Genosha - For Free Trade: Lost and Forsaken

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Meggan lowered herself onto the corner of the metal slab, just managing not to wince at the sharp coldness of it against her bare skin. There was no possibility of getting comfortable in here, she knew that. There wasn’t even any hay strewn about for a messy spot. Meggan could have fashioned a vague facsimile of something bed-like for her and Maddie to sit on out of that sort of thing, just something soft for them to crouch on, even if there wasn’t more than a slim chance of anything close to attempting to sleep. Not with those guards, or those people doing whatever they were doing to everybody else.

Across the cell, Maddie curled up on the cold floor, altogether forgoing the bed like slab Meggan had perched herself on. The floor was probably no worse than anywhere else, she figured, but really, she was afraid of falling off their "bed" and concussing her head or otherwise injuring herself in the process. That, Maddie decided, would give their captors a justifiable excuse to kill her or use her for medical experiments, or whatever else these scumbags wanted. And there was no way she was going to give them that satisfaction. Nor would she give them the satisfaction of letting them see how scared she was, how were eyes were filling with tears.

Yet she took great satisfaction in mooning the Magistrate every time he walked by; if that didn't get her message across, then nothing would.

"Hey Meggan," she whispered, the sound of footsteps fading into the distance. "Are you asleep?"

“What? No,” Meggan quickly whispered back, as she opened her eyes again. Pretending to be asleep wasn’t a thing she could hope to pull off at the moment, and she shifted to a spot that wouldn't poke her in the sensitive bits with the edges. There would be no nodding off and falling off her perch either. “Not sleeping. Sorry, I was just resting my eyes for a second.”

"Caught the show between eye closings, though," she confirmed. As though she was trying to prove she hadn't fallen asleep at any point in time. She had just managed to catch two of the full moon shows from Maddie to the guard, and hadn’t known whether to plead with her to stop at the first, until she realized nothing had come of it. The guard might have been ignoring it, since it wasn’t an escape attempt. Meggan was almost going with encouraging it, now. Almost.

Maddie couldn't help smiling. "I don't know what you're talking about," she replied in mock innocence. "All I'm doing is trying to sleep. I can't help if that means they get to see my pasty white butt every time they look in the cell."

"I bet those pervs are just dying to get a look at our girlie parts, though. I wouldn't put it past them, those sickos. This has to be against some of the Geneva Conventions. Jerkfaces."

“Uh huh. You just can’t help that’s perfectly in their line of sight,” Meggan innocently shrugged. “Not your fault they look right at that exact second. Coincidence!” She was decidedly not thinking about anybody dying to see their bits.

She hadn’t even thought of that angle, but it was true. “A whole bunch of articles of it. Maybe every single syllable of it. Several drafts of similar stuff,” Meggan nodded. Not that she had ever actually read the thing, but she knew the gist of the subject. As their single sad little light bulb briefly flickered, before steadying—just dimmer, before struggling to return to normal—she frowned. “They’d probably make us change their prison bulbs, too, between Pasty Watch,” she mused. While they watched from their little slots, she didn’t want or need to say. “The most spectacular jerkfaces in all the land.”

Maddie screwed up her face in a look of disgust. This whole situation was jacked up. They were civilians! Teenagers! These Genoshan leader types were arrogant and dangerous, which gave Maddie hope that somewhere along the line they would epically screw up. "Hey. How many Genoshan Magistrates does it take to screw in a lightbulb," she asked, raising her voice to a normal speaking level.

"You can't. The lightbulbs are stuck too far up their asses."

That wasn’t something Meggan could argue with. “Ooh,” she said with an almost giggle, even as she cringed at the thought. That sounded so painful. But if it kept her from counting the moments between check-ins, it was welcome, even if it wasn't good.

“That’ll hurt when they need to sit after a very long day of standing outside cells, staring, and plotting evilly against students. But I bet it would cut down on any evil mwhahaing in private, like a James Bond villain! Still—ow. A very big, and mighty ow.” Not a fun thought on any level. Not a good image! Complete with a bulb that never, ever lights up again because nobody would want to touch it.

"I'm sure they still steeple their fingers evilly." Maddie couldn't help but giggle. It wasn't enough to make her feel less scared, not by a long shot, but it did make her feel a little better. "And they probably sit around in their free time looking in the mirror and practicing their evil laughter and steeples. Cause I'm not sure if any of these guys are as smart as a Bond villain, and that's saying something."

“Yeah. And practice that casual, evil dramatic turn in their rolling chair until they get dizzy and fall over,” Meggan grinned. She wasn’t a James Bond villain expert by any means, but she knew the standard clichés. “I’ve only watched Goldfinger, but I think you’re right. Bond villains would take away their evil bad guy credentials, if there were any.”

Maddie snorted and snickered. "And take away their passes to the evil henchmen Death Star VIP Lounge."

Meggan chuckled at that one. “Without those passes? No more sneaking snacks from the Vending Machine Of Doom between evildoing, since they’re locked out by the computer,” she quickly contributed. If the guards were actually listening outside their cell, they probably thought the two of them were completely stark raving mad, when they were just distracting each other in a unique, wickedly amusing sort of way.

There was another old standard she hadn't thrown into the ring yet. “I hope they didn’t practice their spinning with the required kitty sitting in their laps, or they'd fail their Bond villain courses. Persian cat, of course. Then again—claws, plus tipping.”

"Hey Meggie?" Maddie turned suddenly serious as she pushed herself up to get a better look at her cell mate. "You think we're going to get out of here? That the X-Men, or whoever of them is left, will rescue us?" “I think so. I hope so. I know they’ll try, Maddie,” Meggan said earnestly, once she had positioned herself better. “Whoever’s left that isn’t stuck in a cell, they’ll be trying their absolute hardest to follow, and get everybody back. Somehow.” If somebody happened to be kidnapped or captured or mind controlled into running away to live in the sewers or possessed, that was always how it had worked before. She hoped it held true now.