Ion's Questionnaire

Ion looks at one wall of her tiny enclosure. Her face is tired. The side of the enclosure is lit only by the light she gives off.

The wall is made of concrete. Tough, sturdy. Explosion resistant.  It is deep underground.  Several hundreds of feet at least

Her fingernails are a mess. Bleeding a little. The blood makes up more of the last few tally marks than the scraped pavement. 

33 tally marks. 2 off to the side. 

2 people who tried to kill her.

31 one that where too close to her.

She looks around her cell.

"I belong here. This is right. I am a monster."

She thinks back to all the other contractors she has met.

"Some of them belong in here too."

Ion waits.

Her flesh bubbles and boils, warm to the touch. 

Is it time yet? 

Her stomach aches.

The room is green with the glow she is giving off. She taps her feet. 

Hungry.

Food was supposed to be given a little after the lights turned on, and a little before the lights turned off. 

Not good food. And not enough for Ion to be full. But enough to sustain her.

They had forgotten yesterday. Or maybe they were just trying to kill her.

The light she is was emanating dimmed. Turning down to a dim flicker.

If they were trying to kill me, I would deserve it

Then her light came back. Blazing, a heat to her skin.

If they want me to die, they should fucking shoot me. Not drag it out! Fuck them. Fuck this.

There is clank as the metal on her cell door shifts. Opening, then a few seconds later closing.

Then the automated process shifts a heavy bit of metal open on Ion's side. 

Her food.

Extra today.

She looks at it.

They don't want to starve her. Even though she deserves it.

Fuck me most of all

Ion dreams. Flickering images. 

----
She is in a crowded street. She can feel something inside her bubbling. Her anxiety? Maybe. So many people. All staring.

But no.

This was her power. They were connected.

Her powers and her emotions had always been connected. She puts a lid on her emotions, and on her power. Keeping the constant energy under control.

It's getting harder. The Harbinger's said she could get control.

That she could get her life back.

What a fucking joke. 

There is a pain. The second worse she has ever felt. A man stabbing at her with a machete.

She panics. She removes the lid, trying to force the energy inside her out.

---- 

Ion sits at a table. People talk. People like her. Monsters. They talk of murder. The bubbling gets harder to keep a lid on. Her power feeding on her anger.


Monsters.

I'm a monster.

They are monsters.

Monsters wearing a thin veneer of human skins.

She understands now what her dad had always talked about. Why the Sons were so animate.

She explodes.

----
Ion walks along a walkway, running ahead of her tour group. 

She knows all the things being pointed out, and she thought she saw something. 

"Miss Newman get back here!" 

She was right. There was someone clinging to one of the walls on the containment building. Near the steam pipes.

They press something on a device in their hand, then disappear in a flash of darkness

What the?

There is a boom. 

Her walkway crumbles.

She falls and is hit by a bit of debris. 

Her vision goes black. 

When she comes to, she feels sick. There are alarms in the distance. 

She can feel an energy under her skin.

She is trapped. The only light coming... from her.

It takes them 2 days to rescue her.
----

Ion wakes. For a moment she is back there. Trapped. Feeling her body change in ways she doesn't understand

She screams, her energy boiling over, and blasting out from her, smashing the cell around her. 

Then she sobs. Allowing herself to feel the sorrow she had been holding a bay.

Her glow reduces to a flickering. And then turns off as she is overwhelmed by sadness.

Ion waits.

It has been a week since she learned to reduce her glow. Her hair is still green. Her skin is still not quite the same color it was. 

But she is getting better. Officer Martinez noticed. 

She didn't think anyone was watching her. 

But apparently, they were.

After 2 days of keeping her glow suppressed, he came, and he talked to her.

Ion had forgotten how nice it was to talk to a person, instead of concrete walls. 

She talked about the incident. She talked about her family. She talked about what got her here.

And now she is here. Waiting.

Thick glass in front of her. A phone next to her to let her call.

Guards watch her. 

Officer Martinez gives her a thumbs up.

Ion swallows.

The door opens. 

Mom

Ion's Mom enters first. She looks nervous, but seeing her daughter, she runs to the glass.

Ion's Dad enters next. He wears a scowl.

Drip.

Ion glances town to find a slightly glowing drop of water on her side. Bringing a hand to her face, she feels the tears running down her face.

She puts the phone receiver to her face, and presses her hand against the glass, where her mom's hand is already pressed

"Hey baby. Are you okay? I heard what happened. "

Hearing her mom's voice makes her nearly cry. 

Ion feels the bubbling. She closes her eyes, and in her sobbing focuses on keeping the glow down.

"Oh. Isabella. I'm so sorry this happened to you. It's okay. Mommy's here."


The guards had agreed to 15 minutes of visitation. Ion spent the entire time focused on controlling her glow and listening to her mom's sweet lies.

That she was going to be okay.

That they both loved them and were here for here.

That this wasn't her fault. 

Her Dad didn't say anything. 

Ion knew why.

She would hate her too.

It is another few days before Ion can get another visitation. 

Just her mom this time. 

She thought after the first time that she would be done crying. She wasn't. 

But her Mom is patient. 

She is always patient, dealing with all of my fucking bullshit.

"My darling girl. We are going to figure something out. I'll be here every step of the way."

Don't glow, don't glow, don't.

Ion starts to softly glow. The guards. Raise their weapons.

"Hey. Hey. Isabella. Look at me." Ion's Mom taps on the glass.

"Breath honey just breath."

Not helping. But she's trying

Ion closes her eyes. She remembers the feeling of being alone. Giving up. Depression. 

The glow subsides. 

"Good job. See. You are getting control of this. I talked to some lawyers today. We're going to figure something out. The talked about a lot of ..."

Ion lets the information wash over her. She doesn't care enough that this will be determining if she will live or die. 

Throughout her life, her mother was always there to love her. When the boys she liked didn't like her, when she got an B on a science test, when she fell playing on the playground.

She wasn't the best kid. And now she was the worst. And her mom loved her all the same.

Ion tries to keep her thoughts from moving to her father, whose absence is strongly felt.

"I love you mommy." Ion whispers. 

It takes a lot of focus to keep from glowing after that.