Just For One Day

1

Nova City Correctional Facility. Laying some ten miles from the outskirts of the city, it is a place for the justice system to funnel the various malcontents and ne'er do wells brought to them by the many metahumans that patrol the streets in the name of righteousness, obligation, or sheer boredom. Considering the size of the population, there is no shortage of heroes or villains, and so the prison is swollen to bursting with inmates. This doesn't stop the dumping of more inmates there on a daily basis, however. 'There's always room for one more' is the unofficial motto of the facility.

Let's take a closer look. There's the roof, scarred and patched up from numerous escape attempts, most unsuccessful. The bars on the small cell windows provide meager light for each inmate, although here and there the bars have been replaced with mesh or completely bricked up. This is a prison that houses many metahumans, after all.

Zoom in on one particular cell. It belongs to a Roger Hamlet Pink II, a man who considers himself a misunderstood genius, where the city considers him a nuisance. He is six foot four, incredibly thin, not quite forty, and has a head of snow white hair and an immaculate fashion sense that, in the times when he was free, made people wonder if he was fabulously wealthy, a flaming homosexual, or both. He has certainly been the former, and the latter is known only to himself.

He wears the orange jumpsuit of the prison system, white slip-on shoes, and a peculiar collar made of thick, dull metal around his neck. Right now, he is hunched over the toilet.

"Concentration," he mutters, hands working at something he's holding over the water. "It's all about concentration."

On the toilet seat rests a plate with several small piles of differently colored dust on it. Every now and then, Roger reaches over and carefully teases out a few grains and brings them to the center of the plate. He then dips a finger into the toilet bowl and lets a few drops of water fall onto the dust, and swirls the result into a paste.

A scuttling noise at his foot caused him to look down. Several large cockroaches squat by the base of the toilet, looking for all the world like soldiers standing to attention. One stands right by Roger's foot, in front of two others who are holding another roach by its legs in between them.

Roger turns and looks down at them. "Did you bring me another guinea pig?" he asks.

The roach by his foot waves a front leg in a manner that suggests a salute.

"Good," Roger says. "Because I just cooked up another batch that I'd like to test." He bends down toward the two roaches restraining the third. The captive roach struggles to get away, but the other roaches are too strong and hold it fast.

Roger places a tiny metal disc in front of the captive roach. On it is a smear of the paste from the plate.

"Eat up," says Roger softly.

Instantly, the captive roach stops struggling. The other two let it go and it scuttles forward, eagerly gulping down the paste. When it is finished, it backs a few inches away and stands motionless. Roger and the other roaches watch it intently.

Several uneventful minutes go by. Roger taps his fingers on the toilet seat in a gentle, percussive tattoo. The roach begins to clean its antennae.

Roger sighs as the roach moves on to its forelegs, running them through its mouth parts. He turns to the plate balanced on the toilet seat and moves to pick it up when he hears a small buzzing on the floor. He turns back to see a peculiar sight: the roach had stopped cleaning itself and was now vibrating; its entire body shuddering quickly enough to make it seem like just a blur on the floor. A high pitched squeal begins to emanate from it, like air escaping a balloon.