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Your handler strikes swiftly, and you refuse to flinch, sparing yourself an extra blow across the face as your uniform knots in her fist at the back of your neck. She is bigger than you and you can’t keep your feet planted on the smooth flooring, standing tiptoe as she holds you there. You don’t look up, don’t react. You could claim this as your private defiance, but it is fear masking itself.
“You are going to keep your mouth shut and nod to any of my directives now. Look at me.”
You can’t feel her mind, drugs folding you in on yourself like a paper crane; your telepathy is muted. You look at her face and her pale eyes lock on yours and you see nothing there. Black pupils narrowed to pinpricks in the harsh blue-white of the underground fluorescents bear down on you both. Your vision loses focus as you try to block her out. Look beyond her piercing stare.
She does not allow it.
You see her hand before the shock of pain erupts on your cheek. You stay still. You do not allow yourself to react to this. It isn’t the worst she’s done to you. Will do to you. She’s human. She can do anything she likes.
You?
You’re just a Re-Gene. Disposable. Small in every conceivable notion of the concept.
Your uniform digs at your skin, aching at pinpoints where the fabric is stressed, but you are distracted from all these unpleasant sensations when she grips your jaw in her hand. Her nails dig into your cheek, and she forces you to stare into her eyes.
Don’t move. Don’t speak. Do as she says.
You will do exactly as she says.
You try to nod but her grip on her face doesn’t allow it. She feels the gesture all the same and the tension leaves her shoulders. She needs to know that she has complete dominance over you. You. The bad one. Something is wrong with you, and she is going to correct it. You stumble when she loosens her grip and straighten yourself out before you receive further reprimand. The way they taught you.
She believes returning you to your cell is punishment, but you feel relief; the walls are predictable, even if you are both isolated and under surveillance all the same. Safe. You sit on the edge of your bed, little more than a raised, hard mat, and listen to faint knocks and scratches from other cells. They are talking about you, you think. Half-understood. Not for you. You’re too different from them. You are alone.
Your body feels tight, a drawn rubber band, your heart too fast in your chest. You despise how you feel, you hate that it matters; you should feel nothing. Comfort in obedience, in stoicism, is what you need. You can’t grasp it. You can never be what you were made for.
You aren’t meant to know what they note when you sink into the darkness.