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Description
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     The sound of the restraining machinery echoed in the chamber. It was dark, fed only by a single light on the high ceiling. It was just a hole to the chamber above, a chamber that wasn't a prison.
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     The chains rose.
     The room was cylindrical, and very tall. Restraints for the prisoners were attached to the walls. They consisted of shackles for the wrists and chains fastened to the walls. They didn't need any other holding devices, there was no way out.
     The chains were threaded through a pulley system, driven by electric power. The chains rose periodically, with a prisoner in tow. Once the prisoner reached the ceiling, the shackles were released. The prisoner would fall to the ground and die on impact. If they did not die instantly, they were left to bleed or starve to death, whichever came first.
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     There was only one prisoner in the cell today. He was three quarters of the way to the ceiling. He had accepted his fate.
     He was a pale man with greasy black hair that fell past his ears. He was wearing a dirty prisoner's uniform, a pair of long pants and a short sleeve shirt, cotton white. He was shod with a pair of wooden sandals, although it wasn't clear why they were given to him. His next touch with the ground would be his last.
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     He was jerked toward the top of the room by a few inches. His wriste were held high above his head. He appeared to be unconscious.
     Boom-boom-boom, SCREECH!
     A shrieking metallic wail reverberated throughout the prison chamber. The chains stopped moving upward, and the lone prisoner's sharp blue eyes opened. He looked all around, daring to hope that something had gone wrong.
     The wall adjacent exploded.
     A huge hole erupted on the far wall, whole stones and showers of dust scattered everywhere. Needless to say, the prisoner was completely awake now.
     A figure barreled through the hole and landed on the chamber floor. It was a big figure, at least seven feet tall, and very wide in the limbs and chest. It looked up at the prisoner, then signalled over his shoulder, ushering on something else.
     Six other figures, smaller than the first, jumped from the hole in a line on the first figure's sides. The big figure pointed upward, and the six shot cables into the ceiling and rode them to the top, then disappeared into the light opening. Several clanks were heard, followed by a shower of sparks. A few pieces of metal machinery fell through the opening, and crashed to the floor.
     The larger figure appeared to glance at a watch.
     The other six jumped down from the hole, somehow survived the drop, and landed next to their leader. They picked up the pieces of metal and waited.
     There was a loud clang, and the prisoner's chains quickly ratcheted down to floor level, he landed and fell to his knees. The large figure stepped into the light, his shadowy entourage stayed behind.
     He was very tall and very wide, muscular and towering. He was unshaven, with a strong jaw and bright, steely eyes. He wore a headband and lots of body armor, blue and black in color. His boots had two knife sheathes each.
     He said in a calm voice, "Release him."
     Two of the shadowy figures raised their arms. Cables shot out of the darkness and slammed into the wall above the prisoner. Metal clamps bit down on the chains, and they snapped. The prisoner's arms fell to his sides in a shower of dust and gravel. He rubbed his wrists gingerly, and looked up at his rescuers.
     A few of the shadowy figures had stepped into the light. They were dressed similarly to their leader, with black and blue body armor, but they were helmeted. There were opaque red dots for eyes, with a scored metal grille in the mouth's place. Each had a male or female form, but it was difficult to discern the two.
     The first man leaned down and asked the prisoner, "Are you fit to run?" There was a strange accent to his voice.
     The prisoner nodded.
     "Good. Follow us, and try to keep up." Without preamble, the big man and his posse jumped out of the hole, into the mist and gloom outside.The prisoner knew he would never get another chance at freedom. He checked himself over, flexed his muscles, stretched, and ran across the chamber floor at the hole. As he sailed through the air, the alarm system activated. Someone had apparently noticed the giant hole blasted into the side of the tower. He fell through a cloud of dust and mist, not knowing how long the drop was.
     He landed feet first, the drop was less than five feet. He sprinted forward into the gloom, searching for any sign of his rescuers.
     The mist broke, and he saw for the first time where he was.
     He was standing at the summit of a large hill, with dying grass under his feet. There were buildings on all sides except directly in front of him, all blue stone and terraces. He charged down the hill, fearing for his life. He knew what they would send after him once they discovered he had escaped.
     As he sprinted, he bagan to see the seven people that rescued him. They were slightly slower than him, keeping a measured jogging pace. He caught up to them and matched their pace, staying slightly behind.
     They reached the bottom of the hill, and the former prisoner saw the outlying area of his prison complex.
     It was a city. A sprawling, huge city, with no apparent order or system of arrangement. An expert pathfinder would easily be lost in the labyrinth of concrete streets and walls. There was an enormous wall surrounding the metropolis, with no gates or access points. It must have been fifty feet high.
     They reached the wall, and several of the anonymous squad members launched their grappling cables at the top of the wall, sailing upward and alighting on the lip of the barrier. Only the prisoner and the large man were left.
     The man said, "I will now pull us up. Wrap your arms around my waist as best as you can, and hold on very tightly. If you fall, you will die."
     The prisoner reluctantly grabbed the man's waist, as if in fear that it would burn him. His rescuer pointed his right fist at the top of the wall, and a cable shot out of a hidden orifice in his arm. The grapple slammed into the wall and held firmly. They sped into the air, seemingly defying the natural laws of physics.
     They reached the top of the wall in good time and rendezvoused with the rest of their squad. The man turned to the prisoner after he let go, "Now we will jump to the bottom. We can survive the fall because of our armor, but you cannot. I will carry you." The large man unceremoniously hefted the prisoner over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and jumped from the wall. They fell fifty feet, and they landed heavily, the man left two small craters where his feet impacted the earth. He set the prisoner down. "Now we run some more. We are going into the city, to our base of operations. Are you still capable of running?"
     The prisoner nodded once more.
     "Good. Let's go."
     The man and his crew started running once more, the prisoner matched their pace.
     The prisoner was staring to become very bewildered. Questions buzzed through his mind. Who were these people? How could they survive falls of fifty feet or more? And why did they rescue him? He decided he would wring answers out of them once they reached their "base of operations".
     The cityscape before them unfolded. It wasn't a city in the traditional sense. The buildings did not reach above three stories. They were all corrugated iron and wet, rotting wood. Clothes hung from lines uselessly, the place seemed to get more rain than your average indoor shower. Smoke rose from a few house's chimneys, but not many of them had that luxury. It appeared to be less of a city and more of an endless slum, with no apparent banks or government buildings.
     They ran down a bank covered with greener grass, the entire town seemed to rest in a land depression. They reached the outermost layer of houses, and the true squalidity of the place became evident. The prisoner wondered how the buildings were even standing on top of all that mud.
     They penetrated into the inner layers, and streets formed. It quickly became a maze of dilapidated housing and poor shops, with no particular order or plan. They turned corners, traversed alleys, and finally came to rest outside one building. They had been running for over twenty minutes, the prisoner was grateful for the break. The big man opened the thin door to the building, or tried, at least. It snapped off at the hinges, he was holding the door off the ground in one hand.
     "Dammit, we have to get this door to stop doing that. Once we get inside, one of you tell Mortenson to get a weld on this thing." He set the door against the wall next to the frame, and went inside. The six others and the prisoner followed him.
     The interior of the building mirrored the neglected quality of the exterior. There were two staircases immediately visible in the entrance. On the left, a staircase went downwards. To the right, a staircase went upwards. The big man said, "We go down. Two stories." They descended the stairs.
     It only got dimmer under the first story. There were a few bare bulbs that flickered, they were the only light. The walls were grimy. They descended two stories. The stairs ended with nothing but a long hallway and one door at the end. The door was unusually clean, totally at odds with the rest of the building.
     The big man opened the door, and the prisoner was shocked.
     Inside was a room that made no sense when put in comparison with the rest of the house. It was all shiny steel and good furniture, with soft couches and reclining chairs. One wall was devoted to banks of computer screens and boards of buttons, and there were other doors leading off to various rooms.
     The big man said, "Welcome to Home Base. You will be staying here for the time being."
     The prisoner was still amazed. The people living outside of this basement would kill for the equipment here.
     The six others walked off into other rooms, to attend to business of their own. The big man said to the prisoner, "Let us sit and chat for a moment, eh?" He indicated a table surrounded by chairs. They each sat in one, across from each other. The man began, "My name is Sergius Vladimir, most call me Sergey."  He settled back into his chair. "This is one of many Bases for the Rykban, the underground resistance movement. You may have heard of us in campfire stories when you were young."
     The prisoner didn't deny it. When he was a child, his guards always said, "Don't misbehave, or the Rykban will get you." He always thought it was some made-up monster, not an actual thing.
     "We rescued you because we were informed by an agent that you had been imprisoned unjustly. The Kadar have been sickeningly active recently. We have no idea what the government has been planning, but whatever it is, it can't be good.You were a victim of such excessive action, yes?"
     The former prisoner nodded.
     "You don't talk much, do you?"
     The prisoner made a mostion with his hands, as if writing on a piece of paper. Sergey said, "Paper and pencil?"
     The prisoner nodded. Sergey got up and fetched some from a nearby desk, and set it in front of the silent prisoner. He picked up the pencil and started to write something on the paper. Sergey started to read it aloud, "Can't... speak. Touch my hand... and find out why." Sergey looked extremely doubtful. The prisoner held out his left hand, and wrote something else with his right.
     Trust me.
     Sergey looked less than confident. "Grab your hand?"
     The prisoner nodded.
     Sergey looked at the prisoner's eyes. They were black, deep black. In fact, there was almost no white. His eyes were almost completely black, and they were completely unreadable.
     The big man said, "I have no idea what I'm getting myself into, but what the hell."
     He grabbed the prisoner's hand.
     Crackling shocks of black electricity cabled from the prisoner's arm to Sergey's, clear from nowhere. Sergey instantly snapped his hand away from the prisoner's.
     "Ah! What the devil-"
     You know, this would be a lot easier if you quieted down.
     "Where is... How did you..."
     Sounds like I'm inside your mind, huh? The prisoner smiled.
     "But you didn't just say something. I'm hearing things. And... the electricity..."
     Happens every time I make a connection with someone. Didn't hurt you too bad, did it?
     "Well... no... but... how is this possible? You're speaking to me inside my head! And where did that energy come from? I think you've got a bit of explaining to do!"
     Right. I guess this is all a bit unusual, for you, I forgot how this weirds people out. I haven't been around people in a long time.
     Alright. Where to begin, where to begin... I guess I'll start with my name.
     I'm called Kaivos. I doubt that's my real name, but if I took all the numbers out of my serial number, that's what I got. I have never known my real name.
     Since birth I have been a captive of the government. I do not know my parents. I do not know my heritage. I assume I was taken by the Katar when I was an infant, and my parents, murdered. I don't remember any of it.
     I was raised inside those walls you rescued me from. The technicians have worked on me since I was a toddler. Countless experiments. Most of it was surgically based, so I don't really know much about it. But I know they did things to my head. I would have these piercing headaches, terrible ones, but they never gave me any painkillers, said it would "counteract the catalysts". I don't know what that means, either.
     At around age nine I started having problems speaking. My words started slurring, and eventually I lost the ability to speak altogether. They said it was due to their probes, they impacted the part of my brain responsible for speech. I went an entire year without talking in any way. I was simply silent. When they wanted me to speak, they gave me a pen and paper.
     At age ten I developed the ability that you are now experiencing. Telepathy, they call it. Being able to talk directly into people's minds. I have to make a connection first, but one the connection is made, it is not broken until one of the two involved are dead. This ability, as they say, was a result of their experimentation. They were very excited with my "progress". They conducted other experiments. More surgeries.
     My headaches got worse. A lot worse. It got to the point where I thought I was going to die, I thought my head was going to explode. But one day, the headache just... left. It stopped, right in the middle of its full force. But then I realized, a pencil next to me was levitating. Hovering. And it was my fault.
     I kept on developing these abilities. Telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, all sorts. But they only came with headaches. Terrible headaches. I eventually figured out that to get rid of the incessant pain in my head, I had to relieve the pressure by expending energy, using my abilities.
     I got older. At around age twenty, I overheard a few of my guards talking. They were discussing their families, money problems, things that existed outside of my captivity.
     I started thinking. Thinking about the outside world. I hadn't thought about it much, but... it was there. Why couldn't I have it? Why couldn't I be free?
     Thoughts of freedom finally got to me. I snapped. I wanted out. It was like opening my eyes for the first time, I now knew that I wasn't living the life that I could have been. I was a captive.
     I used my abilities to snap the locks that held me in that room. I broke men's legs and arms to prevent them from apprehending me, but I didn't kill anyone. I absorbed information from a downed guard, the way out. A path to freedom.
     I ran down hallways, up stairs, through doors. I was almost out, I knew it. But I got confronted by a doctor, he had a tranquilizer gun in his hand. He shot me with it, before I could bring him down. I went under, and woke up in that tower. Since you can't erase those connections, I learned from guard's minds that they were going to execute me. I was a failure, a lost experiment. They were going to try again with another infant.
     They periodically shot me with a tranq dart that suppresses advanced brain activity, it stopped me from using my powers. I was going to die in that prison like all the other felons that they had brought in. But then you rescued me. I saw the outside world for the first time in my life today. I want to thank you, Sergey, for releasing me. You and your squad. Thank you.
     Sergey looked incredulous. "That is quite the story... Kaivos?"
     He nodded.
     "I'm not sure I totally believe or even fully understand your story, but I have no real reason to doubt you, after hearing you in my head."
     Kaivos grinned.
     "So I will allow you to stay. This will be your temporary home, until we can remove these ties of fugitivity from you. You won't have a necessarily normal life, but once the government is taken down from the inside out, we'll set you up with a proper place of residence."
     Thank you. Means a lot, coming from a complete stranger.
     "Hah. I think I like you already, son. Welcome to the Rykban." They shook hands again, this time without electricity.
     "So. I'll set you out with a bunk, there are a few spares in the back there, you'll have your own room like the rest of us. You'll also have to do some work, from time to time. To be one of us, you have to work like one of us."
     Understandable. I don't have much physical strength, but my mental strength is pretty impressive. Am I allowed to do heavy lifting with my brain?
     "I'll have to let the others know about your... talents, but I don't have a problem with it."
     Alright.
     "Now. I'm positive the hills will be swarming with Katar by now, concerning the magnitude of your escape. This place is very secure, but not by any means impregnable. So we'll need your assistance when the inevitable raid comes. But I have a feeling the Katar'll be no match against someone like you."
     I'll try my best.
     "Good! We're square. Let's get you something to eat, huh? You must be starving."
     Kaivos relaxed. He was initially worried about these people, but now he knew that they meant him no harm. He intended on making the most of his first night of freedom, and if any Katar decided to rain on his parade, he'd give them hell the likes of which they'd never seen.

Description
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     The sound of the restraining machinery echoed in the chamber. It was dark, fed only by a single light on the high ceiling. It was just a hole to the chamber above, a chamber that wasn't a prison.
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     The chains rose.
     The room was cylindrical, and very tall. Restraints for the prisoners were attached to the walls. They consisted of shackles for the wrists and chains fastened to the walls. They didn't need any other holding devices, there was no way out.
     The chains were threaded through a pulley system, driven by electric power. The chains rose periodically, with a prisoner in tow. Once the prisoner reached the ceiling, the shackles were released. The prisoner would fall to the ground and die on impact. If they did not die instantly, they were left to bleed or starve to death, whichever came first.
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     There was only one prisoner in the cell today. He was three quarters of the way to the ceiling. He had accepted his fate.
     He was a pale man with greasy black hair that fell past his ears. He was wearing a dirty prisoner's uniform, a pair of long pants and a short sleeve shirt, cotton white. He was shod with a pair of wooden sandals, although it wasn't clear why they were given to him. His next touch with the ground would be his last.
     Boom-boom-boom, CLANG!
     He was jerked toward the top of the room by a few inches. His wriste were held high above his head. He appeared to be unconscious.
     Boom-boom-boom, SCREECH!
     A shrieking metallic wail reverberated throughout the prison chamber. The chains stopped moving upward, and the lone prisoner's sharp blue eyes opened. He looked all around, daring to hope that something had gone wrong.
     The wall adjacent exploded.
     A huge hole erupted on the far wall, whole stones and showers of dust scattered everywhere. Needless to say, the prisoner was completely awake now.
     A figure barreled through the hole and landed on the chamber floor. It was a big figure, at least seven feet tall, and very wide in the limbs and chest. It looked up at the prisoner, then signalled over his shoulder, ushering on something else.
     Six other figures, smaller than the first, jumped from the hole in a line on the first figure's sides. The big figure pointed upward, and the six shot cables into the ceiling and rode them to the top, then disappeared into the light opening. Several clanks were heard, followed by a shower of sparks. A few pieces of metal machinery fell through the opening, and crashed to the floor.
     The larger figure appeared to glance at a watch.
     The other six jumped down from the hole, somehow survived the drop, and landed next to their leader. They picked up the pieces of metal and waited.
     There was a loud clang, and the prisoner's chains quickly ratcheted down to floor level, he landed and fell to his knees. The large figure stepped into the light, his shadowy entourage stayed behind.
     He was very tall and very wide, muscular and towering. He was unshaven, with a strong jaw and bright, steely eyes. He wore a headband and lots of body armor, blue and black in color. His boots had two knife sheathes each.
     He said in a calm voice, "Release him."
     Two of the shadowy figures raised their arms. Cables shot out of the darkness and slammed into the wall above the prisoner. Metal clamps bit down on the chains, and they snapped. The prisoner's arms fell to his sides in a shower of dust and gravel. He rubbed his wrists gingerly, and looked up at his rescuers.
     A few of the shadowy figures had stepped into the light. They were dressed similarly to their leader, with black and blue body armor, but they were helmeted. There were opaque red dots for eyes, with a scored metal grille in the mouth's place. Each had a male or female form, but it was difficult to discern the two.
     The first man leaned down and asked the prisoner, "Are you fit to run?" There was a strange accent to his voice.
     The prisoner nodded.
     "Good. Follow us, and try to keep up." Without preamble, the big man and his posse jumped out of the hole, into the mist and gloom outside.The prisoner knew he would never get another chance at freedom. He checked himself over, flexed his muscles, stretched, and ran across the chamber floor at the hole. As he sailed through the air, the alarm system activated. Someone had apparently noticed the giant hole blasted into the side of the tower. He fell through a cloud of dust and mist, not knowing how long the drop was.
     He landed feet first, the drop was less than five feet. He sprinted forward into the gloom, searching for any sign of his rescuers.
     The mist broke, and he saw for the first time where he was.
     He was standing at the summit of a large hill, with dying grass under his feet. There were buildings on all sides except directly in front of him, all blue stone and terraces. He charged down the hill, fearing for his life. He knew what they would send after him once they discovered he had escaped.
     As he sprinted, he bagan to see the seven people that rescued him. They were slightly slower than him, keeping a measured jogging pace. He caught up to them and matched their pace, staying slightly behind.
     They reached the bottom of the hill, and the former prisoner saw the outlying area of his prison complex.
     It was a city. A sprawling, huge city, with no apparent order or system of arrangement. An expert pathfinder would easily be lost in the labyrinth of concrete streets and walls. There was an enormous wall surrounding the metropolis, with no gates or access points. It must have been fifty feet high.
     They reached the wall, and several of the anonymous squad members launched their grappling cables at the top of the wall, sailing upward and alighting on the lip of the barrier. Only the prisoner and the large man were left.
     The man said, "I will now pull us up. Wrap your arms around my waist as best as you can, and hold on very tightly. If you fall, you will die."
     The prisoner reluctantly grabbed the man's waist, as if in fear that it would burn him. His rescuer pointed his right fist at the top of the wall, and a cable shot out of a hidden orifice in his arm. The grapple slammed into the wall and held firmly. They sped into the air, seemingly defying the natural laws of physics.
     They reached the top of the wall in good time and rendezvoused with the rest of their squad. The man turned to the prisoner after he let go, "Now we will jump to the bottom. We can survive the fall because of our armor, but you cannot. I will carry you." The large man unceremoniously hefted the prisoner over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and jumped from the wall. They fell fifty feet, and they landed heavily, the man left two small craters where his feet impacted the earth. He set the prisoner down. "Now we run some more. We are going into the city, to our base of operations. Are you still capable of running?"
     The prisoner nodded once more.
     "Good. Let's go."
     The man and his crew started running once more, the prisoner matched their pace.
     The prisoner was staring to become very bewildered. Questions buzzed through his mind. Who were these people? How could they survive falls of fifty feet or more? And why did they rescue him? He decided he would wring answers out of them once they reached their "base of operations".
     The cityscape before them unfolded. It wasn't a city in the traditional sense. The buildings did not reach above three stories. They were all corrugated iron and wet, rotting wood. Clothes hung from lines uselessly, the place seemed to get more rain than your average indoor shower. Smoke rose from a few house's chimneys, but not many of them had that luxury. It appeared to be less of a city and more of an endless slum, with no apparent banks or government buildings.
     They ran down a bank covered with greener grass, the entire town seemed to rest in a land depression. They reached the outermost layer of houses, and the true squalidity of the place became evident. The prisoner wondered how the buildings were even standing on top of all that mud.
     They penetrated into the inner layers, and streets formed. It quickly became a maze of dilapidated housing and poor shops, with no particular order or plan. They turned corners, traversed alleys, and finally came to rest outside one building. They had been running for over twenty minutes, the prisoner was grateful for the break. The big man opened the thin door to the building, or tried, at least. It snapped off at the hinges, he was holding the door off the ground in one hand.
     "Dammit, we have to get this door to stop doing that. Once we get inside, one of you tell Mortenson to get a weld on this thing." He set the door against the wall next to the frame, and went inside. The six others and the prisoner followed him.
     The interior of the building mirrored the neglected quality of the exterior. There were two staircases immediately visible in the entrance. On the left, a staircase went downwards. To the right, a staircase went upwards. The big man said, "We go down. Two stories." They descended the stairs.
     It only got dimmer under the first story. There were a few bare bulbs that flickered, they were the only light. The walls were grimy. They descended two stories. The stairs ended with nothing but a long hallway and one door at the end. The door was unusually clean, totally at odds with the rest of the building.
     The big man opened the door, and the prisoner was shocked.
     Inside was a room that made no sense when put in comparison with the rest of the house. It was all shiny steel and good furniture, with soft couches and reclining chairs. One wall was devoted to banks of computer screens and boards of buttons, and there were other doors leading off to various rooms.
     The big man said, "Welcome to Home Base. You will be staying here for the time being."
     The prisoner was still amazed. The people living outside of this basement would kill for the equipment here.
     The six others walked off into other rooms, to attend to business of their own. The big man said to the prisoner, "Let us sit and chat for a moment, eh?" He indicated a table surrounded by chairs. They each sat in one, across from each other. The man began, "My name is Sergius Vladimir, most call me Sergey."  He settled back into his chair. "This is one of many Bases for the Rykban, the underground resistance movement. You may have heard of us in campfire stories when you were young."
     The prisoner didn't deny it. When he was a child, his guards always said, "Don't misbehave, or the Rykban will get you." He always thought it was some made-up monster, not an actual thing.
     "We rescued you because we were informed by an agent that you had been imprisoned unjustly. The Kadar have been sickeningly active recently. We have no idea what the government has been planning, but whatever it is, it can't be good.You were a victim of such excessive action, yes?"
     The former prisoner nodded.
     "You don't talk much, do you?"
     The prisoner made a mostion with his hands, as if writing on a piece of paper. Sergey said, "Paper and pencil?"
     The prisoner nodded. Sergey got up and fetched some from a nearby desk, and set it in front of the silent prisoner. He picked up the pencil and started to write something on the paper. Sergey started to read it aloud, "Can't... speak. Touch my hand... and find out why." Sergey looked extremely doubtful. The prisoner held out his left hand, and wrote something else with his right.
     Trust me.
     Sergey looked less than confident. "Grab your hand?"
     The prisoner nodded.
     Sergey looked at the prisoner's eyes. They were black, deep black. In fact, there was almost no white. His eyes were almost completely black, and they were completely unreadable.
     The big man said, "I have no idea what I'm getting myself into, but what the hell."
     He grabbed the prisoner's hand.
     Crackling shocks of black electricity cabled from the prisoner's arm to Sergey's, clear from nowhere. Sergey instantly snapped his hand away from the prisoner's.
     "Ah! What the devil-"
     You know, this would be a lot easier if you quieted down.
     "Where is... How did you..."
     Sounds like I'm inside your mind, huh? The prisoner smiled.
     "But you didn't just say something. I'm hearing things. And... the electricity..."
     Happens every time I make a connection with someone. Didn't hurt you too bad, did it?
     "Well... no... but... how is this possible? You're speaking to me inside my head! And where did that energy come from? I think you've got a bit of explaining to do!"
     Right. I guess this is all a bit unusual, for you, I forgot how this weirds people out. I haven't been around people in a long time.
     Alright. Where to begin, where to begin... I guess I'll start with my name.
     I'm called Kaivos. I doubt that's my real name, but if I took all the numbers out of my serial number, that's what I got. I have never known my real name.
     Since birth I have been a captive of the government. I do not know my parents. I do not know my heritage. I assume I was taken by the Katar when I was an infant, and my parents, murdered. I don't remember any of it.
     I was raised inside those walls you rescued me from. The technicians have worked on me since I was a toddler. Countless experiments. Most of it was surgically based, so I don't really know much about it. But I know they did things to my head. I would have these piercing headaches, terrible ones, but they never gave me any painkillers, said it would "counteract the catalysts". I don't know what that means, either.
     At around age nine I started having problems speaking. My words started slurring, and eventually I lost the ability to speak altogether. They said it was due to their probes, they impacted the part of my brain responsible for speech. I went an entire year without talking in any way. I was simply silent. When they wanted me to speak, they gave me a pen and paper.
     At age ten I developed the ability that you are now experiencing. Telepathy, they call it. Being able to talk directly into people's minds. I have to make a connection first, but one the connection is made, it is not broken until one of the two involved are dead. This ability, as they say, was a result of their experimentation. They were very excited with my "progress". They conducted other experiments. More surgeries.
     My headaches got worse. A lot worse. It got to the point where I thought I was going to die, I thought my head was going to explode. But one day, the headache just... left. It stopped, right in the middle of its full force. But then I realized, a pencil next to me was levitating. Hovering. And it was my fault.
     I kept on developing these abilities. Telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, all sorts. But they only came with headaches. Terrible headaches. I eventually figured out that to get rid of the incessant pain in my head, I had to relieve the pressure by expending energy, using my abilities.
     I got older. At around age twenty, I overheard a few of my guards talking. They were discussing their families, money problems, things that existed outside of my captivity.
     I started thinking. Thinking about the outside world. I hadn't thought about it much, but... it was there. Why couldn't I have it? Why couldn't I be free?
     Thoughts of freedom finally got to me. I snapped. I wanted out. It was like opening my eyes for the first time, I now knew that I wasn't living the life that I could have been. I was a captive.
     I used my abilities to snap the locks that held me in that room. I broke men's legs and arms to prevent them from apprehending me, but I didn't kill anyone. I absorbed information from a downed guard, the way out. A path to freedom.
     I ran down hallways, up stairs, through doors. I was almost out, I knew it. But I got confronted by a doctor, he had a tranquilizer gun in his hand. He shot me with it, before I could bring him down. I went under, and woke up in that tower. Since you can't erase those connections, I learned from guard's minds that they were going to execute me. I was a failure, a lost experiment. They were going to try again with another infant.
     They periodically shot me with a tranq dart that suppresses advanced brain activity, it stopped me from using my powers. I was going to die in that prison like all the other felons that they had brought in. But then you rescued me. I saw the outside world for the first time in my life today. I want to thank you, Sergey, for releasing me. You and your squad. Thank you.
     Sergey looked incredulous. "That is quite the story... Kaivos?"
     He nodded.
     "I'm not sure I totally believe or even fully understand your story, but I have no real reason to doubt you, after hearing you in my head."
     Kaivos grinned.
     "So I will allow you to stay. This will be your temporary home, until we can remove these ties of fugitivity from you. You won't have a necessarily normal life, but once the government is taken down from the inside out, we'll set you up with a proper place of residence."
     Thank you. Means a lot, coming from a complete stranger.
     "Hah. I think I like you already, son. Welcome to the Rykban." They shook hands again, this time without electricity.
     "So. I'll set you out with a bunk, there are a few spares in the back there, you'll have your own room like the rest of us. You'll also have to do some work, from time to time. To be one of us, you have to work like one of us."
     Understandable. I don't have much physical strength, but my mental strength is pretty impressive. Am I allowed to do heavy lifting with my brain?
     "I'll have to let the others know about your... talents, but I don't have a problem with it."
     Alright.
     "Now. I'm positive the hills will be swarming with Katar by now, concerning the magnitude of your escape. This place is very secure, but not by any means impregnable. So we'll need your assistance when the inevitable raid comes. But I have a feeling the Katar'll be no match against someone like you."
     I'll try my best.
     "Good! We're square. Let's get you something to eat, huh? You must be starving."
     Kaivos relaxed. He was initially worried about these people, but now he knew that they meant him no harm. He intended on making the most of his first night of freedom, and if any Katar decided to rain on his parade, he'd give them hell the likes of which they'd never seen.