Chapter 3: Powers Out of Control
Brenner clapped his hands three times—sharp, crisp sounds that cut through the quiet like a call to order.
"Children, this is Twelve," his voice carried across the padded room. "From today on, he'll be joining you more often during recreation time. Everyone remembers our rules, correct?"
He paused, his gaze sweeping slowly across each upturned face.
"We don't hurt each other."
"Yes, Papa!" they chorused back, the response automatic as a trained reflex.
But Andy's perception cut through the obedient facade, revealing the truth beneath: contempt, indifference, curiosity, wariness—a whole spectrum of emotions they'd learned to hide.
His gaze drifted involuntarily toward the blonde observer. The man offered him a slight smile—charming, friendly, almost perfect.
But Andy remembered the rot he'd sensed in the monitoring room. The thoughts about "knuckle-draggers." The twisted fantasies.
So why was this guy acting so friendly now?
The observer seemed to notice Andy's stare. He tilted his head, smile brightening, and a clear thought flickered through his consciousness:
Could this new kid—Twelve—be like Eleven? Like me?
The thought shot through Andy's mind like an electric shock.
Without thinking, almost on pure instinct, he repeated it aloud:
"Like Eleven?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the room went deathly silent.
Not the polite quiet from before—this was different. Frozen. Even the ever-present hum of the ventilation system seemed to disappear.
Andy realized immediately he'd screwed up.
He shouldn't have spoken the thoughts he'd read aloud. Especially not in front of everyone.
It was one of Brenner's cardinal rules: Don't use your abilities without permission.
The emotional field around him erupted into chaos.
A spike of white-hot anger flared from Dr. Brenner—sharp and sudden as a match strike.
But on the surface, Brenner remained calm. Only the corner of his mouth tightened for a fraction of a second.
The blonde observer's reaction was even more violent: shock, then panic, then rapidly constructed defenses.
His consciousness slammed shut like a steel door, trying to block any further probing.
But before it closed completely, Andy still caught one clear emotion: He knows. He knows what I am. He's going to tell Brenner.
The other children reacted in various ways. Most looked confused, not understanding what had just happened.
But a few—including Three and Six—realized what Andy had done: he'd read someone's mind and blurted it out loud.
Then Andy sensed a particularly complex emotional signature.
It came from the corner of the room, from that quiet little girl who'd been sitting alone. Number Eleven.
Her consciousness was usually hollow—like an open door leading to emptiness.
But now something surged from that void: surprise, confusion, curiosity, and a flicker of... hope?
A thought emerged from her direction, clear as a voice:
Twelve... is like me?
The thought was so direct, so intentional—as if she wanted Andy to hear it.
And Andy understood instantly: Eleven had some form of telepathic ability too. Maybe she couldn't actively read minds like he could, but she could sense them. And she could send thoughts.
She's like me. Really like me.
And that blonde guy said "like Eleven"—what did that mean? What was his connection to Eleven? Why did he think they were "the same"?
Before Andy could pursue the thought further, Brenner's hand settled gently on his head.
"Alright, Twelve," Brenner's voice remained gentle, but Andy could feel the tension in those fingers, "go find something to play with."
The tone was soft but left zero room for argument.
Andy nodded, avoiding the staring eyes, and made his way to an empty corner.
There was a small table with low plastic chairs, crayons and construction paper scattered across the surface.
He sat down and picked up a blue crayon. His fingers were shaking.
Around him, the children gradually resumed their activities, but the atmosphere had shifted. Those sidelong glances still found him, carrying a new weight of scrutiny.
And Eleven, from her corner, kept watching.
Andy lowered his head and started to color. At first, just unconscious lines and shapes—blue spirals, green waves, yellow splotches.
He tried to focus on the waxy scratch of crayon on paper, tried to block out the surrounding emotional static.
But he couldn't.
His perceptual abilities were unusually active today. Maybe the earlier training session had activated something. Maybe it was the subtle neurological changes from the nosebleed.
Whatever it was, he could feel everyone's emotions like different colored beams of light weaving through the room:
Two's red arrogance and impatience.
Eight's gray indifference and detachment.
Nine and Nine-Point-Five's intertwined yellow anxiety and green curiosity.
Eleven... Eleven was transparent, but against that clear background, faint silver sparks were flickering now—confusion mixed with hope.
And the blonde observer—that man was in another room now, being interrogated by two guards.
His emotional field was murky purple, swirling with fear, calculation, and that residual darkness.
He was working hard to "clean up" his thoughts—like straightening a messy room, locking the dark stuff in drawers and presenting a tidy surface.
The deliberate disguise made Andy's skin crawl.
What made it worse was the pain he could sense underneath it all.
Not physical pain. Mental. A mixture of exhaustion, resentment, and loneliness eating away at the man like a disease.
This pain was old—ancient, really—as if it had been accumulating since childhood, wrapped in layer after layer until it formed a hard shell around him.
Andy's hand stopped moving.
He stared at the paper and realized he'd unconsciously drawn a face.
Blonde, handsome, but the eyes were two black vortexes. The mouth was twisted like someone in agony. Around the face, he'd scribbled violent red lines—like flames or blood.
Then, without warning, that pain surged from the drawing and flooded his consciousness.
It wasn't metaphorical. It was real. Physiological.
As if years of accumulated mental agony had backwashed through the channel of Andy's perception, some kind of psychic feedback loop.
Headache. Stomach cramps. His heart clenched. He couldn't breathe.
Tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks without permission.
He tried to push the sensation away—like slamming a door. But the harder he resisted, the more it forced itself in.
The observer's pain rooted itself in Andy's perception like a thousand needles piercing his brain, each one transmitting echoes of suffering.
"No..." Andy whispered, clutching his head.
The surrounding children noticed something was wrong. Nine stopped playing. Ten looked concerned. Two just looked annoyed—what's this kid's problem now?
The guards noticed too. One by the door picked up his walkie-talkie, calling for a nurse.
That's when Andy's defenses collapsed completely.
It wasn't a choice. Pure survival instinct.
When the pain exceeded his threshold, his ability stopped receiving and started broadcasting.
A strange mental pulse rippled outward with Andy at the center.
First just ripples. Then waves.
The first person affected was Eleven. Her eyes snapped open and she clutched her chest as if struck by something invisible.
Andy's pain—mixed with the observer's agony, resentment, and loneliness—poured directly into her consciousness.
Her mouth opened but no sound came out. Only silent tears streaming down her face.
Then Two. The block tower he was building crashed down, but he didn't even reach for it. He grabbed his head with both hands, confusion and pain twisting his features.
"What... what is this?"
Eight stood up from his corner, a crack appearing in his usual mask of indifference for the first time.
He stared at his hands like he'd never seen them before. "Make it stop..." he whispered, but his voice drowned in the mental static.
The pulse kept spreading—like a stone dropped in a pond, ripples touching every kid in the room.
Everyone who made contact felt what Andy felt: not just pain, but their own negative emotions bubbling up.
Suppressed fear. Resentment toward the experiments. Longing for freedom. Complicated feelings about Brenner—all of it activated, amplified, blended into unbearable agony.
"My head..."
"It hurts..."
"Make it stop!"
Kids started crying, screaming, curling into balls. Even the guards were affected—one dropped to his knees, his walkie-talkie clattering to the floor.
The Rainbow Room had become an echo chamber of pain.
At the other end of the corridor, in the Punishment Room.
Brenner stood before the one-way glass, watching the scene inside. The blonde observer was pinned to a chair by two guards, his face pale but still maintaining a certain defiance.
"You know the rules, Henry," Brenner's voice was ice. "Observers don't form relationships with subjects. Especially not with Eleven."
Henry managed a twisted smile. "I was just observing. She's fascinating, isn't she? So powerful, yet so fragile. Just like—"
His words cut off.
Because in that moment, Brenner, Henry, and both guards felt it simultaneously.
A sharp spike of pain—like an ice pick driven into their temples.
But it wasn't coming from inside. The sensation was external, as if some frequency was forcibly synchronizing with their nervous systems.
Following it came a flood of emotions: pain, resentment, fear, despair...
Brenner's expression shifted. He knew this sensation intimately—it was the signature of powers spiraling out of control. Specifically, the resonance effect of telepathic ability.
"Twelve..." he breathed, then suddenly turned and bolted from the Punishment Room.
The corridor blurred past. He could hear chaos erupting from the direction of the Rainbow Room: crying, screaming, the dull thud of things hitting the floor.
Guards were running from all directions toward the same point, but their movements looked sluggish, disoriented—clearly affected too.
When Brenner shoved open the door to the Rainbow Room, he saw total chaos.
Children curled on the floor throughout the space, clutching their heads, sobbing. Blocks, rubber balls, and picture books scattered everywhere.
Two guards kneeling, faces contorted in pain.
And in the center of the room—Twelve, sitting at that small table, body rigid, tears streaming down his face, staring at a twisted face he'd drawn on the paper.
Brenner forced down the discomfort drilling through his own skull. That resonance effect still hummed like background static, but he moved quickly and purposefully toward Andy.
With each step closer, the pain intensified. Not just Twelve's pain—the pain of all the children amplified through him. And even... Henry's?
Brenner's gaze swept over the drawing and saw the blonde face. He understood.
"Twelve," he said softly, crouching in front of the boy. "Twelve, look at me."
Andy's eyes were vacant, unfocused.
His consciousness was flooded—overwhelmed by too many emotions, too much pain to distinguish himself from everyone else.
Brenner's hand trembled slightly as he pulled a pre-loaded syringe from his inside jacket pocket. Not a regular sedative—this was a Neural Inhibitor, specifically designed for when powers went out of control.
The pale blue liquid glinted faintly in the fluorescent light.
"This will sting a little," he whispered, then drove the needle into the side of Andy's neck.
The moment the liquid entered his bloodstream, Andy's body jerked.
His eyes went wide. Pupils contracted. And then the mental pulse saturating the room began to weaken, receding like a tide.
Brenner caught the boy as he sagged forward, feeling his breathing gradually steady.
The crying around them began to subside too. Pained expressions replaced by confusion and exhaustion.
"Papa?" Eleven's weak voice came from the corner. She was pale, two trails of blood beneath her nose, but her eyes stayed locked on Andy in Brenner's arms.
"Everything's fine now," Brenner said, his voice returning to its usual measured calm. "The nurses will take care of everyone. Recreation time is over for today."
He lifted Andy—the boy felt impossibly light in his arms. Passing through the doorway, Brenner paused for a moment, surveying the chaotic room, the pale and hollow-eyed children.
Then his gaze fell on the drawing Andy had dropped—Henry's face twisted in agony, surrounded by flame-like red scribbles.
Brenner's eyes darkened.
This wasn't simple loss of control. It was resonance. Sympathetic vibration. Twelve's ability was developing in an unexpected direction.
Not only could he read emotions—he could amplify and broadcast them. Even establish a powerful psychic connection with a specific target across distance.
A dangerous ability.
But also an extraordinarily valuable one.
He carried Andy toward the Medical Wing, his pace steady and swift.
The boy in his arms twitched occasionally, murmuring something—not English, but broken, unrecognizable syllables.
And in this moment, as Andy sank deeper into drug-induced unconsciousness, those memory fragments surfaced again:
Darkness.
A sweet smell of decay.
Flickering lights.
And a voice—deep, ancient—whispering from the void:
"I feel you... the key... open the door..."
Andy frowned in his coma, his fingers unconsciously clutching Brenner's jacket like a drowning man grasping driftwood.
Meanwhile, back in the Rainbow Room, as nurses began tending to the frightened children, Eleven quietly picked up the dropped drawing.
She stared at the twisted blonde face surrounded by red flames, her dark eyes unreadable.
Then she carefully folded the paper and tucked it into the pocket of her hospital gown.
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