Dimensions

Setting:

In an alternate universe where magic is a science that people spend years learning to use, dimension hopping is against the law.  It is one of the highest taboos after necromancy.  Nelson Amdala, the first person to discover the magic required to achieve the task, created a wormhole that ate up an entire city.  In the seventy years after Amdala’s discoveries, thirteen people have   attempted to reach that level of skill through his research.  All thirteen eventually created wormholes of their own, only one of them managed to travel to a different dimension before her return trip ended in the devastation of the largest mass of land yet.  

The government made it illegal to study without permission from the state, and even then, only the theory was studied, never put into practice.  The very act of dimension traveling was punishable by life in prison.  Years of research went into creating wards that not only detected the magic, but prevented people to complete the magic.  These wards exist in all major cities.  It has been seventeen years since the last dimensional disaster.  

Crader is the capital state of the world, and it is where all leading research is done.  Anyone who is studying the theory of dimensional travel is doing it at the research sect of the government of Crader.  

The government of Crader is shaken up when a young girl enters the city, setting off the wards.  She is immediately captured and interrogated.  Upon learning that she is in fact a dimensional traveler, she is kept for research purposes in order to learn the secret of safe and successful traveling.  


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Name:  Demmise “Demi”

Age: 17

Looks: Her face is heart shaped with purplish hazel eyes and light brown hair.  She has fox ears that she keeps pinned down to hide them.  Her wings are tawny with tiny emerald green feathers at the base and speckled over the top edge of her wings.  She usually wears a loose jacket to hide them under.  
(this is a younger version of her, except her eyes are a different color.)


Personality:  Demi is usually lighthearted and upbeat.  She is the kind of person to try to see the light in every situation.  She is curious about the world, and often gets herself into trouble because of it.  It takes a lot to get her down or angry, but once her fire is lit, it is raging and slow to cool.  

History:  Demi is the only child of two genetically modified beings.  Her mother, Jemma, is a mish mash of different animal DNA with the largest percentage being peacock.  Her father, Alex, had primarily fox DNA.  From them Demi is a mosaic of genetic mutations.  It is hard to say where each of her features comes from apart the pair of fox ears and wings.  

Demi discovered her powers at a young age and traveled primarily between two timelines of her parents.  She was raised both by her own timeline mother, and a younger version of her mother.  At times she had crossed her own timeline and played with her younger self as a child.  When she was a child, her parents could do nothing to stop her from disappearing, their only hope was that she was going back in time and nowhere else.  As she grew up, they did all they could to stop her travels.  She learned to control her power as she would get in trouble with her parents each time she used it.  

She went to a private school with very few children, many of them had their own modifications, as the world had rapidly grown to accept such things.  Many parents specifically had their children modified to be smarter, or more athletic, or look a certain way.  Demi’s school was more for the ones that turned out in unexpected ways.  Demi was the normal one among her classmates.  

Later in her teen years she began using her powers as a form of escape from her domineering mother.  While Demi dearly loved her mother, she was excessively controlling.  When they would get into a fight, Demi would escape to alternate universes.  She was only ever passing through for a few hours, just to explore.  She had nearly been discovered a dozen times, but always before she had made it home safely.  

Ability: Time and dimension travel.  


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Name:  Tobias “Tobi” Marin

Age: 25

Looks:

Personality:  Tobias is a real jaded sort.  It’s hard to impress him with anything, and more often than not he will view others as beneath him.  Brilliant to the extreme he lacks basic social skills, and with nothing to relate to those around him he set up walls and a cold shoulder to keep everyone out.  Those lucky enough to stick around are fascinating to him, but they pale in comparison to his single minded focus on work and his research.

History:  Tobias started his life on a farm with six other siblings.  The second youngest in the line all he had was hand me downs, and a wealth of expectations upon him.  His parents were of the sort to define his life's choices down to whom he would marry, and just what he’d do upon the farm.  Education was viewed as a frivolous expenditure and Tobias set out himself to find something more than the life he had been given.  Teaching himself to read he devoured books in secret until it was found out he was disobeying his parents in his quest for knowledge.  After being severely punished he ran away from home, ending up at the steps of the university.

With determination he marched himself inside and requested entrance to the school.  He was laughed off, the rules stating either you had to pass a knowledge test or buy your way in and his threadbare clothes held proof of his lack at the latter.  Agreeing to take the test, they scoffed and tried to cast him out.  But one elderly administrator took pity and decided to give him a chance.  Some of the other administrators stuck around and while the boy had the longest recorded test time.  He also was the first to get every answer right.  The boy entered into the university and never again looked back at his family.  It took him some time, even though he was brilliant he lacked the education many of the students enrolled did.  But before he was fifteen he was graduated and drafted by the government where he has spent the last ten years in research and study, working on whatever occupied his interest.  During those ten years a woman stormed through his life, turning it inside out, upside down, and ultimately his own personal hell

Leticia Adams was a woman who got this bitter and socially inept man to fall in love with her.  They had a whirlwind marriage with passion that lasted a full year before it began to come to ruin.  Tobias was a workaholic, married to his research and the amount of time he spent with the woman was never enough for her.  Their divorce only hardened the man against others, and his life became even worse when the self same government he worked for promoted her above him.

Occupation:  Researcher and Scientist

Specialty: Air

Other:  He both hates, and secretly still cares for his ex-wife.  Though he blames her for all that went wrong as he had been adamant to her that marrying him and loving him would end in disaster.

Demi:

I didn’t shout back this time when my mother got into one of her rages.  It was about a boy as they often where these days.  I had snuck out of the house at night to be with a guy I had met at an ice cream parlor with my only real friend, Jessica.  

Jessica was a designer baby gone wrong.  Her face was heartbreakingly beautiful, nearly perfect apart from the drawn-on eyebrows and false lashes.  The rest of her body looked like her skin was slowly trying to melt off.  She had no hair, not on any part of her.  To make herself acceptable to the public eye, she covered up her body and wore head scarves.  Even with her deformities and the way she hid them, she still made people fall in love with her.  At least until they saw the rest of her.  

She was the only one at the school I had bonded with.  The rest of them were far more reclusive.  Most of them were designer babies who had turned out with horrific side effects and often severe health issues.  A few of them were, like me, the children of genetically modified beings.  I was never going to meet a nice guy there.  

I had met a few guys when I had gone out with Jes.  They flocked to her, and I usually got the ones that didn’t meet her standard.  I still had fun with it, and It was nice practice since I had very little experience with normal guys.  

James was different from the others though.  He had approached me first, while his friend went for Jes.  He was the only one I had ever wanted to see again without Jes at my side.  So I snuck out.  And I got caught.  

After my mother shouted at me for nearly an hour about how wrong it was to sneak out, I had gone to my room.  She expected me to never meet people, to never even speak to guys.  It was ridicules.  But I didn’t shout this time because I had a way to escape it, at least for a few hours.  

When I got to my room, I changed into a more unnoticeable outfit with a loose jacket to hide my wings.  After that I carefully pinned my fox ears down and slid on my shoes.  I grabbed my bag from under my bed that had a few snacks and a few more clothing items I might need in different weather.  

Once I was ready, I hopped out the window into the back yard.  I was worried that my parents might feel the disturbance in the air if I left while in the house.  I dashed behind the shed in the back yard and in an instant I was traveling lightning fast through different worlds.  All I had to do was pick one to settle in.

The blur soothed my temper and I let it go on longer than usual.  Before I had made my decision, a world slammed into focus.  That almost never happened.  I took stock of my surroundings quickly.  It was night, but the streets were lit with lamps.  Sky scrapers towered on either side of the empty street.  It there were stars, I couldn’t see them.  

I ducked into the shadows when an alarm rang out on the street corner.  Suddenly the street was filled with vehicles and people pouring out of them.  There was no way for me to get away, it was like they were coming after me specifically.  Before I knew it I had been stunned and my vision went black.  



Veronica:

As head of Crader security, it was my responsibility to decide what to do about the DH (dimension hopper).  She had been taken to a secure cell and placed under surveillance.  

I stood in the room observing the girl through the one-way glass.  She was impossibly young to be a DH.  Usually they were much older due to the amount of studying it took to be able to pull off that kind of magic.  What was even more dumbfounding was that she accomplished what only one other person had.  She had been successful in dimensional travel.  The alarms had sounded not for an attempt, but for an entry.  

I knew who had to be called.  The one person who would be able to give us more information on this girl.  I took my work phone and called his assistant, the assistant he had thrown a tantrum over hiring, the one that made it possible for people to actually get in touch with him.  He was no longer able to ignore calls.   “Hello Dr. Marin, you are needed in security room 4A, we have a DH offender,” I said before he could speak when his assistant put him on the line.

"Gods body what? I'm busy!". I groaned from my desk. Throwing up my hands I swiveled in my seat and stared daggers at the secretary that had been forced upon me. God how I hated him. Dumb smile, dumb perky exterior, dumb promise to let him research occasionally just to leave me alone. I hated him even though he made good coffee, if my office, lab, and home were a bit cleaner because of him. He was useful....Maybe.

"It's Director Veronica, sir.". The man chirped. I hated his voice too. "She sounded urgent."

"Damn woman....Probably wants more alimony even though she makes more than me! It's my research grants she really wants....". I muttered with a scowl. I hated my ex-wife too. Damn her for being good at politics, damn the higher ups for putting her in charge over me, damn her for taking our dog. The mangy mutt.

Snatching the phone with a snap of air alchemy I opened my mouth to deliver a scathing retort but she spoke first. "A DH?". That explained the annoying alarms from earlier. I hated those screechy things. Always signalling trouble. "The hell you want me to do? Clap them in irons, cut off their hands, or better yet marry them. That's the true hell. You have all your dementional wards in your prisons. I should know because I wrote the damn things. If this is just a ploy to get me to come by to serve me with more papers or force another damned assistant on me then I refuse. Captain sparkles here is too much already!". I was ranting, but the woman had always put me on edge. I hated her and cared for her. But mostly I hated her.

Veronica:

I rubbed my temple and sighed. "Stop, this isn't the time. She wasn't trying to travel out. She was entering the city. She succeeded in dimensional travel, Toby. This is the chance to study how it was done." It hadn't happened in years, certainly not since either of us were working for the government. It would rocket his career farther than anyone if he were to discover how she did it.

"If you aren't up for the task I can always call Schnider, I am sure he would be more than happy," I said. He was nowhere near as good as Toby, no one in Crader was, but I wouldn't admit t that to him.

"It's Dr. Marin to you."  I was distracted, people trying to get out we had severe laws in place and various precautions and devices to prevent such actions from occuring.  But someone coming in?  Almost unheard of.  And because it was so unusual and rare my comment lacked its trademark sarcasm and growl.  She'd know of course but that didn't matter now.

Surging to my feet I began to pace back and forth, lips going a mile a minute as I tuned everything out.  "How did they break through not only our barriers but also succeeded and moving past Travelyn's dimmensional laws.  Wait you said she, a she did it?  Gender is unimportant but that's too much coincidence towards Incident Zero.  I-"  I cut myself off and glared pure venom into the phone as if the person on the other end could see it.

"Schnider is a croock who couldn't explain the difference between a tea kettle and the formulai of binding.  Your threat is idle, noted, and promptly ignored.  4A right?  Keep your blonde hairs out of the room.  No one enters or leaves until I get there.  The last thing I need is for contamination of data.  I will need video, microphones, and access to everyone who has had contact with her, visually or not.  I'm on my way."  Without further ado I tossed the phone over my shoulder, pointely ignoring the shattering crash that met my ears as it landed hard on the tile floor.  Stupid thing should have been made better.  Besides no more calls now.  Win win.

Striding to the door I was waylaid by the insufferably perky secretary.  "You.  I'm going out....."  I narrowed my eyes at him and shifted slightly, awkwardly.  "Don't touch my stuff."  Without another word I brushed past him and towards the front door.

"Sir you forgot your ID and Shoes!"

"I BLOODY WELL KNOW THAT THANK YOU PERCIVAL."

"Sir it's Simon."

"What ever you say Louise."

Veronica:

I sighed when I heard the clatter and then the line went dead. The girl had barely been interrogated before she shut down. She had said little other than her name was Danny. They had left her alone after that until I had arrived and I had called Toby nearly immediately. He would have his subject uncontaminated. I ordered the rest of his requested materials and sat back to wait.


Demi:

I sat alone in the white, well lit room. There was a massive mirror that I was positive people were watching me from behind. I folded my arms on the table in front of me and laid my head on them. I wasn’t quite scared yet, but I was cautious. I knew they were watching me, so I didn’t even try to use my power. I would wait until my opportunity was right. Hopefully that wouldn’t take too long. If worse came to worst I could always fight my way out of here. One thing I had inherited from my parents was superior strength and combat skills.

I arrived at the main government building in record time. Throwing open the doors as if I owned the place. Sure I was wearing one shoe with the other clutched in my fist, sure I held my ID tightly between my teeth, sure I looked utterly mad, disheveled, and generally like I was a danger to myself or others. But still, I arrived. If I had seen anyone else arrive in such a fashion I would have judged them harshly, thought ill of their sires and children, and gazed away in disgust. But I wasn't other people, I was better than that. I thought I pulled the look off quite nicely as someone here for important business.

I had to hop through security, tugging on my wayward shoe but after a quiet moment to collect myself I was moving at a good pace with ID replaced into my pocket. I didn't like being here in this building. It was full of stuffy heads, boot lickers, brown nosers, and general kiss asses. There was no real learning to be had. Not unless you wished to play the political game, and no sensible person did. There was no drive other than to climb a ladder. The same ladder everyone else was climbing. It was a cutthroat bussiness though, and it was quite something to see squabbles break out. I tried to take my lunches here right after the senate sessions. It was always nice watching old men try to beat each other with brief cases.

Winding ever deeper through the facility I eventually reached the security room 4A. I didn't go inside right away, choosing instead to head into the side room to observe the specimen through the one way mirror. "She's so young." A frown crossed my face for a moment. "Youth means nothing though. At her age I was graduated top of my class but..." My frown deepened and I leaned closer to the glass.

"Stop staring at me, I know you are there I am simply choosing to ignore you. But if the room happens to wish to share information to me I might listen to the air in the room." I sniffed, "Beuricratic nagging it may be."

Veronica:

I did not appreciate being disrespected by him, especially in front of other people, but I knew if I reacted to it, he would become even more difficult to handle.

“Her name is Danny, that’s about all we got out of her. She won’t say where she is from or how she got out of the city. She must have first traveled out of a rural area since there have been no security breaches within the last several years in any city where the attempted DH wasn’t caught. There is no record of her in any database which again points to her being from a rural area.” I had my assistant bring up the recordings he had asked for on a screen.

“She must be a genius to have mastered dimensional travel, especially with how young she is. It’s only ever been done once, and She was well into her fifties,” I said. It was my own speculation at this point, nothing he needed to know.

"Danny huh...from out side the city?  What makes you think that?  That's not dimmension hopping that's teleportation.  Rural I could believe but again...she tripped the DH alarm.  And not the outbound.  No.  She isn't from here if I had any hypothesis.  Here being this entire world.  This dimension.  And look at her."  I drew back from the glass and gestured towards the girl.  "Is that the face of someone you'd expect in this situation.  I don't see a trace of fear on that face.  A young girl like that, taken away, thrown into a room for a while with out contact.  But she isn't looking scared.  If anything she is looking like she is planning.  It fits her being brilliant but..."

I scratched my chin, having gone quiet as I gazed at her.  I had my own private work into the theory and equation for dimensional travel.  I believed if pressed I could come up with the right symbols, the right math to actually do it.  But it was a taboo to even research it.  Attempting it would lock me up for the rest of my life if it didn't outright kill me.  So for something so dangerous why was this girl looking so cautious.

It was my stomach rumbling that finally brought me out of his head.  I blinked and looked down  at the floor for a moment.  "Well I guess there is no help for it.  Veronica give me two of your granola bars, the filling ones."  I waved a hand her way, keeping it held out expectantly.  When the items weren't produced immediately I looked at her with a furrowed brow.  "Director?  How long has she been in there?  Has access to food and water been offered?  Restroom is out of the question I realize.  But going in there I need something at least.  I know you have at least one bar on you at all times and a box of them probably in your office.  You work long hours and all that, hard to get a meal."  My words for once as demanding as they were a kindness.  I knew the biggest reason she'd gotten such treats was a worry over her figure, especially now that more eyes were her way.  But I didn't mention that.

My lips quirked into a smile and the lines eased from my face.  I looked younger, excited, a kid given a new toy to play with.  It had been a long time since I had worn such an expression.

Veronica:

I did not return his smile, nor did I immediately give up what he asked for. I did not like the familiarity he treated me with, in front of my subordinates no less. and while the light in his face did soften my heart, it made me more resistant toward him. It was that kind of smile that drew me to him in the first place. And the dramatic down swing that usually followed was what drove me away. For that reason I had learned to guard myself against him. I reacted the same to snark as I did smiles even if it earned me harsh titles from him.

"She had been offered water and coffee and declined both. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to give her something to eat." I gestured to my assistant to hand me my briefcase and took out a bar. "This is the only on on me. It's for her, not you," I insisted as I handed it over.

I didn't need her smile. Didn't need her approval either. Sure I could get an earful later but ultimately I had a new research project to deal with. Plucking the bar from her hands I nodded. "For her. Got it. Anything else?"

I turned my gaze towards the room and the girl. I'd need measurements, samples, run a whole battery of tests. But first I had to get her to open up. To possibly share her story. Who knows how she got here, or even if she knew just how. But I had a suspicion that she had meant to leave where ever she'd come from, but that this hadn't exactly been her chosen destination.

Veronica:

"Don't poison the watering hole," I said. I couldn't help the subtle dig, and it was relevant. He had a tendency to come off too harsh to new people, and if we were going to get any information form this girl, we needed her to be compliant.


Demi:

I shifted in my seat, it was uncomfortable to sit on the hard plastic for too long. After a couple more minutes I stood up and paced the room a couple times. My original goal to seem bored and uninterested was replaced with restless muscles and a need to move. I came back to my chair, placed my palms on the table, and sighed. Were they going to keep me in isolation forever?

I only noddded, well aware of her dig but unable to do much more than endure it. I had other things to focus on. Leaving the observation room I made my way around to the door, taking a moment to run fingers through my wild hair. Nodding to the guard to unlock it I stepped through the door and into the room. I looked over the girl still with that smile on my face. "Hello, hungry?" Tossing the bar onto the table I grabbed one of the chairs and turned it around, sitting it reversed.

Demi:

When the man entered the room, I stood up straight to my full height, just a few inches shorter than him from what I could tell. I crossed my arms and stared him down with a look everyone had always said made me look exactly like my mother. It was a hawk-like glare, that made most people shrivel away.

This man was not like the people who had come in before to interrogate me. He was disheveled, with days old stubble and one shoe untied. He was too cheery, too casual. I didn’t know how to react to him so I simply stared, silent and unmoving.

Crossing my arms across the back of the chair I settled my chin atop them and stared back. That glare took me back though, only a couple of days. Maybe a week at most. It was the stare my Ex-wife gave me sometimes. Deserved sure, but still it had the smile fade away. I was still happy inside, but it was almost easier to disengage myself from my emotions with her like this. I could think more rationally and take notes and measurements with my eyes alone.

Since she made no move to speak, I too kept quiet. Was sure to drive all the eye witnesses behind me crazy but tough shit. They needed me and I worked at my own pace.

Demi:

I was practically a statue with my only movements of blinking and the nearly invisible rise and fall of my chest. He didn’t have the animal inclination of stillness that was in my DNA, but he apparently was content to wait. Eventually his stubbornness outweighed my own. I was always the one to give in first at home too. I unfolded my arms and shifted my weight but I did not sit down.

“When can I go?” I asked. I had done nothing wrong that I was aware of. They hadn’t told me why I was here, just asked me a few questions about where I was from. Surely they couldn’t keep me based on no crime? Not if their laws were anything like my own world.

"Ah you can speak! Good to know. Not how one starts a civil conversation but given the circumstances I'm willing to let it be." I couldn't help it, the sarcasm dripped from my tongue as easily as kiss-assing dripped from many of the politicians here in the capital. "But what makes you think you can't? I'm certainly not going to stop you." A baited comment, but so too did I know that the door was reinforced steel and bolted shut. Plus I figured a big of air alchemy would have her flat on the floor in a moment.

Demi:

My eyes flicked to the door. I had heard the lock click shit each time it had been opened. I was a prisoner here and we both knew it. My eyes narrowed at him.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said crisply. I wouldn’t engage him in conversation if he meant to steer it himself. I knew how things went. I had at least some power as long as I had control of what I said.

"I did answer it, just not in the way you wanted. Weren't you paying attention?" I shrugged my shoulders, "I'm not keeping you here and I'm not the one stopping you from leaving. When you can leave isn't up to me. Not yet at any case. I have to find out some things first." I raised my head and spread my hands in a helpless gesture.

"You see, it's the government that is holding you. And so they called me because I am smarter than they are. Likely I am smarter than you. My boss seems to think you are a genius. I don't. And I know for a fact I'm smarter than her. I can be wrong of course, but the probability is low." Again I shrugged and settled my head on my arms across the back of my chair. "Sooner you give me what I need, sooner I can let them give you want you want."

Demi:

I wasn’t going to ask him what he needed to know. That worried me. What would they do to me if they knew what I was? The fear my parents had tried so hard to instill in me started creeping into my stomach. What had my mom called the people who had experimented on them? White coats?

I took an unconscious step back to distance myself from the man. “Why am I here?” I demanded, my tone wasn’t as confident as before. What if they locked me in a dog cage, and only took me out to experiment on me? I tried to hide my sudden nervousness but even so my breathing quickened.

"A boring question, but one everyone asks at some point. But isn't that a question I should be asking you? Why are you here? What made you come here? Though the important question is of course, how did you come here." I could see her nervousness, though she hid it rather quickly. Raising my head from my arms I brought my fingers together and tapped them together.

"You see you are an anomaly. You have done something only one other person has done successfully. Only....you came from the other end. Why are you here indeed. You hopped dimensions and came here Danny." I had looked away from her as I spoke, gazing at my fingers before finally returning my gaze to her. "Dimensional hopping is dangerous and we have only one recorded success. Then you came waltzing in from the other end, throwing up alarms and concerns all over the place. Caused quite a headache in fact. So for the last time why are you here?"

Demi:

I decided to take his question quite literally since he wouldn’t directly answer my own but my mind was racing over what he had said. That they knew what it was that I did was amazing, but that there were other? That was astonishing. “I don’t know why I am here. No one has told me why I’m being held like some kind of criminal. Since you apparently lack the power to let me go, then get your people to do it. I would be more than happy to leave. I am not dangerous to anyone, nor do I wish to be. If you think I want to be here, then you are terribly mistaken,” I said crisply. People said that when I got angry, I sounded very much like my mother.

I listened to her little rant and complaints while nodding slowly. When she finished I reached back to tap the mirror then gestured towards the screen against the wall. "Show her DH incident zone 12." I could almost imagine the furious discussion happening behind that glass and then frantic typing that happened after. But before too long the screen flickered to life and showed a crater.

"Not a danger? This is the impact of the last time someone attempted to cross dimentions." I stood slowly, keeping my eyes locked on her while I pointed at the screen. "Incident zone 8. Incident zone 5. Incident zone two. Incidddent zone one." Each time I called a different place the screen took a few seconds to switch. The destruction was always a crater, with fires and cracked ground spread around it. "Tell me again how what you can do is not dangerous Danny."

My voice rose in volume as I jabbed a finger at the screen. Not all of the incident locations had happened safely in the wilderness. Too many were in the middle of cities. I probably had Veronica to thank for it as images of distruction, injured people, and the entire crisis played out on the screen. "Crossing demensions has led to disasters that leveled entire cities! So tell me again why I should believe you. Because every time someone has sworn that what they were doing was safe it has ended in disaster!"

I had yelled the last word, gripping the back of the chair with both hands in a white knuckled grip. My gaze was intense, my breathing harder than it had been. Any trace of jovialness had faded away and as my last outburst faded into silence I sat down slowly. "Show the video of Ground Zero."

There was a pause and even I looked to the screen but it was frozen on the last image displayed. Nothing changed and I looked at the one way mirror, "Show her Director." I kept my gaze leveled at the mirror and only turned when I heard a sound from the screen. I glanced at it to make sure it was the right one before I focused on Danny.

The video showed the only successful DH we knew of. At ground zero. And the reason it had become taboo. The video was black and white, grainy. And it started out focused on a woman with a lopsided smile before zooming out. And then she was gone and a wave of destruction echoed around her leveling the entire city into nothingness. "You crossed dimensions to come here. How can we trust that you wont do what all the others have done. That is why you are locked up. That is why you are in this room. And if you ever want to leave you are going to have to give us answers." My voice was soft as I watched her, taking note of every expression on her face. I needed to know what was going on in her head. But I couldn't ask. I had to wait. The data would come I believed.

Demi:

I with each change of scene my eyes grew wider. It was horrifying how destructive one person could be. What kind of abilities would give them that power? I thought of the most powerful person my mother had told me about. Not even he could level cities.

My pulse quickened. I understood now why they had me here. To them, I was the most dangerous thing imaginable. I was a bomb set to explode at any moment. That did not bode well for my release. When he yelled, I flinched and took another step back. By the end I was nearing the wall of the room and my hands were shaking at my sides.

“I don’t know what those people did, but it isn’t what I do,” I said quietly to mask the fear in my voice. But what if it wasn’t? what if power worked differently here, than from everywhere else? If I tried to go home, would I leave a crater in my wake. The thought terrified me.

If she was an actress she was a good one. I'd done a study on liars once. She showed no signs of deceit. But I wasn't the best even in my study. I didn't get small things when it came to human interaction and emotions.

"Then help me understand what it is you do. Because frankly...". I trailed off and gestured at the screen. "Trusting someone not to cause all of that...Is too much to expect from us.". Picking up the chair I placed it back where it was supposed.to go. "Have a seat, take a breath. I will be back shortly. Is there anything you need right now. This isn't the most comfortable room I know."