In the underground bunker, Jelo sat trapped inside the reinforced cage, his body aching from the injuries he'd sustained during the brutal fight with the mad scientist.

After initially testing the cage's integrity, pulling at bars and striking them with what strength he could muster in his weakened state, Jelo realized that brute force simply wouldn't work here. No matter how hard he pulled on the bars, trying to bend or break them, the cage didn't react at all.

The metal refused to give even slightly, remaining perfectly rigid despite the enhanced strength.

He'd tried striking the bars as well, slamming his fists against them despite the pain it caused his already injured hands. But again, there was no visible effect. The impacts produced dull metallic sounds that echoed through the lab, but the structure itself remained completely unaffected. It was like punching a mountain—he might as well have been hitting solid bedrock for all the good it did.

Accepting this reality after several minutes of futile effort, Jelo stopped his struggling entirely and lowered himself carefully to the floor of the cage. His body protested the movement, various injuries making themselves known through sharp spikes of pain, but he ignored the discomfort as best he could.

Sitting with his back against the rear bars of the cage, he forced himself to breathe steadily and think rather than continue wasting energy on actions that clearly weren't working.

Instead of pointlessly exhausting himself further, Jelo began thinking strategically, trying to figure out how to outsmart the scientist who was watching him from somewhere beyond the immediate area. Brute force had failed. His abilities were still completely inaccessible, blocked by whatever dampening technology the scientist had deployed. So he needed to find another approach, one that relied on observation, planning, and exploiting whatever weaknesses the scientist's setup might have.

He studied the room carefully from his limited vantage point inside the cage. The lab stretched out before him, filled with equipment and workstations that he couldn't reach but could observe. He noted the positioning of various machines, the layout of the space, potential tools or weapons that might be useful if he could somehow access them.

He paid particular attention to the timing of the lights overhead, watching how they flickered occasionally and noting the patterns in their intensity. Some sections of the lab were better illuminated than others, creating areas of shadow that might provide concealment if he ever got out of this cage. The electrical systems seemed old, possibly unstable, that could be exploited somehow.

Most importantly, Jelo studied the scientist's behavior during the periods when the man was visible. The scientist moved through the lab periodically, checking equipment, reviewing notes, occasionally glancing toward the cage with an expression that mixed satisfaction and contempt.

His movements showed patterns—certain routes he favored, certain tasks he performed at regular intervals. Every pattern was a potential weakness, an opportunity for prediction and exploitation.

When the scientist finally noticed that Jelo had gone completely still, abandoning his physical attempts to escape in favor of quiet observation, the man did a little triumphant hop and clapped his hands together. The gesture was absurdly childlike coming from someone who looked so disheveled and unhinged.

"Aha! Finally tired yourself out, have you?" the scientist exclaimed, his voice cracking slightly with excitement as he scurried closer to the cage like an eager rodent. "Stopped your annoying, pointless—and might I add, quite noisy—attempts to escape!" He struck a dramatic pose, one hand on his hip while the mechanical glove waved theatrically in the air. "I was wondering how long you'd keep that up before accepting reality. I had a bet going with myself. I lost, unfortunately. Cost me three imaginary dollars."

Jelo looked up at him calmly, his expression deliberately neutral despite the anger and fear churning beneath the surface. When he spoke, his voice was steady, controlled, giving away nothing of his internal state. "How do you know I'm tired?"

The scientist's eyebrows rose slightly at the question, surprised that his prisoner was still capable of coherent conversation rather than descending into despair or rage.

Jelo continued before the scientist could respond, his tone remaining conversational, almost casual. "Maybe I'm just conserving energy instead of wasting it on approaches that clearly aren't working." He shifted slightly, adjusting his position against the bars but maintaining eye contact with his captor. "Or maybe I'm planning something. Observing. Thinking. You know, using my brain instead of just my muscles."

The scientist threw his head back and released a laugh that was far too loud for the enclosed space, the sound bouncing off the walls in overlapping echoes. "Planning something? In there?" He gestured toward the cage with his normal hand in an exaggerated sweeping motion, then pretended to wipe tears from his eyes. "Oh, that's rich! That's absolutely precious!" He did a little spin, his tattered lab coat flaring out around him. "Please, do tell me your master plan. I could use the entertainment. It gets rather dull down here, you know. Just me and my experiments and occasionally a rat that wanders in. The rats aren't great conversationalists."

He suddenly stopped spinning and pointed dramatically at Jelo with his gloved hand. "But let me save you some time and mental effort, my muscular friend. Escape is impossible! Im-poss-i-ble!" He enunciated each syllable as if teaching a child a new word. "Like trying to teach a fish to tap dance. Or expecting my hair to lie flat. It simply cannot be done!"

As the scientist spoke with such absolute conviction, Jelo listened carefully, his analytical mind working to process not just the words but the tone, the body language, the underlying psychology. He was analyzing every aspect of the man's certainty, trying to determine how much was based in reality and how much was delusion or exaggeration.

The scientist continued, seemingly unable to resist explaining his own brilliance now that he had a captive audience. "The bars are reinforced with a titanium-steel alloy I developed myself! Took me seventeen tries, but who's counting? Well, I was counting, obviously. Mathematics is important!" He held up a finger professorialy. "The power dampening field extends throughout this entire section of the lab—even if you somehow broke out of the physical cage, your abilities would remain completely inaccessible. Poof! Gone!"

Internally, Jelo began to wonder with growing unease if the man was genuinely overconfident and deluded, exaggerating the strength of his defenses out of ego and mental instability, or if he was actually telling the complete truth.

Mad scientists in stories were often portrayed as having blind spots in their supposedly perfect plans, weaknesses they couldn't see because their egos were too large. But this man had clearly been surviving in this contaminated zone for an extended period, had built and maintained complex technology in hostile conditions, had captured Jelo with relative ease despite his enhanced abilities.

The possibility that the scientist was actually right, that escape truly was impossible, sent a genuine chill through Jelo's body. It was different from the fear he'd felt during combat with Dabba, where at least he'd had agency, the ability to fight back and affect the outcome. This was the fear of complete helplessness, of being utterly at someone else's mercy with no recourse or options.

For the first time since his capture, Jelo felt the seed of real, deep fear taking root in his chest—not panic or momentary terror, but the cold, creeping dread that came from recognizing just how bad his situation actually was.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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