Arbitrament

Captain Callan opened the door, and on the other side Simmons could see an office. The idea of teleportation was not new to her, but this was the first time she saw it in action, before her very eyes.

Out of thin air, a path had been made to a location that was many, many miles away. It was breathtaking to see, and as she stepped through the 'portal' she could feel a cool sensation.

Entering the office, a new aroma instantly filled the air. Simmons could not quite place what this scent was, but it reminded her of both citrus and the rain. She got out of the way so that Captain Callan could get by her, and basked in the scent as she waited. As she stood to the side, she observed the office some more.

There were two windows, covered by blinds, keeping the bright city lights out. A clock hung on the brown-papered wall between those two curtains, but the hands didn't move. It perpetually told the time '11:59', or something around there, Simmons guessed.

There was a candle on the desk, scented, and after reading it a bit Simmons discovered that it was the scent of 'rainforest.' There were few other things on the table: some files, papers and folders, but they all were so neatly arranged that they barely took up any space on the tabletop.

The only other things of note were a framed painting turned to face the wall, a nameplate that had fallen over, and a binder with 'B. Simmons' written on it.

"Make yourself comfortable. I expect we'll be here a while." Captain Callan rounded the table and took a seat in her chair in one swift motion, gesturing for Simmons to sit down.

"If you don't mind me asking, Captain, why am I here?"

Captain Callan heard the question but did not immediately answer. She looked around at her neatly arranged files and papers, then picked a folder out of the assortment and took a few sheets of stapled paper out of it.

She then righted her nameplate, revealing her name in gold letters, 'Cpt. V. S. Callan.'

"You are here because someone up above took note of your records. Namely, the record of your time at the Academy. I have been tasked with asking you some questions and, depending on your answer to those questions, explaining to you what will happen henceforth."

While she spoke, Captain Callan's eyes switched back and forth between Simmons and the papers in her hand.

"What about my time at the Academy?" Simmons was confused, and she instantly went through her own mental records. She wondered what could possibly have been so notable about her.

Once she asked her question, Captain Callan nodded and then scoured the papers one last time, flipping through them much too fast to be reading them... surely.

"You'll excuse me, I haven't actually read them yet."

Simmons' eyes momentarily widened.

"According to these, and from what I know about you," Captain Callan gestured toward the binder with her head, "your ability evaluation is what sparked their interest to begin with."

"I'm sorry, you researched me before you even knew why I was being investigated?"

Captain Callan paused and nodded, "I did. Anything else, or can I continue?"

"Why?" Simmons shifted in her seat and leaned forward slightly, unaware that she was even doing it.

"I wanted to. You piqued even my interest when you volunteered for the Darktown Squad. There's never been a fresh rookie that actually volunteered for something like that, you know." Captain Callan spoke flatly, without much expression on her face or even in her voice. She answered Simmons' question, and waited to see if she had anything more to say.

"I see. Please, continue."

"Very well," Captain Callan replaced the papers into the folder and then straightened up in her chair.

"I'll be straightforward. What is your ability, Simmons? Before you answer that, I'll tell you what mine is."

Simmons swallowed hard. It was kind of an unspoken taboo to directly ask someone what their ability was. In today's society, it would be akin to walking up to someone on the street and asking them what color their underwear was, if they were wearing any at all.

"I am a 3rd Gen Neonater, and my ability has been titled 'Situational Omniscience.' To be frank: I think really, really fast- and very efficiently. It allows me to manage any and all situations I may find myself in, as long as I am cerebrally capable. So far, I've not met any situation where my capability has been proven insufficient. If you know my track record, then you know what I'm capable of."

Captain Callan said all in one breath, leaving Simmons silently surprised. No wonder her mannerisms felt slightly... off. Her mind was simple on a different level.

"Ahem," Simmons prepared to answer, realizing that she had already taken too long to respond.

"My ability was titled 'Precognition,' and I'm a 4th Gen Artificial. I can sorta sense things that are about to happen, or that are happening, and that allows me to react to them accordingly, thus staying out of harm's way." Simmons gave her answer, and felt the awkward tension alleviate.

Captain Callan flipped through the binder while nodding, then shut it just as abruptly.

"That's the answer you and a handful of Academy instructors arrived at, but it's not that simple."

Simmons tilted her head, brows furrowed.

"I'm aware that a number of other instructors didn't agree with that evaluation. They thought your ability was something else- similar, but not the same."

Captain Callan gave Simmons some time to think, but not much time. Perhaps she had forgotten that other people needed more time to think than she did.

"My betters seem to think that your ability is like mine, if not the same thing. You're a 4th Gen so that would explain the reason you seem to control it better, even if you are an Artificial."

Simmons frowned. This wasn't that big of a deal- it surely didn't warrant a sit-in with a Captain of the city's police force.

"They think that your ability's being wasted on the beat. I may disagree, given that we need people like you on the Darktown Squad, but I've already been overruled. They want you in on a little government secret, something not a lot of people on the force know about, not even most captains."

Simmons perked up when she heard that.

"Since you yourself seem to not be entirely sure of what ability you possess, I can only trust their judgement on the matter. They've simply seen way too many people like us come and go; they know it all when it comes to these abilities. Now that I know for sure that they aren't entirely wrong, I'm to offer you two choices."

"Your ability has been wrongly titled, so as per protocol you need to be reevaluated by a more qualified group. You'll have to put in an application to the facility after which they will contact you at their leisure, then schedule an appointment date. Of course, you will be suspended immediately and, depending on their final evaluation, may or may not return to your current post. Hell- you may even be drafted for an even worse position after wasting so much time."

Simmons had to cut in at this moment; Captain Callan was about to continue speaking.

"I'm being offered a position?"

"Yes. Since I'm far too suited to life in this city, and have already proven that my true worth lies in 'the hunt,' they consider you a fortunate find. They think our abilities match, so they can pluck you from the streets and force you to acclimatize to an all-new environment."

Captain Callan opened a different folder, black in color, and withdrew another set of stapled papers. The very first page was entirely blank except for a very large 'Classified.'

"Before I can tell you anything about that position, you need to choose. Undergo re-eval or accept their proposal. As unfair as it is, you're expected to make the choice before knowing anything about the position. You should really think about this."

Captain Callan, for the first time, leaned back in her chair and paused completely, allowing Simmons to think in silence.

Simmons felt incredibly overstimulated. She had gone from the simplest task of all, chasing after a criminal, to now making a decision that would determine her career path going forward.

As she deliberated, she slowly felt a sense of calm return to her, until eventually she mellowed out. At the same time, she also decided what she would choose. At first, she was surprised at how quickly the answer had come once she calmed down, but her surprise vanished once she realized that this was genuinely the best choice she could make.

"I accept their proposal." Simmons looked into Captain Callan's eyes and saw a hint of surprise.

"And you're sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright then," Captain Callan opened up the classified documents and slid them over to Simmons after perusing them a bit. The upright page that Simmons could see was titled 'The Hypogeal Project.'

"As you'll come to realize once you read enough of it, the outside world's no place for certain criminals. Everyone has abilities now, but not everyone has the kinds of abilities that can stand up- or even compare- to these individuals. It takes a very high caliber of ability to even survive an encounter with them, far less to take one of them down."

"Regular ability-suppressive tech, like the handcuffs you use, don't work on them."

"Are you talking about 5th Gen Neonaters?" Simmons' eyes sparkled as she asked, but Captain Callan shook her head, shutting her down.

"A lot of the people I'm talking about are Artificials. Even though they are Artificials, the power of their abilities and the way they control them put them far above even 5th Gen Neonaters. They aren't people you can take lightly."

"Oh," Simmons said, then continued reading.

"Our Government realized this, and they started drafting people that could somewhat compare to these insane individuals. Once their 'strike team' was formed, they were given a directive. Today, we know that directive as the 'World's Most Wanted' List. At first, the team consisted of twelve people. Twelve superbly talented, powerful people."

Simmons got to the related page, and saw a picture of that team. On it, standing amongst a bunch of other people, was Captain Callan herself.

"You were on it?"

"I was, but like a lot of my colleagues, I wasn't enough. It took all twelve of us to detain a single criminal, and that was when we were at our very best. We were all slowly replaced, one by one. Nowadays I have no idea who's on the team, if there still even is one. This city hasn't had criminal activity of that caliber in years, but there are rumors."

Simmons was amazed by what she was reading. There were details of abilities she had never even heard of- battles that had been kept under wraps and swept under the rug by the powers that be. She was being exposed to even more information, and she was all for it.

"Of course, we couldn't hold such people in any of our prisons, so they ordered the construction of the 'Hypogeal War Prison.' It's an entirely underground facility, and literally at that, and was constructed around an array of high-powered ability dampening energy fields. Such fields are the only things that can suppress their abilities. As time passed, these fields only advanced in efficiency, and are now capable of suppressing abilities by 100%."

"That's incredible. I didn't think it was possible to suppress abilities that far- I thought our cuffs were the best there were." Simmons was utterly stupefied by what she heard, saw and read.

"They think you have what it takes to surpass me through the appropriate conditioning, and they think that the best conditioning for you is to have you work in that prison. You'll start off as a guard, and whatever happens from there will be up to you and the authoritative figures in the prison. I don't know anything more than that."

"Wait. If the entire prison is built around those fields, then doesn't that mean the guards' abilities will be suppressed as well?"

Captain Callan took a moment to recollect, and pouted, which did not suit her demeanor at all.

"If I recall correctly, a special kind of cuff was still in the testing stage when I worked there. 'Anti-Suppression Cuffs' is what I believe they were calling them at the time. In theory they would create a local reversal-force that counteracted the effects of the suppression fields, but not totally. I think they expected them to restore 20% of the power of one's ability within the field, which is quite impressive."

Captain Callan sounded like she was musing to herself more than to Simmons, but the latter didn't realize it. She was too engrossed in the documents, specifically a certain listing.

Dozens of pages from the classified documents were devoted to the Most Wanted List. The names, descriptions and other details of the criminals were given, as well as the title of their abilities and if they had been incarcerated or not. As Simmons scoured the list, her very understanding of the nature of abilities underwent several huge changes.

The list started with #4,000,050 and went from there. That meant that the #1 Most Wanted Criminal was on the very last page of the list. Part of her wanted to skip to the end and see just what kind of ability that person would have, but she also wanted to study the list from the bottom first. She did not expect to be dealing with the top-tier inmates right off the bat.

It would be more beneficial to her to learn all she could about the ones at the bottom of the list.

"Once you're ready, I'll let them come collect you. Till then, get everything you need and say goodbye to your apartment. From this moment onward, your home is the Hypogeal War Prison."