Dimensions

My patience was at its limit that morning.  I'd spent the better part of an hour arguing with someone over the specific organization of my lab that they had messed up.  Done with idiots for the day I wanted nothing more than to head up into my room.  But that wasn't to be.

"Oh god, please tell me you are here to come kill me.  I can't stand it if I'm going to be taken out without being bought dinner first."  I was snarky I didn't like interruptions like this.  Things that were boring.  I took a look over Danny and paused.  "Ah, I see.  fine.  Paperwork.  Give."  I held out my hand and raised a brow.

Demi:

Someone handed over a manila folder to the doctor. I squinted my eyes at him. This was his fault. Things would have gone better for me if I hadn’t gone with him, hadn’t listened to him and put this stupid, degrading collar on.

I tried to focus on my anger and hate rather than the fear bubbling up in my stomach. They were probably going to lock me up in a dog cage and preform experiments on me. And in the end they would probably cut me open and dissect me…

Opening the folder I muttered under my breath as I searched through the documents. Rifling through it I flat out ignored the man for a moment. "Incompitent idiots...fine. Release papers." Yanking the clipboard from the man's hand I signed it with a flourish. "She's in my care now. Get out." I shooed them away then turned to her.

"Finally I have you here. Come on. I'll show you to your room first so you can check it out then I'm going to run a battery of tests." I beckoned her with a motion of my head. Tucking the file under one arm and sliding my hands into my pockets I began to leisurely making my way down the corridor behind the reception desk. Pausing after a few steps I sighed, "We went through you trying to escape already, but I'm willing to offer another demonstration if you'd like."

Demi:

My feet stayed glued to the ground. “You lied. You said these,” I knocked the cuffs together, “would come off if I went with you. And instead they locked me in a cell.” My tone quivered with emotions. I was trying to be strong, but I felt sick inside. I thought if I could come of as assertive then I might be able to keep some bit of control of myself. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you take these off.” It was a pointless demand as he could easily move me along with his power, but I stood there defiantly anyway.

"First rule of life kid. Everyone lies." I watched her with a bored expression, waiting for her demands and rant to finish. "Besides I would like to point out one of us had the determination to try and escape. And now look at you. My building is warded against DH transfers coming in and out. But it's not nearly as effective as keeping you with all of that."

Giving an eyeroll I muttered under my breath and walked over to her. "Some rules of house. First, don't try to escape. Second, leave my stuff alone. Third, if you need things and dont speak up then it's your own fault you are suffering."

Demi:

I gave him the same cold look as I had when we first met. Only this time I had a crease between my eyebrows, a sign that I close to tears. I waited for him to finish speaking before I replied.

“I’m not a kid, and I’m not an animal. I may be a prisoner but the only thing I have done was try to escape from a place I don’t belong. I am not a criminal.” I blinked quickly, not intending to flutter my eyelashes at him, but rather keep the tears at bay.

“So, take these off.” I swallowed after I spoke. I was scared of him, I was scared of this place, but I squared my shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. I tried to do what my parents would have done. But I didn’t think they would ever have gotten into this situation, they probably would have fought for their lives before they ever got to this point.

Stopping before her I surveyed her face for a moment. "Oh god." I murmured. She was going to cry. Empathy was a useless emotion and tears were wasted liquids from the body so neither of us were in any good spot. "Yeah? Not a kid? How old are you then? If I had to bet not more than seventeen. Not an animal...." I trailed off and gave a pointed look at her fox ears. "That can be up for debate and I love debating. So long as the people I am debating with aren't idiots and eventually give into what I'm saying because usually I'm right anyway."

My gaze narrowed for a moment before I sighed and looked away. "You want them off? Fine. But I can't do it here." I held up a hand to forestall her protests. "In your defense you don't deserve to be treated like this. In our defense you were told why we cant just let you go and then you tried to escape. Criminal you are not, so since you seem so drastically uncooperative the least I can do is show you to where you will be staying and leave you there without the cuffs. And when you are finally deigning to listen and behave then we can hurry along and get the work and research done."

Demi:

My ears were already back but the laid flat when I saw him look at them. I didn’t respond to his question about my age, he had guessed right, but I would never tell him that. “Show me where I’m supposed to go then,” I was very close to spitting the words. He would take the cuffs off, and lock me in a cage, I was sure of it. I was no better than a dog to him.

She was angry. Understandable given her position. But ultimately useless. It changed nothing of her position. I had to use a key-card, retinal scan, and bio-metric locks just to finally be heading down into the basement. Swiping the key-card for her room in the basement I pushed it open and stepped within. "Welcome to your room. No windows as we are underground but...we will see about getting you time in the sun and all that."

Sliding my hands back into my pockets I gazed about the room then at her to see her reaction. It was surprisingly nicely furnished. I wasn't about to go poking around as really this was her place and the last thing I wanted was my stuff poked through. "Bathroom is over there." I gestured vaguely over to the only other doorway.

Demi:

When I saw the room, my ears perked up in curiosity. It was a surprise. I was positive he was taking me to a cage, or at best another cell, but this was an actual bedroom. It didn’t have a lot, but what it did have was nice.

I kicked off the flimsy slippers they had provided for me before transporting me, and felt the plush carpet under my toes. It wasn’t a horrible place. If it was any indication of how I would be treated, maybe I wasn’t so bad off… I eyed the doctor. I was still afraid of him, but it was closer to caution that terror now.

While she adjusted to the room and I had the amusement of seeing her face transform to bitter anger and fear into something full of curiosity and fairly relaxed. But then it all came back and she was watching me. "Right. Adjust however you want. I'll be in my lab. Door locks if closed, cant open from inside. Keep that in mind. When you are feeling less like you hate me and more rational come to me. We'll get those cuffs off and run some tests."

Demi:

I almost moved to block the doorway, but I stayed put. When I was left alone in the room, I padded around looking for any weakness. The walls were painted brick, the air vents were no larger than my arm. The bathroom had nothing of use, there wasn’t even a mirror to break, not that I would have used it as a weapon, but my options were limited.

There were spare clothes in the dresser. I grabbed a bundle of clothes and went to the privacy of the bathroom. I shed the gray jumpsuit I had been dressed in before and pulled on shorts. The only bras that had been provided were sports bras, and the band would constrict my wings, so instead I ripped slits in a tank top with my teeth and used that as a makeshift bra and pulled a shirt over that. I felt vulnerable, but I knew I had to push through it.

After a few minutes by myself, I ventured out of my room. The lights were on in the room beside mine, and I could see into it through large windows in the wall. My pulse hammered. It was all white with scary looking equipment. But there were no cages, no screaming creatures. It didn’t look like a horror setting. I hovered in the doorway, scared to take a step in.

"The longer you hover the more I'm going to expect you to just hover naturally. You have wings so I know you can fly. But you also have a voice and a temper. I'm shocked you aren't using them." I'd only glanced at her for a few moments before returning to my work. Eventually I just ended up gazing at a whiteboard and tapping a marker against my lips.

"The substance is alkaline and I can push the strain to point four zero eight over the index...but that won't help me break through the crystalline substructure. Unless..." I trailed off and moved to the board, uncapped the marker with my teeth, and quickly worked out an equation.

Demi:

I stepped onto the cold tile, feeling very small in the room. My eyes scanned every corner of the room as I moved toward him. My fox ears listened for any signs of danger or other people, but it seemed to only be him in this place. I feared him, but I also thought that I might be able to win in a fight against him, if he didn’t use his power that is.

I came to stand in front of him. I hand out my cuffs. There were small scratched on the inside of my wrist where I had tried to find a way to break them off and only managed to claw myself. There were similar marks on my neck.

I was actually surprised when she moved in front of me, so wrapped up in my work that I'd forgotten about her entirely. I looked from her face to the cuffs and back again for a moment. "Sit there, I'll get the key." I gestured to the counter that only had a bit of freespace, enough for her to sit atop at least. Walking away I opened a cabnet with my keycard and drew out the key. Slipping that into my pocket I closed it and waited for the lock to click.

I paused here for a moment before bustling about the lab until I had an armload of things. Finally I settled my armload of things in the space I'd told her to sit. Not bothered by her refusal I carefully took one of her hands in mine, unlocked the cuff and set it aside. Before I went for the other one though I went through the steps to clean, disinfect, and finally bandage her wrist where she'd scratched it. I repeated the process with the other one before I gathered up the cuffs and the rest of the items to put away.

Demi:

He wasn’t rough. He certainly wasn’t treating my like an animal. It was another surprise. I touched the bandages on my wrists thoughtfully then looked up when he moved away. “Wait, you didn’t take them all off,” I said, my tone was smaller now than it had been before. I was confused by all of this. My expectations had been so low, that now when they been exceeded, I found that my anger was fading.

"I took off the cuffs like you asked." My brow furrowed for a moment as I put everything away. "I'm not a mind reader. I'm a scientist, educated guesses are common but when it comes to people I just don't care enough to try making a guess. You'll either tell me and things can be worked on. Or you wont and ultimately we both suffer."

"Making that educated guess..." I went to the locker last and set the cuffs inside. Looking at what was inside I considered for a long moment before grabbing a different collar. Moving back over to her I spun it around my finger as I watched her with a raised eyebrow.

Demi:

I could hide the flash of fear from my widening eyes. “I’m not wearing that, or this, take it off” I said defiantly, but my posture was defensive. My shoulder were slightly hunched, and my hands were holding my wrists. My pulse, which had calmed down to a degree, spiked upward again.

I leaned against a counter and inspected the collar. "What you have on is an expensive technological marvel. It prevents people from performing Dimensional hopping, it also contracts and settles against the skin without choking out or preventing movement for the person wearing it. This one here..." I nodded towards the one in my hand, "Doesn't contract. This is as big and small as it will get. Well. Except for how it opens."

Waving a hand I focused on her. "This building has the same runes that the collar and cuffs do. However they are better at keeping people from doing as they wish. They are better because they only have to keep what they are touching from using that kind of power. If you can explain why I should trust you to be entirely without then maybe we can go without everything. However, if you are agreeable I will make you a deal."

Demi:

I looked him in the eyes. “I haven’t even tried to use my power once since I’ve arrived here, not even to get away from you people. Is that not a reason to trust me? And aside from that, how do you expect me to trust you to keep any deal you make with me if you don’t keep your pervious promises? You said you would take these off when I got here. I put them on because you said that. If you go back on your word now, I won’t believe another thing out of your mouth.” I tried to say it with conviction, but there was more hurt in my voice than anything else.

I nodded sagely. She had a very valid point and a good reason. "And yet you tried to run. To flee when I'd done nothing but try to help you. And don't give me a sob story about being kept a prisoner. You are one now, but you didn't have to be." Reaching out with the key I slid it into the lock and waited a second. I searched her eyes for a moment, snorted, then turned the key so that it would spring open.

Demi:

I swallowed when the collar came off. I set it on the table and shifted away. “You did tell me that I could try. You told me I would be stupid not to. But then, you don’t see me as an intelligent being anyway, do you?” I was testing him to see what my situation truly was. Was I to be treated like a human or an animal?

I raised a brow at her, "That remains to be seen. Fine you want to know what I think about your intelligence I'll show you. But first let me explain something else before we waste our time with this. First I don't know how you do any of your gifts or powers. I can deduce and hypothesis on many of them however. But when I influence the wind it is simply Alchemy. And Alchemy is science. Much the same science as to how one can turn sweet grapes into a sharp wine. We are governed by laws that we can't change. First preservation of mass. We can't change the amount of material we are moving or changing. When I move the wind I am moving a specific amount of it and when I finish I have only used and changed that amount. Second we are bound by the laws of nature. If I use a fan I can blow air. Since I know the principles and formulas involved I can then move air."

I beckoned for her to follow me though I tossed aside the new collar. "What we do is science, not magic, not something unexplainable. But then we come to something like Dimensional Hopping. There is no preservation of mass. The space you exist in takes up volume, the volume equal to exactly what your mass is." I stopped before an empty whiteboard and began to fill it full of a long complex equation that included symbols and runes. "This is the equation for traveling between dimensions. But we can't create something from nothing. So when we leave...nothing is left behind and the world rejects such things. An empty space must be filled and it fills it by slamming everything in the nearby vicinity into that space."

I tapped the board with the marker and looked at her. "Just knowing this equation, knowing all the steps and parts to make up this equation makes you someone of intelligence. But I don't think you follow this. I think you just do it. Your will put into being. Now this doesn't tell me your brain power at all. But if you use something like this then you are likely intelligent. If you don't then you are perhaps something more. and while all evidence points to the contrary I can reasonably assume you have some kind of brain within that head of yours. If you choose to use it of course."

Demi:

I frowned at him. I was unsure if his response had answered my question. He did treat me like a human instead of an animal. He was trying to explain things to me. I looked at the equation, studying each line. People had to learn this to do what I did?

I thought about my family, and how effortless it was for all of us to use our abilities, it was like anything else we did. Granted, what I did took more energy than most things, but I didn’t have to d anything other than make It happen. It was like breathing, or picking up an object, it didn’t need to be studied.

I took a deep breath. “So, I’m here because you want to know how I do it?” I asked. That was the reason for all of this? For bringing me to a lab? “The answer is simple.” I might be giving something away that I could hold as an advantage, but I didn’t know how I would do that. “I was born with it. From the time I could walk I was doing it without effort.” I looked at him. “I don’t have anything to teach you. Nothing will be gained by keeping me here.”

"There is always something to learn. Tell me something. Do you have a home? Family?". I asked her as my arms folded. "Your clothes didn't look new but they looked well maintained. Washed. So either you are in the habit of stealing from other people or you have a home. You probably return to that home. It is likely never destroyed. You don't even think about it, but the air you displace just vanished, the space you left behind is filled in. I want to know why. You probably don't have an answer but perhaps I can find out."