They keep the dangerous ones around back.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus stopped in front of a door that plainly indicated whatever behind it was dangerous. Oversized metal doors, plainly several inches thick and designed to withstand extreme duress, towered over him covered in "Caution Yellow" words.

The doctor pressed his palm to the door's security interface and then punched in a numerical code. The doors hissed as the opened on hydraulic hinges.

"We call this 'the back.' It is not a top-secret facility by any means, but it puts patients at ease when they do not realize what this door leads to."

He walked along the corridor, which was also shielded with thick metal plating to a second door identical to the first. This one also needed security clearance to open. Klaus repeated the process he used on the first door, and this one too swung open.

Klaus checked the logs at the desk nearby where a security officer sat watching a single monitor with rapt attention and strict discipline. Then he set off down the hallway.

[Julie Moon]

"It's not the patients you ought to be worried about, doctor. This facility does not sit well with me."

Julie marched alongside Heidegger with business in her step. It was at the doctor's request she joined him for this visit, which as a colleague she obliged, but no sense of professionalism would keep her tongue from lashing. Even her rapid footsteps sounded like a ceaseless cluck of disapproval.

The corridor was sparse and cold, quite literally, at several storeys underground the halls hummed with the sound of overworked airducts. They appeared to be headed for the door furthest from them, at the opposite end of the passage, and passed another which was eerily draped with a curtain of milky plastic and sealed with criss-crossing ticker tape. She huffed irritably.

"Mysteries at every turn, and speaking of which, I still don't know why I'm here."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"Because sometimes patients will have to be transferred back and forth from 'the back' to the clinic and then back again. Sometimes the mutants in this facility will require medical attention. That means you may or may not be required to interact with the mutants we keep here."

Klaus opened a hatchway and double checked his pockets. Empty.

"Ok, let's do this."

[Flux]

Flux laid on a plain white mattress in a clear, plexiglass cell, the doors of which were locked by a huge, rotating apparatus set into the doors themselves. The two guards outside (one facing his cell, the other facing the opposite end of the long hall) were both required to haul open the heavy doors. Flux had begun to watch them in his early days here, and he knew that when they stopped chatting and stood up straight, their strange plastic rifles at the ready, looking so attentive that it almost seemed they must be statues, that Klaus Heidegger was visiting.

The magnetic mutant had been sitting fully on the bed when the two stiffened, and now he moved to sit at the edge, slouching forward with elbows resting on knees, the book in his hands half-forgotten. He grinned mischievously as he saw Klaus round the corner with another labcoat.

"My new friend," he said, invoking the voice of a cartoon character he could only just remember. Flux checked himself in the semi-reflective surface of the cell walls. He was getting stubbly on his chin. The orange jumpsuit he wore stood out harshly in his sterile surroundings, dominating his reflection so much that he couldn't even make out the details of his face beyond the coloration of his hair. He peered closer and rubbed his neck. The bruise from his old control collar was nearly gone. They'd removed it when they'd put him here months ago. But there was no more time for thinking. The guards operated the mechanism and strained against the bulk of the doors. Flux reached out to his visitors with his power, searching vainly for the call of metal on this new woman's person. Alas went a rueful voice in his mind.

"OHHHH, IT'S PICKLEPUSS, BITCH!" Flux yelled, throwing his arms in the air so forcefully that he fell over and accidentally threw his book away. "And he got a BITCH wif' him!" Flux sat himself back up, still grinning. "And she's got the same, disgruntled, "I farted but haven't realized that its my own stink yet" default look that you do. Congratulations on the wedding!"

He sighed, settling in and resuming his posture on the edge of the bed. "So has she enjoyed the tour so far? I'd imagine for you, it'd be like a trip to the zoo, complete with the lion exhibit to cap it off at the end." He looked to Julie. "Did Picklepuss tell you who I, the crown jewel of the Federal Mutant Prison, am?" He gave no time to answer. "I am Flux, Master of Magnetism, and the first mutant to be enrolled in the government's new system of incarceration for Homo superior."

[Julie Moon]

"Do you want a medal?"

Julie turned her disinterested attention away from the mouthy teenager, who impossibly had managed to distract her from the alien qualities of his prison cell, and looked expectantly at Heidegger, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus put on a set of sterile gloves.

"Now, Felix, let's keep the chatter polite. You know why we're here. It's time for a check up."

The doctor stepped up to Felix and started with his eyes, ears, nose, and throat. Then he checked the lymph nodes in his throat and took another look at the bruise around his neck, making a tsk-tsk sound as he checked for Felix's pulse.

"The new collars don't bruise," he said to Julie, "but the collar they put on Felix was an older model. Manufactured in a hurry." He directed his next sentence to Felix. "Your bruising is healing well."

[Flux]

"Fluaaghx."

His usual protest to his mundane name was muted and strangled by a wooden tongue suppressor. He suffered the rest of the physical with silent indignity towards Heidegger. Flux still had to get acquainted with his new friend. He prefaced his answer to her with a sarcastic sneer.

"Yes, I'd love a medal, Picklepussy. How about a nice big iron one for the lowly mutant and his questionable achievement?"

He blinked in discomfort as the lymph node check made his bruise itch. "They slapped it on me so hard it woke me up," Flux grumbled, supplying detail for the story. "Then they knocked me out again to get it off." The control collar had been an insult Flux had not suffered well. A big iron band around his neck, preventing him from tipping his head down or up, and he couldn't manipulate it for the technology inside that suppressed his X-Gene. He was thankful to be rid of it, and took security from the fact that they'd never force one on him again.

[Julie Moon]

The thought of a technology that could supress the mutant gene interested her infinitely more than the details of Heidegger's trivial check-up or his patient's banal regurgitations. She folded her arms, and absorbed her surroundings with mild interest, regardless of her feelings about marrying a hospital with a detention block, there was no denying the ingenuity behind a plastic prison. Although it did make her wonder what else went on behind closed doors.

"You must have done something really special to warrant such star treatment here, Mister Fletcher."

[Flux]

"I caused the city of New York City millions of dollars in property damage, destroyed hundreds of cars, city transit buses, and several tractor-trailers, resisted arrest, committed assault, and stole a shopping cart."

A cold plastic circle pressed his back underneath his prison shirt, and Flux took a breath and released it without prompting.

"There's video on YouTube of me fighting a Michael Stern, who I later learned was building a Mutant Crimes Unit in New York. Most of the mayhem occurs during that encounter." Another breath. "Oh, and somebody took footage of me at the following trial and did that Auto Tune the News thing to it. It's very catchy, you'll like it."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus moved the stethoscope. "Yes, this is true. When the New York Police Department found out that I was making a wing in my clinic for mutant patients with uncontrollable powers, I was asked if my hospital wing could be adapted to hold mutants who were unwilling to control their powers. When I told them I did not see that it would take much effort, they asked me to keep Felix here."

Klaus took the stethoscope out of his ears and made some notes. Luckily neither Julie nor Felix had been present for these negotiations, which made lying all the easier.

"At first I refused, and offered my assistance in building a completely new facility. But at the possibility of offering rehabilitation for criminal mutants I reluctantly agreed. Felix has been working with Dr. Sumpter in therapy to overcome his anger at what some mutants would call 'mundanes,' or people without powers. Also, he is apparently connected with the mutant terrorist organization The Brotherhood of Mutants. It is the hope of nearly every law enforcement organization that Felix will mend his ways and offer them help in bringing the Brotherhood to justice."

[Julie Moon]

Julie listened to both stories and was unsure which unsettled her the most. She folded her arms and strolled the perimeter of the plastic room, idly browsing its contents. Certainly, the casual account of violence and mass destruction would tremble even the stoniest of hearts, but the implications of Heidegger's story, fudging the lines between patients and criminality, it made her cold inside.

"Do you feel at all rehabilitated since your incarceration?"

[Flux]

Flux smirked and shook his head. "Nah, can't say that I am. You honestly think I'm going to accept psychiatric help from anyone employed here? This place is like the capital of mutant oppression. Half of everything that goes on here is devoted to suppressing our natural gifts. I know you've got guys working around the clock to figure out a way to make the X-Gene inert. And I will NEVER say or do anything that'd let you guys enact that on my Brothers and Sisters."

Flux sat back against the wall and snatched up his book. The exam was done, so he was done talking to them. He opened the novel, found his spot, and kept on reading.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus took off the gloves he had been wearing and sighed. "Yes, Felix. It is true that some of our research involves suppressing mutant abilities. And yes, we also do research on canceling out the X-Gene. But these projects are meant only for the most dangerous mutants--whether those mutants are dangerous by choice or by being cursed with an uncontrollable power. Even then, not all mutants want to be what they are."

If Klaus had the ability, he would make Felix mundane in a heartbeat. Maybe it would take the wind out of his sails. As such, he had no such option. Though it was definitely the top priority of all Jericho employees. The government wanted it as a mutant equivalent of the death penalty. Any mutant deemed too dangerous to live would be stripped of their powers. One day.

"Dr. Moon, I brought you here to meet Felix because it is likely you will have the unfortunate task of administering his physical. All Jozua Clinic employees are required to spend a certain amount of time in the high security holding facility to administer basic medical exams and medications. We expect to see this place fill a bit more rapidly as Michael Stern and his Mutant Crimes Unit bring more mutant criminals to justice."

[Julie Moon]

"Doctor Heidegger, as you are well aware my time here is strictly limited, and as your chief consultant for research, do you think having my fingers stuck up arses is time well spent?"

It was another crack in her composure, recieving the news of this new responsibility, and her feelings seeped through it like thick molten rock. She at least had the presence of mind to wait for them to clear Felix's plastic prison before she gave her thoughts a voice. She stopped, and wheeled on him with folded arms, it was time for some answers:

"This smacks of a cheap publicity stunt to me. You actually expect your best people to come down here and administer basic physicals? What the hell are you trying to prove here? And to whom?"

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"The United States government is trying to prove that mutant incarceration is used as a measure of justice, not prejudice, and that they plan on helping as many mutant criminals live normal functioning lives."

Klaus indicated Felix. "For the moment, Felix here is the only mutant held at the facility. We are required to give him a physical once every three months. It is the law to ensure his good health. At full capacity, the employees of the Jozua Clinic might devote 8 hours of their time every three months. With the rotation I have devised, work at the clinic is not hindered to a measurable degree."

"Dr. Moon, I will not waste money hiring more people to do mundane tasks when I have plenty of employees already. It is a pittance to do this as far as I am concerned. It may be that you do not reach your place in the rotation by the time your limited time here is up. Even so, you need to know that this facility exists and the extent to which you will interact with it."

Klaus began to push the cart towards the door and signaled the guard to come watch Felix while he and Julie left.

"I apologize if you think this is a waste of your time. But if I can be bothered to spend fifteen minutes giving a routine physical, then I expect you can be as well."