Sam sat up and bumped his head. A feeling of claustrophobia swept over him, though his vision was too blurry to make out where he was. Slowly, as his eyes cleared and the slight vertigo that he was feeling faded, he could just make out that he was in a narrow drum, perhaps four or five feet long and less than three feet in diameter. It wasn't long enough to lay down in, but neither was it high enough in which to sit up.

He felt about. His jail seemed to be made of solid and smooth metal. A small slit, about eight inches wide by three inches high, was situated along one end of the tube and let in a faint light. Feeling about some more, he could tell that the metal might have been hinged on that end, but the opposite end was smooth, seamless metal. His cage felt thick and unyielding. There was no sound, but the strong smell of urine assaulted his nostrils, and he soon realized the smell came from him.

As near as he could discern, he was in the same clothes he'd worn when he met Glenn Fallows in Lincoln Park. Checking his pockets, there was nothing. His memory of how he had gotten there was blank. There was only the memory of shaking Glenn's hand and then making his way back toward the bus stop.

He moved to the small slit and peeked out. The room outside, what he could see of it, looked plain and sterile, with tiled floors like those of a locker room. One or two metal tables were visible, but he couldn't make out what was on them. The only light seemed to emanate from an EXIT sign over a broad metal door about 20 feet away.

When he started to call out, he heard a faint, "Shhh ...." He stopped and listened but heard nothing further. Moments later, when he thought to call out again, his words again were forestalled by a faint, "Shhh ...."

"You don't want them to hear you," came a small, disembodied voice from outside his tiny cell.

"Who's there," Sam said. He took the cue of the voice and spoke softly.

"It's me," she said, as if he should understand.

"Me, who?" Sam said this almost by reflex.

"Celia." Her voice had the slight edge of exasperation that children often reserved for their elders. It was the voice of a kid, a young girl. Before Sam could formulate his next question, Celia continued.

"Don't talk to them. They just want to jerk you around." The words had sounded oddly mature from such a youthful voice. Sam couldn't help noticing her tiny, hushed tone had a cheerful, almost melodic quality.

"Where ....?" Sam began.

"The Range."

"What ....?" Sam began again.

"We're at The Range." Her exasperation had been replaced by a somewhat condescending tone of indulgence. "I don't know where The Range is," she said, again anticipating his question.

"What is The Range?" Sam managed to get out his next question.

"It's where they kill people like us."

She said those words in such a matter-of-fact way that it took a moment for them to register. After they did, Sam took a few more minutes to absorb them and to think of his next steps. As he did, he looked out his small window, craning his neck to see the area of the room from which Celia's voice emanated. There was nothing but darkness in one small section where the light of the EXIT sign didn't penetrate. He felt the walls of his cell and tested them with his strength. Despite Sam's enormous power, they didn't budge.

Tommy would tear this thing apart like it was cardboard, he couldn't help but think.

"Who's Tommy?" came Celia's voice from the dark.

Sam froze. "You ...?"

"Yup. But don't tell anybody. If they found out about that, whew," she giggled, "they'd do a lot worse things than kill me."

Sam moved back to his tiny window, and the two began to talk quietly. Mostly, it was the girl peppering Sam with answers to his as-yet unasked questions. A few minutes of such quasi-monologue revealed that Celia and her sister, Lydia, had been part of something called "the control group" at a separate facility their jailors referred to as "The Farm."

After several years of medical examinations and testing, their captors had brought the two to this place—The Range. That transfer had been over a month before, though the child wasn't sure of the exact date. However, upon reaching their current prison, Lydia, who Celia described as "really fast," immediately had broken free and continued to elude guards in the forest around The Range.

"She won't leave without me," said Celia confidently.

Since Celia and her sister had arrived, three other Gifted, four including Sam, had been brought there. The others had been killed in "hunts."

The young girl patiently explained that the facility originally had been established for soldiers and scientists to study ways in which to fight the Gifted—she'd gleaned that fact from the mind of one of the few scientists left on the installation.

"But now," she concluded, almost chirpily, "they mostly just hunt us for fun."

Sam was incredulous

"Nah. The vice president was here just a few months ago," the child protested.

Sam's mind conjured an image of the Boston-Irish hothead who currently held the office.

"Not him. The other one. The one who shot her husband in the face."

Sam wasn't sure what to say. He finally asked gently, "How come they haven't taken you on a hunt?"

"I dunno," she replied in the same upbeat tone. "It's hard to read some of their minds. Most are just too stupid."

Sam sat back. An image of Camille came to his mind, unbidden.

"Is that your girlfriend?"

Sam began to protest.

"Sorry ...." She drew the word out, voicing it with her original tone of exasperation, before grumbling, "It's not like there's anything else to do in this dump." Another urgent shushing sound followed. "They're coming. Don't tell them about me, and don't talk to them. They just want to fuck with you."

Despite the anger that had been growing in him, Sam nearly chuckled at the girl's salty language.

The door opened, and a familiar looking man wearing an army field uniform walked through and turned on the lights. Staff Sergeant Kissinger, Sam thought. The man immediately walked to the far side of the room, announcing loudly, "Time for your morning piss, shitbird."

Fishing through his pocket, the young NCO produced a set of keys and opened the lock on a small cage the size that a kennel might use to house a dog, one of a number stacked two-high against the wall. After the NCO opened the door, a thin girl with long blonde pigtails and large, innocent eyes emerged and stood up. A green t-shirt and hospital scrub bottoms were her only attire. She really was just a kid, no more than 12 or 13 years old, and was penned like an animal. A cold fury began to thump against the old man's head.

"Here's your escort," Kissinger said.

A moment before, another young man had entered the room. He was thin, about five-foot-nine or ten, and was clad in civilian attire. As the twenty-something man walked across the room, Sam noticed he deftly spun something in his hand, occasionally tossing it back and forth. It was a large, .50 caliber machinegun cartridge.

Celia took one look at the man and immediately turned, bent, and began to crawl back into her cage. "I'd rather shit my pants," she said disdainfully.

Sam watched the man continue to gaze hard at the child's tiny body as she retreated into her enclosure. He'd seen that look in a man's eyes before.

I'm killing you first, said a long-unheard voice from the deepest recesses of Sam's mind.

Kissinger pretended not to notice the other young man's gaze and locked Celia's cage. Moving back to the door, the staff sergeant pulled a clipboard from a hook on the wall and began writing. "I'm gonna have to clean that up, Bennet," was all he said in rebuke.

"I can't believe that big fucker's still alive, the way he fucked with your family," said the other man, Bennet. "You should smother him while he's still unconscious."

Sam now could see a tattoo on Bennet's arm. It was the unit patch of the 82nd Airborne Division, Sam's old unit. He then noticed at least two other men in civilian clothes were hovering around the hallway just outside the door. All were scruffy but with close-cropped hair. There was a military look about all of them. Military contractors, Sam thought. Mercenaries, really.

The group spent five minutes razzing Kissinger. Apparently, the staff sergeant recently had been transferred from The Farm, where he'd been busted for playing online games with friends and family against regulation. Sam thought of the online game the Kissinger family had been playing when he and Camille had entered the family home and wanted to spit.

"I never liked the desert, anyway," said Kissinger. "So, fuck off, all of you."

The group hooted and laughed, and Bennet moved over to Sam's cage. Bending over, he peeked through the slit that was Sam's only window to the world.

"Holy shit!" the young man nearly shouted. "Sleeping beauty is awake! That was fucking fast." He looked back to his comrades. "Kissinger, did you kiss this guy this morning?" He snorted at his own joke before adding, "Ivan, get your band of Russian bastards and go PMCS the vehicles. Today, we's gone huntin'!"

The young man bent closer to the tiny window. Sam could hear a riot of yelling and activity outside, and a series of blasts and orders from a loudspeaker.

"I got something for you, you fucked up piece of shit," said Bennet, raising the machinegun cartridge. He kissed the round as he glared at Sam, who could tell from the cartridge's black tip that it was an armor piercing round.

As Celia had coached him, Sam said not a word, but probably wouldn't have done so anyway. He'd seen Bennet's kind before, walking lumps of petty and aimless hatred and cruelty. Sam's face was outwardly calm as he met the younger man's gaze and held it. After a brief time, a look of anger and disquiet came across Bennet's face, and he stood, turned, and walked out of the room.

Kissinger said nothing. He sat at the desk at the far side of the room and worked at some papers. Celia distracted herself by braiding, unbraiding, and re-braiding her long and lovely tresses. She would occasionally look over at Sam's cage with sympathy in her eyes.

I'll get you out of this, he thought, hoping she was listening. She simply smiled in return. People have probably told her that before.