Karen looked at the monitor, a 50-inch plasma screen mounted on the wall in front of her. It showed, as it always did, the contents of cell 27, where the Mater Mundi was held. She shuddered, and turned away, not wanting to see the woman stretched out on the rack.
Behind her were two men, one dressed like Karen in a long white lab coat, and the other dressed much more casually in jeans and a ripped white t-shirt. The three rips were almost parallel, as if something with claws had taken a swipe at him.
“You don’t like that, do you Karen?” said the casually dressed man.
Karen swallowed, aware that saying the wrong thing to him could result in her being taken from here and returned to the real world. Where independent, creative thought was stifled, blotted out before it could happen by the awesome psychic strength of the Mater Mundi.
“It seems a little cruel to hold her like that.”
“We have no choice, Karen. She would not willingly keep the world safe for us all.”
Safe? thought Karen. From thinking?