AMANDA HALEY sat in the corner of the dimly lit cell with her knees tucked to her chest, concentrating with fixed purpose on the locked door across the room.

A voice inside her head (that nagging voice she always chose to ignore) reminded her that she had tried to force the lock for the past several days and failed…so why should this time be any different?

Amanda drove the voice out of her mind. As she did, she felt the mechanism inside the lock give slightly…then the sensation was gone. Amanda exhaled heavily.

In the week since her capture Amanda had heard, day by day, cell doors in the hall outside phasing open. She had heard the cries and pleas of her fellow crew members as they were led to whatever godforsaken fate awaited them. The sounds of those phase doors and woeful pleas had plagued what few minutes of sleep she was able to manage each night. But most disconcerting of all was the fact that, day by day, those sounds were growing closer.

She knew it was only a matter of time before the lock on her door would disengage, and that door would phase open (They won’t disengage the lock with their finger, not like a human would, she thought with a shudder), and the creatures would take her. They would take her and they would—

Just focus on the lock.

Although she could not physically see the lock, she could picture it perfectly in her mind. She had spent two cycles as a medic on board an orbiting platform, assisting patients in cells not too different from this one. Gathering her strength once more, she closed her eyes and imagined the lock; imagined the disengage button giving way under her invisible finger….

It was no use. She felt her energies being dampened, diluted somehow, making the strain of concentrating on the lock nearly unbearable. It wasn’t just fatigue; they were interdicting. Her brain felt as if a thick, heavy blanket had been stretched across it. She tried to relax, to think of better times—times when the only monsters in her life were human.

She tried to tell herself that she was being kept alive for a reason; that whatever these creatures held in store for her, she could be able to survive or at least have a chance of escape.

Just then the lights dimmed even more, flickering several times before slowly returning to their former dull state of illumination. Last call, said that voice inside her mind. She forced the voice way, concentrating once more on the situation at hand.

One fact she felt sure of was that the purpose of her being here was related to her ability. This certainly wasn’t the first time her “gift” had drawn the attention of others. She focused one last burst of effort on the lock without result. Then, exhaling deeply and resting her forehead against her knees, Amanda thought of the past…and wondered if she would live to see the future.

DARKNESS ENVELOPED the Zerg Queen as she entered the long, desolate corridor.

The blackness, however, was not absolute. A circle of light like a full moon loomed at the passageway’s end. The symbolism that could be drawn from this particular atmosphere was not lost on the Queen—trite, outlandish notions such as transcendence, passage to an afterlife, or even rebirth, just to name a few. A half-smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Such musing need not occupy her mind. They were wretchedly sentimental; but far worse than that, they were also inextricably…human.

The circle of light grew larger and finally gave way to a catwalk overlooking a massive, gloomy chamber. The catwalk itself was a stark contrast to its immediate surroundings. Much of the orbiting platform’s infrastructure and processes (including electrical power and artificial gravity, the latter of which her kind had little use for) were still functional despite the station’s assimilation by the Zerg. Her Brood had simply taken what the humans had built and adapted it to suit their means. And was it not efficient to do so? The Queen certainly thought it was. Adapting was something she had been doing her entire life.

The creature who had once been known as Sarah Kerrigan stood, observing. On either side of her position, sinuous cords snaked out to the center of the room. Similar cordage adorned the three adjoining walls and trailed across the ceiling and down, like the massive web of some impossible spider. The cords pulsed and heaved with peristaltic motion, making the chamber seem alive.

Suspended at the center of this morass was an expansive, amniotic sac. The liquid inside the membranous enclosure sloshed back and forth, making the sac sway drunkenly. Inside the cocoon, surging cords wrapped around a human host like the roots of a strangler tree, winding their way into the nostrils and mouth of the subject.

The voice of the Cerebrate invaded the Queen’s mind: Preparations are complete.

The Queen’s unwavering eyes stared at the human subject within the cocoon.

Commence, she replied telepathically.

The subject lurched once, then fell still as the hyperevolutionary virus was fed into him.

The Queen looked at a bank of suspended monitors to the immediate left of her position. The monitors offered views of the various containment cells and the human animals occupying them.

Her eyes traveled to one of the monitors on the far left, where a young, blonde-haired woman sat in the corner of her cell. Her demeanor was unlike that of the others; this one seemed intent on something, as if she still clung to hope. What a waste, thought the Queen. Still, there was something about her. The Queen remembered a time when she had inhabited a cell of her own. It seemed like an eternity had passed since then, since she had been so vulnerable, so naïve…so human.

“CEASE YOUR sniveling!” shouted Lieutenant Rumm as he leaned closer. “Pity and weakness are synonymous. Remorse is forbidden. Compunction is forbidden. Do you understand?”

Young Sarah Kerrigan wiped at her cheek and returned Rumm’s stare with mild defiance. She sat at the sterile, metallic table, both hands resting placidly on its surface. A dark-colored brand on her forearm, marking her as specimen number 24, stood out against her pale skin.

“It is my job to break you, child. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.” The lieutenant began pacing.

Sarah had scored highly on all phases of the psi-evals despite the fact that she was only eight years old. At this point she was physically just a shade of the beautiful woman she would eventually become. Shy and somewhat gawky, she was gifted by a symmetry that would, with time and under the proper conditions, produce a stunning example of a human being.

It was Lieutenant Rumm’s job to peel away the girl’s aspect, layer by layer, until he came to what he knew lay beneath: an incredible, innate power shared by a select few and almost never evident at such a tender age. The girl had displayed this power only once, but that single episode had been more than enough to send her father into a downward spiral of insanity and land her unfortunate mother a spot in the TarKossian morgue.

This raw, formidable ability was much like the child herself: a wholly undeveloped source of potential, a gift that would grow and mature with age. It fell to the Confederacy to influence the girl’s ability in a way that would suit its needs. And in order to achieve such a goal, the lieutenant knew full well that the first stumbling block he must overcome was the girl’s judgment—her ability to distinguish between what she had come to believe was right and wrong.

Hence, the kitten: a cute little animal that the girl had been allowed to play with and grow close to over the past three weeks. This particular “cute” little bundle of fur was now suffering from a malignant tumor, a growth implanted in the animal by the science department. Lieutenant Rumm gestured toward the kitten, which lay prone, breathing in long, shuddery gasps.