The light i the room is dim, it flickers every now and then. The steel seat in the middle of the room is occupied by a young man bent over, possibly unconscious, facing the two way mirror on the far wall. He is wearing a blue hoodie and tracksuit bottoms. Metallic clicks indicate the shiny metal door opening and a figure enters. She puts a trey down on the floor next to the man in the hoodie, and unlocks the cuffs keeping him attached to his chair.
Suddenly the man grabs her exposed arm and a faint light transfers from his hand to hers. Her breathing becomes fast and her hands set ablaze. The man points her hand at the Mirror just as a jet of flame leaves it and the glass melts. There is no one present behind it, so he knocks the woman unconscious and leaves. As he gets outside an alarm goes off but he notices other doors much like his. Opening each one he finds others chained up, some are chained to such degrees that they could hardly move. He frees all of them. They run down corridors and up stairs until they reach what looks like the mouth of a subway exit. In front of them a dozen armed men, each one disfigured and armed with robotic limbs. As the soldiers surround the party the man in the blue hoodie notices some of his new comrades trying to do things, odd things. Be it throwing their hands out at the enemy or just concentrating so hard that their eyes screwed up.
Suddenly a voice comes from the subway mouth “Kill them. Leave the Conduit”.
Several men are now sitting around a large round chrome table, the monitor at one side of the room shows a man in a blue hoodie, chained to a wall. One grey haired man sits forwards and address a young blonde haired man with a sharp suit.
“Eugen my boy this is your time to tell us why you left the one prisoner who escaped our facilities and also caused the escape of 39 Empty Vessel specimens. Make it Good”
“You have all seen the tapes i presume?” He sounds quite British but their is no hiding the German undertones. After getting a general consensus of ‘yes’ he continues. “Well then you’d have noticed that his manifestation is-“
“Is extremely dangerous” cut off by another board member, Eugen waits patiently, “A specimen who can endow others with the effects of empty vessel is in no way someone whom we should keep alive. Keeping this ‘Code-name: Conduit’ alive any longer is simply not a matter that should even be discussed” The man finished with a fist bang on the table.
Eugen continues, “I was speaking of the other manifestation… Did no one find it odd that of the 39 escaped specimens not on managed to work their manifestation.” Eugen takes a remotes and shows playbacks of the Conduit releasing other prisoners. “whats the one thing you notice when he helps these people escape, hmmm?” he pauses for effect, making his cohorts appear unintelligent. “Skin contact” he answers for them. “It would appear to me that his ability works both ways… How long has it been now since we started this attack? Has it been the planned 2 day takeover that we wanted? No! 2 weeks and we are still struggling, and all because of these ‘Empty Vessels’ and their damned crusade. Now if my theory is correct then a specimen who can take away these manifestations would be a very powerful tool indeed.”
“And what if you’re wrong?” interjects the previous troublemaker “And just exactly how permanent are the effects of his manifestation, we know that before we executed Ms. Fisher she could no longer produce fire. How long is it until the ’empty vessels’ regain their manifestations?”
Eugen takes a sip from his glass of water and simply says “It doesn’t matter. Once they no longer posses the manifestations they are no match for our walkers. And once every one of them is dead we can then remove the Conduit from the equation as well”
