What a tremendous bore this was.

It wasn't the first time that Joshua had been left alone for extended periods of time. Usually there was an intensive schedule of testing, experimentation and the occasional rest break. They (the scientists who kept him here) were always putting him through tests to check the extent of his abilities, or performing some kind of surgery on him. But sometimes they'd just leave him here, in this tiny little cell of reinforced glass and porcelain. And in some ways, it was worse. Just sitting here with nothing to do, with nothing to distract him, he had no choice by to contemplate the future. Would he be stuck here forever? Would he die in this facility, trapped like an animal? If he impressed the scientists would they let him go? Turn him into some kind of weapon? Or was he just a guinea pig to test scientific ideas on, to be killed off when they perfected their techniques? How many other people were stuck in here with them? Was he even a person anymore? It was questions like these that haunted him during the long pauses.

It was impossible to tell how long he'd been stuck here, his rest breaks seemed to come with more regularity than would be expected from a normal day-night schedule and were much shorter. He wasn't sure if this was to purposefully disorient him or if it was for efficiency. In an underground facility, which he assumed this was, there wasn't much need to adhere to a light-based schedule. Joshua recalled several papers he'd read on the possibility of improving human efficiency by altering the sleep schedule. Psychology class seemed a lifetime away, even though it was probably less than a year.

Not for the first time, Joshua considered escape. The door looked sturdy, but he knew he could exert quite a lot of force when he wanted to. But it was a futile thought, he'd tried it all before. The floor was gridded with copper wires, and he'd be zapped half to death if he even looked like he was trying to escape. Not long after he first got here he'd tried that, and had ended up tazered into unconsciousness. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and despite considering it often, he'd never repeated the attempt. Now if he had some conductive materials, or something like rubber.....

This not uncommon train of thought was interrupted by an alarm going off. Jerking up, Joshua stared through the transparent walls of his cell. He had a clear view of the hallway, and the empty cell opposite him, but nothing seemed to be happening that warranted an alarm. In the distance he heard a crash and some people seemed to be shouting in what sounded like german. A guard armed with what looked like an assault rifle ran past, but didn't even glance into Joshua's cell. Oppressive silence had been replaced with flashing red lights and blaring alarms and Joshua just stared, darting his head around like a deer in the headlights. Clearly something big was happening, so was this an opportunity? But if he tried to escape he would just get zapped again, right?

Before poor Joshua could make sense of the situation, a loud beep sounded. It took him a moment to figure out where it came from. The keypad to his door! That wasn't the sound it made when someone opened the door, though, and a little red light was flashing. Now that he was looking more closely, the buttons seemed to be pressing themselves. Blinking, Joshua considered this, even as the beeping sound repeated itself and the little light once more flashed red. At this point Joshua could have sworn that he heard someone curse under their breath, shortly followed by hurried footsteps moving away from him.

..... What WAS that?

After taking a moment to consider that he may have just seen a frustrated ghost, Joshua decided that this might be his one and only chance to actually get out of here. If other people had been able to escape from their cells, then maybe so could he. Clearly something was wrong, and maybe whoever managed the electric grid was distracted. Bracing himself Joshua approached the cell. Tentatively he reached back, preparing to punch the door. His mind was helpfully providing him with a variety of images and sensations from the last time he tried this. Taking a deep breath he took a step forward and punched the door.

..... nothing happened. Holy shit, nothing had happened. He was free!

Grinning like a madman now he placed his open palm against the door. He still had a bunch of energy stored up from previous experiments, and he was able to charge up slowly on his own by absorbing things like gravitational pull and friction. He unleashed a couple of bursts of force against the door, increasing the intensity as cracks appeared in the material. With a loud crack the door itself shattered into pieces, and Joshua made his way out into the hallway. Feeling inordinately pleased with himself he marched out into the hallway, knowing that his superpowers would see him safely to the surface.

One of the facility's guard burst around the corner, firing his little handgun as soon as he saw Joshua. The needle hit him in the shoulder but stopped the moment the tip touched his skin. It dropped to the floor and Joshua smiled at the guard, balling a fist. In response the guard retrieved a large black bat from his belt. At a press of a button the top seemed to fizzle. Having been previously shown just what those things did, Joshua needed no further prompting to drop the act and run.

Dashing down the polished steel corridors Joshua remembered his physics lessons, as well as his training. When he got hit by something hard his absorption activated automatically. A reflex, like pulling your finger back from a flame. Now he had to flex that invisible muscle consciously, and he could feel his body begin to absorb the air friction. Smiling he pushed that energy back out behind him, launching himself forward as he went dashing down the hallway like a championship sprinter. He was beginning to get the hang of this.

That was when he tripped. Not used to running at these speeds he spun head over heals and landed face-first, shattering his glasses on the polished marble floor. Unwilling to stop he quickly began absorbing the friction from the ground and slid forward, as if it were ice and not marble. While not exactly comfortable this worked quite well and Joshua sped past the other cells, his vain attempts at getting up without slowing down succeeding only in spinning him in circles. Like a manic human spinning top he sped into the hallway occupied by the rest of the escapees and crashed with considerable force into wall.

Unharmed but dizzy, Joshua made a failed attempt to stand up which only got him further entangled with his own limbs. Looking up, he found himself staring at a group of other people. Looked like two girls, and one guy. No wait, that was another girl over there, standing over the unconscious body of a guard. Faced suddenly with the first real human contact he'd had in months (the clinical interviews didn't count) Joshua spent a solid four seconds just staring, before saying the first thing that made sense to him. "Uhh..... hi?" Realizing he was still on the floor, he quickly stood up, still breathing heavily from his daring escape.