Chapter Text
Anya woke up in a room that was strange, and at the same time, all too familiar to her. It had exceptionally white walls that she could have considered the nurse’s office, but the feeling of it was vastly different. The smell of bleach and ammonia burned her nostrils, and she realised that she had been there before, in an era long past. Anya groaned as the painkillers wore off, leaving her with quite a dizzy head. She felt the heavy weight of metal chains holding her wrists down.
Anya gave the chains an experimental rattle, but realised with dismay that it was no use. They were stuck on tight, and fastened to secure her wrists in such a way that she wouldn't be able to slide her thin wrists out of them. She took another cursory look around the ward to try to place where she was.
The bright white light nearly blinded her. She wanted to raise her hands, to shield her eyes from that horrible harsh light, but the cuffs on her wrists limited her movement and held her down.
Instead she decided to look away from the walls, and the bright light that reflected from them, and tried to assess her surroundings. She was on some kind of cot, like the beds in hospitals with thin, cardboard-like mattresses, and the room around her was bare and clinical.
She looked down at herself. She had been changed into something like white pyjamas, which she hated to admit were actually not too uncomfortable. There was no blanket in the room, but it was warm enough that she didn't need one.
Her head hurt, though, and she guessed that it wasn't just because of the light. She closed her eyes and groaned, and tried to remember how she got there.
She sat bolt upright. Adrian!
He had led her here somehow. He was a part of the organisation that had experimented on her when she was a child, and for some reason he had helped them to get her back. But why would he do something like that? Surely he knew how evil and soulless the organisation was?
And she thought he had looked so sad. She had always had strange feeling about him, but nothing could have ever prepared her for what he was truly capable of. Anya wanted to ask him more questions, wanted to find out why he would do something like this, and more than anything she wanted to know what he was.
Was he an experiment too? Was he a telepath like her? Is that why she wasn't able to read his mind?
Just then, Anya noticed a blinking red light in the corner of the ceiling. So, she was being watched and recorded.
Anya tried to swallow, but her throat was so dry, all she could do was choke on her own breath. How long would they leave her there without any food or water?
Then she heard a crackling from something that might have been a speaker in the room. “Subject 007,” said a monotonous voice.
Anya didn't want to respond to that name. It wasn't her name. So she sat there and didn't make a move, but her eyes betrayed her and flicked again to the CCTV camera.
“Your examination will commence shortly. Please prepare to welcome the Director. ”
She heard the click of a door, and everything in Anya’s body came to a standstill.
A woman entered through the door. Someone who Anya had seen before. She thought she had forgotten that sullen face, the hollowed eyes.
The woman had black hair tied back in an elegant bun, and wore a white lab coat over what looked to be quite an expensive knee length dress. She wore pearls around her neck, and a diamond bracelet dangled from her wrist.
Anya couldn't tear her eyes away from the bracelet that jingled as the woman started writing on her clipboard. The shine of the diamonds dazzled her in the white clinical light, and it was then that Anya realised that she couldn't read the woman’s mind.
“Director,” rasped Anya. She never knew what the Director’s name was, and she didn't wear a name badge so it would not be easy for her to find out.
The Director regarded Anya with a stern look, and then brought out her radio. “Can Dr Atkinson and Dr Parker come to room 605. Thank you.”
To Anya, she said: “Since you’re conscious and appear to be capable of speech, I’m going to take that to mean that you’re also ready to get started.”
Anya was taken aback. “Get…started?” Her mouth was still too dry for her to form words comfortably, but she had too much pride to ask for a glass of water.
The Director flipped through her clipboard, and looked at the other papers in turn. “From your information here, it looks like your last test was quite a number of years ago, so you're overdue.”
At that moment, there was a rap at the door. “Come in,” said the Director.
Two men entered through the door, that Anya was quite certain she had never seen before. Maybe they were new, or had started working there since she ran away. One of them had a bald head, and a protruding nose, that Anya thought made him look a bit like an eagle , while the other man had a shock of white hair that looked like hadn’t been brushed in a while, with large round glasses that gave him quite an owlish look.
It took Anya a moment to realise that she couldn't hear anything from their minds. Why was her power not working? Was it because she was still recovering from the sedation? Did she not have any energy left to be able to use her power?
She tried to concentrate on the mind of the man with white hair, but she heard only static and a sharp pain filled her brain. She felt something trickle out of her nose, and she wiped her hand across it. When she took her hand away, she realised that she was bleeding.
The Director smiled. “So you've noticed you can't read our minds then. I'm afraid we have to take some precautions while we’re in this base, as we dont want you knowing your location. We are transmitting a low level sound frequency across the whole facility that will prevent your brain from operating at the wavelength required for your telepathy.”
This stunned Anya. Her power could be stopped with a certain frequency of sound wave? She strained her ears to listen out for it, but she heard nothing. It must have been very low level indeed.
“Dr Atkinson, can you please prepare Subject 007 for test 318-B. There should be enough materials for you provided in the cabinets.”
The owl man dipped his head in a nod. “Yes, Director.”
“And Dr Parker,” continued the Director. “We need to get a baseline examination with Subject 007. Please start straight away.”
“Yes, Director,” said the bald-headed man, and Anya recoiled.
Baseline examination? Tests?
She had barely any memory of what the tests had been in her early years, but if it was anything like her flashback from before, then she felt the panic rising in her.
She tugged the chains once more but they rattled uselessly against the metal railings of her cot. Rage and humiliation built in Anya’s chest, and in that instant she vowed that she would resist being trapped with every fiber of her body, every molecule of her soul.
How dare they take her against her will?
How dare they force her into this room, and experiment on her?
How dare they take her away from her home, her friends, her family?
How dare they!!
She kicked against the wall, and the cot shot forward, and the metal bars slammed the Director in the legs. She stumbled back in a gasp, and glared at Anya.
“Let me out!” Anya bellowed.
Dr Atkinson automatically reached out a hand to the Director to help pull her up, but she slapped his hand away and got to her feet, and dusted off her dress and lab coat.
Anya continued to pull on the chains. “I want to go home! I don't want to be here anymore!”
The Director tsked and looked Anya up and down. “She still has the same fire from years ago. Well not to worry, we’ll have that extinguished in no time. You’ll be happy to be here. You'll see.”
Anya saw Dr Atkinson turn to face her with a series of needles laid on a metal tray and she recoiled, trying to move as far away as possible from thim.
“No! You can't do this to me! My Papa is going to come after me - you'll see! He's going to find me and come after you and then... And then he's going to bring me back home!”
“Oh darling,” said the Director with a chilling smile. “You are home.”
The Director stood back and let Dr Atkinson approach with a tray of needles.