A bright light shoved its way into Ellie's field of vision, rudely awakening her from her sleep.

     "Argh!" Ellie grunted, in frustration, shoving away the doctor's prying hands.

     She was in a white medical facility, surrounded by buzzing monitors and whirring machines. Her body was hooked up to them with an unprecedented amount of tubes, wires, and IV's. Bustling around her was a team of at least five doctors with masks strapped to their faces. One of them tested a syringe which escalated Ellie's heart rate.

     "Gabriel?" she asked, in her state of disorientation. "Where's Gabriel?"

     "He's fine, now try to relax," one of the doctors consoled.

     "My arms," Ellie grunted, trying to lift her hands. "I can't move my arms..."

     She rolled her head and could see that her limbs had been tethered to the table with medieval-looking leather straps. Ellie breathed deeply, feeling one of them being tightened.

     "What's going on?" asked Ellie. "Where am I?"

     "A secure facility," the doctor answered. "Now, please, remain calm while we run a few more tests."

     "Gabriel..." Ellie breathed weakly. "Gabriel..."

**

Daniel Peters

     Daniel Peters watched Ellie through an observation window. Peters had been specifically requested, by the Director or NASA, to personally check in on Ellie. There was more to it, though, as he thought it was his moral duty to make sure that she was alright.

     Behind Peters, dozens of doctors bustled around, with piles of notes in their hands, over Ellie's status. Getting entrance into the restricted medical facility had been difficult, and in the end it had taken a warrant from the Director of NASA to allow Peters to even see Ellie. Something wasn't right to Peters, and it started with the fact that Ellie was tied to her medical bed.

     He grabbed a doctor's arm as he walked past.

     "Why is she tied to the table?" he asked.

     The doctor pulled his arm away, "It's standard procedure to protect the doctors. We can't have her lashing out with fear while we're trying to help her."

     "She's not dangerous," Peters scoffed. "I watched her train for the mission aboard the A.O.S.S. over the past year. I know that she wouldn't hurt anyone."

     The doctor ignored his statement and continued walking down the hall.

     Daniel Peters stepped over to another doctor, "How's she doing?"

     The female doctor, an aged woman of fifty, looked at her clipboard and shook her head, "Her blood tests are extremely abnormal. We're going to have to keep her for observation."

     "But she's tied to the table!" Daniel Peters protested. "How's that going to help anyone?"

     "It's standard procedure," the woman monotonically explained. "To protect the--"

     "The goddamn doctors, I know," Peters finished, stepping away. "And I haven't even seen any other patients in this hospital. Where is everyone? And why is everyone acting so secretive around me?"

     The woman turned away, ignoring Peter's question.

     "Hey!" Peters repeated. "I asked you something."

     "Mr. Peters, remain calm or I'm going to have to call a restraining team," the doctor threatened.

     "Then tell me what's going on," Peters ordered. "What happened to her?"

     "I'm sorry, that's classified," the woman responded.

     "Classified? She is one of my astronauts goddamn it! As ordered by the Director of NASA, it is my legal responsibility to ensure her well-being. Now, I'm going to ask it again, how is she doing?" Daniel Peters hissed.

     "He has clearance," a doctor, a handsome man of thirty, intervened. "I checked him out in the security database a few minutes ago. He's got approval from the Director of NASA to know about her vitals."

     The doctor shook her head in annoyance, rifling through her documents, "Fine. Whatever collided with the station rewrote her biological chemistry. Her body is exhibiting traces of...fiber optics and nano-sized pieces of technology that are stimulating her overall system."

     "What the hell?" Daniel Peters exclaimed, looking down at the doctor and advancing forward.

     "Mr. Peters, restrain yourself or I will," the doctor threatened.

     "Let me see your identification," Peters demanded, feeling an increased sense of unease. "Where's your license?"

     Almost immediately, two men dressed in suits burst into the hallway and grabbed Peters's arms. Each were incredibly big in both muscle and height. Daniel Peters began to struggle against their iron grip.

     "Stand down," one of the agents ordered. "We're seizing control over the observation of Elysia Jobs."

     "What?" Peters asked. "Let go! You don't have the right! This is illegal!"

     "We have every right to protect the citizens of the United States," the secondary agent responded. "And we will neutralize anyone that threatens our duty."

     "You can't...operate outside the law--" Peters grunted through struggles. "That makes you criminals!"

     He struggled with the two agents, trying to gain leverage on the ground and push them down. But the two men were significantly stronger, and they weren't holding back.

**

Ellie

     From her bed, Ellie watched Daniel Peters struggle with two secretive agents. She had known the man for months, and had even worked close with him over the past year. Seeing a familiar face in distress made her anxious.

     "What's going on?" Ellie asked. "What's happening to Mr. Peters?"

     The doctors obscured her view, instead moving in with more tests.

     "Hello?" asked Ellie, feeling increasingly anxious and the sedative beginning to wear off. "Where am I exactly? Where's Gabriel? What happened to me on the station?"

     One of the doctors pulled out a syringe.

     "Why aren't you answering me?" demanded Ellie.

     She watched Daniel Peters struggle, and as a syringe was pressed into his neck while he slackened. Through the window, Ellie saw him get dragged away by the vague agents.

     "Tell me now!" Ellie screamed in a demanding tone.

     The whirring in the machines around her grew louder. Above her head the lights flickered a little.

     "Get her sedated!" one of the doctors ordered.

     "Get away from me!" Ellie screamed.

     Her heart rate quickened, the surrounding room grew brighter, and the computers around her began to sizzle as sparks flew. A doctor ran toward Ellie with a syringe but an explosion from one of the computers sent him stumbling to the ground. Outside, the two agents who had disposed of Daniel Peters looked inside at the commotion. They opened the barrier and stepped in.

     "Stop!" Ellie screeched, the lights above her exploding into a monsoon of sparks.

     There was an adrenaline rush, and Ellie slipped her hand through the leather bonds. She reached outward and an electrical surge exploded in the direction of the agents. They fell to the ground, possibly dead. Ellie untied the rest of her bondages and shakily rolled off of the bed. She looked down and realized she was dressed in a hospital-like nightgown that felt quite drafty.

     "Take her out!" someone yelled.

     One of the agents on the ground, somehow still alive after their electrocution, raised a taser in her direction. He pulled the trigger, but Ellie had raised her hand before it could be ignited. The weapon malfunctioned and smoldered, falling to the floor.

     The doctors around her scrambled, but explosions from the surrounding equipment sent them all to the ground. Within seconds, all of the personnel that had been assigned to Ellie were either unconscious or dead from the constant barrage of exploding technology. She sprinted from the chamber and into the nearest hallway.

     Everything around her felt sterile, used, and bleak; a hospital. Corridors extended for obscene lengths in various directions, forcing Ellie to choose her path of escape at random. There was no pursuer, but she was confident that her absence would eventually be noticed.

     Ellie ran, as fast as she could, while each florescent light above her exploded in a flash from her anxiety. She was terrified at what she was doing to the world around her, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. A computer terminal revealed itself upon her turning a corner, and Ellie's thoughts went to Gabriel.

     Quickly, she ran up to the computer and its screen blinked to life before she even touched it. An odd logo with "Central Intelligence for National Assurance" printed underneath it flashed as it asked for a user login. Within seconds, however, the screen flickered as lines of code glitched in and out of view. Suddenly, files and documents opened themselves as Ellie's subconscious scrolled through the contents of the system. As she hacked further into the database, files of various, unknown, individuals briefly flashed across the screen:

C.I.N.A. IDENTITY DATABASE:

MARTIN PAXTON--Location: Chicago

ROBERT RULETKA--Location: Las Vegas

VICTORIA HALLOWAY--Location: Potentia City

     She had no idea how she was doing it. Never in her life had she even remotely considered herself a hacker. But Ellie remembered back to the space station and how she had somehow communicated with the systems on-board using only her mind. She was only beginning to understand the true extent of what had happened to her.

     Somehow, someway, Ellie Jobs had been given an ability.

     Ellie kept scrolling through, desperately searching for Gabriel. The list went on for hundreds of names with no clear system of how they were categorized. Her mind dug deeper into the encrypted files, bypassing dozens of secretive documents with ease:

C.I.N.A. IDENTITY DATABASE:

ALEXANDER DRAKE--Location: Los Angeles

"WARZONE"--Location: CLASSIFIED

GABRIEL MONROE--Location: Nevada Medical Station B

     Nevada?

     Ellie withdrew herself from the terminal and sprinted down the nearest hall. The electric door opened itself for her and she sped out into the unknown. Wherever Gabriel was, he was going to have to defend himself for the time being.

     Ellie was on the run.

**

C.I.N.A. Nevada Medical Station B

     Far away, Gabriel Monroe lay in a bed secluded deep within a top-secret facility. The caretakers of the complex, an elite spy organization known as the Central Intelligence for National Assurance, had gone to great lengths to separate him from his counterpart Ellie Jobs. He had been monitored even before the accident aboard the A.O.S.S., because the organization had deemed him as a threat.

     Two scientists carefully monitored Gabriel's life signs behind the safety of reinforced Plexiglas. They watched their prisoner stir from his slumber as the drugs wore off, and they took notes when the charts displayed on the surrounding computer screens shifted.

     One of the scientists, Dr. Harold Wong, turned to his coworker, Dr. Susan Xavier, "He's awake, check the vital signs."

     Dr. Xavier brushed her hair out of her face and began to scroll down the shifting numbers, "His vitals appear normal, but there's major fluctuations within the Occipital lobe of the brain."

     "Elaborate," Dr. Wong insisted, scribbling down notes.

     "He's having...visions," Dr. Xavier responded.

     Inside the cell, Gabriel Monroe opened his eyes for the first time since he had entered the decompression hatch aboard the A.O.S.S. He took in a deep breath, rolling over and out of his bed. His body felt raw, scarred, and beaten.

     "He's gaining full consciousness," Dr. Wong observed, scribbling down more notes.

     They watched Gabriel cautiously stand up, looking at his surroundings like an animal. His face was a mix of anger and confusion, and his eyes darted around the enclosed space.

     "The subject appears to have an altered state of mind, possibly a result from the cosmic radiation he was exposed to," Dr. Xavier recorded into a microphone. "Stand by."

     Gabriel walked around his small cot, clenching and unclenching his fists as he did so. Then, abruptly, he paused for a moment and turned his head in the direction of the scientists. There was no way he could've seen them because a one-way mirror was separating their two rooms.

     "The subject is aware," Dr. Wong warned.

     "Let's be cautious," whispered Dr. Xavier.

     Gabriel began breathing heavily, his scowl turning into a hysterical grin. A psychotic light seemed to shine behind his eyes as the man began to laugh. He laughed a laugh of lunacy, and it was a laugh that echoed throughout the chamber in a haunting way. Gabriel lunged at the wall, colliding with the surface and making the structure shudder. He continued to laugh, banging on the wall with all of his might.

     "Subject appears to be experiencing..." Dr. Wong trailed off.

     "A psychotic breakdown," Dr. Xavier concluded.

     Gabriel continued to laugh in his crazed, lunatic way. It reverberated off of the walls and shook the foundations of the cell. Something was hidden deep within the laugh, though, and it wasn't the subtle hint of a psychotic breakdown.

     Deep inside the laugh, there was pain.

     So much pain.