35th Sexem, 269 AC517Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZCQjoxnRPU
Catia stood outside the sharply lit front door of the Draiix Intelligence Force enforcement building in nothing but an oversized shirt and mismatched socks. Turning herself in for the crime of existing had been a spur-of-the-moment two in the morning decision, and she'd been so wrapped up in it she'd forgotten to get dressed.
The light throbbing in the back of Catia's skull told her there were fourteen people on duty inside. As she stood there, she knew without moving an inch that it had been a slow day for this particular outpost, and that the staff were struggling to make it through the graveyard shift. She sensed that several of them were overdue for their routine hypnox sleep treatment and were sorely feeling the effects of their natural sleep cycles. One of them had an abnormally strong craving for silk pudding--
Catia stepped forward to pull herself away from the overflow of thoughts that weren't her own. This was why she was here, after all. She couldn't pretend anymore.
Opening the door, she was buffeted by a warm airflow, in stark contrast to the cold of mid-Sexem. Heart pounding in her throat, Catia pushed all the foreign sensations and thoughts aside. She walked up to the first officer she saw -- she immediately discerned his name to be Kye -- and simply stood there for a moment, returning his annoyed and confused gaze with a blank one.
"What do you want, girl?"
She remained quiet for a moment more. "You can take me in now."
Kye scoffed, but his eyes narrowed. "For?"
"I'm a skepsix. I just manifested a few--" Before she could even finish her statement, she felt a sudden sense of heaviness, as if she had been plummeted into a bath of thick syrup. Her tongue no longer capable of forming sentences, she stood there in silence.
Confusion bubbled up, panic sweeping over her. Why couldn't she move? It took her a few seconds to realize it, but there were waves of concentration emanating from the officer.
"Elise!" Kye shouted, brow furrowed. "Sound the alarm, get Drell over here right now. It's a blacklister, I've got her frozen."
He's a kinesix, Catia realized. Kinesixes were of the Pyron variety of exosia users, capable of extracting the kinetic energy from anything and repurposing it. In this case, keeping her from moving. Every time she would generate kinetic energy by attempting to move, he would thwart it by absorbing it.
The silver-haired woman at the front desk came running over, carrying her handheld scripter. She looked Catia over with an expression that made Catia feel like a criminal, then scribbled something on her scripter. Seconds later, thick metal slabs dropped down from the ceiling near the windows and doors, blocking off all exits.
I just turned myself in. Why would I try and escape? Still, she didn't know what she'd expected walking in here. A warm welcome? No, definitely not. A gunshot to the head? Maybe. But she supposed this was the most realistic option.
"What is she doing here?" Elise asked, stern urgency edging it's way into her voice.
"She just walked up and admitted to it. Didn't ask any questions."
"Alright, I'll contact HQ. Drell better hurry his sorry ass up or he's going to have more to worry about than a late ticket. Where the hell is he?"
Catia was beginning to second guess her late-night decision when a short, pudgy man in his late forties with mousey hair and an anxious expression waddled over from around the corner.
"Drell," Elise huffed impatiently, "we've got a skepsix. Give her a big one. We're gonna have to bring in HQ, so it better last til tomorrow."
Drell nodded quickly, chewing on his lip fearfully as he took Catia in. After a moment's hesitation, he placed his clammy hand on the side of her head. She may have commented on the strange and unwelcome nature of the gesture, if able, but Catia quickly found herself feeling immensely tired. While appropriate for the time of night, she didn't believe that it was possible for one to feel so suddenly and overwhelmingly sleepy without the interference of a hypnox. She reasoned that Drell must be one.
Even so, the cause was only relevant for a few seconds until she passed out, right where she stood.
Kye relaxed, letting her limp body drop, reaching out only at the last second to catch her. She was no use to anyone if she fell and split her head open on the concrete floor.
Elise shook her head. "A skepsix. Poor girl. The higher-ups are desperate for those nowadays. Wonder where she'll be assigned."
"If she gets assigned," Kye scoffed. "She could still fail the screening. Then she'd really need your pity."
Elise frowned. "If she fails screening, she deserves what she gets. We don't need these people running around. You know what happened to the Arjun."
36th Sexem, 269 AC517Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXxyPyKD7NG
Catia awoke strapped to a metal chair in a small, windowless metal room. Drell lifted his hand from her cheek and shuffled back into the far corner of the room, while Catia blinked her bleary eyes in an attempt to focus them.
For several moments she saw nothing but blinding lights blurred into bokeh circles. She blinked a few more times and a groan came from deep in her throat.
In front of her stood three people; Drell, Kye, and a tall, professional looking woman in her thirties with long black hair, calculating narrow eyes, and skin that matched Catia's own warm brown. The woman stood across from her, seeming almost impatient.
"About time," she spoke in a thick Spanic accent, "I thought Drell had put you out for good."
Catia's throat felt sore and dry. "What's going on?"
The woman didn't skip a beat. "Two nights ago you walked into the Isolde D.I.F. Enforcement Building and confessed to possessing a blacklisted manifest. I have been called in to ask certain questions and verify their... truthfulness." She pulled over a chair from the corner and straddled it facing the back, her nonchalance setting Catia on edge.
Catia deflated. "You couldn't just ask me without the straps?" She sighed, knowing the words were likely more harmful to her case than helpful before they left her tongue.
The woman's smile held no warmth. "You are untrained. You are dangerous. You know this, or you would not have come." She paused a moment. "I must ask you questions now. For the record, I am a prothesix and I will know if you lie to me."
Catia swallowed. Why hadn't she thought of this before coming here? I did think of it, I just didn't care. I still don't.
The woman took her silence as compliance. "Good. Now. What is your name?"
Catia took a deep breath and readied herself for whatever was coming. "Catia Stark."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"Where were you born?"
"Isolde." Catia furrowed her brow. "Are you not gonna write any of this down?"
"I have a very good memory. And now that we have established a baseline... let's get to the good stuff."
Catia shifted uncomfortably in her chair, tossing her messy black hair out of her eyes. "Fine, Ms. Brenner."
The woman cocked her head slightly, intrigued, and perhaps even amused. "Ah, are you poking around in my thoughts, Ms. Stark...? I would suggest keeping your proverbial hands to yourself, or it may negatively impact your future with the Empire. And let's be honest, at this point, you really do not need any more black marks on your file."
"N-no!" Catia sputtered, nervously stumbling over her own tongue, "It wasn't intentional, it just happens. That's why I'm here. I can't turn it off."
"Very good." Brenner stood, beginning a slow and deliberate pace around Catia's chair. "So what about your inhibition training? How did you respond to it?"
Catia tensed. This is where it would get messy. "I... I was mixed. I think I scored a 3." She looked down at her knees. "I was very anxious about it."
Brenner was silent for a moment. "So recount your manifestation to me. Was incapacitation necessary?"
"Er... yes, sorry, um... I was at home with my friend Elias, when I thought he said something, but he had actually only thought it. This happened several times that day, but I went to the market with Mum that evening and I... I heard so many voices in my head, all at once, I just sort of panicked and ran home."
Catia paused, waiting for a response. All she received was an impatient gesture to continue.
"Well, I was miserable for a few days, especially with the adjustment sickness. I just lied around, feeling overwhelmed and isolated."
"So why didn't you come in sooner?" Brenner's cold and curious expression told Catia she was on thin ice. She couldn't admit to the fact she'd manifested years ago, that her family had tried to protect her by hiding her, but she couldn't lie about it either. She thought quickly and worded herself very carefully.
"I waited for the adjustment sickness to pass, then I came in last night." Not a lie. The sickness just passed years ago...
Brenner pulled a cigarette out of her coat pocket and lit it, exhaling a cloud of smoke as she paused her pacing to lean against the wall. "And your parents? How did they respond?"
"They told me if I didn't go I would be breaking the law, I'd get everyone in trouble." Also true.
"Then why did they not bring you? Or at least come with you?"
"They... didn't want anyone to know about me. They were scared." Catia bowed her head, attempting to feign shame, but finding it came easily.
Brenner sniffed, the corner of her mouth twitching with a repressed smirk. "Huh. That is the first honest thing you have said."
Head still bowed, Catia's eyes widened. Well, shit. She lifted her eyes slowly, mind racing in an attempt to find a way out of this. When she came in, she wasn't intending to get her family in trouble for hiding her, but now she worried she had done just that.
"I will be making note of that for my superiors." Brenner's expression softened slightly, but something about it seemed unnatural."You do understand why we do this, correct? We are not out to get you. We are not trying to get you in trouble. Nobody wants you to get hurt. But we have a blacklist for a reason. You are dangerous, whether you want to be or not. We need to make sure that nothing goes unchecked. So we need the truth. The full truth, and nothing but it."
Catia stared for a moment before nodding. She wasn't sure how to respond other than that. She just wanted the whole thing to be over. What else could she do? How could she keep from incriminating her family?
Brenner looked like she was about to say something, but then she thought better of it. "Now then... tell me about your family. What are their manifests?"
Surprised, Catia blinked a few times before answering. "I... my mother is a hypnox, Class I. Dad is..." She trailed off, her voice breaking and contempt flickering across her expression for just a moment, "...was, a photox, Class II. Aria, my older sister, is a metallox, Class II." Her words were clipped and her tone short.
Brenner remained unaffected. "So you have no known family history of Psionic manifests?"
"No." Catia couldn't resist spitting it out forcefully. While she never forgot it for a day, being explicitly reminded of how the Empire sent her father off to an endless war he'd clearly never make it back from was not a way to get her in a good mood.
Brenner nodded, satisfied. "Good. Then you'll be easier to train."
Catia knew she'd likely be conscripted for some variety of government work when she turned herself in, but she still had no idea what. Her stomach lurched at the thought of what about it could be so terrible as to have her parents hide her for years over it. "...what will I be training for?"
Brenner scoffed. "That is not for me to decide. The Judge will decide that."
Catia's already knotted stomach dropped to her feet.
Brenner turned and walked to the back of the room, taking a scripter from Kye and scribbling something on it. "Make sure this gets to Spiros. Tell them we have a Skepsix available for training, but that she needs the full scale vetting." She headed for the door, stopping only to glance over her shoulder. "Welcome to the Draylix Empire. I am sure we'll find some use for you."
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v1.0 - 11/16/18517Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ldcU1G6we
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