He knew the lie that the children were fed; they were brainwashed every day with material propaganda that conditioned them to believe that they were on some ludicrous mission to save the world from some disease that did not exist. It was how the PCA controlled them.

Being young and eager to please, the children were model studies to this technique. They had no other sources to draw from to define what their true goals should be, and with no opportunities for creativity and growth, and therefore real ideas, the PCA considered them well-contained, and of no threat, at least none that would be exhibited intentionally.

This allowed the PCA to easily evaluate them to the point where the children were even eager to offer their bodies up for scientific purposes, especially someone like Clio, who delighted in pleasing everyone. 

Jaw twitching, Jackson pushed down his rage towards the situation and sat back, studying the boy, checking for signs that the PCA was giving the kid all of the essential necessities to live. There had been a time when PCA analysts stopped giving him food for a week, to see what would happen to an incubus who went without normal food, and though Clio hadn’t thinned, Jackson couldn’t forget the confused, lost look in his eyes, thinking he had done something wrong for food to be kept from him. 

Now, though, he looked nothing but bright-eyed as he sat up in his seat, kicking his legs at empty air, as the legs of the chair were too high for his own to reach the ground. He was a tiny thing.

“It’s been a bit, hasn’t it, kid?” Jackson mused, knowing that Clio would not be the first to speak. He would instead wait patiently all day for Jackson to start the conversation, given the chance. That hint of a smile would never leave his face.

“Twenty three days,” Clio corrected immediately, then giggled at himself, as though he’d told a hilarious joke, peaking up shyly at Jackson as though hoping he would laugh, too.

Jackson smiled for him. “And how’s it been? What have you been up to?”

And so Clio told him. His stories were always incredibly mundane, non-anecdotal little bits about his days that depicted things and events that no “normal” person would have thought to discuss, and yet endlessly fascinated Clio.

He talked about the number of blouses he thought Miss Geneive had, and how she must be incredibly wealthy to have more than three in different colors. He talked, in succinct detail, about what crayons he used to color which animal parts in his coloring book, and how Four had colored in the leaves of a tree purple, and his punishment had been sitting in a corner for an hour. 

Through it all, Jackson nodded, half pretending to appear enthused, half truly interested. If he was being honest, it fascinated him to see the world through Clio’s eyes, how everything was new and exciting to him. Even the smallest of things, a new haircut or a new phrase from outside the PCA world, sparked such excitement and wonder in him. 

“Oh!” Clio gasped suddenly, a grin glowing on his face. “I nearly forgot to tell you! How silly of me. Two-One has been released!”

Jackson felt his stomach drop, his mind flashing to the little witch girl who’d always been quiet and kept to herself. Some had thought she’d been moody, though Jackson had spotted the shyness within her. 

“What?” he croaked hoarsely, not wanting to believe what Clio had told him.

“Two-One,” Clio calmly repeated obediently, “has been released. Just the other day! We ate eggs in celebration.”

Jackson had never tried so hard to school his features as he did then, but it was proving nearly impossible.

He knew the lie well. The PCA told the children that there was a possibility of being ‘released into the world,’ though this enchanting goal was just a great big tease. There was no release. The PCA didn’t allow paranormal loose-ends to flutter out into the world. Instead, they were terminated; disposed of. The PCA children didn’t have families, so no one from the outside would mourn the unknown loss. 

The PCA treated the children like disposable objects, and then, eventually, threw them away, telling the other children that it was some great reward that they had to work towards.

They seemed to determine termination would proceed once a kid reached a certain age, yet Two-One had just been at the end of her adolescence, just a child.

And one day, soon, judging by the lack of time given to Two-One, Clio would be terminated, too.

Jackson hadn’t realized that his hands had balled into tight fists until Clio leaned forward, tapping on his hand gently in an attempt to loosen his fingers. He looked up at Jackson curiously. “What’s wrong? You miss her?”

Jackson nodded stiffly, trying his best to focus and remain pleasant for his swift time that he had with Clio and not show him the darkness that he had within him. Within this entire world. It was better for Clio to be blind to it all, and believe happiness and goodness was out there. “I think I will,” he said after a moment. He swiftly moved on, needing distraction. That was his mental tactic for coping, apparently: evade and move on. “Tell me more about your days,” he demanded, a bit harshly. He doubted the boy had anything left to say, yet he needed to hear the kid talk desperately. 

Clio squirmed in his seat, for the first time appearing uncomfortable as unknown thoughts obviously danced in his mind. 

“I had some labs, um, recently,” he said carefully, offering little information in that way that children did that let Jackson know that he himself would have to prompt the conversation along. 

Clio’s hesitation, so different from his normal brightness, instantly had him on alert. “You had some labs? Go on.”

“It was…different,” Clio said with a slow shrug, not quite meeting Jackon’s eye, enhancing Jackson’s trepidation.

“Different how?” he continued to probe.

“Well,” continued Clio with a groan, as though exasperated by the questioning of adults in general, “Well, a couple weeks ago, see, I went to lab and did the curtain test, but this time, this time, it-it went so differently! There’s a person behind a curtain, there’s always a person behind the curtain, you know, I told you before! And I tell them to do stuff. But they never do it. But this time, they did the stuff. Like jump. I told them to jump, and they jumped. Not very high, I don’t think.” He paused and waited for Jackson’s approval to go on, his eyes glittering with the excitement of his story.

Jackson nodded, his mind buzzing with the possibilities of what this could mean. Senior Special Agent Winslor normally kept him in the loop about what happened in the labs when he asked. He knew that the PCA was just waiting for the opportunity to use his and Clio’s relationship against them, which was one of the reasons he was able to be so involved. Yet again, there was nothing he could do should it ever arise.