Buzzing sounds echoed around the room. They weren’t always the same pitch, either. It switched maddeningly. Shrill hums, low engine rumbles. Even the irritating noise of a flickering fluorescent lightbulb. Without even a moment’s pause, noise filled the space around the alien captive.
M’gann kept her eyes tightly shut. Part of her still prayed that this was all just one of the terrible nightmares that had plagued her ever since she’d escaped the Lab. But the sounds and the terrible, burning heat were all too real. She couldn’t avoid the awful truth any longer. The Panel had finally succeeded. The Martian had been captured once more and this time, she feared, there would be no escape.
Hazy memory flooded her mind. A crowded sidewalk at morning rush hour. Cell phones ringing. A woman yelled for a taxi. M’gann knew she had been heading to the park. Or the library? The good doctor’s office? Then someone blocked her way. The scientist. M’gann recalled the terror and then a sharp pain in her back and then darkness.
She shook the memory out of her head. With great effort, M’gann forced herself to sit up and scan the area. A red light filled the space and numbed M’gann’s skin. The heat and the noise made her mind and body behave sluggishly. M’gann cautiously held her palm out in one hand and a lock of hair in the other. Nothing moved. Muffled laughter filled the orb. There would be no telekinesis and no shifting in this cell.
Reluctantly, she looked around for more. The space was barely large enough for her to lie down and contained no furniture of any kind. Aside from her own body, the cell was entirely empty. The cell itself was a spherical orb which reflected everything inside the orb back like a mirror. M’gann stared miserably at her own reflection and pressed a hand to it.
The wall was burning. She pulled her hand away fast, like she’d touched the surface of a hot stove, and clasped it to herself. Faint laughter resonated from outside the orb. M’gann narrowed her eyes. Although she might only see her own reflection, someone was right outside the spherical cell and was looking in at her. Perfect. A burning two-way mirror, she realized grimly. The distractions, the sweltering heat, the shape of the room. Everything was precisely designed to keep her contained.
And she could think of no way out.
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