Girl. No, they could not have Girl. She was being dragged away, and she was screaming for him, screaming for Man, screaming for him to do something. In his panic, he forgot about his energy. He rushed to the still-open door or his cage, only to be caught by a guard. The guard picked him up in a fireman's hold as he struggled, clawing at the air in Girl's direction in a desperate attempt to reach her. When Girl had left, in a show of strength, the guard flung him across the small cell where he collided with the wall. The metal doors shut with clangs. Man picked himself up and then slumped against the wall as his knees gave way. He stayed there curled up and sobbing despondently for a long time. He was going mad, and he had no-one to tell.

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Brianna was scared. She was more scared than ever before, more scared than when Man had changed her, and more scared than when her brother had sold her for the first time. She was being dragged, kicking and screaming, down identical corridors. She was struggling to free herself from the strong arms which were holding her. She scratched and writhed and kicked and bit into the soft flesh, but none of her actions had an effect. She was taken into an empty white-walled room, with the only furniture being a medical examination table in the centre. Her struggling increased in intensity as a terrible realisation came over her. A man was stood there, with salt-and-pepper hair. He held a syringe in his hand, and Brianna's eyes widened in panic before the needle was plunged into her arm, and her limbs became heavy and everything began to fade.

When she awoke, it was to the soft beep-beep of a heart monitor. She looked down to find that she was naked but for a green sterile cover, which did not cover her chest, which was coated in anti-septic. She tried to move, but to her horror, she found that she was bound to the table. She heard a noise like ripping plastic to her right, and turned her head to see the salt-and-pepper man with his back to her. He turned around, holding a scalpel. Brianna reached out for Man with her mind, and just barely reached him, in the cells below. She felt his mind connecting with hers, a split second before the scalpel dig into her skin. She felt terrible pain, and noted almost absently that she had not been anaesthetised before she fainted.

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Man was still sobbing when he felt a tentative brush against his mind. He instantly seized it just in time to see the Medic cut into her skin, and experience her pain. Instantly, he was furious. He felt fury blaze inside him at an intensity he had never experienced before. He knew what he had to do. He gathered as much energy from the room as he dared, even taking some heat energy from the air, and pushed some of it into the bars of his cage. They split open. He pushed the metal door to the staircase, and it crumbled into metal filings. He crushed the other door while he was still running up the stairs. Expecting to encounter guards, he summoned some energy and turned it to a sword-like of flames. He followed his instincts, which guided him through the sterile corridors towards Girl and the Medic. He rounded yet another corner and it became blaringly obvious where Girl was when he saw the guards stationed outside the door. With a sweeping motion, the fire cut through the guards' bodies like they were butter, and a little blood flooded from their partially cauterised veins to stain the previously pristine white corridor. He wrenched open the door in time to see the Medic set down his scalpel and pick up some sharp tweezers and a syringe. He flung his energy towards the Medic without shaping it, and the Medic was flung across the room into the wall opposite. Man heard a loud crack, but ignored it and rushed towards his Girl. She looked pale, but the exposed organs he could see did not look to be disturbed. He pulled the skin together and looked for a needle and surgical thread. He couldn't see any. In an almost last resort, he held the skin together and focussed his energy on knitting it closed. Shining slivers of his energy appeared, looking like stitches against her skin, before they spread out like a liquid, leaving healed skin in their wake. Not pausing to wonder at the miracle he had just performed, Man concentrated on trying to wake Girl up. He brushed up against her mind with his own, only for her to gasp and suddenly open her eyes before flinging herself at him and sobbing.

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Before Brianna realised what she was doing, she had flung herself into Man's arms. She had been unconscious, but she knew that he had saved her. He had somehow healed her too. She cried gratefully into his chest for a few moments before composing herself, and realising her state of undress. She pulled back and drew the medical sheet around her like a towel.

"We need to get out." She stated, and Man nodded. He led the way. Brianna had almost gasped and scolded him when she saw the mutilated bodies of the guards, but stopped herself after quickly realising that he could not have saved her otherwise. They opened every door on the way, but did not find the exit. He did find what looked to be a locker room for the guards, and they searched through the lockers until they found some clothes small enough to fit. Even though they were the smallest clothes they could find, they were still much too large for Brianna. They encountered no-one during their search, which seemed strange, because surely, there was not only the evil man with the scalpel and some guards here. But it was apparently so, and Brianna was thankful that it was.

They had a disappointing amount of success trying to find the exit, and it seemed that they would be stuck in this labyrinth of sterile white corridors forever, when it seemed that Man had an idea.

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That was it, he realised. They couldn't find the exit, so they would have to dig themselves out. He led Girl to the staircase leading down back to the cells, and shushed her when she tried to question him. He walked into his cell, and put his hand against one of the walls. He willed energy to flow into the wall, yet remain attached to him. The tendrils distributed themselves amongst the particles of the wall, and grew more tendrils until, were it visible to the naked eye, it would look like a tree made up of stardust. He willed the energy to expand and obliterate, and instantly, everything the energy had touched was dust. He chuckled. It looked like a meteor had crashed into the wall. Explaining to Girl what to do, he continued his quest to dig them out of the hell-hole they found themselves in. Within ten minutes, they had a tunnel approximately twenty five metres into the earth. They continued digging until long after they were both exhausted. Man stopped only when Girl fell asleep, mid dig.

Waking up in the morning was disorientating, to say the least. He opened his eyes to see the top of the dirt tunnel, and he could smell the earth all around him, and hear Girl beginning to stir. They lay in silence for a few moments, before he remembered.

"I'm going mad." Man said.

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"I know," Brianna replied, "Shall we get going?"

Man nodded and the two went back to feeding their energy into the packed dirt and then making it disintegrate. They did this for hours, before abruptly, they both stopped tunnelling. Man chuckled.

"Do you feel that?" he said. Brianna nodded. It was energy. It was energy belonging to living people. She could have cried with joy, because it was the energy belonging to the mages. She jumped back into action, many tendrils of energy spreading out into the end of the tunnel to dig further and reach the energy lying about a hundred metres away.

"Do you recognise the energy? It's not human," said Man. Brianna nodded again, and, without taking a second of time away from her work, pushed memories of the mages and their amazing city into Man's mind. When he had processed them, he, too, began to dig with fervour.

For almost two more hours they dug and used up most of their energy without taking breaks. Brianna was nearing exhaustion, she hadn't exercised her energy as much as Man, and it was like a muscle, needing to be stretched and worked up before you could use it a lot. She felt blood begin to drip from her nose, and wiped it away on her arm, only for it to be replaced with more. But she carried on pouring her energy into the dirt which was slowly turning to stone as the moved, even when the blood began to drip steadily down. The almost-scent of the mages' energy was getting stronger still as they progressed, unhindered by the rock unlike their physical bodies as they slowly carved their way through it. After another half an hour, Brianna felt red tears begin to well up in her eyes as blood vessels there burst and red tears ran down her cheeks. Man pushed his energy outwards and there was no more rock separating them and the source of the energy. They looked out of the hole they had created in the side of a cavern and looked below to gaze upon another mage city. However, it wasn't the magnificent city Brianna had seen before. There were small and cramped shacks and shipping containers packed closely together with people running around and tending the fields full of various crops and animals, which were also packed like sardines. The adults were all skinny and dressed in old and worn clothes, far from the richness of the large golden city Brianna had been in before. Packs of rats swarmed in amongst the pitiful homes of the people, who were clearly mages, though mostly uneducated, as none of them were using their 'magic' or had those sticks, but there was only one way the crops would grow underground and that the cavern would be lit from seemingly no source. There were a few children and adults who were sat around, clearly just lay where they had fell, who were so thin that Brianna could count their ribs even from this distance. There was no sign of riches, or enchanted metal guard dogs here. On the contrary, there was mud and general filth everywhere, and almost none of the people they could see were clean, despite the underground stream which was channelled amongst the crops. Chillingly, in the distance Brianna could see an expansive graveyard filled with not only adult graves, but also fresh, unmarked, child sized mounds of soil.