The sound of screaming, a wild and broken keening, is almost overwhelming. Almost. Every time it fades, another sound makes an appearance; a pop, a crack, a snap, the sound of ice tinkling against glass, icicles shattering against the ground. And then more screaming. More screaming until the sound slowly dies, first turning to a rough, broken rasp before being silenced all together.
The small girl whose bones are being broken one by one to see how quickly they heal and how well they heal from varying types of breaks is still screaming, but by the end the screams are silent and the tears have dried up, the only proof is the streaks from the tears that had rolled down her cheeks.
At least the doctors seem to appreciate this, enjoying the ability to keep up their casual conversation over the cacophony of bone shattering under their ministrations. It was so much harder when she was screaming.
Kali isn't fighting back. She's not allowed to, it would give too much away. So instead of fighting back, she curls in on herself and tries to absorb the blows and try not to choke on the blood pouring out of her nose and her cheek.
It had started when she tried to stop one of them from touching her. She was only sixteen and could still snap them in half with her pinky finger, but that wasn't the job, and she'd been backhanded for her back talk.
And now she's on the ground, tears falling down her bruised and bloodied cheeks, flinching away from fists and heavy boots and she can't do anything but beg them to stop.
The barracks is nothing more than a cement brick shell. The few tables and chairs that were in the room have all been pushed aside, stacked up perilously against the walls to make room in the center of the room. To make room for more than half a dozen teenage transgenics piled in a heap, seemingly for no reason at all. In the doorway, ever present, Lydecker stands with his arms crossed, next to a guard who is laughing uproariously in the middle of scattered explanations.
"There's nothing in the rules that says they can't all play at once," comes the explanation from the guard holding, of all things, the spinner to the game of Twister. "Right hand on red."
All together, the pile of bodies shifts. One of the girls seems to stumble as she shifts, falling in near slow motion onto a handful of boys beneath her who groan dramatically. This starts a domino effect, another boy falling with a yelp and comical windmilling of his arms like he'll be able to save himself.
"They've been at this for hours," the guard who'd been designated spinner tells Lydecker.
"The same game? That's more stamina then they show during half their drills."
Any answer is cut off by the gleeful whooping of the apparent winner, balanced delicately in a one handed handstand -- her right hand on red. "I win!"
Lydecker seems pleased, smirking as he mutters "Not quite," under his breath. As the guards watch, a thin arm reaches out from the pile and gently pushes the "winner" over with her left hand. When the girl is piled on the floor and her right hand is quite far from red, a blonde head pokes up from the pile, ponytail slipping over her shoulder as she glances up at the Colonel with wide, expectant green eyes.
Kali in miniature, no more than eight or nine, but clearly small for her age, is gently secured in a hospital bed when Lydecker walks in. Her tiny body is covered in a sheet, but her arms are visible, covered in dark, violently blue and purple bruises, cast in a futuristic plastic cast that looks like it's patterned after a giraffe, making bruised skin visible. Over the casts, her wrists are secured to the bed. Almost as if she'd tried to fight off the treatment.
She looks up when he walks in, green eyes sad and hurt, pain clear even from that tiny movement. Pain relief wasn't particularly important to the doctors that were studying her. Her voice is still gone, so she doesn't bother addressing him as he sits down in the plastic chair next to her.
"You did well."
She makes a face and Lydecker actually laughs, though there doesn't seem to be much mirth in it. The laughter brings a small smile to Kali's lips, easily fighting past the pain to light up her wan expression.
"Most of the X5s passed out. You stayed awake the entire procedure." Another smile fights to her lips, proud. Proud that the Colonel seems proud of her at least. The smile turns eager when he pulls a lollipop out of his pocket and tears the wrapper off, presenting to her.
"You did well."
Since she can't really use her arms, he pops it into her mouth for her and she beams at him with childish delight. After a brief pat on the head, more positive reinforcement, he leaves the room and leaves Kali to her lollipop and job well done.
Flitting around in a shimmery silver dress, Kali assumes this is what princesses feel like. She'd liberated the dress because it reminded her of dress the Syrian Prime Minister's daughter was wearing at the party that was the site of his assassination.
By Kali. Whoopsie.
She scoops a shrimp through the cocktail sauce and pops it into her mouth, turning, mouth full, to be greeted by a painfully handsome man in a suit.
"Hi."
She says nothing, green eyes wide, chewing quickly so she can swallow the prawn and actually use words, but he takes the opportunity to continue introducing himself. "Caleb Cadwell. Would you like to dance?"
She swallows, head bobbing in a nod, blonde curls falling over her shoulders as she takes his hand and lets herself be led on to the dance floor. She doesn't know how to dance, but his arm curls around his waist and his fingers curl around hers and she wills herself to just go with it. You can do it, Kali. You had one class in how to not be a freak of nature. That's clearly enough. Gently, she lifts her hand to curve over his shoulder, slipping around to flatten against his back.
"Kali. That's my name, I'm Kali."
He smiles and she feels her stomach do a back flip as he pulls her flush against him. "Hey Kali."
It isn't until later when they're making out in the hostess's bedroom and she's pushing his suit jacket off his shoulders that she finds out he's an FBI agent, but by then she doesn't really care.
"This is very bad. This is more bad that I am comfortably okay with being in the vicinity of. Oh I just ended my sentence with a preposition." Somehow, staring at a enormous white bull puffing it's breath at her, that was the direction Kali's brain went, a mental apology to Winston Churchill or whomever had said that quote about prepositions. Eep.
She wasn't even wearing red!
Why was this bull even huffing and puffing at her like he was the big bad wolf and she was a house made from straw? Why would anyone make a house from straw, that was silly. Back to the bull. She tried to think nice thoughts at it -- vegetarianism, lady cows, milkshakes -- as she backed away, but the bull just stomped it's foot and huffed at her angrily.
Stomp.
Kali chose that moment to run.
Maybe the pretty white bull was the personification of Kali in animal form. She was pretty sure there wasn't an animal form of Kali because that wouldn't be as scary and she was clearly the goddess of making her victims wet themselves and run in abject terror, but as Kali was not the fastest sprinter without her souped up X5 cocktail firing on all pistons thanks to the Rift, she was pretty sure that she was about to re-enact a running of the bulls that ended with pain and death and possibly dismemberment for good measure. Minor abject terror, check.
"I'm sorry I like cheeseburgers!"
How was she the only person on the streets? Not that she would want someone else in her position, but if she died by being gored to death by a white bull she would like some kind of witness to the event. She passed an insurance office and cackled. Would that be irony? If she died in front of a life insurance office? Maybe. She still hadn't figured out the subtleties of irony.
She was going to die. Being gored by a possibly magical bull. Damn it, she was not going to die sweaty.
She stopped and turned quickly, yelping a bit as the bull thundered towards her -- oh wow, it was close -- and then... disappeared. Into dust. Sparkly, glittery dust that coasted her like she rolled around in a stripper's make up for fun. She blinked, confused, and sneezed.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
» evelina
» alec
» russell
» helen
» bruce
» pepper
» derek
» jeremy
» neal
» peter
» jack
» erin
» oliver
» tony