Nine years had passed while I sat in a small concrete room. They were good enough to give me a box-less bed and a metal chair and desk. No doubt they were waiting for something to happen and they either wanted me to be bored while we waited or they thought it would happen fast.
Everyday of the last nine years, since right before my 21st birthday, had been spent in my room. Locked away from the world, but never locked out of my own mind. Day after day I escaped deep inside my mind learning every detail of this bizarre ability I had and learning how to use it consistently. Still, I was always aware they were behind the glass.
Some of the learning had to take place outside my head just by the very nature of what it was. The majority, though, could be learned inside my ever expanding mind where I didn't have the mirrors.
The very first thing I taught myself was how to be in two different places at once. Each time I had done it before had been done on accident. Being well versed in physics helped me to understand what I needed to know and what I didn't need to know. In this case, knowing all the details of how it worked wouldn't help because it was half feeling and raw emotion and half technical detail. Feeling and raw emotion didn't work well with technical logic.
Keeping with the institutional theme of the room, I was dressed in light blue scrubs. A brand new pair, and I do mean right off the shelf brand new, were brought to me every day along with a brand new pair of white Crock foam sandals. They would take them down the hall to a lab to collect samples of skin, hair and anything else I left behind.
For my shower, next to my bed was a mirrored glass door with a stainless steel handle. Inside the door was a shower encased in two way mirrors. One of the side mirrors has a drawer that they pass me a bar of soap, anti-bacterial Dial, and hotel size bottles of shampoo and conditioner. They also take samples from these products and the drain which empties into a large tub of water under the shower. I piss in the shower every single day for them. It is a little bit of my happiness every morning.
After turning off the water, they pass me a towel which they collect later when they bring me my breakfast. There is a mat outside the shower door where I dry off and then get dressed in my stiff new scrubs. After two or three hours they would loosen up and become tolerable.
Now, before I would get in the shower, I mark down on a menu what I want for breakfast. In a way it's like going to a restaurant. The menu is laid out nicely with several different choices. If Gordon Ramsay saw the menu he would revamp it because it is just too large. Add on top of that the Chef's Choices of the Day which consists of a paper insert with about six dishes of the chef's own design, which is what I always selected. I've watched Chef Gil a few times in my wanderings since I was stuck here. He is really a genuinely nice guy with a tremendous passion for cooking. It makes him happy when someone chooses off the specials.
The facility was the size of a six story building underground and eighteen floors above. Sounds like something I would think of and build with my Bondesque thinking. The bottom two floors were, well, prisoners of sorts. We were all here because the Government wanted to examine us for very long periods of time. Everyone in the building was dedicated to the people in the bottom two floors. There were 127 people housed in these cells, I counted them. Everything you could imagine and only imagine was housed in this building. People with things you would never think possible even in the deepest darkest thoughts kept to yourself in the recesses of your mind.
I only had two reasons to stay in the building. First was to learn everything I could about my abilities and learn to use it and control it. Second, was to free the girl twelve cells down and across the hall. I could feel the pull inside me to her. We had a strong connection and amazing history that I couldn't ignore. She is the girl with the hypnotic crystal blue eyes.
She too had some unique talents. Because of her gift, the room she was locked up in was sound proof and had no two way mirrors in it. She had many talents, but the one that caused the strange room was the ability to control people's minds just by looking at them, thus the lack of mirrors.
Before she had any control over it, they had her across the hall in a room with mirrors identical to mine. One day when I was watching her she had control of it enough to get one of them to let her out and walk her out of the building. She took his car and disappeared for about two months before they tracked her down again. By that point, she was starting to use her ability regularly with some control.
The sound proofing was due to her ability to hear better than any recorded person in history. She could hear through the steal reinforced concrete walls. This new room had sound proofing on both sides and in the middle of the wall. The room was built from scratch on spec after the escape, but before they got her back. Even the shower was padded with sound material on the outside and blocked from vision.
This day was going to be a different day for me. I needed to try some things to attempt control of my ability. Unfortunately I was going to have to show them some of what I could do. Letting them know too much could be dangerous, but I needed to try some of these things I had learned and the reward on the risk would be worth it.
Of course, no one had told me about Chef Gil and never told me his name. It would be interesting to see how much research would be triggered follow just a single sentence telling them some of what I knew.
Looking at the window across the room from the shower, "Please, tell Chef Gil to make me something of his own creation that's not on the menu. Thank you." I turned to get undressed for my shower and grinned knowing they were all asking around looking for the source of the name leak.
As I got naked I started to picture what I wanted to do in my mind. My vision hazed over as out and grabbed the shower door's chrome handle. As my left arm began to twitch I entered the shower closing my eyes and pictured what I wanted in the back of my mind. My eyes opened and the soap and shampoo drawer pushed open as I made a pushing motion with my arm feeling the drawer on my hand though I wasn't touching it.
Inside the drawer, my hand picked up the soap which I could feel. I grinned, closed my eyes and felt the tension clear in my mind as I focused only on the arm attached to my body. Opening my eyes a split second later, my arm was not in the drawer and I was holding the soap in my hand. Turning back to the shower head, I turned on the shower and washed smiling at the game that had begun.
As I was washing the conditioner out of my hair I picture the next trick of the day. My eyes were twitching, but they were closed and my left hand twitched just as it did moments ago focusing all the emotion on what I wanted and then pulling my head out of the water, I turned off the shower with my right hand. Wiping my eyes, I looked up to the left and sure enough my left arm was above me holding a white terry cloth towel. It was a strange feeling to have three arms in one place, especially with one detached from my body hovering over me.
"That should freak them out," I thought to myself and smiled.
I grabbed the towel from my hovering hand and quickly closed my eyes to let go of the focus. When I opened them the arm was gone with me holding the towel in my right attached hand. Putting my foot on the mat, I dried off and dressed quickly. Undoubtedly this would bring in the lab coats with breakfast and a million questions.
After dressing, I threw the towel on the bed and went to the wall behind the headboard. This would be something very different for me but I needed to know how far I could go. Putting my hand on the wall I could feel the electricity and where it was going almost like a schematic in my imagination. I closed my eyes and could picture the surging baby blue electricity to all the little tiny holes in the wall I didn't know were there. Well, not that many, anyway.
Intrigued by this new little quirk, I flexed every muscle I could in my body, took a deep breath and then yelled out with all my focus," Ahhhhh!" Right then there were several little exploding pops in the walls all around the room with sparks like small fireworks. I blew ever micro camera they had in all the walls right though a stream of electricity.
"Ah, one more tiny little test? Why not?!" I thought to myself. Quickly I raced to one of the two way mirrors and put my hand on the glass knowing they would be interrupting me soon. Looking into the room, in my mind with my eyes closed, just like the wall, I flexed every muscle, took a deep breath with my focus and then yelled, "Ahhhhh!"
The mirror exploded into the room behind as I switched focus and put all my emotion into it. Attempting to slow everything down, I could hear my heart beating two separate heart beats through my chest. Everything was still and motionless as if everything had been stopped. Twenty four people in the room were putting their arms up to block the glass and one of the lab coats was blocking the glass with the woman in front of him like she was a human shield.
Looking around the room, it was just me. Time had slowed to a crawl, meaning what I had tried worked. Hopping through the window and grabbing coffee from two people, I hopped back over and put it on the desk. I did this for all the coffee, clipboards, donuts, pens and badges which created a pack rat collection on my desk. Then I twisted all of them into strange positions.
One woman I put on top of a guy on one of the tables to simulate a duck and cover. I put three on their knees on the ground in front of three others that I turned around and bent over to make it look like they were smelling their butts. Then I took one woman, put a ruler in her hand, bent a guy over the front desk with his pants pulled down and positioned her like she was spank him. The rest I scattered around the room as observers of my little shows. It was an interesting show and all the cameras in the room were turned to point at it.
Finally, I removed every piece of the shattering glass from the air and pile it in the back corner of the room all nice and tidy. Then I hopped back over the wall into my cell and took my Crocks off. Sitting cross legged on my bed I closed my eyes and focused on letting go of time or speeding it up. As I did the sounds of the room with screaming women and yelling men inched closer and closer from the back of my mind in an echo until I could feel it again. Just as the slow screaming came to full speed it immediately stopped as if it were cut off.
"What the hell?" It came from one of the lab coats watching the spanking show. My eyes opened and he glanced over at me while I started laughing at the reactions. "How did you do that?"
Still chuckling I closed my eyes again. "You will notice I put all the glass in the back corner of the room. I think I got it all. I would not walk around barefoot, though," in a playful yet arrogant tone.
Two minutes later my food showed up on the usual silver serving tray. They were so arrogant that they gave me real plates, forks and knives. Getting up from the bed I moved to the desk. Pulling the chair out I sat down, unfolded my napkin, placed it in my lap and started to eat a masterpiece. Chef Gil had made Raspberry and Strawberry stuffed crepes with an orange raspberry sauce. To accompany it, he has taken some ham, sliced it and rolled in cream cheese with the sauce. It was magnificent looking and smelled just as good.
"Amazing! Please, tell Chef Gil this is just amazing!" Looking up from my breakfast I quickly realized they were all still standing in the same spots with the same blank stares on their faces. Maybe amazement or maybe it was shock and concern. With food in my mouth I decided to be a smartass, "What?"
As I stood up, the air was sucked from the room and I threw down the napkin and walked over to the bed. They were all watching, not even moving, not even breathing loud. I stopped next to the bed and then swiftly with one motion, hopped up into a cross legged position on the bed, again. Everyone on the other side of the wall gasped again as if they were waiting for the room to explode.
They looked at me and I looked back at each and every one of them making a point of eye contact with each one. As I did a group of men all dressed in black suits entered the room with guns drawn on me, twelve men in all. One of them held the door open for another man in a suit with a baby blue tie, sliver tie tack and silver cuff links. He looked very dapper and high up the hierarchy. He was the one I was waiting for.
"Well, that was exciting wasn't it?" I held his gaze as he stepped closer. "Would you mind coming with me while we have the mirror replaced, "his tone was soft and direct. He really wasn't asking.
No more words were said as I crawled slowly off the bed being deliberate with every movement I made. At this point the tension was so high I didn't want one of the nervous yahoo's pulling the trigger and shocking me. Everyone was already on edge enough as it was with my morning of testing. The guy closest to my left was shaking enough to mix a martini perfectly.
The man in the baby blue tie waved an open arm ahead of him out the door. As I walked into the hallway, not the first time I might add, I turned right and headed down two doors. On the opposite side of the hallway from my room was a door. I turned the handle and walked into the room which had a metal table with one metal chair on the opposite side and six others scattered around the table. The walls were cover with two way mirrors from floor to ceiling. On the other side of the glass were cameras and a bunch of people with clipboards and pens all waiting to begin recording and taking exhaustive notes.
Walking around the table to the single chair, I took my seat with the man in the blue tie followed by three lab coats in tow. It became evident this would be my interrogation for the next several long hours due to my recent actions. Of course, that was the entire point of my testing.
The man closed the door as everyone all took their seats. He sat directly across from me and had nothing in his hands, but the rest of them had pads and pens. They were brand new pads and I was sure they all wanted to fill them up with every written detail all the way down to the number of blinks I took.
He tapped his fingers on the table as he looked at me. This went on for about a minute; it was a common interrogation tactic he was well versed in. I held my hands clasped under the table and waited for him to begin the questioning. Waiting for the exact right moment to begin my plan was essential.
"So, Michael," he put his hands together on the table, "you've been here for nine years and haven't done anything as impressive as the display you put on today." He started his fingers tapping on the table again. "Why?"
"Why is a very general yet interesting question." I was working around the question. I was pretty sure he would see through it which was all a means to an end.
"Indeed, but I like How even better." I didn't think he meant that to be rhetorical.
"To be honest," I paused and took the opportunity," that is what you wanted? Honesty, right?" I looked around the room at everyone and then back at him waiting for a response.
"By all means. Please, be honest with us." He smiled, a less than genuine smile. He was as anxious as anyone, he just knew how to hide it better. They were all waiting on pins and needles to here every word I had to say and take detailed notes on every moment. The woman to my left had filled out almost the entire front page of her pad and I hadn't said but twenty words yet.
"Much like Delilah, twelve cells down and across from me," the entire room stopped in shock that I knew that, "I needed to understand and learn about what was going on with me. Then it was just a matter of practicing it over and over before I could actually use it." I stopped and noticed that the woman to my left wasn't writing anything.
I reached my hand up onto the table toward her, "Sweetheart, this is what you should be writing down." I gave her a nice sarcastic smile. She snapped out of her little trance blinking her eyes and started writing like her pen was on fire and she only had moments to write down everything in her mind.
"I see," the man said without any surprise in his tone. "That leads me to ask how you know her name?" He leaned forward on the table and started the eye contact staring technique.
"The same way I know yours, James," this time he couldn't conceal the shock, at first. It took him a moment and then he collected himself. "So you can read people's minds then?"
Shaking my head, "No, Jim. I cannot read minds." I looked back to my left. "Be sure to circle that one," as she had circled important things all over the notepad. "I am just observant, Jim. You see how Mary here circle's what she thinks is important?" Mary dropped her pen on the floor.
A bunch of thoughts shot through my head all at once like a flash of images. My eyes rolled back and twitched for a split second. "Peter over here is late for his son Brian's 5th grade school play." Peter dropped his pad to the table and stood up backing away from me as if I had caught on fire. "That leaves Aaron whose lovely wife, Missy as he calls her, is making Duck l'Orange at home for dinner tonight." Aaron smiled a bit. It was his favorite meal. "Aaron, she is cooking your favorite dish because she has something very special to tell you." His face lit up as he turned to Jim.
Jim nodded the go ahead and Aaron excitedly jumped up from the table and ran out the door. He was, no doubt, heading home to get the good news from Missy. It seemed to be something he was expecting.
I looked over at Mary, "She is pregnant," which gave her a smile. My attention went back to Jim. "Should have told him to skip the asparagus. She over cooked it." Mary let out a chuckle much to the chagrin of Jim.
"Okay, enough of the parlor tricks," he slammed his hand down on the table in frustrated anger. "I want to know how you're doing this, goddamnit!"
"Are you sure you do not want to know what Diana is doing right now, Jim?" My eyes widened briefly in shocking surprise. I could see all the flashing images running around in my mind. It was coming too fast to process all of it. "Your son, Ken, is at the neighbor's house playing XBOX Online and laughing."
Jim leaned back in his chair with aggravation on his face. He waved his hands toward the door, "Get out. Both of you." Mary and Aaron got up and left the room.
"Okay, just us from now on," he smiled. "That's what you wanted, right?" It took him awhile to figure it out, but he needed to for my plan to workout.
"No. It was more fun with them in the room." Smartass smirks would become my life for the next several hours.
"Are you going to tell me how you did all that today and how you're doing this now?" I had already got to him. It was time to make my move and set this all into motion.
"No."
"Why not?" His frustration with me was showing through.
"Because you have no business knowing it and I do not want to tell you." Jim was noticeably pissed off now. It was setting up perfect as I wanted him to be mad as I made it worse. "Jim, I will tell you this, though. You cannot hold me anymore."
He leaned forward again and put his arm up in the air about to pound it down with a resounding "Bullshit!" that started to come out of his mouth when I focused steering my emotions on that moment, watched the haze come and then my heart beating in double separate rhythms. As his hand started to come down I shut my eyes and heard all sound die off almost immediately and disappear in the background of my mind.
Opening my eyes, Jim was in front of me frozen. I walked over to him and turned his chair around so he was facing the door and moved him up to the door so that he was arms length from it. Then I took the other chairs and stacked them on top of the table in a pyramid. Finally, I went and stood in the corner next to the door to watch his reaction. Closing my eyes, I focused on letting the emotion go to free up time. I heard the air coming back and the speeding up of Jim's "Bullshit" was the most prominent sound. Just as I opened my eyes I saw him slam his hand on the door knob and scream out in excruciating pain. I was getting pretty good at slowing and starting time.
"No, Jim. You do not understand me," I whispered from the corner as he jumped back and saw the chairs stacked on the table and me in the corner. "You CANNOT hold me, Jim. It is no longer possible," I said it really soft and with a very stern tone as if talking to a child.
"What the hell?!" he yelled out. He pounded his other fist on the glass. "Get in here!"
Focusing on the door, it latched and locked as my eyes rolled back in their sockets briefly. There was a 'Click' from the door. Jim heard it and looked over at the door for the sound.
"What'd you do?" He was starting to rattle. His voice was getting really shaky as he was holding his hand which had to have at least one break in it. I could see the swelling had already started. Everything was proceeding exactly how I wanted it to. Jim's anger and frustration had been turned to fear of the unknown.
"Locked the door." I motioned to his chair. "Please, Jim, sit down. I promise' you are perfectly safe." I gave him a reassuring tone and a light smile to encourage him. "Besides, if they want to they can come through the mirrors. After all, it is only glass."
Jim crossed back over to his steel chair and sat down still holding his right hand in his left with the pain draining the blood from his face. There was not a lot of time. Pulling down all the chairs, I worked my way around the table and then back to my own, placing my hands on the table in front of him so he could see them, I started to explain where this was going.
"This is really simple, Jim. I do not need to hurt anyone or break anything in order to leave this place." He was in pain, but listening. "In fact I have left this place almost every single day for the last eight and a half years. You just never knew it." I was starting to give away too much because I felt bad that I, in a way, broke his hand.
"I just want you to let me go so I can go back to my companies. You guys can watch me every day if you want." I looked over at the mirror to my own reflection. "It is time for me to get on with life. I cannot waste time sitting in here forever."
He was really looking puzzled and in pain. Sweat was beading up on his brow. "We can't just let you go. You're too much of a risk," he said with a grimace of pain and a choking voice.
I stood up out of the chair and said, "You don't have a choice, Jim." My eyes twitched and were half closed and the door unlocked. "I'll stay here for now, but the time is short and becoming shorter with each passing moment. I really want you guys to do the right thing before I get too angry." Jim's mouth opened in shock. "Besides, you do not want to end up like McCoy, do you?" Closing my eyes and focusing my mind on his hand, I waved over this break and heard him cry out in pain as there was a cracking sound with the healing of the broken bone. I smiled and ushered him out the door.
I got up on the table and crossed my legs Indian style waiting for the next part of my plan to roll into action. Everything felt right as it was going exactly where it needed to go.