Life returned to the way it was before the interview. Bland food, no one to talk to, and the endless hours with nothing to do but sing to myself or watch the waves through the hole in the floor. A few days passed with nothing changing until, as I was lying on my bed and staring at nothing, the room shook and began to fall without any other warning. I was effectively weightless and could only maneuver awkwardly but I managed to push off the bed and launch myself towards the wall in the direction of the platform. I crashed through the wall and came out in bright sunlight. As expected, there was a refurbished oil rig before me. A few dozen crane-like structures were angled off the sides of the rig and each one held a room similar to the one I’d just broken out of.

I was still falling. I hadn’t been able to build up that much speed and wouldn’t reach the rig before I hit the water. I used the precious few seconds I had to look around and locate the anchor lines. One passed near enough to me that I kept my eyes on it. When I hit the water I swam as hard as I could towards it. I was still sinking fast but also moving at a fair pace through the water. As my hands reached the anchor line I began to climb hand over hand. As my head breached the water I took a deep breath of air and felt relief spread over me. Even though I hadn’t been underwater for very long, it had still been nerve wracking.

Voices up above began to shout and I knew they had seen me. I climbed faster, pulling hard with each hand and launching myself upward. It was a good thing I’d hurried because the anchor was cut loose moments after I reached the railing. A super flew down and began throwing fire at me. It wasn’t hot enough to burn me, and I slapped him across the head just hard enough to knock him out. Bullets pelted me from up above but those I could ignore. I patted out the flames that had caught on my jumpsuit before they could cause much damage.

A buzzing in my head started to throb and I looked around for the super with mental powers. They didn’t seem strong enough to pose any real threat to me but I still didn’t want them about. I spotted them on the walkway above my own and I threw a piece of railing I’d broken off at them. They ducked back but the bar broke through the walkway and cast shards of broken iron everywhere. While they were distracted I leapt up and pulled myself onto their level. I hit the mental super and knocked them out before moving on.

I wanted to find the main control room and find whoever was in charge here. They’d just tried to kill me and I wanted to know why. Super after super tried to stop me as I searched the rig. None of them was powerful enough to hamper my efforts. At most they were annoying.

The rig itself was built in three main tiers. The bottom tier where I’d started was where the cranes were situated, holding, I presumed, other supers in their cells. The second tier was mainly living spaces for the people who worked here, along with mechanical rooms that looked mostly unused. The third tier was where I began to find what I was looking for. Observation rooms for the various captive prisoners were on the outer perimeter with the main control room in the center. Security doors were common here but I just pushed through them as though they were nothing.

As soon as I reached the main control room I paused. Inside I could see a half dozen or so people all huddled on the far side, one of them speaking hurriedly into a radio.

“I’m not going to kill any of you,” I called out. “I haven’t done anything more than knock people out so far.”

I broke down the door and the first grenade landed in front of me. That was a stupid move since we were in an enclosed space and the explosion would do more harm to them than it would to me. I threw myself onto it and absorbed the majority of the blast, protecting those inside from their own stupidity. As I got up, another grenade landed.

“You’re going to kill yourselves!” I shouted as I kicked that one out through a window.

A third grenade landed and this time I stomped on it and then rounded on the idiot who kept throwing them. I pounced and smacked him on the side of the head. He dropped limp to the floor.

“Now listen,” I said, turning on the others in the room, “I’ve been following your rules but you just tried to kill me anyway. Why?”

A captain, the highest ranking official in the room, stepped forward.

“We were given orders to terminate you,” she stated.

“But why?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. I had never planned this far ahead. I didn’t want to drown so I’d climbed the rig and fought off the supers who attacked me, but now what? I shifted my weight back and forth, thinking, and the others in the room braced as though expecting me to attack.

“You can relax,” I told them. “I’m not going to hurt you. Not unless you force me to,” I added.

“What are you going to do, then?” the captain asked me warily.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t going to just drown, obviously, so here we are.”

“What do you want?”

“Um, let me see, I want to live, I want out of the Protection Force, and I want to go home and be left alone.” It was then that I realized the captain, who had been the one speaking into the radio, was still holding the radio and aiming the receiver at me. “Who’s on the other end of that?” I asked.

“It’s Colonel Trenton,” a familiar voice replied over the radio. “I suppose I should thank you for not massacring my people.”

“You should know that it’s not me who goes around killing people for no reason,” I replied. “Why’d you just order them to kill me?”

“You’re little stunt with the interview,” he replied. “I thought we’d prevented it from coming out but I hadn’t counted on miss McHalis having a hidden camera on her. She released that footage yesterday and it’s been a pain in my side ever since. People are talking up a storm about it and congress is demanding answers.”

“And you thought killing me would make it all go away?” I asked.

“It’s worked in the past,” he stated coldly.

“I think we’re done talking, Colonel,” I said and motioned for the captain to hang up.

The captain hesitated but as I began to move closer to her she obeyed.

“Do you have a way to contact Sandra McHalis?” I asked.

None of them answered.

“Alright, everyone out,” I ordered them. “Everyone’s confined to their quarters. If I find anyone out where they’re not supposed to be, I will kill them this time.”

The captain hesitated, then grabbed the intercom.

“Everyone is confined to quarters,” she said. “We are on lockdown. Misha Nayak has broken out of her confinement and taken control of the Fort Henniger. No one is to engage her. Repeat, everyone is confined to quarters until further notice.”

That done, filed out of the room, taking their unconscious companion, and began making their way down to their quarters on the second level. With the control room to myself I started going through the room for anything that might help. If I could find the contact logs for the comm, perhaps that would help me find a way to contact Sandra McHalis, who was the only person I could think of right now that could get the word out about my situation.