I woke up the next morning with a headache that hurt less than it had yesterday. I stretched zily and then made my way over to the breakfast table. “Morning Vanessa, thought of any pns for escaping yet” called Irene. I sighed. “No Irene, the thought of escaping hadn’t even crossed my mind” I lied. You obviously don’t talk about your escape pn when you don’t know where the listening devices are pnted. That’s just paranoia common sense.

  Even as we spoke I’m sure the several hundred soldiers who were tuned into radio Nessie yesterday were subconsciously carrying out my machinations. But it would take time to get all the ducks neatly lined up in a row. I say as if my orders were a coherent strategy and not a series of seemingly unreted impulses that would enable our escape and ensure that even if our absence was prematurely noted, there’d be so much chaos going down that we’d fall to the bottom of the priority list.

  It would be soon though. Obviously I’d have to act before general Wasserv?gel noticed something was up with her soldiers. She didn’t come across as unintelligent and I had pnted some strange impulses that any decent leader would notice and question. Whether she realized my pn in time or not would be a matter of luck. Luck and making sure she had something more important to distract her.

  “Say Irene. How’d you get captured and wind up here” I asked. “A moment dearie: CHARLOTTE! PETER! BREAKFAST!” she called. Charlotte came bounding like a tiny train from a tree she had been climbing and Peter zily wandered over from his bed cave. Once they were seated, Irene began exposing.

  “I’m going to tell you things that I don’t want repeated to the guards or to miss Wasserv?gel. Can I trust you to keep quiet?” asked Irene. “That’s a bad idea” I responded bluntly. “Our story won’t make much sense without our secrets” she noted. “Your secrets won’t stay secrets if you say them here. The guards hear way more than they let on” I warned cryptically. “What makes you say that?” she asked.

  “Paranoia” I said, instead of expining my knowledge of modern technologies like tiny wireless microphones and tipping off the guards that I was both aware of such tricks and on the other prisoners’ side enough to give them useful information they didn’t already have. I don’t know what the consequences of betraying our fascist in chief would be but I’m fairly certain it would not viote her personal code to torture a child.

  I sighed. “Just talk around anything really important and I’ll make wild guesses” I said. “That sounds annoying” she groused. “If its important the general remain ignorant, don’t say it at all” I insisted. She sighed. “Fine… among our…” - “Secret vilge of witches under ke Erie” I provided. “Alright. Within our community in the secret vilge of witches under ke Erie, it is considered the duty of beastshifters to protect others. We are fast, strong and nigh unkilble due to our accelerated healing. And because we can be burned, crushed, beaten and broken and then get back up for a second helping, we are practically expected to make the sacrifice py”

  “The thing is… the secret vilge of witches living under ke Erie… sometimes requires things from the outside world. Little things nobody will miss like old clothes or tools. There isn’t enough metal in the… ke to make our own tools you see. So we form elite units to raid the outside world for the tools and stuff we need to keep surviving. Peter and me both got caught on raids. In my case we got attacked in a dark ally a half mile from our rendezvous with… the person who was going to take us back to… Lake Erie. I fought off the ambush alone while my companions went on ahead. I was able to prevent their capture but… I haven’t seen… my family in over 30 years” she expined.

  “That’s awful. Don’t worry. We’ll escape soon and then we’ll find your family again” I replied. “Its not that simple. I don’t know how to find… ke Erie. Only the…” - “Mermaid Queen?” - “sure, Mermaid Queen. Only the Mermaid Queen knows where the vilge truly lies” said Irene. Well crap. Crap with a capital C. If the general finds out I’m sitting on that secret I’m going to wish she’d deport me to Guatema to be buried alive in excrement. I kept my face mostly neutral. “Well at least they’re safe” I said encouragingly. She smiled. “Indeed. Peter, why don’t you tell her your story”.

  Peter sighed. “After Irene disappeared the El…” (“MERMAID QUEEN” I zapped into his head) “Mermaid queen changed the rules about raids” he expined. (Wait, did I just use my powers on him? SHIT! I’m not wearing the binder bracelet. Hope the window watchers didn’t see private Aaron dying repeatedly st night…). Ignorant of my internal panic, Peter continued.

  “We used to hit up the same couple of spots each time. A teleporter can only remember so many pces. But afterwards we instated…” - “Rules aren’t important, what went wrong” I interrupted. Honestly, security through obscurity is bad security but why sacrifice an advantage like that? “Fine. Basically we were only meant to bring a few people but I took Charlotte with me because she wanted to see the outside world” he said. “How old was she?” I asked. “Six” he replied.

  “I’m guessing she got bored or something and turned into a big pink rabbit in front of a bunch of outsiders?” I asked. “She hadn’t learned keratin manipution back then so it was more like a big brown bunny but yeah… I called an immediate evacuation. I ran back to the teleporter like a madman. It was my job, I had no choice. When we got back they’d lost her! They said they’d keep an eye on her while I went and got the teleporter but when I got back they’d lost her!”

  “The teleporter said he was leaving with or without me. I couldn’t leave Charlotte! I tried to find her. I really did. But she had gotten scared and was hiding somewhere. The hunters found her easily enough though. Found us both. If she’d only came when I called…”

  As he told his story, his tone gradually became more mencholic. Charlotte buried her face in her hands and looked about ready to start crying by the end. I pced my hand on her head. “Hey. Its not your fault” I said. (sniff) “But if I… if I…” she stammered.

  “I shot a bear dead when I was six” I mentioned casually. “What do you mean… shot?” asked Irene. “With a gun. The noisy things the guards use to fight” I eborated. “Like… like in… all the shows…” sniffed Charlotte. “Exactly” I smiled. “A gun is a tool for killing. It unches a lump of lead at approximately 500 feet per second. A bullet in motion has enough kinetic energy to pass through your skull like a hot knife through jello. They are incredibly dangerous things and it was pure avarice to give one to a six year old child. Statistically, that ends with me dead. Or someone else dead”

  “But for all his faults (including his tendency to give deadly weapons to children) my father took supervision of a child with a deadly weapon extremely seriously. If I ever pointed the business end at myself or him he’d have it out of my hands faster than you can say dead Nazi. And the words “finger on the trigger guard idiot” are forever etched into the inside of my skull.”

  “Now I’m not telling that story because I think children should be given guns. Frankly I’m still not convinced I survived for any reason other than dumb fucking luck. But if my father can keep a kid alive while said kid is holding a stick for killing people dead before their bodies hit the ground, you losing control of a child with the comparatively minor complication of being able to turn into a big rabbit sounds like a you problem. And bming her for being a six-year-old and doing exactly what six-year-olds do when they get bored is just ghoulish!” I said.

  I was staring daggers at Peter. He was staring daggers back at me. “If she’d come when I called!” he snapped. “She’s a CHILD! We do not hold children responsible under the w. Their actions are always the responsibility of their parent or guardian. MAN UP!” I yelled. Peter shifted. Turns out his beast form is a beautiful golden lion with a luscious brown mane. I didn’t even flinch. “If you want to DIE because you couldn’t handle being called out on be being a shit parent be my guest. I warned. He growled in warning.

  “Peace Peter” said Irene with absolute authority. He shot daggers her direction. She gave him an inviting smirk. Something told me if these two went to war then I might need to unkill him. She had a dangerous energy about her I hadn’t noticed before. He stared at her for another few seconds and then stalked off to his bed cave, muttering darkly.

  “And you” she rounded on me. “Don’t annoy beastshifters. He could end your life in the blink of an eye” she warned. “I can look after myself” I retorted. “Really? I’d like to see that if you don’t mind” she said. “No” I said. “No?” she demanded. “The slightest advantage can win a battle and any battle can mean the end of a war. I might know a secret martial art taught to me by Tibetan monks. I might have hacked into their security system and have control of a hidden gun turret concealed in the trees. I might have smuggled a small gun in up my butt. I might be full of bluster and bluff. Once my abilities become known to the guards they can pn around them. Make contingencies. Proving I was in control of that situation now could cost us an escape ter. So no I’m not proving it. You’ll just have to trust me” I replied testily.

  She smiled and ughed. “Okay ssie. If you insist I won’t pry. Just remember that you can’t get us out of here if you’re dead…” she chuckled. “Miss Wolfe, please report to the general” came the loudspeaker. “Wish me luck” I said with a smile. I left her to comfort poor Charlotte, who was inexplicably convinced she’d caused an argument and felt incredibly guilty about it.

  I held out my wrists and that weird bangle was pced upon one. It was pretty dim as usual. I was led into a room with scarecrows set up with targets on them. It reminded me of how my father taught me to shoot. Well, what I remembered of that anyway. Between repressive trauma and being too young to form coherent memories for half of it anyway that was actually a pretty fuzzy topic.

  “Good morning Vanessa. Are you feeling better after yesterday’s… trouble” asked general Wasserv?gel. “I’ve still got a headache but other than that I’m fine general. Thanks for the aspirin” I noted. “Please, call me Jade. And I don’t remember authorizing aspirin” she replied curiously. Hm. Oh right, one of the instructions was “don’t hate the prisoners”. Considering they’d previously had it out for me over private Aaron’s death… Hopefully she wouldn’t realize the implications in time.

  “Well, wherever it came from I’m grateful. Yesterday’s experiment gave me an awful headache and I doubt I’d have slept without it” I replied. “I’m sorry to hear that. After the machine was shut off we measured your magic and according to our instruments your body was holding more of it than any previous test subject had managed without dying. But it rapidly dissipated afterwards. Furthermore, magic detectors in every corner of the base recorded above baseline magic readings for 12 seconds, right before you fainted” she reported.

  “Does that mean I have a power now?” I asked. “No. In fact, your baseline has returned to its state before the experiment, but with a less stable reading” she reported. “That’s a shame” I replied. “Well, its not a lost cause yet. Maybe these fluctuations will bring you strength” she suggested. Not likely. “We’ve set up the dummies with magic detectors on them. I want you to try and strike them with your mind” she said.

  Alright. This could be a good opportunity to practice another control exercise. It was a bit of a risk. But whether the instability in my magic effected my fine control would be a terrible thing to experiment with during our escape. If I needed to kill someone with my mind, knowing the leakage radius sounded pragmatic.

  The binding bracelet was taken off my arm and I allowed my energy levels to return to baseline. “Fascinating!” said general Wasserv?gel. “What?” I asked. “Nothing” she replied brightly. Shit. She noticed that. Oh well. I began stretching my energy this way and that. It was a bit like pying with an invisible tongue with no nerves. It can move almost any direction but its hard to tell where it is. After a minute or two’s warmup I sent a tentacle of power snaking toward the target and when it made contact I was rewarded with a “ding!”. Which startled me and my power snapped back to my body.

  Most of the time it took the form of a bubble, centred on my head. I knew this because of where the echos from yesterday’s echolocation experiment had returned to. The magic was originating in some part of my brain. Experimentally I reshaped the bubble to be long and stretch toward the dummy. I lost coverage on other areas of my body but that was okay. This was much more efficient than making the bubble bigger, which required immense concentration and only gave me a football field at most. I wonder if I could stretch to a mile by being efficient. I struck the same target a second time and got a second ding. The general sighed.

  “According to our instruments you are hitting the target, but your power does not appear to have any effect on them. Hmm… perhaps it only works on people. PRIVATE AFTON! Stand among the targets” she ordered. I blinked slowly. “You want me to experiment with my powers on one of your own men?” I asked. “Is that a problem” she replied with a smile. “Not really… just doesn’t gel with your “I’m not a butcher” speech from earlier” I noted. She chuckled. “I have a thousand privates. They’re repceable. Do what you wish to them. The data we’d gain from such experiments is worth a million soldier’s lives” she ughed.

  I pushed down my bile. The person I was pretending to be would be neither surprised nor upset at her cruelty. Private Afton stood among the targets. I stared impassively. No. That wouldn’t do. I was meant to be an unhinged serial killer, begging to be let off her leash. I put on a sadistic smile. It wasn’t hard to hate him. He was a part of the system that took away my freedom and was trying to shape me into a tool of oppression afterall. A part of me wept in memory of Sgt Hale, and the way the army had absolutely fucked him. And would fuck anyone too blinded by patriotism to see how little that patriotism mattered. But I pushed that down. Right now I needed to look like I was enjoying this.

  I tried to strike faster than before. The bubble was slow to respond to my wishes. That would take some practice. I pushed out the tentacle until it made contact with his skin. I kept my mind carefully bnk. In the calmness of my empty mind, his resonated back along the psychic link. I couldn’t read his thoughts exactly. They made no instinctive sense to me. But I could tell he was thinking. The device on his belt went ding. Nothing else much happened. I held the tentacle against his skin for a few moments then let it snap back to me.

  “Do you feel anything private?” asked the general. “No General Wasserv?gel sir!” replied Private Afton. She sighed. “Keep him under observation for 24 hours, just in case” she noted. He was escorted out of the room. “I shall have to think upon how to discover the true nature of your power” she stated.

  “Actually” I said, “I would like to keep practicing with the dummies if you don’t mind” I said. “To what end?” she asked. “Well… they make a really satisfying ding when I hit them with my power” I admitted. The general smiled and chuckled. “So be it. Sargent! Take her back to the holding area when she’s done” said the general. And then she left me to it. I barely contained my smile. She trusted me enough to let others guard me. She would never in a million years see my betrayal coming. With gusto I redoubled my efforts to learn to control my bubble. It did not come naturally. But its not like I had anything else to do today.

  “Friday. 4AM” said the sargent. I didn’t acknowledge him. I had a lot of practicing to do before Friday at 4AM.