I Kneel to No One

The Idiot Genius

Beth POV:

I've changed my mind- this is much worse than my previous situation.

Give me medieval aliens any day. Working on an evil take-over-the-world machine? A breeze! Dealing with a kidnapper who flusters me beyond all reason? Sign me up! At least all that was entertaining, to say the least. But none of it compared to being bored...

Bored...

Bored...

BORED!

After my nap, which I guessed had been about two hours judging by the fact that most of my tiredness had faded, I had gathered my consciousness enough to look around my newly refurbished cell.

Aside from the bed that wasn't actually terrible, a digital clock on a tiny, wooden nightstand flashed the time in bright red numbers: 7:36 AM. And I don't know how that Snape-wannabe got it set up so fast, but there was an actual toilet in the corner of the room. I definitely used it the second I noticed it. Don't judge me- you try going three days with only one bathroom break!

A naked bulb screwed into the ceiling allowed me to see much better than before. Not that there was much to see- the room was missing one very important thing.

Where were all the books?

I had been sitting here for fourteen hours and twenty-seven minutes since I discovered the clock at 7:09 PM, and so far I had stared at the wall, tried to sleep more, failed to sleep more, banged on the walls, screamed in hopes that it would bring Loki here like it did last time, and stared at the wall some more.

The screaming brought nothing but a sore throat, so I stopped after about two minutes when my shouts for help devolved into incoherent screeching.

Once, about five hours in, an unfamiliar person with Tesseract-blue eyes that were all too familiar had unlocked my cell and entered with a tray, on which sat a cup of water and what looked like a grilled cheese sandwich. Finally, I had thought past the growling of my stomach. It's been more than three days since I've eaten!

They had completely ignored all of my many questions, placed the tray on my bed, and marched out of the room. Desperately, I ran towards the door, but they simply removed some sort of keycard from the lock and marched off, paying me no mind like I was nothing more than some item they had checked off their to-do list.

Drawing myself lazily back to the present, I rushed to the tray and crammed half of the grilled cheese into my mouth. I had to remind myself to chew, but honestly, I didn't care. I was so hungry! My thirst was at manageable levels, since Dr. Selvig had kindly shared nearly half his water bottle with me, but my throat was still quite dry from all the screaming.

After I finished my meager meal, I flopped back onto my bed, flipped over, and dropped my face into the thin, grey blanket, wondering idly if Loki had decided to leave me to die. Without water, food, or books, I wouldn't last long. I pressed my face harder into the blanket, resolving not to move until someone showed up. That lasted about ten seconds; I figured out the hard way that this particular blanket was not very breathable. Before long, I reluctantly raised my head and took several deep breaths.

I looked over at the clock, which now displayer the time 7:51, and quickly did the math in my green notebook that I had recently noticed on a shelf inside the same nightstand that held the clock. Make that fourteen hours and forty-two minutes.

Wait... that gave me an idea.

I jumped up and ran to the barred door of my cell. Inspecting the lock, I was delighted to find that it was an electronic lock rather than a mechanical lock, which meant I could fry it with the right tools. My heart pumping at the speed of light, I ran back to the clock, picked it up, and inspected it. Four screws on the top held the case in place, and two on the front secured the part that displayed the numbers.