“Pretty much. We’re even built on top of it. Far as we can tell the Panopticon proper never got built, but the tunnels beneath the institute are the ruins of Millbank Prison, which was inspired by Bentham’s ideas. And they’re not exactly easy to navigate, so who knows, maybe it is down there somewhere.”

"...okay that's more literal than I expected. I would still kind of like to put clothes on without being stared at by anybody besides whatever's giving me the creepy feelings. ...would also kind of like to take a shower first, because I am disgusting, but I guess there's no reason you'd have a shower in your office except apparently the thing where your office is an ex-prison?"

"We have a shower down the hall." Basira and Daisy exchange a glance. "I'd rather you have at least one of us with you until we know why you were in the house on Hilltop Road. If you let Jon ask you some questions, unsupervised shower. Otherwise, you're stuck with me. I won't look."

"...I am so wildly unenthusiastic about more mind control questions. And I don't even know what the fuck was up with that house or how I got there so I bet you're going to find my answers really unsatisfying. Supervised shower it is."

"Great." Basira sounds almost as unenthusiastic as April about this, honestly.

The shower is down the hall as promised. It has really shitty water pressure, but anyone staying at the Magnus Institute generally has bigger problems than the water pressure. It has a curtain, theoretically, but it's transparent and too small, which is basically like not having a curtain. Basira stares at the ceiling and drums her fingers against her thigh.

She turns the water as hot as she can get it without literally scalding herself and gets the cobwebs out of her hair and the grime off her skin and stands there for another couple of seconds leaning heavily against the wall and then sinks down until she's huddled on the floor of the shower with her knees drawn up to her chest and both hands clamped over her mouth, shivering in total silence.

After a minute or so of that, she gets up and turns off the water and finds a towel and dries off and finally puts some damn clothes on.

The clothes are nice. The shirt is soft and the skirt swishes around her ankles when she walks. Basira, as promised, does not look until April is fully clothed.

"Better?"

"...yeah. Yeah that's better."

"Great." Back to the office, then. "I still don't love this. Jon, you know anything about her?"

"No. Nothing--useful. There was a statement, right before the circus--Anya Villette--someone woke up in Hilltop Road in 2009 after falling through a crack. Said that London looked different than the one she remembered, and that she was from the future. So maybe this is something similar. But it's--I don't like it either." He drags his hand down his face. He looks like he wants to say something else, but he doesn't.

"I fell through a fairy ring," she says. "End of my last year of high school. And then spent a while lost in some deeply fucked up caves about which the less said the better, and then woke up in that chair. I don't know if that helps. Probably it doesn't."

"It's... better than nothing." She could be lying. She's probably lying, given where they found her. "If there's any way you could prove that you're telling the truth, that would be... helpful. And if you have any--powers, abilities, that you might use--it might be a good idea to let us know before using them." He speaks haltingly, choosing his words carefully.

"I don't... really have a good way to prove that I'm telling the truth. I don't know that I have anything I'd call a power, either, but—" She nibbles worriedly at her lip. "—see, my concern here is that the more I tell you the more you're probably going to be really curious about what I'm not telling you and then out come the mind control questions—"

"Honestly I think it is pretty hard to make me more curious although I certainly can't speak for my coworkers. If you don't tell us anything I am inclined to bring out the mind control questions."  

"...okay so it's not really a power as such but—when I said I bet you'd choke on this mess—that's not just me being like 'I will be pissed off if you make me talk', that's, like, an actual thing. If I can't make myself shut up that's... bad. I don't... know how to explain it in a way that makes sense and doesn't make me sound like a fuckin cartoon character, like, what do I say, 'I might use the bad words', that sounds like a totally reasonable concern, right, no it doesn't. But the bad words are bad and you do not wanna hear 'em. Like I also separately don't wanna talk about it because it's awful but besides that there is the thing where if you make me talk about it an actual bad thing might happen."

"It does sound like a totally reasonable concern, actually.

Do you think--would it--" Jon cuts himself off with a frustrated sigh. "If it would be possible for you to give a statement or answer questions in a way that doesn't risk whatever you're worried about exposing us to, I would appreciate that."

"...I can think of some obvious things to avoid but maybe the thing I'd rather do here is get to vet all the questions you want to ask me before you ask them."

"The thing I want is to take your statement." Jon closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I probably shouldn't be the one to draft a list of questions, I don't think I can compel you through writing but it seems like the sort of thing that I would start being able to do at the most inconvenient time for all of us."

"What is a 'statement' here and why do you look so fucked up about it...?"

"Your--story. About what happened to you. Written or spoken. I can--make you tell it."

He closes his eyes again. When he speaks, his voice is a little lower, more desperate: "I--I need it. I don't know what I am, what I'm--becoming. I don't know if it's an addiction or--or something else. We were at Hilltop Road today because we thought something might be--controlling me. Making me take them. I don't know. Maybe it is."

"And the nightmares." Basira sounds deeply unimpressed. 

(Jon winces. When it's obvious that he's not going to elaborate, Basira sighs and continues.)

"Every night, you relive it. With him watching. Unless you join the Institute. Don't join the Institute, you can't quit and the life expectancy's rubbish."

"...hahaha holy fuck no. I'm almost tempted to say yes just because I bet you'll regret it more than I will but no. Do the vetted questions thing, everyone will be happier."

"I'd take that bet."

"No you wouldn't."

"Fine, yes, I wouldn't. If the Web wants me to take her statement--

The rest of you work on questions for me to ask her, I'm going for a cigarette." 

He takes a stack of papers with him.