When 636 awoke she was back in her cell. Her whole body ached and there was blood on her clothing.

She tried to move her arm until she noticed it was bound by chains and slowly the memories of what happened earlier came back to her.

She destroyed the training grounds. 636 had only meant to ruin the machines but she lost more control of her ability than she had initially thought. She never meant to go that far. It was better if everyone here thought she was weak. Lower their expectations so they were never disappointed. Despite knowing that, a part of her still craved approval from Harver. She wanted to prove to him that she was not some weak weapon.

In the hallway outside her cell, footsteps echoed. 636 heard Dr.Willow approach long before he was in front of her, and she didn’t want to speak to him.

“You’re awake.” He said, voice full of guilt.

636 raised her head and looked the man up and down. Refraining from speaking to the doctor. Harver had lied and Dr.Willow had known all about it. He knew and still did nothing. This was his fault. It was his fault that her mind went back to that dark place.

“How are you feeling?” The doctor asked. He tried to put up a strong front with his calm voice but his eyes were full of worry.

“You’re all liars.” 636 balled her fists and glared at him.

“I know. I’m sorry. It was another test that we had-”

“I don’t care about your reasons for doing it.” 636 said in a leveled tone, cutting him off. “You lied. There was no point in lying about that. I would have been forced to do the test anyway. So why did you lie!” Her voice had slowly raised in anger with every word.

“636 take a deep breath.” Dr.Willow raised his hands to show surrender. His attention darted around the room. Eying every crack and crevice of the cold, dark room.

Scared. He was scared of her.

636 hadn’t even noticed the blue and gold mist around her, until the doctor’s expression got even more intense. Taking a breath, she calmed her power and looked Dr.Willow in the eyes. He smiled sadly at her.

“I really am sorry.” He scratched the back of his neck. He usually did it when he was guilty. “They wanted to test your awareness and adaptability. We couldn’t do that if you were aware about what was going to happen.”

636 scoffed. “I could have died, you know. What would you have done without your weapon?” Dr.Willow turned away from her gaze. “Did you at least get what you wanted? Harver seemed very disappointed.”

“He… Harver will be coming to see you in an hour or so. He’s not happy with the results but I don’t know what he was expecting. You’re only sixteen.” Dr.Willow looked at 636 with sorrow in his eyes.

636 didn’t want to think about an upset Harver. He was already unbearable when he was happy.

“I want to teach you something.”

636 arched her brow in question. She didn’t like the idea of whatever it was Dr.Willow wanted to teach her. If it was anything like what Harver liked to teach, he could keep his knowledge to himself.

“When people lie,” he said, “they have tells. I want to teach you to detect them. With your heightened senses it should be easy.”

The girl observed the man in front of her. Salt and pepper hair, a pair of crooked glasses and a small build. To an outside observer he would seem completely harmless, but then again so would she. 636 didn’t know if this man could be trusted but she’d take him over Harver any day. 636 nodded slowly, showing her agreement. This was a skill she would actually like to learn.

Once Dr.Willow saw her give the go ahead, he continued. “The easiest way to tell if someone is lying is through their heartbeat. If you listen to my heart right now you’ll find no irregularities but,” he continued, “if I were to lie there would be a slight falter in the beating.”

636 listened to Dr.Willow’s heart. The steady rhythm was oddly calming . “Listen to my heart as I say three different facts. Two will be true and one will be a lie. Your job will be to figure out which thing I say is a lie.”

“Why would you teach me this?”

“We should be working together, not fighting against each other. If we want to get your help in the future I think it’s important that you trust us. I want you to know that you can trust me, 636. Now are you ready to begin?” She nodded again. “Good. The first fact is, I am forty-five years old.” 636 focused more intently to Dr.Willow’s heartbeat but could tell if it had faltered.

“The second is that I had two daughters.” She tried not to let what he was saying dictate her attention but it was hard when her curiosity got the better of her.

“You had kids?” 636 asked.

Dr.Willow’s expression didn’t change, he just calmly told her, “That is for you to figure out.” 636 again listened to the man’s quiet heartbeat and he continued on once more. “I think of you like one of my children.” Her own heart pounded in her ears at the words he had just said. She had never thought too hard about what their relationship was like. Never even stopped to think about what she was to him, or what he was to her.

636 had never had a father or a father figure in her life before. In reality, Dr.Willow would probably be the closest thing she’d ever have to anything like it. She cleared her throat to brush off her sudden silence and urged him to keep talking.

“Can you say them again?” 636 asked.

She listened closer, closing her eyes and focusing only on his words and his heart rate. For the most part he was calm, nothing giving away to which statement was a lie. The doctor had to repeat the same things a few more times before 636 was sure she figured it out. When he had said his first fact again, his heart skipped a beat when he spoke the word forty-five.

“The first one is a lie.” She said, interrupting his sentences.

Dr.Willow looked at her and smiled. “Good job. You’re a fast learner.” He said, a bit of pride in his tone.

“What are the other tells?” She asked, ignoring his praise.

“Pupils, sweat, nervous mannerisms. It’s different for everyone. With some practice you’ll be able to distinguish when someone is lying. I want you to watch everyone closely. See what makes them tick. How they act when they’re calm versus how they act when they’re distraught or angry. So when they speak to you, you’ll be able to differentiate between the truth and a lie.”

Dr.Willow and 636 continued to do different lie detection exercises until Harver entered the cell.

He looked to Dr.Willow blankly and briefly before narrowing his eyes at 636. “Get up.”

“Harver?” Dr.Willow questioned. “She can go in for tests later.”

“I suppose she could.” He narrowed his eyes again and shook his head. “Let me do my job. Now get up, 636.”

Dr.Willow clearly wanted to protest but held his tongue. He looked confused but nodded and left the room.

Harver led 636 to a different lab than usual. He messed with some tools on the table and motioned for her to lay down. The air in the room felt colder for some reason. 636 suddenly got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Harver strapped her in before she could even attempt an escape and grabbed a pipe-like tool with needles along the rim of one side. Dr.Willow and a few other scientists burst through the doors, making her jump slightly on the table. They were looking more worried than 636 had ever seen them, which only furthered her bad feeling.

“Harver don’t!” One yelled.

“You might kill her!”

“Harver, please just wait. It was one test. She’ll improve without our help. You just need to give it time.” Dr.Willow pleaded.

Harver held his arms up, still gripping the tool.

“You know I respect your work Dr.Willow,” a slight twitch in his left brow, “but time isn’t something we have a lot of.”

“Harver, don't do anything to her.” The doctor pleaded once more.

Harver smiled. The same smile that always made 636 want to throw up. “I won’t.” There was a slight twitch from his left brow again. Lair. He was lying.

Harver slammed the tool into the side of 636’s head. She screamed out as more of the familiar gold liquid entered her system from the side of her skull. The feeling reminded her of the implants in her arms and back. It was the same pain she had felt that day. There was too much and her vision started to black out.

“She’ll be able to see everything now. She needed more power and I gave it to her.” Harver said as he was pulled away from the table. A few guards restrained him while Dr.Willow rushed to 636.

“636!” He kept yelling her number but didn’t get a response. The gold liquid, sallice, started dripping from her right eye. She was slipping.

Dr.Willow yelled orders to everyone in the room. Asking for different tools and giving the doctors instructions. They operated on 636 in a desperate attempt to keep her alive. They stuck her to different machines and tried to get as much of the sallice out of her system as they could.

“Harver you are stripped of your rank here. I don’t care what the higher ups say. Now get out of my sight.” Dr.Willow said once 636 was stable. He was struggling to keep his anger in check.

Frustration flashed across Harver’s features. “I’ll be back.” Was all he said before being escorted out.

~~

636 laid on that metal table for weeks. Not quite awake but not asleep either. Her vision would go in and out. Sometimes she could have swore she heard someone call out to her but when she looked around, no one would be there. Some days she was completely numb and on others she’d lurch forward in a cold sweat. The feeling of needles in every pore of her body.

She’d sometimes dry heave as her body made attempts to get rid of foreign substances. But it never could, not completely at least.

“Morning Sunshine.” She’d smile whenever she heard his voice even though she knew it was just the drugs playing tricks on her.

The bright white lights of the lab made her blink rapidly and turn her head away. She felt a cloth bandage on her right eye, blinding her. 636 moved her hand up to touch the cloth hesitantly. Her restraints must have been removed at some point during her recovery.

“You’re awake.” Dr.Willow looked up at her and seemed as though he hadn’t slept in years. His hair was uncharacteristically messy and he had dark bags under his solemn looking eyes.

636 moved to push herself up, but every movement caused her body to ache in protest. Reluctantly and not without effort, she turned and climbed off the table, but only for her to stumble and fall once her feet hit the ground.

Dr.Willow frantically ran out of his chair and caught her before she could hit the floor. Relief written in his expression when she was safely in his hold. “Take it easy.” He instructed but 636 pushed herself out of his grip.

The bandage on her eye was uncomfortable and itchy. She wanted it off before it gave her a rash or something. She used her fingers to slowly pry the cloth from her face. Ripping a bandaid off was never fun, but ripping a bandage was worse.

“Wait-” Dr.Willow tried to stop her but she had already removed it. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the sudden change. 636 closed her left eye and then her right eye to test her vision.

The right eye had significantly improved in vision but she’d have to close her left to get the full effect. Dr.Willow walked over to her and handed her a mirror. He nervously watched the girl examine herself in it, ready to calm her down if she panicked because of what she saw.

636 stared at her reflection, not recognizing the girl that stared back at her. She looked pale and sickly. A side effect from laying on a table for weeks. But what really shocked her was her eyes. One was the familiar blue that she rarely saw but could recognize anywhere. While her right eye, however, was gold. The same color as the sallice running through her veins. She stared at it for a while before turning her attention to her hair. The red knotted hair was the same. A little more unruly than usual but there was no change there. She ran her hand through it and Dr.Willow brought a brush over and helped her tame the mess on her head.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered after a few minutes of brushing her hair. He had apologized a lot within the last few conversations they had. 636 closed her eyes and listened to his heartbeat. “I didn’t know he was going to attempt that. I can’t believe that crazy-” Dr.Willow was yelling and he quickly calmed himself with a deep breath, “Never mind. It’s not important. How are you feeling?” 636 hadn’t detected any lies from him when he spoke, so she decided to answer the man.

“Fine.” Dr.Willow paused his brushing for a moment before continuing his movements.

“That’s good.”

636 looked at her eyes in the mirror and then the scars on her forearms, no longer bandaged. She was slowly turning into a monster. Everyday that she spent in the lab was another day that she was drifting away from being human.

Maybe being a monster wasn’t so awful. If this was how humans treated each other maybe losing her humanity wasn’t all bad.

For now she’d stay here. Learn all that she could from them. Grow stronger. Strong enough that no one would be able to hold her in a cage ever again. So she would use the labs and the doctors, let them help her until she no longer had a use for them. Then… she’d escape.