The Hub Ch. 02

KC-847's mind returned to consciousness after an indeterminate amount of time. Despite a slight feeling of grogginess he actually felt quite well. Surveying his surroundings he noticed his captors had relocated him to a place that was most likely in their lair. It closely resembled a hospital wing on the surface and included many of the instruments that one might find in such a place. He also discovered they had restrained him to a chair. KC-846 tried to summon his psychic abilities to break free but realized they had placed a neural inhibitor on his head.

Across from him sat an older woman who, upon seeing himcon wake, placed a hand on his forehead. She wasn't the one who knocked him but, judging by the way that she concentrated when she touched him, she was a microkinetic.

~*~

To say that Flit got into trouble for her escapade was an understatement. After getting a complete and utter revving from Post-hoc, she had been assailed by Hawkeye who had given her a lecture that would rival what she would receive from her parents when they got her alone.

When she had finally managed to escape the verbal assault, Flit made her way straight to the Residence. She didn't relish having to tell her mother what had happened that day, because she knew that her bravery (or recklessness, really) was one of the reasons that her mother wanted her to take a more supportive role and pull back from the front line. As it was, Post-hoc had told her that another stunt like that would earn her a lengthy suspension from active duty. How would you like to be counting stock with your father? He had asked. Not. At. All....

Flit replayed the entire encounter in her mind several times as she walked through the maze-like halls of the Residence. The only pause in her internal replay was to use the Residence computer to determine the location of the Officer. When she finally stopped in front of the medi-bay door behind which her quarry was located, there was a small but annoying part of her mind that told her that everyone else was right. The stupid Officer had been smart, a split second longer and he might've had her.

When Flit pushed the door open, her Mother turned, surprised by the interruption, and then fixed her with a hard stare.

"Yes, Flit?" Her Mother asked impatiently, trying to keep the strain from her tone.

"I just wanted to come in to see how he was doing." Flit pointed to the Agent and couldn't stop the corner of her lips from turning up in a smug grin. He wasn't so clever now- strapped to the chair and with a neural inhibitor.

"KC-847 is doing well. He was quite drained, much longer and his chip might've deactivated him..." Her mother said, her face crinkled with concern.

"KC-847?" Flit asked, her nose scrunching in distaste.

"That's his designation." Her mother provided, turning and placing her palm on his head again, undoubtedly running some more checks.

"And what's his name?" Flit asked, looking now between her mother's brown eyes and the agents unnerving crimson ones. Her mother gave her the same look that she used to when she forgot to say please or thank you

~*~

The woman inspecting his condition said very little to him, she did however check the chip inserted into the back of his head.

"KC-847" she muttered under her breath. He tried to understand his current predicament, the underground rebels could have dispatched of him very easily, the network of sewer passageways and tunnels was mostly uncharted due to the length of time that had passed since they were officially used. The Government only kept them around because they would always know where to find less desirable characters should the need arise. Yet here he was, a prisoner to the very underground organisation he was trained to eliminate.

The young woman he duelled entered the room and was greeted by the older woman. Her name was Flit, an interesting name indeed, it was not like any name from the surface. KC-847 decided that the culture down here must be quite different.

They conversed between each other for a time and his designation was revealed, it didn't seem entirely friendly. It gave him the opportunity to assess the quarry whom almost defeated him in better light. Again he admired her well built frame despite her height, her athleticism made much more sense now. Her mischievous smile which she sported during the entirety of their encounter was still present, her eyes calculatingly locking onto his as if she were anticipating his next move despite his hopeless position.

He almost missed her question but decided not to talk. Something in him felt as if he needed to answer her rude tone with an equally callous response.

"I am authorised to only give you my designation which you already know to be KC-847, I am also authorised to inform you that you and your colleagues are all in violation of the Derivate ACT section Seven which details the treatment of Government property." He didn't know what sort of response he had expected, but a rude snort of laugher certainly wasn't on the list.

"Section Seven, treatment of Government property?" Flit asked him, her eyebrows raised questioningly. "Please, enlighten us..." She looked at him expectantly.

"Section Seven states that any persons responsible for damage or thief of government property will be liable legally and will face court action. Depending on the seriousness of the case the penalty can be up to twenty years in prison. In your case, since you are guilty of both and of being an unregistered Derivate I don't believe the odds are in your favour."

He was of course stalling for time, he knew that empty threats such as this would be completely ignored. Perhaps they would let their guard down at some point and give him the opportunity to execute order 527. He didn't need his abilities to complete it.

~*~

Flit's jaw dropped open at the Officer's matter-of-fact speech. She wondered for a moment whether he had been genetically engineered without the gene responsible for natural life-preservation. Threatening to put a group of fellow Derivates in jail for twenty years whilst strapped in a chair wearing a neural inhibitor? Maybe he wasn't as clever as she had first thought.

"Tell me something, KC-847" She added a particular hint of venom to her tone when she said his name "If you had gotten lucky and managed to capture me in The Nest, what would you have done with me?"

Flit looked at him scathingly for a minute before speaking, not bothering to give him a chance to respond.

"My guess is that you would have dragged me to your leaders, had me slapped with a neural inhibitor and had one of those vile control chips places in my brain. After that I would have been tested, experimented on, and beaten into shape before they forced me into slave labour. That is, of course, if I was a decent rank. If I wasn't they wouldn't have bothered moving past the experiment phase, would they?"

Flit heard her mother gasp in horror as she sneered at the Officer. She shot her mother an angry glare, she knew just as well, if not better, what happened to Unregistered Derivates that were caught.

"Well?' Flit asked "Is that what would have happened?"

~*~

"The Government recognises the potential danger of unregistered Derivates, as such, certain processes have been put in place to deal with the problem. The Government is a very powerful and resourceful organisation. By resisting you are only delaying the inevitable, your best course of action is to turn yourselves in." He relayed his response as officially as he'd been taught

He knew that his speech would anger her even if it wasn't entirely true, The Government was most certainly powerful and resourceful but they were in no way close to shutting down The Underground. Despite the fact that regular citizens were told that everything was under control, his team had barely scratched the surface of a complex system of tunnels, passageways, rebellions and subterfuge.

~*~

Flit gritted her teeth as she listened to the Officer speak. The words pierced her ears and slithered through her mind like a snake made of sandpaper. She could only agree with him about one thing- that The Government were powerful and resourceful. It maddened her anew that this is what the bastards used their power and resources for; brainwashing Derivates and Citizens alike.

"Listen carefully, KC-847." Flit said, taking a step closer to him and jabbing her finger into his rock hard chest. Her mother put an arm between them but Flit gave her a scathing look.

"Flit..."

"There are three things that you are going to have to learn, like it or not." Flit said, ignoring her mother. "Number one; you are not a possession. You are not property of The Government. You are an individual being with thoughts, feelings, and rights just like everyone else. You have been taught to suppress and ignore your individuality. You have been changed from a being into just being. You are more. than. that." The last three words were punctuated by three more hard pokes.

"Flit!"

"Number Two; we are not like your damned Government. Where you would have taken me back to be used and tortured by your superiors, you have been brought back here by my equals to be liberated and given what you deserve for the first time in your life."

"FLIT!"

"And last but certainly not least; don't you dare threaten my friends and comrades. I don't know how you do it above the surface, but down here, in the Underground, we are a tight knit group. If, and I mean if, you are able to overcome your ill-placed loyalty to The Government, you will gain the trust and assistance of people who will want to be with you for who you are- not what you are!"

Flit jabbed him in the chest one last time for good measure and turned on her heel, breathing hard. She strode over to the door and placed her door on the handle, then looked over her shoulder at her mother and the Officer.

~*~

Never once in his life had he ever been spoken to with such fervour. This woman was truly passionate. Did she honestly believe that their kind would ever treated as anything other than products of science? Perhaps down here they treated each other as equals but on the surface it was an entirely different story.

He sat dumbfounded as she lectured him, there wasn't any logical response. What worried him more than being their captive was their willingness to accept him into their collective. Could they truly be offering something that The Government so openly denied him? Would it be that easy? He needed time to think on her statement. He could do no more than avert his eyes from her accusatory gaze, at this exact moment in time staring at the ground was far more comforting.

~*~

Flit smiled with a grim sense of satisfaction when the red-eyed Officer looked down at the ground. The look her mother was giving her was one of warning, one that told her that all hell would break loose when they got home that night.

"After you've had some time to think about what I've said, and if you decide you want to know more, come and find me. I'll teach you the ropes." Flit offered, softening her tone slightly, before opening the door and walking out of the room.

When Flit reached the passages outside the Residence she let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding and fell back against the wall. That was one hell of an evening.

~*~

The older woman shook her head and stared, dumbstruck, as Flit fled from the room.

"You'll have to excuse Flit, KC-847." She said in a calming tone, "She can be quite passionate at times... She really does only want the best for people though." She looked at him in a soothing manner.

KC-847 could only nod in response he was mentally exhausted, the recent turn of events were a shock to his system. The older woman sighed and stood up slowly after patting him on the shoulder. She didn't use her ability, it was a gesture of comfort. Something he found entirely foreign.

"If you need anything Acumen is just outside here, he will be your escort." With that she left the room. A well built, tall male Derivate walked in as she left. He gave him a confident grin, his eyes assessed KC-847 as if he were a small animal that needed to be put down.

"Well looks like I'm your babysitter, Officer." Acumen stated, the way he said officer sounded more like an insult than a mark of respect.

"Lucky me." KC-847 responded with sarcastic enthusiasm. Even with his abilities this Derivate would take more than a simple push to knock down.

"Oh and don't get any funny idea's, if you know what I mean!" Acumem tapped his forehead then pointed to KC-847's head. So he was a mind-reader. With the neural inhibitor it blocked even his abilties to resist another Derviate and him being at such close proximity it would be difficult to formulate any plans of suicide. It seemed that KC-847 had very little choice but to cooperate.

"I'm feeling hungry, I assume you people feed your prisoners... or do I need to hunt the vermin to get a meal?" He asked.

"Haha! I like you, you got balls. You'll fit in here better than you think." He laughed deepl, his amusement only increased KC-847's discomfort. With an open hand gesture Acumen motioned to the open door. KC-847 eased of the medical bed feeling the dull ache of bruises from his previous engagement. He walked out the door with Acumem in tow. It was time to see how the other side lived.

~*~

After her visit to the Officer in the Residence Flit decided that what she needed was a nice hot shower. It had taken her a while to peel her clothes of her aching body. Their little spar had taken a fair bit out of her- though she was pleased when she looked back at what she had achieved. What she wasn't pleased about was the deep gash on her thigh, and the tear in her leather pants that matched it.

The hot shower worked wonders on her sore muscles. After thoroughly drowning her body in the soothing stream she finally hopped out of the water and got dressed into the street clothes that she wore when she was up in the world above.

Coming down to the Underground was a near-daily occurrence for Flit and her parents. For the better part of the daylight hours they would work in their various positions in Citizen society. After returning home from work they would head through a series of hidden vents and tunnels in their apartment building and journey to the Underground. In the afternoons, evenings, and on their days off they would often spend a fair amount of time in the darkness of the tunnels. The Underground couldn't rely on the skeleton staff that were able to remain in the tunnels, instead the bulk of their workforce and intelligence was thanks to those who lived above (both Citizens and Derivates) that risked themselves for their cause, coming down to help out however and whenever they could.

Today had been Flit's day off from her day job. Before descending she had the pleasure of getting into a massive argument with her parents over her role in the Underground. After a very long discussion they had come down and spent the day working for their preferred organisation. So for Flit, it had been a very long day.

As Flit pulled on the deep green sun-dress and black tie up sandals she let out a loud sigh of exasperation. If it were up to her she would never go back above. She didn't like being part of that society. She hated having to hide who she was and what she could do. She hated the flippant comments that her work-mates made about Derivates. Every time someone said something it was becoming harder and harder to resist punching them in the face. At least down here she could be herself, Flit, not Leah Cross the Systems Analyst from Administration.

After her shower Flit went along with her nightly ritual of going to the Mess Hall in the Residence for a late-night dinner. As she walked the familiar tunnels and drew closer and closer to the Mess she could hear the constant buzz of chatter that was typical background noise of that area. It was a place where people from every team would come and unwind from a shift before heading back up or back to their rooms. She pushed the large double doors out open and took stock of the people in the room.

Shit. He was there. Seated at a table with Acumen and some of the others from various teams. When the doors opened everyone looked up to see who the newcomer was. Some of them gave her a faint smile before turning back to their food, others called out her name in greeting, but Hawkeye got to his feet and motioned for her to come over and sit beside him. At the same table as the Officer.

Flit thought about turning around and leaving. She wasn't so hungry after all. She really had no desire to talk to the Officer after the day they had. However, if she ignored Hawkeye's eager invitation she knew that he would call her out on it- and he would be likely to put it down to the fact that she didn't want to sit with the Officer. Perhaps he would laugh and say she was intimidated by him... It just wouldn't do.

Flit crossed the room, weaving between the tables and the long bench seats that her comrades were on. As she approached the table where both Hawkeye and KC-847 were, she tugged on the skirt of her dress, and wished that she had brought something a little less... casual, to change in to. When she sat down on the empty seat beside Hawkeye, he looked at her with an appraising smile.

"You're looking particularly lovely tonight." He said, with a slight nod towards her nearly-bare shoulders and well-rounded breasts.

"Shut it Birdy-boy." She hissed out of the corner of her mouth, reaching out and piling some food onto the plate in front of her.

~*~

Acumen guided them through the underground headquarters explaining and pointing out various locations, being a mind-reader, he was answering KC-847's questions before he even asked them. It was becoming very frustrating, Registered readers were not authorised to use their ability unless called upon, but down here they had no such restrictions. Acumen even had several one sided conversations with the others that they passed on their tour, they conversed as if it were completely normal.

Their headquarters were unlike anything he expected, being underground near the sewers he assumed that they were all living in makeshift hideouts sleeping in their own filth. It was nothing like that. The facility was almost as well equipped as his own headquarters on the surface; state of the art ventilation and environmental controls, modern medical equipment, fully stocked armory. What surprised him further however were the social areas, large dedicated zones had been allocated for what appeared to be families living there. Parents and their children played in an artificially created park as if there were no threat at all.

"Pretty impressive isn't it officer? You're surprised that a bunch of unregistered gutter trash has these kind of resources. Ya know your so called owners don't give you the whole picture, not all Derivates are out of control loons set on destroying the world. I mean I know there have been some incidents, and some slip ups, but on a whole we aren't that different from the citizens you so blindly protect." Acumen used finger quotes when spoke the word protect, he was mocking KC-847's whole existence. Before he could respond Acumen had already read his mind.

"Look I know they train you and beat you into submission. You don't even think you're human. We understand that, that's why we like to show all of our guests the facility. Just do me a favour okay? Keep an open mind." KC-847 stilled his mind, it was a challenge not to think anything but he tried. Acumen noticed and merely nodded. They walked further on and Acumen explained more about the facility, they steered clear of some areas which KC-847 assumed to be off-limits. A thought rushed into his mind before he could hold it back.